From Jeffrey Blount comes his newest spellbinding novel about a self-identified failure, forced to uncover the wisdom of his past in order to recognize that money can’t solve every problem. Jeffrey is an award-winning author of three novels.
Now available anywhere books are sold, discover why James Henry Ferguson doesn’t belong here. After a highly publicized fall from grace, James Henry Ferguson attempts to flee from the chaos and ends up in a community that has been neglected and ignored by everyone, rural Ham, