Satire or love letter? Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, asked author Robin Peguero that question about his second novel, One in the Chamber. You can decide what you think by ordering the book through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3IV8Yug

Here’s the description of One in the Chamber.

On Capitol Hill, they work you to death.

Cameron Leann is new to Washington, D.C. An Iowa farm boy without a penny to his name, Cam has joined a group of affluent junior staffers working for a powerful cohort of U.S. Senators known as The Gang of Six. Liz Frost, the group’s charismatic leader, teases and strings Cam along as he grows increasingly infatuated with her. Heir to a political dynasty, Randy Lancaster pushes Cam to his limits with his penchant for booze, drugs, and meaningless flings. Charlie James, Liz’s linebacker boyfriend, keeps Cam at a distance, eyeing the newcomer with suspicion.

 All of them have one thing in common. They hate their bosses.

 As the Gang of Six takes up the rushed nomination of the first Black chief justice to the Supreme Court, Cam and his friends are plotting against them. But in the game of politics, one’s motivations are never as they seem—especially true for Cam, the enigmatic figure at the center of it all.

When a bombshell revelation threatens to sink the President’s Supreme Court pick, the Gang of Six fractures, pitting senator against senator in a confirmation battle for the ages. Alliances shift with the wind. Everyone is lying to everyone.  And on Election Night, one senator will end up dead.

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Robin Peguero spent seven years storytelling to juries for a living, most recently as a homicide prosecutor in Miami. An Afro-Latino and the son of immigrants, he graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He has written for the Miami Herald, the Harvard Crimson, and the Harvard Law Review, and he served as a press spokesman in the U.S. House, a speechwriter in the U.S. Senate before becoming a lawyer, and an investigative counsel on the House Select Committee Investigating the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. He is currently Chief of Staff to a member of Congress.

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Enjoy the conversation about the book and politics.

Christina Estes’ Off the Air is the current Hot Book of the Week at The Poisoned Pen. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, recently welcomed Estes for her debut mystery, the Tony Hillerman Award-winning novel. You can order a signed copy of Off the Air through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3TswjZc

Here’s the description of the debut.

Equal parts thought-provoking and entertaining, Off the Air introduces Jolene Garcia in Emmy Award–winning reporter Christina Estes’s Tony Hillerman Prize–winning debut.

Jolene Garcia is a local TV reporter in Phoenix, Arizona, splitting her time between covering general assignments—anything from a monsoon storm to a newborn giraffe at the zoo—and special projects. Stories that take more time to research and produce. Stories that Jolene wants to tell.

When word gets out about a death at a radio station, Jolene and other journalists swarm the scene, intent on reporting the facts first. The body is soon identified as Larry Lemmon, a controversial talk show host, who died under suspicious circumstances. Jolene conducted his final interview, giving her and her station an advantage. But not for long.

As the story heats up, so does the competition. Jolene is determined to solve this murder. It’s an investigation that could make or break her career—if it doesn’t break her first.

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CHRISTINA ESTES is an award-winning reporter who has spent more than 20 years covering crime, public policy, and business in Phoenix, Arizona. Her reporting has been heard on National Public Radio (NPR) and appeared in the Arizona Republic, Arizona Business Gazette, and Phoenix Business Journal. Christina’s career inspired Off the Air, which won the Tony Hillerman Prize for Best First Mystery Set in the Southwest.

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Enjoy the conversation with Christina Estes.

Loved Patrick Millikin’s comment that the three authors who appeared at The Poisoned Pen had the most amount of “U” vowells that the store ever hosted. Barbara Peters, the owner of the bookstore, welcomed authors Heather Gudenkauf, Mary Kubica, and Lisa Unger. There are signed copies of books by all three authors, available through the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/ Gudenkauf’s book is Everyone is Watching. Mary Kubica’s book is She’s Not Sorry. Lisa Unger’s latest book is The New Couple in 5B.

Here’s the summary of Everyone is Watching.

“Big Brother meets Clue in this utterly original and incredibly tense locked-room mystery.” —May Cobb, author of A Likeable Woman

A mysterious high-stakes game proves life-threatening in this twisty thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Overnight Guest 

The Best Friend. The Confidant. The Senator. The Boyfriend. The Executive.

