Jacob Jankowski says: “I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other.” At the beginning of Water for Elephants, he is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. His life wasn’t always like this, however, because Jacob ran away and joined the circus when he was twenty-one. It wasn’t a romantic, carefree decision, to be sure. His parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He buried his parents, learned that they left him nothing because they had mortgaged everything to pay his tuition, returned to school, went to the exams, and didn’t write a single word. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The circus he joins, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. With Ringling Brothers as the standard, Benzini Brothers is far down the scale and pale by comparison.

Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob’s life with this circus. Sara Gruen spares no detail in chronicling the squalid, filthy, brutish circumstances in which he finds himself. The animals are mangy, underfed or fed rotten food, and abused. Jacob, once it becomes known that he has veterinary skills, is put in charge of the “menagerie” and all its ills. Uncle Al, the circus impresario, is a self-serving, venal creep who slaps people around because he can. August, the animal trainer, is a certified paranoid schizophrenic whose occasional flights into madness and brutality often have Jacob as their object. Jacob is the only person in the book who has a handle on a moral compass and as his reward he spends most of the novel beaten, broken, concussed, bleeding, swollen and hungover. He is the self-appointed Protector of the Downtrodden, and… he falls in love with Marlena, crazy August’s wife. Not his best idea.

The most interesting aspect of the book is all the circus lore that Gruen has so carefully researched. She has all the right vocabulary: grifters, roustabouts, workers, cooch tent, rubes, First of May, what the band plays when there’s trouble, Jamaican ginger paralysis, life on a circus train, set-up and take-down, being run out of town by the “revenooers” or the cops, and losing all your hooch. There is one glorious passage about Marlena and Rosie, the bull elephant, that truly evokes the magic a circus can create. It is easy to see Marlena’s and Rosie’s pink sequins under the Big Top and to imagine their perfect choreography as they perform unbelievable stunts. The crowd loves it–and so will the reader. The ending is absolutely ludicrous and really quite lovely. –Valerie Ryan –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly With its spotlight on elephants, Gruen’s romantic page-turner hinges on the human-animal bonds that drove her debut and its sequel (Riding Lessons and Flying Changes)—but without the mass appeal that horses hold. The novel, told in flashback by nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski, recounts the wild and wonderful period he spent with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus he joined during the Great Depression. When 23-year-old Jankowski learns that his parents have been killed in a car crash, leaving him penniless, he drops out of Cornell veterinary school and parlays his expertise with animals into a job with the circus, where he cares for a menagerie of exotic creatures[...] He also falls in love with Marlena, one of the show’s star performers—a romance complicated by Marlena’s husband, the unbalanced, sadistic circus boss who beats both his wife and the animals Jankowski cares for. Despite her often clichéd prose and the predictability of the story’s ending, Gruen skillfully humanizes the midgets, drunks, rubes and freaks who populate her book. (May 26)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Description

A young boy emerges from life-saving surgery with remarkable stories of his visit to heaven.

Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn’t know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear.

Colton said he met his miscarried sister, whom no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then shared impossible-to-know details about each. He describes the horse that only Jesus could ride, about how “reaaally big” God and his chair are, and how the Holy Spirit “shoots down power” from heaven to help us.

Told by the father, but often in Colton’s own words, the disarmingly simple message is heaven is a real place, Jesus really loves children, and be ready, there is a coming last battle.

About the Author Todd Burpo is pastor of Crossroads Wesleyan, a wrestling coach, a volunteer fireman, and he operates a garage door company with his wife, Sonja, who is also a children’s minister, busy pastor’s wife, and mom. Colton, now an active 11-year-old, has an older sister Cassie and a younger brother Colby. The family lives in Imperial, Nebraska.

