THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  This steamy new stand-alone romance, ONLY AND FOREVER by Chloe Liese is packed with enough charm and swoon-worthy scenes – guaranteed to be every hopeless romantics’ dream come true.   THE STORY:   ONLY AND FOREVER   is the   long-awaited conclusion to the beloved Bergman series that taken   BookTok   by storm!   Thistender, steamy story is about unexpectedly finding love and being brave enough to let it revise life’s narrative. Viggo Bergman, a busy hopeless romantic, is thoroughly weary of waiting for his happily ever after. Enter Tallulah Clarke, chilly cynic with a massive case of writer’s block. They each have what the other one needs, so they agree to swap skills and cohabitate for convenience. They hardly get along, but as they share a home and life, Tallulah and Viggo discover a connection that challenges everything they believe about love, and reveals the plot twist they never saw coming: happily ever after is here already, right u...

  Have you ever wondered "how the other half" live, with all of their money and prestige?  Author Glenn Miller takes us into the lives of the 1-percent in his novel, DOORMAN WANTED (KoehlerBooks) and it's easily one of the funniest books I've read so far this year. But there are also some important ideas, dare I say lessons to take away after reading the novel. Henry Franken has a problem with money-he has too much of it. When his unprincipled father dies, thirty-three-year-old Henry inherits a massive estate, including an Upper East Side residential building. He must confront the reality of his new financial status, directly conflicting with his well-honed identity as a "progressive liberal." When he shows up to collect the keys to his father's building, he notices a sign: "Doorman Wanted." Seeing a chance to stave off the complexities of his inheritance, Henry applies for the position under a pseudonym . . . and gets it. Now, no one in the bu...

  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...