Dialogue

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jill Stukenberg's novel News of the Air (previously titled Labor Day) was selected as the 2021 winner of the Big Moose prize from Black Lawrence Press and will be published in fall 2022. Her short stories have appeared in Midwestern Gothic, The Collagist (now The Rupture), The Florida Review, and other literary magazines. An Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, she has published in the area of creative writing pedagogy and has over twenty years of experience as a writing teacher. (Photo credit: Emma Whitman) ABOUT THE BOOK - NEWS OF THE AIR Allie Krane is heavily pregnant when she and her husband flee urban life after a rash of eco-terrorism breaks out in their city. They reinvent themselves as the proprietors of a northwoods fishing resort, where they live in relative peace for nearly two decades. That is, until two strange children arrive by canoe. Like the small ecological disasters lapping yearly at their shore, have the problems of the modern world finally found Allie, her husband, and their troubled cypher of a teenage daughter? This eco-novel of a family, told from three points of view, explores how we remake our lives once we open our hearts to all the news we've chosen to ignore.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - JULIETTE GODOT With over 40,000 ancestors catalogued in her family tree, genealogist Juliette Godot has found many memorable characters. All of them have a story, some must be told. Her award-winning debut novel, From the Drop of Heaven, brings one of her sixteenth-century families to life. ABOUT THE BOOK - FROM THE DROP OF HEAVEN It's 1582. Banned books in tow, accused seditionist, Martin, escapes the pyre, finding safety with Nicolas's family. When Nicolas and his love, Catherine, are caught with the books, all three are forced to fight for their lives. From the Drop of Heaven is based on the author's family tree.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR William Martin is the New York Times bestseller of twelve novels, a PBS documentary, book reviews, magazine articles, and a cult-classic horror movie. His first Peter Fallon novel, Back Bay, established him as "a master storyteller." He has been following the lives of the great and anonymous in American history ever since. His latest, the "propulsive" December '41, captures the atmosphere in the United States int he weeks after Pearl Harbor. ABOUT THE BOOK - DECEMBER '41: A World War II Thriller On the day after Pearl Harbor, shocked Americans gather around their radios to hear Franklin Roosevelt declare war. In Los Angeles, a German agent named Martin Browning is planning to kill FDR on the night he lights the National Christmas Tree. Who will stop him? Relentless FBI Agent Frank Carter? Kevin Cusack, a Hollywood script reader who also spies on the German Bund of Los Angeles, and becomes a suspect himself? Or Vivian Hopewell, the aspiring actress who signs on to play Martin Browning's wife and cannot help but fall in love with him? The clock is ticking. The tracks are laid. The train of narrow escapes, mistaken identities, and shocking deaths is right on schedule. It's a thrilling ride that will sweep you from the back lots of Hollywood to the speeding Super Chief to that solemn Christmas Eve, when twenty thousand people gather on the South Lawn of the White House and the lives of Franklin Roosevelt and his surprise guest, Winston Churchill, hang in the balance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - Dr. Victor Acquista Dr. Victor Acquista is an international author and speaker following careers as a primary-care physician and medical executive. He is known for "Writing to Raise Consciousness." He is the creator and narrator/host of a podcast series, Podfobler Productions. Dr. Acquista has a longstanding interest in consciousness studies, is a student of Integral Theory, and strives to do his part to make our planet a wee bit better. He lives with his wife in Florida and is a member of the Authors Guild, Mystery Writers of America, the International Thriller Writers, and the Florida Writers Association.  ABOUT THE BOOK - REVELATION (Out Today!) An ancient conspiracy is about to be exposed… Since the dawn of civilization, a clandestine Brotherhood has been secretly organizing a hidden agenda. As the Illuminati orchestrate worldwide catastrophic events to establish a New World Order, only Serena Mendez and an ancient society with ties to Atlantis can save humanity from centuries of manipulation. Serena may have completed her training, but she is a warrior without a weapon. As Serena and her allies work to defeat the Illuminati, she must decipher seven mysterious messages that hold the key to survival in this thrilling race to unlock a secret that will change humankind—forever.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Coco Picard is a writer, cartoonist, and curator. She is the author of The Chronicles of Fortune (Radiator Comics, 2017), which was nominated for a DiNKy Award. Her art criticism and comics have otherwise appeared under the name Caroline Picard in Artforum, Hyperallergic, The Paris Review, and Seven Stories Press, among others. She started the Green Lantern Press in 2005, received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute and was a Bookends Fellow at Stony Brook University. Her novel, THE HEALING CIRCLE is out as of yesterday, August 16th.  ABOUT THE BOOK - THE HEALING CIRCLE A mother abandons her family in California to pursue a miracle cure in Munich. Once she gets there however, she wonders if she might have already died. Bedridden with a terminal diagnosis, memories, nurses, immoral doctors, foreign television broadcasts, and phone calls from children intrude upon her consciousness. An aloe plant called Madame Blavatsky is her primary companion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Corie Adjmi is the author of the short story collection Life and Other Shortcomings, which won an International Book Award, an IBPA Benjamin Franklin award, and an American Fiction Award. Her prize-winning essays and short stories have appeared in dozens of journals and magazines, including HuffPost, North American Review, Indiana Review, Medium, Motherwell and Kveller. She's been featured in Travel and Leisure, New York Magazine, The Hollywood Times, Parade and BuzzFeed. Her forthcoming book the novel titled The Marriage Box, was named a Must-Read New Book of 2022 on Katie Couric Media, and is due out in August 2022. When she is not writing, Corie does volunteer work, cooks, draws, bikes and hikes. She and her husband have five children and a number of grandchildren, with more on the way. She lives and works in New York City. ABOUT THE BOOK - THE MARRIAGE BOX Casey Cohen, a Middle Eastern Jew, is a sixteen-year-old in New Orleans in the 1970s when she starts hanging out with the wrong crowd. Then she gets in trouble—and her parents turn her whole world upside down by deciding to return to their roots, the Orthodox Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn. In this new and foreign world, men pray daily, thanking God they're not women; parties are extravagant events at the Museum of Natural History; and the Marriage Box is a real place, a pool deck designated for teenage girls to put themselves on display for potential husbands. Casey is at first appalled by this unfamiliar culture, but after she meets Michael, she's enticed by it. Looking for love and a place to belong, she marries him at eighteen, believing she can adjust to Syrian ways. But she begins to question her decision when she discovers that Michael doesn't want her to go to college—he wants her to have a baby instead. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Judge, author, litigator, wife, step-mom, mother of twins, and civic volunteer, are all words used to describe Debra Goldstein. Debra's life and writings are equally diverse. She's the author of the Sarah Blair mystery series (out by Kensington Press). The main character, Sarah, like her, is a cook of convenience who might be scorched if she gets too close to a kitchen.  ABOUT THE BOOK - FIVE BELLES TOO MANY (Sarah Blair Mystery, Book 5) When Sarah Blair's mother participates in a reality show competition for brides in Wheaton, Alabama, things get a little too real as a murderer crashes the wedding party. Sometimes Sarah's mother, Maybelle, can be higher maintenance than her Siamese cat RahRah. Maybelle and her friend, Mr. George Rogers, have been chosen to be one of five couples competing for a small-town “perfect” wedding and dream honeymoon on a Southern Belles reality show—and guess who has to be chaperone. Even more vexing, the producers have decided to put up the crew and participants at the restaurant/bed and breakfast owned by Sarah's nemesis Jane Clark.