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Editorial Content for The Island of Lost Girls

Book

The Island of Lost Girls

Contributors

Ray Palen

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

These past few years have been intense, scary and life-changing for most people on the planet. As a result, many authors have composed works of both fiction and nonfiction that serve as a testimony to these tumultuous times. I tip my hat to these efforts; they allow readers to escape through the pages of a good book and connect with people and ideas they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. Read More

Teaser

1985. To 12-year-old Mercedes, La Kastellana is home, an island with deep-rooted traditions untouched by the modern world. But this secluded paradise is upended with the arrival of multimillionaire Matthew Meade and his pampered young daughter, Tatiana. The price that Mercedes and the rest of the islanders will pay is more than they ever could have imagined. 2016. Robin has been desperately searching for her missing 17-year-old daughter, Gemma. Finding herself on La Kastellana, Robin quickly realizes she’s out of her depth. No one is willing to help, and she fears she’s running out of time to find her child. But someone has been watching, silently waiting for the moment to expose the dark truth of what really happens on the island of lost girls.

Promo

1985. To 12-year-old Mercedes, La Kastellana is home, an island with deep-rooted traditions untouched by the modern world. But this secluded paradise is upended with the arrival of multimillionaire Matthew Meade and his pampered young daughter, Tatiana. The price that Mercedes and the rest of the islanders will pay is more than they ever could have imagined. 2016. Robin has been desperately searching for her missing 17-year-old daughter, Gemma. Finding herself on La Kastellana, Robin quickly realizes she’s out of her depth. No one is willing to help, and she fears she’s running out of time to find her child. But someone has been watching, silently waiting for the moment to expose the dark truth of what really happens on the island of lost girls.

About the Book

Sun-drenched glamour and obscene wealth hide evil secrets in this ripped-from-the-headlines thriller about money, corruption, power and lost innocence from “one of crime fiction's brightest stars” (Megan Abbott), the Edgar and Macavity Award-winning author of THE WICKED GIRLS and THE KILLER NEXT DOOR.

It's paradise for the super-rich, but hell for the girls whose lives they've stolen.

1985.

To 12-year-old Mercedes, La Kastellana is home, an island with deep-rooted traditions untouched by the modern world. But this secluded paradise is upended with the arrival of multimillionaire Matthew Meade and his pampered young daughter, Tatiana. While the Meades lavishly spread unimaginable wealth around La Kastellana, the price Mercedes and the rest of the islanders will pay is more than they could ever have imagined.

2016.

Robin has been desperately searching for her 17-year-old daughter Gemma, who’s been missing for more than a year. Finding herself on La Kastellana, an island playground for the international jet set, Robin quickly realizes she’s out of her depth. No one is willing to help and Robin fears she’s running out of time to find her child.

But someone has been watching, silently waiting for the moment to expose the dark truth of what really happens on the island of lost girls.

Audiobook available, read by Tamsin Kennard

June 16, 2023

Back in college, I had few courses that I loved. As I reflect on them, they really set the tone for what I do with Bookreporter now. These were small classes where we would read a book a week, discuss it and write a paper about it. I loved this for more than one reason. First, I loathed being in a classroom 2-3 days a week for a class. I also loved having long stretches with no classes so I could leave campus and explore the city; I went to Fordham. These classes met for one long period a week, which was perfect for condensing my days in classrooms; at one point, I got it down to two days a week. The subject of each semester was interesting: Books That Changed America, The Sixties, and others with that tone.

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Interview: Jeremy P. Bushnell, author of Relentless Melt

Jun 15, 2023

"Stranger Things" meets the Golden Age of Detective Fiction in RELENTLESS MELT, a rollicking supernatural detective thriller by Jeremy P. Bushnell that introduces readers to Artie Quick, a sales assistant at Filene’s in Boston who moonlights as an amateur detective. In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, Bushnell talks about the extensive research he did for the book, which is his first work of historical fiction; the cross-dressing tendencies of his female protagonist; the books he read as a child that informed the writing of RELENTLESS MELT; and his all-time favorite supernatural novel.

Alice Elliott Dark Event Signup

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July 2023 Bookaccino Live Event

Links to https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BRCUc2cqRlu3nJEiWkEKcw.

Kathleen Grissom, author of Crow Mary

In 1872, 16-year-old Goes First, a Crow Native woman, marries Abe Farwell, a white fur trader. He gives her the name Mary, and they set off on the long trip to his trading post in the Cypress Hills of Saskatchewan, Canada. Along the way, she finds a fast friend; makes a lifelong enemy; and, despite learning a dark secret of Farwell’s past, falls in love with her husband. Then, on the eve of their return to Montana, a group of drunken whiskey traders slaughters 40 Nakota. Mary sees the murderers take five Nakota women back to their fort. She begs Farwell to save them, and when he refuses, she takes two guns, creeps into the fort and saves the women from certain death. Thus, she sets off a whirlwind of colliding cultures that pushes the love between Farwell and Crow Mary to the breaking point.

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Kristin Harmel, author of The Paris Daughter

Paris, 1939: Young mothers Elise and Juliette become fast friends the day they meet in the beautiful Bois de Boulogne. Though there is a shadow of war creeping across Europe, neither woman suspects that their lives are about to irrevocably change. When Elise becomes a target of the German occupation, she entrusts Juliette with the most precious thing in her life --- her young daughter, playmate to Juliette’s own little girl. But nowhere is safe in war, not even a quiet little bookshop like Juliette’s Librairie des Rêves. When a bomb falls on their neighborhood, Juliette’s world is destroyed along with it. More than a year later, with the war finally ending, Elise returns to reunite with her daughter, only to find her friend’s bookstore reduced to rubble --- and Juliette nowhere to be found.

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Ashley Audrain, author of The Whispers

The Loverlys’ young son is in a coma after falling from his bedroom window in the middle of the night. His mother, Whitney, will not speak to anyone. Back home, their friends and neighbors are left in shock, each confronting their own role in the events that led up to what happened that terrible night: the Parks, the Loverlys' best friends; the Goldsmiths, who are struggling to start a family of their own; and the Portuguese couple who care for their adult son with a developmental disability and watch their neighbors go about their busy lives. The story spins out over the course of one week, in the alternating voices of the women in each family as they are forced to face the secrets within the walls of their own homes, and the uncomfortable truths that connect them all to one another.

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Fiona Davis, author of The Spectacular

New York City, 1956: When 19-year-old Marion Brooks comes across an opportunity to audition for the Radio City Rockettes, she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer. Meanwhile, the city is reeling from a string of bombings orchestrated by a person the press has nicknamed the “Big Apple Bomber." With the public in an uproar, the police turn to Peter Griggs, a young doctor who espouses a radical new technique: psychological profiling. As both Marion and Peter find themselves unexpectedly pulled into the police search for the bomber, Marion realizes that if she hopes to catch the culprit, she’ll need to stand out and take a terrifying risk. In doing so, she may be forced to sacrifice everything she’s worked for, as well as the people she loves the most.

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Lisa See, author of Lady Tan's Circle of Women

According to Confucius, “an educated woman is a worthless woman,” but Tan Yunxian is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine. Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom. But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife --- embroider bound-foot slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.

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