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Editorial Content for Shipped

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Reviewer (text)

John Vena

Henley Rose Evans is a hard-charging young woman who is out to win it all. On the verge of a big promotion, she learns that she must produce a compelling marketing proposal for her cruise line, or lose the job to a reviled coworker. It gets worse when she finds out that they must share a cruise to the Galápagos Islands and submit competing proposals. Read More

Teaser

Henley Evans, a marketing manager for a cruise line, is shortlisted for the promotion of her dreams. The only problem? Graeme Crawford-Collins, the remote social media manager and the bane of her existence, is also up for the position. Their boss tasks each of them with drafting a proposal on how to boost bookings in the Galápagos. The best proposal wins the promotion. There’s just one catch: they have to go on a company cruise to the Galápagos Islands...together. But when the two meet on the ship, Henley is shocked to discover that the real Graeme is nothing like she imagined. As they explore the Islands together, she soon finds the line between loathing and liking thinner than a postcard.

Promo

Henley Evans, a marketing manager for a cruise line, is shortlisted for the promotion of her dreams. The only problem? Graeme Crawford-Collins, the remote social media manager and the bane of her existence, is also up for the position. Their boss tasks each of them with drafting a proposal on how to boost bookings in the Galápagos. The best proposal wins the promotion. There’s just one catch: they have to go on a company cruise to the Galápagos Islands...together. But when the two meet on the ship, Henley is shocked to discover that the real Graeme is nothing like she imagined. As they explore the Islands together, she soon finds the line between loathing and liking thinner than a postcard.

About the Book

The UNHONEYMOONERS meets THE HATING GAME in this witty, clever and swoonworthy novel following a workaholic marketing manager who is forced to go on a cruise with her arch-nemesis when they’re up for the same promotion.

Between taking night classes for her MBA and her demanding day job at a cruise line, marketing manager Henley Evans barely has time for herself, let alone family, friends or dating. But when she’s shortlisted for the promotion of her dreams, all her sacrifices finally seem worth it.

The only problem? Graeme Crawford-Collins, the remote social media manager and the bane of her existence, is also up for the position. Although they’ve never met in person, their epic email battles are the stuff of office legend.

Their boss tasks each of them with drafting a proposal on how to boost bookings in the Galápagos --- best proposal wins the promotion. There’s just one catch: they have to go on a company cruise to the Galápagos Islands...together. But when the two meet on the ship, Henley is shocked to discover that the real Graeme is nothing like she imagined. As they explore the Islands together, she soon finds the line between loathing and liking thinner than a postcard.

With her career dreams in her sights and a growing attraction to the competition, Henley begins questioning her life choices. Because what’s the point of working all the time if you never actually live?

Perfect for fans of Christina Lauren and Sally Thorne, SHIPPED is a fresh and engaging rom-com that celebrates the power of second chances and the magic of new beginnings.

Audiobook available, read by Inés del Castillo

Editorial Content for If I Disappear

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Reviewer (text)

Kate Ayers

True crime podcast fan Sera is a devoted listener. So when her favorite host, Rachel Bard, goes silent, she becomes fixated on finding out what happened to her. After all, Rachel cared enough to dig into the disappearances of many women in her weekly podcasts, so someone has to care about her. Sera knows every episode, and she remembers Rachel saying at the end of one, “Sometimes I wonder, would anyone look for me? Would anyone care if I disappeared?” And she’s sure Rachel was speaking directly to her. Read More

Teaser

Sera loves true crime podcasts. They give her a sense of control in a world where women just like her disappear daily. She’s sure they’re preparing her for something. So when Rachel, her favorite podcast host, goes missing, Sera knows it's time to act. Rachel has always taught her to trust her instincts. Sera follows the clues hidden in the episodes to an isolated ranch outside Rachel's small hometown to begin her search. She's convinced her investigation will make Rachel so proud. But the more Sera digs into this unfamiliar world, the more off things start to feel. Because Rachel is not the first woman to vanish from the ranch, and she won't be the last. Rachel did try to warn her.

