THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  THE WOMAN in the GREEN DRESS is an evocative mystery about the 1920 murder of the gambler Joseph Elwell, featuring  New Yorker  writer Morris Markey and Zelda Fitzgerald. At the dawn of the Jazz Age, Morris Markey arrives in New York to become a writer. Having served in France, he needs to be in a place so distracting he cannot hear himself think. New in town, Markey hovers at the edge of the city’s revels, unable to hear the secrets that might give him his first Big Story. Finally one night he spots Joseph Elwell, a man about town known for courting wealthy married women, with a glorious girl in a dress of silver and dollar green. The next morning, Elwell’s housekeeper runs out into the street screaming that Elwell has been shot. Every door and window in the house is locked. Did the ravishing woman kill her paramour? At last, Morris Markey has his story. To penetrate the glittering world of Joseph Elwell, Markey turns to the newly famous Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald...

  Remember the novel  Chocolat   by  Joanne Harris ? Published in 1999, it’s the story of a young single mother named Vianne Rocher, who appears in the little French village of Lansquenet with her six-year-old daughter at the beginning of Lent. She opens a  chocolaterie  opposite the church, much to the chagrin of the local priest. With the magic in her sumptuous chocolates, she gently changes the lives of the folks who come to her shop. The beloved film adaptation,  Chocolat , directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Lena Olin, Alfred Molina, and Johnny Depp, was nominated for eight BAFTAs and five Oscars.   Now, twenty-five years later, Joanne Harris provides the origin story of Vianne Rocher in the novel,  VIANNE  (PegasusBooks) Readers who have loved and followed Vianne through the four-book  Chocolat  series will discover how she became that magical, miraculo...

  In this new, stylish, twisty thriller, PLEASE DON'T LIE (Thomansandmercer) from #1  New York Times  bestselling author Christina Baker Kline and award-winning author Anne Burt, a young woman heads to the Adirondacks with her new husband for a fresh start—but the past won’t let her go. Two years ago, Hayley Stone lost everything. First, her parents died in a devastating fire. Then, her sister overdosed, leaving Hayley alone and hounded by a media circus that turned her family’s tragedy into tabloid fodder. When her new husband suggests a fresh start in the Adirondacks, the promise of anonymity in an isolated mountain town feels like salvation. But the mountains hold darker secrets than she ever imagined. Her once-loving husband grows distant and volatile. The widow down the road keeps spewing vague accusations. Not even their new friends—a free-spirited couple living on the property—can help Hayley shake the creeping sense that something is off. As winter edges closer, H...