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR The daughter of a law professor and a potter, Leslie Karst learned early, during family dinner conversations, the value of both careful analysis and the arts—ideal ingredients for a mystery story. She spent her early years in various locales from Columbus, Ohio to South America and England. Leslie was able to parlay her humanities degree into employment waiting tables and singing in a new wave rock and roll band. Exciting though this life was, however, she eventually decided she was ready for a “real” job, and ended up at Stanford Law School. Leslie worked for twenty years as a research and appellate attorney for a civil law firm. She rediscovered a passion for food and cooking and returned to school for a degree in culinary arts from Cabrillo College. ABOUT THE BOOK - THE FRAGRANCE OF DEATH Restaurateur Sally Solari is a champion, both in the kitchen and on the case, but after getting mixed up in one too many murders, she's noticed her Nonna's friends have now taken to crossing themselves when they see her in the street. Adding to her woes, a sinus infection has knocked out her sense of smell, making cooking on the hot line difficult, indeed. Nevertheless, Sally is determined to stay out of trouble and focus on her work. But then her old acquaintance Neil Lerici is murdered at the annual Santa Cruz Artichoke Cook-Off, and her powers of investigation are called into action once more. Could Neil have been killed by the local restaurant owner who took his winning spot at the competition? Or maybe by one of his siblings, who were desperate to sell the family farm to a real estate developer?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Randall Silvis is the multi-genre author of nineteen critically acclaimed novels, three story collections, and two books of creative nonfiction. He was the first Pennsylvanian to win the prestigious Drue Heinz Literature Prize (1984), and was chosen for that award by author Joyce Carol Oates. His work has been published in over a hundred editions in several languages. Silvis has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his short fiction, and was a two-time Hammett Prize finalist for literary excellence in the field of crime writing (for An Occasional Hell and Two Days Gone.) The recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowships, a Fulbright Senior Scholar Research Award, and six writing fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts for his fiction, drama, and screenwriting. ABOUT THE BOOK - THE DEEPEST BLACK (Pre-order now and get it 8/16/22) Where does the line blur between fact and fiction? Acclaimed author Randall Silvis is looking for a story—any story to follow up the series of gripping mystery novels that catapulted him to success. And then, out of nowhere, a story appears. A mysterious stranger named Thomas Kennaday tips Silvis off about a series of murders in a small Pennsylvania town, sending Silvis off on a tentative investigation in hopes of finding material for his next novel. What Silvis discovers is much more than a typical small-town murder case, and it soon becomes clear that Kennaday, who seems to have disappeared into thin air, is somehow pulling the strings of the investigation from behind the scenes. Based on true events, The Deepest Black is a profoundly thoughtful, unsettling read, and a crime novel unlike any you've ever read before.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dennis Galloway has lived in a variety of cultures, giving him a wide range of experiences. He incorporates many of these experiences in his writing so the characters you meet feel real and it seems like you are really there in the places he writes about. Dennis grew up with a vivid, active imagination which serves him well in developing unique and exciting stories. His imagination provides him with ideas in the creative areas not only of writing, but in video, photography, and public speaking. Dennis's stories have been incorporated in documentaries, videos, podcast programs, articles, short stories and novels that cover a wide range of venues from children's stories to adult fiction. ABOUT THE BOOK - THE PEN: Sultan's Wisdom Harold wanted a better life. He wanted a life that would free him from the shackles of his mundane existence. He wanted freedom, love, and a life that made his soul soar high. But how could he obtain those things? The surprising solution lay in an antique pen Harold purchased. At first, he thought he would just write down his thoughts, but he soon discovered the pen had a mind of its own. The pen took over, forcing Harold to write what it wanted, using a beautiful curly script in a language he didn't understand. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Marty Ambrose is the award-winning author of a historical mystery trilogy: Claire's Last Secret, A Shadowed Fate, and Forever Past, all set around the Byron/Shelley circle in nineteenth-century Italy. Her fiction has earned starred reviews in Publisher's Weekly as well as a gold medal for historical fiction in the FL Writers Association's Literary Palm Awards. Marty teaches English at FL Southwestern State College and taught for the SNHU Creative Writing MFA program. She teaches 19th-century British literature, composition, and fiction writing. She has edited the FSW literary journal, served on student scholarship boards, and is a member of The Byron Society, Historical Novel Society, and Women's Fiction Writers Association. ABOUT THE BOOK - FOREVER PAST (A Lord Byron mystery Book 3) Italy, 1873. Claire Clairmont, one of the last surviving members of the Byron/Shelley circle, is determined to uncover the true fate of Allegra, her daughter conceived with Lord Byron. But her quest so far has been fraught with danger, and Claire knows she has enemies who will stop at nothing to keep past secrets hidden. When she learns of a stunning revelation involving the abbess and Allegra, Claire returns to the convent of Bagnacavallo with her close companions to confront the abbess, and soon finds herself grappling with a series of chilling and threatening events. As Claire finally closes in on the truth, could someone in her closest circle be plotting against her? And can she survive long enough to get the answers she craves?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sue Mell earned her MFA from Warren Wilson, and was a 2020 BookEnds fellow at SUNY Stony Brook. Her work has appeared in Narrative Magazine, Hippocampus Magazine, Jellyfish Review, Cleaver Magazine, and elsewhere.  Her collection of micro essays, GIVING CARE, won the 2022 Chestnut Review Prose Chapbook Prize, and her story collection, A NEW DAY, was a finalist for the 2021 St. Lawrence Book Award. PROVENANCE is her debut novel. ABOUT THE BOOK - PROVENANCE - WINNER OF MADVILLE'S BLUE MOON NOVEL COMPETITION Still grieving his wife's early death, DJ has spent the last three years-and the money from her insurance policy-collecting guitars, composing music, and continuing to shop the Brooklyn stoop sales and flea markets they'd always enjoyed. When his building is sold, he takes refuge in his younger sister's half-finished basement, imagining a comfortable and solitary retreat in Hurley, the small Hudson Valley town where they grew up. Instead, he finds himself caught up in her troubling divorce, drafted as caregiver for his 11-year-old niece, and unable to face or afford a storage unit crammed with hundreds of vinyl records and every other scrap of his former life. DJ gifts his niece a marbled glass egg, a porkpie hat, and one of his prized guitars. But what's asked of him, on his return to Hurley is not to give the perfect object-it's to give of himself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Anne Whitney Pierce is a lifelong Cantabrigian and the author of two books, Galaxy Girls: Wonder Women (1993) and Rain Line (2000). While raising her three daughters, she taught writing in the graduate Writing Program at Emerson College in Boston and to younger students in the Cambridge Public Schools.  Her short fiction has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, The Chattahoochee Review, The Boston Globe Magazine, Kansas Quarterly, Crosscurrents, and the Southern Review, among others.  ABOUT THE BOOK - DOWN TO THE RIVER Down to the River is a family saga set in the late 1960s in Cambridge, Massachusetts during the Vietnam War. Twin brothers, Nash and Remi Potts, have grown up as entitled, Harvard-educated, golden boys, heirs to an old, but dwindling family fortune. With the passage of time, the gold veneer of prosperity begins to chip away, and their lives begin to falter. We meet Remi and Nash in 1968, in their mid-forties and partners in a sporting goods store in Harvard Square. The twins' marriages are in trouble. Their youngest children, Chickie and Hen are coming of age during the turbulent urban wilderness of the late 1960s— school bomb threats, racial tensions, war protests and demonstrations at Harvard and beyond. With all hell breaking loose at home, and any semblance of “parenting” hanging ragged in the wind, the two cousins are left largely to their own devices. Suddenly freed from old rules and restrictions, they head out onto the streets of Cambridge, which become their concrete playground, tumbling headlong into a world of politics, sex, drugs, rock and roll. Chickie and Hen forge an unbreakable bond as they join forces and hearts to stay afloat in the sea of upheaval that surrounds them, the lines of family love and loyalty often blurring.