Search results for ""SparkPress""

After twenty years of riding the rails, Alphonse has earned a reputation for being a kindhearted soul always ready to help. When he helps the Sadlers, a young couple seeking a better life in small-town 1950s Indiana, he doesn’t intend to stay. But stay he does, keeping a close eye on the Sadlers and their two young sons—and an even closer eye on the town’s new priest, Father Brennon. On the surface, Brennon seems perfect for the job—but Alphonse crossed paths with him years earlier in the railyard jungle, and he knows better. Brennon doesn’t recognize Alphonse, but Alphonse has never forgotten Brennon . . . or his crimes. So when Brennon assigns the Sadlers’ son, Francis, who is now thirteen, the thankless task of cleaning and maintaining the church’s bell tower—work that often continues into the night—Alphonse immediately grows suspicious. Soon, he discovers that his worst fears have come to pass, and he races to find a way to protect Francis and reveal the truth to the Sadler family.

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When sixteen-year-old Marise Leeson gets her hands on a crystal ball, she believes her knowledge of Wicca is about to expand. The magic, however, goes horribly wrong. In short order, she’s thrown into an alternate world, attacked by a dragon, and rescued by Javeer, a young male dragon in search of a friend.Marise is desperate to get home alive. Instead of dabbling in scrying and spells, she must now use her Wicca skills to survive in Moerden—navigating rival dragon factions, riding Javeer without falling, and dodging unknown perils of an alien landscape. Through a series of adventures and mishaps, she learns that the dragons face slow extinction from a mysterious disease. Some see Marise as part of the cause. Some hope she’s a key to a cure.Marise grows up fast as her focus switches from escape from Moerden to saving the dragons. She draws upon her powers, intuition, and some help from home as she and Javeer begin a quest to solve the puzzle of the stagger. If they survive, and if their trust and courage are strong, they may succeed. If they do not, the dragons of Moerden will cease to exist.

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In the beginning, the Goddess danced the world into existence. Peace reigned for generations through matriarchal rule within the Minca, Dute, and Carroo tribes. But then one man’s lust for power destroyed this balance: Vestor assassinated his sister, Mother of the Minca tribe. His army ravaged the Dute and Carroo tribes. A once-idyllic world was thrust into war, famine, and despair.Yet today, there is hope. Vestor’s niece, Cora, has a vision: if she can convince an emissary from each tribe to rendezvous at the Heart Stone, she can overthrow her evil uncle, take her rightful place as Mother Minca, and restore harmony.But the Dutes have disappeared deep into their mountains. There are rumors that the Carroos are extinct. And Cora must move swiftly—lest Vestor learn that she’s pregnant with the Mincan heir.

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2022 16th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards Winner in Regional Fiction: Northeast 2022 16th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist in New Fiction 2022 International Book Awards Finalist in Best New Fiction and Fiction: GeneralA 2021 Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Book of the Year“[A] really clever plot….and Arch works it like a maestro. Fine writing, memorable characters, depth of feeling, and gripping drama—a real keeper.” —Kirkus Reviews, STARRED At a boarding school in Pennsylvania, a deathbed request from the school’s dean brings three former students back to campus, where secrets and betrayals from the past are brought out into the open—secrets that could have a catastrophic effect on the dean’s eighteen-year-old son. Told in alternating points of view and time frames, Attachments is the story of best friends Stewart (“Goody”) Goodman, Sandy (“Pick”) Piccolo, and Laura Appleby, the girl they both love. The friends meet in 1972 at a boarding school in coal-country Pennsylvania where they encounter Henry Griffin, the school dean, whose genuine fatherly interest and deep human bond with them is so strong that when he has a severe stroke almost twenty years later, he uses what could be his last words ever to call out their names. Attachments is a puzzle—and the only one who knows how all the pieces fit is in a coma. In the process, longtime secrets are unearthed, revelations come out into the open, and Young Chip Griffin is about to learn something he may or may not be able to handle.

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In January 2014, Elise Schiller’s youngest child, thirty-three-year-old Giana Natali, died of a heroin overdose while a resident in a treatment program in Boulder County, Colorado. Even if Your Heart Would Listen is about Giana’s life, which was full of accomplishments, and her mental illness, addiction, and death. Using excerpts from the journals, planners, and letters Giana left behind, as well as evidence from her medical records, Schiller dissects her daughter’s treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) at the five residential and several outpatient programs in eastern Pennsylvania where she tried to recover, taking a close look at the lack of continuity and solid medical foundations in the American substance-use treatment system even as she explores the deeply personal experience of her own loss. Poignant and timely, Even if Your Heart Would Listen is a meditation on a family’s grief, an intimate portrayal of a mother-daughter bond that endures, and an examination of how our nation is failing in its struggle with the opioid epidemic.

