Synopsis

September 1960. In the Spandauer forest Detectives Max Becker and Bastian Döhl, from the Berlin Kriminalpolizei, find a naked, tortured man tied to a tree. A cryptic message hangs from his neck. When another body appears, Max is sure it won’t be the last. The press dub the killer, Der Waldscharfrichter (The Forest Executioner) and graphic tattoos on the bodies suggest that the victims are Russians with a criminal past.

As more bodies and messages appear, they lead Max and his team to a horrific past event, wounds that run deep in the Berlin psyche, plunging Max into a conflict between his sense of duty and justice.

In this first thrilling Max Becker novel, meet the detectives that first appeared in ‘Girl Hunter’. As compellingly researched as a Robert Harris novel and fast-paced as a Chris Ryan thriller, the world of Max Becker is never dull!

 

 

 

 

Excerpt

From Chapter 18 – ‘In time we hate that which we often fear’

 

Günther turns to Maria and hugging her, says, “after I’m gone, make sure the bull is following then go over to Christian’s flat. If they’re there, tell them to get out. Give them the money and tell them to go to this hotel.” He hands her an envelope and note.

“What if they’re not there?”

“Wait for a bit, then go home. I might call you later to come and fetch me,” he says kissing her cheek, and continues, “all right, you be careful and, Maria? I love you; my girl.”

With a puzzled expression on her face, she replies, “okay, I love you right back, pop.”

“See you later, then.”

In his own ‘57 Opel Olympia, Bastian sits watching, wishing he was in a squad car, with a radio. Now dark, he can see the lights in Günther’s office, shadows moving about. A little after 7.15 pm, the lights go out. He curses, alone this will be tricky, but he must stick with him.

The Citroën drives out of the gate turning left and heading west. He follows. They join the main road south into Charlottenburg, then west again heading toward the Olympic Park. Soon after passing the stadium, they head north to an area of abandoned warehouses and factories. They drive for twenty minutes or so and coming to an abandoned armaments works; the van turns in. Bastian, who’d killed his lights some time back, follows.

The van disappears behind a building. Stopping, Bastian switches off the interior light, gets out, following on foot. Taking out his pistol, he cocks it, flicking off the safety. He peers around the corner of the road the van disappeared down. It is very dark, and he waits a minute for his night vision to improve — all clear. Staying close to the building, he stalks down the road. He checks through broken windows. Stopping, he listens. From inside the building, he hears the van stop, a squeak of brakes and a handbrake applied; the engine dies and a door slams, the sound of metal scraping on metal. He moves on and coming to a broken side door, pulls it open and slips in, keeping his back to the wall. For a moment he stays still, listening.

The building smells of old rusting metal and neglect, and there’s a faint noise coming from within. Retrieving a torch from his pocket, he clicks it on; the small beam cuts through the still, dank interior. Holding out pistol and flashlight he sweeps the room and moves toward the van. Every so often, he stops and listens. There is a faint glugging sound. As he nears the vehicle, he smells petrol and panning the light around sees a growing pool on the floor. Fully alert and snapping off the torch he ducks away from the van. “Hold it right there, you bastard.” A beam of light falls over him. “Lose the weapon and the torch, slowly. Throw them right away, over there.”

Bastian throws his firearm and torch to the ground, clattering away loudly. The light rolls in a lazy arc and comes to rest, its beam casting shadows on the far wall. He says, “what now, Günther? You won’t get away with anything; killing me is a waste of time.”

“Shut up. I’ve heard enough from you and your friends. You’re all corrupt, and you want to frame Christian because he’s slow-witted and you’ll have no trouble getting him to confess to anything you want. Now, take your cuffs and shackle yourself to the handle of the door.”

“F* that! You must be mad if you think I’m going to handcuff myself to a van you’ve soaked in petrol. If you want to get rid of me, you’ll have to shoot me, arsehole.”

Günther fires, the bullet ricocheting off the floor by Bastian’s left foot, bits of cement dust spit into the air, the round whining off lost to the dark. “The next one will be between the eyes you pig, my favourite place to shoot SS scum. Now handcuff yourself to the van. I will not ask you again.”

 

About the Author

Tim was born in Zimbabwe in 1962. He spent his early years in Zimbabwe, the UK and then Hong Kong. At the age of eight he went off to boarding school in the UK, spending his holidays in Germany, where his father was stationed. He loved the country and its people and in planning to create a new detective series it seemed natural to choose 60s Berlin.

He has been writing for many years, including plays: Wilfrid’s Sussex (1980), Word Over All (1987); and many short stories, including Girl Hunter (Max Becker), The Helmet and The Heist (Max Becker), Mrs Ruth Backmayer, Last Train, Mr Banerjee’s Outing, Alice Band to Myrtle Beach, Last Song for Isa and released his first novel, Angel Avenger: A Max Becker Thriller on 31 July 2019.

Since 2005 he’s lived in West Wales, is married and has a son. He loves walking, reading, writing, researching 20thc Military history, and prior to becoming a full-time writer worked variously as a teacher, college lecturer, IT analyst and Cabinet Maker.

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Bound for Murder: A Blue Ridge Library Mystery
Cozy Mystery
4th in Series
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (January 7, 2020)
Hardcover: 304 pages

Synopsis

Blue Ridge library director Amy Webber learns it wasn’t all peace and love among the “flower children” when a corpse is unearthed on the grounds of a 1960s commune.

Taylorsford Public Library director Amy Webber’s friend “Sunny” Fields is running for mayor. But nothing puts a damper on a campaign like an actual skeleton in a candidate’s closet. Sunny’s grandparents ran a commune back in the 1960s on their organic farm. But these former hippies face criminal charges when human remains are found in their fields–and a forensic examination reveals that the death was neither natural nor accidental.

With Sunny’s mayoral hopes fading, Amy sets her wedding plans aside, says “not yet” to the dress, and uses her research skills to clear her best friend’s family. Any of the now-elderly commune members could have been the culprit. As former hippies perish one by one, Amy and her friends Richard, Aunt Lydia, and Hugh Chen pursue every lead. But if Amy can’t find whoever killed these “flower children,” someone may soon be placing flowers on her grave.

 

 

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Excerpt

 

My foot, resting next to the macramé purse, vibrated from the loud music blaring from Sunny’s cell phone. “You want to get that? I realize the rule is no phones at the desk but since there’s no one here right now…”

Kurt coughed.

“No one who will care, I mean.” I cast him a smile before grabbing Sunny’s purse and handing it to her. “Go on—I know that ring.”

“Yeah, it’s the grands. Again.” Sunny pulled a comical face as she fished her phone out of the pouch. “They aren’t usually this needy, but ever since the county started that dredging work on the creek, they’ve been calling nonstop. They’re so worried about damage to the trees and shrubs along the stream bed.”

“Of course.” I’d heard plenty about this from Carol and P.J., who were irate over the heavy equipment that had recently descended upon their quiet organic farm. The fact that the county had a right-of-way to the creek, which was part of a larger watershed, did nothing to appease their anger.

“Government barreling in and taking over, like usual,” P.J. had told me, his thin lips quivering with repressed rage. “Didn’t even inform us ahead of time. Just showed up one day and proceeded to rip up my fields with their equipment. Well, they’d better not destroy our trees along the creek, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

I shook my head. “Can’t say I blame them.” I directed my words to Kurt as Sunny listened intently to her phone. “The county’s been tearing up the stream banks all along its route.”

Kurt’s expression betrayed no emotion, but his jaw tightened. That was odd. The art dealer rarely appeared tense, even in the direst of circumstances, yet the mention of dredging a creek seemed to have distressed him. It piqued my curiosity.

Or maybe I was imagining things. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “They say it benefits the environment because it allows for better run-off from nearby rivers and ponds. But I don’t know. It seems rather destructive to me.”

When Kurt replied, his voice was as calm and charming as ever. “I knew that the dredging work was ongoing but didn’t realize it involved that farm.”

“Yeah, unfortunately.” I glanced at Sunny and noticed that all the color had fled her face. “Anything wrong?”

Sunny’s fingers clutched her cell phone so tightly I worried she might crack the plastic case. “Yes. Not with the grands, thank goodness, but dredging crews found something on the farm.”

“Buried treasure?” I asked, with a quick glance at Kurt.

“No, not anything like that.” Sunny’s voice shook. “According to the grands, an operator swung his Bobcat bucket the wrong way and dug deep into the bank, up and away from the stream. And that’s when they found it.”

“Found what?” I asked, my gaze flitting from Sunny’s trembling lips to the carved-in-stone stillness of Kurt’s face and back again.

“Bones,” Sunny said. “Human bones.” She stared at me, her eyes as glazed as glass. “An entire skeleton.”

 

 

About the Author

Victoria Gilbert, raised in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, turned her early obsession with reading into a dual career as an author and librarian. Victoria has worked as a reference librarian, research librarian, and library director. When not writing or reading, she likes to spend her time watching films, gardening, or traveling. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and International Thriller Writers and lives in North Carolina. This is her fourth Blue Ridge Library mystery.