Promo

Sera loves true crime podcasts. They give her a sense of control in a world where women just like her disappear daily. She’s sure they’re preparing her for something. So when Rachel, her favorite podcast host, goes missing, Sera knows it's time to act. Rachel has always taught her to trust her instincts. Sera follows the clues hidden in the episodes to an isolated ranch outside Rachel's small hometown to begin her search. She's convinced her investigation will make Rachel so proud. But the more Sera digs into this unfamiliar world, the more off things start to feel. Because Rachel is not the first woman to vanish from the ranch, and she won't be the last. Rachel did try to warn her.

About the Book

When her favorite true crime podcast host goes missing, an adrift young woman sets out to investigate and plunges headfirst into the wild backcountry of Northern California and her own dangerous obsession.

Sera loves true crime podcasts. They give her a sense of control in a world where women just like her disappear daily. She’s sure they are preparing her for something. So when Rachel, her favorite podcast host, goes missing, Sera knows it’s time to act. Rachel has always taught her to trust her instincts.

Sera follows the clues hidden in the episodes to an isolated ranch outside Rachel’s small hometown to begin her search. She’s convinced her investigation will make Rachel so proud. But the more Sera digs into this unfamiliar world, the more off things start to feel. Because Rachel is not the first woman to vanish from the ranch, and she won’t be the last.

Rachel did try to warn her.

Audiobook available, read by Kristen Sieh

Editorial Content for Mozart: The Reign of Love

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Reviewer (text)

Pauline Finch

As I closed the back cover of MOZART: THE REIGN OF LOVE, wishing incredibly that it might go on just a little longer than its 800-and-some pages, I suddenly realized that the hero of Jan Swafford’s amazing biography was just half my age when he died on December 5, 1791. Read More

Teaser

At the earliest ages, it was apparent that Wolfgang Mozart’s singular imagination was at work in every direction. He hated to be bored or idle, and through his life he responded to these threats with a repertoire of antidotes mental and physical. Whether in his rabidly obscene mode or not, Mozart was always hilarious. He went at every piece of his life, and perhaps most notably his social life, with tremendous gusto. His circle of friends and patrons was wide, encompassing anyone who appealed to his boundless appetites for music and all things pleasurable and fun. MOZART is the complete exhumation of a genius in his life and ours: a man who would enrich the world with his talent for centuries to come and who would immeasurably shape classical music.

Promo

At the earliest ages, it was apparent that Wolfgang Mozart’s singular imagination was at work in every direction. He hated to be bored or idle, and through his life he responded to these threats with a repertoire of antidotes mental and physical. Whether in his rabidly obscene mode or not, Mozart was always hilarious. He went at every piece of his life, and perhaps most notably his social life, with tremendous gusto. His circle of friends and patrons was wide, encompassing anyone who appealed to his boundless appetites for music and all things pleasurable and fun. MOZART is the complete exhumation of a genius in his life and ours: a man who would enrich the world with his talent for centuries to come and who would immeasurably shape classical music.

About the Book

From the acclaimed composer and biographer Jan Swafford comes the definitive biography of one of the most lauded musical geniuses in history, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

At the earliest ages, it was apparent that Wolfgang Mozart’s singular imagination was at work in every direction. He hated to be bored and hated to be idle, and through his life he responded to these threats with a repertoire of antidotes mental and physical. Whether in his rabidly obscene mode or not, Mozart was always hilarious. He went at every piece of his life, and perhaps most notably his social life, with tremendous gusto. His circle of friends and patrons was wide, encompassing anyone who appealed to his boundless appetites for music and all things pleasurable and fun.

Mozart was known to be an inexplicable force of nature who could rise from a luminous improvisation at the keyboard to a leap over the furniture. He was forever drumming on things, tapping his feet, jabbering away, but who could grasp your hand and look at you with a profound, searching, and melancholy look in his blue eyes. Even in company there was often an air about Mozart of being not quite there. It was as if he lived onstage and off simultaneously, a character in life’s tragicomedy but also outside of it watching, studying, gathering material for the fabric of his art.

Like Jan Swafford’s biographies BEETHOVEN and JOHANNES BRAHMS, MOZART is the complete exhumation of a genius in his life and ours: a man who would enrich the world with his talent for centuries to come and who would immeasurably shape classical music. As Swafford reveals, it’s nearly impossible to understand classical music’s origins and indeed its evolutions, as well as the Baroque period, without studying the man himself.