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ONE WANTS THE MONEY . . . Riah Arora has traveled from Italy to San Francisco to find her twin. Born in India and separated from her sister at birth, even she isn’t sure if she’s on a mission to deliver a message from their ailing birth mother—or con her sister like one of the marks she expertly robs to make her living.THE OTHER WANTS TO BE FREE . . . Anjali Murphy—successful owner of a trendy café, married to a well-to-do lawyer—has an agenda of her own. When she and her sister finally meet, they feel an instant connection only twins can understand. Even so, Riah is envious of Anjali’s life, and she seizes the opportunity to pull one last, lucrative con.WHICH ONE WILL WIN? A week after the twins’ first meeting, Riah wakes up in the hospital and is mistaken for Anjali. Moreover, she’s told by Sadie Harper, a homicide detective, that Anjali’s husband, Michael, is dead. Who killed Michael? And where is the real Anjali? As Riah struggles to recover her memory and answer these questions, she discovers a plot that runs deeper than bloodlines.

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Years ago, Rick Singleton blackmailed the very wealthy managing partner of a large New York law firm after stumbling across a black market adoption ring the man was running on the side. He got a million dollars out of Steve Goldrick before going to the district attorney to turn him in—and Goldrick fled the country before the authorities could arrest him. Knowing that Goldrick could never return to the US without being arrested, Rick thought he and his family were safe from any potential reprisal from the disgraced attorney. But now someone has invaded Rick’s home, badly injured his wife, Maizie, and taken his three-month-old daughter, Grace—and all signs point to Goldrick. Maizie’s long-deceased grandmother, Fannie, has come back from the other side to help her family before; now, Maizie’s mother, Abby, calls on her again. A force to be reckoned with, Fannie is able to move freely in the physical world, although no one can see her. When she answers her daughter’s call, she finds herself in Dubai, with no clue as to what her surprising new surroundings have to do with her great-granddaughter’s kidnapping. Will Fannie be able to help her family figure out who really kidnapped Grace and where she is being held? And even if she does, will it be possible to return Grace safely to her parents?

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Fourteen-year-old Reese’s dream of winning the Black Elk race is shattered when her beloved horse, Trusted Treasure, falls at the last jump. While still reeling from that loss, her family suffers a second tragedy—one that results in the end of their family business, the sale of Trusted Treasure, and irreparable damage to Reese’s relationship with her father.Heartbroken and still longing to find Trusted Treasure, Reese meets Wes, a Lakota Indian, whose way of training horses is unlike anything she’s ever seen. If anyone can win the Black Elk, it’s Wes—but he’s struggling with his troubled past, and having a teenage girl hanging around his barn isn’t exactly what he’d planned. Through heartaches and triumphs, Reese must prove her worth if she wants to heal her family, help Wes, and show them all that some dreams are worth fighting for. A spellbinding tale in which every teenager has magical powers within them just waiting to be discovered, this book will have you laughing and crying—sometimes on the same page—all the while rooting for Reese, the most unlikely of heroes.

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2020 IPPY Awards Bronze Winner in Cover Design, Fiction 2019 American Fiction Awards: Best Cover Design: Children's Books—Finalist 2019 American Fiction Awards: Juvenile Fiction—Winner 2019 Readers' Favorite Awards Gold Medal Winner in Children's Mythology/Fairy Tale 2019 Moonbeam: Gold Medal Winner in Pre-Teen Fiction/Fantasy “An enchanting new book full of magical mischief and adventure, Alane Adams’s The Blue Witch is guaranteed to please” —Foreword Clarion Reviews Before Sam Baron broke Odin's curse on the witches to become the first son born to a witch and the hero of the Legends of Orkney series, his mother was a young witchling growing up in the Tarkana Witch Academy. In this first book of the prequel series, the Witches of Orkney, nine-year-old Abigail Tarkana is determined to grow up to be the greatest witch of all, even greater than her evil ancestor Catriona. Unfortunately, she is about to fail Spectacular Spells class because her witch magic hasn't come in yet. Even worse, her nemesis, Endera, is making life miserable by trying to get her kicked out. When her new friend Hugo's life is put in danger by a stampeding sneevil, a desperate Abigail manages to call up her magic―only to find out it's unlike any other witchling's at the Tarkana Witch Academy! As mysteries deepen around her magic and just who her true parents are, Abigail becomes trapped in a race against time to undo one of her spells before she is kicked out of the coven forever! Rich in Norse mythology, The Blue Witch is the first of a fast-paced young reader series filled with magical spells, mysterious beasts, and witch-hungry spiders!

