THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  Familiaris (BlackstonePublishing)  is the stirring origin story of the Sawtelle family and the remarkable dogs that carry the Sawtelle name.  It is spring 1919, and John Sawtelle’s imagination has gotten him into trouble … again. Now John and his newlywed wife, Mary, along with their two best friends and their three dogs, are setting off for Wisconsin’s northwoods, where they hope to make a fresh start—and, with a little luck, discover what it takes to live a life of meaning, purpose, and adventure. But the place they are headed for is far stranger and more perilous than they realize, and it will take all their ingenuity, along with a few new friends—human, animal, and otherworldly—to realize their dreams. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, mysterious and enchanting,  Familiaris  takes readers on an unforgettable journey from the halls of a small-town automobile factory, through an epic midwestern firestorm and an ambitious WWII dog-training program, and fa...

  Can Greta Kolbe evade a ruthless ex-boyfriend-turned Nazi before she can escape to freedom? VIENNA ON FIRE  (BlueDanubePress) by Don Gabor tells the compelling story of Greta Kolbe, an eighteen-year-old Jewish woman whose comfortable life is upended when Adolf Hitler’s German army storms into Austria on March 12, 1938. Greta is horrified by crowds of Viennese shouting anti-Semitic slurs as German soldiers herd crying Jewish families into military trucks. She joins the Austrian resistance, passes out anti-fascist leaflets, and paints “free Austria” slogans on walls. After a Gestapo officer threatens to arrest Greta for her role in a bloody prison break, she flees Vienna to the Netherlands for a ship bound for America while her archenemy trails close behind. Driven by courage, cunning, and determination on her treacherous journey, Greta smuggles diamonds for the German resistance, eludes Hermann Göring's crude advances at his drug-fueled orgy, and fights for her life in a shoo...

    THE BERLIN WIFE: BookOne, German Wives (BookOuture) is set during WWII. The Jews are being rounded up, and one woman is desperate to save her husband, who has been taken by the Nazis.  Germany, 1938. ‘No,’ she cries out as she falls to the floor, fear clutching desperately at her chest, ‘They can’t have taken him, they can’t have taken my husband.’ As her tear-filled eyes dart wildly around the empty room, she realises she has no one to turn to. She is his only hope. But how can she possibly save him? When shy, beautiful  Edith  first met Jewish-born  Julius  it was love at first sight. Julius swept her off her feet, whisking her from humble beginnings into the sparkling society and glittering ballrooms of Berlin’s powerful elite. It felt like all her dreams had come true. But her perfect world begins to crack with rumblings of the Nazi party growing in power and influence. Every day, there are new laws to strip Jews of their money and their freedo...

  From the  New York Times -bestselling author, Georgia Hunter,  a propulsive and heart-wrenching story, ONE GOOD THING (PamelaDormanBooks) of a young woman entrusted with a boy’s life as WWII rages in Italy. 1940, Italy. Lili and Esti have been best friends since they first met at university. When Esti’s son Theo is born, they become as close as sisters. While a war seethes across borders, life somehow goes on—until Germany invades Italy, and the friends suddenly find themselves in occupied territory. Esti, older and fiercely self-assured, convinces Lili to join the resistance efforts. But when disaster strikes, a critically wounded Esti asks Lili to take a much bigger step: To go on the run with Theo. Protect him while Esti can’t. Terrified to travel on her own, Lili sets out with Theo on a harrowing journey south toward Allied territory, braving Nazi-occupied villages and bombed-out cities, doing everything she can to keep the boy safe. A remarkable tale of friendship,...

  DIANA SAYS YES (DialPressTradePaperback) is the satisfying conclusion to the sizzling Dirty Diana series. Diana says yes to what she truly wants and sees just how hard she’ll have to fight for it. Diana Wood’s escape to Paris has ended. She’s traded her international sexual escapades for sharing a couch in therapy with her husband, Oliver. Dedicated to rekindling the spark they lost, Diana and Oliver are determined to follow whatever directives their therapist issues. But then they’re told, “absolutely no sex.” Diana begins dating the man who was once her husband. Much to her surprise, the therapist’s advice seems to be working: The emotional connection between Diana and Oliver deepens and their physical attraction becomes all-consuming. But Diana’s marriage isn’t the only thing in her life entering a new phase. Dirty Diana—the website she built in secret to celebrate women’s fantasies—has begun to attract celebrity attention. Soon enough, Hollywood is calling. Diana and Oliver s...

  BLESS YOUR HEART   (Crooked Lane Books)  is a fitting title for  Leigh Dunlap ’s twisty and complex thriller about a Southern upscale community where no one is really who they seem, and everyone is lying to each other.    Anderson Tupper, a member of one of Atlanta’s richest families, has been found murdered in the dugout of the Little League field where he was a volunteer coach, and it’s up to Detective Shay Claypool, a single mother from the other side of town, to find his killer. Accustomed to handling drug dealers and prostitutes, she must now contend with an even more sinister group: the Buckhead Betties, the insufferably entitled women of Georgia’s most affluent zip code.   Dunlap shares a particular moment that propelled her to write the novel: “One day, while watching my son play Little League baseball in Buckhead, a mother from the opposing team called one of our ten-year-old players an ‘a$$hole.’ The shock from that abhorrent behavior by a ...

