Tag: #Adult

Posted in #BookTours

Finding Zaide

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Finding Zaide
Kim Deister
Publication date: October 19th 2026
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, LGBTQ+, Romance

Life had gotten comfortable for Amara Addison, maybe too comfortable. Fabulous job, great friends, even an amazing ex-boyfriend who was her ride or die for life. Then Zaide Rossi sauntered into her life and suddenly everything changed. But no matter how crazy life became, finding Zaide made every last moment of chaos worth it.
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This book, from concept to edit to design, was created without the use of generative AI.

Goodreads / Amazon

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EXCERPT:

I found the new photographer wandering around the top floor, occasionally lifting her hands and moving them around in what looked like a rather lame fight with a ghost. My own skills in photography started and ended with my phone’s camera, but I’d been doing this job long enough to know exactly what she was doing and that I shouldn’t interrupt. She was framing shots in her mind’s eye to find interesting plays of light, good angles, unique backgrounds.

A stepstool stood nearby, so I sat on it to wait for her, watching her as she moved around the open space. She’s younger than I expected. Even though I’d known when I hired her that she was younger than the more established photographers we usually used, I’d still somehow had it in my head that she’d be older than she clearly was. But now that I saw her in person, I realized that she had to be about my age, give or take a year or two.

Young or not, however, she looked the part of a creative type. Her chocolate brown hair was pulled up into a messy bun, skewered into place by three jewel-toned chopsticks. The sunlight filtering through the dirty windows glittered off the one ear I could see from where I sat, the cartilage armored by a stack of tiny silver hoops, a bigger one threaded through her nostril. She wore a pair of olive green Army-esque cargo pants with a black camisole left loose over them. On her feet were a pair of purple Chucks that had probably seen better days. More silver encircled her fingers, her wrists, her neck. Tattoos encircled both arms from wrist to shoulder. Another tattoo, a peacock, nestled its head just beneath her ear, the rest of it disappearing beneath her top. What I could see of it was beautiful. Then she turned toward me, and I realized she was beautiful.

My mouth went dry as our eyes met. The world instantly dropped away, and I forgot how to breathe. Then she smiled brightly, and the world settled back into its rightful place. My breath stuttered, and I fervently hoped she hadn’t noticed the effect she’d had on me. What the hell is wrong with you, Mara? Get your shit together. She crossed the room toward me, dust motes flying up in her wake. When she stopped in front of me, I almost lost my ability to breathe all over again.

Zaide Rossi was even more beautiful up close.

Author Bio:

My name is Kim and my last name, Deister, is pronounced “Die-ster.” I always tell my husband I should have kept my married name, Ingram. So much easier to to pronounce!

I am a writer thoroughly in love with words. Reading them, writing them… I love that words can take you outside of your world and let the unimaginable become imaginable. I love them so much that I decided I needed to create some worlds and stories of my own!

Besides being a writer, I am an Army veteran (and Army wife) and a mom to four sons. I grew up in northern New York in a tiny college town called Potsdam. Over the years, our Army life has taken us all over the place and I have been lucky enough to work and live in some pretty amazing places. Right now we live in Hawaii on the island of O’ahu, minutes from the North Shore.

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Instagram


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Posted in Cozy Mysteries

Sweet Suspects (Donut Shop Mysteries Book 12)

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New From New York Times Bestselling Author Jessica Beck!

Donut 12, Sweet Suspects

Suzanne and Grace must track down a killer when one of their old classmates is murdered at their high school reunion. There are plenty of suspects gathered back together in April Springs for the big event, and more than one former student’s secrets thought long buried in the past may end up coming back to haunt them all.

Praise for the Donut Mysteries by New York Times Bestselling Author Jessica Beck

“A delight. Suzanne Hart is a lovable amateur sleuth who has a hilariously protective mother and great donut recipes! Readers will have a blast with this book.” —Diane Mott Davidson, New York Times bestselling author of Fatally Flaky

“If you like donuts—and who doesn’t?—you’ll love this mystery. It’s like a trip to your favorite coffee shop, but without the calories!” —Leslie Meier, author of the Lucy Stone mysteries New Year’s Eve Murder and Wedding Day Murder

“The perfect comfort read: a delicious murder, a likeable heroine, quirky Southern characters—and donut recipes!” —Rhys Bowen, Agatha and Anthony award–winning author of the Molly Murphy and Royal Spyness mysteries