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - DANA KING Dana King was born in New Kensington PA; the building is no longer a hospital. He spent the first four years of his life living in an apartment in Arnold PA; that building has since burned to the ground and is now a vacant lot. Dana grew up in Lower Burrell PA, which is still there, though everyone is nervous when he comes to visit. The first memory he can attach to a time and place is riding in the car to the new house on October 13, 1960, as Bill Mazeroski hit the home run that won the World Series. A classically-trained musician, Dana holds a Bachelor's degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (no, not the other one), and a Master's in Trumpet Performance from New England Conservatory, where he studied with Charles Schlueter of the Boston Symphony.  ABOUT THE BOOK - WHITE OUT It's been a tough winter in Penns River and things aren't getting any better. A major snowstorm looms as a police officer shoots and kills a man after a bar fight. There are four complicating factors: 1. No weapon is found on the dead man. 2. The cop is Black; the victim is white. 3. The victim is not just white; he's a white supremacist. 4. A national leader of the movement wants to use Penns River to set an example and create a martyr for the cause. Fellow travelers from several neighboring states converge on the town for the funeral as an even bigger snowstorm roars in with them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Donna Gordon is a fiction writer and visual artist from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated from Brown, and was then a Stegner Fellow at Stanford, a PEN Discovery, and Ploughshares Discovery. She received the 2018 New Letters Publication Award, and was a finalist for the 2019 Black Lawrence Press Big Moose Award, a semi-finalist for the 2019 Dzanc Books publication award, a semi-finalist for the 2019 Eludia Award, Hidden River Arts, and is currently a semi-finalist at YesYes books for her novel, What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me. ABOUT THE BOOK - WHAT BEN FRANKLIN WOULD HAVE TOLD ME A vibrant thirteen-year-old boy who is facing premature death from Progeria (a premature aging disease); his caretaker TomÁs, a survivor of Argentina's Dirty War, who is searching for his missing wife, who was pregnant when they were both "disappeared;" and Lee's single mother, Cass, overwhelmed by love for her son and the demands of her work as a Broadway makeup artist. When a mix-up prevents Cass from taking Lee on his "final wish" trip to Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia to pursue his interest in the life of Ben Franklin, TomÁs--who has discovered potential leads to his family in both cities--offers to accompany Lee on the trip. As one flees memories of death and the other hurtles inevitably toward it, they each share unsettling truths and find themselves transformed in the process. Set during the Ronald Reagan presidency, this lyrical novel transcends an adventure story to take the reader on an unforgettable journey which explores love, family and the inevitability of change.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Steve Berry is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of twenty-one novels. His books have been translated into 41 languages with over 25,000,000 copies in 52 countries. They consistently appear in the top echelon of The New York Times, USA Today, and Indie bestseller lists. Somewhere in the world, every thirty seconds, one of his novels is sold. ABOUT THE BOOK - THE OMEGA FACTOR Enter UNESCO investigator, Nicholas Lee, who works for the United Nations' Cultural Liaison and Investigative Office (CLIO). Nick's job is to protect the world's cultural artifacts—anything and everything from countless lesser-known objects to national treasures.  When Nick travels to Belgium for a visit with a woman from his past, he unwittingly stumbles on the trail of a legendary panel from the van Eyck brothers' Ghent Altarpiece, stolen in 1934 under cover of night and never seen since. Soon Nick is plunged into a bitter conflict, one that has been simmering for nearly two thousand years. On one side is the Maidens of Saint-Michael, les Vautours—the Vultures—a secret order of nuns and the guardians of a great truth. Pitted against them is the Vatican, which has wanted for centuries to both find and possess what the nuns guard. Because of Nick the maidens have finally been exposed, their secret placed in dire jeopardy—a vulnerability that the Vatican swiftly moves to exploit utilizing an ambitious cardinal and a corrupt archbishop, both with agendas of their own.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Sarah Humpherys lives in Lehi, Utah and is a die-hard fantasy nerd that can't stop talking about dragons and anime. She is trying to get through high school by burying herself in Japanese TV shows and creating her own worlds and characters. She does make friends, but only with people who can stand her habit of constantly talking during movies to critique the plot, her memorization of the How to Train Your Dragon Wikipedia page, and a monologue explaining why Doctor Strange is obviously the best avenger. ABOUT THE BOOK - STONE COLD In a kingdom where emotion is punished by death, Princess Syona is forced into a marriage alliance to stop a thirty-year war. She must choose between her duty to the kingdom or the boy she truly loves. In the Kingdom of Ashlon, emotion is considered a weakness and a danger. To help their society run perfectly, the king has ordered everyone to wear enchanted stones that take away emotion. However, there are some people, Malopaths, that are not affected by the stones and are hunted down and executed. The princess of Ashlon, Syona, is a Malopath. She becomes antisocial and stays in the shadows, afraid of her secret being exposed. When her brother dies, Princess Syona becomes the heir to the kingdom and must try harder than ever to fake being emotionless. As crown heir, she must navigate a marriage alliance with an enemy kingdom, political conspiracies, and a love triangle between her betrothed and her childhood friend and guard. Stone Cold shows that emotions are what make humans human and that people shouldn't be afraid to be themselves. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Brooks Eason was born in New Orleans in 1957 and given up for adoption by his teenage mother, who was wealthy but unwed. He was adopted and raised by wonderful parents in Tupelo, Mississippi, and has practiced law in Jackson, Mississippi, for more than 35 years. He is the author of three books. ABOUT THE BOOK - REDEMPTION: The Two Lives of Harry Brooks In the first half of Harry's life, he embezzled money from the Uniontown, PA, school district where he was the elected superintendent, left his wife for another woman, and sought to escape by booking passage on a Cunard liner to Liverpool. But his plan was foiled, Scotland Yard arrested him when the ship docked, and he was extradited, tried, convicted, and served three years in Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh. In the second half of Harry's life, he came to the South, where he spent his last thirty-five years as a revered and successful Methodist minister and church official. He was a district superintendent overseeing a hundred congregations at the time of his death in 1942. In 1934, when President Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 75,000 in North Mississippi, Harry was chosen to give the invocation. Nobody in the huge crown knew the preacher at the lectern was an ex-con. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - KELLY HITCHCOCK Raised by a single father in the small town of Buffalo, Missouri, Kelly has fond memories of life being broke living in the Ozarks that strongly influence her writing and way of life.  