Fiction: literary and general non-genre

Book SynopsisIntrigue, mystery, vivid imagery, fascinating dialogue, and complex characters quickly draw the reader into this "subtle psychological mind-bender." One insecure perfectionist. One guilt-ridden artist. One child-woman who talks to peacocks. A trio of complex heroines on separate journeys toward a single intertwined truth. Imagine living exclusively for others and waking up one day with a chance to start over. The terrifying new beginning reeks of abandonment and betrayal. The choice for Seattle resident Monica lingers between now and then... them and her. Izabel's idyllic existence on Orcas Island is turned upside down during the birth of a friend's child. Suddenly, pain rips through her own body, and life as she knows it shifts, hinting at a forgotten past and propelling her toward an uncertain future. On another island, young Daisy awakens surrounded by infinite shades of blue. Is she dreaming or has she stepped through the portal into a fantastical land where animals spout philosophy and a gruesome monster plots her destruction?Blue—a subtle psychological mind-bender where each heroine is her own worst enemy. Eccentric. Lovable. Unforgettable.

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Book SynopsisBy one of Colombia's most acclaimed contemporary novelists, The Storm is an atmospheric, gripping portrait of the tensions that devastate one family. Twins Mario and Jose do not know how to cope with the hatred they feel for their father, an arrogant man whose pride seems to taint everything he touches. Over the course of a fateful fishing trip straight into the heart of a storm, father and sons are confronted with the unspoken secrets and resentments that are destroying them.Trade Review"There is humor in the frequent revelation of self-delusions. There is also suspense as the storm—more interpersonal than weather-related—builds and breaks. Fabulist elements, lyrical prose, and a chorus of narrative voices give this slim novel depth and breadth." — Kirkus Reviews"Self-delusion, hallucinations, anger, volatility chafe against the soothing waters and the stars above, and González, one of South America’s most acclaimed and pitch-perfect novelists, plunges you into the brutality of man and nature alike." – Kerri Arsenault, Lit Hub"In Andrea Rosenberg’s translation, the author’s stylistic traits—short and pointed phrases, poetic descriptions and poetic monologues—shine and linger in the reader’s ear...The Storm arrives as a welcome addition to the international recognition of one Colombia’s most prolific and poetic writers." – Nicolás Llano, Asymptote Journal"A complex psychological portrait of a family on the verge of self-made disaster." --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books, in Shelf AwarenessPraise for In the Beginning was the Sea (Pushkin Press, 2014): • "Gonzalez poetically and comically captures the inevitable destruction of those who live in a world of fantasy and hubris, depicting beauty and despair by turns." -- Publishers Weekly • In the Beginning Was the Sea [is] a book that simultaneously works as a political parable, a novel, and a mournful confessional... written in a fashion meant to hold up his own grief and disorientation as its own strange flower, an emotional germination meant both to stand on its own and be inseparable from all that surrounds it, an individual "you," straining to emerge from a ceaseless body of discovery, loss, memory, and their insatiable repetition." -- Los Angeles Review of Books • "The lyrical, haunting story has the feel of a fable--a young man and his beautiful wife abandon their hectic, intellectual, night-clubbing life in the city to buy a farm on an undeveloped stretch of coast--while the spare, disquieting prose suggests the start of an art-house horror film." - Daniel Levine, Words Without Borders