Lynn Vincent is the New York Times best-selling writer of Same Kind of Different as Me and Going Rogue: An American Life. The author or co-author of nine books, Vincent is a senior writer for WORLD magazine and a lecturer in writing at the King’s College in New York City. She lives in San Diego, California. –This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Review Raves for James LePore’s A World I Never Made:

“Jim LePore is a great discovery.” — William Landay

“An outstanding first novel, and a wonderful thriller.” — Blogcritics

“I highly recommend this compelling suspense story filled with vivid characters and haunting storylines. A story that will stay with the reader long after the final page.” — Bella Online

“A compelling page-turner––one of those wonderful books with characters as strong as the story and a story worth read- ing. Don’t miss it.” — M.J. Rose, author of The Memorist

“Nothing could have torn my attention away from this story. A World I Never Made by James LePore is a must read for thriller fans!” — Cheryl’s Book Nook

“The plot of this intriguing, suspenseful novel is taut, moves rather rapidly, and mesmerizes the reader with each new complex, mysterious detail. James LePore knows how to spin an international thriller tale that slowly reveals an inner, fascinating depth to each character and to the developing connections between each and all. Well, well-done, James LePore!” — Crystal Reviews

“Author James LePore has created a remarkable, gripping tale of suspense in his debut novel. A World I Never Made is filled with strong, vividly described international characters to whom the reader will quickly form an attachment, all the while being transported through wonderfully described exotic lands. The combination creates an atmosphere of breathless suspense affording readers a desire to continue reading up until the thrilling, yet tender, conclusion.” — Feathered Quill Book Reviews

“The suspense will keep you white-knuckled as the plot unfolds with plenty of depth and intelligence. In fact, A World I Never Made kept me so enthralled that I simply didn’t want it to end. So if you’re looking for a new author who can knock you breathless with a clever thriller, James LePore is the one to pick.” — Nights and Weekends

“The key to this exciting thriller is the cast, especially the Nolan father and daughter . . . fans will enjoy this one sitting suspense thriller.” — The Mystery Gazette

“James LePore writes in an exciting and most readable style. He is an artist at building the suspense as the story progresses to its ultimate conclusion. There is just enough doubt about the possible outcomes to keep the reader wondering and turning pages. A World I Never Made is a fine tale filled with love, adventure, mystery and suspense.” — Mainly Mysteries

“A carefully crafted, well written book with a rich cast of characters and a plot as complicated and convoluted as the characters themselves.” — Reader Views

“An unputdownable novel.” — Everything Distills into Reading

Product Description When Jay Cassio’s best friend is murdered in a job clearly done by professionals, the walls that he has built to protect himself from the world of others begin to shatter. Dan Del Colliano had been his confidante and protector since the men were children on the savage streets of Newark, New Jersey. When Dan supports and revives Jay after Jay’s parents die in a plane crash, their bond deepens to something beyond brotherhood, beyond blood. Now Jay, a successful lawyer, must find out why Dan died and find a way to seek justice for his murder. Isabel Perez has lived a life both tainted and charmed since she was a teenager in Mexico. She holds powerful sway over men and has even more powerful alliances with people no one should ever try to cross. She desperately wants her freedom from the chains these people have placed on her. When Jay catapults into her world, their connection is electric, their alliance is lethal, and their future is anything but certain. Once again, James LePore has given us a novel of passions, intense moral complexities, and irresistible thrills. Filled with characters you will embrace and characters you will fear, Blood of My Brother is a story about a quest for revenge and redemption you won’t soon forget.

