Search results for ""Blackwater Press""

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Book Synopsis"A novel full of grace, humour and loss." --Elizabeth Reeder " A mastery of spare -- yet sweeping -- storytelling." --Anne Pettigrew "Fabulous writing, intriguing story." --Emma Fraser A sensational debut set in in the turbulent landscape of Argentina in the mid-twentieth century. For years, the best that young girls from the backwater village of Alta Gracia could hope for was a position in the Big House, home of the immensely powerful and politically influential Goyena family. So, when Senorita Delia Lugghi - enigmatic teacher and devout Peronist - arrives from Buenos Aires to found a state school in the village, the future of Milagros Riquelme suddenly seems to be full of possibilities. But change rarely does come easily. Inspired by true events, this story charts a life of tragedy, love, and missed opportunity, as Milagros goes from girlhood to old age, all the while being forced to navigate an oppressive regime during Argentina's Dirty War.Trade ReviewPraise for The Stone Maidens: "This is history as lived by mere humans, each with their foibles and distractions and heartbreak... The result is an intimate, bittersweet journey." – Historical Novel Society; "Kolovou has written a novel full of grace, humour and loss. In THE STONE MAIDENS the political is personal, the personal is historic, and the storytelling moves with ease...a beautiful book."--Elizabeth Reeder; "Starting quietly as a coming of age tale in rural Patagonia, over six decades THE STONE MAIDENS builds towards shocking events in Argentina's Dirty War. It is a mastery of spare -- yet sweeping -- storytelling. This will remain with you."--Anne Pettigrew; "Fabulous writing, intriguing story." --Emma Fraser, author of When the Dawn Breaks and Greyfriars House

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Book SynopsisLife in the town of LV runs placidly and smoothly, regulated by an unspoken, but very much omnipresent System. When Monica and her daughter move into the house known as the Hovel, everyone is ready to welcome them - until it becomes apparent that they do not, and will not, blend into the well-oiled scheme. A crescendo of unrest pervades the town dragging everyone into its tidal wave, with consequences reverberating in unexpected ways. Will things ever be the same again? This novella speaks about the fear of the unknown, of the foreign 'other', and of life in the quaint suburbs of a town very much culturally embedded in the Western world.Trade Review- With style and elan, Milagros Lasarte explores middle-class social mores in this delicious - and deliciously wicked - debut novella. It is not without compassion, however. This, coupled with Lasarte's defining leftfield sensibility, renders the familiar yet strange organism of LV irresistible. Enormously satisfying ... this is a tale that will blossom in the imagination long after it is set down. Jane McKie, author of Carnation Lily Lily Rose ; The cultural microcosm of the typical neighborhood is the perfect setting for Symbiosis, with a deliciously uncomfortable gander into the human tendency to create an Us v. Them mentality in everyday life. Debut author Milagros Lasarte nails this engrossing contemplation of societal norms with a thought-provoking twist at the end that I'm still thinking about days later. An entertaining must read from an author who is sure to be your new favorite. Leanne Kale Sparks, award-winning author of the Kendall Beck series ; Milagros Lasarte's fascinating debut novel is an insightful - and incisive - study on the synergies between individuals and groups, between social stasis and change. Partly allegory, partly suburban gothic, this novel examines the forces that bring together humans and their environment, creating an uneasy and tense atmosphere, where trivial or minor daily gestures or decisions threaten to unleash chaos at every turn. This is done with an assured, light-handed, and slightly ironic touch that make the novel an absolute pleasure to read. Ioulia Kolovou, author of The Stone MaidensTable of ContentsPREAMBLE The System 1 PART ONE The Rise of The Hovel 5 PART TWO A Shifting of Energies 37 PART THREE The Rules of the Game 101