 

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Lean on Me

by Pat Simmons

Publication Date: 1/7/2020

 

Synopsis

 

First in an emotional, poignant romantic women’s fiction series from acclaimed inspirational romance author Pat Simmons.

No one should have to go it alone…

Tabitha Knicely is overwhelmed with sorrow and exhaustion caring for her beloved great-aunt, whose dementia is getting worse. When her neighbor Marcus Whittington accuses Tabitha of elder neglect, he doesn’t realize how his threats to have Aunt Tweet taken away add to Tabitha’s pain.

Then Marcus gets to know the exuberant elderly lady and sees up close how hard Tabitha is fighting to keep everything together. Tabitha finds herself leaning on Marcus more and more. And he’s becoming more than happy to share her burdens…

 

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Excerpt

Tabitha needed to refocus as she smiled lovingly at her aunt. Beginning today, Aunt Tweet would stay at an upscale adult day care while Tabitha began her first day at a new job.

After getting the milk carton out of the refrigerator, Tabitha walked back to the table and poured some into Aunt Tweet’s bowl. Chalking it up to another sad oddity of dementia, she was determined to keep happy memories in the forefront of her mind as she kissed her aunt’s cheek.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Aunt Tweet giggled, adjusting Tabitha’s red, floppy hat on her head. Since her arrival, her aunt had fallen in love with that hat and wore it practically every day, regardless of her ensemble. “I took a little walk around God’s green earth.”

“What?” Tabitha didn’t like the idea of her aunt out of her sight. “Without me?” It was easy for anyone to succumb to the tranquility and abundance of green space in Pasadena Hills, which rivaled the nearby Norwood Hills Country Club. But in the midst of that apparent peace, they were still on the outskirts of a neighborhood not nearly so safe. It definitely wasn’t safe for Aunt Tweet to wander. Tabitha shivered at the thought of worse-case scenarios.

“You were asleep.”

“That’s okay.” She hugged her aunt. “Next time, wake me and I’ll go with you.” She yawned, recalling her previous night’s lack of sleep. Her aunt had wanted to reminisce about her years as an airline stewardess, and Tabitha had indulged her before all of Aunt Tweet’s memories would slip away. Researchers had yet to find a cure, so Tabitha hoped God would reveal a cure to eradicate or reverse this terrible disease before it was too late for her aunt.

All of a sudden, Aunt Tweet dropped her spoon, spilling milk onto the table. “I left my scarf…I left my scarf!” Panic-stricken, she trembled and scooted her chair back.

Startled, Tabitha’s heart pounded, so she patted her chest to aid her breathing to return to normal. “It’s all right. I’ll get it from upstairs,” she said, reassuring her aunt that it was okay to forget things sometimes.

While staying with Kym, Aunt Tweet had worked herself into hysterics over the vintage scarf she had gotten as an engagement gift. Her aunt boasted she’d gotten rid of the husband but held onto the expensive shawl. There hadn’t been any peace in Kym’s house until she’d found it behind a pillow on the sofa.

“No!” Aunt Tweet shrieked, shaking her head. “On that porch. We’d better hurry.”

Confused, Tabitha tried to calm her down to figure out what was going on. “On my porch?” When her aunt shook her head, Tabitha asked, “Whose porch?”

“I don’t know.”

Dread seemed to pour over Tabitha like a downpour. “Okay, okay.” Of all the days for a distraction, this was not a good one. This was her first day on a new job. As a pharmaceutical sales rep, Tabitha could recite medical terms, facts, definitions, and clinical studies’ results in her sleep. She’d entered college as a biology major and graduated with a bachelor’s in business. The pharmaceutical industry gave her the benefit of both worlds. Plus, she thrived on studying the physiological, anatomical, pharmacological, and scientific properties of medicine, so she could communicate the benefits of the company’s products.

But family was family, so taking her duty as a caregiver seriously, Tabitha had resigned from her job of six years as a senior pharmaceutical sales rep to ease the stress of the demanding position. Not wanting to leave the field completely, she took a pay cut to work in a smaller territory with a competitor who demanded little to no overnight travel. The sacrifice was worth it. Plus, her aunt’s trust fund designated the money for her own care.

Tabitha rubbed her forehead. “Let me put something on, then we’ll go find it.” Tabitha raced upstairs, hurried into her clothes, then grabbed her briefcase. Minutes later, she almost slipped while rushing down the stairs in her heels.

She reentered the kitchen, and Aunt Tweet wasn’t in sight. Tabitha checked the adjacent family room, then peeped outside toward the patio. Her aunt was behind the wheel of Tabitha’s rental car. Not good. She hadn’t purchased a car in years. A perk for being a sales rep, after she completed her two-week training, which started today, would be a company-issued vehicle.

After locking up the house, she had to convince Aunt Tweet, who had worked herself into a frenzy, that she couldn’t drive. Tabitha had to coax her own self to have patience while following her aunt’s conflicting directions, thinking, I can’t be late for my first day on the job.

“That’s the place!” Aunt Tweet yelled as Tabitha jammed on her brakes in front of a stately, story-and-a-half, older brick house she had never noticed before. The massive front door was centered under an archway. Twin french doors with mock balconies were on both sides of the entrance.

“I don’t see anything.” She craned her neck, admiring the impressive work of building art.

Aunt Tweet snapped, “I told you that’s the porch.”

“Okay.” There is no reason for your sharp tone, Tabitha thought but dared not voice. This house wasn’t that close to hers at all. Despite some mental deterioration, there was nothing wrong with her aunt’s physical stamina. She had obviously cut through the common ground area among the houses to get here.

After parking her car, Tabitha got out and surveyed her surroundings to make sure she wasn’t being watched. “This is crazy, sneaking up to somebody’s house,” she muttered to herself. Since the coast was clear, she hurried toward the red scarf that was snagged on a flower in a pot and flapping in the wind. She was within her reach when the door opened. Tabitha jumped back, then steadied herself in her heels.

An imposing man filled the doorway. Under different circumstances, he would be breathtakingly handsome. That was not the case now. Judging from his snarl and piercing eyes, Tabitha felt as if she had walked into the lion’s den.

***

Excerpted from Lean on Me by Pat Simmons. © 2020 by Pat Simmons. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

Review

Being a caregiver for someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s is not an easy task.  I watched my mother care for my father and I know it took a lot of out her.  But much like Tabitha, Kym, and Rachel, they all cared for the person with dementia and wanted to do what they could to make that person’s life the best it could be under the circumstances.

This story has so many facets that it appeals to many on so many levels.  There is caring for someone that is ill, finding love, rediscovering faith, some conflict, and a happily ever after ending.

Tabitha and Marcus don’t start off on the right foot and he is very lucky that Tabitha didn’t hold it against him.  It was obvious that he was jumping to conclusions and assumptions regarding Aunt Tweet and Tabitha, but something was blinding him to the truth.  I was glad they worked out their differences and discovered that they belonged together.  Marcus is a true gentleman and treated Tabitha right.

Tabitha has a tough time managing Aunt Tweet and her job.  I wanted to shake her and tell her to ask for help, more than the Adult Day Care that Aunt Tweet went to while she was at work.  Tabitha seemed to think she was giving up by asking for help but considering how Aunt Tweet declined no one would have expected her to do it all on her own.  There is some tension between Tabitha, Kym, and Rachel when they are discussing their aunt’s care.  It is hard to know what someone is going through until you spend some time in their shoes.  There was a part of the book that I was angry at Kym and Rachel for their comments towards Tabitha.

I enjoyed watching the romance unfold between Tabitha and Marcus.  I also cheered as Marcus grew as a man and not everything was as black and white as he thought it should be in his mind.  I’m not fond of Marcus’ brother, he is selfish and only looking out for himself.

There is one line in this book that really stood out:

“When it comes to forgiving others, we have to remember their walk, hardships, and mistakes in life may be different from our own.  They may do things you never would, but Jesus says to forgive them.”

Overall this was a quick and fun read and we give it 4 paws up.

 

 

 

About the Author

Pat Simmons is an author of more than thirty-five titles and a self-proclaimed genealogy sleuth who is passionate about researching her ancestors, then casting them in starring roles in her novels. Pat holds a B.S. in mass communications from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. She has worked in various positions in radio, television, and print media for more than twenty years. For fourteen years, she oversaw the media publicity for the RT Booklovers Convention. She lives with her husband in Florissant, Missouri.

 

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Giveaway

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Synopsis

In the Great Tradition of Herman Wouk, Author of Winds of War and War and Remembrance, Wolf is a Thoroughly Researched and Illustrated Historical Novel about a Man who is Not Yet a Monster . . . but Will Soon Become the Ultimate One: Adolf Hitler.

Perhaps no man on Earth is more controversial, more hated, or more studied than Adolf Hitler. His exploits and every move are well-documented, from the time he first became chancellor and then dictator of Germany to starting World War II to the systematic killing of millions of Jews. But how did he achieve power, and what was the makeup of the mind of a man who would deliberately inflict unimaginable horrors on millions of people?

