Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen recently welcomed two authors for a virtual event. I.S. Berry’s debut is The Peacock and the Sparrow. Joseph Kanon was in publishing before he started as an author. This time, though, he’s serving as guest host. You might still be able to get a signed copy of The Peacock and the Sparrow through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3JpPEWM

Here’s the summary of The Peacock and the Sparrow.

During the Arab Spring, an American spy’s final mission goes dangerously awry in this explosive and “remarkable debut” (Joseph Kanon, New York Times bestselling author) from a former CIA officer that is perfect for fans of John LeCarre, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Alan Furst.

Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy, is ready to come in from the cold. Stationed in Bahrain off the coast of Saudi Arabia for his final tour, he’s anxious to dispense with his mission—uncovering Iranian support for the insurgency against the monarchy. But then he meets Almaisa, a beautiful and enigmatic artist, and his eyes are opened to a side of Bahrain most expats never experience, to questions he never thought to ask.

When his trusted informant becomes embroiled in a murder, Collins finds himself drawn deep into the conflict and his growing romance with Almaisa upended. In an instant, he’s caught in the crosshairs of a revolution. Drawing on all his skills as a spymaster, he must navigate a bloody uprising, win Almaisa’s love, and uncover the murky border where Bahrain’s secrets end and America’s begin.

“A breathless tour-de-force, the perfect spy tale” (Ian Caldwell, author of The Fifth Gospel) and dripping with authenticity, The Peacock and the Sparrow is a timely story of the elusiveness of truth, the power of love and belief, and the universal desire to be part of a cause greater than oneself.

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I.S. Berry spent six years as an operations officer for the CIA, serving in wartime Baghdad and elsewhere. She has lived and worked throughout Europe and the Middle East, including two years in Bahrain during the Arab Spring. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and Haverford College. Raised in the suburbs of Washington, DC, she lives in Virginia with her husband and son.

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Joseph Kanon calls I.S. Berry’s debut “extraordinary”. Enjoy the virtual event.

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced the winners for the 2022 Bram Stoker Awards. Check the list, and then check the Webstore for the titles. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Superior Achievement in a Novel

• WINNER: The Devil Takes You Home, Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland)

• The Fervor, Alma Katsu (Putnam)
• Reluctant Immortals, Gwendolyn Kiste (Saga)
• Daphne, Josh Malerman (Del Rey)
• Sundial, Catriona Ward (Nightfire)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

• WINNER: Beulah, Christi Nogle (Cemetery Gates)

• Jackal, Erin Adams (Bantam)
• The Hacienda, Isabel Cañas (Berkley)
• Black Tide, KC Jones (Nightfire)
• All the White Spaces, Ally Wilkes (Emily Bestler/Atria)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

• WINNER: The Triangle, Robert P. Ottone (Raven Tale)

• What We Harvest, Ann Fraistat (Delacorte)
• The Weight of Blood, Tiffany D. Jackson (Katherine Tegen)
• These Fleeting Shadows, Kate Alice Marshall (Viking)
• Gallant, V.E. Schwab (Greenwillow)
• Burn Down, Rise Up, Vincent Tirado (Sourcebooks Fire)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

• WINNER: The Wehrwolf, Alma Katsu (Amazon Original)

• And in Her Smile, the World, Rebecca J. Allred & Gordon B. White (Trepidatio)
• “Through the Looking Glass and Straight into Hell”, Christa Carmen (Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror)
• Below, Laurel Hightower (Ghoulish)
• Three Days in the Pink Tower, EV Knight (Creature)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

• WINNER: “Fracture”, Mercedes M. Yardley (Mother: Tales of Love and Terror)

• “Nona Doesn’t Dance”, Aaron Dries (Cut to Care: A Collection of Little Hurts)
• “Poppy’s Poppy”, Douglas Gwilym (Penumbrice)
• “The Only Thing Different Will Be the Body”, J. A. W. McCarthy (A Woman Built by Man)
• “A Song for Barnaby Jones”, Anna Taborska (Zagava)
• “The Star”, Anna Taborska (Great British Horror 7: Major Arcane)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

