Spotlight: Every Exquisite Thing by Matthew Quick

Nanette O'Hare is an unassuming teen who has played the role of dutiful daughter, hardworking student, and star athlete for as long as she can remember. But when a beloved teacher gives her his worn copy of The Bubblegum Reaper--a mysterious, out-of-print cult classic--the rebel within Nanette awakens. 

As she befriends the reclusive author, falls in love with a young but troubled poet, and attempts to insert her true self into the world with wild abandon, Nanette learns the hard way that rebellion sometimes comes at a high price.

A celebration of the self and the formidable power of story, Every Exquisite Thing is Matthew Quick at his finest. 

About the Author

Matthew Quick (aka Q) is the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook, The Good Luck of Right Now, and three young adult novels, Sorta Like a Rock Star, Boy21, and Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock. His work has been translated into thirty languages, and has received a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention. The Weinstein Company and David O. Russell adapted The Silver Linings Playbook into an Academy Award winning film. Q lives in North Carolina with his wife, novelist/pianist Alicia Besette. His website is matthewquickwriter.com

Spotlight: Atlantis Quest by Gloria Craw

Get ready for the exciting follow up to Atlantis Rising, dubbed An enchanting debut from a promising new author of paranormal YAby Kirkus Reviews.

After all they’d cost me, I thought I was done with the Truss clan. I was wrong. Nikki Dawning, my mortal enemy, has beenkidnapped, and I’ve been asked to spy on the Truss to find her. The pull between Ian and I has never been stronger, but he can’t help me this time. I have to rely on Theron, a bad-tempered cousin I didn’t know I had. To make matters worse, the people I trust have been keeping secrets.

I’m starting to feel like a weapon in a war I don’t understand. How far am I willing to go to protect the descendants of Atlantis and the common good when I’m not sure what the common good is anymore?

Only one thing is certain. If I’m the next Laurel clan chief, I can’t let myself be manipulated…by anyone.

Excerpt

I stopped talking because Ian had stepped in front of me and slid his hand behind my neck. I knew what he was going to do. I also knew I should turn away, but I didn’t. I let him move closer, I didn’t look away when his eyes lingered on my lips, and I didn’t tell him to stop when his lips touched mine. Instead, I moved even nearer until there was no space between us. I reached up and ran my fingers through the golden-blond hair that curled up at his shirt collar.

About the Author

Gloria Craw grew up in the desert southwest, inspired every day by the wide skies and rich colors around her. She attended the University of Utah where she earned a degree in anthropology. These days, she lives in the ‘burbs’ just outside of Seattle, Washington, where she is the shepherd of a husband, four daughters, and a very hairy dog.

Connect with Gloria: Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Twitter: @GloriaCraw01

Spotlight: The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

A warm, funny and acutely perceptive debut novel about four adult siblings and the fate of the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives.

Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Months earlier, an inebriated Leo got behind the wheel of a car with a nineteen-year-old waitress as his passenger. The ensuing accident has endangered the Plumbs' joint trust fund, “The Nest,” which they are months away from finally receiving. Meant by their deceased father to be a modest mid-life supplement, the Plumb siblings have watched The Nest’s value soar along with the stock market and have been counting on the money to solve a number of self-inflicted problems.

Melody, a wife and mother in an upscale suburb, has an unwieldy mortgage and looming college tuition for her twin teenage daughters. Jack, an antiques dealer, has secretly borrowed against the beach cottage he shares with his husband, Walker, to keep his store open. And Bea, a once-promising short-story writer, just can’t seem to finish her overdue novel. Can Leo rescue his siblings and, by extension, the people they love? Or will everyone need to reimagine the futures they’ve envisioned? Brought together as never before, Leo, Melody, Jack, and Beatrice must grapple with old resentments, present-day truths, and the significant emotional and financial toll of the accident, as well as finally acknowledge the choices they have made in their own lives.

This is a story about the power of family, the possibilities of friendship, the ways we depend upon one another and the ways we let one another down. In this tender, entertaining, and deftly written debut, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney brings a remarkable cast of characters to life to illuminate what money does to relationships, what happens to our ambitions over the course of time, and the fraught yet unbreakable ties we share with those we love.

