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Editorial Content for Riviera Gold: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

RIVIERA GOLD is Laurie R. King’s 16th book starring Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes. This is one of the best series out there featuring the most famous inspector of all time --- and there are plenty of them. Read More

Teaser

It’s summertime on the Riviera, and the Jazz Age has come to France’s once-sleepy beaches --- along with Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. Russell falls into easy friendship with an enthralling American couple, Sara and Gerald Murphy, whose golden life on the Riviera has begun to attract famous writers and artists --- and some of the scoundrels linked with Monte Carlo’s underworld. The Murphy set’s importance for Russell lies in one of their circle’s recent additions: the Holmeses’ former housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, who hasn’t been seen since she fled England under a cloud of false murder accusations. When a beautiful young man is found dead in Mrs. Hudson’s front room, she becomes the prime suspect in yet another murder.

Promo

It’s summertime on the Riviera, and the Jazz Age has come to France’s once-sleepy beaches --- along with Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. Russell falls into easy friendship with an enthralling American couple, Sara and Gerald Murphy, whose golden life on the Riviera has begun to attract famous writers and artists --- and some of the scoundrels linked with Monte Carlo’s underworld. The Murphy set’s importance for Russell lies in one of their circle’s recent additions: the Holmeses’ former housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, who hasn’t been seen since she fled England under a cloud of false murder accusations. When a beautiful young man is found dead in Mrs. Hudson’s front room, she becomes the prime suspect in yet another murder.

About the Book

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes turn the Riviera upside down to crack their most captivating case yet in the New York Times bestselling series that Lee Child called “the most sustained feat of imagination in mystery fiction today.”

It’s summertime on the Riviera, and the Jazz Age has come to France’s once-sleepy beaches. From their music-filled terraces, American expatriates gaze along the coastline at the lights of Monte Carlo, where fortunes are won, lost, stolen and sometimes hidden away. When Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes arrive, they find their partnership pulled between youthful pleasures and old sins, hot sun and cool jazz, new affections and enduring loyalties.

Russell falls into easy friendship with an enthralling American couple, Sara and Gerald Murphy, whose golden life on the Riviera has begun to attract famous writers and artists --- and some of the scoundrels linked with Monte Carlo’s underworld. The Murphy set will go on to inspire everyone from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Pablo Picasso, but in this summer of 1925, their importance for Russell lies in one of their circle’s recent additions: the Holmeses’ former housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, who hasn’t been seen since she fled England under a cloud of false murder accusations.

When a beautiful young man is found dead in Mrs. Hudson’s front room, she becomes the prime suspect in yet another murder. Russell is certain of Mrs. Hudson’s innocence; Holmes is not. But the old woman’s colorful past has been a source of tension between them before, and now the dangerous players who control Monte Carlo’s gilded casinos may stop at nothing to keep the pair away from what Mrs. Hudson’s youthful history could bring to light.

The Riviera is a place where treasure can be false, where love can destroy, and where life, as Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes will discover, can be cheap --- even when it is made of solid gold.

Editorial Content for You Exist Too Much

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Pauline Finch

I remember as a university English lit major getting a paper back in which I’d written 15 pages about Daniel Defoe’s 1722 novel, MOLL FLANDERS, without ever mentioning the main character’s name, not even on the title page.

That dubious distinction came to mind as I traveled through Zaina Arafat’s compelling first novel, YOU EXIST TOO MUCH, which is about the yearnings of a young woman who is intentionally never named. The impact of that namelessness never really hits home until the book, rather than concluding, simply ends. Read More

Teaser

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgment will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother’s response only intensifies a sense of shame: “You exist too much,” she tells her daughter. Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East --- from New York to Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine --- Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer.

Promo

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgment will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother’s response only intensifies a sense of shame: “You exist too much,” she tells her daughter. Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East --- from New York to Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine --- Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer.

About the Book

A “provocative and seductive debut” of desire and doubleness that follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious and sexual identities as she endeavors to lead an authentic life (O, The Oprah Magazine).

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgment will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother’s response only intensifies a sense of shame: “You exist too much,” she tells her daughter.

Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East --- from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine --- Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as “love addiction.” In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her.

Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious and sexual identities, YOU EXIST TOO MUCH is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings --- for love, and a place to call home.