• WINNER: Breakable Things, Cassandra Khaw (Undertow)

• We Are Here to Hurt Each Other, Paula D. Ashe (Nictitating)
• Hell Hath No Sorrow Like a Woman Haunted, RJ Joseph (The Seventh Terrace)
• Spontaneous Human Combustion, Richard Thomas (Keylight)
• The Black Maybe, Attila Veres (Valancourt)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

• WINNER: Screams from the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Nightfire)

• Human Monsters: A Horror Anthology, Sadie Hartmann & Ashley Saywers, eds. (Dark Matter Ink)
• Mother: Tales of Love and Terror, Christi Nogle & Willow Becker, eds. (Weird Little Words)
• Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga, Lindy Ryan, ed. (Black Spot)
• Chromophobia: A Strangehouse Anthology of Women in Horror, Sara Tantlinger, ed. (Strangehouse)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

• WINNER: Writing in the Dark: The Workbook, Tim Waggoner (Guide Dog)

• Toil and Trouble: A Women’s History of the Occult, Melanie R. Anderson & Lisa Kröger (Quirk)
• Weird Fiction: A Genre Study, Michael Cisco (Palgrave)
• A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of American’s Ghosts, Leanna Renee Hieber & Andrea Janes (Citadel)
• Writing Poetry in the Dark, Stephanie M. Wytovich (Raw Dog Screaming)

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction

• WINNER: “I Don’t Read Horror (& Other Weird Tales)”, Lee Murray (Interstellar Flight 10/22)

• “This is Not a Poem”, Cynthia Pelayo (Writing Poetry in the Dark)
• “African American Horror Authors and Their Craft: The Evolution of Horror Fiction from African Folklore”, L. Marie Wood (Conjuring Worlds: An Afrofuturist Textbook for Middle and High School Students)
• “The H Word: The Horror of Hair”, L. Marie Wood (Nightmare 7/22)
• “A Clown in the Living Room: The Sinister Clown on Television”, Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. (The Many Lives of Scary Clowns: Essays on Pennywise, Twisty, the Joker, Krusty and More)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

• WINNER: Crime Scene, Cynthia Pelayo (Raw Dog Screaming)

• Sifting the Ashes, Michael Bailey & Marge Simon (Crystal Lake)
• Girls from the County, Donna Lynch (Raw Dog Screaming)
• The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry, Sumiko Saulson (self-published)
• The Gravity of Existence, Christina Sng (Interstellar Flight)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

• WINNER: Kolchak: The Night Stalker: 50th Anniversary, James Aquilone, ed. (Moonstone)

• Eat the Rich, Sarah Gailey, art by Pius Bak (Boom!)
• Kraken Inferno: The Last Hunt, Alessandro Manzetti, art by Stefano Cardoselli (Independent Legions)
• Something is Killing the Children Vol 4, James IV Tynion, art by Werther Dell’Edera (Boom!)
• The Me You Love in the Dark, Skottie Young, art by Jorge Corona (Image Comics)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

• WINNER (TIE): The Black Phone, Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargill (Blumhouse Productions, Crooked Highway, Universal Pictures)
• WINNER (TIE): Stranger Things: “s4e1: Chapter One: The Hellfire Club”, The Duffer Brothers (21 Laps Entertainment, Monkey Massacre, Netflix, Upside Down Pictures)

• The Pale Blue Eye, Scott Cooper (Cross Creek Pictures, Grisbi Productions, Streamline Global Group)
• Men, Alex Garland (DNA Films)
• Pearl, Mia Goth & Ti West (A24, Bron Creative, Little Lamb, New Zealand Film Commission)

As previously announced, Elizabeth Massie, Nuzo Onoh, and John Saul received the Lifetime Achievement Award; Undertow Publications won the Specialty Press Award; Meghan Arcuri received the Richard Laymon President’s Award; Karen Lansdale received the Silver Hammer Award; and David Jeffery received the Mentor of the Year Award.

John Charles from The Poisoned Pen recently welcomed Maxym M. Martineau for a live event at the bookstore. Martineau’s latest fantasy/romance is Shadows of the Lost. There are a few signed copies still available through the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/ymh6fezh

Here is the description of Shadows of the Lost.