Five contestants have been chosen to compete for ten million dollars on the game show One Lucky Winner. The catch? None of them knows what (or who) to expect, and it will be live streamed all over the world. Completely secluded in an estate in Northern California, with strict instructions not to leave the property and zero contact with the outside world, the competitors start to feel a little too isolated.

When long-kept secrets begin to rise to the surface, the contestants realize this is no longer just a reality show—someone is out for blood. And the game can’t end until the world knows who the contestants really are…

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Heather Gudenkauf is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Weight of Silence and Not a Sound.  Heather lives in Iowa with her family.

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Here’s the summary of Mary Kubica’s She’s Not Sorry.

The sensational brand new thriller that BookTok is calling “absolutely A-M-A-Z-I-N-G” (@hollylovesbooks1519) and “impossible to put down” (@kurryreads), from the bestselling author of Local Woman Missing and Just the Nicest Couple

Everyone has secrets, but not everyone has remorse…

A terrible accident.

Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom and working full time as an ICU nurse, when a patient named Caitlin arrives in her ward with a traumatic brain injury. They say she jumped from a bridge and plunged over twenty feet to the train tracks below.

A shocking revelation.

When a witness comes forward with new details about Caitlin’s fall, it calls everything they know into question. Was Caitlin actually pushed and if so, by whom and why?

No one is safe.

Meghan lets herself get close to Caitlin until she’s deeply entangled in Caitlin’s and her family’s lives. Only when it’s too late, does she realize that she and her daughter could be the next victims…

“A tense, compelling thriller with completely gasp-worthy twists.” —Nita Prose, #1 bestselling author of The Maid

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Mary Kubica is a New York Times bestselling author of thrillers including The Good Girl, The Other Mrs., Local Woman Missing and Just the Nicest Couple. Her books have been translated into over thirty languages and have sold over two million copies worldwide. Her novels have been praised as “hypnotic” (People) and “thrilling and illuminating” (L.A. Times). She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and children.

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Here’s the description of Lisa Unger’s The New Couple in 5B.

“Spine-tingling fun.” —People

“Lisa Unger, you’ve done it again.” —Sarah Michelle Gellar, Emmy Award-winning actress

A couple inherits an apartment with a spine-tingling past in this unputdownable thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six.

Rosie and Chad Lowan are barely making ends meet in New York City when they receive life-changing news: Chad’s late uncle has left them his luxury apartment at the historic Windermere in glamorous Murray Hill. With its prewar elegance and impeccably uniformed doorman, the building is the epitome of old New York charm. One would almost never suspect the dark history lurking behind its perfectly maintained facade.

At first, the building and its eclectic tenants couldn’t feel more welcoming. But as the Lowans settle into their new home, Rosie starts to suspect that there’s more to the Windermere than meets the eye. Why is the doorman ever-present? Why are there cameras everywhere? And why have so many gruesome crimes occurred there throughout the years? When one of the neighbors turns up dead, Rosie must get to the truth about the Windermere before she, too, falls under its dangerous spell.

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Lisa Unger is a NYT and internationally bestselling author. Her books are published in 32 languages, with millions of copies sold worldwide. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award nominations, an honor held by only a few writers including Agatha Christie. Her work has been named on “Best Book” lists from Today, People, GMA, EW, Amazon, IndieBound and many others. She has written for the NYT, WSJ, NPR, and Travel+Leisure. She lives in Florida with her family.

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Enjoy the conversation with the authors.

Can you handle Mars Speak as a language? Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, suggested to Natasha Pulley that there probably should be Mars Speak for Pulley’s latest novel. Signed copies of Pulley’s The Mars House are available through the Webstore. If you watch the video, and prefer the British cover of the book, you can also pre-order a copy of that. https://bit.ly/3Vlna7o

Here’s the description of The Mars House.

A compulsively readable queer sci-fi novel about a marriage of convenience between a Mars politician and an Earth refugee.

As Recommended By: Amazon * LitHub * Gizmodo * New Scientist * LGBTQ Reads * Reactor Magazine * KOBO Canada * BookRiot

In the wake of an environmental catastrophe, January, once a principal in London’s Royal Ballet, has become a refugee in Tharsis, the terraformed colony on Mars. There, January’s life is dictated by his status as an Earthstronger—a person whose body is not adjusted to lower gravity and so poses a danger to those born on, or naturalized to, Mars. January’s job choices, housing, and even transportation are dictated by this second-class status, and now a xenophobic politician named Aubrey Gale is running on a platform that would make it all worse: Gale wants all Earthstrongers to naturalize, a process that is always disabling and sometimes deadly.