Audiobook available, read by Zehra Jane Naqvi

Editorial Content for Mother Daughter Widow Wife

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

Following the 2016 release of GIRLS ON FIRE, Robin Wasserman returns with MOTHER DAUGHTER WIDOW WIFE, a propulsive, psychologically driven novel about a mysterious woman in a fugue state, the scientists who study her, and the daughter who longs for her. Read More

Teaser

Wendy Doe is a woman with no past and no future. Without any memory of who she is, she’s diagnosed with dissociative fugue, a temporary amnesia that could lift at any moment --- or never at all --- and invited by Dr. Benjamin Strauss to submit herself for experimental observation at his Meadowlark Institute for Memory Research. With few better options, Wendy feels she has no choice. To Dr. Strauss, Wendy is a female body, subject to his investigation and control. To Strauss’ ambitious student, Lizzie Epstein, she’s an object of fascination, a mirror of Lizzie’s own desires, and an invitation to wonder: Once a woman is untethered from all past and present obligations of womanhood, who is she allowed to become?

Promo

Wendy Doe is a woman with no past and no future. Without any memory of who she is, she’s diagnosed with dissociative fugue, a temporary amnesia that could lift at any moment --- or never at all --- and invited by Dr. Benjamin Strauss to submit herself for experimental observation at his Meadowlark Institute for Memory Research. With few better options, Wendy feels she has no choice. To Dr. Strauss, Wendy is a female body, subject to his investigation and control. To Strauss’ ambitious student, Lizzie Epstein, she’s an object of fascination, a mirror of Lizzie’s own desires, and an invitation to wonder: Once a woman is untethered from all past and present obligations of womanhood, who is she allowed to become?

About the Book

From the author of GIRLS ON FIRE comes a “sharp and soulful and ferociously insightful” (Leslie Jamison) novel centered on a woman with no memory, the scientists studying her and the daughter who longs to understand.

Wendy Doe is a woman with no past and no future. Without any memory of who she is, she’s diagnosed with dissociative fugue, a temporary amnesia that could lift at any moment --- or never at all --- and invited by Dr. Benjamin Strauss to submit herself for experimental observation at his Meadowlark Institute for Memory Research. With few better options, Wendy feels she has no choice.

To Dr. Strauss, Wendy is a female body, subject to his investigation and control. To Strauss’ ambitious student, Lizzie Epstein, she’s an object of fascination, a mirror of Lizzie’s own desires, and an invitation to wonder: Once a woman is untethered from all past and present obligations of womanhood, who is she allowed to become?

To Alice, the daughter she left behind, Wendy Doe is an absence so present it threatens to tear Alice’s world apart. Through their attempts to untangle Wendy’s identity --- as well as her struggle to construct a new self --- Wasserman has crafted an “artful meditation on memory and identity” (The New York Times Book Review) and a journey of discovery, reckoning and reclamation. “A timely examination of memory, womanhood and power,” (Time) MOTHER DAUGHTER WIDOW WIFE will leave you “utterly riveted” (BuzzFeed).

Audiobook available; read by Jayme Mattler, Jenni Barber and Emily Tremaine

Editorial Content for Red Sky Over Hawaii

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Judy Gigstad

Born and raised in Hawaii, Sara Ackerman has written a fascinating novel chronicling the attack on Pearl Harbor and its aftermath. Read More

Teaser

The attack on Pearl Harbor changes everything for Lana Hitchcock. Arriving home on the Big Island too late to reconcile with her estranged father, she is left alone to untangle the clues of his legacy, which lead to a secret property tucked away in the remote rain forest of Kilauea volcano. When the government starts taking away her neighbors as suspected sympathizers, Lana shelters two young German girls, a Japanese fisherman and his son. As tensions escalate, they are forced into hiding --- only to discover the hideaway house is not what they expected. When a detainment camp is established nearby, Lana struggles to keep the secrets of those in her care. Trust could have dangerous consequences.

