Escape 

Fiction / 320 pages / Hardcover  

Doubleday / July, 2011

Dear Reader,   

Ever had one of those days when you wanted to dump it all and run away?                

I have.  I had finished writing Not My Daughter after a gruelling nine months of interruptions that included touring, redesigning my website, and planning one very large out-of-town wedding for my very social son, and I was beat.  I didn't want to look at my computer, much less email or text.  My BlackBerry was evil.    

Worried it was just me, I asked my Facebook readers where they'd go if they were to escape - and, whoa, it wasn't just me at all!  They answered in droves.                  

The resulting book, Escape, is my gift to every woman who has ever felt put upon.  We may be too responsible to actually leave as Emily does, but we can live vicariously, can't we?  Enjoy Escape this summer season! 

Warmly,   

Barbara

In her luminous new novel, Barbara Delinsky explores every woman's desire to abandon the obligations of work and marriage -- and the idea that the most passionate romance can be found with the person you know best.

Emily Aulenbach is thirty, an idealist, a lawyer married to a lawyer, working in Manhattan. But the stress of work, a stalled marriage, and strained friendships have taken their toll.

One day, she simply leaves, groping toward the future, heading north to a New Hampshire town tucked between mountains. Emily knows that if she is to right her life, she has to start there.

"Delinsky nails it in her trademark latest...captivating and moving...rich characterizations and real-feeling dilemmas that will keep readers hooked."

-Publishers Weekly

"Our literary editor recommends Escape, by Barbara Delinsky."

-Good Housekeeping

"This thought-provoking book will be popular summer reading."

-Library Journal

Dear Reader,

The inspiration for The Things We Cherished came from a unique timepiece, known as an anniversary clock, which my husband gave me for our first wedding anniversary.  I was captivated by the question of where the hundred year-old clock had been and the lives it had touched. 

As I imagined its history, a tale unfolded of a couple at the turn of the century in Bavaria yearning for a better life, two brothers in Weimar Berlin wrestling with issues of Zionism and assimilation, the desperate quest of a young girl trapped behind the Iron Curtain, a forbidden love affair, and the missing antique clock that holds the truth about what really happened during the war. The clock really became a metaphor for the experience of the Jewish people and others in 20th century Europe. 

Through writing this book, I came to "cherish" the characters and their stories and I hope you will too. I will be happy to speak with your book group via phone or Skype. Happy reading!

Pam

PAM JENOFF IS GIVING AWAY 5 COPIES OF THE THINGS WE CHERISHED.  ENTER TO WIN A COPY.

An accused Nazi collaborator, a forbidden love affair, and the missing antique clock that holds the truth about what really happened during the war.  These are the mysteries that Charlotte Gold seeks to unravel as she races against time to defend elderly financier Roger Dykmans from allegations that he sold out his own brother, Hans, and the group of innocent children he was trying to save to the Germans.  And she has to do it all while confronting her feelings for her co-counsel Jack Warrington, who just happens to be the brother of the man who once broke her heart.

"Further cements Jenoff's reputation for adeptly using the harsh realities of WWII Europe as a context for a timeless love story."

-Publishers Weekly

"Pam Jenoff weaves an intriguing and intelligent story with a delicacy that is captivating. The triangular love stories are threaded together with skill and passion, while at the heart of the tale ticks the clock that holds the answers. Jenoff evokes in touching detail a significant point in twentieth-century history and makes it resonate for readers today."

-Author Kate Furnivall 

Jerusalem Maiden by Talia Carner
Fiction / 450 pages / Paperback
HarperCollins / June, 2011

Dear Reader,

Jerusalem Maiden was inspired by my own grandmother's untapped artistic genius and her unfulfilled destiny. I wrote a "what-if" story: What if she had bolted from her society's religious dictates? What if she had pursued her talent and her heart?

On my first visit to Paris at age 16, I walked the streets of Montmartre and suddenly realized that my grandmother should never have married, should never have had children. Instead, she should have been a Bohemian in Paris during the avant-garde era and have achieved international artistic acclaim.

In researching this novel, I found that women's lives in that era were a mystery. Historians (all males) had no interest in women's issues, while Jewish women believed that suffering in Jerusalem -- pestilence, squalor, hunger, maggot-filled water and  50% infant mortality -- were meant to hasten the arrival of the Messiah. 

For the book launch and summer reading, we offer amazing drawings: 1) A Collector's Edition of Jerusalem Maiden-labeled bottle of wine grown and made in Jerusalem mountains, 2) A Holy Land religious package of three vials: anointment oil from the Galilee, holy water from the Jordan River, and stones from Jerusalem (vial given to each attendee of the winning book group), or 3) An autographed copy of Jerusalem Maiden.  Please check the terms here. 

I invite you to join me on the journey with Esther, the extraordinary young woman as she challenges God.

Talia Carner

TALIA CARNER IS GIVING AWAY 5 COPIES OF JERUSALEM MAIDEN.  ENTER TO WIN A COPY.

