Abby Bardi

Filled with soulful humor and quiet pathos, Abby Bardi's boldly drawn first novel marks the debut of a joyfully talented chronicler of the quest for connection in contemporary life. Mary Fred Anderson, raised in an isolated fundamentalist sect whose primary obsessions seem to involve an imminent Apocalypse and the propagation of the name "Fred," is hardly your average fifteen-year-old. She has never watched TV, been to a supermarket, or even read much of anything beyond the inscrutable dogma laid out by the prophet Fred. But this is all before Mary Fred's whole world tilts irrevocably on its axis: before her brothers, Fred and Freddie, take sick and pass on to the place the Reverend Thigpen calls "the World Beyond"; before Mama and Papa are escorted from the Fredian Outpost in police vans; and Mary Fred herself is uprooted and placed in foster care with the Cullison family. It is here, at Alice Cullison's suburban home outside Washington, D.C., where everything really changes -- for all parties involved. Mary Fred's new guardian, Alice, is a large-hearted librarian who, several years after her divorce, can't seem to shake her grief and loneliness. Meanwhile, Alice's daughter Heather, also known as Puffin, buries any hint of her own adolescent loneliness beneath an impenetrable armor of caustic sarcasm, studied apathy, and technicolor hair. And the enigmatic Uncle Roy is Alice's perennially jobless and intensely private brother. As Mary Fred struggles to adjust to the oddities of this alien world, from sordid daytime television and processed food to aromatherapy and transsexuality, she gradually begins to have an unmistakable influence on the lives of her housemates. But when a horrifying act of violence shakes the foundations of Mary Fred's fragile new family, she finds herself forced to confront, painfully, the very nature of the way she was raised. With a knack for laying bare the absurdities of daily life, Abby Bardi captures, with grace and authority, all the ambivalence and emotional uncertainty at the heart of these quirky characters' awakenings.

A Novel

The Book of Fred

Inspiration has struck Julie - all it took was her mother's secret. A moving family story for fans of Liane Moriarty and Anne Tyler. When slacker-chef Julie's mother dies, her older sister Pam finds a cache of old letters from someone who appears to be their mother's former lover. The date stamped on the letters combined with a difficult relationship with her father leads Julie to conclude that the letters' author was a Native American man named J. Fallingwater who must have been her real father. Inspired by her new identity, Julie uses her small inheritance to open a restaurant called Falling Water that is an immediate success, and life seems to be looking up. Her sister Norma is pressuring everyone to sell their mother's house, and her brother Ricky is a loveable drunk who has yet to learn responsibility, but the family seems to be turning a corner. Then tragedy strikes, and Julie and her siblings have to stick together more than ever before. With all the secrets and setbacks, will Julie lose everything she has worked so hard for? PRAISE FOR ABBY BARDI 'The Secret Letters is a book I'd recommend to any reader who enjoys women's fiction' Sue, Goodreads 'You'll like this book [The Secret Letters] if: The thrill of the chase is something you enjoy, followed by a hugely surprising twist!' Pam, Netgalley 'Bardi pushes a lot of hot buttons' Publishers Weekly

THE SECRET LETTERS

Carol Anne Davis

Art Taylor

Brendan DuBois

Amber Sparks

Sherry Harris

Alison McMahan

Donna Andrews

Matthew Iden

Michael Bracken

Barb Goffman

John M. Floyd

David Dean

Elaine Viets

Tara Laskowski

Greg Herren

Christine Poulson

Edith Maxwell

Ricki Thomas

Marilyn Todd

Mindy Quigley

Stacy Woodson

Kathryn O'Sullivan

Emily Hockaday

Adam Meyer

Alan S. Orloff

Jackie Sherbow

1/3 of the author royalties will be donated to the Brain Aneurysm Foundation in Joni Mitchell's name. **WINNER** 2021 Derringer Award for Best Short Story: Stacy Woodson for "River" **NOMINATED** 2021 Anthony Award for Best Anthology **NOMINATED** 2021 International Thriller Awards for Best Short Story: Elaine Viets for "Dog Eat Dog" **NOMINATED** 2021 Macavity Award for Best Short Story: Elaine Viets for "Dog Eat Dog" With nine Grammys, multiple lifetime achievement awards, inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and a Top Ten ranking on Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time,” Joni Mitchell has established herself as one of the most important singer/songwriters, not only of her generation, but in the history of popular music. In this collection, 28 crime writers pay tribute to Joni’s musical legacy with short stories inspired by her lyrics, representing each of her seventeen studio albums from 1968’s Song to a Seagull to 2007’s Shine. Many of the classics are represented here, including “Both Sides, Now” (in the first literary collaboration between Art Taylor and Tara Laskowski, who have each won major awards for their fiction), “Big Yellow Taxi” (by Kathryn O’Sullivan, author of the Colleen McCabe series), and “River” (by Stacy Woodson, winner of the 2019 Readers Choice Award from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine), plus such equally fascinating titles as “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire” (by Donna Andrews, author of the award-winning Meg Lanslow series), “The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines” (by Amber Sparks), and “Ray’s Dad’s Cadillac” (by Michael Bracken).

Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell

The Beat of Black Wings

Lori Roberts Herbst

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