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From Publishers Weekly The nice little life that account executive Lisa Alvarez has spent the last eight years constructing is about to fall apart. She’s due to marry her boss in barely a month when painful reminders of her dead baby daughter and her ex-husband Nick Maddux force themselves on her. Both Lisa and Nick have tried to make new lives for themselves since the baby’s death, although Nick has embraced his daughter’s short life by becoming a master craftsman of cradles while Lisa has simply shut the door on her past. Their reunion is fiery, passionate and difficult to read, in part because Lisa is not a congenial character, having turned herself into a career-driven robot. The story veers between Lisa and Nick’s rediscovery of their love and the burgeoning love of Nick’s sister, Maggie, and sexy screen writer Jeremy Hunt. Maggie and Jeremy are both attractive and deserved more length and breadth than author Freethy (Daniel’s Gift) gave them. A magical leitmotif throughout does, however, go some way towards transcending these weaknesses.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal Four weeks before she is to be married, a frantic call for help from her childhood best friend drags Lisa Alvarez out of her safe, well-ordered existence in Los Angeles and back into a life she thought she had left behind, with painful, romantic, and ultimately satisfying results. A pair of wary, emotionally fragile protagonists, a cast of exceptional secondary characters (including three engagingly realistic children), and a multilayered plot that deftly interweaves humor, passion, and the tragedy of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome result in a poignant, heartwrenching, yet heartwarming story that is laced with love and a gentle hint of fantasy. It may appeal to readers who enjoy the work of Debbie Macomber, LaVyrle Spencer, and Kristin Hannah. Freethy (Ask Mariah, Avon, 1997) won a Rita Award in 1997 and lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Description
The smash-hit debut novel for every woman who has ever had a complicated love-hate friendship. Rachel White is the consummate good girl. A hard-working attorney at a large Manhattan law firm and a diligent maid of honor to her charmed best friend Darcy, Rachel has always played by all the rules. Since grade school, she has watched Darcy shine, quietly accepting the sidekick role in their lopsided friendship. But that suddenly changes the night of her thirtieth birthday when Rachel finally confesses her feelings to Darcy’s fiance, and is both horrified and thrilled to discover that he feels the same way. As the wedding date draws near, events spiral out of control, and Rachel knows she must make a choice between her heart and conscience. In so doing, she discovers that the lines between right and wrong can be blurry, endings aren’t always neat, and sometimes you have to risk everything to be true to yourself. This new tie-in edition will coincide with the release of the film, starring Kate Hudson, Ginnifer Goodwin and John Krasinski.

Emily Giffin (left) is the author of five New York Times bestselling novels, including Something Borrowed, which has been adapted as a major motion picture that will be in theaters in summer 2011. A graduate of Wake Forest University and the University of Virginia School of Law, she lives in Atlanta with her family.

Kristin Hannah (right) is the New York Times bestselling author of eighteen novels, including Winter Garden. She is a former lawyer turned writer and the mother of one son. She and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii.

Kristin Hannah: Well, first, I have to say, Emily, that I am just the tiniest bit irritated with you. When I got the call to do this interview, I was thrilled, to say the least. It came at a really busy time for me–right after the holidays and we all know how crazy that is–and my work in progress was giving me fits. Then I picked up Heart of the Matter, and lost myself. No more writing, no more cooking, no getting my hair done or reading my email. Once I started the story I literally couldn’t put it down. Brava, girlfriend, I say. Your characters are so real and compelling, and they always say exactly the right thing. With so much honest emotion, I just have to ask how much of your work comes from your own life?

Emily Giffin: It never fails to thrill me when someone responds to one of my novels–especially when it’s another writer. Writers understand the alchemy involved in making up something from nothing. And I just finished your book, Night Road, and I found it so emotional, so moving, and so terrifying–especially since I have three young children who will someday be teenagers. In terms of how much does my work come from my own life, I would say that I’m absolutely inspired by people, places, conversations, relationships, and issues that I observe, and that the “what if” part of my novel is very much inspired by these things in my life. But the details of my plots and the specifics of my characters come from my own head. How about you, Kristin? I’ll ask you the million-dollar question that every author gets asked: where do you get your ideas?

Kristin: Ah, the idea question. I don’t want to sound coy, but the truth is, I don’t quite know. It’s the most magical part of the process for me. I’m a pretty analytical gal, and I approach writing in the same just-the-facts-ma’am way I approach most things. I need to find an issue that engages me on an intellectual level, and then I need to marry that curiosity with a kind of passion. I need to feel genuinely passionate about each story before I ever write a word, and I have to actually have something to say. It takes me at least a year to research and write a novel, and so I have to really adore each part of it–the characters, setting, story. Most of all, it has to make me feel something genuine. That’s really the most important component. Usually it begins with a single “what if” question–what if you discovered your mother had a whole secret life about which you knew nothing (Winter Garden) or what if your husband were accused of a crime you believed he hadn’t committed (True Colors)–and then I write and re-write until the characters seem as real to me as old friends.

Kristin: I’m amazed by how much we have in common. We’re both moms, both lawyers, both lived in London for a time. You’re like a younger, cooler version of me. How did you make the transition from lawyer to writer, and do you think you’ll ever practice law again?