About the Author

Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children. She has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Spotlight: Love, Loss, and What We Ate by Padma Lakshmi

A vivid memoir of food and family, survival and triumph, Love, Loss, and What We Ate traces the arc of Padma Lakshmi's unlikely path from an immigrant childhood to a complicated life in front of the camera—a tantalizing blend of Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone and Nora Ephron's Heartburn.

Long before Padma Lakshmi ever stepped onto a television set, she learned that how we eat is an extension of how we love, how we comfort, how we forge a sense of home—and how we taste the world as we navigate our way through it. Shuttling between continents as a child, she lived a life of dislocation that would become habit as an adult, never quite at home in the world. And yet, through all her travels, her favorite food remained the simple rice she first ate sitting on the cool floor of her grandmother's kitchen in South India.

Poignant and surprising, Love, Loss, and What We Ate is Lakshmi's extraordinary account of her journey from that humble kitchen, ruled by ferocious and unforgettable women, to the judges' table of Top Chef and beyond. It chronicles the fierce devotion of the remarkable people who shaped her along the way, from her headstrong mother who flouted conservative Indian convention to make a life in New York, to her Brahmin grandfather—a brilliant engineer with an irrepressible sweet tooth—to the man seemingly wrong for her in every way who proved to be her truest ally. A memoir rich with sensual prose and punctuated with evocative recipes, it is alive with the scents, tastes, and textures of a life that spans complex geographies both internal and external.

Love, Loss, and What We Ate is an intimate and unexpected story of food and family—both the ones we are born to and the ones we create—and their enduring legacies.

About the Author

Padma Lakshmi is the Emmy-nominated host of the highly rated and critically acclaimed, Emmy-winning Bravo series Top Chef, and the author of two cook-books: Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet and the award-winning Easy Exotic. In addition to her culinary achievements, Lakshmi has contributed to such magazines as Vogue, Gourmet, and Harper’s Bazaar (UK and US), and penned a syndicated column on fashion and food for the New York Times. Her television-hosting credits include Planet Food and Padma’s Passport, as well as other programs in the United States and abroad. A global style icon and the first internationally successful Indian supermodel, Lakshmi also helms companies of her own such as the Padma Collection and Easy Exotic.

Lakshmi is a cofounder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America. Since 2009, the organization has advocated for early diagnosis, promoted research, and raised awareness in the medical community and the greater public about this devastating chronic disease which affects over 190 million women worldwide. 
She lives in New York City with her daughter.

Read an excerpt from True Peril by Veronica Forand

Synopsis

She's this assassin's toughest assignment ever...

Socialite Trista Patterson has turned her back on her life of privilege and dedicated herself to helping others. Her mission to protect the world’s children often takes her into the bleak and violent underbelly of third world countries. When a kidnapping attempt goes wrong, Trista quickly finds herself running for her life...and married to a man she just met...as she’s placed at the top of the Cartel’s most wanted list.

Some days no good deed goes unpunished.

Dane O’Brien has spent his life in the shadows. Once a lethal assassin he grew tired of losing his soul with every hit, trading his gun and missions for a conference table and office politics as an undercover operative for the CIA. But when visiting his humanitarian sister turns deadly, Dane finds himself swearing to protect her beautiful and passionate friend Trista no matter the cost...even if it means stepping back into the world he swore never to return to. Although falling for the tough-hearted Trista is easy, keeping her alive is hard.

Get a Sneak Peek at True Peril!

Copyright © 2016 by Veronica Forand

“Trista?” he called out through the trees.

No answer.

“I’m Jenny’s brother. It’s safe.”

He called to her several more times and then started back to his car to gather supplies to hike a mile or two farther to try to find more evidence of her presence. The swish of a branch behind him caught his attention. Whoever was hiding had emerged.

Relief turned to caution as Trista walked out of the jungle with a layer of mud covering her and a handgun aimed at his head.

“Trista?”