A story tagged as The Red Tent meets A Thousand Splendid Suns, tells of the feisty Esther's life-long struggle between her passion and faith. At the end of the Ottoman Empire rule of the Holy Land, the young ultra-Orthodox Esther knows that her duty is to marry and produce many sons to help hasten the Messiah's arrival. But when her French teacher gives her colored pencils, Esther breaks the Second Commandment, "Thou shalt not make any graven image." A tragedy that strikes her family, though, forces her to sacrifice her yearning for painting and become an obedient "Jerusalem maiden."

The years in which Esther suppresses her desires end when a surprising opportunity hurls her off her pre-ordained path. As Esther's beliefs clash with her surging passions, she must confront the question: to whom must she be true, to God or to herself?

Reviews for Jerusalem Maiden:

"Exquisitely told, with details so vivid you can almost taste the

food and hear the voices, Jerusalem Maiden is a coming-of-age

story set in a time and place that few of us know.  Talia Carner has written a moving and utterly captivating novel that I will be thinking about for a long, long time."

-Author Tess Gerritsen 

"As bold and fragile as its main character, Jerusalem Maiden is at heart a story of revolution. Esther Kaminsky risks everything to ask questions about womanhood and faith that even in the asking constitute sin for an obedient girl. In Esther's time, risking 'everything' was literal.  Debut author Talia Carner's story captivates at every level, heart and mind."

-Author Jacquelyn Mitchard

Hotwire by Alex Kava

In New York Times bestselling author Alex Kava's new thriller, special agent Maggie O'Dell investigates the death of three teenagers, only to find herself in the middle of a conspiracy involving biological warfare. 

On a crisp fall evening in western Nebraska, what started as a group of kids filming their drug induced party ends in an explosive light show, leaving the victims apparently electrocuted, with odd scorch marks being the only evidence.  While Maggie tries to make sense of the different stories, sifting through what is real and what is hallucination, she realizes that the surviving teens are being targeted and systematically eliminated.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast, Army Colonel Benjamin Platt is at the scene of a deadly outbreak, desperate to identify the pathogen that has infected children at a Washington, D.C. elementary school.  Despite the miles that separate them, the two cases collide as Maggie and Platt uncover secrets that were mean to stay hidden in the remote Midwest landscape.

"Twisted plots, shocking characters, breakneck pacing.  Guaranteed to keep you up all night!"

-Author Lisa Gardner  

"Outstanding...A sizzling plot, achingly real characters, and government officials working their backsides off to save their backsides, all strike as lethally as lightning."

-Publishers Weekly

The Summer Garden
by Paullina Simons

The heroine of my trilogy, Tatiana, didn't know how to cook and had no interest in it until she met and fell in love with Alexander in The Bronze Horseman. She learned how to cook for him because he loved to eat and he received her cooking as a labor of love, which it was. So when the world was stacked against them, and she couldn't tell him the deepest contents of her heart, she would make him potato pancakes, hoping he would know.

And he did.

She made him chicken soup, and fried potatoes with mushrooms.

Then they ran out of food in blockaded Leningrad during the war and had to find another way to communicate.

I'm Paullina Simons, author of eight novels, including my latest in the United States, The Summer Garden, which continues Tatiana and Alexander's passionate, difficult journey, plus the fictionalized cookbook, Tatiana's Table. It's the cookbook Tatiana would have written had she not been a figment of my imagination. It's as if she wrote down the recipes passed to her from the generations of her family and his family, bringing their culinary joy from Russia in the form of blinchiki and from Italy in the form of meatballs.

Alexander loved all food, but he particularly liked all sweet food. So Tatiana made him preacher cookies and blueberry pie, and fudge brownies, and banana bread, perfecting the last until it was fall-away moist in the middle and slightly caramelly-crunchy on top. She always doubled the recipe because the first banana bread would not get a chance to cool down.

So pick up a copy of The Bronze Horseman, and read about what it's like to be consumed by impossible love and crème brulee ice cream during war. And then Tatiana and Alexander. And then The Summer Garden to discover, among many things, what they got up to when Tatiana made them beergaritas.

Paullina Simons

The epic and monumental love story Paullina Simons began with her adored international bestseller The Bronze Horseman comes to a breathtaking conclusion. The Summer Garden is the third volume in Simons's magnificent trilogy which follows a love that survived the terrible siege of Leningrad during World War II, a heartbreaking separation and a glorious reunion in America, only to be supremely tested by the hatred, fear, and uncertainty of the Cold War. You will never forget the lovers Tatiana and Alexander and their story of enduring love and commitment, and you will cherish every moment spent in The Summer Garden.

Reviews for The Summer Garden:

"Simons never lets us forget that their love is historic and monumental. Simons has written a book that is high on feeling and suspense."

-Sydney Morning Herald

"BREATHTAKING! The final installment in the lives of Tatiana Metanova and Alexander Barrington honestly takes the breath away."   

-The Evening Standard (Palmerston North, New Zealand)

TRY PAULLINA SIMONS'S RECIPE FOR BANANA BREAD.