She's a graduate of Missouri State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing. She has six-year-old identical twins and a full-time job, so writing and picking up LEGO are the only other things she can devote herself to. ABOUT THE BOOK - COMMUNITY KLEPTO As Ann battles the inner demons that plague her millennial psyche, she must also battle the fiends that plague her at the gym: the loudly grunting beefcake who can't be bothered to drop his weights at a reasonable volume, the naked old lady in the locker room using a towel as butt floss, the housewife in yoga pants that obviate the need for yoga wheeling her double stroller up and down the indoor track. Set in suburban Kansas City in the early 2010s, Community Klepto—a droll combination of Bridget Jones' Diary and Choke—makes incarnate the characters and shenanigans that go on in every gym in the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR USA Today Bestselling author Sariah Wilson has never jumped out of an airplane, never climbed Mt. Everest, and is not a former CIA operative. She has, however, been madly, passionately in love with her soulmate and is a fervent believer in happily ever afters—which is why she writes romance. She grew up in southern California, graduated from Brigham Young University (go Cougars!) with a semi-useless degree in history, and is the oldest of nine (yes, nine) children. She currently lives with the aforementioned soulmate and their children in Utah, along with cats named Pixel, Callie, and Belle who do not get along. (The cats, not the children. Although the children sometimes have their issues, too.) ABOUT THE BOOK - CINDER NANNY With her sister's medical bills mounting, Diana Parker can't say no to a high-paying opportunity like this: accompany a wealthy couple to Aspen and nanny their precocious five-year-old son for three months. Necessary qualifications? She must know how to ski and teach math, speak fluent French, excel at social graces, and hold a master's degree in childhood development. Who'll be the wiser that Diana's only skill is packing for Colorado? So far, so good—having a con woman for a mother has turned out to be a benefit, even if Diana has complicated feelings about telling lies. But she's doing this for her sister. And the perks—like a ticket to a lavish charity fundraiser, a new gown, and a Prince Charming–adjacent earl named Griffin Windsor—are pretty irresistible. Diana can't deny the Cinderella vibe. Even so, wary of gold diggers and scandal, England's most eligible bachelor is nevertheless falling for Diana.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR As a little girl growing up in the Bronx, she told her friends stories she made up, but pretended were true (imagined reality was better received by the audience). She wrote her first short story when she was twelve. In middle school, she would submit book reports about her stories with fake author names. They never caught her and she always received A's. Under her graduation picture in the Evander Childs High School yearbook next to her name read for her ambition: writer. Although marriage, children, and career sidelined her true passion, it never squelched Karen Osborne's desire to write. ABOUT THE BOOK - RECKONINGS For all her adult life, Roxy suppressed the impact of two traumatic events—being abandoned by her mother at the age of twelve and being raped by her boyfriend, Spider, at eighteen. She never told anyone but her best friend about the rape. Though happily married to Carl, they both long to be out from under the thumb of Carl's domineering father, for whom they both work. And she's convinced that her first play—being staged at the community theater with her movie-star friend from high school in the lead role—is the ticket to that better life. But now Spider is back, a successful land developer with a proposal to revitalize the town and solve the theater's financial woes. When he takes an interest in Jewel, Roxy's eldest daughter whose paternity she's not entirely sure of, and engineers a big win for Carl in a private poker game, Roxy knows he's up to his old tricks. She's determined to expose him before he can harm her family or her beloved theater. Karen E. Osborne traces the treacherous path between good intentions and poor decisions rooted in the shame of toxic secrets.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Davida G. Breier was born in Miami, FL  She's worked as a youth sports photographer, TV extra, substitute teacher, jewelry maker, bookseller, and ATM cleaner. She won the Literary Death Match, Baltimore 3.0 event in 2011. She's spent the last two decades in various roles within the book industry and currently works for Johns Hopkins University Press. Davida lives in Maryland with her family, a pack of wee rescue dogs, a rescue tortoise, and two companion chickens. ABOUT THE BOOK - SINKHOLE Humidity, lovebugs, and murder. Lies from the past and a dangerous present collide when, after fifteen years in exile, Michelle Miller returns to her tiny hometown of Lorida, Florida. With her mother in the hospital, she's forced to reckon with the broken relationships she left behind: with her family, with friends, and with herself. As a teenager, Michelle felt isolated and invisible until she met Sissy, a dynamic and wealthy classmate. Their sudden, intense friendship was all-consuming. Punk rocker Morrison later joins their clique, and they become an inseparable trio. They were the perfect high school friends, bound by dysfunction, bad TV, and boredom―until one of them ends up dead.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - ADAM FROST ADAM FROST was born and raised in Vancouver. He began as an actor, and now works as a television writer and producer, best known for the crime shows Tribal and Castle. He lives on the east side of Los Angeles and is also one helluva T-ball coach. ABOUT THE BOOK - THE DAMNED LOVELY A murder mystery set in East LA about a struggling writer who drowns his days surrounded by misfits and burned-out ex-cops at a dive bar called The Damned Lovely. When a local patron turns up strangled under mysterious circumstances, he's determined to learn the truth about her murder.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Brian C. Johnson honors the struggles and accomplishments of the ordinary citizens who launched the Civil Rights Movement by committing himself personally and professionally to the advancement of multicultural and inclusive education. During AY 2018-2019, Dr. Johnson served as a postdoctoral scholar in the department of Communication Studies at Bloomsburg University. He is currently a part time instructor of interpersonl communication at Luzerne County Community College.  He earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in English from California University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in communications media and instructional technology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in December 2016. Brian is the co-author of Reel Diversity: A Teacher's Sourcebook (2008), winner of the 2009 Phillip Chinn Book Award by the National Association for Multicultural Education and a revised edition in 2015, ,and We've Scene It All Before: Using Film Clips in Diversity Awareness Training (2009). ABOUT THE BOOK - ME, MY SELFIE, AND I Nahim Lightbourne finds himself as the only black student at an exclusive private school. His peers have a funny way of showing their friendliness with all their racial jokes and jibes. Nahim feels alone until his high school hires its first black teacher. He must learn how to bear up against the tide-until a class lesson goes awry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Colin Conway is the creator of the 509 Crime Stories, a series of novels set in Eastern Washington with revolving lead characters. They are standalone tales and can be read in any order. He also created the Cozy Up series which pushes the envelope of the cozy genre. Libby Klein, author of the Poppy McAllister series, says Cozy Up to Death is “Not your grandma's cozy.” Colin co-authored the Charlie-316 series. The first novel in the series, Charlie-316, is a political/crime thriller that has been described as “riveting and compulsively readable,” “the real deal,” and “the ultimate ride-along.” He served in the U.S. Army and later was an officer of the Spokane Police Department. He's owned a laundromat, invested in a bar, and ran a karate school. Besides writing crime fiction, he is a commercial real estate broker. Boom, done. ABOUT THE BOOK - THE RIDE ALONG (co-authored with Frank Zafiro) The Tyler Garrett scandal rocked the Spokane Police Department two years ago. Now, a consent decree governs the agency with Washington D.C. directing its reform. It's a tumultuous time in the city, and public outcry over local and national events is high. Change is in the air. Officer Lee Salter is a third-generation cop who bleeds blue. Amid the departmental chaos, he does the only thing he can—be a good officer. That means showing up for every shift, responding to calls for service, and always doing the right thing. All the while, the Department of Justice and its local supporters hope to catch another officer in its net of reform. Salter refuses to be that officer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Connie Berry's dream of becoming an archaeologist ended when she learned there was more to it than discovering the tombs of lost pharaohs. Instead, she created the Kate Hamilton Mystery series, set in the UK and featuring an American antiques dealer with a gift for solving crimes. Her debut mystery, A Dream of Death, won the IPPY Gold Medal for Mystery and was a finalist for the Silver Falchion and Agatha awards. ABOUT THE BOOK - THE SHADOW OF MEMORY (Fourth in the Kate Hamilton Mystery series) As Kate Hamilton plans her upcoming wedding to Detective Inspector Tom Mallory, she is also assisting her colleague Ivor Tweedy with a project at the Netherfield Sanatorium, which is being converted into luxury townhouses. Kate and Ivor must appraise a fifteenth-century paintingand verify that its provenance is the Dutch master Jan Van Eyck. But when retired criminal inspector Will Parker is found dead, Kate learns that the halls of the sanatorium housed much more than priceless art.   