7 minute read
MAY
A family saga tracing three generations of women from the California Gold Rush to World War II as they attempt to claim what they think is rightfully theirs
Advertisement
If misfortune hadn’t gotten in the way, Sandra Sanborn would be right where she belongs—among the rich and the privileged instead of standing outside a Hollywood studio wearing a sandwich board in hopes of someone discovering her. It’s tough breaking into acting during the Great Depression, but Sandra knows that she is destined for greatness. After all, her grandmother Vira crossed the country during the Gold Rush and established the Sanborns as one of San Francisco’s most prominent families, and her mother Mabel grew up in a lavish mansion and married a wealthy rancher. Success, Sandra feels, is in her blood. All she needs is a chance to prove it.
In between failed auditions, Sandra receives a letter from a man claiming to be her real father, which calls into question everything she believes about her family history—and herself. As she tries to climb the social ladder, family secrets lurk in the background, pulling her back down. Until Sandra confronts the truth about how Vira and Mabel gained and lost their fortunes, she will always end up right back where she started from.
Right Back Where We Started From is a sweeping, multigenerational work of 5ction that explores the lust for ambition that entered into the American consciousness during the Gold Rush and how it affected our nation’s ideas of success, failure, and the pursuit of happiness. It is a meticulously layered saga—at once historically rich, romantic, and suspenseful—about three determined and completely unforgettable women .
JOY LANZENDORFER’S 5ction and non5ction has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, NPR, Ploughshares, Raritan, Poetry Foundation, and many others. She was included in The Best Small Fictions anthology and was a notable in The Best American Essays 2019. Other honors include grants and residencies from the Discovered Awards for Emerging Literary Artists, Wildacres Residency Program, and the Speculative Literature Foundation.
MARKETING
National reviews and interviews
Historical-ction conferences/panels
Print and digital advertising Historical, literary, and women’s ction buzz mailing Bookseller, library, museum, and book club marketing Featured title/author at library, bookseller, and consumer trade shows and conferences
Twitter: @JoyLanzendorfer Instagram: @JoyLanzendorfer Author website: OhJoy.org
(MAY NOT BE FINAL ART)
Fiction / Historical / General (FIC014000) Unabridged • Book #diwo 13½ hours • 11 CDs • 1 MP3 CD ISBN-13: Hardcover 9781094089027 , $27.99 Library E-Book 9781094089034 , $34.99 Trade E-Book 9781094089041 , $9.99
Downloads: Yes DRM Required: No Publishing Background: Blackstone Publishing Book ISBN: 9781094089027 Retail per Carton: 36 CDs, 50 MP3 CDs Retail Ship Date: 4/13/21
Available in Print, E-Book, and Audio
MAY 11, 2021
(MAY NOT BE FINAL ART)
Fiction / General (FIC000000) Unabridged • Book #dat5 13 hours • 10 CDs • 1 MP3 CD ISBN-13: Hardcover 9781094007830 , $27.99 Library E-Book 9781094007847 , $34.99 Trade E-Book 9781094007854 , $9.99
Downloads: Yes DRM Required: No Publishing Background: Blackstone Publishing Book ISBN: 9781094007830 Retail per Carton: 36 CDs, 50 MP3 CDs Retail Ship Date: 4/20/21
Available in Print, E-Book, and Audio
Competitive Grieving A Novel By Nora Zelevansky
A dark, touching comedy—and unlikely love story—about loss and the chaotic aftermath of death
Wren’s closest friend, her anchor since childhood, is dead. Stewart Beasley. Gone. She can’t quite believe it and she de3nitely can’t bring herself to look up the symptoms of an aneurysm. Instead of weeping, Wren’s been dreaming up the perfect funeral plans, memorial buffets, and processional songs for everyone from the corner bodega owner to her parents (none of whom show any signs of imminent demise).