Meet Friedrich Richard, an amnesiac soldier who, in 1918, encounters Hitler in the mental ward at Pasewalk Hospital. Hitler, then a corporal, diagnosed as a psychopath and helpless, suffering from hysterical blindness, introduces himself as Wolf to Friedrich and becomes dependent upon Friedrich for assistance, forming an unbreakable bond between the two men.

Follow Friedich—our protagonist—who interacts with real people, places, and events, through the fifteen-year friendship that witnesses Hitler turn from a quiet painter into a megalomaniacal dictator. Using brand-new historical research to construct a realistic portrait of the evolving Hitler, Wolf will satisfy, by turns, history buffs and fiction fans alike. And as this complex story is masterfully presented, it answers the question of how a nondescript man became the world’s greatest monster.

 

 

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Excerpt

 

Berlin, February 28, 1933

 

“I am to meet Bernhard Weiss at this address.”

“He doesn’t live here,” said Lucie. Lucie Fuld-Traumann was a stout, married woman in her fifties. The whites of her eyes became more visible as her gaze traveled from my black high boots to the red swastika armband to the shoulder epaulets and finally to the SS lightning bolts on my collar. Her lips trembled in fear. Her gnarled hands twisted a blue-and-white dishtowel into knots.

“Damn it, woman, we don’t have a moment to waste. Where is your brother?” I brushed past her and slammed the door before removing my peaked cap. “You don’t want your neighbors gossiping that an Obergruppenführer was seen standing in your entranceway. Now get Bernhard.”

Lucie stood her ground. “I told you, Bernhard is not here.”

The house was compact: crystal chandelier above our heads, living area with an upright piano to the left, kitchen straight ahead, and the dining room to my right. The dinner table had been set for three. I knew that Lucie and her husband, Alfred, who must have been cowering in an upstairs room, did not have children. After Bernhard Weiss, deputy police commissioner of Berlin, had been removed from office some months earlier, he sent his wife and daughter to Prague while he sought refuge in his sister’s house . . . hiding from the very police he once commanded.

I turned back to Lucie. “Didn’t he tell you to expect Friedrich Richard?” I showed her my identification card. “I’m Friedrich.” Lucie remained frozen in place, unsure of what to do.

Time was of the essence. “You must trust me. We have a window of opportunity to get Bernhard to safety and join his family in Prague. It’s a seven-hour drive through the back roads to the Czech border. If we leave now, we can stay ahead of the men who have been dispatched to arrest him. Now take me to him. Immediately.” I glared down at her. “Your brother’s life is in your hands.”

Without further denial, Lucie guided me to the basement door. It was dark. At the bottom, she pushed a button and a small light buzzed to life, casting macabre shadows on the damp walls. She called her brother’s name.

Then I bellowed, “It’s me. Friedrich. We need to go . . . now.”

Clothes rustled from an unlit corner. A soot-smeared Bern- hard Weiss emerged from behind the coal stack. He coughed into a handkerchief before he could speak.

“I knew you would come,” he said without preamble. We clasped hands.

“Goebbels has ordered your immediate arrest. We don’t have much time.”

Weiss nodded and pushed passed me. Upstairs, he grabbed a packed bag stashed for the day he needed a quick getaway, snatched a pistol from a side table that he shoved into the back of his pants, hugged his sister, promised he would see her again, and left his beloved Berlin . . . without realizing he might never return.

*

When we found the address on Kaprova Street, in Prague’s Jewish Quarter of Josefov, Bernhard said, “Don’t stop. We’ll get out a few blocks from here. No need to connect this car to my family’s address.”

We parked on a street with many stores. As I came around the car to join him, Bernhard motioned me to the other side of the street. “We make an odd couple. People will remember us if asked. Walk over there.” He made a valid point. I was more than a head taller than him. I walked at a different pace than him, turning corners a few seconds after he did. After a number of blocks, he looked both ways before entering an aged apartment house. I counted to twenty and then followed through the front door.

“Here.” I looked up. Weiss leaned over the railing and pointed to the stairs. There was an open door to the left of the landing. I found Bernhard hugging and kissing his wife and daughter in the salon. After he introduced me, I followed him into a smaller room.

“Close the door.” There was a small table with two wooden chairs arranged below medallion macramé lace curtains.

Before he said anything, I blurted, “I can’t go back. Not after what we just did.”

“Friedrich, no one but us knows what happened today.” His steel-gray eyes were piercing as he added, “There were no witnesses.”

“I’m not talking about just today, Bernhard. I’m talking about what is in store for your people in the days and years ahead. The Nazis are fanatical in their racial theories.”

“That is all the more reason why you have to go back.”

“I don’t know if I can return to Berlin and look at Hitler or those around him in the eye anymore.”

“No one is closer to the Führer than you. You’re the only one in a position to do something. You must return.”

I pushed up from the small table and paced like a caged animal. “If I try to stop them I’ll be killed.”

“No one expects you to march into a room and wipe out everyone. But there will be opportune times when you may be able to affect change. You’re Hitler’s favorite. There is no one in a better position to speak sense to him. That’s your destiny. To make that possible.” He raised his right hand. “God help me, I didn’t want to, but I had to execute that poor guard.”

I went to the window, lifted the edge of the curtain, and gazed out at the city I thought might be my new home. When I dressed in my uniform before fetching Bernhard, I believed it would have been the last time I would wear it. That’s why I stuffed my pockets with Reichsmarks, took my precious photograph that I had carried since the war, and left everything else, intending never to return.

Bernhard cleared his throat.

I turned from the curtain and faced him.

“There’s one more thing you must do, Friedrich. You need to keep an account.”

“An account of what?”

“You were there at the beginning. When the Nazis weren’t even the Nazis. When they were an aimless group of puny men who met in a tavern to swill beer and discuss politics. No one knows the history of how this happened better than you. Write it down. Don’t leave out anything. Then, when this madness is over, share it with the world.”

“To what end?”

“To make certain no one forgets.”

I thought about the magnitude of what he asked. “There has been so much. I would not know where to begin.”

Weiss gave his small smile. “Ah, yes. Begin at the beginning.”

 

Excerpted with permission from WOLF:  A Novel by Herbert J. Stern and Alan A. Winter.  Published by Skyhorse Publishing. Copyright (c) 2020.  All rights reserved.

 

About the Authors

Herbert J. Stern, formerly US attorney for the District of New Jersey, who prosecuted the mayors of Newark and Atlantic City, and served as judge of the US District Court for the District of New Jersey, is a trial lawyer. He also served as judge of the United States Court for Berlin where he presided over a hijacking trial in the occupied American Sector of West Berlin. His book about the case, Judgment in Berlin, won the 1974 Freedom Foundation Award and became a film starring Martin Sheen and Sean Penn. He also wrote Diary of a DA: The True Story of the Prosecutor Who Took on the Mob, Fought Corruption, and Won, as well as the multi-volume legal work trying Cases to Win.

Alan A. Winter is the author of four novels, including Island Bluffs, Snowflakes in the Sahara, Someone Else’s Son, and Savior’s Day, which Kirkus selected as a Best Book of 2013. Winter graduated from Rutgers with a degree in history and has professional degrees from both New York University and Columbia, where he was an associate professor for many years. He edited an award-winning journal and has published more than twenty professional articles. Winter studied creative writing at Columbia’s Graduate School of General Studies. His screenplay, Polly, received honorable mention in the Austin Film Festival and became the basis for Island Bluffs.

 

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Title: Never Enough

Author: Kelly Elliott

Release Date: December 10, 2019

Publisher: Montlake

 

Synopsis

 

Longing to forget the pain of his wife’s death, Brock Shaw has immersed himself in the one thing that lets him escape the guilt. Bull riding. But life on the road means leaving his young son at home with his parents. They want him to give up his career and be a father to his child, but Brock needs the adrenaline to get through each day . . . or so he thinks.

Lincoln Pratt needs a fresh start. As a top interior designer in Atlanta, she has everything she could ever want, but she’s always at her father’s mercy. Something’s missing, and Lincoln knows she’ll only find it somewhere far away—like the rolling pastures of Hamilton, Montana, where she meets the irresistibly mysterious Brock.

In Brock Shaw, Lincoln sees the part of her that’s missing. In Lincoln Pratt, Brock sees the part of himself he thought he’d lost. But the pain of his past binds him. Can he let himself love again?

 

Q&A: Author Kelly Elliott

In just a few short years you have published dozens of books and climbed bestsellers lists. Tell us a bit about your crazy fast rise in the romance world?

Honestly, it has been a dream come true! I sometimes feel like I have to pinch myself. I’m very humbled by the success I’ve been able to achieve and do not take a second of it for granted. I think one of my favorite things has been getting to meet so many amazing readers along this journey.

You just started a new series with Never Enough. What can readers expect from these stories?

They can expect stores filled with love, hope, second chances, some tears, and also some laughter. Family and friends play a major role in each book and that is always important to me. My goal with each book is to give the reader a chance to escape reality for a bit while making them fall so in love with the characters they want to revisit them often!

This series takes place in Montana with some seriously sexy heroes—bull riders, ropers, ranchers. What makes these Alpha men that work with their hands so irresistible?

Who doesn’t love a cowboy right!? I think it is their charm and ability to make us swoon that makes them so irresistible. Of course it helps I’m married to my own cowboy so he often inspires the heroes in my books!

