Heather Webber’s Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe is a captivating blend of magical realism, heartwarming romance, and small-town Southern charm.
Nestled in the mountain shadows of Alabama lies the little town of Wicklow. It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café.
It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother’s estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran away from so many years ago, and the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can’t stop talking about.
As the truth about her past slowly becomes clear, Anna Kate will need to decide if this lone blackbird will finally be able to take her broken wings and fly.
It’s all paws on deck as a librarian and her rescue cat track down a killer in the newest book in the national bestselling Bookmobile Cat mystery series.
Minnie Hamilton and her rescue cat, Eddie, cruise around lovely Chilson, Michigan delivering happiness and good reads in their bookmobile. But the feisty librarian is worried that the bookmobile’s future could be uncertain when a new library board chair arrives and doesn’t seem too friendly to her pet project.
Still, she has to put her personal worries aside when she and Eddie are out on their regular route and one of their favorite customers doesn’t turn up to collect her books. Minnie, at Eddie’s prodding, checks on the woman and finds her lying dead in her snow-covered driveway. Now it’s up to Minnie and her friends–feline and otherwise–to find the perpetrator and give them their due.
The second book in the Victorian Village Mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Sheila Connolly!
After fifteen years away, Kate Hamilton never expected to end up back in her hometown of Asheboro, Maryland full time. And she definitely didn’t expect to be leading the charge of recreating the town as a Victorian village and tourist attraction. But as unexpected as the circumstances are, Kate is ready to tackle them.
The town, on the other hand, is going to take some convincing. Ever since Henry Barton’s shovel factory closed down, it’s started to seem like there are more tumbleweeds than tourists rolling down Main Street. Kate’s ideas are good, but ambitious—and her friends and neighbors are worried that finding the money for them would push the town even further into debt.
Luckily, Kate and the handsome historian Joshua Wainwright are two very determined people who may have come up with a solution. The Barton mansion, meant to be the centerpiece of the Victorian village, has proven to be a veritable goldmine of documents about the town’s nineteenth-century history, and Kate is convinced the papers hide something of value. When a dead body turns up in the town library—mere hours before the documents were meant to arrive there themselves—Kate begins to worry that the papers spell danger instead of dollars. It seems that someone doesn’t want these forgotten secrets coming to light, and they’ll do whatever it takes to keep Kate quiet…
My life is like one of those cheap snow globes my twins collected when they were younger. Shiny and pretty on the outside, blurred beyond recognition when shaken.
Ever since her twin girls left home, Marisa has felt there’s something missing from her life. Her sprawling mansion is no longer filled with laughter and chaos, and she’s desperate to feel needed… and to be distracted from the secret she’s been hiding from her husband for all these years.
Coffee with her best friends might be the only thing holding Marisa together. But Claire and Elly have their own secrets. Like why Claire hasn’t been to work in weeks, or why Elly won’t tell anyone who’s buying her flowers.
When Jodi, a pregnant young girl, turns up at Marisa’s doorstep, Marisa is quick to come to her aid. She sees herself in Jodi and she knows how devoting yourself to looking after others can take up all your time in the most marvelous way.
But Jodi’s arrival quickly pushes everyone’s lies to the surface. The father of her unborn child is someone the women know very well, and Marisa starts to wonder if her obsession with helping Jodi might come at a devastating price…
Hana Keller serves up European-style cakes and teas in her family-owned tea house, but when a customer keels over from a poisoned cuppa, Hana and her tea-leaf reading grandmother will have to help catch a killer in the first Hungarian Tea House Mystery from Julia Buckley.
Hana Keller and her family run Maggie’s Tea House, an establishment heavily influenced by the family’s Hungarian heritage and specializing in a European-style traditional tea service. But one of the shop’s largest draws is Hana’s eccentric grandmother, Juliana, renowned for her ability to read the future in the leaves at the bottom of customers’ cups. Lately, however, her readings have become alarmingly ominous and seemingly related to old Hungarian legends…
When a guest is poisoned at a tea event, Juliana’s dire predictions appear to have come true. Things are brought to a boil when Hana’s beloved Anna Weatherley butterfly teacup becomes the center of the murder investigation as it carried the poisoned tea. The cup is claimed as evidence by a handsome police detective, and the pretty Tea House is suddenly endangered. Hana and her family must catch the killer to save their business and bring the beautiful Budapest Butterfly back home where it belongs.
