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Editorial Content for The Devil Raises His Own

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Jack Kramer

The title and cover art of THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN suggest that the reader is about to embark on another Scott Phillips noir novel. At the bottom of the scene on the cover is a smoking pistol belching a black miasma that envelops a night-time view of a large, perhaps crime-ridden city neighborhood. But by the time we arrive at chapter two, barely six pages in, we suspect that the artist and the novelist are playing tricks on us. Read More

Teaser

Los Angeles, 1916: Photographer Bill Ogden has opened a portrait studio in the seedy noir world of early Hollywood, where he is joined by his granddaughter, Flavia, who is need of a fresh start after bludgeoning her drunken, abusive husband to death in Wichita. Though his business is mainly legit, Bill finds himself brushing up against the “blue movie” porn industry growing in the shadows of the motion picture mainstream. When a series of grisly murders take place across the city, Bill and his capable granddaughter are pulled into events as tricky and tangled as anything this side of The Big Sleep. We meet dreamers, opportunists, washed-up former stars and starry-eyed newcomers --- a cast of unforgettable characters living on the margins looking to make a quick buck, launch a career or just keep their family together.

Promo

Los Angeles, 1916: Photographer Bill Ogden has opened a portrait studio in the seedy noir world of early Hollywood, where he is joined by his granddaughter, Flavia, who is need of a fresh start after bludgeoning her drunken, abusive husband to death in Wichita. Though his business is mainly legit, Bill finds himself brushing up against the “blue movie” porn industry growing in the shadows of the motion picture mainstream. When a series of grisly murders take place across the city, Bill and his capable granddaughter are pulled into events as tricky and tangled as anything this side of The Big Sleep. We meet dreamers, opportunists, washed-up former stars and starry-eyed newcomers --- a cast of unforgettable characters living on the margins looking to make a quick buck, launch a career or just keep their family together.

About the Book

From the master of Western noir comes a provocatively entertaining crime saga set in the early days of the film industry.

This dark historical adventure captures the beginnings of the Hollywood studio system and the “blue movie” industry that grows up alongside it.

Los Angeles, 1916: Photographer Bill Ogden has opened a portrait studio in the seedy noir world of early Hollywood, where he is joined by his granddaughter, Flavia --- a woman in need of a fresh start after bludgeoning her drunken, abusive husband to death in Wichita. Though his business is mainly legit, Bill finds himself brushing up against the “blue movie” porn industry growing in the shadows of the motion picture mainstream.

When a series of grisly murders takes place across the city, Bill and his capable granddaughter are pulled into events as tricky and tangled as anything this side of The Big Sleep. We meet dreamers, opportunists, washed-up former stars and starry-eyed newcomers, a cast of unforgettable characters living on the margins looking to make a quick buck, launch a career or just keep their family together.

THE DEVIL RAISES HIS OWN is at once a stripped-down noir thriller and a panoramic look at Los Angeles at the beginning of motion pictures --- a Boogie Nights set in the era of D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin from one of the best crime novelists working today.

Audiobook available, read by L.J. Ganser

Editorial Content for Pets and the City: True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veterinarian

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Pamela Kramer

It is difficult to write nonfiction that is so engrossing and relatable that it reads like fiction, yet that is just what veterinarian Dr. Amy Attas manages to do in her book, PETS AND THE CITY. This collection of anecdotes and personal history ranges from the why --- the reason Attas wanted to become a veterinarian and how she accomplished that --- to the many well-known people who were/are her clients. From Joan Rivers to Billy Joel, we read about the connections that the uber rich and famous have with their pets. Read More

Teaser

When a pet is sick, people --- even the rich and famous --- are at their most authentic and vulnerable. They could have a Monet on the wall and an Oscar on the shelf, but if their cat gets a cold, all they want to talk about are snotty noses and sneezing fits. That’s when they call premier in-home veterinarian Dr. Amy Attas. In PETS AND THE CITY, Dr. Amy shares all the funny, heartbreaking and life-affirming experiences she’s faced throughout her 30-year career treating the cats and dogs of New Yorkers from Park Avenue to the projects. Some of her stories are about celebs, like the time she saw a famous singer naked (no, her rash was not the same as her puppy’s). Others are about remarkable animals, like the skilled service dog who, after his exam was finished, left the room and returned with a checkbook in his mouth.

