Louise Phillips tops today’s Buffet with her crime thriller The Doll’s House, which won “Crime Fiction Book of the Year” last year in the BGE Irish Book Awards. The story features Dr. Kate Pearson, a Dublin criminal psychologist, in this follow-up to Louise’s psychological thriller Red Ribbons, which is due for an October release in the United States.
Louise teaches crime fiction writing at the Irish Writers’ Centre and Carousel Creates. Her work has been published as part of many anthologies, including County Lines from New Island, and various literary journals.
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The Doll’s House
The past is waiting…
Thirty-five years ago Adrian Hamilton drowned. At the time his death was deemed a tragic accident but the exact circumstances remain a mystery. His daughter Clodagh now visits a hypnotherapist in an attempt to come to terms with her past, and her father’s death.
As disturbing childhood memories are unleashed, memories of another tragedy begin to come to light. Meanwhile criminal psychologist Dr Kate Pearson is called to assist in a murder investigation after a body is found in a Dublin canal. And when Kate digs beneath the surface of the killing, she discovers a sinister connection to the Hamilton family.
Time is running out for Clodagh and Kate. And the killer has already chosen his next victim . . .
A Tale of Two Elmos (Elmo Jenkins – Book 4)
Elmo Jenkins is celebrating his fifth anniversary as a staff member of First Church. Much has changed at the historic downtown church, with new Senior Pastor Billy Pike Jameson and his humorless wingman Lord Hatchet keeping Elmo more than busy. In the midst of helping the church navigate the precarious waters of starting a contemporary worship service, Elmo is asked to lead a mission trip to Papua New Guinea. As always, Elmo keeps his sense of humor and his faith in God’s higher purpose.
On the home front, Elmo’s feisty mother-in-law is relentlessly pressuring him to produce a grandchild. Elmo’s friend Erlene has moved into an Assisted Living Facility where she’s stirring up some serious trouble. To make matters worse, someone is systematically burglarizing the homes of the First Church membership. Could there be an inside connection?
Thurm, Harry, and Father Ted are still on board along with new friends Pearly Gates, The Radio Guy, and Stumpy the Squirrel.
A Prince among Dogs (And Other Stories of the Dogs We Love)
Pets are such a big part of so many of our lives. As any pet lover knows, a wagging tail or a tender purr can soothe the soul after a hard day. And sometimes, the presence of dogs and cats in our lives can do even more.
In these delightful books, Callie Smith Grant collects stories that celebrate the dogs and cats in our lives–stories that touch our hearts, renew our spirit, and show us how God created these beasts for unique purposes. A funny little dog named Prince earns his title by protecting the children of the house. A “dickens of a cat” gives a cancer survivor something else to think about. A lively litter of puppies soothes a troubled child. A scrawny kitten helps an anorexic girl begin to eat.
Well-known authors, including Melody Carlson, Tracie Peterson, and Robert Benson, as well as new voices share their inspirational true stories of these otherwise ordinary cats and dogs whose presence in the lives of humans make them remarkable.
The Red Collar ( A Dog Story)
When Faye finds a red collar buried beneath the fallen leaves, she is reminded of the bond her daughter once shared with an abandoned dog named Murphy. But with both of them gone, Faye feels lost and alone. Until an unexpected friendship with a man and his dog, in the most unlikely place, helps Faye realize that she needs to help heal in order to be healed herself.
Hometown Star
Television production manager Starlene White has spent her life trying to overcome what she calls her “white trash” childhood. Born to a mother that changed husbands like most people change their toothbrushes, and after having raised her three younger siblings, she’s made a vow to never marry, or have children. For Star, family is overrated—big time.
When Star receives a letter from her childhood nemesis, Cade O’Brien, asking her to come to Alaska to remove her deceased aunt’s possessions from her mobile home, a mobile home that sits on O’Brien land, Star’s first thought is to refuse. Cade made her childhood a living hell. She never understood why he disliked her so much, and the last thing she wants is to comply with his wishes. However, business takes her to Seward when her television show Update This! begins a series of home makeovers, using the homes of single Alaska men. Hoping to kill two birds with one stone, Star heads home.
Mickey Slips (Tyler Cunningham Shorts Book 1)
Beyond Infinity: A MatheMATTical Adventure
When high school senior Matthew “MatheMatt” Forsythe discovers a weird computer and a secret door at school, a series of events unfolds where he and his friends solve one mathematical puzzle after another. After finding a teleportal, Matt and his friend Kelsie travel to a strange world where numbers are actually alive! There they meet the mad scientist Maglio and the ghostly Fifty-Seven and discover that some of the numbers are mysteriously disappearing.