Thirty-year-old engineer Amira Khan has set one rule for herself: no dating until her grad-school thesis is done. Nothing can distract her from completing a paper that is so good her boss will give her the promotion she deserves when she returns to work in the city. Amira leaves campus early, planning to work in the quiet basement apartment of her family’s house. But she arrives home to find that her grandmother has rented the basement to . . . a barbershop quartet. Seriously? The living situation is awkward: Amira needs silence; the quartet needs to rehearse for a competition; and Duncan, the small-town baritone with the flannel shirts, is driving her up the wall.
As Amira and Duncan clash, she is surprised to feel a simmering attraction for him. How can she be interested in someone who doesn’t get her, or her family’s culture? This is not a complication she needs when her future is at stake. But when intolerance rears its ugly head and people who are close to Amira get hurt, she learns that there is more to Duncan than meets the eye. Now she must decide what she is willing to fight for. In the end, it may be that this small-town singer is the only person who sees her at all.
Koviye- My people call me the Sex God, but I, Koviye of the Fellamana, am so much more. I read their every desire and satisfy them with a mere touch of my hands. I’m sworn to share my powers, and this thing humans call monogamy is biologically impossible for me, or so I thought until I met the human, Jenie, Lieutenant General in the rebellion against our mutual enemy determined to destroy us. Now, as though Jenie has some power over me, I cannot think of touching anyone but her.
Jenie- I’ve dreamt of Koviye every night since I landed on this sex planet where every breath I take is an aphrodisiac to my blood. I am not fully human, I am part alien, and the planet has awakened my body’s instinct to find a mate. The next person I have sex with I will form an attachment for life, which is impossible for the Sex God. I have a rebellion to lead. Mating a polyamorous alien would ruin me. I can never have him, no matter how much I burn for him.
But I need his help. My best friend was taken prisoner by our enemies, the Ten Systems, and the only person with a ship fast enough to save her is Koviye. And all those dreams I’ve been having about him aren’t just dreams, he tells me. They’re real. He can dream walk, so if I can’t have him while I’m awake, at least I can have him in my dreams—as if that will ever be enough.
Is the Dragons’ new wide receiver: A) a fallen NFL star looking for a comeback, B) the sexy player your boss wants you to write an exposé on, or C) the former love of your life?
For Milwaukee Dragons beat reporter Natalie Griffith, he’s clearly D) all of the above. Three years ago, Natalie’s bombshell report on her ex-boyfriend’s off-the-field scandals landed her the job she loves, but she still feels guilty about destroying his career. Now Quinn Lowry’s back, and he’s taking over her locker room, flashing his charming smile and reminding her exactly how hot they were together.
After two years out of the league, Quinn is sober and on the field again. He’s worked his ass off and he’s not going to blow his second chance, not even for the woman who broke his heart—twice. Having Natalie around is the last thing Quinn needs while he’s trying to prove he deserves to stay on the team.
Maybe one final night together will give them both some much-needed closure. But with Natalie’s boss pressuring her for another headline-grabbing scoop, can she admit to herself that she’s falling for Quinn all over again?
Of all the legends of the Old West, few are as stained with ink, blood, and bullets as the violent days of bounty hunter Lou Prophet. But what happens when the hunter becomes the hunted? Heaven knows there’ll be hell to pay . . .
THE DEVIL RIDES AGAIN
After a hard night with his sometime lover Louisa Bonaventure—“the Vengeance Queen”—Lou Prophet decides to cool his heels at a local honky tonk. Things heat up fast when he defends one of the girls from a sadistic brute who also happens to be the deputy sheriff. And now Prophet is running for his life . . .
WITH A BOUNTY ON HIS HEAD
Heading south of the border to Mexico, Prophet isn’t the only man marked for death. The young red-headed pistolero Colter Farrow has made an awful lot of enemies, too—and now practically every bounter hunter south of the Rio Grande is gunning for blood. For money. For fun. And, now, for Lou Prophet . . .
Welcome to BookEnds!
We are so delighted to be welcoming a bunch of new clients this month! To BookEnds: welcome Mike Zimmerman, Kennedy Ryan, Tim Reynolds, Genevieve Jessee, Sue Lynn Tan and Hannah Long! To BookEnds Jr.: Welcome Benjamin Kahn, Vanessa Morales and Danika Stone!
