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Editorial Content for Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Kate Ayers

It was a rivalry that began in high school. Beverly Underwood controlled who was tapped to be a cheerleader. Lula Dean desperately wanted to make the team. So desperately, in fact, that she’d do anything, even pull a dirty trick or two. Lula didn’t make the team, nor did she learn her lesson back then. She also didn’t achieve her dreams and never understood why. Read More

Teaser

Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia. Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on a mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books --- none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home. What she doesn’t know is that a local troublemaker has stolen her wholesome books, removed their dust jackets and restocked her library with banned books. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.

Promo

Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia. Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on a mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books --- none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home. What she doesn’t know is that a local troublemaker has stolen her wholesome books, removed their dust jackets and restocked her library with banned books. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.

About the Book

The provocative and hilarious summer read that will have book lovers cheering and everyone talking! Kirsten Miller, author of THE CHANGE, brings us a bracing, wildly entertaining satire about a small Southern town, a pitched battle over banned books, and a little lending library that changes everything.

Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on a mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books --- none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home: a cute wooden hutch with glass doors and neat rows of the worthy literature that she’s sure the town’s readers need.

What Lula doesn’t know is that a local troublemaker has stolen her wholesome books, removed their dust jackets and restocked Lula’s library with banned books: literary classics, gay romances, Black history, witchy spell books, Judy Blume novels and more. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula Dean’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.

That’s when all the townspeople who’ve been borrowing from Lula’s library begin to reveal themselves. That's when the showdown that’s been brewing between Beverly and Lula will roil the whole town...and change it forever.

Audiobook available, read by January LaVoy

Editorial Content for The Second Coming

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Harvey Freedenberg

When a novelist produces a work of nearly 600 pages, he’s making a large claim on his readers’ attention and bears a fairly heavy burden of proof to justify it. Garth Risk Hallberg’s first novel, CITY ON FIRE --- which I reviewed in 2015 and described as an “immersive story and a distinctive contribution to the field of what might be called the fictional sociology of urban life” --- satisfied that burden, even as it stretched to an imposing 900 pages. Read More

Teaser

When 13-year-old Jolie Aspern drops her phone onto the subway tracks in 2011, her estranged dad, Ethan, seems like the furthest thing from her mind. A convicted felon and recovering addict, Ethan has long struggled to see beyond himself. But then a call from New York makes him fear that his daughter is in deeper trouble than anyone realizes. And believing he’s the only one who can save her, he decides to return home. So begins the journey that, in time, will push Jolie and Ethan --- child and adult, apart and together, different yet the same --- out past their depths.

Promo

When 13-year-old Jolie Aspern drops her phone onto the subway tracks in 2011, her estranged dad, Ethan, seems like the furthest thing from her mind. A convicted felon and recovering addict, Ethan has long struggled to see beyond himself. But then a call from New York makes him fear that his daughter is in deeper trouble than anyone realizes. And believing he’s the only one who can save her, he decides to return home. So begins the journey that, in time, will push Jolie and Ethan --- child and adult, apart and together, different yet the same --- out past their depths.

About the Book

From the New York Times bestselling author of CITY ON FIRE, an intimate epic that plunges us deep into the lives of a teenage girl and her father as they navigate love, grief, betrayal and redemption.

When 13-year-old Jolie Aspern drops her phone onto the subway tracks in 2011, her estranged dad, Ethan, seems like the furthest thing from her mind. A convicted felon and recovering addict, Ethan has long struggled to see beyond himself. But then a call from New York makes him fear that his daughter is in deeper trouble than anyone realizes. And believing he’s the only one who can save her, he decides to return home.

So begins the journey that, in time, will push Jolie and Ethan --- child and adult, apart and together, different yet the same --- out past their depths.

Full of yearning and revelation, THE SECOND COMING is at once an incandescent feat of storytelling and an exploration of an enduring mystery: Can the people we love ever really change? 

Audiobook available, read by Ari Fliakos and Gail Shalan

Editorial Content for Devil's Kitchen

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

For DEVIL’S KITCHEN, Candice Fox spent time interviewing firefighting crews in both New York and Sydney, Australia, as well as those who were present during 9/11. The resulting novel shows an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of fire departments, and her coverage of the Big Apple is so spot on that it’s easy to forget she lives Down Under. Read More

Teaser

The firefighting crew of Engine 99 has spent years rushing fearlessly into the hot zone of major fires across New York City. This tight-knit, four-person unit has faced danger head-on, saving countless lives and stopping raging fires before they can cause major destruction. They've also stolen millions from banks, jewelry stores and art galleries. Under the cover of saving the city, these men have used their knowledge and specialist equipment to become the most successful heist crew on the East Coast. Andy Nearland, the newest member of Engine 99, is good at keeping secrets. She's been brought on to help with their biggest job ever --- hitting New York's largest private storage facility, an expensive treasure trove for the rich and famous. She's also an undercover operative, charged with bringing the crew to justice.

Promo

The firefighting crew of Engine 99 has spent years rushing fearlessly into the hot zone of major fires across New York City. This tight-knit, four-person unit has faced danger head-on, saving countless lives and stopping raging fires before they can cause major destruction. They've also stolen millions from banks, jewelry stores and art galleries. Under the cover of saving the city, these men have used their knowledge and specialist equipment to become the most successful heist crew on the East Coast. Andy Nearland, the newest member of Engine 99, is good at keeping secrets. She's been brought on to help with their biggest job ever --- hitting New York's largest private storage facility, an expensive treasure trove for the rich and famous. She's also an undercover operative, charged with bringing the crew to justice.