Audiobook available, read by Tim Campbell

Editorial Content for The Charmed Wife

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Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

From acclaimed novelist Olga Grushin comes THE CHARMED WIFE, a fractured --- if not downright broken-down --- fairy tale about what happens 13 ½ years after Cinderella loses her crystal shoe and finds herself ensconced in a gilded palace. Read More

Teaser

Cinderella married the man of her dreams --- the perfect ending she deserved after diligently following all the fairy-tale rules. Yet now, 13 and a half years later, things have gone badly wrong and her life is far from perfect. One night, fed up and exhausted, she sneaks out of the palace to get help from the Witch who, for a price, offers love potions to disgruntled housewives. But as the old hag flings the last ingredients into the cauldron, Cinderella doesn't ask for a love spell to win back her Prince Charming. Instead, she wants him dead.

Promo

Cinderella married the man of her dreams --- the perfect ending she deserved after diligently following all the fairy-tale rules. Yet now, 13 and a half years later, things have gone badly wrong and her life is far from perfect. One night, fed up and exhausted, she sneaks out of the palace to get help from the Witch who, for a price, offers love potions to disgruntled housewives. But as the old hag flings the last ingredients into the cauldron, Cinderella doesn't ask for a love spell to win back her Prince Charming. Instead, she wants him dead.

About the Book

Cinderella wants her Prince Charming dead in this sophisticated fairy-tale for the 21st century.

Cinderella married the man of her dreams --- the perfect ending she deserved after diligently following all the fairy-tale rules. Yet now, 13 and a half years later, things have gone badly wrong and her life is far from perfect. One night, fed up and exhausted, she sneaks out of the palace to get help from the Witch who, for a price, offers love potions to disgruntled housewives. But as the old hag flings the last ingredients into the cauldron, Cinderella doesn't ask for a love spell to win back her Prince Charming.

Instead, she wants him dead.

Endlessly surprising, wildly inventive and decidedly modern, THE CHARMED WIFE weaves together time and place, fantasy and reality, to conjure a world unlike any other. Nothing in it is quite what it seems --- the twists and turns of its magical, dark and swiftly shifting paths take us deep into the heart of what makes us unique, of romance and marriage and of the very nature of storytelling.

Audiobook available, read by Karissa Vacker

Editorial Content for People Like Her

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

From the husband-and-wife writing team known as Ellery Lloyd comes PEOPLE LIKE HER, a sharply written and tightly plotted thriller about a mommy blogger whose ambitious rise to fame comes with unexpected --- or perhaps all-too-expected --- consequences. Read More

Teaser

To her adoring fans, Emmy Jackson, aka @the_mamabare, is the honest “Instamum” who always tells it like it is. To her skeptical husband, a washed-up novelist who knows just how creative Emmy can be with the truth, she is a breadwinning powerhouse who is chillingly brilliant at monetizing the intimate details of their family life. To one of Emmy’s dangerously obsessive followers, she’s the woman who has everything --- but deserves none of it. As Emmy’s marriage begins to crack under the strain of her growing success and her moral compass veers wildly off course, the more vulnerable she becomes to a very real danger circling ever closer to her family.

Promo

To her adoring fans, Emmy Jackson, aka @the_mamabare, is the honest “Instamum” who always tells it like it is. To her skeptical husband, a washed-up novelist who knows just how creative Emmy can be with the truth, she is a breadwinning powerhouse who is chillingly brilliant at monetizing the intimate details of their family life. To one of Emmy’s dangerously obsessive followers, she’s the woman who has everything --- but deserves none of it. As Emmy’s marriage begins to crack under the strain of her growing success and her moral compass veers wildly off course, the more vulnerable she becomes to a very real danger circling ever closer to her family.

About the Book

From the New York Times bestselling author of THE CLUB, a razor-sharp, wickedly smart suspense debut about an ambitious influencer mom whose soaring success threatens her marriage, her morals and her family’s safety.

Followed by Millions, Watched by One

To her adoring fans, Emmy Jackson, aka @the_mamabare, is the honest “Instamum” who always tells it like it is. 

