THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  An ordinary summer goes royally awry when a prince and princess move next door, bringing their handsome bodyguard with them, from  New York Times  bestselling author Karina Halle. Piper Evans: elementary school teacher by day--avid romance reader and anonymous podcaster by night. She has a quiet, reclusive life, taking care of her mother, who lives with mental illness, avoiding her regrettable ex, who bartends in town, and trying to make inroads in the tight-knit island community that still sees her, five years in, as an outsider. And she's happy with how things are--really--until British royals rent the property next to hers and their brooding bodyguard decides she's a security threat. Piper quickly realizes that one person's fairy tale is an ordinary woman's nightmare as a media frenzy takes over the island and each run-in with Harrison Cole is hotter and more confusing than the last. But beneath Harrison's no-nonsense exterior lies a soft heart, one that could

  As war overtakes the frontier, Emma’s family farmstead is attacked by Dakota-Sioux warriors; On that same prairie, in Samantha Specks novel, DOVETAILS IN A TALL GRASS, 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. Though  Dovetails in Tall Grass  is about events in 1862, for me the story started on Christmas 2005. A bitter wind blew snow over a country road. I was a high-schooler, cozy riding in my parent

  Carrot Quinn's memoir, THE SUNSET ROUTE (TheDialPress) is one of the most brilliant books I've read. For Carrot to write so poetically while revealing such desperation, it's not an easy book to absorb. Carrot grows up in Alaska with a schizophrenic mentally-ill mother who speaks to the Virgin Mary, a brother and has no father. She's neglected, hungry more often than not, living moment to moment, surviving. She leaves Alaska at fourteen years old after her mother attempts to strangle her. At that point, Carrot makes her way to Portland, falls into a counter culture existence living in punk houses, eating from dumpsters, shoplifting and traveling the country by rail. Carrot is introduced to the memoir, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard which gently leads her to embracing nature, feeling one with the trees and water. This memoir is her bible throughout the story. She lives in forests, homeless camps, exists out of society.  THE SUNSET ROUTE has a running theme of

  Julia Brewer Daily's novel, NO NAMES TO BE GIVEN (AdmissionPress) is about three unwed women who are pregnant and hidden away by their parents and society as a whole in the 1960s until they give birth. Three women find themselves in early pregnancy sent to Magnolia Home Hospital in New Orleans to wait out their pregnancies and give their babies away to be adopted. Sandy escapes her mother's abusive boyfriend. Desperate for money she begins dancing in a strip joint. It isn't long before she's pregnant. Becca falls in love and gets pregnant by a Negro, which is unheard of by her conservative southern parents in the 1960s. She's quickly whisked away to wait to deliver her baby at Magnolia Home. Faith is raped by a man her religious parent's trust and is unable to tell them the truth. Her father sends her away. All three women find themselves at Magnolia Home hospital having their babies on the same day and giving them away without even seeing them. They are expec

  When your mother names you after your father’s affair, you might wish you were living someone else’s life. That's the premise of Samantha Hart's memoir, BLIND PONY. For Samantha Hart, growing up on a farm in rural Pennsylvania had been no childhood idyll but rather a violent, surreal nightmare. A twisted vision of pastoral life part Faulkner part Dante. At fourteen years old, she ran away in search of her father, a character she only knew as Wild Bill. Discovering he wasn’t the hero she dreamt he’d be, she was on her own. Arriving in Los Angeles at the peak of LA’s decadence where money, drugs, and good times flowed, she floated through a strange new world of champagne-soaked parties, high-stakes backgammon tournaments, and a whirlwind of international escapades flogging nude photographs. When a wealthy playboy mistakes her Pittsburgh accent for being British, it begins a spiral of white lies leading Sam to question everything she thought she knew about herself and who she co

  Mel Smith is trying to become someone, not just a survivor in Barbara J. Hancock's first novel, WILDWOOD WHISPERS (Redbook/Hachett eBookGroup) written under the name, Willa Reece. She's been in the foster care system for as long as she can remember and the bright light that keeps her going is looking out for fellow orphan, Sarah Ross. Once they age out, they become even closer friends and roommates in Richmond, Virginia. But when Sarah is killed in a car accident, Mel honors a promise she made to Sarah and returns to her home in the southern Appalachian Mountains to spread her ashes. She quickly learns Morgan's Gap is more than a land of morning mists and deep forest shadows.  WILDWOOD WHISPERS weaves magical realism, fantasy, feminism and the bounty of simple mountain traditions. The book is about accepting gifts from nature and making connections with fellow humans. It's the secrets that women have between one another which they use to survive. It's a complex bo

  Sweet Bronwyn, fun-loving Georgie, and bold-and-beautiful Lissa were inseparable at university. The trio added Adam and Duncan to their crowd after joining the swim team, and even years later, their pastime unites them across time and long distance. But now, nearing 40 years old, the old pals find themselves gathering in tropical paradise for a more tragic circumstance: Lissa’s memorial service. Nobody knows exactly what happened on the fateful night that Lissa went out for a swim at Kanu Cove and never returned. Lissa knew the spot well―after all, she and her husband, Jem, had been living on the lush tropical resort they newly owned together. And everyone on the island knows that something dangerous is rumored to lurk beneath the crystal-clear waters of the Cove. So why would Lissa go for a swim at Kanu Cove, alone, at night? Is it likely that a champion swimmer really drowned―or was something more sinister at play? The peaceful weekend in memory of a lost friend turns chilling as t