Once I was a Charmer, and the magical beasts of this world loved me. Now I’m something else. Something darker.

A spicy, beautifully angsty enemies-to-lovers LGBTQIA+ fantasy romance.

As a member of the Charmers Council, Gaige is able to form lasting bonds with the magical beasts of his world. At least, he used to be a Charmer…until he died and was brought back as one of the immortal assassins of Cruor. Now he’s far more dangerous.

…and something beyond the shadows lies in wait, hungry to claim him for its own.

As leader of the assassins, all Kost can do is watch as Gaige struggles with his new life day by day. He wants nothing more than to ease Gaige’s suffering—yet how can he when they both know he’s the one responsible? There is nothing left but bitter memories and hopeless longing between them. Yet when Gaige is lost to the shadow realm, Kost is the only one with any chance of bringing him back: if they can learn to trust (and perhaps love) each other again.

Intense, compelling, and impossible to put down, Shadows of the Lost is perfect for readers looking for:

• epic New Adult fantasy series with a bit of spice
• a unique premise, delicious angst, and a plot to die for
• high fantasy with paranormal and romance elements

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Maxym M. Martineau is an article and social media writer by day and a fantasy romance author by night. When she’s not getting heated over broken hearts, she enjoys playing video games, sipping a well-made margarita, competing in just about any sport, and of course, reading. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Arizona State University and lives with her husband and fur babies in Arizona. Connect with her at MaxymMartineau.com or through Twitter and Instagram @maxymmckay.

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Martineau’s conversation about her process to publishing is quite interesting. Check it out.

Barbara Peters welcomed Polly Stewart, author of The Good Ones, for a virtual event. Megan Miranda also appeared to interview Stewart. You can order a signed copy of The Good Ones through the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/4wyz9zv9

Here’s the description of The Good Ones.

“Polly Stewart’s The Good Ones is a fantastic achievement. A classic Southern Gothic tale told through the prism of modern-day sensibilities. Not to be missed.”—S. A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of Razorblade Tears

“A riveting, unflinching exploration of adolescent female friendships, small-town pressures to conform, and the true crime lover’s tendency to conflate empathy and voyeurism, The Good Ones drew me in from the first lines and still hasn’t released me, days after finishing.”—Katie Gutierrez, nationally bestselling author of More Than You’ll Ever Know

An engrossing work of literary suspense that illuminates the push and pull of female friendship and the costs of being good when the rules for women begin to chafe.

The last time Nicola Bennett saw Lauren Ballard she was scraping a key along the side of a new cherry-red Chevy Silverado. That was the night before her friend mysteriously vanished from her home, leaving a bloodstained washcloth and signs of a struggle—as well as her grieving husband and young daughter—behind.

Now, nearly twenty years later, Nicola, newly unemployed and still haunted by the disappearance of her childhood friend, is returning to her Appalachian hometown. For Nicola, Tyndall County has remained frozen in time. Everywhere she turns she’s reminded of Lauren. Yet shockingly, her former friends and neighbors have all moved on. Drawn to stories of missing girls, Nicola obsessively searches the internet, hoping to discover a clue to Lauren’s ultimate fate.

Driven by a desperate need to know what happened to her friend, Nicola takes a job in her hometown, determined to uncover any bit of information, any small clue, that can help. Deep down she knows the answers are tucked in the hollows and valleys of this small Blue Ridge county. As secrets come to light and the truth begins to unravel, will Nicola finally find release and break free of the past—or lose herself completely to unanswered questions from her adolescence?

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Polly Stewart grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, where she still lives. She graduated from Hollins University and has an MFA in fiction and a PhD in British literature from Washington University in St. Louis. Her short fiction has appeared in literary collections and journals, including Best New American Voices, The Best American Mystery Stories, Epoch, and the Alaska Quarterly Review. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, Crime Reads, and Poets & Writers, among other publications.