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Book SynopsisA young maid at an upscale resort hides her banjo-playing freight hopper brother. An unlikely romance bridges a quarter-century age gap and a 150-year-old murder. A man tries to turn his sheltered mother's backyard shed into a pricey vacation rental. A gig worker must shake off her darker identity to become a professional baby namer. This mesmeric debut collection of stories set in the Appallachian mountains weaves together the curious and the sublime, with Bianchi's lyrical style cutting straight to the heart of the matter. A debut from one of America's most exciting new talents.Trade ReviewPraise for The Ballad of Cherrystoke: NYC Big Book Award Distinguished Favourite. SPD Bestseller. "Melanie McGee Bianchi writes with graciousness for the reader: it feels like she's invited you on her porch to tell you these stories because you need to hear them. She also shows graciousness for her characters, allowing them the full spectrum of humanity no matter what space they occupy in the world." --Steven Dunn, author of Potted Meat; "Yuri in "Abdiel's Revenge" says: 'If there's a main idea in all those ballads, in all of Appalachia, to my mind, it comes down to this: bones in the river.' The Ballad of Cherrystoke is a collection about Appalachian people (not characters, not stereotypes) with secrets and trust issues, brain injuries, prison records, shitty jobs, broken hearts, urges and needs and fears - but Bianchi is observant and wise, kind but unflinching, an archaeologist; she listens, and excavates, and through rich and luxuriously meandering prose pulls those bones up onto the bank for us to touch, and taste, and feel. This is the best debut collection I've read in years. Melanie McGee Bianchi is sharp, and tender, and brilliant." --Meagan Lucas, author of the award-winning novel Songbirds and Stray Dogs and Editor-in-Chief of Reckon Review; "The narrators in this collection shrug off their wounds to observe and report their fascinating stories. With language as striking and surprising as it is beautiful, Bianchi adds a new and unique voice to Appalachian literature." --Heather Newton, author of McMullen Circle';"Brilliantly weaving together original narratives with elements of the real Appalachian mountains and their people, these stories reveal startling details that create immediate, visceral impressions of complex, haunting characters: their secrets, their fears, and their anguish... Like the mountains they inhabit, these characters are a mercurial parade of stunning beauty and terrible pain."--Elizabeth Baird Hardy, author of Milton, Spenser, and the Chronicles of Narnia: Literary Sources for the C.S. Lewis Novels; "The complex, the quirky, and the sublime are interwoven with humor, love, and above all, grace, in contributing to a tradition of powerful storytelling. The landscape is steeped in the voices of the people."--Tony Robles, author of Cool Don't Live Here No More - A Letter to San Francisco and Fingerprints of a Hunger Strike; "Bianchi has created worlds that seem simultaneously magical and rooted in the grit of rural reality - a vexing combination that dares the reader at every turn. Her rich characters grow within us in uncomfortable and compelling ways that force the next page turn."--Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, author of Even As We Breathe; "The characters in Melanie McGee Bianchi's debut collection, The Ballad of Cherrystoke - gritty, determined, shrewd - are modern balladeers, narrating remarkable stories set in the Appalachian South. Beautifully unusual, told in penetrating, straightforward prose, these stories reveal genuine, universal truths, affecting and unforgettable."--Susan Beckham Zurenda, award-winning author of Bells for Eli; "Through deep lyricism and a sharp eye for detail, Melanie McGee Bianchi' sstories peel back the quotidian moments of everyday life to demonstrate the complexity of what it means to live in a world crafted by both our desires and our choices - and what it means when those two elements don't always coincide. The Ballad of Cherrystoke is a powerful collection that uncovers the music of humanity that emerges each time a person interacts with another person in a complicated and changing world. It's an extraordinary and haunting debut."--Adam Clay, director, Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi; author of To Make Room for the Sea, Stranger, and A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World; editor of Mississippi Review, co-editor of Typo Magazine, and contributing editor for Kenyon ReviewTable of ContentsThe Ballad of Cherrystoke; Abdiel's Revenge; It's Called Overwintering; A Day on Saturn; Bad Tooth Brandon; Confederate Jasmine; Blight + Cotillion; The Miracle of Flight; Nicki the Namer; Killing Frost; Antique Power Association;