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Book SynopsisSet in rural Denmark in the early 20th century, A Change of Time tells the story of a schoolteacher whose husband, the town doctor, has passed away. Her subsequent diary entries form an intimate portrait of a woman rebuilding her identity, and a small rural town whose path to modernity echoes her own path to joyful independence.Trade Review“Jessen is a talented and empathetic writer (and kudos must be given to translator Aitken, whose translation is supple and luminous), and has imbued a quiet story about a woman finding herself after her husband’s death with poignancy and stunning humanity.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “An engaging, honest, and beautifully written look at love, loss, and self-realization.” —Kirkus Reviews “In A Change of Time, Ida Jessen has crafted a masterpiece of the epistolary novel told in diary entries. Each log is rich with detail ... Here, one-liners—beautifully translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken—are deeply felt.” —Bookforum “The text shines as an honest reckoning with the death of a spouse—but one in a deeply companionless marriage—and the life of two people who shared little but space ... Jessen, the Danish translator of Marilynne Robinson, among others, proves to have a keen Robinsonian streak of her own. She writes with the same narrative generosity, the same belief in the dignity and voice of characters that might usually be dismissed.” —The Millions “A Change of Time is a book of masterful restraint, and this restraint is a kind of tenderness. It is a book that understands that desire permeates everything - nothing human can be be cleansed of it; and that sometimes love clings most inextricably to the smallest places - misjudgment, invisibility, loneliness. It is a book that deepens and dignifies both our innocence and our fallibility.” —Anne Michaels, author of Fugitive Pieces “A masterful psychological portrait of an individual, who is set free into a new era, after many years of great loneliness.” —Jury of the Danish Writers Association's Blixen Award for A Change of Time “A successful portrait of a widow and her coming freedom. Ida Jessen is sensible and solid in her historical novel A Change in Time.” —Mikkel Krause Frantzen, Politiken “One rejoices at how clearly and precisely the book is written.” —Dagbladet Information “Once again, Ida Jessen has succeeded in creating a small masterpiece.” —Weekendavisen “Set in a rural Danish village in the early 20th century, A Change of Time is a beautiful, quiet and reflective novel told through the diary entries of a schoolteacher called Frau Bagge . . . The novel charts her response to [her husband's] death and her attempts to build herself a new life, find herself a new place and identity and discover meaning in life again. An exquisitely written novel.” —Radz Pandit, Rhadika's Reading Retreat

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Book Synopsis“There’s beauty to be found outdoors, but it’s not without its horrors. The conflicted role of humans in nature is a familiar theme, but few narratives hum with the surreal power of this one.”  — Kirkus ReviewsAn intensely graceful novel recounting scenes of the Norwegian countryside from one of Norway's most beloved 20th-century writersTarjei Vesaas’s final work, The Hills Reply, is a flow of intensely lyrical autobiographical scenes. The vivid beauty of the wilds of Norway grounds the narrator’s interior flashes.The first sketch finds a boy, his father, and their packhorse clearing a logging road buried in snow as their surroundings give way to a crisis. Profound insights into human behavior, solitude, and nonverbal communication stand up to the power and immensity of the natural world. The land speaks to (and at times almost swallows) the central character, as he is pushed to the edge of what a body and mind can endure.The hypnotic pulse of Vesaas’s prose blurs the line between memory and hallucination, as it stares bravely into the unblinking eye of Nature. An unforgettable book, The Hills Reply is a visceral salute to the human spirit, to the ecstasy of wilderness, and to their tender overlapping.

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Book SynopsisA remembrance of love in a time of war. 92-year-old Henry Budge defies most of his family by escaping a rehab hospital to make his way to France for the ceremonies of the 70th observance of D-Day. Before he dies, he hopes to at last address a grief he has allowed to simmer for decades and to rekindle memories of Élodie Bedier, the French Resistance fighter with whom he fell in love 70 years earlier, as a way of confronting his grief at losing her. During his return journey, he relives events of 1944: being wounded as he parachutes into Normandy; falling in love with Élodie who nurses him back to health; fighting the Germans alongside her and her resistance companions; and finally abandoning the war to rescue a group of children from the Holocaust, choices that leave Henry at risk of a firing squad for desertion and Élodie vulnerable to fatal condemnation from her compatriots. When he arrives back in France, Henry makes several shocking discoveries that shake the very foundations of the memories he's had of Élodie all these years and he is left to wonder about the love he has had for Élodie: what rests on true memory vs. what is based on countless imagined conversations over the decades?Trade Review"In this beautifully told story of war, heartache, and love, the tale of Henry Budge shines It will bring both tears and laughter and will have readers hoping Henry is able to find what he is looking for." Elizabeth Creel, The US Review of Books"Gautreau's haunting images of the simultaneous shining of moonlight on the different theaters of the war and the 'reflection from the dark side' are awe-inspiring." WAHEED RABBANI, Historial Novel Society"This book is beautifully written, and has a story to tell... The Light from the Dark Side of the Moon is a must read. I trudged with Henry and Elodie up a mountain and down the other side. You can too. Worth every moment." Mary Ann Smyth, http://www.bookloons.com