Coming Soon!
Food photographer and founder of the Karista’s Kitchen blog Karista Bennett’s THE OREGON FARM TABLE COOKBOOK, a collection of 100 recipes inspired by Oregon’s farmers, food artisans, and chefs, with original photography shot by the author, to Aurora Bell at Countryman Press, in a nice deal, for publication in fall 2020, by Jessica Alvarez at BookEnds (world).
MBA, CFP, and podcaster Leisa Peterson’s THE MINDFUL MILLIONAIRE: YOUR GUIDE TO FINANCIAL HEALING, WHOLENESS AND ABUNDANCE, about creating financial well-being and living an abundantly satisfying life, to Daniela Rappat St. Martin’s Essentials, in a very nice deal, at auction, by Jessica Faust at BookEnds.
Author/illustrator of UNICORNS ARE JERKS and the TRANS AFFIRMATION COLORING BOOK Theo Lorenz’s BIG TRANS SELF-CARE WORKBOOK, a positivity-driven journal and coloring book for trans and nonbinary people, to Andrew James at John Murray, in a nice deal, in an exclusive submission, by Naomi Davis at BookEnds (world English).
Marketing strategist Eddy Boudel Tan’s AFTER ELIAS, in which a man’s fiancé dies one week before their wedding day, forcing him to question everything he thought he knew about their life together and the illusion of happiness he worked so hard to create, to Rachel Spence at Dundurn Press, in a two-book deal, for publication in September 2020, by Jessica Faust at BookEnds (world English).
Life coach, teacher, and TEDx speaker Chris Tompkins’s MESSAGES FROM THE PLAYGROUND: A PARENT’S GUIDE TO PREVENTING HOMOPHOBIA AND BULLYING, written to help parents understand that the things we leave unsaid about gender and sexuality can shape our children’s understanding of them, and how to use that knowledge to create LGBTQ+ allies and prevent homophobia and bullying, to Suzanne Staszak-Silva at Rowman & Littlefield, in a nice deal, by Jessica Alvarez at BookEnds (world English).
Monthly Spotlight:
Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber (7/16) Barnes & Noble
Heather Webber’s Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe is a captivating blend of magical realism, heartwarming romance, and small-town Southern charm.
Nestled in the mountain shadows of Alabama lies the little town of Wicklow. It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café.
It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother’s estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran away from so many years ago, and the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can’t stop talking about.
As the truth about her past slowly becomes clear, Anna Kate will need to decide if this lone blackbird will finally be able to take her broken wings and fly.
Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
Booking the Crook by Laurie Cass (7/2) Barnes & Noble
It’s all paws on deck as a librarian and her rescue cat track down a killer in the newest book in the national bestselling Bookmobile Cat mystery series.
Minnie Hamilton and her rescue cat, Eddie, cruise around lovely Chilson, Michigan delivering happiness and good reads in their bookmobile. But the feisty librarian is worried that the bookmobile’s future could be uncertain when a new library board chair arrives and doesn’t seem too friendly to her pet project.
Still, she has to put her personal worries aside when she and Eddie are out on their regular route and one of their favorite customers doesn’t turn up to collect her books. Minnie, at Eddie’s prodding, checks on the woman and finds her lying dead in her snow-covered driveway. Now it’s up to Minnie and her friends–feline and otherwise–to find the perpetrator and give them their due.
Killer in the Carriage House by Sheila Connolly (7/9) Barnes & Noble
The second book in the Victorian Village Mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Sheila Connolly!
After fifteen years away, Kate Hamilton never expected to end up back in her hometown of Asheboro, Maryland full time. And she definitely didn’t expect to be leading the charge of recreating the town as a Victorian village and tourist attraction. But as unexpected as the circumstances are, Kate is ready to tackle them.
The town, on the other hand, is going to take some convincing. Ever since Henry Barton’s shovel factory closed down, it’s started to seem like there are more tumbleweeds than tourists rolling down Main Street. Kate’s ideas are good, but ambitious—and her friends and neighbors are worried that finding the money for them would push the town even further into debt.