“A tribute to comfort food and to the comfort of small town life. With great donut recipes!”—JoAnna Carl, author of The Chocolate Cupid Killings

“A yummy new treat in the culinary mystery genre. Skillfully weaving donut recipes throughout a well-plotted story, the author proves that life after divorce can be sweet; all you need are good friends, your own business, and comfort food. Delicious!”—Tamar Myers, author of Death of a Rug Lord and The Cane Mutiny

“A cleverly plotted cozy mystery with a wonderful small Southern town…Fatally Frosted is a great follow-up to Glazed Murder. Suzanne is a great heroine, Ms. Beck has a sure-fire winner!”—Fresh Fiction

“Along with the hilarious plot, author Jessica Beck treats the readers to a few recipes strategically placed within the novel. Sinister Sprinkles will keep you guessing until the very end.”—The Mystery Librarian

“A sugary concoction that provides readers a glimpse through the donut hole of living in a small town.”—Harriet Klausner, Genre Go Round Reviews

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Posted in #BookTours

Safe Haven #CoverReveal

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Safe Haven
Hazel St. Lewis
(Fury Verse: Volume 1, )
Publication date: December 2026
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Dark Romance, Romance

He knows my name.

He knows I loved Blackwood.

But he still knows nothing at all.

For ten years, I’ve hunted the monsters who destroyed my life. For ten years, I was the Ghost men feared in the dark. But now my world is caving in. Because if Severin didn’t betray me, then everything I thought I knew is a lie.

I am unraveling. Piece by piece. But I will not break.

⸻

She’s alive.

My little dandelion. Moy oduvanchik.

She’s alive.

And I betrayed her.

I slept with another woman. I’m engaged to that woman. But worst of all, I never came for her. I never rescued her.

And that is my biggest sin.

So now, I will hunt down every last man who ever laid a hand on her. I will destroy them all.

I lost her once, but I will never lose her again.


Author Bio:

Hazel St. Lewis is a Romantasy author. Diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age, she struggled to read and write, but fantasy stories inspired her to start storytelling. Unfortunately, now, she is a little too obsessed with morally gray characters. When she isn’t writing, she can be found playing with her hoard of cats (too many to count…it’s a problem), singing songs to said cats, or painting.

Website / Instagram / TikTok / Goodreads / Newsletter


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Posted in #History

The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse

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The New York Times–bestselling author “knocks it out of the park,” exploring the history of the 2016 World Series champions, the Chicago Cubs (Vanity Fair).
When Rich Cohen was eight years old, his father took him to see a Cubs game. On the way out of the park, his father asked him to make a promise. “Promise me you will never be a Cubs fan. The Cubs do not win,” he explained, “and because of that, a Cubs fan will have a diminished life determined by low expectations. That team will screw up your life.”
Cohen became not just a Cubs fan but one of the biggest Cubs fans in the world. In this book, he captures the story of the team, its players and crazy days. Billy Sunday and Ernie Banks, Three Finger Brown and Ryne Sandberg, Bill Buckner, the Bartman Ball, Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo—the early dominance followed by a 107-year trek across the wilderness. It’s all here, in The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse—not just what happened, but what it felt like and what it meant.
Featuring extensive interviews with players, owners, and coaches, this mix of memoir, reporting, history, and baseball theology—forty years in the making—has never been written because it never could be. Only with the 2016 World Series can the true arc of the story finally be understood.
“A marvelous distillation of all things Cubs, the history, the jinx, the glorious redemption of 2016, complete with a rainstorm sent by the Lord God Almighty. You’ll rip through it faster than a plastic cup of Old Style . . . ” —Chicago Sun-Times

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Plenty enough illumination to wow casual baseball fans and engage even the hardest-core Cubs fan . . . that long-awaited World Series win was undoubtedly a gift, and Cohen did with it what the best writers do: He turned it into something lasting.”―Josh Noel, Chicago Tribune

“The best sports book of 2017.”―J. Kemper Campbell, Lincoln Journal Star

“[There] is already a succession of books on the Chicago Cubs’ historic 2016 World Series championship . . . but [Cohen’s] might be the best, since it’s both a deeply satisfying historical account of that colorful franchise and a compelling, all-too-painful personal narrative of one longtime, besotted Cubs fan.” ―Booklist, starred review