Promo

The attack on Pearl Harbor changes everything for Lana Hitchcock. Arriving home on the Big Island too late to reconcile with her estranged father, she is left alone to untangle the clues of his legacy, which lead to a secret property tucked away in the remote rain forest of Kilauea volcano. When the government starts taking away her neighbors as suspected sympathizers, Lana shelters two young German girls, a Japanese fisherman and his son. As tensions escalate, they are forced into hiding --- only to discover the hideaway house is not what they expected. When a detainment camp is established nearby, Lana struggles to keep the secrets of those in her care. Trust could have dangerous consequences.

About the Book

Inspired by real places and events of WWII, RED SKY OVER HAWAII immerses the reader in a time of American history full of suspicion and peril in this lush and poignant tale about the indisputable power of doing the right thing against all odds.

The attack on Pearl Harbor changes everything for Lana Hitchcock. Arriving home on the Big Island too late to reconcile with her estranged father, she is left alone to untangle the clues of his legacy, which lead to a secret property tucked away in the remote rain forest of Kilauea volcano. When the government starts taking away her neighbors as suspected sympathizers, Lana shelters two young German girls, a Japanese fisherman and his son. As tensions escalate, they are forced into hiding --- only to discover the hideaway house is not what they expected.

When a detainment camp is established nearby, Lana struggles to keep the secrets of those in her care. Trust could have dangerous consequences. As their lives weave together, Lana begins to understand the true meaning of family and how the bonds of love carry us through the worst times.

Audiobook available, read by Jennifer Robideau

Editorial Content for Dancing in the Narrows: A Mother-Daughter Odyssey Through Chronic Illness

Reviewer (text)

Barbara Bamberger Scott

Anna Penenberg has created a mother-daughter memoir that evokes chills, sadness, frustration and relief.

At the age of 16, Penenberg’s daughter, Dana, suddenly begins showing bizarre physical symptoms, including a fever, fatigue, headaches and a sense of being under attack by the world around her, as though something were assaulting her senses. She is by turns irrationally angry and pitifully childlike and helpless. Her body becomes swollen in odd places at different times. Dana must quit school, and she and her mother begin a several-year odyssey to seek a cure. Read More

Teaser

A mother’s love and persistence are put to the test when her teen daughter is stricken with a mysterious, debilitating illness. As time goes on, Dana’s condition drives everyone away --- everyone, that is, except for her mother, Anna. Finally, desperate to improve Dana’s health, the two hit the road in search of a cure. Dana’s chronic symptoms require endless supplements, pharmaceuticals and dietary restrictions, evoking a heroine’s journey. Full of humor, blind hope and alternative medicine, DANCING IN THE NARROWS is a poignant chronicle of Anna and Dana’s multiyear odyssey toward healing from trauma.

Promo

A mother’s love and persistence are put to the test when her teen daughter is stricken with a mysterious, debilitating illness. As time goes on, Dana’s condition drives everyone away --- everyone, that is, except for her mother, Anna. Finally, desperate to improve Dana’s health, the two hit the road in search of a cure. Dana’s chronic symptoms require endless supplements, pharmaceuticals and dietary restrictions, evoking a heroine’s journey. Full of humor, blind hope and alternative medicine, DANCING IN THE NARROWS is a poignant chronicle of Anna and Dana’s multiyear odyssey toward healing from trauma.

About the Book

A mother’s love and persistence are put to the test when her teen daughter is stricken with a mysterious, debilitating illness. As time goes on, Dana’s condition drives everyone away --- everyone, that is, except for her mother. Finally, desperate to improve Dana’s health, the two hit the road in search of a cure.

Dana’s chronic symptoms require endless supplements, pharmaceuticals and dietary restrictions, evoking a heroine’s journey. Full of humor, blind hope and alternative medicine, DANCING IN THE NARROWS is a poignant chronicle of Anna and Dana’s multiyear odyssey toward healing from trauma.

Editorial Content for The Bones of Wolfe: A Border Noir

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

For several years, James Carlos Blake has been quietly building a contemporary border-noir mythos that has been excellent by even the strictest of standards. The foundation of the series has been the semi-fictitious Wolfe clan, whose family tree has straddled the border between Mexico and the United States and whose roots are sunk firmly and deeply in both countries. Read More

Teaser

Rudy and Frank Wolfe are engaging in routine miscellaneous business for their family when they stumble upon a stash of high-quality pornographic films in a raid. The plot thickens when their Aunt Catalina, the family matriarch aged 115, recognizes a resemblance to her long-lost sister in one of the young performers. Catalina tasks the boys with tracking the girl down, however improbable a connection may be. Soon, Rudy and Frank find themselves moving away from the world of porn and towards the upper echelons of the Sinaloa drug cartel, where the mysterious woman has become a particular favorite of the head narco. For their aunt, the woman and themselves, Frank and Rudy must find a way to extract her from the cartel.