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Book SynopsisA remarkable debut novel telling the story of Angus MacKay's (1812-1859) turbulent life. MacKay of Raasay is a legendary figure in the history of Scottish music, with his work still celebrated 160 years after his death. The sensational tale of the man himself, however, has been neglected until now. From humble beginnings on the Isle of Raasay, MacKay reflects on his rise through nineteenth-century society, gaining nationwide renown and becoming the first piper to the Sovereign. Yet, despite his fame and musical accomplishments, something is amiss. Why is MacKay writing his journal from the notorious Bedlam hospital? And why has he been dismissed from Her Majesty's service? MacDonald has written a debut for all fans of historical fiction.Trade ReviewPraise for I Piped, That She Might Dance: "Revealing, sensitively written and eminently readable. It is an imagined autobiography of Angus MacKay, piper to Queen Victoria, but it is well-informed and thoroughly researched and convincing. Besides piping, it provides insights into the social life of the time, from croft to palace, as well as into the treatment of mental illness. Iain MacDonald is to be warmly congratulated."--John Purser, author of Scotland's Music; "A sympathetic view of a driven and complex man ... Above all, a tale told with verve, flair, a fine eye for detail, and a sensitive depiction of the ultimate tragedy of the central character."-- James Beaton, former librarian at the National Piping Centre; "I loved this book ... It empathetically captures the triumphs and tribulations of MacKay's life --from Raasay croft, via Balmoral and Buckingham Palace, and ultimately to the asylum. It is true to the facts, deeply researched and easy to read. Victorian life is described with pathos, humour and colour. MacKay might have written this himself." -- Jack Taylor, former president of the Piobaireachd Society;"MacDonald has fleshed out the narrative of arguably the most interesting man in piping history, and certainly the most influential piper to date."--Nick Hudson, pipesdrums;"Here we have a work of fiction, but based on true facts. The author himself says that the reader may struggle to work out 'where fact ends and fiction begins', but when you come to think about it, grace-notes and embellishments are so much a part of the piper's world that it seems almost appropriate that MacKay's story should be presented in this way. It's an enjoyable and evocative read, and the author's affection for both his subject and the Highlands is indisputable. Unlike a book of straight fiction, this one comes with an admirable bibliography of primary and secondary sources, and a useful Gaelic glossary for the odd phrases peppered through the text."--Karen McAulay, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland;"This book sheds new light on a well known, poorly understood, piper of national and international significance. Iain Macdonald presents a sympathetic, almost intuitive, account of Mackay, Piper to the Sovereign, recreating a voice silenced by mental illness. The reader moves from Mackay's early days in Raasay, through the deterioration of his reason, to his final hours in Dumfriesshire. Macdonald adeptly combines primary source materials, including patient records, with sections of dialogue and description to create an engaging, illuminating account of interest to anyone fascinated by piping culture or, more generally, nineteenth century Scottish cultural interactions. It well researched, beautifully imagined, and empathetic."--Valentina Bold, editor of Robert Burns' Merry Muses of Caledonia

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Book SynopsisGustav and Alma Mahler in New York City in 1907: He had been invited to lead the Metropolitan opera; his glamorous wife accompanied him to the New World. Nineteen years his junior, Alma was Gustav's constant companion, occasional soulmate, sometimes his muse, always his caretaker: a woman otherwise restless and unfulfilled. Her husband's life was intensely interior, sporadically alert to others' needs and desires. His energy and idealism were aroused by new surroundings, but fitfully. He remained a chronic outsider, with Alma bearing much of the brunt amid their turbulent New York surroundings. A stunning debut novel from renowned cultural historian Joseph Horowitz.Trade ReviewPraise for The Marriage: "Horowitz is a master of passionate scholarship. His deep historical knowledge blends with his narrative imagination to bring to life the very air his characters breathed." --Antonio Munoz Molina, winner of the Jerusalem Prize; "Joe Horowitz's The Marriage portrays Mahler with more power and poignancy than anyone else ever has." --JoAnn Falletta, music director, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; "Where biographers and other musicologists have struggled, Joseph Horowitz succeeds brilliantly in revealing the inner Gustav Mahler in this powerful and moving novel." --Richard Aldous, author of Tunes of Glory: The Life of Malcolm Sargent; "If we want to get closer to the "truth" of Mahler and his music, if we hope to improve our understanding of the person and his creations, we need to acknowledge the role our imagination must play in the learning process. In the case of Mahler, the essential facts have long been known. What we need now are fresh attempts to conceive what further truths they might contain. Joseph Horowitz's brilliant novel reveals much to us about who Mahler was, what he accomplished, and how he related to his world. Readers will be as eager to study it as they would any biography, and they can expect to learn as much."-- Charles Yuma's, Professor of Musicology, Penn State University; "Persuasive and fair. It is refreshing to see this chapter of Gustav Mahler's biography from an American perspective, written by someone not automatically biased in favor of Europe." --Karol Berger, author of Beyond Reason: Wagner contra Nietzsche; Osqood Hooker Professor in Fine Arts, Stanford University

