Spotlight: Let's Hope for the Best by Carolina Setterwall

In her debut novel, Let’s Hope for the Best, Carolina Setterwall recounts the intensity of falling in love with her partner Aksel, and the shock of finding him dead in bed one morning. Carolina and Aksel meet at a party, and their passionate first encounter leads to months of courtship during which Carolina struggles to find her place. While Aksel prefers to take things slow, Carolina is eager to advance their relationship -moving in together, getting a cat, and finally having a child.

Perhaps to impose some order on the chaos, Carolina devotedly chronicles the months after Aksel’s passing like a ship’s log. She unpacks with forensic intensity the small details of life before tragedy, eager to find some explanation for the bad hand she’s been dealt. When new romance rushes in, Carolina finds herself assuming the reticent role Aksel once played. She’s been given the gift of love again. But can she make it work?

A striking feat of auto-fiction, written in direct address to Setterwall’s late partner, LET’S HOPE FOR THE BEST is a stylistic tour-de force.

Buy on Amazon | Audible | Barnes and Noble

About the Author

Carolina Setterwall was born in 1978 in Sala, Sweden. After studying Media and Communication in Uppsala, Stockholm, and London she has worked within the music and publishing industries as an editor and writer. Setterwall lives in Stockholm with her son.

Spotlight: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

Buy on Amazon | Audible | Barnes and Noble

About the Author

Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, winner of the Whiting Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His writings have also been featured in The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is his first novel.

Spotlight: The King's Mercy by Lori Benton

For readers of Sara Donati and Diana Gabaldon, this epic historical romance tells of fateful love between an indentured Scotsman and a daughter of the 18th century colonial south.

When captured rebel Scotsman Alex MacKinnon is granted the king's mercy--exile to the Colony of North Carolina--he's indentured to Englishman Edmund Carey as a blacksmith. Against his will Alex is drawn into the struggles of Carey's slaves--and those of his stepdaughter, Joanna Carey. A mistress with a servant's heart, Joanna is expected to wed her father's overseer, Phineas Reeves, but finds herself drawn instead to the new blacksmith. As their unlikely relationship deepens, successive tragedies strike the Careys. When blame falls unfairly upon Alex he flees to the distant mountains where he encounters Reverend Pauling, itinerate preacher and friend of the Careys, now a prisoner of the Cherokees. Haunted by his abandoning of Joanna, Alex tries to settle into life with the Cherokees, until circumstances thwart yet another attempt to forge his freedom and he's faced with the choice that's long hounded him: continue down his rebellious path or embrace the faith of a man like Pauling, whose freedom in Christ no man can steal. But the price of such mercy is total surrender, and perhaps Alex's very life.

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

About the Author

LORI BENTON was raised east of the Appalachian Mountains, surrounded by early American history going back three hundred years. Her novels transport readers to the eighteenth century, where she brings to life the Colonial and early Federal periods of American history. When she isn't writing, reading, or researching, Lori enjoys exploring and photographing the Oregon wilderness with her husband. She is the author of Burning Sky, recipient of three Christy Awards; The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn; Christy nominee The Wood's Edge; A Flight of Arrows; and Many Sparrows.

Cover Reveal: Wrapped Up In Christmas by Janice Lynn

A gift of warmth to heal two hearts…

Sarah Smith in Pine Hill, Kentucky has had her heart broken in the past. She pours herself into her work at church and into special projects―like making a quilt for a wounded warrior.

Bodie Lewis is lost. All he’s ever wanted was his career as an Army Ranger, but he was injured in an explosion that killed his brothers in arms. In the hospital, he receives a handmade quilt. Later, he sets out on his final mission: to find and thank its maker.

Bodie expected Sarah to be an elderly lady, not a lovely young woman. When she mistakes him for a handyman, he doesn’t immediately set her straight. Instead, he sets about repairing the home she’s turning into a bed and breakfast. Sarah’s presence and the spirit of the small town bring Bodie something he thought he’d left far behind on the battlefield: hope.

This heartwarming sweet romance includes a free quilt pattern from the Quilts of Valor Foundation and a new original Hallmark recipe for Cinnamon Swirl Bread.

Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble

Audio Spotlight: Another Broken Wizard by Colin Dodds

Synopsis: Jim Monaghan really didn't want to go back to Worcester, when sudden unemployment and his father's surgery forced his hand. Drifting into a dubious ICU romance while he tends to his father, Jim seeks out his childhood best friend, Joe Rousseau, who has problems of his own. Joe's in a feud with a local gang, and his plan to resolve the matter only makes things worse. Nonetheless, Jim follows his friend into the Worcester nights defined by drugs and violence. As the danger escalates, he makes a painful choice to try to save Joe. And then he has to live with the consequences.