To her skeptical husband, a washed-up novelist who knows just how creative Emmy can be with the truth, she is a breadwinning powerhouse who is chillingly brilliant at monetizing the intimate details of their family life.

To one of Emmy’s dangerously obsessive followers, she’s the woman that has everything --- but deserves none of it.  

As Emmy’s marriage begins to crack under the strain of her growing success and her moral compass veers wildly off course, the more vulnerable she becomes to a very real danger circling ever closer to her family.

In this deeply addictive tale of psychological suspense, Ellery Lloyd raises important questions about technology, social media celebrity and the way we live today. Probing the dark side of influencer culture and the perils of parenting online, PEOPLE LIKE HER explores our desperate need to be seen and the lengths we’ll go to be liked by strangers. It asks what --- and who --- we sacrifice when make our private lives public, and ultimately lose control of who we let in.

Audiobook available; read by Nathalie Buscombe, Finlay Robertson and Anna Bentinck

Editorial Content for Every Waking Hour

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Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

Ellery Hathaway was the 17th and last person abducted by notorious serial killer Francis Michael Coben. She was literally the “final girl,” the only survivor of his killing spree. Rather than living the rest of her life looking over her shoulder and consumed by PTSD from this traumatic experience, Ellery decides to become a cop. Read More

Teaser

After surviving a serial killer’s abduction as a young teenager, Ellery Hathaway is finally attempting a normal life. She has a new job as a rookie Boston detective and a fledgling relationship with Reed Markham, the FBI agent who rescued her years ago. But when a 12-year-old girl disappears on Ellery’s watch, the troubling case opens deep wounds that never fully healed. Chloe Lockhart walked away from a busy street fair and vanished into the crowd. Maybe she was fleeing the suffocating surveillance her parents put on her from the time she was born, or maybe the evil from her parents’ past finally caught up to her. For Chloe, as Ellery learns, is not the first child Teresa Lockhart has lost.

Promo

After surviving a serial killer’s abduction as a young teenager, Ellery Hathaway is finally attempting a normal life. She has a new job as a rookie Boston detective and a fledgling relationship with Reed Markham, the FBI agent who rescued her years ago. But when a 12-year-old girl disappears on Ellery’s watch, the troubling case opens deep wounds that never fully healed. Chloe Lockhart walked away from a busy street fair and vanished into the crowd. Maybe she was fleeing the suffocating surveillance her parents put on her from the time she was born, or maybe the evil from her parents’ past finally caught up to her. For Chloe, as Ellery learns, is not the first child Teresa Lockhart has lost.

About the Book

The fourth book in Joanna Schaffhausen's heartpounding Ellery Hathaway mystery series, EVERY WAKING HOUR.

After surviving a serial killer’s abduction as a young teenager, Ellery Hathaway is finally attempting a normal life. She has a new job as a rookie Boston detective and a fledgling relationship with Reed Markham, the FBI agent who rescued her years ago. But when a 12-year-old girl disappears on Ellery’s watch, the troubling case opens deep wounds that never fully healed.

Chloe Lockhart walked away from a busy street fair and vanished into the crowd. Maybe she was fleeing the suffocating surveillance her parents put on her from the time she was born, or maybe the evil from her parents’ past finally caught up to her. For Chloe, as Ellery learns, is not the first child Teresa Lockhart has lost.

Ellery knows what it’s like to have the past stalk you, to hold your breath around every corner. Sending one kidnapped girl to find another could be Chloe’s only hope or an unmitigated disaster that dooms them both. Ellery must untangle the labyrinth of secrets inside the Lockhart household --- secrets that have already murdered one child. Each second that ticks by reminds her of her own lost hours, how close she came to death and how near it still remains.

