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Editorial Content for Brutes

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Reviewer (text)

Sarah Rachel Egelman

“They call us brutes,” bemoan a group of 13-year-olds in Dizz Tate’s extraordinary first novel. Read More

Teaser

In Falls Landing, Florida --- a place built of theme parks, swampy lakes and scorched bougainvillea flowers --- something sinister lurks in the deep. A gang of 13-year-old girls obsessively orbit around the local preacher's daughter, Sammy. She is mesmerizing, older and in love with Eddie. But suddenly, Sammy goes missing. Where is she? Watching from a distance, they edge ever closer to discovering a dark secret about their fame-hungry town and the cruel cost of a ticket out. What they see will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Promo

In Falls Landing, Florida --- a place built of theme parks, swampy lakes and scorched bougainvillea flowers --- something sinister lurks in the deep. A gang of 13-year-old girls obsessively orbit around the local preacher's daughter, Sammy. She is mesmerizing, older and in love with Eddie. But suddenly, Sammy goes missing. Where is she? Watching from a distance, they edge ever closer to discovering a dark secret about their fame-hungry town and the cruel cost of a ticket out. What they see will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives.

About the Book

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES meets The Florida Project in this wildly original debut --- a coming-of-age story about the crucible of girlhood, from a writer of rare and startling talent.

We would not be born out of sweetness, we were born out of rage, we felt it in our bones.

In Falls Landing, Florida --- a place built of theme parks, swampy lakes and scorched bougainvillea flowers --- something sinister lurks in the deep. A gang of 13-year-old girls obsessively orbit around the local preacher's daughter, Sammy. She is mesmerizing, older and in love with Eddie. But suddenly, Sammy goes missing. Where is she? Watching from a distance, they edge ever closer to discovering a dark secret about their fame-hungry town and the cruel cost of a ticket out. What they see will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Through a darkly beautiful and brutally compelling lens, Dizz Tate captures the violence, horrors and manic joys of girlhood. BRUTES is a novel about the seemingly unbreakable bonds in the "we" of young friendship, and the moment it is broken forever.

Audiobook available, read by Eleanor McCormick

Editorial Content for A Noble Cunning: The Countess and the Tower

Reviewer (text)

Barbara Bamberger Scott

Based on a remarkable true story, A NOBLE CUNNING is a debut novel that weaves fact and fiction to create a dynamic history and bring to light a strong, determined woman long in need of recognition. Patricia Bernstein’s fictional heroine, Countess Bethan Glentaggart, is known near and far for a single characteristic: her great beauty. But she will prove that she also has brains, though her complex, highly pragmatic thought processes will remain unknown to all but a few. Read More

Teaser

The heroine of A NOBLE CUNNING --- Bethan Glentaggart, Countess of Clarencefield, a persecuted Catholic noblewoman --- is determined to try every possible means of saving her husband Gavin's life with the help of a group of devoted female friends. Amid the turbulence of the 1715 Rebellion against England's first German king, George I, Bethan faces down a mob attack on her home, travels alone from the Scottish Lowlands to London through one of the worst snowstorms in many years, and confronts a cruel king before his court to plead for mercy for Gavin. As a last resort, Bethan and her friends must devise and put in motion a devilishly complex scheme featuring multiple disguises and even the judicious use of poison to try to free Gavin.

Promo

The heroine of A NOBLE CUNNING --- Bethan Glentaggart, Countess of Clarencefield, a persecuted Catholic noblewoman --- is determined to try every possible means of saving her husband Gavin's life with the help of a group of devoted female friends. Amid the turbulence of the 1715 Rebellion against England's first German king, George I, Bethan faces down a mob attack on her home, travels alone from the Scottish Lowlands to London through one of the worst snowstorms in many years, and confronts a cruel king before his court to plead for mercy for Gavin. As a last resort, Bethan and her friends must devise and put in motion a devilishly complex scheme featuring multiple disguises and even the judicious use of poison to try to free Gavin.

About the Book

A thrilling tale, based on a true story, of one woman's tremendous courage and incomparable wit in trying to rescue her husband from the Tower of London the night before he is to be executed.

The heroine of A NOBLE CUNNING --- Bethan Glentaggart, Countess of Clarencefield, a persecuted Catholic noblewoman --- is determined to try every possible means of saving her husband Gavin's life with the help of a group of devoted women friends.

Amid the turbulence of the 1715 Rebellion against England's first German king George I, Bethan faces down a mob attack on her home, travels alone from the Scottish Lowlands to London through one of the worst snowstorms in many years, and confronts a cruel king before his court to plead for mercy for her Gavin. As a last resort, Bethan and her friends must devise and put in motion a devilishly complex scheme featuring multiple disguises and even the judicious use of poison to try to free Gavin.

Though rich with historical gossip and pageantry, Bethan's story also demonstrates the damage that politics and religious fanaticism can inflict on the lives of individuals.