About the Book

DEVIL'S KITCHEN is a fast-paced, heart-racing thriller from Candice Fox, "a bright new star in crime fiction." (James Patterson)

The firefighting crew of Engine 99 has spent years rushing fearlessly into the hot zone of major fires across New York City. This tight-knit, four-person unit has faced danger head-on, saving countless lives and stopping raging fires before they can cause major destruction.

They've also stolen millions from banks, jewelry stores and art galleries. Under the cover of saving the city, these men have used their knowledge and specialist equipment to become the most successful heist crew on the East Coast.

Andy Nearland, the newest member of Engine 99, is good at keeping secrets. She's been brought on to help with their biggest job ever --- hitting New York's largest private storage facility, an expensive treasure trove for the rich and famous.

She's also an undercover operative, charged with bringing the crew to justice.

Keeping Andy's true motives hidden proves more and more dangerous as tempers flare and loyalties are tested. And as the clock counts down to the crew's most daring heist yet, her cover might just go up in flames.

Audiobook available, read by Kirsten Potter

Editorial Content for Playing from the Rough: A Personal Journey through America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Stuart Shiffman

PLAYING FROM THE ROUGH by Jimmie James is a very different book from the one I expected to read over Father’s Day weekend. Read More

Teaser

Jimmie James spent his entire life defying the odds. He was born invisible. His birth certificate, long since filed away in some clerk’s office in East Texas, recorded facts about him that were deemed most relevant in the late 1950s: “colored” and “illegitimate.” His great-great-grandmother was enslaved, and his early life was confined by the privation and segregation of the late Jim Crow-era South. Four decades later, he embarked on his journey to play the 100 greatest golf courses in the United States. In a single year. From the first tee at Augusta National, the distance between the world he grew up in and the world of extreme privilege to which he’d now managed to gain access was impossible to ignore.

Promo

Jimmie James spent his entire life defying the odds. He was born invisible. His birth certificate, long since filed away in some clerk’s office in East Texas, recorded facts about him that were deemed most relevant in the late 1950s: “colored” and “illegitimate.” His great-great-grandmother was enslaved, and his early life was confined by the privation and segregation of the late Jim Crow-era South. Four decades later, he embarked on his journey to play the 100 greatest golf courses in the United States. In a single year. From the first tee at Augusta National, the distance between the world he grew up in and the world of extreme privilege to which he’d now managed to gain access was impossible to ignore.

About the Book

A “wonderful story of passion, commitment, resilience, and determination,” (Paul Gasol, former NBA All-Star) about one man’s quest to become the first person to play each of America’s 100 greatest golf courses in a single year, an odyssey that brings him face to face with the gulf between his impoverished childhood in the Jim Crow South and the successful executive he became.

When he set out to play each of Golf Digest’s America’s 100 greatest golf courses in one year, Jimmie James knew he was attempting the impossible. But then again, he’d spent his entire life defying the odds.

James was born invisible. His birth certificate, long since filed away in some clerk’s office in East Texas, recorded facts about him that were deemed most relevant in the late 1950s: “colored” and “illegitimate.” His great-great-grandmother was enslaved, and his early life was confined by the privation and segregation of the late Jim Crow-era South.

Four decades later --- having put himself through an HBCU and determinedly risen through the executive ranks at ExxonMobil --- he embarked on his journey to play the 100 greatest golf courses in the United States. In a single year. From the first tee at Augusta National, the distance between the world he grew up in and the world of extreme privilege to which he’d now managed to gain access was impossible to ignore.

PLAYING FROM THE ROUGH is a “delightful” (Kirkus Reviews), “beautiful story” (Andrew Campion, former COO of Nike) about race, class, family and the power of perseverance, as James braids his love of golf with reflections on the path that took him from childhood poverty to the most exclusive and opulent golf courses in America.

Audiobook available, read by Jimmie James

William Kent Krueger Book Group Event

William Kent Krueger Book Group Event

June 28, 2024

While I spend a lot of time writing online and doing virtual events, I do love getting out to meet readers, which is what I got to do on Wednesday night at the Avalon Free Public Library. I am trying to remember how many summers I have been doing this program. It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces, as well as some new ones. The weather was great there, unlike the first year when it was absolutely pouring. I joke that that was my christening into Avalon.

Dawn Tripp, author of Jackie

JACKIE is the story of a woman who forged a legacy out of grief and shaped history even as she was living it. It is the story of a love affair, a complicated marriage and the fracturing of identity that comes in the wake of unthinkable violence. When Jackie meets the charismatic congressman Jack Kennedy in Georgetown, she is 21 and dreaming of France. She has won an internship at Vogue. Kennedy, she thinks, is not her kind of adventure, yet she is drawn to his mind, his humor and his drive. The chemistry between them ignites. During the White House years, the love between two independent people deepens. Then, a motorcade in Dallas: “Three and a half seconds --- that’s all it was --- a slivered instant between the first shot, which missed the car, and the second, which did not.”

Tracy Chevalier, author of The Glassmaker

It is 1486, and Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers on Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass --- but she has the hands for it, the heart and a vision. When her father dies, she teaches herself to make glass beads in secret, and her work supports the Rosso family fortunes. Skipping like a stone through the centuries, in a Venice where time moves as slowly as molten glass, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss --- from a plague devastating Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists.

Claire Lombardo, author of Same As It Ever Was

After a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, Julia Ames has found herself on the placid plateau of mid-life. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, at age 57 she finally feels that she has a firm handle on things. Julia is unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenage daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that previously had kept her on a razor’s edge.