When Gale chooses January for an on-the-spot press junket interview that goes horribly awry, January’s life is thrown into chaos, but Gale’s political fortunes are damaged, too. Gale proposes a solution to both their problems: a five year made-for-the-press marriage that would secure January’s future without naturalization and ensure Gale’s political success. But when January accepts the offer, he discovers that Gale is not at all like they appear in the press. They’re kind, compassionate, and much more difficult to hate than January would prefer. As their romantic relationship develops, the political situation worsens, and January discovers Gale has an enemy, someone willing to destroy all of Tharsis to make them pay—and January may be the only person standing in the way.

Un-put-downably immersive and utterly timely, Natasha Pulley’s new novel is a gripping story about privilege, strength, and life across class divisions, perfect for readers of Sarah Gailey and Tamsyn Muir.

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Natasha Pulley is the internationally bestselling author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, The Bedlam Stacks, The Lost Future of Pepperharrow, The Kingdoms, and The Half Life of Valery K. She has won a Betty Trask Award, been shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award, and the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize. She lives in Bristol, England.

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Enjoy the conversation with Natasha Pulley.

Did you miss Chris Bohjalian’s appearance at The Poisoned Pen? Fortunately, you can still catch the event on video. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, welcomed the author of The Princess of Las Vegas on release day for the novel. There are still signed copies of the book available through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/493Rc2w

One of Elle’s Best and Most Anticipated Mysteries of 2024 • THE PRINCESS IS FAKE. THE MURDERS ARE REAL • From the New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and The Lioness, a Princess Diana impersonator and her estranged sister find themselves drawn into a dangerous game of money and murder in this twisting tale of organized crime, cryptocurrency, and family secrets on the Las Vegas strip.

Crissy Dowling has created a world that suits her perfectly. She passes her days by the pool in a private cabana, she splurges on ice cream but never gains an ounce, and each evening she transforms into a Princess, performing her musical cabaret inspired by the life of the late Diana Spencer. Some might find her strange or even delusional, an American speaking with a British accent, hair feathered into a style thirty years old, living and working in a casino that has become a dated trash heap. On top of that, Crissy’s daily diet of Adderall and Valium leaves her more than a little tipsy, her Senator boyfriend has gone back to his wife, and her entire career rests on resembling a dead woman. And yet, fans see her for the gifted chameleon she is, showering her with gifts, letters, and standing ovations night after night. But when Crissy’s sister, Betsy, arrives in town with a new boyfriend and a teenage daughter, and when Richie Morley, the owner of the Buckingham Palace Casino, is savagely murdered, Crissy’s carefully constructed kingdom comes crashing down all around her. A riveting tale of identity, obsession, fintech, and high-tech mobsters, The Princess of Las Vegas is an addictive, wildly original thriller from one of our most extraordinary storytellers.

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Chris Bohjalian is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-four books, including The Lioness, Hour of the Witch, Midwives, and The Flight Attendant, which has been made into a MAX limited series starring Kaley Cuoco. His other books include The Red Lotus, The Guest Room; Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands; The Sandcastle Girls; Skeletons at the Feast; and The Double Bind. His novels Secrets of Eden, Midwives, and Past the Bleachers were made into movies, and his work has been translated into more than thirty- five languages. He is also a playwright (Wingspan and Midwives). He lives in Vermont and can be found at chrisbohjalian.com or on Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, Litsy, and Goodreads

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Here’s the conversation with Chris Bohjalian.

Patrick Millikin from The Poisoned Pen recently welcomed Ben Winters to talk about his latest book, Big Time. Millikin always finds all kinds of questions to ask in his interviews. There are signed copies of Big Time available through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3PpT4vP

Here’s the summary of Big Time.

In this “virtuoso,” “jaw-dropping” and “stellar technological thriller” (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review), a mother engulfed by her own mid-life crisis stumbles upon a dark conspiracy to harvest and sell people’s time. 

What if time could be taken from us—the minutes, the hours, the years of our lives, extracted like organs taken for transplant? What would it mean for the world? And what would it do to the person from whom it’s taken? 

