Successful young writer Marjorie McClelland leads a solitary, comfortable life in the quiet, post-prohibition town of Ridgebury, CT. Her tranquil life is disrupted when Creighton Ashcroft, a British heir with time and money to burn, purchases a deserted mansion with a mysterious history on the outskirts of town. Instantly smitten with the talented and beautiful Marjorie, Creighton craftily arranges an intimate meeting, but the mood is spoiled when they stumble across a body while touring the ample grounds of Creighton's new estate.With the intention of reaping the story's literary benefits, the two forge an unlikely partnership and research the mansion's sordid past, but they soon find themselves in the middle of an unfolding series of hidden murders and family deceit. On top of this, the handsome detective assigned to the case has caught Marjorie's attention—and Creighton's suspicious eye. The trio must work together to break through a web of deceptively demure... Views: 27
Will they find the lost treasure before time runs out? A gripping adventure about a desperate race through the wastelands of future London to find a relic of extraordinary power.For Cass and Wilbur, life as scavengers is all they've ever known — rummaging the ruins of London in search of a precious, powerful relic no one, not even their new Russian masters, has ever seen.But when Erin and Peyto, two strangers from a faraway place, show up and claim they hold the key to locating the mysterious missing artifact, the treasure hunt takes on a lethal urgency. If the kids don't find the crucial object in SIX DAYS, their world will come crashing to an end! Views: 27
Detroit, 1911. Seven months have passed since Will Anderson’s friend Wesley McRae was brutally murdered and Will and the woman he loves, Elizabeth Hume, barely escaped with their lives. Will’s hand, horribly disfigured from the sulfuric acid he used to help save them, causes him constant pain, forcing him into a morphine addiction. He lives for nothing except revenge against the people who contributed to Wesley’s murder—first among them crime boss Vito Adamo. When Will stumbles upon the bloody body of Adamo’s driver, he knows he’ll be a suspect, particularly since he was spotted outside the dead man’s apartment that same night. He sets out to find the killer, and the trail leads him to a vast conspiracy in an underworld populated by gangsters, union organizers, crooked cops, and lawyers. Worse, it places him directly in the middle of Detroit's first mob war. The Teamsters want a piece of Will’s father’s car company, Detroit Electric, and the Gianolla gang is there to be sure they get it. To save their families, Will and his ex-fiancée Elizabeth Hume enlist the help of Detroit Police Detective Riordan, the teenage members of what will one day be known as the Purple Gang, and Vito Adamo himself. They careen from one danger to the next, surviving shootouts, kidnappings, and police brutality, while barreling toward a devastating climax readers won’t soon forget.ReviewPublishers Weekly (Starred Review)"Set in Detroit in 1911, Johnson's vibrant follow-up to The Detroit Electric Scheme delivers razor-sharp depictions of the motor city. . . . Johnson brings the turbulence and rampant corruption of the era to life through his flawed yet tenacious lead in this worthy successor to his debut."Kirkus Reviews"(Johnson's) clever weaving of history with intriguing characters makes for an exciting read."Praise for Motor City Shakedown: "...the scenes of the Motor City, riding high on the industrial wave, are extraordinarily vivid..." --The New York Times"If Dennis Lehane was from Detroit, this is the book he’d write. The Motor City was once the most important city in the world, and D.E. Johnson does a masterful job at making that time and place come alive on the page. Motor City Shakedown is as hard and tough and downright noir as anything I’ve read in recent memory, but it’s got a beating heart, too." – Steve Hamilton, Edgar Award-winning author of The Lock Artist "Johnson's vibrant follow-up to The Detroit Electric Scheme delivers razor-sharp depictions of the motor city. Johnson brings the turbulence and rampant corruption of the era to life through his flawed yet tenacious lead in this worthy successor to his debut." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Johnson’s...clever weaving of history with intriguing characters makes for an exciting read." -- Kirkus Reviews "Violent, suspenseful, and complex, Johnson’s shakedown in Detroit sucks the breath out of readers rushing to the cliff’s edge with Will and Elizabeth. This gritty new series is a good match for James Ellroy and George Pelecanos fans..."--Booklist "...Johnson's superb historical noir...is more engaging, more complex, and more violent than its predecessor."--Gumshoe Review "This is a superb violent historical noir that brings to life the Motor City one century ago. The meet me in Detroit story line is fast-paced but it is the cast who makes for a terrific action-packed tale especially Will. With tidbits of history interwoven to anchor time and place, readers will enjoy riding the Anderson Electric Car driven by D. E. Johnson."