Archives de l’auteur : WebmasterBenisti

THE LAST CHECKMATE de Gabriella Saab

Readers of Heather Morris’s The Tattooist of Auschwitz and watchers of The Queen’s Gambit won’t want to miss this amazing debut set during World War II. A young Polish resistance worker, imprisoned in Auschwitz as a political prisoner, plays chess in exchange for her life, and in doing so fights to bring the man who destroyed her family to justice.

THE LAST CHECKMATE
by Gabriella Saab
William Morrow/HarperCollins, October 2021

Maria is many things: daughter, avid chess player, and member of the Polish underground resistance in Nazi-occupied Warsaw.  Captured by the Gestapo she is imprisoned in Auschwitz, while her family is sent to their deaths. Realizing her ability to play chess, the sadistic camp deputy, Fritzsch, intends to use her as a chess opponent to entertain the camp guards. However, once he tires of utilizing her skills, he has every intention of killing her.
Befriended by a Catholic priest, Maria attempts to overcome her grief and see the value in survival. Literally playing for her life through four grueling years, her strategy is simple: Live. Fight. Survive. By cleverly provoking Fritzsch’s volatile nature in front of his superiors, Maria intends to orchestrate his downfall. Only then will she have a chance to evade the fate awaiting her and see him brought to justice.
As she carries out her plan and the war nears its end, she discovers Fritzsch has survived.  And so Maria, vowing still to avenge the murder of her family, challenges her former nemesis to one final game, certain to end in life or death, in failure or justice. If Maria can bear to face Fritzsch—and her past—one last time.

List of foreign sales: Brazil (Dos Livros), Bulgaria (Book Travel), Czech Republic (Argo), Hungary (Cartaphilus Kiado), Italy (Newton Compton), Netherlands (Luitingh-Sijthoff), Poland (HC-Polska), Portugal (Casa das Letras), Romania (RAO), Russia (EKSMO), Spain (Newton Compton), Slovenia (HKZ)

Gabriella Saab graduated from Mississippi State University with a Bachelor of Business Administration in marketing, and now works various jobs, including teaching barre classes. In researching for this novel, she traveled to Warsaw and Auschwitz to dig deeper into the experiences and setting of those who lived there.

DISTANT SONS de Tim Johnston

Tim Johnston masterfully interweaves past and present to tell a story of violence, vengeance, and remorse. Poetic, compelling, nuanced, profoundly and achingly beautiful.

DISTANT SONS
by Tim Johnston
Algonquin, October 2023
(via Writers House)

DISTANT SONS is set in a small Wisconsin town on the banks of the Mississippi, where, in the 1970s, three young boys vanished in a series of heart-wrenching, still unsolved disappearances. In the present day, a drifter named Sean arrives in town and gets embroiled in the lives of a waitress and her abusive ex, leading him to love—and a dangerous enemy. At his side is Dan Young, who is fleeing the unspoken specters of his past; together, Sean and Dan take up work for Marion Devereaux, an old man long suspected in the disappearances of the boys. Observing them all is Detective Viegas, a woman whose drive to seek justice is impacted by her own father’s failure to solve the 1970s mystery—and the violence once done to her sister.
In DISTANT SONS Tim Johnston masterfully interweaves past and present to tell a story of violence, vengeance, and remorse. It is a minutely observed novel about men and women living in the small towns and forgotten byways of America, of blue collar people working jobs for cash and just getting by day to day. In observing the grace—and the violence—that can result from the smallest crossings of these so often unheralded lives, Tim Johnston elevates a set of characters distinctive from those that populate most literary fiction these days. His protagonists’ concerns and secrets, joys and sorrows are rooted in a profound sense of place and personality that galvanizes the mysteries they encounter. Throughout DISTANT SONS, we are drawn into broader questions of culpability, the way what we do—or fail to do—can long outlive us. And for each, Tim Johnston tenderly interrogates the way we grow around our losses like trees around scars, bending or lifting with each passing year.

Tim Johnston’s most recent novels include Descent and The Current. Both were New York Times, USA Today and Indie bestsellers. He is also the author of short stories that have appeared in New England Review, New Letters, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, Double Take, Best Life Magazine, and Narrative Magazine, among others.

THIS BIRD HAS FLOWN de la musicienne Susanna Hoffs bientôt adapté au cinéma

Universal Pictures a fait l’acquisition des droits d’adaptation de la comédie romantique THIS BIRD HAS FLOWN, écrite par Susanna Hoffs. Les productrices Liza Chasin et Bruna Papandrea (Anatomy of a Scandal) travailleront ensemble sur le projet.

Pionnière dans le monde très masculin du rock, Susanna Hoffs est surtout connue comme cofondatrice du groupe The Bangles, qu’elle a formé en 1981 avec Debbi et Vicki Peterson. Elles ont sorti une série de singles qui ont rencontré un grand succès, notamment « Manic Monday », « Walk Like an Egyptian », « Hazy Shade of Winter » et « Eternal Flame ».

