It’s December 24, 1979, just before closing at Baker-Taylor’s discount department store, and Fran (née Baker) is surveying her domain. Her husband, Fred, is charming customers in the front of the store. The older Taylor kids are on register, while the younger ones’ chaos is contained to the stockroom. All is right in the world as the new decade approaches. With four healthy children and financial stability their own parents could have only dreamed of, Fred and Fran are the picture of the American Dream --- with a successful chain of family-owned stores built on years of hard work and long hours. Underneath the surface, however, the business is changing at a breakneck pace, and each member of the family is struggling to keep up.

It’s December 24, 1979, just before closing at Baker-Taylor’s discount department store, and Fran (née Baker) is surveying her domain. Her husband, Fred, is charming customers in the front of the store. The older Taylor kids are on register, while the younger ones’ chaos is contained to the stockroom. All is right in the world as the new decade approaches. With four healthy children and financial stability their own parents could have only dreamed of, Fred and Fran are the picture of the American Dream --- with a successful chain of family-owned stores built on years of hard work and long hours. Underneath the surface, however, the business is changing at a breakneck pace, and each member of the family is struggling to keep up.

A sweeping novel of one Kentucky family’s rise and fall throughout the 1980s --- a tragicomic tour de force about love and marriage, parents and children, and the perils of mixing family with business, from the acclaimed author of THE ANIMATORS.

It’s December 24, 1979, just before closing at Baker-Taylor’s discount department store, and Fran (née Baker) is surveying her domain. Her husband, Fred, is charming customers in the front of the store, while last-minute shoppers in the toy aisle are fighting over the lone remaining Atari. The older Taylor kids are on register, while the younger ones’ chaos is contained to the stockroom. All is right in the world as the new decade approaches.

With four healthy children and financial stability their own parents could have only dreamed of, Fred and Fran are the picture of the American Dream --- rags to riches --- with a successful chain of family-owned stores built on years of hard work and long hours. Underneath the surface, however, the business is changing at a breakneck pace, and each member of the family is struggling to keep up.

Money is transforming Fred, and the extremes he will go to in order to fit in with the slicked-back high society crowd of Lexington, Kentucky, are embarrassing, if not downright dangerous. Josiah, the oldest son, wants nothing to do with the family business; Sam is seeing things that might not really be there; and Benny and Birdie are growing up with a fraction of the parenting that their older brothers had. Meanwhile, Fran, her family’s stable core, is falling for Wendy, a cashier at Baker-Taylor’s, risking everything along the way. While trying to maintain the facade of a perfect success story, Fred and Fran learn that in matters of love and money, once it’s gone, it’s gone --- no returns, no exchanges. 

Audiobook available, read by Amanda Stribling

Ten years ago, a bestselling, critically acclaimed literary author disappeared without a trace…and without a final novel. In recent days, that missing manuscript has surfaced. However, it’s not another genius work of literary fiction, but an espionage novel full of all-too-stereotypical spycraft and James Bond-like twists. His former publisher has asked the author’s best friend --- and fellow author named C.B. Everett --- to annotate the novel with details from real life to give the strange novel context within his larger oeuvre. But as C.B. reads, he finds that the espionage thriller is filled with references to events and people who feel a little too familiar. Soon he’s wondering if the novel might in fact be a key to his missing friend’s disappearance.

Ten years ago, a bestselling, critically acclaimed literary author disappeared without a trace…and without a final novel. In recent days, that missing manuscript has surfaced. However, it’s not another genius work of literary fiction, but an espionage novel full of all-too-stereotypical spycraft and James Bond-like twists. His former publisher has asked the author’s best friend --- and fellow author named C.B. Everett --- to annotate the novel with details from real life to give the strange novel context within his larger oeuvre. But as C.B. reads, he finds that the espionage thriller is filled with references to events and people who feel a little too familiar. Soon he’s wondering if the novel might in fact be a key to his missing friend’s disappearance.

A missing bestselling author. A final manuscript encoded with clues to his fate. And a best friend racing to get to the final chapter.

From the author of the “blackly funny” THE OTHER PEOPLE, a gripping book-within-a-book thriller that is perfect for fans of Anthony Horowitz and Janice Hallett.

Ten years ago, a bestselling, critically acclaimed literary author disappeared without a trace…and without a final novel. In recent days, that missing manuscript has surfaced. However, it’s not another genius work of literary fiction, but an espionage novel full of all-too-stereotypical spycraft and James Bond-like twists.