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Enjoy the conversation.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Alison Gaylin and Wendy Walker to the store for a live event. Gaylin has taken over the writing of Robert B. Parker’s Sunny Randall series. Her first one in the series is Robert B. Parker’s Bad Influence. Wendy Walker’s new thriller, with a new publisher, is What Remains. Signed copies of both books are available through the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the summary of Robert B. Parker’s Bad Influence.

Boston PI Sunny Randall investigates the dark side of social media in this exciting new thriller in the bestselling series.

Sunny Randall’s newest client, Blake, seems to have it all: he is an Instagram influencer, with all the perks the lifestyle entails—a beautiful girlfriend, wealth, and adoring fans. But one of those fans has turned ugly, and Sunny is brought on board by Blake’s manager, Bethany, to protect him and to uncover who is out to kill him. In doing so, she investigates a glamorous world rife with lies and schemes…and ties to a dangerous criminal scene.

When Bethany goes missing and the threats against Blake escalate, Sunny realizes that in order to solve this case, she has to find out exactly who Blake and Bethany are, behind the Instagram filters. While digging into their pasts, she is also forced to confront her own, as old friends—and ex-husbands—reappear. With a combination of old-school crime-solving skills and modern internet savvy, Sunny will stop at nothing to catch a killer.

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Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring police chief Jesse Stone, and the acclaimed Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch Westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010. 
 
Alison Gaylin is a USA Today and international bestselling author whose novels have won the Edgar and Shamus awards. Her work has been published in numerous countries and has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Macavity, Anthony, ITW Thriller and Strand Book Award. 

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Here’s the description of Wendy Walker’s What Remains.

“Absolutely splendid storytelling, a book to entertain, to immerse, and to challenge.” —A. J. Finn, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

She saved his life. Now he‘ll never let her go.

Detective Elise Sutton is drawn to cold cases. Each crime is a puzzle to solve, pulled from the past. Elise looks for cracks in the surface and has become an expert on how murderers slip up and give themselves away. She has dedicated her life to creating a sense of order, at work with her ex-marine partner; at home with her husband and two young daughters; and within, battling her own demons. Elise has everything under control, until one afternoon, when she walks into a department store and is forced to make a terrible choice: to save one life, she will have to take another.

Elise is hailed as a hero, but she doesn’t feel like one. Steeped in guilt, and on a leave of absence from work, she’s numb, even to her husband and daughters, until she connects with Wade Austin, the tall man whose life she saved. But Elise soon realizes that he isn’t who he says he is. In fact, Wade Austin isn’t even his real name. The tall man is a ghost, one who will set off a terrifying game of cat and mouse, threatening Elise and the people she loves most.

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WENDY WALKER is the author of the psychological suspense novels All is Not Forgotten, Emma In The Night,The Night Before, and Don’t Look For Me. Her novels have been translated into 23 foreign languages and have topped bestseller lists both nationally and abroad. They have been featured on The Today Show, The Reese Witherspoon Book Club, and The Book of the Month Club and have been optioned for television and film. Prior to her writing career, Wendy practiced both corporate and family law, having earned her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and her undergraduate degree from Brown University. Wendy also worked as a financial analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co. Wendy is currently finishing her next thriller and managing a busy household in Connecticut.

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Here’s the conversation with Alison Gaylin and Wendy Walker.

Jeremy Bushnell’s been busy on his booktour for Relentless Melt. He appeared for The Poisoned Pen, and you can watch the event here if you missed it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY_NMZTqG6Y You can order Relentless Melt through the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/2p8k6tt

Bushnell did a fun article for Crimereads.com, “Soundtracks to Accompany Four Classic Supernatural Novels”. That’s available here. https://crimereads.com/soundtracks-to-accompany-four-classic-supernatural-novels/

And, just this week, Bookreporter.com ran Michael Barson’s interview with Bushnell. Enjoy the interview.

Interview: June 15, 2023

“Stranger Things” meets the Golden Age of Detective Fiction in RELENTLESS MELT, a rollicking supernatural detective thriller by Jeremy P. Bushnell that introduces readers to Artie Quick, a sales assistant at Filene’s in Boston who moonlights as an amateur detective. In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, Bushnell talks about the extensive research he did for the book, which is his first work of historical fiction; the cross-dressing tendencies of his female protagonist; the books he read as a child that informed the writing of RELENTLESS MELT; and his all-time favorite supernatural novel.