To add a little something special to the mix, your first heroine, Lincoln, comes from Georgia and practically oozes southern charm (certainly enchanting your hero as she goes). What made you decide that this H/h would work so well?

In the very beginning I knew Lincoln had to be from somewhere other than Montana. Me being a southern girl myself, it felt right for her move from a southern state and I love Georgia. In the beginning of the book we find a very different Brock and I knew I had to have a strong heroine who knew who she was and what she wanted. She had no problem confronting Brock and I loved that about her. From the very beginning I knew these two were meant to be.

If Brock Shaw had a song dedicated to him, it would be Katy Perry’s Hot N Cold considering the fact that his emotions about Lincoln change with the breeze. This is mainly due to his past—tell us about his journey.

Oh Brock. He gave me a bit of whiplash in the beginning of this book. LOL! He is filled with so many different emotions, guilt, anger, regret, and when Lincoln comes into his life like she does you can almost feel his struggle. He wants to move on from the past, but he honestly doesn’t think he deserves to. He used his career to bury all these emotions for years and when he is confronted with them he is really confronted. I think Lincoln was the happiness he had always longed for and it didn’t take him long to realize that. But that realization came fear, which he had to overcome.

Lincoln isn’t quite running away from home, but she certainly is running towards a new life. How does Brock, and his son Blayze, fit into her plans?

I don’t think Lincoln was looking for those two cowboys when she first started towards her new journey, but when they came into her world they both were piece of the puzzle she hadn’t even realized was missing. The three of them fit together so beautifully.

At the center of this story is loss, but also redemption. Is this a theme that we will see going throughout your Meet Me in Montana books?

I think you will see the emotions kicked up a bit with each book in the series. Book two really focuses on healing and finding that one person who is your true love. Your soulmate.

 

 

Never Enough Excerpt

Betty Jane handed me a set of keys. “Here, these are his. Make sure he gets out of here and safely home.”

My hand instinctively took the keys, and I sat there for a few moments, stunned. When I finally realized Betty Jane was putting me in charge of getting Brock home, I jumped up and followed her over to the bar.

“Wait! Ty said you would make sure Brock got to his truck and slept it off. He didn’t say anything about making sure he got home.”

Betty Jane loaded up empty beer bottles onto her tray. It was then I looked around the bar and noticed it was almost empty.

“What time is it?” I asked, reaching for my phone. “It’s almost one!”

She laughed. “Yep, it’s been real fun watching you give dirty looks to Lee for the last hour. I figured I’d help a girl out and get rid of her for you.”

When I looked back at the table, Brock had his head on it.

Good grief. Is he sleeping?

“What do you mean, get rid of her?” I asked, still trailing behind the waitress, who honestly looked to be just a few years older than me.

She stopped and faced me. “I’ve been doing this job since I was eighteen. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell that you’ve got a thing for our Brock. I can’t blame ya, really. He’s a looker. Those blue eyes and dimples. Not to mention the way the man can fill out a pair of Wranglers. Throw in he’s a professional bull rider and worth some money, and you’ve got yourself one sought-after cowboy. He doesn’t normally come in here and get drunk like this, so I’m going to guess he’s had a bad day and he’s trying to drink away his problems.

“Now, the way I see it is, he seems to be smitten with you, and you’re smitten with him. So, it only makes sense that you get him home safely. What happens after that is your business, but just know that the rest of the town will most likely find out within seventy-two hours—unless you’re discreet about it.”

I stood frozen in place. What in the world is this lady talking about?

“Okay, I didn’t really understand half of that, but you’re very wrong on one thing. Brock Shaw is not . . . smitten . . . with me. It’s really the opposite. I don’t think he can stand me.”

Betty Jane winked. “Ralph will help you get him out to his truck.”

“But . . . I . . . my . . . I’m not . . . wait!”

Placing her hand on her hip, she rolled her eyes. “Listen, I’ve got to finish cleaning up and then kick everyone out of here. Just spit it out, would ya?”

“My car! I have my car here. I can’t leave it.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about it being left here. It’s perfectly fine.”

She turned and walked away. When I called out for her again, she ignored me.

I turned around and walked back over to the table to find a sleeping Brock. Burying my face in my hands, I mumbled, “Oh my God! Why me?” Poking his shoulder, I said, “Brock! Brock, wake up!”

His head popped up, and I let out a little yelp.

He turned to look at me, and instead of frowning, he smiled for once. “Hey, pretty little thing.”

He’s so drunk he doesn’t even know who I am.

“Um, hey. Listen, I need to get you home, so could you maybe stand and walk out to your truck?”

Brock smiled bigger, and his dimples seemed to scream out at me.

Oh. Holy. Hell.

This guy was beyond good looking. I mean, I didn’t think I’d ever seen a guy smile and look so damn sexy, despite his highly intoxicated state. Even with his cowboy hat all crooked, he looked handsome as hell.

“I can stand,” he grumbled out as he slowly stood.

I slipped my arm around his waist. After doing a quick scan of the table, I reached behind me and felt for my phone. I had my license and credit card tucked into my phone case, and I had my keys in my pocket.

“Okay, let’s get you to your truck.”

His head dropped forward, and I was pretty sure he was falling back asleep.

“Brock!” I shouted, making his head jerk up. “Walk to the door.”

“What do you adore?” he asked, taking a few stumbling steps next to me as I guided him.

I chuckled. “No, I said, walk to the door!”

“I am walking to the door, woman!”

With a roll of my eyes, I focused on keeping this man upright. It wasn’t an easy task. His stocky frame was heavy. With the way my arm was around him, I couldn’t help but notice his muscles flexing as we walked . . . no, stumbled along. I let my silly mind wander to what he would look like without a shirt on.

Stop it right now, Lincoln Pratt!

Betty Jane opened the door for us and winked at me yet again as I walked by. “Have a good night, and don’t worry about your car!”

I mumbled under my breath about being set up and then stepped out into the cool night. A shiver ran up my spine as I searched the parking lot. I’d only seen Brock’s truck once, and the only thing I remembered was that it was silver.

“Where’s your truck?” I asked, glancing at three trucks still parked in the lot.

Brock lifted his head and looked around. “My truck is the best damn truck in the parking lot.”

“That doesn’t help, Shaw. What’s your license plate number?”

Brock turned, his big, drunk blue eyes gazing down at me. “You want my number, Lincoln? I thought you didn’t like me.”

My mouth dropped open. “Um, excuse me, but you’re the one who’s been shooting daggers at me all night long. Not to mention how rude you were to me earlier today.”

“You didn’t catch me at my best, sweetheart.”

My stomach dipped at the endearment. No one had ever called me anything like that. Not baby, babe, sweetie, or sweetheart. I was always just Lincoln. Every guy I’d ever dated called me by my first name. Even in bed, I was always Lincoln.

It pissed me off how much I liked hearing that come from Brock’s mouth. I liked it a lot . . . more than a lot.

Damn it. What is it about this guy?

“I didn’t ask you for your phone number, you drunk fool. Your license plate number on your truck.”

He frowned. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know the license plate on your own truck?”

“Nope!” he said, popping the p in the most adorable way.

I found myself smiling up at him.

“It’s the silver one on the far right!” Betty Jane called out.

I looked behind me, almost losing my grip on Brock. “And I don’t suppose you’d help me get him there . . . or Ralph, maybe?”

She laughed. She actually laughed before turning and walking back into the bar.

“Thanks for nothing,” I grumbled as I guided Brock over to the truck.

 

About the Author

Kelly Elliott is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling contemporary romance author. Since finishing her bestselling Wanted series, Kelly has continued to spread her wings while remaining true to her roots with stories of hot men, strong women, and beautiful surroundings. Her bestselling works include Wanted, Broken, Without You, and Lost Love. Elliott has been passionate about writing since she was fifteen. After years of filling journals with stories, she finally followed her dream and published her first novel, Wanted, in November 2012.

Elliott lives in Central Texas with her husband, daughter, and two pups. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading and spending time with her family. She is down to earth and very in touch with her readers, both on social media and at signings.

 

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Title: Regretting You

Author: Colleen Hoover

Release Date: December 10, 2019

Publisher: Montlake

Synopsis

Morgan Grant and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Clara, would like nothing more than to be nothing alike.

Morgan is determined to prevent her daughter from making the same mistakes she did. By getting pregnant and married way too young, Morgan put her own dreams on hold. Clara doesn’t want to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Her predictable mother doesn’t have a spontaneous bone in her body.

With warring personalities and conflicting goals, Morgan and Clara find it increasingly difficult to coexist. The only person who can bring peace to the household is Chris—Morgan’s husband, Clara’s father, and the family anchor. But that peace is shattered when Chris is involved in a tragic and questionable accident. The heartbreaking and long-lasting consequences will reach far beyond just Morgan and Clara.

While struggling to rebuild everything that crashed around them, Morgan finds comfort in the last person she expects to, and Clara turns to the one boy she’s been forbidden to see. With each passing day, new secrets, resentment, and misunderstandings make mother and daughter fall further apart. So far apart, it might be impossible for them to ever fall back together.