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Book SynopsisA great war, a great love, and the mythology that unites them; The Hawkman: A Fairy Tale of the Great War is a lyrical adaptation of a beloved classic.Set against the shattering events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, at the tale's heart are an American schoolteacher—dynamic and imaginative—and an Irish musician, homeless and hated—who have survived bloodshed, poverty, and sickness to be thrown together in an English village. Together they quietly hide from the world in a small cottage. Too soon, reality shatters their serenity, and they must face the parochial community. Unbeknownst to all, a legend is in the making—one that will speak of courage and resilience amidst the forces that brought the couple together even as outside forces threaten to tear them apart. Trade ReviewNominated for the Montaigne Medal from the Eric Hoffer Award http://www.hofferaward.com/Montaigne-Medal-finalists.html

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Book SynopsisA very unusual family saga written with unusual intelligence and compassion. Erica Witsell has a gift for depicting complex relationships. - Phyllis Rose, author of Parallel Lives, The Year of Reading Proust, and The Shelf Every summer, Jessie and Emma leave their suburban home in the Central Valley and fly north to Baymont. Nestled among Mendocino's golden hills, with ponies to love and endless acres to explore, Baymont should be a child's paradise. But Baymont belongs to Laurel, the girls' birth mother, whose heedless parenting and tainted judgement cast a long shadow over the sisters' summers---and their lives. Caught in a web of allegiances, the girls learn again and again that every loyalty has its price, and that even forgiveness can take unexpected turns. Luminous and poignant, Give is the story of one family's troubled quest to redeem the mistakes of the past and a stirring testament to the bonds of sisterhood. This is a gripping narrative about family, identity, and loyalty . . . Beautifully written! - Kate Rademacher, author of Following the Red Bird At times subtle and at times cutting to the quick Give digs deep into the heart and soul of a family as connected as it is torn apart. Give pulls no punches, delivering an honest look into the lengths we will go for family. - Amy Willoughby-Burle, author of The Lemonade YearTrade Review"I met Erica at a conference and after hearing her speak, I couldn't wait to read her bookI was not disappointed. Jessie and Emma are the product of a broken marriage between Len and Laurel." Andrea, reviewer at Fountain Bookstore, Richmond, VA"Erica is a superb story teller, and her book deserves to be read by as many book lovers as possible." Jon Mayes, book blogger, https://advancereadingcopy-jon.blogspot.com/2019/05/erica-witsells-give.html"In its earnest, unrestrained exploration of sisterhood, Give is a groundbreaking approach to the timeless themes of loss, love, and loyalty." Wesleyan University NewsletterA very unusual family saga written with unusual intelligence and compassion. Erica Witsell has a gift for depicting complex relationships. -- Phyllis Rose, author of Parallel Lives, The Year of Reading Proust, and The ShelfThis is a gripping narrative about family, identity, and loyalty... Beautifully written! -- Kate Rademacher, author of Following the Red BirdAt times subtle and at times cutting to the quick Give digs deep into the heart and soul of a family as connected as it is torn apart. Give pulls no punches, delivering an honest look into the lengths we will go for family. -- Amy Willoughby-Burle, author of The Lemonade Year

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Book SynopsisWall Street Journal - "Mr. Epperson, a veteran screenwriter as well as a novelist, keeps readers guessing until the very last."Roberto, a young left-wing South American journalist, receives an ominous phone call: leave the country in ten days, or die. Roberto is being targeted because of a series of articles he’s written exposing government corruption and violence at the highest levels. Roberto believes the voice on the other end of the phone and has every intention of leaving, as soon as he follows a lead on a major story developing in the jungle: thousands of innocent lives are at stake. The book follows him on his perilous journey into the heart of darkness in pursuit of his story. Unknowingly, Roberto is headed toward a confrontation with an evil darker than he could possibly have imagined.Trade Review"A South American journalist makes his way into the deepest heart of darkness - Epperson immerses readers in a dense jungle seething with treacherous flora and fauna and murderous men, punctuating terror with startling moments of beauty." -- Publisher's Weekly"Roberto to the Dark Tower Came works as a thriller, for sure, but also a wider conversation piece about very real dangers and perils in the world today.This is a novel with a rounded-out character who we grow to know and care about, and a novel where atmosphere is important.Roberto the Dark Tower Came could form the basis of an entire section of a modern novel or current issues in literature course.Well done." -- Reading & Literature Resources"Epperson's graphic depiction of the unmitigated brutality of the militias in the jungle is heart-stopping. While readers can't help admiring Roberto's investigative persistence, they will probably be shouting, 'Get out before the ten days are up!' VERDICT This page-turning novel, which proceeds to tell the story of Roberto's life day by day, will be enjoyed by readers who like their fiction dark." -- Andrea Kempf, Library Journal"(4 stars)Haunting and tense,Roberto to the Dark Tower Cameis an unexpected thriller at every turn. Full of mystery, suspense and even a bit of romance, Tom Epperson has managed to craft a fast-paced political thriller, full of twists, turns, and a very unexpected ending . . . From start to finish,Roberto to the Dark Tower Camewas difficult to put down and remarkable to digest." -- Melissa Ratcliff, Paperback Paris