Stewart was a rising television star, who—for reasons Wren struggles to comprehend—often surrounded himself with sycophantic and questionable characters, amusing in his life, but intolerable in his death. When his icy mother assigns Wren the task of sorting through and disseminating his possessions alongside George (Stewart’s maddening, but oddly charming lawyer), she 3nds herself at the epicenter of a world in which she wants no part, a world where everyone wants to own a piece of Stewart’s memory and claim a stake in both his life and his death.
Remembering the boy Stewart was and investigating the man he became, Wren 3nds herself wondering, did she even know this person who she once considered an extension of herself? Can you ever really know anyone? Will the real Stewart Beasley please stand up?
Ultimately, in pursuit of acceptance, Wren discovers that her own true identity may be just as obscure as her friend’s. How did she land here? How much of her own reality has she been walking through blind?
Competitive Grieving is a dark, touching comedy—and unlikely love story—about loss and the chaotic aftermath of death. It takes an honest look at the universal struggle to tune out the noise and grieve, to love in the face of loss, and to yearn to truly know someone who is gone forever.
NORA ZELEVANSKY is the author of the novels Will You Won’t You Want Me? and Semi-Charmed Life. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, ELLE, Town & Country, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and Vanity Fair, among others. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two kids and their enormous cat, Waldo.
MARKETING
National and regional reviews, features, and interviews Social media campaign Literary and women’s ction media buzz mailing Book club marketing Print and digital advertising Bookseller and library trade show marketing Author website: NoraZelevansky.com Author Twitter: @missnoraz
Reset By Sarina Dahlan
Can you love someone you don’t remember?
After the Last War destroyed most of the world, survivors form a new society in four self-sustaining cities in the Mojave Desert. In the utopia of the Four Cities, inspired by the lyrics of “Imagine” and Buddhist philosophy, everything is carefully planned and controlled: the seasons, the weather—and the residents. To prevent mankind from destroying each other again, its citizens undergo a memory wipe every four years in a process called tabula rasa, a blank slate, to remove learned prejudices. With each new cycle, they begin again with new names, jobs, homes, and lives. No memories. No attachments. No wars.
Aris, a scientist who shuns love, embraces tabula rasa and the excitement of unknown futures. Walling herself off from emotional attachments, she only sees relationships as pointless and avoids deep connections. But she is haunted by a recurring dream that becomes more frequent and vivid as time passes. After meeting Benja, a handsome free-spirited writer who believes his dreams of a past lover are memories, her world is turned upside down. Obsessed with <nding the Dreamers, a secret organization thought to have a way to recover memories, Benja draws her down a dangerous path toward the past. When Metis, the leader of the Dreamers, appears in Aris’s life, everything she believes falls to pieces. With little time left before the next tabula rasa, they begin a bittersweet romance, navigating love in a world where names, lives, and moments are systematically destroyed.
Thought-provoking and emotionally resonant, Reset will make you consider the haunting reality of love and loss, and the indelible marks they leave behind.
SARINA DAHLAN was born into an Indonesian family in Thailand, and immigrated to the United States at the age of twelve. While children in the west grow up on fairy tales, she learned parables through ghost stories, mythologies, and Japanese manga. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, with degrees in psychology and visual arts, she has blended both disciplines in careers as an advertising producer, a corporate marketing strategist, and an awardwinning writer. She lives in California with her family and is currently raising her three children on a healthy diet of history, Thai curry, and scienti<c thinking. Reset is her <rst novel.
MARKETING
National and regional interviews, features, and reviews Speculative and science ction media buzz mailing Print and digital advertising Social media campaign Featured author at major consumer, library, and regional bookseller shows
Author Twitter: @SarinaDahlan
Author website: SarinaDahlan.com
(MAY NOT BE FINAL ART)
Fiction / General (FIC000000) Unabridged • Book #disp 11½ hours • 9 CDs • 1 MP3 CD ISBN-13: Hardcover 9781094086309 , $27.99 Library E-Book 9781094086316 , $34.99 Trade E-Book 9781094086323 , $9.99
Downloads: Yes DRM Required: No Publishing Background: Blackstone Publishing Book ISBN: 9781094086309 Retail per Carton: 52 CDs, 50 MP3 CDs Retail Ship Date: 5/4/21