“[Cohen] rehearses in swift, entertaining fashion the genesis of the team and its glory years (there were many early on) and long decades of mediocrity . . . His many personal stories, strung like holiday lights throughout the narrative, illuminate a fan’s frangible heart that annually repaired itself.”―Kirkus

About the Author

Rich Cohen is the New York Times-bestselling author of Tough Jews, Monsters, Sweet and Low, The Sun & the Moon & the Rolling Stones, The Chicago Cubs, and The Last Pirate of New York, and, with Jerry Weintraub, When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead. He is the cocreator of the HBO series Vinyl, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, and a writer at large for Air Mail. He has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Harper’s Magazine, among other publications. Cohen has won the Great Lakes Book Award, the Chicago Public Library’s 21st Century Award, and the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award. He lives in Connecticut.

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Posted in #Anthology

Santa Cruz Noir (Akashic Noir)

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“A new collection of short fiction stories explores a seedier side of this beach town filled with murder and mystery.”—KAZU FM

In Akashic Books’ award-winning series of original noir anthologies, each book comprises all new stories set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. Following in the footsteps of Los Angeles Noir, San Francisco Noir, San Diego Noir, Orange County Noir, and Oakland Noir, “we get a series of crime stories rich with surf culture in a town loaded with itinerant spirits, typifying Santa Cruz as a place to be lost, or get lost, or lose yourself. That ethos permeates the stories in the collection, granting them an intriguing grittiness that might otherwise be missing. Concluding with a serious gutpunch of a story, Santa Cruz Noir is a worthy addition to the series” (San Francisco Book Review).

This anthology features Elizabeth McKenzie’s “The Big Creep,” a Shamus Award finalist, and Lou Mathews’s “Crab Dinners” and Dillon Kaiser’s “It Follows as it Leads,” which have been included in the Distinguished Mystery Stories of 2018 list in The Best American Mystery Stories 2019. It also includes brand-new stories by Tommy Moore, Jessica Breheny, Naomi Hirahara, Calvin McMillin, Liza Monroy, Jill Wolfson, Ariel Gore, Jon Bailiff, Maceo Montoya, Micah Perks, Seana Graham, Vinnie Hansen, Peggy Townsend, Margaret Elysia Garcia, Lee Quarnstrom, Beth Lisick, and Wallace Baine.
“A thrilling, whip-smart book that will dazzle local lovers of crime fiction.”—Good Times Santa Cruz
“There are intricate plots, sketchier plots, dubious motives, inscrutable motives, downright creepiness, edgy stuff, and wonderful humor. Something for everyone’s taste in noir.”—Escape into Life


Editorial Reviews

Review

“Santa Cruz Noir is teeming with other local details that will make readers do similar double takes. It’s divided into three sections, the first of which is called ‘Murder Capital of the World,’ as if to put any question of when Santa Cruz’s notorious serial killer lore is going to come up immediately to rest.”
― Good Times Santa Cruz, From a Feature on Susie Bright

“Akashic’s well-traveled, always-riveting Noir series has been to some serendipitous locales over the years, cities perfectly suited to crime fiction, some boasting a long noir tradition of their very own. But for me, just in terms of sheer allure and possibility, the new Santa Cruz collection is right up there at the top. A washed out seaside pleasure palace, nestled up against the hills and the surf, home to all manner of shady types and societal misfits, proximate to great wealth but possessed of an undeniable scruffiness, and above all, beautiful, with that low California sun so conducive to good noir.”
― CrimeReads, One of 10 Crime Books to Read this June

“Santa Cruz Noir delivers on noir sensibilities with an extra twist: it’s that California mythology . . . It is this noir ethos that defines Santa Cruz Noir. After arriving at California’s golden shores, life surely will be better. There is no place further to go.”
― Book Riot

“Santa Cruz is a place of natural beauty, ocean breezes and family-friendly tourist attractions. But a new collection of short fiction stories explores a seedier side of this beach town filled with murder and mystery.”
― KAZU FM

“Bright joins the ranks of Akashic editors to rip the lid off the California coastal town that’s never seemed less laid-back.”
― Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Susie Bright is a best-selling author and editor who landed in Santa Cruz in 1979. Her previous short story collections include The Best American Erotica, Herotica, Bitten, and X. She is the host of the podcast In Bed with Susie Bright, author of the memoir Big Sex Little Death, and cowrote and choreographed the noir film Bound.

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