  From  New York Times  and  USA Today  bestselling author Karen Rose comes another "intense, complex, and unforgettable”* novel. Officer Naomi Cranston was framed for stealing cocaine from the evidence locker and coerced—through threats to her young son—into not fighting the charges. After five years in prison, she has tried to put the ordeal behind her, but the crooks who framed her have returned, this time demanding she move drugs along with her flower shop’s deliveries. They threaten her son once again, but this time she’s not capitulating quietly. She hires Broussard Investigations to protect her and her son, to prove her innocence, and to put the real bad guys away. As a former cop, Burke Broussard is well aware of the corruption in the New Orleans police department. He had always believed Naomi Cranston to be guilty and isn’t inclined to take her case. Until he sits down to listen to her side of things. Until he sees her tortured innocence written all ove...

  THE HARVEY GIRLS  (GalleryBooks)  transports us to 1920s America with this big-hearted tale of two very different women who must learn to trust each other as one tries to save her family and the other to save herself. 1926: Charlotte Crowninshield was born into one of the finest Boston society families. Now she’s on the run from a brutal husband, desperate to disappear into the wilds of the Southwest. Billie MacTavish is the oldest of nine children born to Scottish immigrants in Nebraska. She quit school in the sixth grade to help with her mother’s washing and mending business, but even that isn’t enough to keep the family afloat. Desperate, both women join the ranks of the Harvey Girls, waitresses who serve in America’s first hospitality chain on the Santa Fe railroad. Hired on the same day, they share three things: a room, a heartfelt dislike of each other…and each has a secret that will certainly get them fired. Through twelve-hour days of training in Topeka, Kansas,...

  If you knew how your life would turn out, what would you change now? Margot Wayward is in manically gleeful self-destruct mode. Following the implosion of a ten-year relationship, she’s wilfully derailing her successful career, joyfully taking down men on dating apps, and living in total chaos. Until one day, when Margot has a vision of herself with a man she’s never met before. She doesn’t believe in fate. But when Margot meets single-dad Henry, the vision comes true: exactly as she’d foreseen it. As her future continues to reveal itself, a glimpse at a time, Margot realises she knows exactly what’s going to happen, and when. And there’s nothing she can do to change any of it. So Margot has to decide how to live, how to love again, and how to be herself… Because if you can’t change your destiny, how on earth do you live your present? Holly is the Number One bestselling, multi-award winning author of the GEEK GIRL series. She fell in love with writing at five years old, when she ...

Eva Kitt never expected to be the host of Sausage Talk, interviewing B-list celebrities over lukewarm hot dogs, instead of pursuing the journalism career she dreamed of. But when Eva’s impromptu public call of her college ex goes viral, she’s thrust into the spotlight. It doesn’t help that said ex is Rylie Cooper, a beloved social media personality who has built a platform on deconstructing toxic masculinity and teaching men how to be good partners. Forced to confront Rylie on a live episode of Sausage Talk, he offers Eva a deal: allow him to take her on a series of dates to make up for his toxic behavior, then debrief them on his channel to show he’s changed. Eva refuses to play nice, but agrees to the scheme to advance her career and continue defaming Rylie’s good name. When these manufactured dates start to feel real, Eva has to wonder if the boy who broke her heart has become the man who might heal it. Mazey Eddings is a bestselling author, dentist, and (most importantly) stage mom...

  h Find them early enough, and they will always be her girls. Birdie Rhodes was only thirteen when legendary modeling agent Harriet Goldman discovered her in a department store and transformed her into one of Harriet’s Girls. What followed felt like the start of something incredible, a chance for shy Birdie to express herself in front of the camera. But two years later, she meets a thirty-one-year-old rock star, and her teenage heart falls hard as he leads her into a new life, despite Harriet's warnings. Then, as abruptly as it began, it’s over, like a lipstick-smeared fever dream. Birdie tries hard to forget that time—starting over in Paris, in the dying embers of the LA punk scene, in Boston at the height of the AIDS crisis. She’s not that person anymore. At least, that’s what she’s been telling herself. Decades later, Birdie lives a quiet life. She works modest gigs, takes Pilates, and mostly keeps to herself. Maybe it’s not the glamor she once envisioned, but it...

  The rain pours down, plastering his hair to his head and his shirt to his body. He takes my hand and puts it over his heart. "See? Still beating." Pounding is more like it... How do you let go of your first love when his memory still owns your heart? Ten years ago, Robin’s world was cracked open by Jed—a brilliant, complicated young man who told her not to fall for him. But she did. She gave him everything, only to lose him to a chronic illness that was always waiting in the wings. Now, Robin is finally rebuilding. She has a new career, a small but solid circle of support, and Nick—a funny, passionate, infuriatingly earnest guy who sees her for who she is. He doesn’t know about Jed. Or the play Jed wrote for her. Or that Robin has agreed to star in its long-overdue debut. As opening night nears, Robin is haunted by what could have been—and by what still might be. She’s caught between honoring the past and claiming her future, between the person she was and the person she wa...