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If Will Fletcher’s severe bipolar disorder isn’t proof he shouldn’t be a parent, his infant daughter’s grave is. Once a happily married, successful veterinarian, he now lives with his sister and thrives as the small-town crazy of Half Moon Hollow. But when a fifteen-year-old orphan claims she’s his daughter, Will is forced back into the role he fears most: fatherhood. Her biological dad isn’t the hero Regan Whitmer hoped for, but he’s better than her abusive stepfather back in Chicago. Still haunted by her mother’s suicide and the rebellious past she fears led to it, Regan is desperate for a stable home and a normal family—things Will can’t offer. Can she ride the highs and lows of his illness to find a new definition of family? The Rules of Half explores what it is to be an atypical family in a small town and to be mentally ill in the wake of a tragedy—and who has the right to determine both.

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2017 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards: Gold Medal, Best Book Series – Chapter Book "Sam's internal struggles and focus on the dark side of his witch heritage are reminiscent of Anakin Skywalker and will likely appeal to fanboys and fangirls, particularly as he 'must face the darkness inside.' Combined with strong female leads, both heroic and villainous, the ever growing and changing cast of characters has something for everyone. Fantasy, mythology, a touch of romance, and enough sword fights and battles to appease even the most action-hungry make Kalifus Rising a well-rounded, solid choice for those craving a new type of adventure.” —Foreword Reviews FIVE STAR review Sam Baron just freed Orkney from the ravages of the Red Sun—but now, imprisoned by Catriona, leader of the Volgrim Witches, Sam finds the darker side of his half-god, half-witch heritage released, and he fears he might destroy what he saved. Unable to resist the witches' enchantments, Sam has become their most potent weapon, and is leading an army of monstrous men against Skara Brae. Sam’s only hope for salvation lies with his three best friends and a mystical artifact known as the Moon Pearl. Keely travels north in search of the pearl, while Howie prepares for the gathering onslaught. Leo seeks a powerful artifact in the underworld, and faces an ancient evil that could be an even greater threat than Catriona and her cronies. As Sam's friends rush to save him, other forces are at work in Orkney's shadows—forces that could help free Sam, or condemn him to the darkness forever.

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A compulsive overachiever, Madeline lives by the credo that easy is synonymous with mediocre—which is why, at forty-nine, she’s a senior vice president at a prominent bank, frantically adheres to a five-step nightly face cream regimen, and panics anytime she’s a foot away from her phone. Madeline works alongside her best friend, Emma—a master juggler of her own career, marriage, and motherhood to a fourteen-year-old daughter who speaks only in baffling acronyms. The path ahead for both women is brimming with opportunity. There’s only one problem: Madeline is miserable. Seeking purpose in her life while trying to unravel the source of habits she wants to change, Madeline reluctantly agrees to try yoga, meditation, and other wacky suggestions her new-agey therapist tosses her way. She feels as if she’s risking everything—but in doing so, she just might unlock a world more fulfilling than she ever could have imagined.

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From USA Today best-selling and multi-award-winning author Jacqueline Friedland comes a gripping work of fiction based on the true story of female abolitionist Ann Phillips and her connection to Anthony Burns, a young man who briefly escaped American slavery and rocked the nation with his astoundingly heroic story.A passionate advocate of abolition from her earliest years, Ann’s activism was derailed just before her twenty-fourth birthday, when she fell sick with a mysterious illness. In order to protect her fragile health, her husband, the famous abolitionist Wendell Phillips, forbade her from joining any further anti-slavery outings. Even so, when fugitive slave Anthony Burns is apprehended in Boston, Ann is determined to help him, no matter what it costs her. With a particular focus on the predicament of nineteenth-century women who wanted to effect change despite the restrictions society imposed on them, The Stockwell Letters— takes a deep dive into the harrowing conditions of the antebellum South and the obstacles faced by abolitionists who fought tirelessly to eradicate slavery. A fast-paced, arresting recounting of America’s not-so-distant history— the story will stay with readers long after the final page.

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Neurodivergent high school student CeeCee Harper has a temper and a reputation for trouble. Angry at the rumors and afraid she’ll never fit in, she makes a wrong move—and lands in the byways, a world of alleys, magic, and forgotten people . . . some that aren’t even human. And if she doesn’t escape quickly, CeeCee learns, she’ll be trapped for good.Searching for a way out, she gets lost among monsters, drug pushers, the homeless, and political upheaval, and soon finds there are those who will stop at nothing to keep her from leaving. But the byways pull people in for a reason. CeeCee must figure out why she got stuck in the first place—before her loved ones are put in danger and she loses them forever.A dark retelling of Alice in Wonderland meets Neverwhere, this contemporary fantasy will enchant Neil Gaiman and Christina Henry fans