Luckily, Kate and the handsome historian Joshua Wainwright are two very determined people who may have come up with a solution. The Barton mansion, meant to be the centerpiece of the Victorian village, has proven to be a veritable goldmine of documents about the town’s nineteenth-century history, and Kate is convinced the papers hide something of value. When a dead body turns up in the town library—mere hours before the documents were meant to arrive there themselves—Kate begins to worry that the papers spell danger instead of dollars. It seems that someone doesn’t want these forgotten secrets coming to light, and they’ll do whatever it takes to keep Kate quiet…
The Scandal by Nicola Marsh (7/25) Barnes & Noble
My life is like one of those cheap snow globes my twins collected when they were younger. Shiny and pretty on the outside, blurred beyond recognition when shaken.
Ever since her twin girls left home, Marisa has felt there’s something missing from her life. Her sprawling mansion is no longer filled with laughter and chaos, and she’s desperate to feel needed… and to be distracted from the secret she’s been hiding from her husband for all these years.
Coffee with her best friends might be the only thing holding Marisa together. But Claire and Elly have their own secrets. Like why Claire hasn’t been to work in weeks, or why Elly won’t tell anyone who’s buying her flowers.
When Jodi, a pregnant young girl, turns up at Marisa’s doorstep, Marisa is quick to come to her aid. She sees herself in Jodi and she knows how devoting yourself to looking after others can take up all your time in the most marvelous way.
But Jodi’s arrival quickly pushes everyone’s lies to the surface. The father of her unborn child is someone the women know very well, and Marisa starts to wonder if her obsession with helping Jodi might come at a devastating price…
Death in a Budapest Butterfly by Julia Buckley (7/30) Barnes & Noble
Hana Keller serves up European-style cakes and teas in her family-owned tea house, but when a customer keels over from a poisoned cuppa, Hana and her tea-leaf reading grandmother will have to help catch a killer in the first Hungarian Tea House Mystery from Julia Buckley.
Hana Keller and her family run Maggie’s Tea House, an establishment heavily influenced by the family’s Hungarian heritage and specializing in a European-style traditional tea service. But one of the shop’s largest draws is Hana’s eccentric grandmother, Juliana, renowned for her ability to read the future in the leaves at the bottom of customers’ cups. Lately, however, her readings have become alarmingly ominous and seemingly related to old Hungarian legends…
When a guest is poisoned at a tea event, Juliana’s dire predictions appear to have come true. Things are brought to a boil when Hana’s beloved Anna Weatherley butterfly teacup becomes the center of the murder investigation as it carried the poisoned tea. The cup is claimed as evidence by a handsome police detective, and the pretty Tea House is suddenly endangered. Hana and her family must catch the killer to save their business and bring the beautiful Budapest Butterfly back home where it belongs.
Romance & Women’s Fiction
The Chai Factor by Farah Heron (7/9) Indiebound
Thirty-year-old engineer Amira Khan has set one rule for herself: no dating until her grad-school thesis is done. Nothing can distract her from completing a paper that is so good her boss will give her the promotion she deserves when she returns to work in the city. Amira leaves campus early, planning to work in the quiet basement apartment of her family’s house. But she arrives home to find that her grandmother has rented the basement to . . . a barbershop quartet. Seriously? The living situation is awkward: Amira needs silence; the quartet needs to rehearse for a competition; and Duncan, the small-town baritone with the flannel shirts, is driving her up the wall.
As Amira and Duncan clash, she is surprised to feel a simmering attraction for him. How can she be interested in someone who doesn’t get her, or her family’s culture? This is not a complication she needs when her future is at stake. But when intolerance rears its ugly head and people who are close to Amira get hurt, she learns that there is more to Duncan than meets the eye. Now she must decide what she is willing to fight for. In the end, it may be that this small-town singer is the only person who sees her at all.
Stolen Desire by Robin Lovett (7/15) Barnes & Noble
Koviye- My people call me the Sex God, but I, Koviye of the Fellamana, am so much more. I read their every desire and satisfy them with a mere touch of my hands. I’m sworn to share my powers, and this thing humans call monogamy is biologically impossible for me, or so I thought until I met the human, Jenie, Lieutenant General in the rebellion against our mutual enemy determined to destroy us. Now, as though Jenie has some power over me, I cannot think of touching anyone but her.