« Je suis passionnée de fiction, de cinéma et de musique depuis toujours, et j’ai réalisé un de mes rêves en écrivant ce livre », a déclaré Susanna Hoffs. « Pendant que j’écrivais THIS BIRD HAS FLOWN, la bande originale se remplissait de chansons ; je visualisais l’action et l’enchaînement des dialogues comme si j’étais en train de regarder un film dans ma tête. Le fait de pouvoir adapter le livre à l’écran est la cerise sur le gâteau de cette joyeuse expérience. » Susanna Hoffs a d’ailleurs concocté une playlist Spotify des chansons qui lui trottaient dans la tête pendant l’écriture du roman. (Lire l’article de Deadline pour plus d’informations.)

Les droits de langue française sont toujours disponibles.
Vous pouvez retrouver la présentation complète du roman ici.

 

 

THIS BIRD HAS FLOWN de Susanna Hoffs

A delightfully funny and romantic debut novel from Susanna Hoffs, celebrated performer and co-founder of The Bangles, that is « part British romcom, part Jane Eyre, and one hundred percent enjoyable » (Tom Perrotta)..

THIS BIRD HAS FLOWN
by Susanna Hoffs
Little, Brown, Spring 2023
(via The Gernert Company)

Music. Fate. Redemption. Love. Jane Start is thirty-three, broke, and recently single. Ten years prior, she had a hit song—written by world-famous superstar Jonesy—but Jane hasn’t had a breakout since. Now she’s living out of four garbage bags at her parents’ house, reduced to performing to Karaoke tracks in Las Vegas. Rock bottom.
But when her longtime manager Pippa sends Jane to London to regroup, she’s seated next to an intriguing stranger on the flight—the other Tom Hardy, an elegantly handsome Oxford professor of literature. Jane is instantly smitten by Tom, and soon, truly inspired. But it’s not Jane’s past alone that haunts her second chance at stardom, and at love. Is Tom all that he seems? And can Jane emerge from the shadow of Jonesy’s earlier hit, and into the light of her own?
In turns deeply sexy, riotously funny, and utterly joyful, THIS BIRD HAS FLOWN explores love, passion, and the ghosts of our past, and offers a glimpse inside the music business that could only come from beloved songwriter Susanna Hoffs.

« In this sexy, page-turning treat, Susanna Hoffs writes as engagingly as she sings.” —Helen Fielding, author of the bestselling sensation Bridget Jones’s Diary
“A little bit romance, a little bit rock-and-roll—this isn’t just a book, it’s a love song, and it should come as no surprise that Susanna Hoffs has crafted the perfect one to put on your playlist.” ―Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners
“A tender, funny, love story wrapped in a guitar-jamming rock-and-roll cloak. I haven’t had this much fun reading a book in a long, long time. » ―Jessica Anya Blau, author of Mary Jane

Boasting one of pop’s most beloved voices, Susanna Hoffs graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a degree in Art. In 1981 she co-founded The Bangles, with whom she recorded and released a string of chart-topping singles including “Manic Monday” (written by Prince), “Walk Like an Egyptian,” “Hazy Shade of Winter,” and “Eternal Flame” (co-written by Susanna), before embarking on a critically acclaimed solo career. She also wrote, recorded music for, and appeared in the Austin Powers movies, and played herself on Season 1 of “The Gilmore Girls.” This Bird Has Flown is her first novel. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, filmmaker Jay Roach.

MAROR de Lavie Tidhar

‘A masterpiece of the sacred and the profane… A literary triumph.’ Jake Arnott, Guardian

MAROR
by Lavie Tidhar
Head of Zeus, August 2022
(via Zeno Agency)

How do you build a nation?
It takes statesmen and soldiers, farmers and factory workers, of course. But it also takes thieves, prostitutes and policemen. Nation-building demands sacrifice. And one man knows exactly where those bodies are buried: Cohen, a man who loves his country. A reasonable man for unreasonable times.
A car bomb in the back streets of Tel Aviv. A diamond robbery in Haifa. Civil war in Lebanon. Rebel fighters in the Colombian jungle. A double murder in Los Angeles. How do they all connect? Only Cohen knows.
MAROR is the story of a war for a country’s soul — a dazzling spread of narrative gunshots across four decades and three continents. It is a true story. All of these things happened.

‘Some write in ink, others in song, Tidhar writes in fire… MAROR is a kaleidoscopic masterpiece, immense in its sympathies, alarming in its irreverences and altogether exhilarating.’ —Junot Díaz

‘One of the boldest, most visionary writers I’ve ever read creates both a vivid political exploration and a riveting crime epic. It’s like the Jewish Godfather!’ —Silvia Moreno-Garcia

‘A sprawling epic set across four decades, and an audacious account of the underbelly of nation-building… Spectacular… Fascinating… Astonishing… Maror is a masterpiece of the sacred and the profane… Tidhar has achieved a literary triumph’ —Jake Arnott, Guardian

‘A bloody beast of a book.’ —Daily Mail

‘This is crime writing in the tradition of Balzac and Dickens and a major achievement, full of sound, fury, drugs and blood… An earthquake of a book.’ —CrimeTime

Lavie Tidhar was born just ten miles from Armageddon and grew up on a kibbutz in northern Israel. He has since made his home in London, where he is currently a Visiting Professor and Writer in Residence at Richmond University. He won the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize for Best British Fiction, was twice longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger Award and the Rome Prize. He co-wrote Art and War: Poetry, Pulp and Politics in Israeli Fiction, and is a columnist for the Washington Post.