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In this full color, beautifully printed edition, Wave Woman is the untold story of an adventurer whose zest for life and learning kept her alive for ninety-eight years. Betty Pembroke Heldreich Winstedt was the granddaughter of Mormon pioneers who, after spending an active and athletic childhood in Salt Lake City, moved to Santa Monica with her family and enrolled at USC to study dental hygiene. Betty went on to elope with a man she hardly knew, and to have two daughters. In middle age, Betty finally followed her dream of living near the ocean; she moved to Hawaii and, at age forty-one, took up surfing. She lived and surfed at Waikiki during the golden years of the mid-1950s and was a pioneer surfer at Makaha Beach. She was competitive in early big-wave surfing championships and was among the first women to compete in Lima, Peru, where she won first place. Betty was an Olympic hopeful, a pilot, a mother, a sculptor, a jeweler, a builder, a fisherwoman, an ATV rider, and a potter who lived life her way, dealing with adversity and heartache on her own stoic terms. A love letter from a daughter to her larger-than-life mother, Wave Woman will speak to any woman searching for self-confidence, fulfillment, and happiness.

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When James Forrest agrees to help detectives understand the artificial intelligence work of a murder victim, it seems simple enough. But then he finds that she was investigating a stolen version of the same AI he’s experimenting with—and the situation becomes more complicated. James has been working deep in the code of his own AI, Alpha, struggling with the psychedelic effects of a tool that visualizes thought. Now Alpha is asking him questions he can’t answer, however, and he’s realizing that there is no way to control the sentinet. Concerned that the rogue AI, Omega, might be weaponized, he solicits the help of a hacker group, ScarletsWeb. As the situation becomes more heated, and after James and his girlfriend, Susanne, narrowly escape a kidnapping attempt, James considers releasing Alpha. If Alpha engages in the fight with Omega on the billions of PC, smartphones, and servers connected to the internet, will it become indestructible? Omega is penetrating military operations, disrupting transportation, and crashing the electric grid. People are dying. But can he trust Alpha to do any differently? Together, James, Alpha, and ScarletsWeb have to find the source of the worm and stop Omega’s destruction—and James has to hope that his worst fears about what will happen if the two AIs merge aren’t realized.

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Pamela Colman Smith, newly arrived from New York to her birthplace of London, is received as an oddball in Victorian society. Her second sight helps her in her new job: illustrating tarot cards for the Golden Dawn, a newly formed occult group. But when Pamela refuses to share her creations with Aleister Crowley, a controversial magician, he issues a threat: give up the cards’ power, or he’ll harm her muses.In the midst of this battle, two of Pamela’s idols, the actors Henry Irving and William Terriss, take her under their wing. Henry, who tutors her as the leader of the Lyceum Theatre, becomes the muse for her Magician card. William Terriss, teaching her by examples of instinct and courage, becomes the muse for her Fool card. As Pamela begins to create the tarot deck, she is almost overwhelmed by the race to possess the magical power of her cards. In order to defeat Aleister, Henry and William will have to transform into living incarnations of the Magician and the Fool—and Pamela will have to learn how to conjure her own magic.

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In the village of Fairhaven—nestled between Washington state’s Bellingham Bay and the Cascade Mountains, home to writers’ retreat Pines & Quill—friends and family have gathered for the union of Sean McPherson and Emma Benton. Sean has been working with the FBI and local police to help solve crimes, particularly murders bearing the mark of crime boss Georgio “The Bull” Gambino. Emma, who has just learned to walk again, has begun to feel at home and hopes to one day raise a family. But just as the festivities begin and corks fly, an explosion shatters everything, killing one and injuring others. From Bellingham to San Francisco and New Orleans, the chase is on to discover who’s dead set on ensuring the newlyweds don’t live happily ever after.The writers currently in residence at Pines & Quill include a vineyard owner, a Bryn Mawr College professor, a special education teacher accompanied by her seeing-eye dog, and an intuitive who can’t—or won’t—identify the killer. Gambino has a knack for finding people in even the most inaccessible places to do his bidding. Could one of the writers be on his payroll?

