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Welcome to the Mid-November edition of MWPA's Ex Libris Maine.
This edition offers new books by Maine authors in the categories of Fiction, Crime Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Memoir, and Young Adults/Young Readers.
For more information on any title below, simply click on the book's cover.
In the world of theater, the script is everything. Jessie Cruz is no playwright. However, when her roommate, Zoe, dies suddenly, leaving her life’s work unfinished, Jessie decides to make it her mission to complete it. Unfortunately, Jessie has turned into a bit of a hermit. She’s stuck. Literally and emotionally. And she’s about to get evicted from her apartment unless she finds a roommate, STAT. Enter Ivan Christansen. The mysterious hottie friend of her overhelpful neighbor who needs a place to crash for a few months. Having no choice but to accept the cash, Jessie lets him stay. But once she finds out who Ivan really is, a world-famous actor, that’s when the curtain comes down on her reality. Was everything they went through together an act too? Waiting on the Words is the second stand-alone book in the Red Curtain Romance series.
Meet the dark lady who haunts the dreams of a recovering alcoholic, a fussy gardener with a secret past, a greedy lawyer who gets a Thanksgiving comeuppance, a Gulf War veteran whose combat injury has left him without a conscience, and a girl mildly allergic to sunlight who returns for her tenth school reunion with a unique plan for revenge. Discover how a spooked partridge saves a man’s life, a teen mountain biker suffers a serious injury in a thunderstorm, and a young woman returns to the hardscrabble town she left under unfortunate circumstances. You’ll also meet a man whose new neighbors disrupt his solitude with a demented turkey and a girl bullied because of her body who eventually turns that shame into a unique career.
The Buoyant Letters of Mimsy Bell
Laurel Dodge
Littoral Books
At the age of eighty, after a life of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, rock star Mimsy Bell has returned to her home town in western Maine to find herself a suitable gravesite and to have it out at last with the river that killed her first love and has haunted her all her life. Armed with a collection of small antique bottles and a sharp pen, Mimsy records her daily life in letters to her dead lover, bottles and tosses them into the river, an eccentricity that soon attracts a number of new admirers, and initiates a series of life-changing adventures. "A delightful, insightful book... The Buoyant Letters of Mimsy Bell is a special creation, a story I will eagerly revisit." —Gerry Boyle, author of the Jack McMorrow Mysteries.
Set in the early days of the Trump presidency, A Symmetry of Husbands probes the inner workings of marriage and long friendship. As she grieves the death of her friend, Megan, Abigail struggles with complicated feelings of lingering desire for Megan’s husband, and guilt over their affair. Abigail also entertains a growing suspicion of the circumstances of Megan’s death, and her own possible complicity.
When Lorraine, a recent college graduate, starts work at a residential treatment center for troubled teens, she quickly finds herself absorbed into a world very distant from the idyllic lobsters-and-lighthouses fairy tale she had always associated with Maine. Instead, she discovers a landscape of abused and angry teenagers, illicit romance, and danger. Still, she grows to love the place and its people until events shatter her confidence in the world and her own morality. Years later, disheartened and battered by life, Lorraine is unexpectedly drawn back to that world to confront the person she was, the choices she made, and the bitter ghosts that still haunt her.
Aviator Charles Lindbergh’s "aw-shucks" schtick is a mask for a monster who destroys strangers and loved ones with equal indifference. Hunter makes a fortune exposing fraudsters. When he stumbles on the corpse of his German teacher on his old reformatory grounds, he’s certain he is onto something evil. Unsure who his father is, Hunter is no angel himself. A “black ops” military officer, he knows how to get the job done. Nightmares, hallucinations, and fragments of grisly memories knock on the door of his subconscious. Even the stage prop “Old Sparky” in his new lover’s lurid Grand Guignol connects a deadly circuit in Hunter. Brainy Pia offers a path out of his disintegration. Traveling the globe—Paris, Berlin, Geneva, and London—Hunter can’t resist the magnetic scene south of New York where the Crime of the Century played out. Hunter is headed for hell–unless he can redeem himself with one final flight.
Based in part on the author's own spiritual journey, Being Free: On the Inside is a magical realism story of hope and redemption. Corey Astin is a lawyer who will spend the next six years in prison. The nature of his crime makes him an instant target for other inmates. County jail offered only a tiny preview of the harsh environment in a maximum-security state prison. In a poorly-heated cell block, knowing only one person, Corey struggles to survive. Then meets Dalton, a man who becomes his spiritual mentor and friend. Dalton teaches Corey to defend himself against the many evil energies hunting him by showing him how to "see" the energy in others. The means by which Corey finds the courage to change and everything he discovers along the way about the magical world which Dalton shares with him create a captivating and intriguing journey.
When Ian Fritz joined the Air Force, he was sent to the elite Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, to learn Dari and Pashto, the main languages of Afghanistan. By 2011, Fritz becomes an airborne cryptologic linguist aboard low-flying gunships. He monitors ground communications and determines in real time which Afghans are Taliban and which are innocent civilians. This eavesdropping is critical to supporting Special Forces, but there is no training to counter the emotional complexity that comes with listening to people’s most intimate conversations. Over two tours, Fritz listens to the Taliban for hundreds of hours, night and day, in moments of peace, and in the middle of battles. What he hears teaches him about the people of Afghanistan, the war, and himself. What the Taliban Told Me is a brilliant, intimate coming-of-age memoir and a reckoning with our twenty years of war in Afghanistan.
We're Going Home: A True Story of Life and Death
Cynthia Thayer
Islandport Press
They were an unlikely pair: a “fast and frantic” woman and a steady, “pickin’ at it” man. And even though both had been raised in cities and knew nothing about farming, Bill and Cynthia Thayer moved to Maine, started an organic farm, and made it work for more than forty years. Then a mysterious disaster struck and Bill was found lying in the road. In We’re Going Home, Cynthia relates the aftermath of the accident, interspersed with recollections of her life with her beloved “Farmer Bill,” from their first meeting to their final goodbye—and her life beyond.
Christopher McMillan no longer holds his gaming skills in high regard. It’s not like he’s fighting real wars like his father did before disappearing with his special forces unit in Afghanistan. Leading his friends in multiplayer game “missions” is just a way of escaping reality. Until the alien armada attack. In 24 hours, they eliminate 99 percent of Earth’s population and vaporize our infrastructure. A reluctant Chris must assume a crucial leadership role in a survivor camp, scavenging for food and supplies while evading alien drones hunting those left alive. The aliens aren’t his only problem. Former gaming rival and camp nemesis Zane Hacker plots revenge for imagined wrongs. Their next battle won’t unfold in cyberspace. Can Chris stop his adversary, exploit a weakness discovered in the aliens’ defenses, and unravel the mystery surrounding his father’s disappearance? With human survival at stake, the answers may only be found in space.
SUBMISSIONS If you are a current Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance member, and you would like to announce your new book in ExLibris Maine, click HERE. If you are not a member, click HERE to learn more about our member benefits.
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