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Book SynopsisA period piece memoir depicting the life of Richard Robison, who as a boy moved from town to town, swept along by his parents’ quest for the American Dream. Beautifully told, humorous, sometimes dark – this memoir deals with forgiveness, empathy, music, and pain. The story begins with Robison’s entry into fourth grade at a Rochester, New York city school where he finds himself, once again, the new kid in his class – his fourth school in four years. There he meets Matthias, a German American boy whose father was an American G.I. who helped liberate the Mauthausen concentration camp at the end of World War II. Another classmate and neighbor, a Jewish girl, Hannah, befriends him and introduces him to her family and culture. The unlikely alliance of Robison, Matthias, and Hannah grows through the school year until Robison is once again uprooted, this time to Buffalo, pulled in the slipstream of his father’s dream of a better life: money, status, a family well provided for. By tenth grade – several moves and new schools later – Robison is floundering from a life of discontinuity and disconnection from friends, classmates, teammates, and ultimately even his parents. His father’s ambition and drive lead down a path of alcoholism, violence, and resultant family secrecy. His mother’s inability to protect him and extricate herself from a dream gone bad adds another layer of damage to an already lost boy. But the memoir is not dark, not entirely, and includes passages where humor supplants pain, where activities – baseball, skiing, bicycling – provide positive experiences and healthy responses to the angst of teenage life. Robison reveals the importance of teachers both good and bad; of friends gained and lost; of girlfriends, real and longed for; of the need for empathy expressed and shared, and of the need for forgiveness.Trade Review"Richard Robison’s memoir shows us the tender and brutal in a sensitive recollection." – Peter Money; "Offered with modesty and narrative grace, charged with heart-stopping events and characters." – Stefanie Marlis; "Skillfully and empathically written." – Sara Ries Dziekonski

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Book SynopsisA heartwarming debut novel, commenting on the powers of music and friendship. Sarah's hope of becoming a concert pianist was shattered when she bombed an important performance of a Mozart concerto. Now in Munich, she feels like an imposter in her job as a food magazine editor. A chance encounter in a music shop leads to a surprising friendship with an elderly widower with a unique grand piano. When they start meeting to play Mozart's works for four hands, Sarah unravels the mysteries of his war-time past, uproots a musical secret in her own family -- and finds the strength to redirect her own future. Laced with melodies from Mozart and Schumann to Toto and Nena, THE GIRL WITH TWENTY FINGERS will delight readers, while asking the question: Can music change lives? Kate Mueser's debut novel cracks open notions of failure and second chances, living to the fullest and dying without regrets, and cultural identity and privilege, making it both timeless and urgently relevant to our age.Trade ReviewPraise for The Girl with Twenty Fingers: "Musicians know guilt. (Too much sforzando! Not enough practice!) When American pianist Sarah Johnson takes her Mozart guilt to Munich, the better to struggle with her shame, her unfinished master's degree, and her search for self, she finds an ancient city thriving on cell phone texts, where World War II has left its excruciating scars. In these complicated conditions, strangers become friends, Mozart brings distant generations together, and piano duets underscore the doubts and hopes of asymmetrical human history. And there's much coffee. A meaty question for readers: Who in the story gives and who receives the greatest gift?"--Virginia Euwer Wolff, National Book Award-winning author of The Mozart Season; "An engrossing and dynamic multi-layered tale of love, loss, and the intricacies that come along with each, The Girl with Twenty Fingers follows a woman who finds her way back to music and herself through the unlikeliest of friendships. Filled with wonderfully flawed characters and lyrical prose, Mueser's debut is sure to delight the senses. A must read for fans who love stories about secrets, family and second chances."--Kerry Lonsdale, Wall Street Journal & Amazon Charts Best-selling Author