  A brilliant, sweeping history of the contemporary women’s movement told through the lives and works of the literary women who shaped it. Forty years after their first groundbreaking work of feminist literary theory,   The Madwoman in the Attic , award-winning collaborators Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar map the literary history of feminism’s second wave in their new book, STILL MAD: American Women Writers and the Feminist Imagination. From its stirrings in the midcentury—when Sylvia Plath, Betty Friedan, and Joan Didion found their voices and Diane di Prima, Lorraine Hansberry, and Audre Lorde discovered community in rebellion—to a resurgence in the new millennium in the writings of Alison Bechdel, Claudia Rankine, and N. K. Jemisin, Gilbert and Gubar trace the evolution of feminist literature. They offer lucid, compassionate, and piercing readings of major works by these writers and others, including Adrienne Rich, Ursula K. Le Guin, Maxine Hong Kingston, Susan Sontag, Gloria Anz

  Mystery writer Brooke Davies is the new wife on the block. Her tech-billionaire husband, Jack, twenty-two years her senior, whisked her to the Bay Area via private jet and purchased a modest mansion on the same day. He demands perfection, and before now, Brooke has had no problem playing the role of a doting housewife. But as she befriends other wives on the street and spends considerable time away from Jack, he worries if he doesn’t control Brooke’s every move, she will reveal the truth behind their “perfect” marriage. Erin King, famed news anchor and chair of the community board, is no stranger to maintaining an image—though being married to a plastic surgeon helps. But the skyrocketing success of her career has worn her love life thin, and her professional ambitions have pushed Mason away. Quitting her job is a Hail Mary attempt at keeping him interested, to steer him away from finding a young trophy wife. But is it enough, and is Mason truly the man she thought he was? Georgia St

  Two lives. The one you wanted. The one that wanted you.   Her birthday  should be  like any other night.   One minute Kelly’s a free-spirited artist in Chicago going to her best friend’s art show. The next, she opens a door and mysteriously emerges in her Michigan hometown. Suddenly her life is unrecognizable: She's got twelve years of the wrong memories in her head and she's married to Eric, a man she barely knew in high school. Racing to get back to her old life, Kelly's search leads only to more questions. In this life, she loves Eric and wants to trust him, but everything she discovers about him—including a connection to a mysterious tech startup—tells her she shouldn't. And strange things keep happening. The tattoos she had when she was an artist briefly reappear on her skin, she remembers fights with Eric that he says never happened, and her relationships with loved ones both new and familiar seem to change without warning. But the closer Kelly gets to putting t

While reading Virginia Feito's novel, MRS. MARCH (Liveright/WWNorton) I felt as if I was being sucked into the mind of a 42 year-old woman with severe mental illness. And while it was uncomfortable and sad, I couldn't stop reading. Feito's novel is a study between madness and death. It's a dark psychological drama that will creep you out. At least, it creeped me out. Mrs. March is the wife of a successful author. She starts to begin seeing herself in the main character of her husband's new bestselling novel and begins performing as that character in real life and losing herself at the same time. Mrs. March not only finds herself between the pages of the book, but discovering secrets of her past, as well as tracking down a killer.  Feito's writing is brilliant and her characters are so complex and well developed. The whole novel is set in the wealthy New York City "Book World" which is quite a treat to read about. MRS. MARCH is soon to be a motion pictu

  Following her bestselling debut novel, MONTAUK, Nicola Harrison releases THE SHOW GIRL (StMartinsPress). Get ready to be immersed in the roaring 1920s and the glitzy glamour of the Zeigfeld Follies. Olive McCormick is a midwestern girl who has grown up taking singing and dance lessons, and now feels she's ready to take on New York City. But before leaving Minnesota, Olive gets pregnant and gives her baby up for adoption. Compartmentalizing the guilt and shame that come with that, Olive saves her money and against her family wishes, makes it to the Big Apple.  Once in NYC, she becomes a Zeigfeld Follie, gets her own supper club act strutting around in nearly nothing and becomes a big star. She is showered with gifts, jewelry, furs, a Fifth Avenue apartment by her male followers but she's all work, no play. Until she meets swoon-worthy, Archie Carmichael who is attracted to her independent ways. From there the story gets only more interesting. I loved reading THE SHOW GIRLS. No

N ow you can experience America’s most beautiful drives…from the comfort of your own home! This inspiring new collection that lets you explore breathtaking views of the country from coast to coast. Divided into five regions, this amazing guidebook features 45 of the BEST road trips America has to offer, all detailed by readers and journalists who’ve traveled them firsthand. It’s the perfect way to “tour” the country’s most popular destinations and uncover dozens more! HIGHLIGHTS 45 exciting road trips spanning every corner of America from coast to coast. 140+ magnificent color photos showcasing the most breathtaking views in the country. Divided into 5 regions: West, Midwest, Northwest, Southeast and Southwest. Inspiring travel stories from the readers and journalists who drove them firsthand. Must-see attractions, can’t-miss side trips & handy planning tips for most drives. Special collector’s edition printed in strictly limited numbers. Thanks to FSB Associates and Reader's D

  Amelia Montgomery is a successful, tough-as-nails Chicago criminal litigator. She lives to strut around the courtroom in her designer suits ripping the opposition to pieces. But in Jeanette Escudero's novel, THE APOLOGY PROJECT (LakeUnion), Amelia needs a little help in the personality department. While she's outstanding at work, she has an edge that keeps people away from her. She's put on as the lead attorney in a high profile case, but when her bosses pressure her to compromise her values and principles she snaps. She punches one of the partners in the face and is immediately fired, but not without negotiating a huge monetary payoff  in exchange for signing a NDA (non-disclosure agreement).  Her 40th birthday is fast approaching and she sees this as an opportunity to invite all her friends from the past and former coworkers to a huge party she's arranged. She wants to catch up with all the people she's tossed to the curb, because her career has always come firs