Promo

When a pet is sick, people --- even the rich and famous --- are at their most authentic and vulnerable. They could have a Monet on the wall and an Oscar on the shelf, but if their cat gets a cold, all they want to talk about are snotty noses and sneezing fits. That’s when they call premier in-home veterinarian Dr. Amy Attas. In PETS AND THE CITY, Dr. Amy shares all the funny, heartbreaking and life-affirming experiences she’s faced throughout her 30-year career treating the cats and dogs of New Yorkers from Park Avenue to the projects. Some of her stories are about celebs, like the time she saw a famous singer naked (no, her rash was not the same as her puppy’s). Others are about remarkable animals, like the skilled service dog who, after his exam was finished, left the room and returned with a checkbook in his mouth.

About the Book

New York City’s premier “house call veterinarian” takes you into the exclusive penthouses and four-star hotel rooms of the wealthiest New Yorkers and shows that, when it comes to their pets, they are just as neurotic as any of us.

When a pet is sick, people --- even the rich and famous --- are at their most authentic and vulnerable. They could have a Monet on the wall and an Oscar on the shelf, but if their cat gets a cold, all they want to talk about are snotty noses and sneezing fits. That’s when they call premier in-home veterinarian Dr. Amy Attas.

In PETS AND THE CITY, Dr. Amy shares all the funny, heartbreaking and life-affirming experiences she’s faced throughout her 30-year career treating the cats and dogs of New Yorkers from Park Avenue to the projects. Some of her stories are about celebs, like the time she saw a famous singer naked (no, her rash was not the same as her puppy’s). Others are about remarkable animals, like the skilled service dog who, after his exam was finished, left the room and returned with a checkbook in his mouth.

Every tale in this rollicking, informative and fun memoir affirms a key truth about animal, and human, nature: Our pets love us because their hearts are pure; we love them because they’re freaking adorable. On some level, we know that by caring for them, we are the best version of ourselves. In short: Our pets make us better people.

Audiobook available, read by Adrienne Cornette

Editorial Content for I Need You to Read This

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

Jessa Maxwell follows up her acclaimed cozy whodunit, THE GOLDEN SPOON, with another tautly plotted, edge-of-your-seat mystery, I NEED YOU TO READ THIS. Read More

Teaser

Years ago, Alex Marks escaped to New York City for a fresh start. But her carefully cultivated world is upended when her childhood hero, Francis Keen, is brutally murdered. Francis was the woman behind the famous advice column "Dear Constance," and her words helped Alex through some of her darkest times. When Alex sees an advertisement searching for her replacement, she impulsively applies. Against all odds, she is given the position and quickly proves herself skilled at solving other people’s problems. But she soon begins to receive strange, potentially threatening letters at the office. Francis’ murderer was never identified, turning everyone around her into a threat. As Alex is drawn into the details surrounding her predecessor’s murder, her own dark secrets begin to rise to the surface.

Promo

Years ago, Alex Marks escaped to New York City for a fresh start. But her carefully cultivated world is upended when her childhood hero, Francis Keen, is brutally murdered. Francis was the woman behind the famous advice column "Dear Constance," and her words helped Alex through some of her darkest times. When Alex sees an advertisement searching for her replacement, she impulsively applies. Against all odds, she is given the position and quickly proves herself skilled at solving other people’s problems. But she soon begins to receive strange, potentially threatening letters at the office. Francis’ murderer was never identified, turning everyone around her into a threat. As Alex is drawn into the details surrounding her predecessor’s murder, her own dark secrets begin to rise to the surface.

About the Book

This “super creepy” (The Washington Post) and “perfectly plotted whodunnit” (Katy Hays, New York Times bestselling author) follows an advice columnist searching for answers about her predecessor’s murder --- from the bestselling author of THE GOLDEN SPOON.

Years ago, Alex Marks escaped to New York City for a fresh start. Now, aside from trips to her regular diner for coffee, she keeps to herself, gets her perfectly normal copywriting job done and doesn’t date. Her carefully cultivated world is upended when her childhood hero, Francis Keen, is brutally murdered. Francis was the woman behind the famous advice column "Dear Constance," and her words helped Alex through some of her darkest times.