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Book SynopsisSomota is society divided by change, and by memories. When A. arrives in the protectorate shortly after the first world war, he is unsure of what to expect. Employed by the government as a linguistic anthropologist, he is tasked with documenting the benefits of the new order and reporting them to the Reverend G. But what are these benefits? In his travels throughout the region, A. finds only the physical and emotional scars of conquest, and of routine colonial administration. Yet, even as the indigenous culture is being reduced to mere fragments, he also learns of a sublime literature responding to those historical traumas. One storyteller in particular, Kehinta, begins to reveal to A. just how much has been lost. A profoundly beautiful novel commenting on the horrors of colonial oppression, trauma, love, and the power of story.Trade ReviewAdvanced Praise for A People Without Shame: "Imaginative and gripping." --Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; "A People Without Shame is an artistic triumph composed by a master craftsman whose courageous eye makes all too vivid the abundant horrors suffered by beautiful people and their culture at the hands of soul-dead colonizers eager to extinguish them. Patrick Hogan is - as Kurosawa says an artist must be - one who does not look away. Inside this grand and ambitious novel beats an urgent and epic dirge written with magic enough to awaken our collective humanity to the poetry preserved in the raging hearts of people whose stories refuse to die." --Matt Cashion, author of Last Words of the Holy Ghost; "Hogan's absorbing and stylistically inventive novel offers a stirring meditation on the cost of colonial appropriation. Told with visceral prose and cinematic sweep, it's also a unique tale of unrequited love. Kehinta, the guardian of her people's epic poem, is Hogan's great achievement, magnetic yet always just beyond our grasp, and A's quest to understand her - to wrest the meaning of a poem from her - brings all the twisted moralities of the colonial enterprise into razor-sharp relief." Ken Kwapis, director of The Office and He's Just Not That Into You; Praise for other books by Patrick Colm Hogan: "Formidably armed with statistics, intelligence, a relentless philosophical method... Hogan makes an excellent case [in The Politics of Interpretation: Ideology and Professionalism in the Study of Literature] that the world is a very real place which we can touch and shape with both our hands and our pens." --Times Higher Education Supplement; "From start to finish, [Joyce, Milton, and the Theory of Influence] delivers what it promises: clear, even-handed discussions of theoretical matrices; social, intellectual, and aesthetic contexts for influence; three text-based chapters showing Joyce at play in Miltonic fields... this is a first-class example of how to do a study of significant literary influence." --James Joyce Literary Supplement; "What is not in doubt [in On Interpretation: Meaning and Inference in Law, Psychoanalysis, and Literature]... is Hogan's achievement in writing a book that lives up to the high ideals of the Enlightenment." --The British Journal of Aesthetics; "This marvelous book [The Mind and Its Stories: Narrative Universals and Human Emotion] reconnects the study of literature to the themes that have made it eternally fascinating, and connects it for the first time to the sciences of mind and brain. It is a landmark in modern intellectual life, heralding an exciting new integration of the sciences and humanities." Steven Pinker, Harvard University; "Patrick Hogan analyzes literary works to tell the story of the annihilation of selves and the death of cultures that accompanied colonialism. But it is also a story of the emancipatory visions that have emerged from the crucibles of self-disavowal and massive cultural dislocations. [Colonialism and Cultural Identity: Crises of Tradition in the Anglophone Literatures of India, Africa, and the Caribbean] is a homage to human creativity under oppressive and humiliating conditions and to the indomitable resilience of the defeated and the forgotten." --Ashis Nandy, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi; "This sober, readable book [Philosophical Approaches to the Study of Literature] organizes and describes the connections between philosophy and literary theory with rare lucidity. --Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries; "The philosophy of ethics has been central to understanding human interaction since ancient times. Now Patrick Colm Hogan, the most important researcher in the twenty-first century on the relationships between psychology and worldwide literature, has written a fascinating update [Literature and Moral Feeling: A Cognitive Poetics of Ethics, Narrative, and Empathy]." --Keith Oatley, University of Toronto