Jenie- I’ve dreamt of Koviye every night since I landed on this sex planet where every breath I take is an aphrodisiac to my blood. I am not fully human, I am part alien, and the planet has awakened my body’s instinct to find a mate. The next person I have sex with I will form an attachment for life, which is impossible for the Sex God. I have a rebellion to lead. Mating a polyamorous alien would ruin me. I can never have him, no matter how much I burn for him.
But I need his help. My best friend was taken prisoner by our enemies, the Ten Systems, and the only person with a ship fast enough to save her is Koviye. And all those dreams I’ve been having about him aren’t just dreams, he tells me. They’re real. He can dream walk, so if I can’t have him while I’m awake, at least I can have him in my dreams—as if that will ever be enough.
Home Field Advantage by Liz Lincoln (7/16) Barnes & Noble
Is the Dragons’ new wide receiver: A) a fallen NFL star looking for a comeback, B) the sexy player your boss wants you to write an exposé on, or C) the former love of your life?
For Milwaukee Dragons beat reporter Natalie Griffith, he’s clearly D) all of the above. Three years ago, Natalie’s bombshell report on her ex-boyfriend’s off-the-field scandals landed her the job she loves, but she still feels guilty about destroying his career. Now Quinn Lowry’s back, and he’s taking over her locker room, flashing his charming smile and reminding her exactly how hot they were together.
After two years out of the league, Quinn is sober and on the field again. He’s worked his ass off and he’s not going to blow his second chance, not even for the woman who broke his heart—twice. Having Natalie around is the last thing Quinn needs while he’s trying to prove he deserves to stay on the team.
Maybe one final night together will give them both some much-needed closure. But with Natalie’s boss pressuring her for another headline-grabbing scoop, can she admit to herself that she’s falling for Quinn all over again?
Westerns
The Cost of Dying by Peter Brandvold (7/30) Barnes & Noble
Of all the legends of the Old West, few are as stained with ink, blood, and bullets as the violent days of bounty hunter Lou Prophet. But what happens when the hunter becomes the hunted? Heaven knows there’ll be hell to pay . . .
THE DEVIL RIDES AGAIN
After a hard night with his sometime lover Louisa Bonaventure—“the Vengeance Queen”—Lou Prophet decides to cool his heels at a local honky tonk. Things heat up fast when he defends one of the girls from a sadistic brute who also happens to be the deputy sheriff. And now Prophet is running for his life . . .
WITH A BOUNTY ON HIS HEAD
Heading south of the border to Mexico, Prophet isn’t the only man marked for death. The young red-headed pistolero Colter Farrow has made an awful lot of enemies, too—and now practically every bounter hunter south of the Rio Grande is gunning for blood. For money. For fun. And, now, for Lou Prophet . . .
Welcome to BookEnds!
We are so delighted to be welcoming a bunch of new clients this month!
To BookEnds: welcome Mike Zimmerman, Kennedy Ryan, Tim Reynolds, Genevieve Jessee, Sue Lynn Tan and Hannah Long!
To BookEnds Jr.: Welcome Benjamin Kahn, Vanessa Morales and Danika Stone!
Coming Soon!
Marketing strategist Eddy Boudel Tan’s AFTER ELIAS, in which a man’s fiancé dies one week before their wedding day, forcing him to question everything he thought he knew about their life together and the illusion of happiness he worked so hard to create, to Rachel Spence at Dundurn Press, in a two-book deal, for publication in September 2020, by Jessica Faust at BookEnds (world English).
Life coach, teacher, and TEDx speaker Chris Tompkins’s MESSAGES FROM THE PLAYGROUND: A PARENT’S GUIDE TO PREVENTING HOMOPHOBIA AND BULLYING, written to help parents understand that the things we leave unsaid about gender and sexuality can shape our children’s understanding of them, and how to use that knowledge to create LGBTQ+ allies and prevent homophobia and bullying, to Suzanne Staszak-Silva at Rowman & Littlefield, in a nice deal, by Jessica Alvarez at BookEnds (world English).
Author-illustrator of THE AMAZING AFRICAN ANIMAL ALPHABET Kristina Jones’s SOLOMON THE LION, to Beverley Dodd at Penguin Children’s South Africa, for publication in fall 2020, by Tracy Marchini at BookEnds (world English).
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