 

Amazon * B&N * IndieBound

 

 

 

Q&A with Author Colleen Hoover

You are ‘label-less’ in the fact that you write in several genres. Readers never know what to expect next. If someone asks, how do you label yourself?

When I self-published my first novel I had no idea what genre to put it in. I thought I had written a drama but it turns to that I had written a romance. I’ve learned a lot since then, but I still don’t put a lot of weight in genre when I write. When your best friend is begging you to read a book, it’s not going to matter what genre it is when someone you trust is passionate about the story.

To keep all of your stories and characters straight, you must be very organized.

I’m the most disorganized person you will ever meet! I have no schedule. I can’t wake up before nine in the morning. I probably don’t go to bed until like three in the morning. I usually work about 16 hours a day.

What happens if you get blocked when you are writing?

If I get stuck writing, I go for a drive and play music. Music really helps me plot. I love The Avett Brothers, X Ambassadors, Airborne Toxic Event…I could go on and on.

What can you tell readers about your latest release Regretting You?

I would spoil it if I told you about it! Most of my books are like that. I can’t say what they are about or it spoils it. But I can say that Regretting You is told from a dual point-of-view centered on the inner lives of both a teen and adult protagonist.

Sounds like lots of different types of readers will be interested!

Absolutely. I wanted to write a book that bridged the gap between young adult and contemporary romance so that mothers can read with their daughters. I think it’s exciting to see people sharing reading experiences.

***

Excerpt

Despite knowing I just pissed my mother off by being half an hour late for curfew, I still can’t stop smiling. That kiss with Miller was worth it. I bring my fingers to my lips.

I’ve never been kissed like that. The guys I’ve kissed in the past all seemed like they were in a hurry, wanting to shove their tongue in my mouth before I changed my mind.

Miller was the opposite. He was so patient, yet in a chaotic way. It was like he’d thought about kissing me so often that he wanted to savor every second of it.

I don’t know that I’ll ever not smile when I think about that kiss. It kind of makes me nervous for school tomorrow. I’m not sure where that kiss leaves us, but it felt like it was a statement. I just don’t know what exactly that statement was.

My phone buzzes in my back pocket. I roll over and pull it out, then fall onto my back again. It’s a text from Miller.

Miller: I don’t know about you, but sometimes when something significant happens, I get home and think of all the things I wish had gone differently. All the things I wish I would have said.

Me: Is that happening now?

Miller: Yes. I don’t feel like I was entirely forthcoming with you.

I roll onto my stomach, hoping to ease the nausea that just passed through me. It was going so well…

Me: What weren’t you honest about?

Miller: I was honest. Just not entirely forthcoming, if there’s a difference. I left a lot out of our conversation that I want you to know.

Me: Like what?

Miller: Like why I’ve liked you for as long as I have.

I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. I’m staring at my phone with so much intensity that I almost throw it when it rings unexpectedly. It’s Miller’s phone number. I hesitate before answering it, because I rarely ever talk on the phone. I much prefer texting. But he knows I have my phone in my hand, so I can’t very well send it to voice mail. I swipe my finger across the screen and then roll off the bed and head to my bathroom for more privacy. I sit on the edge of the tub.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” he says.

“Sorry. It’s too much to text.”

“You’re kind of freaking me out with all the innuendos.”

“Oh. No, it’s all good. Don’t be nervous. I just should have said this to you in person.” Miller inhales a deep breath, and then on the exhale, he starts talking. “When I was fifteen, I watched you in a school play. You had the lead role, and at one point, you performed a monologue that went on for like two whole minutes. You were so convincing and you looked so heartbroken I was ready to walk onto the stage and hug you. When the play was finally over and the actors came back out onto the stage, you were smiling and laughing, and there wasn’t a trace of that character left in you. I was in awe, Clara. You have this charisma about you that I don’t think you’re aware of, but it’s captivating. I was a scrawny kid as a sophomore, and even though I’m a year older than you, I hadn’t quite filled out yet, and I had acne and felt inferior to you, so I never worked up the courage to approach you. Another year went by, and I continued to admire you from afar. Like that time you ran for school treasurer and tripped walking off the stage, but you jumped up and did this weird little kick and threw your arms up in the air and made the entire audience laugh. Or that time Mark Avery popped your bra strap in the hallway, and you were so sick of him doing it that you followed him to his classroom, reached inside your hoodie, and took off your bra and then threw it at him. I remember you yelling something like, ‘If you want to touch a bra so damn bad, just keep it, you perv!’ Then you stormed out. It was epic. Everything you do is epic, Clara. Which is why I never had the courage to approach you, because an epic girl needs an equally epic guy, and I guess I’ve just never felt epic enough for you. I’ve said epic so many times in the last fifteen seconds—I’m so sorry.”

He’s out of breath when he finally stops talking.

I’m smiling so hard my cheeks ache. I had no idea he felt this way. No idea.

I wait a few seconds to make sure he’s done; then I finally respond. I’m pretty sure he can hear from my voice alone that I’m smiling. “First of all, it’s hard to believe you were ever insecure. And second, I think you’re pretty epic, too, Miller. Always have. Even when you were scrawny and had acne.”

He laughs a little. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I can hear him sigh. “Glad I got that off my chest, then. See you at school tomorrow?”

“Good night.”

We end the call, and I don’t know how long I sit and stare at my phone.

 

 

Review

Things happen in families and this story covers everything from love, grief, deception, anger, and forgiveness.  It is the story of a mother and daughter and a tragic event that happens to them and the fallout from that event.  It showcases human emotion, real feelings, and real world situations.

This is a book that opens this reader’s eyes to what it might be like to live through tragedy and how trying to protect a child just might backfire if there is miscommunication or even assumptions on either party’s part.  Morgan wants to protect her sixteen year old daughter from some harsh realities but goes about it all wrong.  Clara is growing up fast and suddenly her crush is crushing back on her.  She has a lot to learn and Miller is there to help her through the rough patches.

I enjoyed the back and forth points of view from Morgan to Clara.  The different perspectives about the same situation reflect the maturity of Morgan and the immaturity of Clara – which is to be expected.  Understanding Morgan’s reason for holding back some truths about her husband Chris and the reaction from Clara is what one might expect but it, in the end, it brings them close together.

This book felt like it could have happened in someone’s life that I know.  The situations were real and the characters were flawed and everything came together beautifully in the end.  The dialogue between characters was heartfelt and real and I felt like a fly on the wall during the various scenes.  I have some favorite lines I want to share:

 

The day I found out I was pregnant, I stopped living life for myself.  I think it’s time I figure out who I was meant to become before I started living my life for everyone else.

“I’m worried we got it wrong.”

Attraction isn’t something that only happens once, with one person.  It’s part of what drives humans.  Our attraction to each other, to art, to food, to entertainment.  Attraction is fun. So when you decide to commit to someone, you aren’t saying, ‘I promise I’ll never be attracted to anyone else.’ You’re saying, ‘I promise to commit to you, despite my potential future attraction to other people.’

 

This book will tug on your heartstrings and make you laugh.  We give this book 4 paws up.

 

 

About the Author

Colleen Hoover is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including the bestselling women’s fiction novel It Ends with Us and the bestselling psychological thriller Verity. She has won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance three years in a row—for Confess (2015), It Ends with Us (2016), and Without Merit (2017). Confess was adapted into a seven-episode online series. In 2015, Hoover and her family founded the Bookworm Box, a bookstore and monthly subscription service that offers signed novels donated by authors. All profits go to various charities each month to help those in need. Hoover lives in Texas with her husband and their three boys.

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Synopsis

What will the master of Pemberley do when confronted with the mercurial whims of an all-powerful angel?

Fitzwilliam Darcy’s well-ordered life is about to become a chaotic nightmare. A man of fortune, property, and social prominence, he has everything he could desire. Blissfully married to his wife, Elizabeth, they have a two-year-old son. With so much to live for, Darcy is shaken by a near-fatal riding accident. After a miraculous escape, he is visited by an otherworldly being: an angel of death named Graham. Threatening dire consequences, Graham compels Darcy to guide him on a sojourn in the world of mortals.

Darcy immediately questions the angel’s motives when he demands to be a guest at Pemberley. Can he trust Graham’s assurance that no harm will come to his wife and child? And why does Graham insist on spending time with Elizabeth? How can Darcy possibly protect his family from an angel with power over life and death?

In this romantic fantasy, the beloved couple from Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice must contend with both human and unearthly challenges. Are the fates against them? Or will their extraordinary love conquer all?

 

 

 

Excerpt

When Darcy returned downstairs after dressing for dinner, he was drawn by sounds from the music room. He froze in place at the doorway, absorbed by the sight of his wife playing the pianoforte and singing a duet with Graham. His breathing hitched, and he was gripped with the force of a cutting discomfort. The two of them made an attractive picture together.

The man with the golden hair and perfect features was also blessed with an impressive baritone singing voice. Darcy remained in the doorway until they finished the song. When he clapped and entered the room, they both gazed at him.