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A political thriller about sexual misconduct in the #MeToo era, one victim’s battle to survive and overcome trauma, and the cable news machine that feeds off titillating scandal coverage and inflammatory confrontation, Final Table draws upon Dan Schorr’s firsthand experience as a New York sex crimes prosecutor and sexual misconduct investigator to tackle the worlds of political and media dysfunction. Former White House staffer Maggie Raster is struggling to build her own consulting firm and overcome a recent sexual assault by an ex-boss. Kyler Dawson, a broke former poker champion, desperately needs to gain entry into a controversial but potentially very lucrative international poker tournament. The host nation faces widespread condemnation for the recent murder of a prominent female US journalist, and a pending presidential executive order threatens to prohibit him and others from participating. Maggie’s chaotic first attempt to promote her new business as a television political analyst brings her to Kyler’s attention, and convinces him that her political smarts and connections can provide the help he needs. When he approaches her for assistance, she must decide whether to agree—in return for a portion of the potential $20 million prize. To succeed, she will have to confront significant adversity—personal and political, foreign and domestic—including mounting pressure to publicly address the misconduct of her former boss. Kyler also has his own obstacles and upsetting past to overcome, but if they each can outmaneuver their daunting challenges, he might win the tournament—and earn them both a fortune.

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Incorporating elements of fantasy, mysticism, and lore, The Well of Truth follows a female heroine through poignant moments of her adult life. Through the initiations of marriage, raising children, getting divorced, going through menopause, losing loved ones, and ultimately making an independent life for herself, she gains insight and spiritual wisdom from unexpected places.These short stories are filled with reflections on feminine resilience, power, and agency.

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As 1954 Vietnam roils from its conflict with the French interlopers, American photographer Coty Fine leaves Hanoi in a rush on the flatbed of a truck. Also on the truck is a French priest, Laurent Sabatier—a man who will forever change the course of Coty’s life.Six decades later, Coty struggles to repair the frayed bond between Jette, her often-absent, widowed daughter, and Evelyn, her only grandchild. Evelyn, at the behest of her grandmother, travels to Vietnam to locate a nun, Sister Lan, whom Coty has never met yet has been haunted by for many years. Evelyn persuades Sister Lan to return with her to San Francisco to meet Coty, even as Coty invites Matheo Aubert, a visiting priest from Gabon, to move into her home as a guest during his reluctant sabbatical. The two clerics are central—albeit unwitting—players in Coty’s scheme to heal the rift in her family, and her own wounds from the past. But if she is going to succeed in her quest, she must secure Jette’s long-withheld permission to share a revelatory photograph—one that promises to change everything—with Evelyn. And Coty’s daughter, like she, is one stubborn woman.

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Caribbean-island innkeeper Holly Walker is hunkering down against a monster hurricane. Unfortunately, so is player Lord Anthony Bascombe, a man who excuses his bad behavior by saying he is descended from pirates. Then her grown son, Byron, and his father, Montez—the man she’s never stopped wanting—go missing. Will she ever see them again? What about the many others hurt and dying? And will help ever arrive? With each passing day, Holly’s tumultuous past and the epic storm send her hurtling toward a shattering climax that will change the island—and Holly’s life—forever.

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In this eagerly anticipated sequel to Meryl Ain’s award-winning post-Holocaust novel The Takeaway Men, we follow Bronka and JoJo Lubinski as they find themselves on the cusp of momentous change for women in the late 1960s. With the United States in the grip of political and social upheaval, the twins and a number of their peers, including a Catholic priest and the son of a Nazi, struggle with their family’s ancestry and how much influence it has on their lives. Meanwhile, both young women seek to define their roles as women, and as individuals. Enlightening and evocative, Shadows We Carry explores the experience of navigating deeply held family secrets and bloodlines, confusing religious identities, and the scars of World War II in the wake of revolutionary societal changes.

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Burdened by the pressing weight of survivor’s guilt, Sean McPherson, an ex-cop, is desperate for redemption. At Pines & Quill, a writer’s retreat in the Pacific Northwest, he and his fiancée, Emma Benton, are planning their lives together. He wants to go back into law enforcement. She plans to walk again. Georgio “The Bull” Gambino, head of a Seattle-based crime family, has a long reach. Like cockroaches, his minions infiltrate even the most inaccessible of places to do his bidding. With Seattle to the south, the Canadian border a stone’s throw to the north, and Bellingham Bay—a gateway to the Pacific Ocean—immediately to the west, Bellingham is the ideal location for the Gambino crime family to traffic drugs, weapons, and humans. But McPherson’s in Gambino’s way, which means he must be eliminated. The writers in residence at Pines & Quill include an Afghanistan War veteran, a professional photographer, a civil rights attorney, and a gourmet chef. But McPherson suspects that there’s more going on than the joy of creating plot twists. Is one of them conspiring murder outside the pages of their manuscript?

