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TOM MENDICINO - The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter
Tom Mendicino is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina School of Law. His debut novel "Probation" (Kensington) was named a 2011 American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. His novella "Away in a Manger" appeared in the Kensington collection Remembering Christmas and his short fiction has been published in numerous anthologies. He is also the author of the new adult novellas "KC, at Bat," "Travelin' Man," and "Lonesome Town" (eKensington), a trilogy following the relationship between a promising baseball player and a would-be musician. His second novel "The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter" (Kensington) is about the powerful bond between a pair of motherless boys, the sons of an abusive immigrant from Italy, and the choices each makes to protect the other. Please visit www.tommendicinobooks.com
S. Gagliano & Son has been a barber shop fixture in South Philly for decades. Frankie and Michael Gagliano’s Italian immigrant father—Luigi to his customers, Papa to his sons—presides over the store, enlisting his children as soon as they’re big enough to wield a broom. On their mother’s deathbed, eight-year-old Frankie swears that he and his little brother will always take care of each other, a vow he endeavors to keep through their father’s violent outbursts and the string of wives who try to take their mother’s place.
After their father’s death, Frankie takes over the shop, transforming it to fit in with the gentrifying neighborhood. Michael becomes a successful prosecutor with a rising political career, still close to his big brother despite the differences between them. Then comes an unthinkable, impulsive act that will force Michael to choose between risking his comfortable life and keeping a sacred oath—made before he knew how powerful a promise can be.
The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter is a stunning evocation of working-class Italian-American life—a story of brotherhood, loyalty, and the contradictory, unpredictable nature of family love.
“The Boys from Eighth and Carpenter is a heartfelt story of two loving brothers as well as a compelling crime drama all set in the changing city of Philadelphia. Tom Mendicino is a supremely gifted writer with an eye for the most telling of details, and I loved this novel!”--Lisa Scottoline, New York Times bestselling author
"At the heart of this capacious and suspenseful novel is the bond between two very different brothers, but its larger context is the Italian-American family: its values, loyalties and responsibilities. Tom Mendicino writes with honesty and compassion, and the reader can't help but root for his endearing characters."--Christopher Castellani, author of All This Talk of Love
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Ben Leman - Between the Tines (Forged in Blood Book 1)
34:21|Set on Cowal Peninsula in southwest Scotland in the 17th century, Between the Tines follows the family of Clan Lamont as they are drawn into a brutal confrontation with Clan Campbell, whose relentless ambition leaves a trail of fear and devastation in its wake. As Arran Lamont fights alongside his brothers and lifelong friends, Lain and Sean, in the war-torn regions around them, he is tested by betrayal, loss, and the steady destruction of everything his clan has built.Even in the darkest moments, the heart of the Lamont family beats strongly through the women who hold the community together—Allie, Ariel, Lady Mary, and Isabel—offering charity, stability, and spiritual strength when hope is hardest to find. Their resilience becomes a cornerstone of the clan’s will to survive.From Highland games to clandestine raids, from feasts to fog-shrouded battlefields, Arran’s transformational journey is one of loyalty, courage, and a love that quietly grows stronger through the turmoil. But as the Campbells tighten their grip and the land burns around them, Arran and Lain are forced to rethink their fight. What begins as open warfare shifts into rescue missions, covert strategies, and the fragile beginnings of a daring plan for their people’s future.Haunted by the horrors he’s witnessed and bound by duty to those who remain, Arran faces an impossible choice: continue a war that may consume them all…or lead his people toward a new beginning across the ocean, where survival may come at the cost of everything he knows.
Zoey Michaels - Fractured Shadows
26:49|A world on the brink of change. Freedom stripped away for the greater good and a only a handful of brave people willing to risk their lives and their minds to save their world from being controlled by the Echolink designed for the good but hijacked to create a hive system benefiting only the elite.
Deborah Wilde - Ace of Shades: A Humorous Paranormal Women's Fiction (Magic After Midlife Book 7)
24:03|Gehenna isn’t on Google Maps and there’s no Angel Annihilation for Dummies. To Miriam Feldman, list lover extraordinaire, this is an irritating oversight.It’s fine. She’s got this mission under control. Sure, her instructions are vague, and her team is trigger-happy, but she’s got plenty of motivation to carry them to victory.Vengeance counts, right?Plus, if ridding the world of celestial menaces doesn’t top up Miri’s karmic bank, then stopping a vampire contagion will definitely earn her some good will.Unless it gets her killed. That’s a distinct possibility.One which she refuses to worry about since she’s got her shiny new relationship with a sexy wolf shifter to enjoy. And honestly, his family dysfunction is making hers look pretty damn insignificant.How’s that for positive thinking? She’s going to nail this.Happily-ever-after, here she comes.Ace of Shades, the thrilling finale, features a later in life romance, a heart-pounding mystery, and a magical midlife adventure.Read the complete series now.
Steven Meyers & Shawn Johnson - The Treehouse :The True Story of Hollywood the Bank Robber
01:10:40|In the gray hues of Seattle, two men, Steven and Scott, are locked in a perilous journey beyond the law's reach. Entangled in a world of bank heists and fleeting loyalties, they chase redemption in a society relentless in pursuit. Amid adrenaline-fueled escapades and moral dilemmas, their kinship deepens, culminating in an unexpected bond. The tale traces their odyssey against the unforgiving backdrop of the law, culminating in the tragic end of Hollywood, a man who lived and died on his own terms, leaving a legacy entwined with the lives he touched.
