Light from a Distant Star is a gripping coming-of-age story with a brutal murder at its heart and a heroine as unforgettable as Harper Lee’s “Scout.” When violence erupts in the lovely Peck house, the prime suspect seems obvious. Nellie knows who the real murderer is, but is soon silenced by fear and the threat of scandal. The truth, as she sees it, is shocking and unthinkable, and with everyone’s eyes riveted on her in the courtroom, Nellie finds herself seized with doubt.
crown publishing group
In this gripping first-person account of adventure and survival, author Scott Wallace chronicles an expedition into the Amazon’s uncharted depths, discovering the rainforest’s secrets while moving ever closer to a possible encounter with one such tribe – the mysterious flecheiros, or “People of the Arrow,” seldom-glimpsed warriors known to repulse all intruders with showers of deadly arrows. Writers Francisco Goldman, Sebastian Junger, Peter Matthiessen, and David Grann (author of The Lost City of Z) are all fans.
“Hi, Read it Forward readers! My name is Susan Cain, and my book, QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, is coming out in January 2012. Given the back-to-school time of year, I wanted to talk briefly about parenting introverted kids. Being introverted in and around the school setting can be challenging for kids, but from the research I’ve done, as well as talking with so many parents and teachers, I know that introverted kids can thrive incredibly well. They often just need a somewhat different style of nurturing from more extroverted kids. Today I’d like to share with you five of my favorite tips for parenting introverted kids.”
“Death in the City of Light begins at 21 rue La Sueur in the heart of Paris’s fashionable 16th arrondissement. It is a March evening in 1944 when two police offers arrive at a townhouse after receiving complaints of a thick, black smoke emanating from the building. Upon entering, they discover a horrific scene – hands, feet, skulls, and bodies in various states of decomposition. Down in the basement they discover the source of the smoke: two coal stoves stuffed with charred remains. Within minutes the search is on for Marcel Petiot, the owner of the home . . . Here, author David King shares with Read It Forward how he stumbled upon this incredibly gripping true-crime thriller, which has already been compared to the likes of Eric Larson’s incredible narrative nonfiction.
Not too long ago, I was in my basement, which just might be the scariest place on earth. We’re talking Silence of the Lambs scary, Night of the Living Dead scary, “lions ands tigers and bears, oh my” scary . . . . On some level I understood that the basement door was going to lead to a novel. Novelists are asked all the time where our ideas come from, and I have done this long enough that I suspected someday that door would, quite literally, open a novel: “The door was presumed to have been the entry to a coal chute, a perfectly reasonable assumption since a small hillock of damp coal sat moldering before it.” So begins The Night Strangers.
Nothing shakes up a life like trauma. Fiction writers have known this secret since the early days – think Ahab, Hamlet, or Batman – and introducing a bit of quick chaos into the life of a main character, particularly in their formative years, has always been the preferred method of amping up the intrigue. Authors Susan Gregg Gilmore and Michele Young-Stone and Susan Gregg Gilmore discuss how trauma – specifically trauma as a result of natural disaster – informs the creative process and affects the individual.
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