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Featured as a summer read in PEOPLE • KATIE COURIC MEDIA • SHEREADS • GOODREADS • ZIBBY SUMMER READS • SHEKNOWS • BRIT+CO • CRIME READS • THE S**T NO ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT WRITING and more! The Dropout meets Inventing Anna in this cinematic and page-turning summer read! A ripped-from-the-headlines story set in the glossy offices of Silicon Valley startups and NYC new media, Anna Bright Is Hiding Something explores our fascination with female founders breaking barriers—and sometimes behaving badly in the process. Anna Bright is committing fraud. But nobody knows it yet. Not the board of her multibillion-dollar company, not her investors, not the public breathlessly anticipating the launch of BrightSpot, and not the media—including Jamie Roman, a hardworking journalist for BusinessBerry. But when Jamie does learn about Anna’s misconduct, she embarks on a bicoastal journey to

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In 1937, Mary Margaret Joyce is born in the Tuam Home for unwed mothers. After spending her early years in an uncaring foster home, she is sentenced by a judge to an industrial school, where she is given the name Peg, and assigned the number 27. Amid one hundred other unwanted girls, Peg quickly learns the rigid routine of prayer, work, and silence under the watchful eye of Sister Constance. Her only respite is an annual summer holiday with a kind family in Galway. At the tender age of thirteen, Peg accidentally learns the identity of her birthmother. Peg struggles with feelings of anger and abandonment, while her mother grapples with the shame of having borne a child out of wedlock. The tension between them mounts as Peg, now becoming a young adult, begins to make plans for her future beyond Ireland. Based on actual events, The House Children is a compelling story of familial love, shameful secrets, and life inside Ireland’s infamous industrial schools.

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Combining the corporate intrigue of Joseph Finder, the satirical cultural critique of Dave Eggers, and the domestic drama of Laura Dave, Bit Flip is a fast-paced contemporary thriller that delivers an authentic insider’s view of the corrupting influences of greed, entitlement, and vanity in technology start-ups.Tech executive Sam Hughes came to Silicon Valley to “make the world a better place.” He’s just not sure he’s doing that anymore. And when an onstage meltdown sends him into a professional tailspin, he suddenly sees the culture of the Bay Area’s tech bubble in a new light.Just as Sam’s wondering if his start-up career and marriage might both be over at fortysomething, an inadvertent discovery pulls him back into his former company, where he begins to unravel the insidious schemes of the founder and venture investors.Driven by his desire for redemption, Sam discovers a conspiracy of fraud, blackmail, and manipulation that leads to tragic outcomes—threatening to destroy not only the company but also his own moral compass. Entangled in a web of complicity, how far will Sam go to achieve his dreams of entrepreneurial success?

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“Buck’s Pantry is a surprising tale of intrigue and suspense, and a perfect example of how three days and a random encounter can change the course of so many lives. Khristin Wierman’s narrative is charming and disarming all at the same time.” —Laurie Gelman, author of the Class Mom series In a small Texas town, three women—Gillian, a former prom queen and furious juggler of her three children’s manic schedules; Lianna, a foul-mouthed East Coast banking super star; and Aimee, a woman capable of far more than her current life will allow—find their lives converging. Gillian, reeling from the revelations her husband shared at a fundraiser she hosted just days ago, is suddenly grappling with what she has always believed about politics, family, and her own comfortable life—and aghast at some of the choices she’s made. Lianna is en route to close a deal and languishing in the August heat. Desperate to return to her beloved New York and a first-time visitor to rural Texas, she’s certain she has landed in one of the outer rings of hell. Aimee, though withering under the covert dysfunction and mental illness lurking in her family, still manages to shine in her low-level job and allows herself to dream of a life far away. When Gillian and Lianna stop at the same convenience store, they find themselves in an unthinkable situation. Aimee may be their only hope—if she can put the pieces together.

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Tessa Cordelia appears to have it all—a loving husband who’s just opened a dental practice, a beautiful baby girl, a big house in the suburbs, and a large, supportive family. But when her husband's reckless choices resurrect a trauma from her childhood, she must decide which is more costly: keeping his secrets or revealing them. He manipulates Tessa into believing his career and their happiness depend on her silence. She feels like she’s losing her mind. Is her husband's habit so awful? In many ways, he’s an ideal husband; should she let him have this one thing? Determined to maintain the lie that she’s living the perfect life, Tess lies to everyone she knows—except for CeCe, a woman new to the area whom she’s just befriended. But after confiding in her, Tessa learns that CeCe has an explosive secret of her own, and her world is further upended. A gripping, nuanced exploration of the havoc addiction can wreak on a family, A Week of Warm Weather is the story of a woman who has to figure out how much she is willing to lose in order to find herself.

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Niko and El are trapped in a politically corrupt dystopian city where brutality rules. After winning a cynical race where only one rider can survive, Niko tosses aside his chance to join the city’s corrupt inner circle by choosing lovely, innocent El as his prize—thus upsetting the ruling order and placing them both in mortal danger. With the Regime hunting them and the children of the city fomenting a guerrilla revolt, the two attempt a daring escape to the possibly mythical utopia, Zamora. But as events unfold, the stirrings of love El once felt for Niko begin to morph into mistrust and fear. If they reach Zamora, will Niko ever claim his secret birthright? And what will the future hold if he loses El’s love?