They must race against time to find the significant numbers Sixty-One and Three Hundred Thirteen. But why are the numbers disappearing? And what is so important about the number eight?
Make Your Own Luck (Remy Summer Woods Mystery, Book 1)
A young attorney refuses to believe that 13-year-old Bonita Pickney killed her father, Patrick Pickney. Remy risks her relationship with her own father as well as her life to prove Bonita’s innocence. Along with learning what really happened the night Patrick was murdered, Remy discovers hard truths about her family and herself.
Silk Road
The Holy Land, 1260. Josseran Sarrazini is chosen to escort the Pope’s emissary on an embassy to the all conquering Mongol horde in an effort to save all Christendom form destruction. But although he serves as a Templar warrior, Josseran is not all that he appears to be – and he despises the Pope’s man on sight.
Now they have to spend nine months in each other’s company on the most dangerous and most inhospitable journey on the earth – across the legendary deserts of Persia and the horrific black hurricanes of the Taklimakan, along the Silk Road to Khubilai Khan’s legendary capital at Xanadu.
When he sets out, Josseran cannot know then that he will never see Christendom again.
And somewhere near the Roof of the World a Tatar princess, possessing a gift for prophesy, refuses all her suitors and defies her father’s attempts to marry her off to the sons of other tribal chiefs. She does not belong in her world any more than Josseran belongs in his.
News from Heaven: The Bakerton Stories (P.S.)
In News from Heaven, Jennifer Haigh—bestselling author of Faith and The Condition—returns to the territory of her acclaimed novel Baker Towers with a collection of short stories set in and around the fictionalized coal-mining town of Bakerton, Pennsylvania.
Exploring themes of restlessness, regret, redemption and acceptance, Jennifer Haigh depicts men and women of different generations shaped by dreams and haunted by disappointments.
Janet Maslin of the New York Times has called Haigh’s Bakerton stories “utterly, entrancingly alive on the page,” comparable to Richard Russo’s Empire Falls.
A Rush of Wings: Book One of The Maker’s Song
HIS NAME IS DANTE.
Dark. Talented. Beautiful. Star of the rock band Inferno. Rumored owner of the hot New Orleans nightspot Club Hell. Born of the Blood, then broken by an evil beyond imagination.
HIS PAST IS A MYSTERY.
F.B.I. Special Agent Heather Wallace has been tracking a sadistic serial murderer known as the Cross Country Killer, and the trail has led her to New Orleans, Club Hell, and Dante. But the dangerously attractive musician not only resists her investigation, he claims to be “nightkind”: in other words, a vampire. Digging into his past for answers reveals little. A juvenile record a mile long. No social security number. No known birth date. In and out of foster homes for most of his life before being taken in by a man named Lucien DeNoir, who appears to guard mysteries of his own.
HIS FUTURE IS CHAOS.
What Heather does know about Dante is that something links him to the killer — and she’s pretty sure that link makes him the CCK’s next target. Heather must unravel the truth about this sensual, complicated, vulnerable young man — who, she begins to believe, may indeed be a vampire — in order to finally bring a killer to justice. But Dante’s past holds a shocking, dangerous secret, and once it is revealed not even Heather will be able to protect him from his destiny….
Channel Blue
Skip the blurbs and just start reading this very funny book’ MICHAEL MOORE.
Earth used to be Galaxy Entertainment’s most lucrative show. The inhabitants of the Western Galaxy – the saviest, richest demographic in the Milky Way – just couldn’t get enough of the day-to-day details of the average Earthling’s live.
But Channel Blue’s ratings are flagging and its producers are planning a spectacular finale. In just three weeks, their TV show will go out with a bang. The trouble is, so will Earth.
Only one man can save our planet and he’s hardly a likely hero…
Henry IV: The Righteous King
The talented, confident, and intelligent son of John of Gaunt, Henry IV started his reign as a popular and charismatic king after he dethroned the tyrannical and wildly unpopular Richard II. But six years into his reign, Henry had survived eight assassination and overthrow attempts. Having broken God’s law of primogeniture by overthrowing the man many people saw as the chosen king, Henry IV left himself vulnerable to challenges from powerful enemies about the validity of his reign. Even so, Henry managed to establish the new Lancastrian dynasty and a new rule of law—in highly turbulent times.
In this book, noted historian Ian Mortimer, author of The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan London, explores the political and social forces that transformed Henry IV from his nation’s savior to its scourge.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2