THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  EVERYONE IS WATCHING (Park Row) by Heather Gudenkauf  is a twisty, high-stakes locked-room mystery following five strangers gathered at a secluded resort in Napa Valley for a live-streamed reality game-show. With ten million dollars on the line, the contestants are willing to do whatever it takes to win… until they realize why they’re really there.  The Best Friend, The Confidante, The Senator, The Boyfriend, The Exec have all been invited to participate in   One Lucky Winner .  No one knows what challenges await them on this new live-streamed game-show except that they will be tested physically, mentally, and emotionally in this isolated resort they’re not allowed to leave. Soon, decades old secrets begin to surface, the contestants discover this game isn’t about the money, and it only ends with revenge. HERE'S AN EXCERPT One The Best Friend Maire Hennessy squinted against the bright October sun as she drove down the quiet Iowa county road. The fields were ...

  v Equal parts thought-provoking and entertaining,   Off the Air   introduces Jolene Garcia in Emmy Award–winning reporter Christina Estes's Tony Hillerman Prize–winning debut, OFF THE AIR. Jolene Garcia is a local TV reporter in Phoenix, Arizona, splitting her time between covering general assignments—anything from a monsoon storm to a newborn giraffe at the zoo—and special projects. Stories that take more time to research and produce. Stories that Jolene wants to tell. When word gets out about a death at a radio station, Jolene and other journalists swarm the scene, intent on reporting the facts first. The body is soon identified as Larry Lemmon, a controversial talk show host, who died under suspicious circumstances. Jolene conducted his final interview, giving her and her station an advantage. But not for long. As the story heats up, so does the competition. Jolene is determined to solve this murder. It’s an investigation that could make or break her career—if it doe...

  A single mother working in the gothic mansion of a reclusive horror director stumbles upon terrifying secrets in the captivating new novel, THE HOUSE THAT HORROR BUILT by Christina Henry.  Harry Adams has always loved horror movies, so it’s not a total coincidence that she took the job cleaning house for movie director Javier Castillo. His forbidding graystone Chicago mansion, Bright Horses, is filled from top to bottom with terrifying props and costumes, as well as glittering awards from his career making films that thrilled audiences—until family tragedy and scandal forced him to vanish from the industry.   Javier values discretion, and Harry has always tried to clean the house immaculately, keep her head down, and keep her job safe—she needs the money to support her son. But then she starts hearing noises from behind a locked door. Noises that sound remarkably like a human voice calling for help, even though Javier lives alone and never has visitors. Harry knows that...

WE MUST NOT THINK OF OURSELVES (AlgonquinBooks) by Lauren Grodstein is a thought-provoking eyewitness account of WWII. It's based on diaries that can be found in the Oneg Shabbat Archives in Warsaw. I was not aware of this particular story and it left me speechless. Adam Poskow was a 40-year-old childless widow and professor who was sent to the Warsaw ghetto by his Catholic father-in-law. Poskow keeps diaries of other people living in the ghetto, so their memories and dreams are preserved and not forgotten.  He documents the horrors of living in the ghetto. He writes a first person uncompromising narrative about the people who have to beg for food, have mental breakdowns, are killed in the streets by Nazis for no reason and see their bodies for food and passports. But despite this treatment some people are hopeful and dream of escaping their Nazis imprisonment to another country. WE MUST NOT THINK OF OURSELVES is a difficult emotional read. Despite Grodstein's outstanding story...

  Best selling author, Rachel Slade writes a moving and eye-opening look at the story of manufacturing in America, whether it can ever successfully return to our shores, and why our nation depends on it, told through the experience of one young couple in Maine as they attempt to rebuild a lost industry, ethically in her new book, MAKING IT IN AMERICA (Pantheon/PenguinRandomHouse). Meet Ben and Whitney Waxman, two tireless idealists attempting to do the impossible: produce an American-made, union-made, all American-sourced sweatshirt—an American hoodie. Ben spent a decade organizing workers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin, fighting for Americans at a time when national support for unions had sunk to an all-time low. Struggling with depression and a drug dependency, Ben lands back in his hometown of Portland, Maine, desperate to prove that ethical manufacturing is possible. There, he meets Whitney, a bartender wrestling with her own complicated past. In each other they see a bet...

  A young couple fleeing a criminal family confronts a reluctant assassin in this heart-pounding thriller from E.A. Aymar. When Melissa Cruz falls hard for a dreamy-eyed photographer named Jake, she can’t resist the urge to run away with him. The problem is that she already has a boyfriend, a rising star in his family’s crime organization. Betrayed and humiliated, Chris isn’t going to just let her go. To find Melissa, Chris turns to Lucky Wilson, one of his family’s professional assassins. But Lucky has his own problems. After years of lying about his day job, his marriage is in shambles and he suffers from relentless panic attacks. He’ll do this job if Chris will let him out of the killing life. Lucky knows this is his best chance at salvaging the home life he always craved. But Melissa and Jake aren’t going to abandon their chance at something real―something they’ve both been lacking in their lives. But they aren’t the only ones desperate to survive, and a powerful criminal famil...

  Their name? The objectors. Their job? To break off weddings as hired. Their dilemma? They might just be in love with each other.   When Sophie Steinbeck finds out just before her nuptials that her fiancé has cheated yet again, she desperately wants to call it off. But because her future father-in-law is her dad’s cutthroat boss,  she  doesn’t want to be the one to do it. Her savior comes in the form of a professional objector, whose purpose is to show up at weddings and proclaim the words no couple (usually) wants to hear at their ceremony: “I object!”   During anti-wedding festivities that night, Sophie learns more about Max the Objector’s job. It makes perfect sense to her: he saves people from wasting their lives, from hurting each other. He’s a modern-day hero. And Sophie wants in.   The two love cynics start working together, going from wedding to wedding, and Sophie’s having more fun than she’s had in ages. She looks forward to every nerve-racking c...

  One woman’s worst fears come to life in the third novel of the Devil’s Night dark romance series by  New York Times  bestseller Penelope Douglas, now with bonus material. Sending Damon to prison was the worst thing Winter could’ve done. It didn’t matter that he did the crime or that she wished he was dead. Winter thought he’d cool off in jail and be anything but the horror he was, or that at the very least she’d have time to disappear before he got out. But she was wrong. Three years came and went too fast, and prison only gave him time to plan. And while Winter anticipated his vengeance, she didn’t expect this. He doesn’t want to make her hurt. He wants to make everything hurt. Damon knows he needs to get rid of Winter’s father, giving her, her sister, and her mother nowhere to run. The Ashby women are desperate for a knight in shining armor. But that’s not what’s coming. It's time Damon took control of his future. It’s time he showed them all that he will never stop b...

  Ready or Scot... Globetrotter Addie Macrae always follows her wanderlust. As a travel consultant, she jet sets around the world—anywhere but Scotland. But when she’s sent on assignment to help a struggling family-run tour company in the Highlands—and save her own job—Addie packs away her emotional baggage and turns on the professional charm. Rugged as the land he loves, Logan Sutherland’s greatest joy is sharing the beauty of Scotland’s hidden gems…even if it means a wee bit of red ink on the company’s bottom line. The last thing Logan wants is some American “expert” pushing tourist traps and perpetuating myths about the Loch Ness Monster—especially when Addie never leaves her desk to experience the country for herself. As they wage an office war, Logan discovers Addie’s secret connection to Scotland: a handful of faded Polaroids of her late mother. Hoping for a truce, he creates a private tour to the places in the pictures to help Addie find closure and appreciate the enchantmen...