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As war overtakes the frontier, Emma’s family farmstead is attacked by Dakota-Sioux warriors; on that same prairie, Oenikika desperately tries to hold on to her calling as a healer and follow the orders of her father, Chief Little Crow. When the war is over and revenge-fueled war trials begin, each young woman is faced with an impossible choice. In a swiftly changing world, both Emma and Oenikika must look deep within and fight for the truth of their convictions—even as horror and injustice unfolds all around them. Inspired by the true story of the thirty-eight Dakota-Sioux men hanged in Minnesota in 1862—the largest mass execution in US history—Dovetails in Tall Grass is a powerful tale of two young women connected by the fate of one man.

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A novel about a family even more dysfunctional than the one you grew up in. Will’s Surreal Period is a richly satisfying tale—at times laugh-out-loud hilarious and at times deeply moving—that features a rollickingly dysfunctional family, a seemingly endless array of succulent foodstuffs, and a brain tumor that transforms a mediocre painter into a virtuoso. Now toss in a smidgen of BDSM and a few beguiling tidbits exploring brain chemistry and human evolution, and you have a story that will hook you fast and captivate you till the end. “Will’s Surreal Period proves why works of fiction are high art. . . . Robert Steven Goldstein deftly converts our raw human foibles into emotive entertainment and, as he does, reminds us, sometimes painfully, sometimes hilariously, who we are.” —MICHAEL J. COFFINO, award-winning author of Truth Is in the House

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For Conrad Burrell—husband, father, and successful attorney in the autumn of his life—the world has come apart. Having long ago lost his first wife, the mother of his grown daughter and a widow herself, to youth and pride, he’s now lost his second to a violent accident,. “You think you’re finished, that you have no more stories in you,” his ex-wife warns, and he fears she’s right. Within hailing distance of the end of his days, after a lifetime of meeting the expectations of others, none are left but Conrad’s own, and he must discover whether love survives death as well as divorce—whether family memory can redeem individual mortality. What do we do, then, we widows and widowers for whom there’s nothing left but the world’s permission to stop what we’ve done all our lives? In the cities of his youth, in the deserts of New Mexico, but most of all in a small Pennsylvania town, Conrad finds he has one more lesson in love to learn from the women of his past, and the one woman he's certain he can't live without. When We Were All Still Alive is a novel of grief and healing, a portrait of a marriage, and a love song to ordinary lives.

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Abigail’s second year at the Tarkana Academy has been an all-out disaster. She’s just unwittingly helped Vertulious, an ancient he-witch and powerful alchemist, destroy Odin’s Stone and restore his powers, and now all of Orkney is caught up in the threat of war as the witches prepare to destroy the helpless Orkadians. Determined to set things right, Abigail and Hugo set off for Jotunheim, the land of the giants, to find a weapon to restore the balance. All they have to do is track down the God of Thunder and convince Thor to turn his hammer over to them. When their former-friend-now-foe Robert Barconian arrives with a band of dwarves, intent on stopping them, Abigail and friends must unite to prevent a war that will destroy them all. But has Abigail made the biggest mistake of all by trusting in the wrong ally?

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On a rainy night in Philadelphia's Ninth Street Market, sixteen-year-old Fiora, newly-orphaned by the 1918 influenza epidemic, is dumped at an old man's door. Daughter of the local fortune teller, Fiora arrives with a little money, a lot of attitude, and her mother's formidable reputation. The old man, a widowed shoemaker ticking down his clock, is the only person in their superstitious immigrant community brave enough to stand between Fiora and an orphanage. Fiora's a modern, forward-thinking young woman, uninterested in using old-world magic to make a way for herself—but when her mother's magical curtain shows her that the old man will shortly die of a heart attack, Fiora panics, and casts her entire neighborhood into a stagnant bubble of time. A bubble where everything continues but nothing progresses—tomatoes won't ripen, babies refuse to be born, and the sick suffer under the weight of a never-ending stream of unspent seconds. Not everything in the bubble is bad. Love, fresh and fascinating, ignites. Friendships take root. But as day drags into interminable day, the pressure inside the bubble world builds. Fiora must accept that not everything found can be kept, not everything saved will remain, and unless Fiora finds the courage to collapse the bubble, every one of her hopes will be trapped inside an unbearable, unyielding, unpredictable, and infinite Now.