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Book SynopsisFrom Seb Doubinsky, author of The Song of Synth, The Babylonian Trilogy, White City, Absinth, Omega Gray and Suan Ming, comes his highly anticipated next installment in the City-States Cycle.Missing Signal—a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a government conspiracy? Agent Terrence Kovacs has worked for the New Petersburg Counter-Intel Department propagating fake UFO stories for so long that even he has a hard time separating fact from fiction. Especially when he’s approached by a beautiful woman named Vita, who claims she’s been sent from another planet to liberate Earth.Trade ReviewBeneath the entertaining wrapper of science fiction, Missing Signal is a masterfully written work, both provocative and rewarding. -- Susan Waggoner -- Foreword Reviews"Crisp chapters cartwheel you in an incredible odyssey that gets wilder and weirder as it possesses you . . . Something about the novel abolishes distraction. Once you open the book, you are committed. No hard work, just a heart-thud moment, electricity, and you're hooked. In its tiny chapters pulsing with voltage, the narrative leaves nothing short. The reading is like a golden egg hunt, literary gifts tucked away in findable nests." -- Eugen Bacon -- Breach Magazine"Seb Doubinsky's always beena critique of modern politics and the tyrannical fallacies of consumerism.Missing Signalis another addition to that nuanced, but powerful legacy as it's a novel about being told what to do and who to believe, which doesn't lead to any satisfying answers if you don't proactively choose your own path through a maze of make believes and misinformation." -- Benoit Lelievre -- Dead End Follies(5 stars) "I'm delighted to have discovered an exciting new voice in Seb Doubinsky's unusual novella. This is not a traditional sci-fi story but is one which offers a disturbing glimpse into a dystopian city-state future which reflects, albeit in an exaggerated way, so much of all that is disturbing in our 21st century world. -- Linda Hepworth -- Nudge-Book MagazineThe tense, sparse prose of this novella-which explicitly names its inspirations in the aesthetics of Michelangelo Antonionia's 'beautiful emptiness,' William S. Burrough's theories, and the porn and B-movies of the 1960s and '70s, as well as the tropes of alien encounters in early SF matches its strong themes of loneliness, paranoia, and the search for identity in a world of deception. -- Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisIn ten provocative stories, Ethan Chatagnier presents us with characters in crisis, people grappling with their own and others’ darkness as they search for glimmers to carry them through difficult times, untenable tasks, uncertain futures. The collection explores with unflinching eloquence the quandaries of conscience posed by the present, but also plunges us into a startlingly prescient “what if?” world, exploring in both realms questions concerning the value of perseverance, art, hope, and heart.

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Book SynopsisIn 1844, Horace Wells, a Connecticut dentist, encountered nitrous oxide, or laughing gas—then an entertainment for performers in carnival-like theatrical acts—and began administering the gas as the first true anesthetic. His discovery would change the world, reshaping medicine and humanity’s relationship with pain. But that discovery would also thrust Wells into scandals that threatened his reputation, his family, and his sanity—hardships and triumphs that resonate in today’s struggles with what hurts us and what we take to stop the hurt. In this novel, Michael Downs mines the gaps in the historical record and imagines the motivations and mysteries behind Wells’s morbid fascination with pain, as well as the price he and his wife, Elizabeth, paid—first through his obsession, then his addiction. The book is a love story, but also a story of what love can’t redeem; of narcotic dreams and waking insanity; of humbug and miracle; of pain’s destruction and what pains can never be eased. Following Wells throughout New England and across the ocean to Paris, the novel immerses the reader in the nineteenth century, conveying through rich physical description and telling dialogue the tragic life of a dentist who gave everything to rid the world of suffering.