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Book SynopsisThe riddles of desire, youth, old age, poverty, and wealth are laid bare in this radiant collection from a master of the form. From inner-city pawnshops to highpowered law firms, from the desert of California to the coast of France, The Flounder paints a vivid portrait of how complex and poignant everyday life can be. Told in vibrant, incantatory prose, these moving, lyrical, and surprising stories teeter between desperation and hope, with Fulton showing us what lasts in an impermanent world.Trade ReviewAdvanced Praise for The Flounder: "In The Flounder, John Fulton writes about men caught in riptides, navigating the rough emotional waters of love, marriage and family. A boy faces his father's terminal illness. A Mormon teenager traveling through post-Soviet Europe fails to lose his virginity. A young husband takes a road trip with his unfaithful wife. Fulton is a writer of great humanity, with an eye for the revelatory moment. These are masterful short stories -- closely observed, moving, memorable and profound." -- New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh; "The Flounder is a collection of stories that feels unified by topic and tone-although the tones are various and the diction supple-as well as in, from time to time, the names of characters. Marital fidelity and infidelity are at issue here, as is the relation between generations and the search for (one might as well call it) authenticity. And the real connective tissue is the talent of its author, whose eye for detail is both telescopic and microscopic. Whether set in rural North America or towns and villages in Europe, John Fulton's fictions ring true." --Nicholas Delbanco, author of, most recently, Why Writing Matters; "Faced with apocalypses that are sometimes private and sometimes prophesized, the characters in John Fulton's The Flounder wrestle with faith in many forms. These are stories that illuminate human realities of love and betrayal, life and death using a touch of the miraculous. The result is an elegant collection with a timeless sensibility, as well as the ecstatic capacity to make its readers see their lives anew." --Allegra Hyde, author of The Last Catastrophe; "The Flounder is a remarkable book, full of remarkable stories, stories that move quickly through time while simultaneously being firmly rooted in place, stories that manage to be intimate while also having sweep, and grandeur. In this, they remind me of work by Alice Munro and John Cheever, but really, they're 100% John Fulton: smart, deeply felt, and ingeniously constructed stories of how we go to extraordinary lengths to keep on living our ordinary lives. Brock Clarke author of Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe? Praise for other books by John Fulton: For Retribution: "Thank goodness...for the assured, polished, and heartfelt short stories in John Fulton's first collection... Like the best short stories, Fulton's say as much between the lines as they do in their tight sentences and tough situations." -Chicago Tribune; "John Fulton may be a relative newcomer, but he writes like an old master in this powerful collection of short stories...with penetrating honesty that is worlds away from jukebox sentiment. Most impressive of all is his uncanny insight, reminiscent of J.D. Salinger, into the inner life of children."-The Boston Sunday Globe; "Dynamic stories...that cover some tough emotional terrain in a delicately quirky voice that's just right for revealing life's dangers, debauches, and dead ends." -Elle; For More than Enough: "Make no mistake, this is one of the finest debuts in years... It is a treasure of a debut, beautifully written, a human reminder that money is not everything despite the message behind the American Dream." -Sunday Tribune Dublin; "Fulton is wincingly sharp on...materialism... [His characters] are drawn with emotional exactitude and profound tenderness." -Daily Telegraph; "Fulton pins his characters painfully and honestly to the page." -Guardian; "Too often books that attempt to talk about the American dream do just that, without engaging the reader. Fulton's achievement is to write compelling fiction that sucks you into the maelstrom that engulfs the middle-class... A wonderful work..." -The Herald (Glasgow); "This hauntingly sad story [gives]...beautifully written insight into the tough reality behind the American dream, for those without the good fortune to achieve it." -The Daily Mail; For The Animal Girl: "Fulton is a writer of transcendent understanding of human emotions. His decent and likeable characters lead lives that are shadowed by unbearable losses... He has a deep feel for natural setting, and his descriptions recall Hemingway's Nick Adams stories... Fulton's collection is another gem..." -The Advocate; "Fulton's fiction is written in a rich, lyrical prose that is both precise and resonant... His fictional characters are rendered with the complexity we afford the people in our own lives." -The News and Observer; "These short stories and novellas are crystallized fiction that manage to tell complete tales in a few pages... Fulton does a careful, detailed job in limning the frustrating emotional life of his characters." -Library Journal; "John Fulton's fine new collection...is stunningly insightful... at once coolly dispassionate yet steadily compassionate... Fulton's absolutely a voice to follow." -The Antioch Review