-- Midwest Books Reviews Praise for The Detroit Electric Scheme “The surprise ending leaves you gasping and shaking your head at Johnson’s masterful plotting and the menacing tension that forces otherwise good characters to behave despicably. Every bit as powerful as Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley series, this gem of a debut showcases an author to watch very closely.”---Booklist (starred review)“A empathetic hero and an abundance of interesting historical detail should keep readers engaged.”---Kirkus Reviews“Full of nonstop action, plot twists and turns, and great insight into the early history of the United States car industry, this debut is part coming-of-age tale and part historical mystery. Essential for historical fans.”---Library Journal“Absorbing.”---The Seattle Times“Johnson is so skilled a writer that the race for supremacy between the manufacturers of electric and gasoline-powered automobiles is every bit as exciting as the chase through the streets of Detroit to find a ruthless killer. This remarkable debut novel will give you a thrilling ride, and leave you wanting more.”---Historical Novels Review (Editor's Choice)“D. E. Johnson’s terrific debut brilliantly captures the dangerous underbelly of 1910 Detroit’s fast-growing automobile industry. A well-plotted mystery filled with memorable characters and taut suspense, The Detroit Electric Scheme makes for a compelling read.”---Stefanie Pintoff, Edgar Award--winning author of In the Shadow of Gotham and A Curtain Falls“Johnson makes a stunning debut, taking us to a time and place so very different from our own—and yet so very much the same.”---Victoria Thompson, author of Murder on Lexington Avenue“D. E. Johnson’s impeccable research drives this crackling tale of murder set in Detroit's infant auto industry. . . . The Detroit Electric Scheme jolts you into a dangerous world of suspense and intrigue.”---Rebecca Cantrell, award-winning author of A Trace of SmokeAbout the AuthorD. E. Johnson, a graduate of Central Michigan University, is a history buff who has been writing fiction since childhood. He comes by his interest in automotive history through his grandfather, who was the vice president of Checker Motors. Johnson lives with his family near Kalamazoo, Michigan. Visit his Web site at www.dejohnsonauthor.com. Views: 27
A bizarre murder scene leads not-so-dumb blonde Bubbles Yablonsky and her main squeeze into the heart of a conspiracy linked to a secret cadre of strange women, and a mysterious assassin who wants Bubbles's investigation to go up in flames.... Views: 27
For Aaron Drake, his word was his bond. But when he promised his dying friend he'd "hold on to hope," Aaron had no idea what he was getting himself into. Because "hope" is Hope Gatlin--his friend's bride-to-be, already en route to Colorado. Aaron's duty is clear. He'll meet Hope at the train and ask her to be his wife. Yet who could have guessed that the woman would say no!Agree to a marriage of obligation? No, Hope wouldn't do it. However, the more time Hope spends with the grieving widower, the more she finds herself falling for the sweet, protective man. But Hope will only marry for love. Can Aaron learn to care again? Views: 27
On November 25, 1783, the last British troops pulled out of New York City, bringing the American Revolution to an end. Patriots celebrated their departure and the confirmation of U.S. independence. But for tens of thousands of American loyalists, the British evacuation spelled worry, not jubilation. What would happen to them in the new United States? Would they and their families be safe? Facing grave doubts about their futures, some sixty thousand loyalists—one in forty members of the American population—decided to leave their homes and become refugees elsewhere in the British Empire. They sailed for Britain, for Canada, for Jamaica, and for the Bahamas; some ventured as far as Sierra Leone and India. Wherever they went, the voyage out of America was a fresh beginning, and it carried them into a dynamic if uncertain new world.A groundbreaking history of the revolutionary era, Liberty’s Exiles tells the story of this remarkable global diaspora. Through painstaking archival research and vivid storytelling, award-winning historian Maya Jasanoff re-creates the journeys of ordinary individuals whose lives were overturned by extraordinary events. She tells of refugees like Elizabeth Johnston, a young mother from Georgia, who spent nearly thirty years as a migrant, searching for a home in Britain, Jamaica, and Canada. And of David George, a black preacher born into slavery, who found freedom and faith in the British Empire, and eventually led his followers to seek a new Jerusalem in Sierra Leone. Mohawk leader Joseph Brant resettled his people under British protection in Ontario, while the adventurer William Augustus Bowles tried to shape a loyalist Creek state in Florida. For all these people and more, it was the British Empire—not the United States—that held the promise of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Yet as they dispersed across the empire, the loyalists also carried things from their former homes, revealing an enduring American influence on the wider British world.Ambitious, original, and personality-filled, Liberty’s Exiles is at