Directing her gay smile towards him, Elizabeth said, “Fitzwilliam, there you are. Did you know Graham had such a marvellous singing voice?”

He managed something akin to a smile. “I did not—or perchance I forgot.”

She angled her head to the side as he bent to kiss her cheek. “I am sure I have never heard a better one.”

“I beg to differ, Elizabeth,” said Graham. “While your voice may not be perfect, there is a sweetness and an expression of feeling that I have never heard the likes of before; I compare it favourably to any famous opera singer.”

“I have always preferred Elizabeth’s singing voice to any other,” Darcy said.

Her eyes shone with amusement. “Now both of you are making statements too outrageous to be believed.” She patted his arm and gave him a fond smile. “Fitzwilliam may be pardoned for such aggrandisement: it is his duty as my husband to exaggerate my good qualities as much as possible.” She turned with a raised eyebrow towards Graham. “You, sir, have no excuse.”

Raising a hand over his heart, Graham staggered backward, as if shot by a musket. “Madam, you wound me. I would not say such a thing unless I felt it to be the absolute truth.”

Darcy rolled his eyes. What a theatrical fool!

Biting back her grin, Elizabeth said, “Shall we go in and have dinner now?”

Graham patted his stomach. “By all means, let us eat.”

During dinner, while Graham was busy eating enough food for two men, Elizabeth queried Darcy for details of the interview with Mr. Boyle. He told her of the man’s experience and gave her the good news.

Her face lit up with a dazzling smile. “I am so relieved you found a man suitable for the job. I understand he will not start for a fortnight, and he will need time to learn the duties particular to Pemberley, but I can expect my husband to have more free time at last. Dare I hope we could plan a trip somewhere? Mayhap to the seaside?”

Buoyed by the vision of her beautiful countenance brimming with anticipation, energy infused his body. Yes—a brilliant notion. He would take her on a holiday. He would have taken her to Margate or Brighton last year, but one problem or another had always come up to postpone the trip. The picturesque sandy beaches, the peaceful rhythm of the waves, and the majestic beauty of the ocean could not fail to delight her. What could be more enticing than Elizabeth barefoot on the sand with her dress hitched up as she ran in and out of the water?

“I do not see why not. We can make plans for the trip next month.”

At that moment, a servant girl who had brought out a tray of bread bumped into the sideboard whilst staring at Graham. Darcy narrowed his eyes and let out a deep breath. Mrs. Reynolds would have to speak with the servants; their conduct around Graham was unacceptable.

 

About the Author

Historical fiction author Kelly Miller discovered writing late in life, but it has quickly become a favorite pastime. When not pondering a plot point or a turn of phrase, she may be found playing the piano, singing, reading, or walking. Kelly Miller resides in Silicon Valley with her husband, daughter, and their many pets.

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Title: In The Dark
Author: Loreth Anne White
Release Date: December 1, 2019
Publisher: Montlake

Synopsis

The promise of a luxury vacation at a secluded wilderness spa has brought together eight lucky guests. But nothing is what they were led to believe. As a fierce storm barrels down and all contact with the outside is cut off, the guests fear that it’s not a getaway. It’s a trap.
Each one has a secret. Each one has something to hide. And now, as darkness closes in, they all have something to fear—including one another.

Alerted to the vanished party of strangers, homicide cop Mason Deniaud and search and rescue expert Callie Sutton must brave the brutal elements of the mountains to find them. But even Mason and Callie have no idea how precious time is. Because the clock is ticking, and one by one, the guests of Forest Shadow Lodge are being hunted. For them, surviving becomes part of a diabolical game.

 

 

Q&A: Author Loreth Anne White

You are very well known for your romantic suspense tales, but your new title, IN THE DARK, is all about mystery — a real whodunit! Tell us a bit about the story.

I like to think there is still a strong echo of my earlier romantic suspense books that ripples through IN THE DARK. Yes, it’s a locked-room mystery/thriller — wilderness style, but the mystery narrative is wrapped inside a romantic suspense-style narrative that follows a budding friendship between Detective Mason Deniaud and Search & Rescue manager Callie Sutton who must not only piece together what happened as they hunt for survivors, but also must race against time to save who might be left. The story leaves off with a promise of more ahead in the relationship between Callie and Mason, so my roots are still showing, I hope.

Your story definitely has shades of Agatha Christie as well as a nod or two to Stephen King. Did these authors act as inspirations for this book?

IN THE DARK is not only a homage to Agatha Christie’s AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, but Christie’s story becomes a plot device, a psychological tool that the villain uses to instill fear in the victims trapped in the lodge because the victims know what transpired in the book, and they anticipate the same will happen to them.

And yes, a teensy nod to master of atmosphere and horror, Stephen King’s THE SHINING where characters are trapped in a remote and snowbound hotel and become mercy to the psychological horror that descends on them.

A rural, isolated lodge is always a great place to start a suspenseful novel. How exactly did your characters all come to be at Forest Shadow Lodge?

The characters are invited for an all-expenses stay at the brand new, high-end, fly-in wilderness lodge and spa. They are lured by an offer to enjoy a ‘soft opening’, so to speak, where they can assess the accommodation and potentially negotiate lucrative contracts with the new lodge owners. Each guest runs a business that would be suitable for such an establishment. Each is excited by a possible lucrative contract. But not all is quite what meets the eye, of course.

Your story is told from multiple points-of-view as you take deep dives into the characters’ lives and histories. Does everyone have something to hide?

Don’t we all have something to hide? My characters in this book certainly do. Some of their secrets are more powerful than others.

Mason and Callie are two of the law enforcement responders that are trying to piece together exactly what happened at The Lodge. Tell us more about these characters and what makes them so good at what they do.

Mason Deniaud was a top homicide detective before relocating to the remote north for personal reasons. He lost a young son and a wife and he’s searching for a way to live, or exist, if not heal. Callie Sutton is a young mother who is single, but also isn’t because her husband lies in hospital and is brain dead. Her husband is there, but he also isn’t there for Callie and her young son. Like Mason, she’s in limbo, a place where she can’t move forward, or back. It’s through this they find a bond. And the search for the missing lodge party pushes them together.

IN THE DARK is a pivotal novel in your career. What does it have in common with your previous writing and how is it different? How does this inform your next steps as a writer?

Pivotal sounds cool. I’ll take it! Thank you. But yes IN THE DARK is a bit of a departure from my previous romantic suspense books. If readers enjoy it, however, and if my publisher remains happy, I’d like to keep growing in this direction. But I do think my crime stories will always revolve around strong women, or women who might be victims to start with, but who find agency and take back their lives and become strong and survive through the arc of a story. (As with my forthcoming work IN THE DEEP). I do love to include a relationship element in my crime novels, but bonding with a potential love interest comes out of the personal growth of the protagonist. I like to tell—and read—stories of women who find ways to rescue themselves.

 

 

In The Dark Excerpt

“The gas stove and the gas water heaters work,” Nathan said. “And there’s plumbing.” He turned his back on them and busied himself taking mugs out of the cupboard in an exaggerated fashion. His heart hammered in his chest. Sweat prickled across his lip.

“And there’s tea, coffee, tins of tuna, and soup,” Steven said as he hurriedly opened more cupboards.

Bart frowned. “Well, at least we won’t go hungry.” He made for the living area, paused. “I found a path. It looks like it leads around to the other bay, but it was getting too dark to follow without a flashlight.”

“Do you think it might lead to the real lodge?” Steven asked.

Nathan blinked. It was like the doctor was reaching for straws by asking—as if hoping, still, that their pilot had just made some terrible screwup with the GPS coordinates.

Bart said, “We can check again in the morning to see if—”

“There is no real lodge.” Jackie appeared in the doorway that led from the great room into the kitchen.

They all turned to look at the solid woman with intense eyes.

“This is no mistake,” she said curtly. “This is a con, some sick game.”

“What do you mean?” Bart asked.

“Did you guys not see the plaque outside, next to the front door? This place is called Forest Shadow Lodge. As in Forest Shadow Wilderness Resort & Spa. Here, look at this.” She pulled a brochure from her pocket and smoothed it out on the kitchen island.

“I printed it off the website before I left home.” She jabbed a photo of the luxury lodge. “It’s fake. It’s photoshopped, because it’s using the same location. See this bay here? And the shape of this one here? This mountain? This is how the terrain looked from the air. It’s this spot, but someone has photoshopped the spa into the location. They’ve erased parts of the forest, added cabins and trails, plus interior shots from some other spa and lodges.” She met their gazes. “This whole thing was faked from the get-go. We were lured here. All of us. And now we’re trapped.”

A sinister cold seemed to enter the kitchen. A shutter banged upstairs, and wind whistled. Mist, cloying and wet, pressed up against the windows. It grew darker inside.

“Why?” Bart asked, still holding his wood.

“God knows.” Jackie dragged her hand over her hair. “But right now, we’re stuck. We’ve been baited and lured into some weird kind of wilderness prison.”

“We are not trapped.” Stella entered the kitchen. “We have a plane. And you guys have a pilot—me. We have fuel. We—”

“We have no bloody radio!” Jackie snapped, whirling round to face Stella, her eyes furious.