Promo

Rudy and Frank Wolfe are engaging in routine miscellaneous business for their family when they stumble upon a stash of high-quality pornographic films in a raid. The plot thickens when their Aunt Catalina, the family matriarch aged 115, recognizes a resemblance to her long-lost sister in one of the young performers. Catalina tasks the boys with tracking the girl down, however improbable a connection may be. Soon, Rudy and Frank find themselves moving away from the world of porn and towards the upper echelons of the Sinaloa drug cartel, where the mysterious woman has become a particular favorite of the head narco. For their aunt, the woman and themselves, Frank and Rudy must find a way to extract her from the cartel.

About the Book

In the newest Wolfe-family adventure from James Carlos Blake, Rudy and Frank Wolfe are engaging in routine miscellaneous business --- some legitimate and some less so --- for their family when they stumble upon a stash of high-quality pornographic films in a raid. The plot thickens when their Aunt Catalina, the family matriarch aged 115, recognizes a resemblance to her long-lost sister in one of the young performers. Catalina tasks the boys with tracking the girl down, however improbable a connection may be.

This proves to be no simple task. Soon, Rudy and Frank find themselves moving away from world of porn and towards the upper echelons of the Sinaloa drug cartel, where the mysterious woman has become a particular favorite of the head narco. For their aunt, the woman and themselves, Frank and Rudy must find a way to extract her from the cartel. A tropical storm threatens their plan but their widespread and steadfast family stands ready to assist them every deadly mile of the way.

Ever daring and innovative, and assisted by the family's ready resources, the Wolfe brothers must run the highest risks in order to achieve the mission assigned them by the Grande Dame.

Alex North, author of The Shadows

Twenty-five years ago, teenager Charlie Crabtree committed a murder so shocking that it inspired more than one copycat. Paul Adams remembers the case all too well: Crabtree and his victim were Paul’s friends. Paul has slowly put his life back together but comes back home after his mother, who is suffering from dementia, takes a turn for the worse. Meanwhile, Detective Amanda Beck is investigating another copycat that has struck in the nearby town of Featherbank. Paul’s mother is distressed, insistent that there's something in the house. And someone is following him. Which reminds him of the most unsettling thing about that awful day 25 years ago. It wasn't just the murder. It was the fact that Crabtree was never seen again.

Susan Wiggs, author of The Lost and Found Bookshop

In the wake of a shocking tragedy, Natalie Harper inherits her mother’s charming but financially strapped bookshop in San Francisco. She also becomes caretaker for her ailing grandfather Andrew, who has begun displaying signs of decline. Natalie thinks it’s best to move him to an assisted living facility to ensure the care he needs. To pay for it, she plans to close the bookstore and sell the derelict but valuable building on historic Perdita Street, which is in need of constant fixing. There’s only one problem --- Grandpa Andrew owns the building and refuses to sell. To Natalie’s surprise, her sorrow begins to dissipate as her life becomes an unexpected journey of new connections, discoveries and revelations, from unearthing artifacts hidden in the bookshop’s walls, to discovering the truth about her family, her future and her own heart.

J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Friends and Strangers

Elisabeth, an accomplished journalist and new mother, is struggling to adjust to life in a small town after nearly 20 years in New York City. She neglects her work, losing untold hours to her Brooklyn moms' Facebook group, her "influencer" sister's Instagram feed, and text messages with the best friend she never sees anymore. Enter Sam, a senior at the local women's college, whom Elisabeth hires to babysit. Sam is struggling to decide between the path she's always planned on and a romantic entanglement that threatens her ambition. In short order, they grow close. But when Sam finds an unlikely kindred spirit in Elisabeth's father-in-law, the true differences between the women's lives become starkly revealed and a betrayal has devastating consequences.

Alice Munro

Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories --- and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.

Attribution

Alice Munro