Emily: I would hardly say I’m cooler than you, Kristin! I hear you live in Hawaii part time! What is cooler than that? I made the transition from lawyer to writer because I was so miserable being a lawyer that I needed some escape from the day-to-day of it. And inventing stories was that escape. I can say, without hesitation, that I will never practice law again. Would you? What kind of law did you practice, and for how long? What did you find appealing (or discouraging) about law? Did you find that it gave you fodder for any of your novels?

Kristin: Honestly, I have met very few lawyers who don’t say that what they really want to do is write. Like you, I can say with certainty that I will never practice law again. Not that anyone would want me to. But I still keep my Bar membership up…just in case this whole writing thing doesn’t work out. And yes, in the past few years, I have finally begun to put some of that law school education to work for me. I find that I’m really enjoying adding legal issues to my work. Of course, I have to talk to real lawyers to make sure I’m getting it right…

Read more of the conversation between Emily Giffin and Kristin Hannah

From Publishers Weekly Jennifer Wiltsie’s warm, emotionally expressive voice immediately draws listeners into Giffin’s story and makes them sympathize with Rachel, whose growing attraction to her best friend’s fiancé eventually develops into a guilt-ridden affair. Wiltsie handles the other characters deftly; Rachel’s best friend, Darcy, is especially vivid (and hilariously shallow and self-centered), and Rachel and Dex’s romance is portrayed with exceptional sensitivity. This is definitely one to bring along in the beach bag this summer. A St. Martin’s hardcover. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Jacob Jankowski says: “I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other.” At the beginning of Water for Elephants, he is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. His life wasn’t always like this, however, because Jacob ran away and joined the circus when he was twenty-one. It wasn’t a romantic, carefree decision, to be sure. His parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He buried his parents, learned that they left him nothing because they had mortgaged everything to pay his tuition, returned to school, went to the exams, and didn’t write a single word. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The circus he joins, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. With Ringling Brothers as the standard, Benzini Brothers is far down the scale and pale by comparison.

Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob’s life with this circus. Sara Gruen spares no detail in chronicling the squalid, filthy, brutish circumstances in which he finds himself. The animals are mangy, underfed or fed rotten food, and abused. Jacob, once it becomes known that he has veterinary skills, is put in charge of the “menagerie” and all its ills. Uncle Al, the circus impresario, is a self-serving, venal creep who slaps people around because he can. August, the animal trainer, is a certified paranoid schizophrenic whose occasional flights into madness and brutality often have Jacob as their object. Jacob is the only person in the book who has a handle on a moral compass and as his reward he spends most of the novel beaten, broken, concussed, bleeding, swollen and hungover. He is the self-appointed Protector of the Downtrodden, and… he falls in love with Marlena, crazy August’s wife. Not his best idea.