A book about the threshold of childhood and adulthood, about straddling the expectations of a fading industrial home and the attenuated promise of an information economy, about reconciling the love for a friend with self preservation, Another Broken Wizard is, above all, a portrait of Worcester, Massachusetts.

“Exceptionally vivid characters, a story which sneaks up on you at first, then gathers pace, and the book has tight writing which keeps you turning the pages right until the profoundly moving denouement. Simply put, Another Broken Wizard is brilliant. Read this book!” (David Gaughran, author of A Storm Hits Valparaíso)

“Dodds gets Worcester and shows it in all of its glories and cracks.... He runs through the streets of and takes the reader with him...capturing all of the said and unsaid...so full of waiting, of pain, and of hope that never reaches past the next day.” (Worcester Pulse Magazine)

Buy on Amazon | Audible | Barnes and Noble

About the Author: Colin Dodds

Colin Dodds is a writer with several novels and books of poetry to his name. He grew up in Massachusetts and lived in California briefly, before finishing his education in New York City. Since then, he’s made his living as a journalist, editor, copywriter and video producer. Over the last seven years, his writing has appeared in more than three hundred publications including Gothamist, Painted Bride Quarterly, and The Washington Post, and praised by luminaries including Norman Mailer. His poetry collection Spokes of an Uneven Wheel was published by Main Street Rag Publishing Company in 2018. Colin also writes screenplays, has directed a short film, and built a twelve-foot-high pyramid out of PVC pipe, plywood and zip ties. One time, he rode his bicycle a hundred miles in a day. He lives in New York City, with his wife and daughter. You can find more of his work at thecolindodds.com.

Website⎮Facebook⎮Goodreads

Spotlight: Severance by N.N. Britt

About Severance: 

They say first love doesn’t last. Alana’s ends on the night her boyfriend Dakota dies in a deadly shooting at a Portland club. 

In an attempt to look for ways to deal with her grief, Alana reaches out to Dakota’s older brother Mikah, who’s struggling with moving on himself.

Both damaged beyond repair, neither Alana or Mikah know how to cope with their loss. What’s worse, they have zero idea how to handle the unexpected feelings they start developing for each other.

Exclusive Excerpt: 

I shove away the damp blanket and prop myself against the headboard, my eyes darting around the dark room, searching for something familiar, searching for something to latch on to, but there’s nothing. Nothing except for the package I’m too scared to touch. 

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Stay down! Don’t move.

I can’t seem to catch my breath. There’s a scream stuck in my lungs and it desperately wants to come out.

She’s bleeding. Get a paramedic here. 

How many fingers do you see? Can you hear me, sweetie?

I pull my legs up to my chest and rock my body, wanting to stop the noise from getting into my head. 

Is anyone still inside? I’m looking for my brother. 

Sweetie, I need you to let me see your hands. 

Up until now, the memories of the aftermath have been only a shapeless blur. I’m not sure why it’s all coming back to me now, at four in the morning. I remember the police arriving and more gunshots. I remember the paramedics taking me outside. I remember sitting in the van while some woman in uniform is trying to talk to me, and I remember watching Mikah moving through the crowd outside the club. There’s blood dripping down his cheek, but I don’t think he’s hurt. I think the blood is mine. He stops one of the officers and asks him questions, and I can tell by how fast his hands move that he’s panicking. There’s a short exchange and then they’re gone. 

Now I’m in the hospital, and my parents tell me Dakota was shot to death during the attack. That’s all I get. No details. They don’t tell me how many times he was shot or where he was standing when it happened or if it was an instant death or a slow one where he lay there, terrified, watching the horror around him. 

I replay this moment in my head several times, wondering if I should have said or done something differently. Cried maybe. But I didn’t. I just sat there in silence, my hands and my face bleeding. I sat there waiting to wake up, waiting to snap back into my normal life. But it never happened.

Buy on Amazon

About N.N. Britt 

N.N. Britt is a Los Angeles-based music journalist and photographer whose articles appeared in numerous publications. Her photos have graced t-shirts, billboards, and CD covers. When she is not writing or drinking coffee, she is probably reading or attending a heavy metal show. 

Connect with N.N.

Newsletter sign up ⇨ http://bit.ly/readersvip 
Website ⇨ http://bit.ly/2Iimx7s 
Facebook ⇨ http://bit.ly/2WIESDL 
Instagram ⇨ http://bit.ly/2Z4ui7G 
Goodreads ⇨ http://bit.ly/3166suh 
BookBub ⇨ http://bit.ly/2Weooz1 
Twitter ⇨ http://bit.ly/2HVGQsv 
Pinterest ⇨ http://bit.ly/3166zpH

a Rafflecopter giveaway