Audiobook available, read by Seth Podowitz and Danielle Gensler

Editorial Content for Shanghai Secrets: A Roland Sinclair WWII Mystery

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Reviewer (text)

Roz Shea

Wilfred Sinclair, the senior member of a wealthy Australian sheep ranching family, dispatches his playboy younger brother Rowland on an important business trip to Shanghai to sell wool. Rowly is an accomplished portrait artist, but a bohemian at heart, and knows nothing about negotiating deals, let alone the wool business. Read More

Teaser

Shanghai, 1935. Black sheep gentleman Rowland Sinclair arrives with his bohemian housemates from Sydney, Australia, to represent his family's interests at international negotiations. A beautiful Russian taxi girl --- who once claimed to be the Princess Anastasia and who danced in Rowly's arms the night before --- is found slain in his suite. Out of sympathy for the murdered girl and to clear his name, Rowly and his companions embark upon their own investigation. They soon discover there are many people who may have wanted Alexandra Romanovna dead. As they are drawn deeper into Shanghai society and its underworld, Rowly searches for answers in a strange city determined to ruin him.

Promo

Shanghai, 1935. Black sheep gentleman Rowland Sinclair arrives with his bohemian housemates from Sydney, Australia, to represent his family's interests at international negotiations. A beautiful Russian taxi girl --- who once claimed to be the Princess Anastasia and who danced in Rowly's arms the night before --- is found slain in his suite. Out of sympathy for the murdered girl and to clear his name, Rowly and his companions embark upon their own investigation. They soon discover there are many people who may have wanted Alexandra Romanovna dead. As they are drawn deeper into Shanghai society and its underworld, Rowly searches for answers in a strange city determined to ruin him.

About the Book

In a city full of strangers, be careful whom you trust.

Shanghai, 1935. Black sheep gentleman Rowland Sinclair arrives with his bohemian housemates from Sydney, Australia, to represent his family's interests at international negotiations. A novice to global commerce, Rowland is under strict instructions from his brother to keep a low profile...but that soon becomes next to impossible. A beautiful Russian taxi girl --- who once claimed to be the Princess Anastasia and who danced in Rowly's arms the night before --- is found slain in his suite.

Out of sympathy for the murdered girl and to clear his name, Rowly and his companions embark upon their own investigation. They soon discover there are many people who may have wanted Alexandra Romanovna dead. As they are drawn deeper into Shanghai society and its underworld, Rowly searches for answers in a strange city determined to ruin him.

Audiobook available, read by Rupert Degas

Editorial Content for Minus Me

Book

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Reviewer (text)

Norah Piehl

Annie has lived in charming Passamaquoddy, Maine, her entire life. She and her husband, Sam, have been together since high school. Even after college, they returned to their beloved Passamaquoddy and took a gamble on buying the town’s landmark sandwich shop (renamed Annie’s Samwich), home of the legendary Paul Bunyan Special Sandwich, which is so delicious that tourists have been known to fill their carry-on bags with extras to bring home with them. Sam and Annie have a successful business, a strong partnership and a happy marriage. Read More

Teaser

Annie and her devoted but comically incompetent childhood sweetheart, Sam, are the owners and operators of Annie's, a gourmet sandwich shop, home to the legendary Paul Bunyan Special Sandwich --- their "nutritionally challenged continual source of income and marital harmony and local fame." But into their mostly charmed marriage comes the scary medical diagnosis for Annie --- and the overwhelming challenge of finding a way to help Sam go on without her. Annie decides to leave Sam step-by-step instructions for a future without her, and considers her own replacement in his heart and their bed. Her best-laid plans grind to a halt with the unexpected appearance of Ursula, Annie's Manhattan diva of a mother, who brings her own brand of chaos and disruption into their lives.

Promo

Annie and her devoted but comically incompetent childhood sweetheart, Sam, are the owners and operators of Annie's, a gourmet sandwich shop, home to the legendary Paul Bunyan Special Sandwich --- their "nutritionally challenged continual source of income and marital harmony and local fame." But into their mostly charmed marriage comes the scary medical diagnosis for Annie --- and the overwhelming challenge of finding a way to help Sam go on without her. Annie decides to leave Sam step-by-step instructions for a future without her, and considers her own replacement in his heart and their bed. Her best-laid plans grind to a halt with the unexpected appearance of Ursula, Annie's Manhattan diva of a mother, who brings her own brand of chaos and disruption into their lives.

About the Book

Her life turned upside down by a grim diagnosis, a small-town Maine woman sets about writing a "How To" life manual for her handsome yet hapless husband in a novel Elinor Lipman (GOOD RIDDANCE, ON TURPENTINE LANE) calls "smart, funny-quirky and so very satisfying."