Kate is surprised to learn that Will had been the first boyfriend of her friend Vivian Bunn, who hasn't seen him in fifty-eight years. At a seaside holiday camp over sixty years ago, Will, Vivian, and three other teens broke into an abandoned house where a doctor and his wife had died under bizarre circumstances two years earlier. Now, when a second member of the childhood gang dies unexpectedly—and then a third—it becomes clear that the teens had discovered more in the house than they had realized.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sylvain Neuvel is a Canadian science fiction writer, known as the author of The Themis Files. He was born in Quebec City and raised in the suburb of L'Ancienne-Lorette. Neuvel was educated at the University of Montréal and the University of Chicago, and runs his own professional translation agency. ABOUT THE BOOK - UNTIL THE LAST OF ME: Take Them To the Stars (Book 2) The First Rule is the most important: Always run, never fight. For generations, Mia's family has shaped human history to push them to the stars. The year is 1968 and she is on the cusp of destiny, poised to launch the first humans into space. But she cannot take them to the stars, not quite yet. Her adversary is at her heels, the future of the planet at stake, and obeying the First Rule is no longer an option. For the first time in one-hundred generations, Mia's family will have to choose to stand their ground, risking not only their bloodline, but the future of the human race. A darkly satirical thriller, as seen through the eyes of the women who sacrifice all to make progress possible and the men who are determined to stop them. Always run, never fight. Preserve the knowledge. Survive at all cost. Take them to the stars.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Judith F. Brenner is the author of The Moments Between Dreams, a novel. She's a former journalist, an editor, and publisher of Sharpeners Report, a national publication with paid circulation in a professional service and repair industry. Her personal essays have been published in literary magazines and parent magazines. She completed the Iowa University Mini-MFA program in 2019. Judith is a member of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, and the national Professional Editor's Network, the Chicago Writers Network, and the Women's Fiction Writing Association.  ABOUT THE BOOK:  The Moments Between Dreams, A Novel Carol misses red flags about Joe's need for control before she marries him, dashing her dreams for herself and her family. Trouble escalates after their daughter Ellie is paralyzed by the polio virus and Joe returns from WWII. Carol realizes how brutal waking life can be, and she conceals bruises and protects her children the best she can. The Moments Between Dreams is a captivating story of a 1940s housewife who conforms to the rulebook of society until Joe pushes her too far. His constant intimidation shrinks Carol's confidence while she tries to boost Ellie's. Church-going neighbors in Carol's tight-knit Polish community are complacent, but Sam, a handsome reporter, stirs up Carol's zest for life. Despite impossible circumstances, Carol plans a secret escape. Along a risky path, she empowers her daughter to know no limits and teaches her son to stop the cycle of violence and gender discrimination.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jodé is a life long resident of Poughkeepsie, New York, which serves as the setting for her legal suspense novels. In her writing, she draws upon her experiences as an attorney to capture the tensions that arise when a small community is rocked by tragedy. Jode's debut thriller novel, "The Midnight Call", was released by Immortal Works Publishing in 2019. "The Midnight Call" won the 2020 Bronze IPPY Award, the 2020 American Fiction Award, the 2021 Independent Press Award for Legal Thriller, was a 2021 Book Excellence Award Finalist, was short-listed for the 2019 Clue Award and received the First Place Blue Ribbon as "Best Police Procedural" by Chantireviews.com.  ABOUT THE BOOK - HOOKER AVENUE Released by Level Best Books last week, is the second installment in her "Queen City Crimes" series inspired by true crimes in the Hudson Valley. Being a Good Samaritan is hazardous. Amid a violent Hudson Valley thunderstorm, Jessie Martin discovers a woman lying unconscious in a roadside ditch. The badly beaten victim, Lissie Sexton, a local prostitute, claims she's escaped the attack of a killer. Jessie's more than a casual driver who passes by; she's a criminal-defense attorney. And Lissie is more than an ordinary hooker. She's the key witness in a cold case under investigation by Jessie's estranged longtime friend, Detective Ebony Jones. And now Ebony can't find her witness. Jessie's new boss has sent Lissie into hiding. If Jessie reveals Lissie's location she compromises her client, her firm and her professional ethics. If she doesn't, she risks alienating not just Ebony but the entire police department backing her. A simple act of compassion forces Jessie to choose between her duty and her friend.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dinitia Smith is the author of four previous novels, most recently The Honeymoon (Other Press), and her short stories have been published in numerous magazines. For 11 years, she was a reporter at the New YorkTimes where she wrote on literary topics and intellectual trends. She has won many awards for her writing, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the MacDowell Colony and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. She is also an Emmy Award-winning film maker.  Her film, Passing Quietly Through, was chosen for the New York Film Festival, and shown at the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. ABOUT THE BOOK - THE PRINCE Money. Power. Sex. Family. These conflicts propel the world's greatest novels. They seared the pages of The Golden Bowl by Henry James when it was published in 1904, and they inflame Dinitia Smith's retelling, THE PRINCE creating a modern classic with twists and turns that even James couldn't imagine. Smith, a multiple award-winning former New York Times reporter, uses the modern equivalent of the glittering high society setting of the Golden Age to tell the story of a father and daughter and the prince who comes between them. Set partially on Woodford Island, based on Gardiners Island off the coast of East Hampton, THE PRINCE reconstructs the claustrophobic tension of the original while exploring the four central relationships with a fresh, modern gaze.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rosow is an independent author—still working on his “day job” in the design and construction industry. He has self-published three novels. After his first story was rejected by the usual publishing houses, Rosow decided to forge his own path. Turns out those publishers were wrong; his first release, FALSE ASSURANCES, became a best-seller and was optioned as a feature film by Spyglass Media. Sequels. THREAT BIAS, SUBVERSIVE ADDICTION, and (soon!) VITAL DECEPTION continue the story of his unique and compelling protagonist, Ben Porter. ABOUT THE BOOK - VITAL DECEPTION Six months after being tasked with an off-the-books, international investigation, Ben Porter finds himself bedridden in a Washington, D.C. hospital, beset with mysterious, life-threatening symptoms. Faced not only with tragedy but also with mounting pressure from his superiors, Ben is forced into an impossible choice: does he fulfill his duty, or does he disobey his command? Or… can he do both?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Samantha Downing is the author of the bestselling My Lovely Wife, nominated for Edgar, ITW, Macavity, and CWA awards. Amazon Studios and Nicole Kidman's Blossom Films have partnered to produce a feature film based on the novel. Her second book, He Started It, was released in 2020 and became an instant international bestseller.Her third thriller, For Your Own Good, was released in the US on July 20, 2021. It has been optioned by Robert Downey Jr. and Greg Berlanti for HBO Max. She currently lives and works in New Orleans. ABOUT THE BOOK - SLEEPING DOGS LIE From the internationally bestselling author of My Lovely Wife and For Your Own Good comes a twisted, entertaining novella about a dog walker swept into a criminal investigation when her client winds up dead.   Shelby works as a dog walker in northern California, and she's just finished up her bi-weekly trip to the park with a husky named Pluto. When she brings him back to his house, she finds his owner—Todd Burke, a well-known local businessman and founder of an organic supplements company—lying on the bathroom floor, dead. A detective arrives on the scene. As she interviews Shelby, the body is inspected by a medical examiner, and more cops search Todd's home, it becomes clear that the victim's life was less picture-perfect than his clean-cut persona might lead you to believe.