“What?” said Steven.

“That’s right,” Jackie said. “Go on, tell them, Stella.”

Stella’s gray eyes flashed, shooting daggers at Jackie.

“Go on. Tell them. The radio is broken. Sabotaged, wires cut.”

“But I heard you speaking to your dispatch on the radio,” Nathan said.

“But it wasn’t working, was it, Stella?” Jackie said. “Your dispatch couldn’t hear you, could they? No one even knows where we are, do they?”

Stella’s features went tight.

“So when were you going to tell us this, Stella?” Steven asked.

“I didn’t want to say right away. Fear, worry, is not a good thing when—”

“When what? Jesus. Who are you to decide what’s right and wrong for us to know?” Steven barked. “You’re just the pilot, not the boss of our lives, for Chrissakes.”

“There’s a chance I could fix it in the morning. If I can—if it’s an easy fix—you’d never have to have known about it.”

“So you thought you’d play God?” Steven snapped. “Because we would all panic.” He wagged jazz hands at the sides of his face.

“And you’re not panicking?” she said.

Silence swelled in the kitchen. It felt for a bizarre moment as though the house was listening. Alive. Hostile. Nathan felt hairs rise along his arms. He was sensitive to these things. He could feel trees in the forest watching and listening to him.

 

 

About the Author

Loreth Anne White is an internationally bestselling author of thrillers, mysteries, and romantic suspense. A three-time RITA finalist, she is also the 2017 Overall Daphne du Maurier Award winner, and she has won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Romantic Crown for Best Romantic Suspense and Best Book Overall, in addition to being a Booksellers’ Best finalist and a multiple CataRomance Reviewers’ Choice Award winner. A former journalist and newspaper editor who has worked in both South Africa and Canada, she now resides in the Pacific Northwest with her family.

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Synopsis

Virtually every American will suffer from back pain at some point. Back pain is the second most common neurological ailment in the United States—only headaches are more common. And, after colds and influenza, it’s the second most common reason Americans see their doctors.

Dr. Stern brings relief to these millions of sufferers (including himself) who literally ache for help. Based on scientific data, Dr. Stern developed a five-step solution with a multidisciplinary, holistic perspective that’s been missing from conventional back pain wisdom. And it may not require surgery or another form of another invasive therapy.

In the book, he explains the six major anatomical sites that often generate pain, while also identifying other potential sources that people (and doctors) can easily overlook, such as commonly used drugs, undiagnosed illnesses or disease, and even depression.

With diagnostic self-tests, checklists to take to your next doctor’s appointment, advice on treatment options, preventative strategies and much more, Ending Back Pain will help you pinpoint the specific causes of your own back pain issues so you can get on the road to healing.

According to Dr. Stern, “Ending back pain begins with you. Diagnosing back pain is a tricky combination of art and science. Indeed, lots of high-tech tools are available to us in medicine, but that doesn’t mean that diagnosing, let alone curing, back pain is a black-and-white endeavor. Unfortunately, it’s very much to the contrary—complex, imprecise, and immensely vexing. So, the more you can contribute to the story of your back pain, the more you can shift your experience to one that’s less reliant on art and more based on science.”

 

 

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Excerpt

Most feelings of discomfort in life have clear solutions. For a stuffy nose, decongestants do the trick. For a pounding headache, aspirin or Tylenol comes in handy. But what do you do about a relentlessly aching back? As most of us know, the answer is not nearly as clear-cut as we’d wish. And unlike infectious diseases that often have targeted remedies (think antibiotics for bacterial infections and vaccines for viruses), ailing backs are like misbehaving, obnoxious family members—we can’t easily get rid of them or “fix” them. They also have a tendency to stick around and bother us nonstop, lowering our quality of life considerably and indefinitely.

Perhaps nothing could be more frustrating than a sore or hurting back. It seems to throw off everything else in our body, and makes daily living downright miserable. With the lifetime prevalence approaching 100 percent, virtually all of us have been or will be affected by low back pain at some point. Luckily, most of us recover from a bout of back pain within a few weeks and don’t experience another episode. But for some of us, the back gives us chronic problems. As many as 40 percent of people have a recurrence of back pain within six months.

At any given time, an astounding 15 to 30 percent of adults are experiencing back pain, and up to 80 percent of sufferers eventually seek medical attention. Sedentary people between the ages of forty-five and sixty are affected most, although I should point out that for people younger than forty-five, lower back pain is the most common cause for limiting one’s activities. And here’s the most frustrating fact of all: A specific diagnosis is often elusive; in many cases it’s not possible to give a precise diagnosis, despite advanced imaging studies. In other words, we doctors cannot point to a specific place in your back’s anatomy and say something along the lines of, “That’s exactly where the problem is, and here’s how we’ll fix it.” This is why the field of back pain has shifted from one in which we look solely for biomechanical approaches to treatment to one where we have to consider patients’ attitudes and beliefs. We have to look at a dizzying array of factors, because back pain is best understood through multiple lenses, including biology, psychology, and even sociology.

The Challenge

So, why is back pain such a confounding problem? For one, it’s lumped into one giant category, even though it entails a constellation of potential culprits. You may have back pain stemming from a skiing accident, whereas your neighbor experiences back pain as the consequence of an osteoporotic fracture. Clearly, the two types of back pain are different, yet we call them “back pain” on both accounts, regardless. Back pain has an indeterminate range of possible causes, and therefore multiple solutions and treatment options. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this malady. That is why diagnosing back pain, particularly persistent or recurrent pain, is so challenging for physicians.

Some people are able to describe the exact moment or series of moments when they incurred the damage to their back—a car accident, a slip and fall, a difficult pregnancy, a heavy-lifting job at work, a sports-related injury, a marathon, and so on. But for many, the moment isn’t so obvious, or what they think is causing them the back pain is far from accurate.

The Two Types of Back Pain

If you are going to experience back pain, you’d prefer to have the acute and temporary kind rather than the chronic and enigmatic kind. The former is typically caused by a musculoskeletal issue that resolves itself in due time. This would be like pulling a muscle in your back during a climb up a steep hill on your bicycle or sustaining an injury when you fall from the stepladder in the garage. You feel pain for a few weeks and then it’s silenced, hence the term self-limiting back pain. It strikes, you give it some time, it heals, and it’s gone.

The second type of back pain, though, is often worse, because it’s not easily attributed to a single event or accident. Often, either sufferers don’t know what precipitated the attack, or they remember some small thing as the cause, such as bending from the waist to lift an object instead of squatting down (i.e., lifting with the legs) or stepping off a curb too abruptly. It can start out of nowhere and nag you endlessly. It can build slowly over time but lack a clear beginning. Your doctor scratches his head, trying to diagnose the source of the problem, and as a result your treatment options aren’t always aligned with the root cause of the problem well enough to solve it forever. It should come as no surprise, then, that those with no definitive diagnosis reflect the most troubling cases for patients and doctors.

What Are the Chances?

Chances are good that you’ll experience back pain at some point in your life. Your lifetime risk is arguably close to 100 percent. And unfortunately, recurrence rates are appreciable. The chance of it recurring within one year of a first episode is estimated to be between 20 and 44 percent; within ten years, 80 percent of sufferers report back pain again. Lifetime recurrence is estimated to be 85 percent. Hence, the goal should be to alleviate symptoms and prevent future episodes.

Excerpted from Ending Back Pain: 5 Powerful Steps to Diagnose, Understand, and Treat Your Ailing Back. Copyright © by Jack Stern, M.D., Ph.D. Published by Avery. All rights reserved.

 

About the Author

Jack Stern, M.D., Ph.D., is the author of Ending Back Pain: 5 Powerful Steps to Diagnose, Understand, and Treat Your Ailing Back. He is a board-certified neurosurgeon specializing in spinal surgery, and cofounder of Spine Options, one of America’s first facilities committed to nonsurgical care of back and neck pain. Dr. Stern is on the clinical faculty at Weill Cornell Medical College and has published numerous peer- and non peer-reviewed medical articles. He lives and practices in White Plains, New York.

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Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling, celebrated, and award-winning author of Empire of the Summer Moon and Rebel Yell comes the spellbinding, epic account of the dramatic conclusion of the Civil War.

The fourth and final year of the Civil War offers one of that era’s most compelling narratives, defining the nation and one of history’s great turning points. Now, S.C. Gwynne’s Hymns of the Republic addresses the time Ulysses S. Grant arrives to take command of all Union armies in March 1864 to the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox a year later. Gwynne breathes new life into the epic battle between Lee and Grant; the advent of 180,000 black soldiers in the Union army; William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea; the rise of Clara Barton; the election of 1864 (which Lincoln nearly lost); the wild and violent guerrilla war in Missouri; and the dramatic final events of the war, including the surrender at Appomattox and the murder of Abraham Lincoln.

