Archives de catégorie : Fiction

THE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO MURDER de Karen White, Beatriz Williams, et Lauren Willig

Knives Out meets Murder, She Wrote meets #MeToo in this witty locked room mystery and literary satire by New York Times bestselling team of novelists: Karen White, Lauren Willig and Beatriz Williams.

THE AUTHOR’S GUIDE TO MURDER
by Karen White, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig
William Morrow, November 2024
(via Writers House)

There’s been a sensational murder at historic Castle Kinloch, a gothic fantasy of a grey granite on a remote island in the Highlands of Scotland. Literary superstar Brett Saffron Presley has been found dead–under bizarre circumstances–in the castle tower’s book-lined study. Years ago, Presley purchased the castle as a showpiece for his brand and to lure paying guests with a taste for writerly glamour. Now it seems, the castle has done him in…or, possibly, one of the castle’s guests has. Detective Chief Inspector Euan McIntosh, a local with no love for this literary American show-off (or Americans in general), finds himself with the unenviable task of extracting statements from three American lady novelists.

The prime suspects are Kat de Noir, a slinky, sexy erotica writer; Cassie Pringle, a Southern mom of six juggling multiple cozy mystery series; and Emma Endicott, a New England blue blood and author of critically acclaimed historical fiction. The women claim to be best friends writing a book together: a historical novel about the castle’s lurid past and its debauched laird, who himself ended up creatively murdered. But the authors’ stories about how they know Brett Saffron Presley don’t quite line up, and the detective is getting increasingly suspicious.

Why did the authors really come to Castle Kinloch? Is the murder of the long-ago laird somehow connected with the playboy author’s unfortunate demise? And what really happened the night the of the great Kinloch ceilidh, when Brett Saffron Presley skipped the folk dancing for a rendezvous with death?

A crafty locked-room mystery, a pointed satire about the literary world, and a tale of unexpected friendship and romance–this novel has it all, as only three bestselling authors can tell it!

A trio of historical fiction icons” (Chicago Tribune), Team W is comprised of bestselling authors Karen White, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig. They have written four novels together, with their most recent collaboration being the New York Times bestseller The Lost Summers of Newport, for which rights were sold in Hungary to XXI Szazad.

BREAK TO YOU de Neal Shusterman, Michelle Knowlden et Debra Young

Bestselling author of Scythe and Challenger Deep Neal Shusterman, here with coauthors Debra Young and Michelle Knowlden, tells an intense yet tender story of two teens, trapped in impossible circumstances and unjust systems, willing to risk everything for love—no matter the consequences.

BREAK TO YOU
by Neal Shusterman, Michelle Knowlden and Debra Young
HarperCollins, July 2024
(via Writers House)

Adriana knows why she is in Compass juvenile detention center: her bad taste in “friends.” If she can manage to keep her head down for the next seven months, she might be able to get through her sentence. Thankfully, she’s allowed to keep her journal, where she writes down her most private thoughts and observations when the pressure insider her is too much.

Until the day she opens her journal and discovers that her thoughts are no longer so private. Someone has read her entries and written back. A boy who lives on the other side of the gender-divided detention center. A boy who sparks a fire in her to write back.

Jon’s story is different from Adriana’s; he’s already been at Compass for years and will be in the system for years to come. Still, when he reads the words Adriana writes to him, it makes him feel like the walls that hold them could just melt away.

Neal Shusterman is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning authors of Challenger Deep, which won the National Book Award; Scythe, a Michael L. Printz Honor title; Game Changer; Dry; Bruiser; and the Unwind series, among many other books.

Michelle Knowlden is a former space shuttle engineer and the author of numerous Shamus Award-nominated stories. She has collaborated with Neal Shusterman on his Unbound and Gleanings anthologies. Her mystery novels include the Abishag quartet and the Deluded Detective series.

Debra Young writes fantasy, science fiction, and horror. She has published stories in The Horror Zine, Dark Fire Fiction, Swords and Sorcery Magazine, and Black Fox Literary Magazine, and is the author of Grave Shadows, a story anthology.

LOVE, ME de Jessica Saunders

Fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid, Emily Henry, and Emily Griffin will fall in love with this woman’s fiction debut.