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - JOSHUA SENTER Joshua Senter is an award-winning TV writer and producer known for his work on such acclaimed hits as The L Word and Desperate Housewives as well as his previous novel, Daisies. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband and their two cats. ABOUT THE BOOK - STILL THE NIGHT CALL “Majestic” (writes Booklist). As the world changes around him, dairy farmer Calem Dewayne Honeycutt struggles to contend with both his past and future — and the Night Call haunting his present. “A truthful, honestly told story” that “triumphantly understands the Midwestern psyche, delivering moments of beauty and tragedy.” (Kirkus Reviews starred review), AND WON BEST INDIE BOOK OF 2021.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - BECKY BOHAN Becky Bohan earned her Masters in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the retired Vice-President of a training consulting company. Her novel A Light on Altered Land was a finalist for a 2020 Goldie from the Golden Crown Literary Society. Becky lives in North Fort Myers, Florida. ABOUT THE BOOK - A LIGHT ON ALTERED LAND Book blurb for A Light on Altered Land: A radiant story of a lesbian widow and country club divorcée who have suffered life-changing losses. On a road trip across the American West involving a confrontational daughter and a run-in with the law, they meet challenges with wit, wisdom, and humor, while striving to trust the path opening before them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ashley Winstead holds a Ph.D. in contemporary American literature from Southern Methodist University and a B.A. in English and Art History from Vanderbilt University. She lives in Houston, TX, where she drinks red wine and dreams up novels. ABOUT THE BOOK - FOOL ME ONCE Lee Stone is a twenty-first-century woman: she kicks butt at her job as a communications director at a women-run electric car company (that's better than Tesla, thank you), and after work she is “Stoner,” drinking guys under the table and never letting any of them get too comfortable in her bed. That's because Lee's learned one big lesson: never trust love. Four major heartbreaks set her straight, from her father cheating on her mom all the way to Ben Laderman in grad school—who wasn't actually cheating, but she could have sworn he was, so she reciprocated in kind. Then Ben shows up five years later, working as a policy expert for the most liberal governor in Texas history, just as Lee is trying to get a clean energy bill rolling. Things get complicated—and competitive—as Lee and Ben are forced to work together. Tension builds just as old sparks reignite, fanning the flames for a romantic dustup the size of Texas. *Photo Credit - Luis Noble

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alan Winter was born in Newark, NJ and graduated from Livingston High School. He graduated with honors in history from Rutgers College, New Brunswick, NJ, before pursuing advanced degrees from Columbia and NYU. His many professional accomplishments include editing a journal for eleven years, publishing more than twenty scientific articles, and being appointed associate professor at both Columbia and NYU. Parallel with his professional career, Alan began to write fiction. That was more than thirty-five years ago.  ABOUT THE BOOK - SINS OF THE FATHERS Sins of the Fathers is the eye-opening novel―based on historical facts―of the efforts of German military leaders, career civil servants, and clergy to solicit England's assistance to bring down the tyrant in 1938. When Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain refused to meet with them, they turned to Winston Churchill, who secretly supported their cause. Armed with a strongly worded letter from the future prime minister, they waited for Hitler's telephone call ordering German troops to invade Czechoslovakia―the signal for their uprising. But the call did not come. Instead, Prime Minister Chamberlain went to Hitler's apartment in Munich only to bow to the dictator's will. The invasion was over before it began―and with that, so was the coup. Flying home, Chamberlain announced he had obtained “peace for our times.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - WILLIAM MAZ WILLIAM MAZ was born in Bucharest, Romania, of Greek parents and emigrated to the U.S. as a child. He is a graduate of Harvard University, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and Yale residency. During his high school and undergraduate years, he developed a passion for writing fiction. He studied writing at Harvard, the New School, The Writer's Studio in New York City, and with Gordon Lish, and is now writing full time.  The Bucharest Dossier is his debut novel. ABOUT THE BOOK - THE BUCHAREST DOSSIER Chanticleer International Book Awards 2020 Grand Prize Winner in Global Thrillers Bill Hefflin is a man apart—apart from life, apart from his homeland, apart from love. At the start of the 1989 uprising in Romania, CIA analyst Bill Hefflin—a disillusioned Romanian expat—arrives in Bucharest at the insistence of his KGB asset, code-named Boris. As Hefflin becomes embroiled in an uprising that turns into a brutal revolution, nothing is as it seems, including the search for his childhood love, which has taken on mythical proportions. With the bloody events unfolding at blinding speed, Hefflin realizes the revolution is manipulated by outside forces, including his own CIA and Boris—the puppeteer who seems to be pulling all the strings of Hefflin's life. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR CHUCK MARTEN is a crime novelist living outside New York City. He is also a licensed physician, which is to say he has plenty of experience cleaning up other people's messes. Most of his writing results from sleep deprivation. BAD GUY LAWYER is his first novel. ABOUT THE BOOK - BAD GUY LAWYER The only time Guy McCann stops talking is when he's downing scotch. Guy was a hot-shot attorney for the West Coast mafia until he got cold feet and split town, earning a target on his head. Now he's lying low in Las Vegas, giving back-room legal advice to second-rate crooks while pining over his old girlfriend Blair, a syndicate working girl with a razor wit and zero inhibitions. When Blair is committed to a psychiatric ward, Guy is drawn back to the dangerous underworld of Los Angeles. Next thing he knows, Blair has escaped from the hospital and Guy's former mafia associates are on her trail, with Guy caught in the crossfire. Enter Dr. Happy, a mob physician dissatisfied with performing hotel room surgeries. Suspecting Blair holds a secret that might be their ticket to freedom from the syndicate, Dr. Happy forces his unsolicited assistance and callous bedside manner onto Guy. With the not-so-good doctor in tow, Guy follows Blair's demented trail of breadcrumbs through nightclubs and major league ballparks, pursued by a switchblade-happy mafioso with a penchant for disembowelment. All Guy wants is to survive long enough to find Blair, but she may not want to be found.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel for MOONLIGHT WEEPS, Vincent Zandri is the NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and AMAZON KINDLE OVERALL NO.1 bestselling author of more than 60 novels and novellas including THE REMAINS, EVERYTHING BURNS, ORCHARD GROVE, THE SHROUD KEY and THE GIRL WHO WASN'T THERE. His list of domestic publishers include Delacorte, Dell, Down & Out Books, Thomas & Mercer, Polis Books, Blackstone Audio, and Oceanview Publishing. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, his work is translated in the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, and Japanese. ABOUT THE BOOK - MOONLIGHT KILLS When Dick Moonlight PI and his professional impersonator sidekick, Fat Elvis, uncover the head of a decapitated, long blond-haired woman under the floorboards of an under-construction luxury home, they come into contact with a husband-and-wife construction team who also fancy themselves Hollywood filmmakers. Only, it turns out that the filmmakers aren't interested in making romcoms, but instead, snuff films. With Fat Elvis the perfect candidate for a starring role in their new film, Moonlight is hired by the police to go undercover and expose the snuff film operation which, it turns out, is also partly financed by Mexican drug cartel gang members. The stakes and the body count in this hard-boiled thriller are higher than a box office smash hit, and far more deadly. For fans of Joe R. Landsdale, Michael Connelly, Ace Atkins, Robert B. Parker, and more, New York Times and USA Today bestselling, award-winning author Vincent Zandri delivers another novel in the gritty, fast-paced Dick Moonlight PI series that promises to keep you up all night.