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Book SynopsisWhile treating Robert Percy, a burly factory worker, psychologist David Malden unlocks not only his patient’s memories of childhood abuse but also an upwelling violence. When Percy abruptly departs Buffalo for rural Michigan, where he grew up in a series of foster homes, Malden fears that his patient seeks revenge. Concerned with his liability under Duty to Warn laws, Malden sets out after the troubled young man using the only guide he has, his treatment notes—a list of people and places that may or may not exist, especially after twenty years. To aid him in the chase, Malden calls on his colleague, the awkward, remote, intimidatingly tall Sonja Nielsen. She reluctantly agrees to help, either because of or despite her previous entanglements with Malden. Told from the perspectives of these three characters, the story swerves and jolts and switches back, much like Percy’s recollections of his upbringing. Kersting presents the interior struggles of her characters in a searingly spare style, all the while drawing the reader through an escalating series of events as Percy hitches rides and takes buses, searching the small towns of central Michigan, alternately helped and hindered by both old and new acquaintances. While following disparate leads toward Percy’s final, surprising destination, all three conflicted souls are compelled to examine their loyalties, test their convictions, admit their frailties, and confront the ghosts lurking in their pasts, resulting in a revelatory climax.

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Book SynopsisFor the fifth year in a row, Running Wild Press brings together fantastic stories from well-established to up-and-coming authors to bring you the best cross genre stories that don't fit neatly in a box. This collection is comprised of 39 stories that arrived at Running Wild Press from all over the world from Hawaii to India, from Indiana to Scotland, and represents an eclectic gathering of storytelling talent. With twists and turns, these stories will take you through shared - and unshared - experiences of human endeavors, possibilities, impossibilities, and imagination.Trade Review"Running Wild Press curates an incredibly wonderful collection of new and experienced voices, innovative storytelling, and diversity ... and in doing so digs real gold from today's literary landscape. Brava!" -- Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author of Glimpse and V-Wars

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Book SynopsisMing, born in a bleak outpost of Sichuan province, finds an unexpected glimpse of the world beyond when she meets a talking monkey with golden eyes and supernatural abilities—the immortal Monkey King, with whom Ming’s destiny is inextricably intertwined. Determined to become a writer, Ming finds her way to New York, but to make ends meet she goes to work for a crime ring and returns to China on the lam. Hope arrives in the form of her American friend Zoe. Together, they travel to the village of Ming’s birth, where the clouds writhe like phantoms and the rain never stops, where Ming and Zoe join forces with a certain down-and-out immortal who has an ambitious plan to save the world from capitalism run amok. When a nation of tycoons and financiers suddenly and inexplicably decide that the key to happiness lies in sharing one’s wealth and pursuing a contemplative life, nobody suspects the newly formed tech company run by Ming, Zoe, and William Sun. Hyper-capitalist China rapidly becomes a paradise for artists, thinkers, and lovers—a rollicking playground where the air is clean and the strangest words you can hear are, “I can’t afford it!” But it’s a short-lived Xanadu once human nature begins to intervene. In Ms. Ming’s Guide to Civilization, as in life and politics, every action provokes an equal and opposite reaction.Trade Review"Ming and Zoe and the whole cast of secondary characters jump off the page a vibrant engagement in their world." Beth Neff, author of Getting Somewhere and founder of Sparklit Media" Ms. Ming's Guide to Civilization is as much a searing indictment of top-down, socially engineered living as it is of bottom-up, laissez-faire living, with a healthy dose of human realism. It challenges our notions of linear time, monogamy, and balance. But throughout, even to the twisting end, our heroine holds out hope. Hope that there is a path to a better life, for herself, for her friends and family, and for the broader society--a dream she can never abandon." Andrew Singer, Book Reviewer

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Book SynopsisArtfully explores themes of pain, desire, and the meeting place of the two, for a surreal, fairytale-esque accounting of what happens when we go to the darkest places within ourselves, and within others.” —NYLONPart fairy tale, part horror story, Northwood is a genre-breaking novella told in short, brilliant, beautifully strange passages. The narrator, a young woman, has fled to the forest to pursue her artwork in isolation. While there, she falls in love with a married man she meets at a country dance. The man is violent, their affair even more so. As she struggles to free herself, she questions the difference between desire and obsession—and the brutal nature of intimacy. Packaged with a cover and end papers by famed English artist Rufus Newell and inventive, white-on-black text treatments by award-winning designer Jonathan Yamakami, Northwood is a work of art as well as a literary marvel.