Question: RELENTLESS MELT is your third novel. How did your approach in writing it differ from the way(s) you wrote your first two books?

Jeremy P. Bushnell: I think the biggest difference is that my first two novels were set in the present, and RELENTLESS MELT is set in 1909. That really changes the work that you’re doing, because the need to research becomes a much larger part of the process. I’d done some research for my previous books — especially THE INSIDES, which deals with butchering in a high-end restaurant kitchen — but this was the first one where I needed to do research continuously as I worked on the draft. I was still researching and turning up historical material to include even as I was making my final revisions.

Q: As a writing instructor at Northeastern University, you might have an advantage over many other writers in terms of library discipline. What was your method for organizing the process of that historical research?

JPB: Initially, I really wanted to take a long time to immerse myself in historical material before beginning this novel. I was intimidated by the learning curve of writing historical fiction, and I had this idea that I should have a fully functioning model of 1909 Boston running like a model train set in my head before even starting a draft. But in reality it didn’t play out that way, and in the end I’m not convinced that it would have made much sense to organize the research all out in advance. You can’t always predict what you’ll even need to know until you’re actually writing scenes. I often had to approach the process just by virtue of what I needed to know on any particular day I spent in front of the computer.

Q: Can you give an example of a research need that came up during the drafting process? The kind of challenge you might face on “any particular day”?

JPB: Let’s say you’re writing a scene with a simple “supernatural mystery”-type image — a police investigator peering into the dark. So you imagine it: you picture that investigator shining a flashlight around. But before you can commit that to the page, you suddenly realize you need to do research on the invention of the flashlight, whether they even existed in 1909, whether they were commercially available, whether they were the kind of thing people on a police force might have access to. Those aren’t things I would have necessarily thought I would have needed to research before setting out.

Q: Your protagonist is a teenage girl who seems uncertain as to whether or not she wants to remain a girl. That kind of gender-bending is not something one finds very often in supernatural crime fiction!

JPB: That was something else that emerged from the research, actually. The novel deals a lot with the phenomenon of historical cross-dressing: Artie Quick, the protagonist, spends much of the novel dressed in men’s clothes. We’re all familiar, at least in an abstract way, with historical instances where people lived lives as a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth. There’s been a tendency, traditionally, to interpret these instances as being a form of “disguise” — a woman “pretends to be a man” so that she can get a job, or something like that.

But contemporary historians are looking more carefully into these cases, and it turns out that many of those historical instances were people who nowadays we would consider to be trans-identified: that they were dressing and living that way primarily to affirm their gender identity, not as an elaborate ruse or a game of “pretend.” I didn’t want to write a historical cross-dressing novel without engaging thoughtfully with the reality of what it would be like to be a gender-nonconforming person in that time.

Q: What kind of childhood reading informed the creation of RELENTLESS MELT? Did you read a lot of horror fiction in your youth, or did that element of the book come to you later?

JPB: I had the Dungeons & Dragons core books when I was very young. They’re not exactly horror, but they’re loaded with mysterious environments and fantastic monsters, and the Deities & Demigods supplement book with the H. P. Lovecraft Old Ones in it was my introduction to cosmic horror. A little later, I found Stephen King and devoured all of his books. I am pretty sure that in junior high I read every single book the man wrote between CARRIE (1973) and THE TOMMYKNOCKERS (1987), including the first five Richard Bachman books. Readers might notice some elements of IT popping up in the late pages of RELENTLESS MELT.

Q: Do you have an all-time favorite supernatural novel?

JPB: BELOVED. Unimprovable. It’s not only the greatest supernatural novel of all time, but one of the top five American novels ever written, full stop.

Don Bentley was guest host for The Poisoned Pen, welcoming Bill Schweigart and M.P. Woodward to the bookstore. Schweigart’s The Guilty One is the current Hot Book of the Week. There are signed copies of his book, and Woodward’s Dead Drop, available in the Webstore. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the description of The Guilty One.