Hymns of the Republic offers angles and insights on the war that will surprise many readers. Robert E. Lee, known as a great general and southern hero, is presented here as a man dealing with frustration, failure, and loss. Ulysses S. Grant is known for his prowess as a field commander, but in the final year of the war he largely fails at that. His most amazing accomplishments actually began the moment he stopped fighting. William Tecumseh Sherman, Gwynne argues, was a lousy general, but probably the single most brilliant man in the war. We also meet a different Clara Barton, one of the greatest and most compelling characters, who redefined the idea of medical care in wartime. And proper attention is paid to the role played by large numbers of black union soldiers—most of them former slaves. They changed the war and forced the South to come up with a plan to use its own black soldiers.

 

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Excerpt

 

Chapter One: The End Begins

 

Washington, DC, had never, in its brief and undistinguished history, known a social season like this one. The winter of 1863–64 had been bitterly cold, but its frozen rains and swirling snows had dampened no spirits. Instead a feeling, almost palpable, of optimism hung in the air, a swelling sense that, after three years of brutal war and humiliating defeats at the hands of rebel armies, God was perhaps in his heaven, after all. The inexplicably lethal Robert E. Lee had finally been beaten at Gettysburg. Vicksburg had fallen, completing the Union conquest of the Mississippi River. A large rebel army had been chased from Chattanooga. Something like hope—or maybe just its shadow—had finally loomed into view.

The season had begun as always with a New Year’s reception at the Executive Mansion, hosted by the Lincolns, then had launched itself into a frenzy whose outward manifestation was the city’s newest obsession: dancing. Washingtonians were crazy about it. They were seen spinning through quadrilles, waltzes, and polkas at the great US Patent Office Ball, the Enlistment Fund Ball, and at “monster hops” at Willard’s hotel and the National. At these affairs, moreover, everyone danced. No bored squires or sad-eyed spinsters lingered in the shadows of cut glass and gaslight. No one could sit still, and together all improvised a wildly moving tapestry of color: ladies in lace and silk and crinolines, in crimson velvet and purple moire, their cascading curls flecked with roses and lilies, their bell-shaped forms whirled by men in black swallowtails and colored cravats.

The great public parties were merely the most visible part of the social scene. That winter had seen an explosion of private parties as well. Limits were pushed here, too, budgets broken, meals set forth of quail, partridge, lobster, terrapin, and acreages of confections. Politicians such as Secretary of State William Seward and Congressman Schuyler “Smiler” Colfax threw musical soirees. The spirit of the season was evident in the wedding of the imperially lovely Kate Chase—daughter of Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase—to Senator William Sprague. Sprague’s gift to Kate was a $50,000 tiara of matched pearls and diamonds. When the bride appeared, the US Marine Band struck up “The Kate Chase March,” a song written by a prominent composer for the occasion.

What was most interesting about these evenings, however, was less their showy proceedings than the profoundly threatened world in which they took place. It was less like a world than a child’s snow globe: a small glittering space enclosed by an impenetrable barrier. For in the winter of 1863–64, Washington was the most heavily defended city on earth. Beyond its houses and public buildings stood thirty-seven miles of elaborate trenches and fortifications that included sixty separate forts, manned by fifty thousand soldiers. Along this armored front bristled some nine hundred cannons, many of large caliber, enough to blast entire armies from the face of the earth. There was something distinctly medieval about the fear that drove such engineering.

The danger was quite real. Since the Civil War had begun, Washington had been threatened three times by large armies under Robert E. Lee’s command. After the Union defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862, a rebel force under Lee’s lieutenant Stonewall Jackson had come within twenty miles of the capital while driving the entire sixty-thousand-man Union army back inside its fortifications, where the bluecoats cowered and licked their wounds and thanked heaven for all those earthworks and cannons.

A year and a half later, the same fundamental truth informed those lively parties. Without that cordon militaire, they could not have existed. Washington’s elaborate social scene was a brocaded illusion: what the capital’s denizens desperately wanted the place to be, not what it actually was.

This garishly defended capital was still a smallish, grubby, corrupt, malodorous, and oddly pretentious municipality whose principal product, along with legislation and war making, was biblical sin in its many varieties. Much of the city had been destroyed in the War of 1812. What had replaced the old settlement was both humble and grandiose. Vast quantities of money had been spent to build the city’s precious handful of public buildings: the Capitol itself (finished in December 1863), the Post Office Building, the Smithsonian Institution, the US Patent Office, the US Treasury, and the Executive Mansion. (The Washington Monument, whose construction had been suspended in 1854 for lack of funds, was an abandoned and forlorn-looking stump.)

But those structures stood as though on a barren plain. The Corinthian columns of the Post Office Building may have been worthy of the high Renaissance, but little else in the neighborhood was. The effect was jarring, as though pieces of the Champs-Élysées had been dropped into a swamp. Everything about the place, from its bloody and never-ending war to the faux grandiosity of its windswept plazas, suggested incompleteness. Like the Washington Monument, it all seemed half-finished. The wartime city held only about eighty thousand permanent residents, a pathetic fraction of the populations of New York (800,000) and Philadelphia (500,000), let alone London (2.6 million) or Paris (1.7 million). Foreign travelers, if they came to the national capital at all, found it hollow, showy, and vainglorious. British writer Anthony Trollope, who visited the city during the war and thought it a colossal disappointment, wrote:

Washington is but a ragged, unfinished collection of unbuilt broad streets.… Of all the places I know it is the most ungainly and most unsatisfactory; I fear I must also say the most presumptuous in its pretensions. Taking [a] map with him… a man may lose himself in the streets, not as one loses oneself in London between Shoreditch and Russell Square, but as one does so in the deserts of the Holy Land… There is much unsettled land within the United States of America, but I think none so desolate as three-fourths of the ground on which is supposed to stand the city of Washington.

He might have added that the place smelled, too. Its canals were still repositories of sewage; tidal flats along the Potomac reeked at low tide. Pigs and cows still roamed the frozen streets. Dead horses, rotting in the winter sun, were common sights. At the War Department, one reporter noted, “The gutter [was] heaped up full of black, rotten mud, a foot deep, and worth fifty cents a car load for manure.” The unfinished mall where the unfinished Washington Monument stood held a grazing area and slaughterhouse for the cattle used to feed the capital’s defenders. The city was both a haven and a dumping ground for the sort of human chaff that collected at the ragged edges of the war zone: deserters from both armies, sutlers (civilians who sold provisions to soldiers), spies, confidence men, hustlers, and the like.

Washington had also become the nation’s single largest refuge for escaped slaves, who now streamed through the capital’s rutted streets by the thousands. When Congress freed the city’s thirty-three hundred slaves in 1862, it had triggered an enormous inflow of refugees, mostly from Virginia and Maryland. By 1864 fifty thousand of them had moved within Washington’s ring of forts. Many were housed in “contraband camps,” and many suffered in disease-ridden squalor in a world that often seemed scarcely less prejudiced than the one they had left. But they were never going back. They were never going to be slaves again. This was the migration’s central truth, and you could see it on any street corner in the city. Many would make their way into the Union army, which at the end of 1863 had already enlisted fifty thousand from around the country, most of them former slaves.

But the most common sights of all on those streets were soldiers. A war was being fought, one that had a sharp and unappeasable appetite for young men. Several hundred thousand of them had tramped through the city since April 1861, wearing their blue uniforms, slouch hats, and knapsacks. They had lingered on its street corners, camped on its outskirts. Tens of thousands more languished in wartime hospitals. Mostly they were just passing through, on their way to a battlefield or someone’s grand campaign or, if they were lucky, home. Many were on their way to death or dismemberment. In their wake came the seemingly endless supply trains with their shouting teamsters, rumbling wagon wheels, snorting horses, and creaking tack.

Because of these soldiers—unattached young men, isolated, and far from home—a booming industry had arisen that was more than a match for its European counterparts: prostitution. This was no minor side effect of war. Ten percent or more of the adult population were inhabitants of Washington’s demimonde. In 1863, the Washington Evening Star had determined that the capital had more than five thousand prostitutes, with an additional twenty-five hundred in neighboring Georgetown, and twenty-five hundred more across the river in Alexandria, Virginia. That did not count the concubines or courtesans who were simply kept in apartments by the officer corps. The year before, an army survey had revealed 450 houses of ill repute. All served drinks and sex. In a district called Murder Bay, passersby could see nearly naked women in the windows and doors of the houses. For the less affluent—laborers, teamsters, and army riffraff—Nigger Hill and Tin Cup Alley had sleazier establishments, where men were routinely robbed, stabbed, shot, and poisoned with moonshine whiskey. The Star could not help wondering how astonished the sisters and mothers of these soldiers would be to see how their noble young men spent their time at the capital. Many of these establishments were in the heart of the city, a few blocks from the president’s house and the fashionable streets where the capital’s smart set whirled in gaslit dances.

This was Washington, DC, in that manic, unsettled winter of 1863–64, in the grip of a lengthening war whose end no one could clearly see.

 

Excerpted from HYMNS OF THE REPUBLIC: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War, by S.C. Gwynne. Copyright © 2019 by Samuel C. Gwynne.  Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

 

About the Author

S.C. Gwynne is the author of Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War and the New York Times bestsellers Rebel Yell and Empire of the Summer Moon, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He spent most of his career as a journalist, including stints with Time as bureau chief, national correspondent, and senior editor, and with Texas Monthly as executive editor. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife.

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