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Book SynopsisA surgeon must bring a dead family back to life in this fabulist debut novel set in rural India, called “otherworldly” and “a haunting contemplation of life, death, the liminal space in between, and the dogged search for resurrection” (Kirkus Reviews, starred).Fleeing scandal in the city, a surgeon accepts a job at a village clinic. He buys antibiotics out of pocket, squashes roaches, and chafes at the interventions of the corrupt officer who oversees his work.But his outlook on life changes one night when a teacher, his pregnant wife, and their young son appear. Killed in a violent robbery, they tell the surgeon that they have been offered a second chance at living if the surgeon can mend their wounds before sunrise.So begins a night of quiet work, “as if the crickets had been bribed,” during which the surgeon realizes his future is tied more closely to that of the dead family than he could have imagined. By dawn, he and his assistant have gained knowledge no mortal should have.In this inventive novel charged with philosophical gravity and sly humor, Vikram Paralkar takes on the practice of medicine in a time when the right to health care is frequently challenged. Engaging earthly injustice and imaginaries of the afterlife, he asks how we might navigate corrupt institutions to find a moral center. Encompassing social criticism and magically unreal drama, Night Theater is a first novel as satisfying for its existential inquiry as for its enthralling story of a skeptical physician who arrives at a greater understanding of life's miracles.

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Book SynopsisThis fiercely original debut novel follows four Nigerian siblings over the course of two decades as they search for agency, love, and meaning in a society rife with hypocrisy. “. . . lush, sharp, and shot through with hope! —Well-Read Black Girl I like the idea of a god who knows what it’s like to be a twin. To have no memory of ever being alone. Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife, and the family, facing poverty, becomes drawn into the New Church, an institution led by a charismatic pastor who is not shy about worshipping earthly wealth. Soon Bibike and Ariyike’s father wagers the family home on a “sure bet” that evaporates like smoke. As their parents’ marriage collapses in the aftermath of this gamble, the twin sisters and their two younger siblings, Andrew and Peter, are thrust into the reluctant care of their traditional Yoruba grandmother. Inseparable while they had their parents to care for them, the twins’ paths diverge once the household shatters. Each girl is left to locate, guard, and hone her own fragile source of power. Written with astonishing intimacy and wry attention to the fickleness of fate, Tola Rotimi Abraham’s Black Sunday takes us into the chaotic heart of family life, tracing a line from the euphoria of kinship to the devastation of estrangement. In the process, it joyfully tells a tale of grace and connection in the midst of daily oppression and the constant incursions of an unremitting patriarchy. This is a novel about two young women slowly finding, over twenty years, in a place rife with hypocrisy but also endless life and love, their own distinct methods of resistance and paths to independence.

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Book SynopsisA NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE * A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEARAn invigorating work, deadly precise in its skewering of people, places and things . . . Stylish, despairing and very funny, Fake Accounts . . . adroitly maps the dwindling gap between the individual and the world. —Katie Kitamura, The New York Times Book ReviewA woman in a tailspin discovers that her boyfriend is an anonymous online conspiracy theorist in this “absolutely brilliant take on the bizarre and despicable ways the internet has warped our perception of reality” (Elle, One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Year).On the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, a young woman snoops through her boyfriend's phone and makes a startling discovery: he's an anonymous internet conspiracy theorist, and a popular one at that. Already fluent in internet fakery, irony, and outrage, she's not exactly shocked by the revelation. Actually, she's relieved--he was always a little distant--and she plots to end their floundering relationship while on a trip to the Women's March in DC. But this is only the first in a series of bizarre twists that expose a world whose truths are shaped by online lies.Suddenly left with no reason to stay in New York and increasingly alienated from her friends and colleagues, our unnamed narrator flees to Berlin, embarking on her own cycles of manipulation in the deceptive spaces of her daily life, from dating apps to expat meetups, open-plan offices to bureaucratic waiting rooms. She begins to think she can't trust anyone--shouldn't the feeling be mutual?Narrated with seductive confidence and subversive wit, Fake Accounts challenges the way current conversations about the self and community, delusions and gaslighting, and fiction and reality play out in the internet age.