Erik D'Souza - Death on the Rocks: A Suzanne Rickson Mystery
32:13|In the mood for an idyllic escape? Death on the Rocks will transport you right to the sunshine coast, where a community theatre event finds its members dying, and only senior citizen sleuth Suzanne must use her experience and intuition to follow the all too human twists to the real killer, before the company runs out of understudies.Delightful summer read!- Iona Whishaw, best-selling author of the Lane Winslow mystery series.Every amateur detective secretly believes they are smarter than the police. Suzanne Rickson doesn't think that. She has faith in Sergeant Bridges' assessment that the director of their seniors’ theatre troupe, the beloved Wilbur Ghostkeeper, most likely slipped and perished on the rocky shoreline of the Salish Sea.But Suzanne quickly regrets her naïveté after Wilbur’s widow is violently robbed and assaulted.
A.L. Jensen - Midsummer, Marriage, and Murder
25:15|The wedding was perfect. The body ruined everything.Interior designer turned amateur sleuth Minna Halonen has finally hit her stride. Hygge House is thriving, and she and business partner Christie Andersson are pulling out all the stops for Lakewood's most anticipated wedding — a dreamy Midsummer celebration with Nordic feasting, a lakeside bonfire, and flower-strewn gardens glowing in the golden northern light.Then the groom's favourite uncle vanishes before the rehearsal dinner.When Minna finds Uncle Rick slumped lifeless in a Muskoka chair, it's clear this wasn't just a man who wanted to skip the speeches. His last message was cryptic. His reasons for avoiding the wedding, it turns out, were very good ones.With a grieving family, a rattled bride and groom, and her business reputation on the line, Minna must once again trade her decorator's instincts for detective work — before a killer slips away under the cover of Midsummer night.Perfect for fans of cozy mysteries with warm settings, charming characters, and just enough chill to keep you turning pages.The Hygge House Mystery Series — where Scandinavian comfort meets small-town secrets.
Faye Snowden - A Killing Breath
35:26|Dark, Southern gothic tale of homicide detective Raven Burns, with a complicated past and a desperate case to solve. Black Girls Lit recommends the first book, A Killing Fire "to crime fiction and mystery lovers and fans of Ruth Ware and Gillian Flynn.”“Full-bodied and dynamic characters carry this one along a mystery, tying a brutal past with a bloody present that will keep you guessing right up to the finale.” — Unnerving Magazine on Book 1 in the series.Raven Burns owes her life to the kind souls who looked after her while her father, unbeknownst to them, sowed a path of blood and bodies from California to Louisiana as one of the most notorious serial killers ever known, Floyd “Fire” Burns. When Raven was a girl, Floyd brutally murdered one of those kind souls, Miss Ruth Jefferson, when the woman made the fatal decision to open the door to him on a pitch-black 4th of July night. As Raven learned of her father’s crimes, she vowed to do everything in her power to put men like him away. Decades later Raven’s hunt for a serial killer terrorizing the town leads her right back to that 4th of July night, and a memory that will make her question how much Floyd’s evil has settled in her bones.
Meredith Doench - Never Say Die
34:58|Detective Rory Scott was in college when six-year-old Savannah Armitage vanished and the body of a missing teen was found nearby in a shallow grave. The case went unsolved, but Rory’s mother's partner, Stephen, was convicted in the court of public opinion. When Rory’s mother refused to leave him, Rory broke familial ties.Six years later, Rory has built a life with her girlfriend Cade. When another child disappears and the unidentified body of a missing teen is found nearby, Rory knows it’s more than a coincidence. She steps in as the lead investigator, determined to find the killer and bring home the missing girls. As media swarms law enforcement for details, the state steps in, and a rookie special agent yanks Rory’s case.In a renegade move, Rory teams up with Savannah’s mother, a woman still desperate to find her daughter alive. When the investigation leads to the two people Rory most wants to avoid—her own mother and Stephen—Rory must face the fallout of her estrangement.As Rory’s personal and professional lives converge, it’s a race against time to find the connection between the cases and bring the killer to justice.
J.T. Pattern - None Witness
34:22|NONE WITNESSBook One of the Killian Kane SeriesWhen the Church cannot forgive, it resolves.Killian Kane was never meant to survive his childhood.The son of a Chicago Outfit enforcer, he was raised inside a world where violence was currency and silence was survival. By seventeen, he was already cleaning what powerful men left behind. Then he vanished—erased from the criminal underworld by a secretive, Vatican-adjacent authority known only as the Resolution Office.They did not save him.They remade him.Now Killian serves as a Custodian, an operative tasked with containing the unforgivable. He does not kill. He erases evidence. He constructs plausible truths. He ensures the world never learns what the Church itself cannot survive revealing.For years, Resolution has kept its secrets buried.Until a priest in New York commits a brutal, ritualized murder.Killian is dispatched to contain the scandal. But what he finds is not a crime of passion. It is a message.Soon, similar killings emerge across Chicago, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis. Each murder is more public. More symbolic. More deliberate. The killer is not hiding.He is escalating.The man responsible is Lucien, a brilliant and charismatic priest who believes murder is not sin, but sacrament. He targets clergy the Church quietly protected—men whose crimes were buried through settlement, silence, and reassignment. Lucien believes he is delivering divine justice.And he knows things he should not know.He knows about Resolution.He knows about its methods.He knows about Killian.As Killian closes in, the Resolution Office assigns him an Instrument—an assassin authorized to perform Terminal Resolution. Forced into partnership with sanctioned violence, Killian begins to uncover a truth more terrifying than Lucien’s crusade:Resolution did not just recruit him.It engineered him.Now hunted by the system that created him and pursued by a killer who believes himself chosen, Killian must confront the possibility that he was never meant to serve justice.Only to contain it.Because when Resolution fails, there are none left to witness.