A hero cop thwarts a brutal murder and can’t remember a thing about it. But memories return—and so do the nightmares in this breathlessly paced thriller for fans of David Ricciardi and Michael Connelly.

Every town needs a hero—and Detective Cal Farrell fits the bill. He stopped an active shooter six months earlier, and now he’s become the darling of the Alexandria press. The problem is that Cal remembers nothing from that day. He’s working with a psychiatrist to recover his memories, but hasn’t had much luck.

Then, on one of his morning runs, he is once again the first on scene for a grisly discovery—a body hanging impossibly high on a tree. Soon there’s another victim, killed by a blade and dumped in a ravine. As the bodies begin to stack up, each staged more gruesomely than the last, Cal sees a baroque pattern to the crimes that no one else seems to understand—something out of legend.

As Alexandria dubs the serial killer “Old Town Jack,” Cal learns that the only thing a city loves more than creating a hero is tearing one down. And if he can’t get to the truth, this hometown hero might just be next in line for destruction.

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Bill Schweigart is the author of The Fatal Folklore Trilogy, Running Light, and Slipping The Cable. Bill is a former Coast Guard officer and daylights as a branch chief with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). He currently lives in Arlington, VA with his wife and daughter, who along with their monstrous Newfoundland and four cats, provide him with all the adventure he can handle.

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Here’s M.P. Woodward’s Dead Drop.

International nuclear negotiations turns allies into enemies in this electrifying thriller from the author of The Handler.

Nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran have reached a crisis point. The new American administration is determined to move ahead, but there are several stumbling blocks, not the least of which is Lieutenant Colonel Kasem Khalidi, the Iranian intelligence officer the CIA has hidden away in one of its safe houses. 

As always, John and Meredith Dale are caught in the middle. Mossad—the Israeli intelligence agency—wants Meredith’s help to find the lead Iranian rocket scientist; while John is in a desperate race to keep Kasem one step ahead of an Iranian hit squad. 

They are pawns in an international chess game, and any player knows you cannot capture the king without sacrificing some pawns.

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MP Woodwardis a veteran of both US intelligence ops and the entertainment industry. As a naval intelligence officer with the US Pacific Command, he scripted scenario moves and countermoves for US war game exercises in the Middle East. In multiple deployments to the Persian Gulf and Far East, he worked alongside US Special Forces, CIA, and NSA. Most recently, Woodward led international distribution for Amazon Prime Video and launched Amazon original content in more than forty countries. To learn more, please visit www.mpwoodward.com.

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Enjoy the discussion.

John Charles from The Poisoned Pen, recently welcomed Kristan Higgins back to the bookstore. Higgins’ latest novel is A Little Ray of Sunshine. She’s a reader who loves bookstores, and it’s reflected in the book. There are copies of A Little Ray of Sunshine available in the Webstore. https://tinyurl.com/435v6rzu

Here’s the description of A Little Ray of Sunshine.

A kid walks into your bookstore and… Guess what? He’s your son. The one you put up for adoption eighteen years ago. The one you never told anyone about. Surprise!
 
And a huge surprise it is.
 
It’s a huge surprise to his adoptive mother, Monica, who thought she had a close relationship with Matthew, her nearly adult son. But apparently, he felt the need to secretly arrange a vacation to Cape Cod for the summer so he could meet his birth mother…without a word to either her or his dad.
 
It’s also a surprise— to say the least—to Harlow, the woman who secretly placed her baby for adoption so many years ago. She’s spent the years since then building a quiet life. She runs a bookstore with her grandfather, hangs out with her four younger siblings and is more or less happily single, though she can’t help gravitating toward Grady Byrne, her old friend from high school. He’s moved back to town, three-year-old daughter in tow, no wife in the picture. But she’s always figured her life had to be child-free, so that complicates things.
 
When Matthew walks into Harlow’s store, she faints. Monica panics. And all their assumptions—about what being a parent really means—explode. This summer will be full of more surprises as both their families are redefined…and as both women learn that for them, there’s no limit to a mother’s love.