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Andy Rausch has written nearly fifty books, including fiction and nonfiction. (His nonfiction appears under the name Andrew J. Rausch). His fiction titles include Layla's Score, American Trash, and Until One of Us Is Dead. ABOUT THE BOOK - HELL TO PAY (Out 3/14/2022) Dirty ex-cops Robert “Diggy” Diggs and Dwayne “Stick” Figgers have found themselves in hot water. After Kansas City drug lord Benny Cordella discovers they have wronged him, he devises an insane plan: he will force them to commit suicide. This, he believes, will send them to Hell, where they will track down Dread Corbin, the man who killed his daughter. Of course, Diggy and Stick don't believe this is possible, but they will soon discover that Hell is real. Diggy and Stick quickly find that Hell is quite different from the world they're used to. It's one giant, endless urban landscape populated by liars, cheats, and murderers—and those are the good ones. But Hell isn't the pit of fire they expected. It's dark and rainy around the clock, and almost everyone there is a member of one of many criminal organizations. Worst of all, there are no women. With the help of infamous Deadwood pimp and killer Al Swearengen, Diggy and Stick will hunt for sadistic, disfigured killer Corbin. Hell to Pay: Diggy and Stick Book One is unlike any crime novel you've ever read before. It's dark, dangerous, edgy, and laugh-out-loud hilarious. Buckle up for one hell of a ride!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Otho Eskin published his first thriller, The Reflecting Pool, to great reviews and book club interest in 2020. It was an Amazon Editors' Pick for Best Mystery, Thriller and Suspense. The Reflecting Pool follows Marko Zorn—a Washington D.C. homicide detective who has a strong ethical compass but refuses to play by the rules. The sequel, Head Shot, also featuring Marko Zorn will be released in December, 2021. Before he turned to writing fiction, Otho Eskin served in the US Army and Foreign Service in Washington and in Eastern Europe. He was Vice-Chair of the US delegation to the U.N. Conference on the Law of the Sea, negotiated on the International Space Station, was principal US negotiator of international agreements on seabed mining and was the US representative to the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. ABOUT THE BOOK - HEAD SHOT (Book 2 of the Marko Zorn series) Washington, D.C. homicide detective Marko Zorn is investigating the murder of an actress—an old love—when he is assigned to protect the visiting prime minister of Montenegro, the beautiful Nina Voychek. Political enemies are planning her assassination—this, he knows—but now it's apparent that he, too, is a target. As he foils the initial attempts on his life, he pulls out all stops—deploying his sometimes nefarious resources—to hunt whoever is targeting him and prevent an international tragedy on American soil. Decoded messages, Supermax prisoner interviews, mafia lawyers, and an ancient Black Mountain curse swirl among the icons of D.C. Marko and his young partner, Lucy, face down what may be multiple assassins with diverging agendas. Or are they facing one assassin—the deadliest and most elusive on the international stage?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Maggie Smith founded ArtSource, a leading art consulting company, but when her business was acquired in 2017, she pursued her dream to become a full-time writer. The result is her debut novel, Truth and Other Lies, which will published March 8, 2022, by Ten16 Press. In addition to writing, Maggie hosts the podcast Hear Us Roar for the Women's Fiction Writers Association, which boasts over 110 episodes and is available on Apple Podcast, Spotify, IHeartRadio, and Amazon Music. Her short story, THE DEVIL YOU KNOW, was published in the 2018 anthology False Faces and she's a monthly blogger for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. A board member of the Chicago Writer's Association, she serves as Managing Editor of their on-line literary publication The Write City Magazine. She makes her home in Milwaukee with her husband Scott and her aging but adorable dog Colt. ABOUT THE BOOK - TRUTH AND OTHER LIES (out today!) Megan Barnes' life is in free fall. After losing both her job as a reporter and her boyfriend in the same day, she retreats to Chicago and moves in with Helen, her over-protective mother. Before long, the two are clashing over everything from pro-choice to #MeToo, not to mention Helen's run for U.S. Congress, which puts Megan's career on hold until after the election. Desperate to reboot her life, Megan gets her chance when an altercation at a campus rally brings her face-to-face with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jocelyn Jones, who offers her a job on her PR team. Before long, Megan is pulled into the heady world of fame and glamour her charismatic new mentor represents.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR There is nowhere on earth Erica Ferencik won't go to take you out of your head and into the great wild world. An award-winning novelist, Ferencik writes adventure novels featuring women who brave not only internal struggles but face extreme challenges in their environment: remote forests, steaming jungles, and desolated icescapes. ABOUT THE BOOK - GIRL IN ICE Valerie “Val” Chesterfield is a linguist trained in the most esoteric of disciplines: dead Nordic languages. Despite her successful career, she leads a sheltered life and languishes in the shadow of her twin brother, Andy, an accomplished climate scientist stationed on a remote island off Greenland's barren coast. But Andy is gone: a victim of suicide, having willfully ventured unprotected into 50 degree below zero weather. Val is inconsolable—and disbelieving. She suspects foul play. When Wyatt, Andy's fellow researcher in the Arctic, discovers a scientific impossibility­—a young girl frozen in the ice who thaws out alive, speaking a language no one understands—Val is his first call. Will she travel to the frozen North to meet this girl, and try to comprehend what she is so passionately trying to communicate? Under the auspices of helping Wyatt interpret the girl's speech, Val musters every ounce of her courage and journeys to the Artic to solve the mystery of her brother's death.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kathryn Lane is the award-winning author of the Nikki Garcia Mystery Series. She draws deeply from her experiences growing up in a small town in Mexico as well as her work and travel in over ninety countries around the globe during her career in international finance with Johnson & Johnson. Kathryn loves the Arts and is a board member of the Montgomery County Literary Arts Council. Kathryn and her husband, Bob Hurt, split their time between Texas and the mountains of northern New Mexico where she finds it inspiring to write. ABOUT THE BOOK - MISSING IN MIAMI A woman is dead, a teenager is missing, and the partners of a vacation stem cell travel agency in Miami are suspects. One partner is the father of the missing girl and the other one is the husband of the murdered woman. The widower is unreachable, having taken clients on a stem cell therapy trip to the Caribbean. Nikki Garcia investigates the girl's disappearance and, in the midst of conflicting testimony from witnesses, it's impossible to distinguish victims from perpetrators. Following a trail of evidence, Nikki and Eduardo, her husband, assume undercover identities and fly to Havana, Cuba, only to find a world of deceit, betrayal, and espionage. When Eduardo locates the widower, he attempts to gather sensitive information on the missing teenager and reveals more information than he should. Nikki's colleagues in her Miami private investigator office fear the worst when communication with Nikki becomes impossible.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - FREDRICK SOUKUP Fredrick Soukup is a St. Paul-based literary fiction author and graduate of St. John's University. His debut novel, Bliss (Regal House Publishing, 2020), was a finalist for the 2021 Minnesota Book Awards and received a 2020 IPPY bronze medal in the category of Great Lakes Fiction. Soukup was recognized as a semifinalist for the 2017 American Short Fiction Prize and a finalist for the 2020 Eric Hoffer Award. ABOUT THE BOOK - BLOOD UP NORTH - Released yesterday, February 15, 2022! Sister and brother. A loyalty forged in the crucible of their tragic upbringing in the Northwoods town of Backus, Minnesota. Cass, a quiet young woman caring for the grandmother who raised them. Jack, a fugitive carrying a life-changing sum of stolen drug money. Desperate, trusting only his sister, Jack enlists her help in burying the cash in their grandmother's back acres. Cass agrees to the scheme, a decision that soon endangers not only her unassuming backwoods existence, but both of their lives. Jack returns to hiding, and Cass learns of the bounty placed on his head, as the cast of characters in their orbit—some villains, some saviors, some perhaps both—emerges. Their corrupt cop uncle and lawless cousins. Their father, a violent, conniving career criminal whom the siblings blame for their mother's unsolved murder many years ago. Claiming reformation, he pledges to ensure her and Jack's safety. Bowed by the burdens of her love for Jack, haunted by a past that seems poised to repeat itself, Cass realizes that her survival may depend on her own measure of wickedness.