once an intimate narrative history and a provocative new analysis—a book that explores an unknown dimension of America’s founding to illuminate the meanings of liberty itself.From the Hardcover edition.From BooklistAs well as a war of independence, the Revolutionary War was a civil conflict in which the losers, white, black, and Indian loyalists, paid dearly. Facing retribution from the victorious patriots, tens of thousands fled the new U.S. to havens in the British Empire. Jasanoff positions her history as the most comprehensive treatment of this topic; accomplished as scholarship, it appeals to general-interest readers through her narrative accounts of several refugees' fates after mass evacuations in 1783. And it will strongly appeal to black-history readers because of Jasanoff's sifting of abundant documentary evidence generated by Britain's wartime promise to emancipate slaves who fought in its ranks. Free black loyalists arrived in Nova Scotia, where racial tension impelled some to settle in Sierra Leone, while enslaved black loyalists suffered even harsher consequences, their white loyalist owners forcing them to relocate to Florida, the Bahamas, and Jamaica. Wherever loyalists started their lives anew'in Britain, Canada, India, and even Australia'Jasanoff dramatizes their travails in this discerning social and political history of an overlooked side of the American Revolution. --Gilbert Taylor Review"A smart, deeply researched and elegantly written history." —New York Times Book Review "Spirited and engaging…[Jasanoff] has turned her remarkable historical talents to the experiences of the tens of thousands of loyalists who felt compelled to leave the North American colonies that became the United States…One of the strengths of her deeply researched book is the extent to which she was able to recover the stories of some of these loyalist refugees." —Gordon S. Wood, The New York Review of Books * "A masterful account of the dispersal of the loyalists…Jasanoff’s notable achievement is to engage the reader’s interest, and sympathies, in the travails of the Revolution’s losers. It will be thoroughly rewarding, even for the reader already familiar with the fates of the winners." —The Boston Globe"Ambitious, empathetic and sometimes lyrical...Liberty's Exiles just claims to be the 'first global history of the loyalist diaspora'...Jasanoff skillfully threads the stories of individual loyalists through her narrative as she beautifully describes, one by one, the often inhospitable places they went." —The Washington Post "[There are] many revelations in this very well-researched and fluently written book…Jasanoff has written [the loyalists] a fitting tribute." —Andrew Roberts, *The Daily Beast "Brilliant." —Newsweek"A fascinating, important and beautifully written investigation that ought to be required reading for anyone who thinks America's founding was an unambiguous instance of liberty and justice throwing off the shackles of tyranny and oppression." —The Seattle Times <... Views: 27
Former librarian Jessica Martin is about a dozen cats away from embracing her inner spinster. At twenty-six, she's not only still a virgin, she hasn't even been kissed since high school. Her vivacious twin sister, Jamie, keeps trying to set her up with completely unsuitable guys. Prince Charming seems more like a cruel joke than ever until Detective Duncan Reinhold walks into Jessie's vintage bookstore looking for a missing girl. He's everything she's ever dreamed of, but hopelessly out of her league. Can she overcome a lifetime of insecurity and believe he's fallen for her?Duncan Reinhold isn't looking for love. In fact, it's the very last thing on his mind when he meets Jessie. He’s looking for a missing girl, and he needs to remain focused on the search. But his attraction to Jessie can't be denied and he finds himself in a completely inappropriate clinch with the beautiful bookstore owner within minutes of their first meeting. He knows instantly that she is the one. Can he overcome the complications between them and his own loveless past to convince her that he's interested in being not just her first lover, but also her one and only true love?Full length novel. (Approx. 100,000 words or 380 Printed pages) Views: 27
The short stories of Kingsley Amis - the great master of post-war comic prose - are dark, playful, moving, surprising and extremely funny. This definitive collection gathers all Amis's short fiction in a single volume for the first time and encompasses five decades of storytelling. In 'The 2003 Claret', written in 1958, a time machine is invented for the weighty task of sending a man to 2010 to discover what the booze will taste like. In 'Boris and the Colonel' a Cambridge spy is unearthed in the sleepy English countryside with the help of a plucky horse, while In 'Mason's Life' two men meet inside their respective dreams. The collection spans many genres, offering ingenious alternative histories, mystery and horror, satirical reflections and a devilishly funny attacks. Amis's stories reveal the scope of his imagination and the warmth beneath his acerbic humour, and they all share the unmistakable style and wit of one of Britain's best loved writers.With a new... Views: 27