The most interesting aspect of the book is all the circus lore that Gruen has so carefully researched. She has all the right vocabulary: grifters, roustabouts, workers, cooch tent, rubes, First of May, what the band plays when there’s trouble, Jamaican ginger paralysis, life on a circus train, set-up and take-down, being run out of town by the “revenooers” or the cops, and losing all your hooch. There is one glorious passage about Marlena and Rosie, the bull elephant, that truly evokes the magic a circus can create. It is easy to see Marlena’s and Rosie’s pink sequins under the Big Top and to imagine their perfect choreography as they perform unbelievable stunts. The crowd loves it–and so will the reader. The ending is absolutely ludicrous and really quite lovely. –Valerie Ryan –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly With its spotlight on elephants, Gruen’s romantic page-turner hinges on the human-animal bonds that drove her debut and its sequel (Riding Lessons and Flying Changes)—but without the mass appeal that horses hold. The novel, told in flashback by nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski, recounts the wild and wonderful period he spent with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus he joined during the Great Depression. When 23-year-old Jankowski learns that his parents have been killed in a car crash, leaving him penniless, he drops out of Cornell veterinary school and parlays his expertise with animals into a job with the circus, where he cares for a menagerie of exotic creatures[...] He also falls in love with Marlena, one of the show’s star performers—a romance complicated by Marlena’s husband, the unbalanced, sadistic circus boss who beats both his wife and the animals Jankowski cares for. Despite her often clichéd prose and the predictability of the story’s ending, Gruen skillfully humanizes the midgets, drunks, rubes and freaks who populate her book. (May 26)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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From School Library Journal Starred Review. Gr 7 Up–Every year in Panem, the dystopic nation that exists where the U.S. used to be, the Capitol holds a televised tournament in which two teen “tributes” from each of the surrounding districts fight a gruesome battle to the death. In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, the tributes from impoverished District Twelve, thwarted the Gamemakers, forcing them to let both teens survive. In this rabidly anticipated sequel, Katniss, again the narrator, returns home to find herself more the center of attention than ever. The sinister President Snow surprises her with a visit, and Katniss’s fear when Snow meets with her alone is both palpable and justified. Catching Fire is divided into three parts: Katniss and Peeta’s mandatory Victory Tour through the districts, preparations for the 75th Annual Hunger Games, and a truncated version of the Games themselves. Slower paced than its predecessor, this sequel explores the nation of Panem: its power structure, rumors of a secret district, and a spreading rebellion, ignited by Katniss and Peeta’s subversive victory. Katniss also deepens as a character. Though initially bewildered by the attention paid to her, she comes almost to embrace her status as the rebels’ symbolic leader. Though more of the story takes place outside the arena than within, this sequel has enough action to please Hunger Games fans and leaves enough questions tantalizingly unanswered for readers to be desperate for the next installment.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine Reviewers were happy to report that the Hunger Games trilogy is alive and well, and all looked forward to the third book in the series after this one’s stunning conclusion. But they disagreed over whether Catching Fire was as good as the original book Hunger Games or should be viewed as somewhat of a “sophomore slump.” Several critics who remained unconvinced by Katniss’s romantic dilemma made unfavorable comparisons to the human-vampire-werewolf love triangle in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. But most reviewers felt that Catching Fire was still a thrill because Collins replicated her initial success at balancing action, violence, and heroism in a way that will enthrall young readers without giving them (too many) nightmares. –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2011: In the Garden of Beasts is a vivid portrait of Berlin during the first years of Hitler’s reign, brought to life through the stories of two people: William E. Dodd, who in 1933 became America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s regime, and his scandalously carefree daughter, Martha. Ambassador Dodd, an unassuming and scholarly man, is an odd fit among the extravagance of the Nazi elite. His frugality annoys his fellow Americans in the State Department and Dodd’s growing misgivings about Hitler’s ambitions fall on deaf ears among his peers, who are content to “give Hitler everything he wants.” Martha, on the other hand, is mesmerized by the glamorous parties and the high-minded conversation of Berlin’s salon society—and flings herself headlong into numerous affairs with the city’s elite, most notably the head of the Gestapo and a Soviet spy. Both become players in the exhilarating (and terrifying) story of Hitler’s obsession for absolute power, which culminates in the events of one murderous night, later known as “the Night of Long Knives.” The rise of Nazi Germany is a well-chronicled time in history, which makes In the Garden of Beasts all the more remarkable. Erik Larson has crafted a gripping, deeply-intimate narrative with a climax that reads like the best political thriller, where we are stunned with each turn of the page, even though we already know the outcome. –Shane Hansanuwat

Review “Reads like an elegant thriller…utterly compelling… marvelous stuff. An excellent and entertaining book that deserves to be a bestseller, and probably will be.”—The Washington Post
 
“A master at writing true tales as riveting as fiction.”–People (3 1/2 stars)

“Larson has done it again, expertly weaving together a fresh new narrative from ominous days of the 20th century.”–Associated Press

“[L]ike slipping slowly into a nightmare, with logic perverted and morality upended….It all makes for a powerful, unsettling immediacy.”–Bruce Handy, Vanity Fair

“Dazzling….Reads like a suspense novel, replete with colorful characters, both familiar and those previously relegated to the shadows.  Like Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories or Victor Klemperer’s Diaries, IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS is an on-the-ground documentary of a society going mad in slow motion.”–The Chicago Sun-Times

“[G]ripping, a nightmare narrative of a terrible time.  It raises again the question never fully answered about the Nazi era—what evil humans are capable of, and what means are necessary to cage the beast.”–The Seattle Times

