Archives de catégorie : Nos incontournables

THE STAR ON THE GRAVE de Linda Margolin Royal

Inspired by the incredible true story of the Japanese diplomat who defied his government to save thousands from the Nazis.

THE STAR ON THE GRAVE
by Linda Margolin Royal
Affirm Press (Australia), February 2024
(via DeFiore and Company)

In 1940, as the Nazis sweep toward Lithuania, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara defies his own government and secretly issues thousands of visas to Jewish refugees desperate to flee. After the war, Sugihara is dismissed and disappears into obscurity.

In 1968 Australia, Rachael Margol, her father and her grandmother live disconnected from one another and haunted by unspoken tragedies. When Rachel announces her engagement to a Greek Orthodox man, it detonates a long-held secret. The Margols are actually the Margolins: they are Jewish, and her family has concealed their identity from her and the world. But why?

As Rachel struggles to understand this deception, an opportunity arrives to travel to Japan with her beloved grandmother to meet Sugihara, Rachel is determined to go but will a journey to Japan, and the secrets it uncovers, heal the Margolins or fracture them for good?

An extraordinary novel inspired by the true story of Sugihara, and the thousands of people – including the author – who owe him their lives. Chiune Sugihara has been called the « Japanese Schindler » and it’s estimated that 100,000 people are alive today because of him.

Linda Margolin Royal was born in Sydney, forever thankful her father and grandparents received life-saving transit visas from Chiune Sugihara in 1940, which enabled them to enter Japan and escape the Holocaust; and ultimately meant they could find a permanent, safe home in Australia in 1941. The remainder of her family were murdered in concentration camps. This work is a labor of love to which she is now devoting her life. She trained as a graphic designer and then copywriter, and spent 30 years in the advertising industry both in Australia and the US, writing TV, radio and press for major multinationals. THE STAR ON THE GRAVE is her first novel.

ON THE SURFACE de Rachel McGuire

A YouTubing cruiser couple sails the world living their best life—until one of them goes missing and their whole world capsizes, in this captivating psychological thriller perfect for fans of Something in the Water and Saint X.

ON THE SURFACE
by Rachel McGuire
Crooked Lane Books, July 2024

Sawyer Stone III and Dani Fox, a young couple who spends their time circumnavigating the globe aboard their 42′ sailboat and documenting it for their fledgling YouTube channel Sailing with the Foxes, have anchored in Exuma, in the Bahamas.

As they wait for the price of crypto to rebound so they can provision and continue their journey, they’re partying and exploring with their fellow cruisers off shore. But one night, Dani vanishes after a boat party, and Sawyer has no memory of her disappearance.

The search for Dani is initially fueled by concerns that she disappeared during one of her daily ocean swims, but friends soon reveal that Dani’s relationship with Sawyer is not quite as perfect as everyone thinks it is.

Meanwhile, Royal Bahamas Police Force Inspector Knowles has her hands full trying to keep the investigation on course as the story of the American woman missing in the Bahamas goes viral and the internet sleuths unearth secrets from Sawyer’s past. Sawyer Stone is far from perfect, but is he a murderer?

This twisty, edge-of-your-seat thriller will keep readers gripped all the way through the final satisfying turn.

Rachel McGuire is the pen name for the collaboration between Rachel Graham and Lee-Ann McGuire Whitlock.

Rachel Graham has worked as a firefighter, paramedic, clinical researcher, and health consultant. She lives in San Diego, California with her family.

Lee-Ann McGuire Whitlock is a former lawyer, serial entrepreneur, and national pub trivia champion several times over. She and her husband, two children, two Cavalier King Charles spaniels split their time between Arkansas and Vancouver, Canada.

ON THE SURFACE is their first thriller.

CHRONICALLY DOLORES de Maya van Wagenen

Striking the perfect balance between wry humour and heartache, this new teen novel tackles choppy friendships, family dramas, and life-changing diagnoses, with a little bit of telenovela flair woven in.

CHRONICALLY DOLORES
by Maya van Wagenen
Dutton, March 2024
(via Writers House)

Nothing has been the same for fourteen-year-old Dolores Mendoza since everything started changing at the end of middle school. Newly diagnosed with interstitial cystitis, Dolores had a humiliating accident in class that earned her the nickname “whiz kid.” Even worse, she’s losing her lifelong BFF, Shae, who’s suddenly ignoring Dolores to hang out with the cool girls. Dolores is alone, and confused. What did she do wrong?

Now her mom is forcing Dolores to go to a “communication workshop for girls.” There, Dolores makes a tentative connection with Terpsichore Berkenbosch-Jones. Terpsichore, who is home-schooled and neurodiverse, makes a deal with Dolores: Pretend to be her friend so Terpsichore can convince her overprotective mother to let her go to public school, and in return Terpsichore will help Dolores get Shae back. Eventually, their friendship of convenience will start to transform both Dolores and Terpsichore and redefine the ways both girls understand friendships old and new.