She didn’t speak. Her eyes remained focused on him, and her legs seemed poised to take off at the slightest threat.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

Hovering in the area between the road and the forest, she shook her head. “You’re Jenny’s brother?”

Her voice sounded stronger than her faltering body appeared. Some of the mud that covered her looked more like blood that had dried on her shirtsleeves and part of her pants.

“Yes. I’m Dane O’Brien.”

“What’s Jenny’s middle name?” Her eyebrows furrowed as they had in the pictures.

“She doesn’t have one.”

She took a tentative step forward. She observed Dane’s movements and fixed her eyes on his like a panther ready to pounce. “What’s her favorite drink?”

“Chocolate milkshakes. Or a margarita if the bar carries fresh limes.”

The tension in her face melted away. She pointed the gun to the ground and walked over to him. His arms opened automatically—after all, the woman had been through hell. She probably needed a hug or a shoulder to cry on.

She crossed her arms over her chest, the gun dangling from her hand. Her breathing pattern switched from a heavy sigh to a shivery exhale. He put his arms down and observed her.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I’ll survive.”

“Let me rephrase. Do you need medical attention?”

“No.”

“Where are the men who took you from the village?”

“Dead.”

“You killed them?”

She nodded. Her gaze dropped to the ground. Most people never recovered from such a nightmare. Yet she’d not only lived through the ordeal, she emerged from the jungle healthy and armed.

Impressive.

He’d placed the odds against her, but now that he saw her in person, he’d have changed his bet. He approached her with caution. Her finger rested just outside the trigger, in a position a skilled shooter would feel comfortable with.

She peered up at him. “I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t know how I’d get down from the mountain. Is Jenny all right?”

“Worried about you.”

“What about Natalia?”

“I don’t know anything about her, except she’s probably alive thanks to you. Did they hurt you?” He placed a calming hand on her shoulder and slipped the gun out of her hand.

“No.” She eyed the weapon, but didn’t reach for it. Not that she’d be capable of taking it back from him.

“I’ve been listening to the group’s radio all night. They’re coming back. For me.” A tear rolled down her cheek. She ignored it and looked toward the hut. “I didn’t mean to kill them.”

“Kill or be killed.” He urged her toward the Land Cruiser with a soft hand still on her shoulder, trying to ease the wretched emotions that would brand her view of the world forever—the same emotions that tortured his soul every night. “You survived a kidnapping by two moronic men. Don’t feel guilty.”

“You’d have killed them?”

More than killed them. That’s why he hid away in an office now. If anyone had threatened to rape a young girl in his presence, he would have flayed their skin and stuffed it down their throats before ripping their hearts out. “I wouldn’t have been as merciful as you.”

About the Author

A Golden Pen winner in romantic suspense and a triple finalist in the Daphne Du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense, Veronica Forand is an attorney and a novelist. She's lived in Boston, London, Paris, Geneva, and Washington, DC and currently resides near Philadelphia. An avid traveler, she loves to roam across continents with her husband and kids in pursuit of skiing, scuba diving, and finding the perfect piece of chocolate.

Read more about her upcoming releases and appearances at http://veronicaforand.com/.

Connect with Veronica: Facebook | Twitter | Amazon | Goodreads

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Read an excerpt from Lexington and 42nd by Kim Carmody

Lexington and 42nd Synopsis

It was meant to be the job opportunity of a life time. 

It turned out to be so much more… 

At the age of twenty five, Emma Lexington takes off to New York on a once in a life time twelve-month job exchange with the New York Warriors. Determined to make the most of the opportunity, she prepares herself for life in the big apple—fast paced, exciting and a whole lot of fun. What she hasn’t prepare for though, is meeting him. 

The charming Will Jensen is in the prime of his playing career. As the star quarterback for the Warriors, his carefree, football centric life is thrown into disarray when he meets Emma, the beautiful, easy going Australian girl who joins the Warriors staff. 

Unwilling to throw her professional reputation away on a fling with the playboy quarterback, Emma turns down Will’s advances, even though she can’t deny the attraction she feels for him. Their pull toward one another grows, but it takes a near disaster for Emma to finally give Will a chance. 