March 10, 2023

And so begins my least favorite weekend of the year, when daylight saving time begins. I will spend next week jet-lagged like I took a red-eye back from California. Incidentally, I am beyond my red-eye days. Give me the 7:30am flight from California any time as that has proven to help me conquer jet lag.

Week of March 27, 2023

Paperback releases for the week of March 27th include THE IT GIRL by Ruth Ware, an unputdownable mystery following a woman on the search for answers a decade after her friend’s murder; OVERKILL, a riveting thriller from Sandra Brown in which a conflict of conscience for a former football star and an ambitious state prosecutor swiftly intensifies into a fight for their lives; Emily St. John Mandel's SEA OF TRANQUILITY, a novel of art, time, love and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon 500 years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space; CRYING IN H MART, Michelle Zauner's unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother and forging her own identity; and THE TOBACCO WIVES by Adele Myers, a deeply human, emotionally satisfying and dramatic novel about the power of female connection and the importance of seeking truth.

Week of March 20, 2023

Paperback releases for the week of March 20th include Amor Towles' THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY, a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America spanning just 10 days and told from multiple points of view; THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME by Laura Dave, a gripping mystery about a woman who thinks she has found the love of her life --- until he disappears; THE GOOD SON, Jacquelyn Mitchard's powerful, emotionally charged novel of family, redemption and a mother’s love; A SUNLIT WEAPON, in which a series of possible attacks on British pilots leads Jacqueline Winspear's beloved heroine, Maisie Dobbs, into a mystery involving First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt; THE SHOP ON ROYAL STREET, the first book in a spinoff series of Karen White's Tradd Street novels, which finds Nola Trenholm hopeful for a fresh start in the Big Easy but must deal with ghosts from her past --- as well as new ones; and THE ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED, John Green's open-hearted exploration of the paths we forge and an unironic celebration of falling in love with the world.

Week of March 13, 2023

Paperback releases for the week of March 13th include THE FOUR WINDS by Kristin Hannah, a powerful American epic about love, heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression --- a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, millions were out of work, and even the land seemed to have turned against them; THE LAST TO VANISH, a gripping and propulsive thriller from Megan Miranda that opens with the disappearance of a journalist who is investigating a string of vanishings in the resort town of Cutter’s Pass; CITY ON FIRE, the opening installment in Don Winslow's epic new trilogy, a contemporary masterpiece in the tradition of The Godfather, Casino and Goodfellas; Kate Quinn's THE DIAMOND EYE, an unforgettable World War II tale of a quiet librarian who becomes history’s deadliest female sniper; and AVALON by Nell Zink, a poignant portrait of a young woman who, against all odds, is determined to find her place in the world and find clarity in its remote corners.

Week of March 6, 2023

Paperback releases for the week of March 6th include THE CANDY HOUSE, a “sibling novel” to Jennifer Egan's A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD, an electrifying, deeply moving book about the quest for authenticity and meaning in a world where memories and identities are no longer private; ONE ITALIAN SUMMER by Rebecca Serle, a powerful novel about the transformational love between mothers and daughters set on the breathtaking Amalfi Coast; THE LIES I TELL, a twisted domestic thriller from Julie Clark that dives deep into the psyches and motivations of two women and their unwavering quest to seek justice for the past and rewrite the future; THE WEDDING VEIL by Kristy Woodson Harvey, a sweeping novel following four women across generations, bound by a beautiful wedding veil and a connection to the famous Vanderbilt family; and Abe Streep's BROTHERS ON THREE, the story of coming of age on a reservation in the American West and a team uniting a community.

Diane Marie Brown, author of Black Candle Women

Generations of Montrose women have lived together in their quaint two-story bungalow in California for years. They keep to themselves, and their collection of tinctures and spells is an unspoken bond between them. But when 17-year-old Nickie Montrose brings home a boy for the first time, their quiet lives are thrown into disarray. For the other women have been withholding a secret from Nickie that will end her relationship before it’s even begun: the decades-old family curse that any person they fall in love with dies. Their surprise guest forces each woman to reckon with her own past choices and mistakes. And as new truths about the curse emerge, the family is set on a collision course dating back to a Voodoo shop in 1950s New Orleans’s French Quarter.

Emilia Hart, author of Weyward

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from her great-aunt. The cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great-aunt had a secret. 1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer. Her mother taught her their magic, which is rooted in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom. 1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Her mother was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Jenny Jackson, author of Pineapple Street

PINEAPPLE STREET follows three women in one wealthy Brooklyn clan. Darley, the eldest daughter in the well-connected old money Stockton family, followed her heart, trading her job and her inheritance for motherhood but giving up far too much in the process. Sasha, a middle-class New England girl, has married into the Brooklyn Heights family and finds herself cast as the arriviste outsider. And Georgiana, the baby of the family, has fallen in love with someone she can’t have and must decide what kind of person she wants to be.