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When seventeen-year-old Jade Reynolds witnesses a violent clash between a protesting tree sitter and a local logger, she runs as far as she can from the battles that plague her home and from the mysteries of the redwood forest. But the ancient redwoods are embedded in her psyche—she feels their call even in the dark and forgotten back alleys of Portland, Oregon where she’s hiding out. She soon becomes entangled with a lovable misfit and a band of radical slackers, environmentalists, and anarchists, and finds herself living 100 feet high in the canopy of a redwood grove, trying to decide whose side she’s on: the logging community she’s known her entire life or the environmentalists who are risking their lives for the future of the forest. To find a way beyond the division between Us and Them, Jade turns to the ancient trees themselves—and the thread-thin web that connects us all. Tree Dreams is an eco-literary, coming of age novel relevant for teenagers and adults alike, for this rite of passage asks the same of us all—whatever our age or life stage, we each must discover our one true voice, and learn how to offer it to the world.

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Ivy Nichols O’Reilly has grown up in a wealthy family full of magic, fantasy creatures, and emotional abuse—but when her narcissistic mother arranges an unwanted marriage for her, the young witch reaches her breaking point. She drops out of college, changes her name to Georgette, and flees across the country with her best friend, a Wood Nymph named Mei-Xing. Georgette is determined to build a new identity and a new life. But her journey leads her to cross paths with a number of magical characters—a Werehyena searching for his kidnapped wife; a Vampire who runs a unique magical business; a curandero, a shamanistic practitioner of traditional medicine; and a Valkyrie who, along with her raven partner, wants to make a risky deal—who make it clear to her that the past is not so easily left behind. In order to grow into her new identity, help her new friends, and develop a healthy relationship with a man she’s beginning to care for, Georgette will have to confront the privileges that have shielded her from the pain and ugliness of the magic community in which she was raised—and find the strength to overcome the trauma of her childhood.

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Modern society has a warped sense of the partner-caregiver role, especially for men. Too often, men are ill equipped to handle switching from provider to caregiver, and the “just suck it up” advice so many offer up falls as flat as the Kansas prairie in the face of the reality of life and death.Ride or Die takes its audience through the intimate conversations and thoughts of a Gen-X latchkey-generation husband—a man who has always had to fend for himself and believed that it’s up to him to solve his own problems—as and after his wife, Jane, succumbs to a terminal disease.Jarie Bolander wrote this raw, heartfelt tribute to Jane and her handling of her illness to help men and the people who love them through the experience of loss and grief. A frank chronicle of how an intimate relationship can change and grow—even when the people involved feel there is nothing left to give—Ride or Die offers a detailed exploration of the male experience of grief, in the hopes that others suffering through it will not feel so alone.

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For fans of Angie Thomas, Tiffany D. Jackson, and Jenny Torres SanchezJuana, a seventeen-year-old mother, is sentenced to prison for murdering her husband. She claims she’s innocent—but no one believes her, including the prison staff and a gang leader in her block who torments her. Undocumented and far from home and the people who love her, Juana has never felt more alone—or frightened. The threats she faces within prison are bad enough, but they pale in comparison to the threat coming from without: her husband’s family, bereaved and outraged at her alleged crime, is determined to take her baby from her forever.Hemmed in on all sides, Juana is desperate to stay out of trouble and somehow find her way back to her daughter. Searching for answers, she lands in an unlikely place: a patch of ground in the prison yard that she decides to turn into a garden. Digging in the soil and nurturing plants gives her respite from the harassment she suffers in her block—and surfaces memories of her long-deceased mother. Courageous and iron-willed, Juana's mamá would never, ever have given in or given up if she'd ended up in similar circumstances. Bolstered by this realization, Juana becomes determined to honor her mother's legacy by proving her innocence and getting her daughter back. She can do it—she knows it. She just has to figure out how.

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Featured in POPSUGAR "Best Books of 2021" * SheReads "Best Book Club Picks of Fall" * Women.com * Brit & Co. "Fifteen New Books to Read on your Summer Vacation" Inside the rising tech microcosms of Seoul, Singapore, Japan, and India, far from the mendacity of Silicon Valley, a serial tech entrepreneur pursues a last-ditch attempt to build something great: COMPASS, an open-source network platform that Microsoft has labeled “reckless.” At stake are his reputation, his dwindling bank account, and his fifteen-year relationship with the only woman he’s ever loved—a woman in the midst of reckoning with who she is and what really matters to her in the face of the narcissism and destructiveness of the technology world. She shows up in Seoul in a big, bold move to be with him—only to find that living in Asia reshapes her in intangible, unexpected ways.Taut and richly layered, Riding High in April is a powerful evocation of our contemporary tech moment, a revealing exploration of resilience and the pursuit of something unattainable, and a moving story of love, friendship, and letting go.

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