Getting together might have been hard, but figuring out how to stay together will prove even more challenging as Emma must decide between conflicting loyalties. 

Lexington and 42nd is a fun, sexy romance, set in the exciting world of the NFL in the fabulous city of New York.

Excerpt

Our burgers arrived, looking and smelling amazing. I laughed as I stared at the loaded plate the waiter placed in front of me. “You were right, I would have had total menu envy if I’d gone with a salad.” Although how I was going to get through even half of the gigantic burger was beyond me.

“So what

I swallowed, gulping down a glass of water. “Unsurprisingly not a lot. I had every intention of studying up before I started work last week, but I kind of got distracted by the whole sightseeing thing.” I popped some fries in my mouth before going on. “I think you owe me some lessons for leading me on the other night, Quarterback.”

Will nodded as he swallowed a mouthful. He was already two-thirds of the way through his meal. “You’re right, what do you want to know?”

I considered where to start. “Right, umm, how many players on a team?”

He rolled his eyes, unamused by my ignorance. “Fifty-three on the roster but only forty-five on the game-day roster. There’s only eleven on the field at a time.”

“How long does the game go for?”

“An hour, two thirty-minute halves with a twelve-minute break in between, and a two-minute break at the end of each fifteen-minute quarter. But the game tends to go for a few hours with all the time-outs.”

“How many points do you score if you get a goal?”

“You get three for a field goal and six for a touchdown.”

I laughed. “Touchdowns I’ve heard of. What about teams, how many are there in the league?”

Mouth full, he responded, “Thirty-two.”

“Do you always speak when you’re eating?”

He swallowed. “I can be quiet, if that’s how you like it.”

I sucked in a breath at the innuendo in his words. With one line, he’d changed the mood from light and friendly to something totally more sinister...and as much as I wanted to pretend it hadn’t affected me, it had. His eyes darkened as he continued staring at me and I had absolutely no idea how to respond, feeling both mortified and turned on at the same time. His ability to completely overwhelm me with just a few words was daunting, and it wasn’t lost on me that making women melt in a puddle of neediness was most likely a weekly hobby for him.

He finally blinked a few times and placed a hand over my forearm, his touch doing nothing to calm me. “Hey, Bambi, relax. I was just messing with you. Chill out.”

I let out a breath and eventually managed a small smile. “You’re dangerous, Will Jensen. And you can stop with the flirty eyes and one-liners—we work together, remember?”

He held up his hands with a look of mock horror. “I’m offended you’d think I’d even consider it.”

“I’m serious! I’ve been warned about you and your charms.” I narrowed my eyes. “They won’t work on me.”

“Really? They’re not working even a little?” he teased.

“Nope. Not even a little.”

It was actually working a lot, but there was no way I was telling him that. As if he didn’t already know. He could probably make a woman’s panties fall off with nothing more than a look.

He sighed. “Fine. But I’m disappointed.”

“And stop calling me Bambi, it’s offensive.”

Will laughed. “Too late, you’ll forever be my Bambi. Besides, you’re Disney Bambi, not Stripper Bambi.” He pinched a handful of fries from my plate and winked. “You haven’t taken your clothes off for me…yet.”

“Ha! Nice one buddy, never gonna happen.”

About Kim Carmody

Kim Carmody lives in Australia with her husband, in a sunny little part of Melbourne that she never wants to leave. Except for frequent trips to New York, she is happy to leave at least once a year for those.

She holds a Masters in Commerce Marketing and while she spent her younger years training to become a professional dancer, she somehow ended up working in the sports industry, where she met her now husband.  Never a participant or spectator of sport growing up (she was too busy flitting around in a tutu), she has grown to appreciate, if not love many sports and eventually found herself writing about them too.

As an avid book lover from the moment she was introduced to The Babysitters Club as a seven year-old, Kim never expected to be able to call herself an author, but is beyond excited that she now can.

Lexington and 42nd is her first novel.

Connect with Kim: Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram

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