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - TG WOLFF TG Wolff writes thrillers and mysteries that play within the gray area between good and bad, right and wrong. Cause and effect drive the stories, drawing from 20+ years' experience in Civil Engineering, where “cause” is more often a symptom of a bigger, more challenging problem. TG Wolff holds a Master's Degree in Civil Engineering and is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.  ABOUT THE BOOK - RAZING STAKES The first day of summer is the last day of a young accountant's life. Colin McHenry is out for his regular run when an SUV crosses into his path, crushing him. Cleveland Homicide Detective Jesus De La Cruz finds the vehicle in the owner's garage, who's on vacation three time zones away. The setup is obvious, but not the hand behind it. The suspects read like a list out of a textbook:  the jilted fiancée, the jealous coworker, the overlooked subordinate, the dirty client.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - LESLIE LEHR Leslie Lehr explores the duality of today's women to navigate a new path between sexy and sacred. Salma Hayek is developing Leslie's critically acclaimed new memoir, A Boob's Life, into a comedy series for HBO Max. A prize-winning writer, Leslie's books include What A Mother Knows, a Target Recommended Read, Wife Goes On, and 66 Laps, winner of the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Prize. Her nonfiction books include Welcome to Club Mom, Club Grandma, excerpted on FisherPrice.com, and Wendy Bellissimo: Nesting, featured on Oprah. Leslie's personal essays have appeared in the New York Times Modern Love column (narrated by Katie Couric on NPR), HuffPost, Yourtango, and in anthologies including Mommy Wars, The Honeymoon's Over, and On Becoming Fearless. She wrote the original screenplays for the indie romantic thriller, Heartless, and the comedy-drama, Club Divorce. ABOUT THE BOOK - 66 LAPS: A NOVEL When a ‘friend' points out Audrey's first gray hair, she slaps her. The sound echoes, plaguing her with insecurity as she adjusts to being home with a new baby. Then her husband mentors a younger woman at work in the back lots of Hollywood - and Audrey fears the worst. Heartbroken, Audrey sets in motion a chain of events that she cannot control. She swims laps in her backyard pool, trying to make sense of her life. But all the while she is missing the point, swimming in circles. As the tragedy unfolds, she gives up all hope. Ultimately, she finds that only love endures…and dives back in.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - JACQUELYN MITCHARD Jacquelyn Mitchard is the New York Times bestselling author of 22 novels for adults and teenagers, and the recipient of Great Britain's Talkabout prize, The Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson awards, and named to the short list for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Her first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, was the inaugural selection of the Oprah Winfrey Book Club, with more than 3 million copies in print in 34 languages. It was later adapted into a major feature film starring Michelle Pfeiffer.  ABOUT THE BOOK - THE GOOD SON What do you do when the person you love best becomes unrecognizable to you? For Thea Demetriou, the answer is both simple and agonizing: you keep loving him somehow. Stefan was just seventeen when he went to prison for the drug-fueled murder of his girlfriend, Belinda. Three years later, he's released to a world that refuses to let him move on. Belinda's mother, once Thea's good friend, galvanizes the community to rally against him to protest in her daughter's memory. The media paints Stefan as a symbol of white privilege and indifferent justice. Neighbors, employers, even some members of Thea's own family turn away. Meanwhile Thea struggles to understand her son. At times, he is still the sweet boy he has always been; at others, he is a young man tormented by guilt and almost broken by his time in prison. But as his efforts to make amends meet escalating resistance and threats, Thea suspects more forces are at play than just community outrage. And if there is so much she never knew about her own son, what other secrets has she yet to uncover—especially about the night Belinda died?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR As a child, Cassie wanted superpowers and to be like Princess Leia, fighting the Empire alongside unlikely heroes. She also wanted a pet tiger. Suffice it to say, she lost herself in books, from fantasy to sci-fi to a suspenseful romance. Cassie grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, graduating with a degree in marketing, and marrying her husband, Louie. After a few years in the business world, she became a stay-at-home mom, raising her two sons, Tyler and Chase. Her passions in life are her faith and her family. And now, writing—creating worlds where adventure awaits. ABOUT THE BOOK - CHASING THE DARKNESS Pain is inescapable. Suffering is a choice. Azrael, the Angel of Death, knows pain. The deaths of his mother and sister, as well as his harsh experiences in the Watch Guard at age twelve, have brutally shaped him into the most feared assassin in all of Pandaren. Azrael's role as a Hunter requires him to search for those with magic, called Spectrals, which he is happy to do. Hunting allows him to pursue his true goal--exacting revenge on the Fire Spectral who altered the course of his life. Azrael's obsession with revenge and power leads him to undergo an experimental procedure that gives him magic, but when this procedure has unexpected and dangerous side effects, he becomes a liability to the Hunters and the Watch Guard. Rescued by the people he has sworn to eliminate, Azrael finds himself questioning everything he once believed as years of secrets and lies are exposed. His very nature is challenged as he battles unfamiliar emotions and navigates relationships that contradict the heart of a killer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Colin Conway is the creator of the 509 Crime Stories, a series of novels set in Eastern Washington with revolving lead characters. They are standalone tales and can be read in any order. He also created the Cozy Up series which pushes the envelope of the cozy genre. Libby Klein, author of the Poppy McAllister series, says Cozy Up to Death is “Not your grandma's cozy." ABOUT THE BOOK - STRAIGHT OUT OF NOWHERE Rule #3 – Leave when it's time. For a guy that lives his life by a set of written rules, former deputy Sam Strait has made a habit of casually violating one of them. He's violated it to find the killer of stranger. He's broken it to solve a friend's murder. He's constantly disregarding it for beautiful women. But whatever the cause, Sam is determined to adhere to all the rules this summer. So, when an attractive woman shows up claiming she killed her friend, Sam is hesitant to get involved. The woman doesn't remember how it happened, but the crime scene is littered with evidence proving her guilt. It should be a slam dunk case for the investigating officers. Knowing this forces Sam to reluctantly help. Because he remembers a time when he was accused of a crime and no one believed him, and he won't let this woman go through that drama alone. Strait Out of Nowhere is the third book in an exciting new series from the author of the 509 Crime Stories and the co-author of the Charlie-316 series. If you like your crime fiction with a dose of humor, then pick up this book today.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Before he turned to writing fiction, Otho Eskin served in the U.S. Army and in the United States Foreign Service in Washington and in Syria, Yugoslavia, Iceland and Berlin (then the capital of the German Democratic Republic) as a lawyer and diplomat. He was Vice-Chairman of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, participated in the negotiations on the International Space Station, was principal U.S. negotiator of several international agreements on seabed mining and was the U.S. representative to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. He speaks French, German, and Serbo-Croatian.  Otho Eskin has also written plays including: Act of God, Murder as a Fine Art, Duet, Julie, Final Analysis, Season in Hell, among others, which have been professionally produced in Washington, New York and in Europe. ABOUT THE BOOK - HEAD SHOT Washington, D.C. homicide detective Marko Zorn is investigating the murder of an actress—an old love—when he is assigned to protect the visiting prime minister of Montenegro, the beautiful Nina Voychek. Political enemies are planning her assassination—this, he knows—but now it's apparent that he, too, is a target. As he foils the initial attempts on his life, he pulls out all stops—deploying his sometimes nefarious resources—to hunt whoever is targeting him and prevent an international tragedy on American soil.