His former publisher has asked the author’s best friend --- and fellow author named C.B. Everett --- to annotate the novel with details from real life to give the strange novel context within his larger oeuvre. But as C.B. reads, he finds that the espionage thriller is filled with references to events and people who feel a little too familiar. Soon he’s wondering if the novel might in fact be a key to his missing friend’s disappearance. There’s text and subtext aplenty, and C.B. is determined to learn once and for all what happened to his friend through solving the mystery woven into the pages. But the final chapter may hold secrets darker and more threatening than anyone anticipated.

An unputdownable, twisty thriller, THE FINAL CHAPTER asks us: How well do we really know our closest friends? And how well do we know ourselves?

After a failed relationship and an unsettled teaching career, Sara Barlow returns to her childhood home in Arlington, Virginia, hoping for a fresh start. But when she applies for a job at her old high school, she spots in the gymnasium the man she suspects was involved in a classmate’s violent death a decade earlier. Haunted by the past, Sara confronts the memories she’s spent years trying to suppress: her sister Suzanne’s fatal car crash, her secret summer with the reckless Devlin Barrie, and the anonymous 911 call she made after witnessing what she believes was a murder. As the construction of Interstate 66 physically fractures her community, Sara grapples with emotional fault lines of her own --- guilt, silence and buried truth.

After a failed relationship and an unsettled teaching career, Sara Barlow returns to her childhood home in Arlington, Virginia, hoping for a fresh start. But when she applies for a job at her old high school, she spots in the gymnasium the man she suspects was involved in a classmate’s violent death a decade earlier. Haunted by the past, Sara confronts the memories she’s spent years trying to suppress: her sister Suzanne’s fatal car crash, her secret summer with the reckless Devlin Barrie, and the anonymous 911 call she made after witnessing what she believes was a murder. As the construction of Interstate 66 physically fractures her community, Sara grapples with emotional fault lines of her own --- guilt, silence and buried truth.

Sometimes the road home runs through everything you tried to forget.

After a failed relationship and an unsettled teaching career, Sara Barlow returns to her childhood home in Arlington, Virginia, hoping for a fresh start. But when she applies for a job at her old high school, a chance glimpse into the gymnasium shakes her to the core. She spots the man she suspects was involved in a classmate’s violent death a decade earlier.

Haunted by the past, Sara confronts the memories she’s spent years trying to suppress: her sister Suzanne’s fatal car crash, her secret summer with the reckless Devlin Barrie, and the anonymous 911 call she made after witnessing what she believes was a murder. As the construction of Interstate 66 physically fractures her community, Sara grapples with emotional fault lines of her own --- guilt, silence and buried truth.

Set against the backdrop of suburban upheaval in the 1970s and ’80s, ROAD LONGER THAN MEMORY is a compelling story of memory, reckoning, and the cost of what we leave unsaid.

Audiobook available, read by Kristi Burns 

West Point cadet Brooks Jenson is only months away from graduation, and he does not expect anything to block his path to a productive career in the Army. But when he finds fellow cadet Jed Figueroa murdered, everything takes a turn for the worst. Brooks is a witness who becomes a suspect as the investigation continues. As Brooks struggles through his classes and every other aspect of cadet life, he leans on friends, family and professors for support --- especially Colonel Zac Madison, a heroine of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who now teaches at West Point. As the investigation into Jed’s death takes one startling turn after another, Brooks must find his footing if he wants to finish West Point alive.

West Point cadet Brooks Jenson is only months away from graduation, and he does not expect anything to block his path to a productive career in the Army. But when he finds fellow cadet Jed Figueroa murdered, everything takes a turn for the worst. Brooks is a witness who becomes a suspect as the investigation continues. As Brooks struggles through his classes and every other aspect of cadet life, he leans on friends, family and professors for support --- especially Colonel Zac Madison, a heroine of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who now teaches at West Point. As the investigation into Jed’s death takes one startling turn after another, Brooks must find his footing if he wants to finish West Point alive.

West Point cadet Brooks Jenson is only months away from graduation, and he does not expect anything to block his path to a productive career in the Army. But when he finds fellow cadet Jed Figueroa murdered, everything takes a turn for the worst. Brooks is a witness who becomes a suspect as the investigation continues.

As Brooks struggles through his classes and every other aspect of cadet life, he leans on friends, family and professors for support --- especially Colonel Zac Madison, a heroine of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who now teaches at West Point. As the investigation into Jed’s death takes one startling turn after another, Brooks must find his footing if he wants to finish West Point alive.

MURDER IN THE BARRACKS is the sequel to Tamar Anolic’s first novel, THE LAST BATTLE, which followed Colonel Madison on her journey back to civilian life following her injuries in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.