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Book SynopsisWhen a handsome and mysterious stranger arrives in Crooked River, the town is consumed by rumors. Although a deeply private young man, Dieter befriends everyone from deckhands to shopkeepers. On the rebound from a disastrous relationship, the charming but hesitant Maggie Paterson falls in love. Teddy Mink, the town's notorious, paranoid drug lord, convinced that Dieter's a narc, formulates a plan to silence him. Maggie's recently estranged ex, who moonlights as a drug runner for Teddy, jealously agrees that Dieter must be handled – no matter the cost. From the moonlit beaches of Quintana Roo to the waterfront docks of Crooked River, Florida, Fever Tree is a beautifully written story that charts the surprising journey of a deeply troubled young man zealously guarding the secrets of his past. Trade Review"Tim Applegate manages to charm, frighten, arouse and thoroughly entertain us with this crime and romance crossed novel. I love the way innocence, naivetr, maturity and blood-soaked guilt are both seriously and playfully portrayed through compelling dialogue and vivid imagery. This is a wonderful summer read." -Henry Hughes, Winner of the Oregon Book Award - - Henry Hughes"Fever Tree features strong, unique characters who face difficult challenges, and Dieter's story is sure to resonate with those who appreciate narrative depth. Misunderstandings, crime, and love all add to this story of self-discovery." - Foreword Reviews - - Foreword Reviews

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Book SynopsisChance is a hitman with hippie roots and deep emotional wounds, disillusioned by life and stung by love—and his next target is the woman who rejected him. But taking on such a job is not without complications. As he closes in on his victim, Chance struggles to rediscover the competitive edge that normally makes him so deadly. Faye Lindstrom escaped a life of captivity and addiction in Quintana Roo, but she can't flee the woman she has become. For now, she holes up in a house in Crooked River owned by an old friend, the reclusive novelist William Dieter. But that safe haven will only last until the end of the summer, assuming that the violence in her past doesn't catch up to her first.For lovers of Southern noir, Flamingo Lane is a gritty cat-and-mouse pursuit that launches from an island off the Yucatan Peninsula through the cornfields of Indiana to a small town on the Florida panhandle. A standalone sequel, Flamingo Lane ventures even further into the haunted territories of revenge and redemption first chronicled in Fever Tree.Trade ReviewFeatured in list "Books to Read If You Like Murder Mystery" in Deythere, African men's magazine https://deythere.com/books-to-read-if-you-like-murder-mystery/Live reading with poet Pepper Trail The Jefferson Exchange , Jefferson Public Radio, https://www.ijpr.org/post/applegate-trail-poetry

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Book SynopsisWhen Transom Shultz goes missing shortly after returning to his tightly knit hometown of Fallen Mountains, Pennsylvania, his secrets are not the only ones that threaten to emerge. Something terrible happened seventeen years ago. Red, the sheriff, is haunted by it. Possum, the victim of that crime, wants revenge. Chase, a former friend of Transom's, is devastated by his treacherous land dealings. And Laney worries her one thoughtless mistake with Transom could shatter everything she's built. As the search for Transom heats up and the inhabitants' dark and tangled histories unfold, each must decide whether to live under the brutal weight of the past or try to move beyond it. In Fallen Mountains , even loyalty, love, trust, and family can trap you on a path of tragedy.Trade Review"Reminiscent of the best Appalachian writers . . . [Grant] wields her sense of place like an extra character." Matt Coleman, Book RiotFeatured in March Recommended Reads list Women Writers, Women's Books, http://booksbywomen.org/"Its primary concernwhether it's ever conscionable to put family before civic dutybelongs to any era... Ingeniously plotted to the end." Nell Beram, Shelf AwarenessEssay on writing, family, and motherhood, "Life By The Book" Women Writers, Women's Books, http://booksbywomen.orgFeatured in Novel Suspects's list "The Best New Crime Fiction: March 2019" Novel Suspects, https://www.novelsuspects.com/

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