When Alex sees an advertisement searching for her replacement, she impulsively applies, never expecting to actually get the job. Against all odds, Alex is given the position and quickly proves herself skilled at solving other people’s problems. But soon, she begins to receive strange, potentially threatening letters at the office. Francis’s murderer was never identified, turning everyone around her into a threat. Including her boss, editor-in-chief Howard Dimitri, who has a habit of staying late at the office and drinking too much.

As Alex is drawn into the details surrounding her predecessor’s murder, her own dark secrets begin to rise to the surface and Alex suddenly finds herself trapped in a dangerous and potentially deadly game of cat and mouse that takes her all the way from the power centers of Manhattan to Francis Keen’s summer house, where her body was found and where the killer may just be waiting for her.

Audiobook available, read by Carlotta Brentan

September 13, 2024

Recently I joined a health club as I love to do water exercises --- everything from water aerobics to lap swimming. When we are in the pool before we start, among the group there often is an exchange of ideas --- everything from what we are reading to what we are making for dinner or where something interesting is going on.

One person in the class told me that she is a big reader. I asked where she gets books, and she proudly told me that she uses pirated sites to get them for free. In fact, she uses three of them. I was completely taken aback by this. Today I overheard her mention it for the third time. I have not said anything as I do not want to make waves in the water (pun intended), but knowing authors --- and publishers --- this form of stealing really rankles me. It’s not like she is downloading books from the library, which also would be free but still would benefit the author.

Margaret Renkl, author of The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year

In THE COMFORT OF CROWS, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: 52 chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons --- from a crow spied on New Year’s Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring --- what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life.

Coco Mellors, author of Blue Sisters

The three Blue sisters are exceptional --- and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left the family reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment in which they were raised. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize that the greatest secrets they’ve been keeping might not have been from one another but from themselves.

Liane Moriarty, author of Here One Moment

Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed. Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future --- age 103! --- and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all. If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?

Elizabeth Strout, author of Tell Me Everything

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He also has fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known --- “unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them --- reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Editorial Content for By Any Other Name

Teaser

From the New York Times bestselling co-author of MAD HONEY comes an “inspiring” (Elle) novel about two women, centuries apart --- one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays --- who are both forced to hide behind another name.

Promo

From the New York Times bestselling co-author of MAD HONEY comes an “inspiring” (Elle) novel about two women, centuries apart --- one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays --- who are both forced to hide behind another name.

About the Book

From the New York Times bestselling co-author of MAD HONEY comes an “inspiring” (Elle) novel about two women, centuries apart --- one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays --- who are both forced to hide behind another name.

Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn’t level for women. As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym.

In 1581, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her lessons on languages, history and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling. But like most women of her day, she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees all theater productions in England, Emilia sees firsthand how the words of playwrights can move an audience. She begins to form a plan to secretly bring a play of her own to the stage --- by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.

Told in intertwining timelines, BY ANY OTHER NAME, a sweeping tale of ambition, courage and desire, centers on two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. Should a writer do whatever it takes to see her story live on, no matter the cost? This remarkable novel, rooted in primary historical sources, ensures the name Emilia Bassano will no longer be forgotten.

Editorial Content for Cadenza

Book

Teaser

With brutal honesty and layered storytelling, CADENZA makes Jennifer Coleman’s progress as a pianist and composer read like a mystery novel. Bold characters and personal tragedies emerge as it becomes clear that Jennifer is a force of nature that can be stopped by no one but herself.

Promo

With brutal honesty and layered storytelling, CADENZA makes Jennifer Coleman’s progress as a pianist and composer read like a mystery novel. Bold characters and personal tragedies emerge as it becomes clear that Jennifer is a force of nature that can be stopped by no one but herself.

About the Book

CADENZA is the story of a woman's drive to succeed and overcome her physical and emotional scars. It's a tale of relentless ambition, dark secrets and the lengths to which the human mind will go.

At the age of seven, Jennifer Coleman is severely burned in a house fire that kills her sister. Despite the barriers of her scarred face and her tragic childhood, she reaches the pinnacle of achievement as a classical concert pianist, but at a deep psychological cost.

During Jennifer's meteoric rise as a virtuoso pianist, her disfigurement takes on mythic proportions. She is internationally loved and admired, but unable to love herself. At a pivotal point in her career, she meets an extraordinarily creative, suicidal musician named Felix, who challenges Jennifer's beliefs and falls deeply in love with her. Will Jennifer be able to learn from Felix's example before she self-destructs?