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Book SynopsisJudge Alexander Betts has carried the burden of guilt most of his life. Now a bench trial before him forces him to finally deal with the reasons behind it. In southern Georgia in the 1960s, Alexander knew something about the murder his best friend's brother was convicted of, but he kept silent. Now, faced with an anonymous threatening letter, and a case with similar circumstantial evidence, he wants to set things right. Will he finally find the courage he lacked at sixteen?Trade Review"Carter Taylor Seaton immerses the reader in history - not just the facts, not just the dates, but the humanity. You will live and breathe these characters. You will rage and rejoice with them, and remember this novel for a long, long time." - S.G. Redling, author of Flowertown; "The author has earned the rights of giftedness in the portrayal of this moving story that creates a deeply emotional visualization of the awful truths and scars of racism on the lives of innocent people. Guilt is exquisitely written with extraordinary detail, not allowing the reader to escape the real torment and persistence of racial agony. This book is highly recommended!" - Maurice R. Cooley, Marshall University Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Vice President and Dean, Intercultural and Student Affairs, retired; "Carter Seaton's latest book is a propulsive story that doubles as a murder mystery and a savvy examination of race and class. Seaton entrances readers with strong characters, impeccable prose, and brisk pacing. She is a consummate storyteller." - Eliot Parker, author of a A Final Call; "This novel of suspense, racism, and the complexities of right and wrong follows the life of a boy who chooses not to tell what he knows about a crime. The story touches on American history from the Civil Rights movement through the Vietnam war to the Covid pandemic; it moves forward with great momentum and a potent mix of personal dilemma and cultural context." - Meredith Sue Willis, author of Their Houses, Out of the Mountains, and other novels

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Book SynopsisHis violin saved his life. August 1914: Renowned violinist Lucien Durosoir (1878-1955) was taking a break from his busy concert schedule in a small town in Brittany with his mother, when the world and his life changed forever. In the space of a two or three days, he was off to the front. Good luck, his companion throughout four hard years of war, placed him in a regiment led by officers who loved music, and Lucien was asked to create a chamber music ensemble. Luck also placed around him other excellent musicians, and, within a few months they were playing some of the great chamber music repertoire. Lucien wrote his first letter to his mother as soon as he got out of the cattle car and officially became part of the fighting force, and until the end of the war he wrote at least daily. She, in turn, replied in lengthy, daily letters, sharing news and offering maternal guidance. This translation brings the story of these two strong-willed, loving, troubled, people to the English-speaking world for the first time. It provides a unique perspective on war, music, and a mother-son relationship. This is an account of the horrors of the Great War from someone who managed to create beauty within its gruesome trenches. This is the first English translation of their letters.Trade ReviewPraise for Ma Chere Maman – Mon Cher Enfant: "Lucien Durosoir is not nearly as well- known as a composer in the English-speaking world as he should be. In the lyricism and sheer beauty of his music, he can remind the listener of Edward Elgar. But unlike Elgar, Durosoir was young enough to serve in the trenches of the Great War. Like millions of his comrades, he was also a prolific letter writer. The letters between him and his mother, Louise, are elegantly translated and wonderfully presented here. They present a rich tapestry of the grim circumstances in and out of the trenches of the Great War. They also present strategies of survival, physical and emotional, but also romantic. Elizabeth Schoonmaker Auld has done us a great service by making these letters available. They can only increase our admiration for this great composer and exemplary survivor of this horrible conflict."--Leonard V. Smith, Professor of History, Oberlin College; "These letters provide important first-person perspective on both a typical and atypical experience of a solider at the front and a musician fulfilling national duty. We see the evolving relationship between a mother and a son, initial optimism, moments of deep grief for lost friends, and more, all in a highly readable translation."--Joseph T. Acquisto, Professor of French, University of Vermont;"A professional violinist in his mid-thirties is called to fight in the 'Great War'. Suddenly wrenched from a career and a widowed mother, many musicians would not have had the strength of character to withstand the long years of deprivation and trauma. Lucien Durosoir's extended correspondence with his mother reveals his exceptional courage and leadership as a soldier, as well as his ingenuity in finding ways to make music amidst the deprivations of war. Via his vivid descriptive writing, and Elizabeth Auld's superb translation, we experience the immediacy of war through the eyes (and ears) of a mature and artistic spirit."--Linda Laurent, Professor Emerita of Music, Central Connecticut State University