LOVE, ME
by Jessica Saunders
Union Square & Co., January 2024
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)

Love, Me.” It’s how Jack always signed his letters to Rachel. She hadn’t thought about that in years…

This is the story of Rachel Miller, a lawyer and mother of two who’s just as comfortable in the courtroom as she is on the sidelines of the soccer field. Rachel’s life is unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight when photographs and letters of her and her high school boyfriend, the famous actor Jack Bellow, are published in a tabloid. Rachel’s life is upended as this newfound attention calls into question her relationship with her husband, her career, and even her superstar ex. 

LOVE, ME takes readers on a journey through key moments in Rachel’s life: falling in love for the first time and having her heart broken; meeting her future husband and creating a life with him; and navigating the celebrity gossip circuit and her equally gossipy suburban frenemies. Betrayed by someone she trusted and reunited with the man she tried so hard to forget, Rachel has to ask herself, “How did I get here? And where am I going?” 

A pitch-perfect exploration of modern married life, Jessica Saunders’s deliciously readable novel embraces the truth that some old flames can’t be snuffed out, no matter how many years go by.

Jessica Saunders is a lawyer and writer living in the suburbs of New York City.

THE HIDDEN LIFE OF CECILY LARSON d’Ellen Baker

Orphan Train meets Before We Were Yours meets Water for Elephants in this compelling multigenerational novel of survival, love, and the families we make.

THE HIDDEN LIFE OF CECILY LARSON
by Ellen Baker
Mariner Books, February 2024

In 1924, four-year-old Cecily Larson’s mother reluctantly drops her off at an orphanage in Chicago, promising to be back once she’s made enough money to support both Cecily and herself. But she never returns, and shortly after high-spirited Cecily turns seven, she is sold to a traveling circus to perform as the “little sister” to glamorous bareback rider Isabelle DuMonde. With Isabelle and the rest of the circus, Cecily finally feels she’s found the family she craves. But as the years go by, the cracks in her little world begin to show. And when teenage Cecily meets and falls in love with a young roustabout named Lucky, she finds her life thrown onto an entirely unexpected—and dangerous—course.

In 2015, Cecily is now 94 and living a quiet life in Minnesota, with her daughter, granddaughter, and great-grandson. But when her family decides to surprise her with an at-home DNA test, the unexpected results not only bring to light the tragic love story that Cecily has kept hidden for decades but also throw into question everything about the family she’s raised and claimed as her own for nearly seventy years. Cecily and everyone in her life must now decide who they really are and what family—and forgiveness—really mean.

Sweeping through a long period of contemporary history, THE HIDDEN LIFE OF CECILY LARSON is an immersive, compelling, and entertaining family drama centered around one remarkable woman and her determination to survive.

Ellen Baker is the author of Keeping the House and I Gave My Heart to Know This. She has worked as a bookseller and event coordinator at an independent bookstore. Originally from the Upper Midwest, she currently lives in Maine.

BEHIND YOU IS THE SEA de Susan Muaddi Darraj

An exciting debut novel that gives voice to the diverse residents of a Palestinian American community in Baltimore—from young activists in conflict with their traditional parents to the poor who clean for the rich—lives which intersect across divides of class, generation, and religion.

BEHIND YOU IS THE SEA
by Susan Muaddi Darraj
HarperVia, January 2024

Funny and touching, BEHIND YOU IS THE SEA brings us into the homes and lives of three main families—the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars—Palestinian immigrants who’ve all found a different welcome in America.

Their various fates and struggles cause their community dynamic to sizzle and sometimes explode: The wealthy Ammar family employs young Maysoon Baladi, whose own family struggles financially, to clean up after their spoiled teenagers. Meanwhile, Marcus Salameh confronts his father in an effort to protect his younger sister for “dishonoring” their name. Only a trip to Palestine, where Marcus experiences an unexpected and dramatic transformation, can bridge this seemingly unbridgeable divide between the two generations.

BEHIND YOU IS THE SEA faces stereotypes about Palestinian culture head-on and, shifting perspectives to weave a complex social fabric replete with weddings, funerals, broken hearts, and devastating secrets.

Susan Muaddi Darraj is the author of A Curious Land, a novel in stories which earned an American Book Award and was a finalist for a Palestine Book Award. In 2018, she was named a Ford Fellow by USA Artists. A past winner of the Maryland State Art Council’s Independent Artist Award, she is also the author of Farah Rocks, the first children’s book series to feature a Palestinian-American character. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and teaches at Johns Hopkins University.