Annie and her devoted but comically incompetent childhood sweetheart, Sam, are the owners and operators of Annie's, a gourmet sandwich shop, home to the legendary Paul Bunyan Special Sandwich --- their "nutritionally challenged continual source of income and marital harmony and local fame."

But into their mostly charmed marriage comes the scary medical diagnosis for Annie --- and the overwhelming challenge of finding a way to help Sam go on without her. Annie decides to leave Sam step-by-step instructions for a future without her, and considers her own replacement in his heart and their bed. Her best-laid plans grind to a halt with the unexpected appearance of Ursula, Annie's Manhattan diva of a mother, who brings her own brand of chaos and disruption into their lives.

MINUS ME is a poignant and hilarious novel about the bonds of marriage, the burdens of maternal love and the courage to face mortality, "with an ending readers will cherish (Caroline Leavitt, PICTURES OF YOU)."

Audiobook available, read by Mia Barron

Editorial Content for The Last Protector

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector to the Commonwealth of England, Ireland and Scotland. He was a direct descendent of the infamous Thomas Cromwell, who served at the side of King Henry VIII only to meet with one of the more brutal executions in British history. Alas, Oliver’s end was not much better. After his role in the British Civil War that saw two kings executed, he lived the rest of his life loved by some and hated by others. Read More

Teaser

No one in England wants a return to the bloody days of the Civil War. But Oliver Cromwell’s son, Richard, has abandoned his exile and slipped back into England. The consequences could be catastrophic. James Marwood, a traitor’s son turned government agent, is tasked with uncovering Cromwell’s motives. But his assignment is complicated by his friend --- the regicide’s daughter, Cat Lovett --- who knew the Cromwells as a child, and who now seems to be hiding a secret of her own about the family. Both Marwood and Cat know they are putting themselves in great danger. And when they find themselves on a top secret mission in the Palace of Whitehall, they realize they are risking their lives…and could even be sent to the block for treason.

Promo

No one in England wants a return to the bloody days of the Civil War. But Oliver Cromwell’s son, Richard, has abandoned his exile and slipped back into England. The consequences could be catastrophic. James Marwood, a traitor’s son turned government agent, is tasked with uncovering Cromwell’s motives. But his assignment is complicated by his friend --- the regicide’s daughter, Cat Lovett --- who knew the Cromwells as a child, and who now seems to be hiding a secret of her own about the family. Both Marwood and Cat know they are putting themselves in great danger. And when they find themselves on a top secret mission in the Palace of Whitehall, they realize they are risking their lives…and could even be sent to the block for treason.

About the Book

From the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of THE ASHES OF LONDON comes the next book in the phenomenally successful series following James Marwood and Cat Lovett.

A dangerous secret lies beneath Whitehall Palace…
 
Brother against brother. Father against son. Friends turned into enemies. No one in England wants a return to the bloody days of the Civil War. But Oliver Cromwell’s son, Richard, has abandoned his exile and slipped back into England. The consequences could be catastrophic.
 
James Marwood, a traitor’s son turned government agent, is tasked with uncovering Cromwell’s motives. But his assignment is complicated by his friend --- the regicide’s daughter, Cat Lovett --- who knew the Cromwells as a child, and who now seems to be hiding a secret of her own about the family.
 
Both Marwood and Cat know they are putting themselves in great danger. And when they find themselves on a top secret mission in the Palace of Whitehall, they realize they are risking their lives...and could even be sent to the block for treason.

Audiobook available, read by Leighton Pugh

Ace Atkins, author of Robert B. Parker's Someone to Watch Over Me: A Spenser Novel

Ten years ago, Spenser helped a teenage girl named Mattie Sullivan find her mother's killer and take down an infamous Southie crime boss. Now Mattie is a college student with a side job working for the tough but tender private eye. Her first big case involves a 15-year-old girl assaulted by a much older man at one of Boston's most prestigious private clubs. The girl, Chloe Turner, only wants the safe return of her laptop and backpack. But like her mentor and boss, Mattie has a knack for asking the right questions of the wrong people. Soon Spenser and Mattie find ties between the exploitation of dozens of other girls from working class families to an eccentric billionaire and his sadistic henchwoman.