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Book SynopsisToday Rena is going to change her life... Rena Jarvie is ahead of her time. Ambitious, attractive, and determined her family escape their shameful past. When she moves to a new town and marries the charming and cosmopolitan Bobby Young, doors finally begin to open. But as Bobby already knows, some things cannot be run from. Spanning the 1930s to the 1960s, Catch the Moments as They Fly is an assured portrait of a rapidly changing Scotland, vivid with humour, and hardship, and love.Trade Review"Woven through Catch the Moments as They Fly is an almost Fitzgerald-like awareness of the subtle corruptions and compromises that haunt our dreams of 'self-improvement' and social aspiration. Glasgow and Kilmarnock are much more than mere backdrops to the delicate web of human voices and fates in the novel: their own civic destinies, spanning two world wars and decades of aftermath, play a powerful and evocative part in this wonderfully vivid and moving portrait of the past." Wayne Price, author of Mercy Seat; "Catch the Moments as They Fly is, simultaneously, an engrossing and affecting love story, a family saga, and a deft portrait of Scottish urban life in the wake of two world wars. Subtle, layered, and full of captivating historical detail as well as vividly drawn characters, this is a novel to get lost in. Absolutely compelling." Jane McKie, author of Carnation Lily Lily Rose

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Book SynopsisLoosely based on true events, this multi-generational novel uses short, punchy chapters to provide a fragmented framework of one family, allowing the story to gradually come together as a whole.In 1920 Irini Gaspari, a young Greek woman, leaves behind all that she holds dear - her family, and particularly her friend Martha - and emigrates to America, bound for an arranged marriage to a man she has never met. After tragedy strikes and her closely-knit family gradually crumbles, little Marieta finds her own path into womanhood in the changing world of the 1950s and 1960s. Jumping forward to 2010, in Akron, Ohio two brothers, Herman and Richard, in spite of their very different personalities, share an awkward relationship with love. In their own de-romanticised ways, they are looking for 'the one.' They navigate romance, and take care of an ageing mother riddled with dementia and an obsession with her garden. The lives of these characters are interwoven through Frieda Kahlo: an enigmatic calico cat who drifts between reality and the spiritual world, connecting the generations of characters.Trade ReviewPraise for The Various Stages of a Garden Well-Kept: "All the more impressive when considering "The Various Stages of a Garden Well-Kept" is author R. R. Davis' debut as a novelist, this original and exceptionally well written collection of memorable characters, driven by the story of the emigrant in America, is an especially and unreservedly recommended addition to personal reading lists and community, college, and university library Contemporary Literary Collections." –– Midwest Book Review; “Almost otherworldly…‘The Various Stages of a Garden Well-Kept’ is a story of love and loss, but it is ultimately buoyed by the possibility of what fresh insights a new season might bring to light.” –– Bold Life

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Book SynopsisUpper Canada, 1804, on the edge of Chippewa territory. Flora MacCallum wakes from a malarial coma and witnesses the staggering loss her siblings have endured during their first days on the mosquito-infested banks of the Chenail Ecarte. Lured from the Isle of Mull by Lord Selkirk's promise of fertile grazing land and freedom far from the Highland clearances, Flora's father staked his life to bring his family across the Atlantic. During the struggling frontier settlement's first bleak North American winter, Flora discovers hope through an unlikely friendship. The eldest son of a Chippewa chief offers Flora the gift of his mother tongue, shifting Flora's relationship with the land and the truth of her own spirit. But as their furtive fellowship attracts attention, conflicts soon arise... An arresting debut novel told in swift, lyrical prose. Anangokaa captures the bleak magnificence of the Canadian wilderness through the eyes of a complex, traumatised, and intelligent young protagonist in Flora.Trade ReviewPraise for Anangokaa: "Deep and dramatic, this engrossing family story will haunt readers." --Kirkus "Lyrical... Anangokaa embeds the experiences of Upper Canada's early Scottish immigrants in the story of an enigmatic girl who comes of age in a foreign wilderness." --Foreword Reviews; "Anangokaa is a beautiful and thought-provoking coming-of-age story, with the spirit and will to survive, love, and friendship, and outstanding characters." --Readers' Favourite; "A gold mine of splendidly researched information about the hardships presented by a feral land, and native tribal customs and culture-a must-read for everyone interested in Canadian Indigenous history." --Historical Novel Society; "Anangokaa deserves to be on the bookshelf of every reader who is a fan of historical fiction" --Ann Weisgarber, The Glovemaker ;"A must-read for those familiar with the Baldoon Settlement, those who want to learn more about Ontario's indigenous people, and for everyone who cares about matters of the heart." --Pam Wright, Chatham Voice

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