Dolores’s funny and bittersweet coming-of-age friendship story is punctuated by her wry reviews of every bathroom in town (which she comes to know very well thanks to her IC) and hilariously over-dramatized flashbacks as Dolores rewrites traumatic experiences as if she’s the star of a telenovela.

Maya van Wagenen is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek, which was published to huge acclaim when she was just fifteen (press and praise roundup below!). CHRONICALLY DOLORES is her fiction debut.

THE KINDRED’S CURSE SAGA de Penn Cole

When old secrets catch fire, everything will burn.

THE KINDRED’S CURSE SAGA
by Penn Cole
Self-published, 2023 – 2024
(via The Whalen Agency)

Book 1: SPARK OF THE EVERFLAME (June 2023)

In a mortal world colonized by the gods and ruled over by the Descended, their cruel offspring, Diem Bellator yearns to escape the insular life of her poor village.

Her mother’s sudden disappearance—and the discovery of a dangerous secret about her past—offer Diem an unexpected opportunity to enter the dark world of Descended royalty and unlock the web of mysteries her mother left behind.

With the dying King’s handsome, mysterious heir watching her every move, and a ruthless mortal alliance recruiting her to join the growing civil war, Diem will have to navigate the unwritten rules of love, power, and politics in order to save her family—and all of mortalkind.

Book 2: GLOW OF THE EVERFLAME (July 2023)

An unexpected gift offers the power to change everything. Keeping it could cost Diem her life.

The threat of war has arrived at Diem’s doorstep, along with a new discovery that could save her people. To use it, she must survive the next thirty days by forming a devil’s bargain with the people she hates most: the royal family of House Corbois.

But as she dives into the world of the Descended elite, Diem quickly realizes good and evil aren’t as simple as they seem. Old prejudices are challenged, and new loyalties blur the line between friend and foe.

Meanwhile, her mother is still missing, and the secrets she left behind can no longer be ignored—and neither can the Guardians and their demands. Caught between an old flame and a sizzling new spark, Diem must confront the truth about who she is and what she wants before time runs out.

War is coming, and dangerous enemies wait on all sides.. but the most deadly battle Diem faces may be the one for her heart.

Book 3: HEAT OF THE EVERFLAME (September 2023)

The war has begun. Both sides demand Diem’s allegiance—or her death.

After her disastrous coronation, Diem finds herself at the center of the conflict between the Descended and the Guardians. With her newfound friends and the man she’s falling for on one side, and the mortals she has vowed to protect on the other, Diem must walk a careful line to save the people she loves… even from each other.

The mystery of her unusual heritage begins to unravel, sending Diem and Luther on an unexpected journey across the realms. The answers may hold the key to winning the war, but finding them will require her to face painful truths about her mother, her bloodline, and her fate.

Meanwhile, the Crowns have set Diem in their sights. Some could be her greatest allies—while others want her dead. To end their oppressive reign, Diem must sort friend from foe and risk it all to build an army of her own.

But a powerful figure in the north has plans that could change everything…

Book 4: BURN OF THE EVERFLAME (Spring 2024)

The journey concludes in the final book of The Kindred’s Curse Saga, a four-book epic fantasy romance series that follows our fiesty, bad*ss heroine Diem Bellator in her fight against injustice and oppression, her struggle to survive in a royal palace full of betrayal and intrigue, and her journey of self-discovery and finding true love. This slow burn, enemies-to-lovers series is perfect for fans of unique magic systems, dragons and other mythical creatures, angst and romantic tension, and hilarious banter. This book will appeal to fans of plot-heavy, character-driven romantasy such as A Court of Thorns and Roses, Throne of Glass, From Blood and Ash, Gild, Shadow & Bone, and The Serpent & the Wings of Night.

DREAD NATION SERIES de Justina Ireland

At once provocative, terrifying, and darkly subversive, DREAD NATION is Justina Ireland’s stunning vision of an America both foreign and familiar—a country on the brink, at the explosive crossroads where race, humanity, and survival meet.

DREAD NATION SERIES
by Justina Ireland
Balzer + Bray, 2018 – 2020
(via JABberwocky Literary Agency)

Book 1: DREAD NATION (April 2018)

Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever.

In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.

But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.

But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose.

But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies.

And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.

Book 2: DEATHLESS DIVIDE (February 2020)

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.

But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880s America.

What’s more, this safe haven is not what it appears—as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.

But she won’t be in it alone.

Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by—and that Jane needs her too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.

Watching Jane’s back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it’s up to Katherine to keep hope alive—even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her.

Justina Ireland is the New York Times bestselling author of DREAD NATION and its sequel, DEATHLESS DIVIDE, as well as Vengeance Bound and Promise of Shadows. She is also one of the creators of the Star Wars High Republic series and is the author of the Star Wars adventures A Test of Courage, Out of the Shadows, and Mission to Disaster. She lives with her family in Maryland, where she enjoys dark chocolate and dark humor and is not too proud to admit that she’s still afraid of the dark.