“In this mesmerizing portrait of the Nazi capital, Larson plumbs a far more diabolical urban cauldron than in his bestselling The Devil in the White City…a vivid, atmospheric panorama of the Third Reich and its leaders, including murderous Nazi factional infighting, through the accretion of small crimes and petty thuggery.”–Publishers Weekly(Starred Review)

Praise for Erik Larson
  
THUNDERSTRUCK
“A ripping yarn of murder and invention.”—Los Angeles Times

“Larson’s gift for rendering an historical era with vibrant tactility and filling it with surprising personalities makes Thunderstruck an irresistible tale.”—The Washington Post Book World

“Gripping….An edge-of-the-seat read.”—People
 
DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY
“[Larson] relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramatic effect of a novel….a dynamic, enveloping book.”
—The New York Times

“A hugely engrossing chronicle of events public and private. Exceedingly well-documented, exhaustive without being excessive, and utterly fascinating.”
—Chicago Tribune
 
“An irresistible page-turner that reads like the most compelling, sleep-defying fiction.”—Time Out New York

 ISAAC’S STORM 
“A gripping account…fascinating to its core, and all the more compelling for being true.”—New York Times Book Review

“Superb…Larson has made the Great Hurricane live again.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Gripping….The Jaws of hurricane yarns.”—Newsday

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From Publishers Weekly Eight years ago, Duncan McKenna and his three daughters won a punishing around-the-world-sailboat race. Though Kate, Ashley and Caroline McKenna are haunted by the journey’s aftermath, they support their beloved father in keeping its ugly truths hidden. Then reporter Tyler Jamison arrives on idyllic Castleton Island, claiming he wants to write a story about the race. Tyler is actually bent on learning which of the McKenna girls gave birth to a child during it-a child illegally adopted by his brother, who may lose a custody battle if the identity of the birth mother isn’t discovered. While Kate and Tyler circle each other in mingled suspicion and sexual attraction, her sisters struggle with Duncan’s alcoholism and their own demons. Events reach crisis point during a sudden summer storm that forces the family to confront their fears and lies. Some improbable plot contrivances mar the novel’s realistic texture, and the girls’ support of their father’s destructive dreams often seems disturbing rather than devoted. Despite these lapses, Freethy’s (Love Will Find a Way, etc.) zesty storytelling will keep readers hooked, and the sisters’ loving but prickly interactions will make anyone with a sibling smile.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist Reporter Tyler Jamison knows that the once-famous McKenna family is hiding something but doesn’t know that it could devastate Tyler and his brother. Eight years earlier, Duncan McKenna and his three teenage daughters, Kate, Ashley, and Caroline, won the Winston Around the World Challenge with their sailboat, Moon Dancer. But instead of feeling jubilant after the hard-earned victory, each of them falls into a personal hell, Duncan’s fueled by alcohol. They’ve stuck together and kept their secret, and now, out of the blue, a reporter is trying to pry it out of them. Then Kate begins to develop an attachment to Tyler, feeling guilty because of the lies she has told him to protect her family. Tyler wants to start a relationship with her, too, but he has also told lies, even though they’re lies of omission. He knows that when he reveals who he really is, the hatred will be so great that any chance at love will be permanently destroyed. What really happened during the race? Freethy skillfully keeps the reader on the hook, and her tantalizing and believable tale has it all– romance, adventure, and mystery. Shelley Mosley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Review The coauthor of the “Potluck Club” series has written a wonderful coming-of-age story that deals with the themes of friendship, first loves, and forgiveness. – Library Journal –Library Journal

Product Description It is the summer of 1959 and Mariette Puttnam has just graduated from boarding school. When she returns to her privileged life at home, she isn’t sure where life will take her. More schooling? A job? Marriage? Nothing feels right. How could she know that the answer is waiting for her within the narrow stairwell of her father’s apparel factory, exactly between the third and fourth floors?
In this unique and tender story of an unlikely romance, popular author Eva Marie Everson takes readers on a journey through the heart of a young woman bound for the unknown. Readers will experience the joys of new love, the perseverance of true friendship, and the gift of forgiveness that comes from a truly fine life.

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