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Kristan Higgins is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of more than twenty novels, which have been translated into more than two dozen languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. The happy mother of two snarky and well-adjusted adults lives in Connecticut with her heroic firefighter husband, cuddly dog, and indifferent cat.

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Enjoy the conversation about Higgins’ writing career and her new book.

Fiona Davis has a terrific backstory about the Rockettes and her latest novel, The Spectacular. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, welcomed Davis to talk about her book. There are signed copies of The Spectacular available in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/42AS3Vq

Here’s the description of The Spectacular.

From the New York Times Bestselling Author of The Magnolia Palace: A thrilling story about love, sacrifice, and the pursuit of dreams, set amidst the glamour and glitz of Radio City Music Hall in its mid-century heyday.

New York City, 1956: Nineteen-year-old Marion Brooks knows she should be happy. Her high school sweetheart is about to propose and sweep her off to the life everyone has always expected they’d have together: a quiet house in the suburbs, Marion staying home to raise their future children. But instead, Marion finds herself feeling trapped. So when she comes across an opportunity to audition for the famous Radio City Rockettes—the glamorous precision-dancing troupe—she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer. 

Meanwhile, the city is reeling from a string of bombings orchestrated by a person the press has nicknamed the “Big Apple Bomber,” who has been terrorizing the citizens of New York for sixteen years by planting bombs in popular, crowded spaces. With the public in an uproar over the lack of any real leads after a yearslong manhunt, the police turn in desperation to Peter Griggs, a young doctor at a local mental hospital who espouses a radical new technique: psychological profiling. 

As both Marion and Peter find themselves unexpectedly pulled in to the police search for the bomber, Marion realizes that as much as she’s been training herself to blend in—performing in perfect unison with all the other identical Rockettes—if she hopes to catch the bomber, she’ll need to stand out and take a terrifying risk. In doing so, she may be forced to sacrifice everything she’s worked for, as well as the people she loves the most.

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Fiona Davis is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including The Dollhouse, The Address, The Masterpiece, The Chelsea Girls, The Lions of Fifth Avenue, and The Magnolia Palace. She lives in New York City and is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School.

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Enjoy Fiona Davis’ conversation about Radio City Music Hall and New York City, as well as The Spectacular.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, said Jack Carr signed 1500 copies of Only the Dead the weekend before his live event at the bookstore. He talks about his mission and purpose in life in the conversation. You can find a copy of the book in the Webstore. https://bit.ly/3ClEDSu

Here’s the summary of Only the Dead.

Navy SEAL James Reece faces a devastating global conspiracy in this high-adrenaline thriller that is ripped from the headlines—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author and “one of the top writers of political thrillers” (Bookreporter), Jack Carr.

In 1980, a freshman congressman was gunned down in Rhode Island, sending shockwaves through Washington that are still reverberating over four decades later.

Now, with the world on the brink of war and a weakened United States facing rampant inflation, political division, and shocking assassinations, a secret cabal of global elites is ready to assume control. And with the world’s most dangerous man locked in solitary confinement, the conspirators believe the final obstacle to complete domination has been eliminated. They’re wrong.

From the firms of Wall Street to the corridors of power in Washington, DC, and Moscow, secrets from the past have the uncanny ability to rise to the surface in the present.

With the odds stacked against him, James Reece is on a mission generations in the making. Unfortunately for his enemies, the former SEAL is not concerned with odds. He is on the warpath. And when James Reece picks up his tomahawk and sniper rifle, no one is out of range.

From “a master novelist” (BallisticMagazine), “quintessential hero James Reece is exactly what’s needed in today’s chaotic political milieu” (K.J. Howe, author of Skyjack).

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Jack Carr is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and former Navy SEAL. He lives with his wife and three children in Park City, Utah. He is the author of The Terminal List, True Believer, Savage Son, The Devil’s Hand, and In the Blood. His debut novel, The Terminal List, was adapted into the #1 Amazon Prime Video series starring Chris Pratt. He is also the host of the top-rated podcast Danger Close. Visit him at OfficialJackCarr.com and follow along on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @JackCarrUSA.

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Enjoy the conversation with Jack Carr.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=eVDySL0hu4s