Grace Berney is a mid-level bureaucrat in the Food and Drug Administration, a woman who once brimmed with purpose but somehow turned into a middle-aged single mom with a dull government job and a melancholy sense that life has passed her by. Until the night a strange photo comes across her desk, of a young woman in a hospital bed who has been subjected to a mysterious procedure. Against orders and against common sense, Grace sets out to bring the girl to safety, and finds herself risking her job, her future, and her life on whether she can find the missing girl before an obsessive and violent mercenary who’s also looking. Big Time is a fast-paced thriller and a metaphysical mystery about the very nature of our lives.

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Ben H. Winters is the New York Times bestselling author of The Quiet Boy, Underground Airlines, Golden State, and the Last Policeman trilogy. His books have won the Edgar Award, the Philip K. Dick award, the Sidewise Award, and France’s Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire. Ben also writes for television, and lives in Los Angeles with his family. 

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Enjoy the conversation with Ben Winters.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed A.J. Finn to the bookstore to talk about his gothic novel. His latest book is End of Story. Finn gives a short summary of the book. You can find a signed copy of the book in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3Tnanyy

Here’s the summary of End of Story.

For fans of Knives Out comes a spellbinding thriller from the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Woman in the Window

“I’ll be dead in three months. Come tell my story.”

So writes Sebastian Trapp, reclusive mystery novelist, to his longtime correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. With mere months to live, Trapp invites Nicky to his spectacular San Francisco mansion to help draft his life story . . . while living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his wayward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible case of real-life “detective-fever.”

“You and I might even solve an old mystery or two.”

Twenty years earlier—on New Year’s Eve 1999—Sebastian’s first wife and teenage son vanished from different locations, never to be seen again. Did the perfect crime writer commit the perfect crime? And why has he emerged from seclusion, two decades later, to allow a stranger to dig into his past?

“Life is hard. After all, it kills you.”

As Nicky attempts to weave together the strands of Sebastian’s life, she becomes obsessed with discovering the truth . . . while Madeleine begins to question what her beloved father might actually know about that long-ago night. And when a corpse appears in the family’s koi pond, both women are shocked to find that the past isn’t gone—it’s just waiting.

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A. J. Finn is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the global phenomenon The Woman in the Window, which was published in more than forty languages and is the basis for the hit film starring Amy Adams. 

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Enjoy the conversation with A.J. Finn.

Journalist turned novelist Kira Peikoff has a graduate degree in Bioethics. This degree relates to all of her books, including Baby X. She’s interested in how new science affects lives. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Peikoff to talk about her book. There are signed copies of Baby X available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3wWuOuP

Here is the summary of Baby X.

When any biological matter can be used to create life, stolen celebrity DNA sells to the highest bidder–or the craziest stalker–in this propulsive thriller.

With a vivid imagining of the future, Gattaca meets Black Mirror in Kira Peikoff’s Baby X.

In the near-future United States, where advanced technology can create egg or sperm from any person’s cells, celebrities face the alarming potential of meeting biological children they never conceived. Famous singer Trace Thorne is tired of being targeted by the Vault, a black market site devoted to stealing DNA. Sick of paying ransom money for his own cell matter, he hires bio-security guard Ember Ryan to ensure his biological safety.  

Ember will do anything she can to protect her clients. She knows all the Vault’s tricks–discarded tissues, used straws, lipstick tubes–and has prevented countless DNA thefts. Working for Thorne, her focus becomes split when she begins to fall for him, but she knows she hasn’t let anything slip–love or not, his DNA is safe. But then she and Thorne are confronted by a pregnant woman, Quinn, who claims that Thorne is the father of her baby, and all bets are off.   

Brilliantly plotted and terrifyingly prescient, Baby X is an unpredictable and relentless speculative thriller perfect for fans of Blake Crouch and John Marrs.

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Kira Peikoff is the author of Mother Knows Best, Living Proof, No Time to Die, and Die Again Tomorrow. She has a degree in journalism from New York University and a master’s in bioethics from Columbia. Her reported articles have appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Popular Mechanics, and other outlets. She now works in biotech communications helping spread the word about transformative developments in the life sciences. Peikoff is a proud member of The Authors Guild, International Thriller Writers, and Mystery Writers of America. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two sons.

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Enjoy Kira Peikoff’s discussion of science and her latest novel, Baby X.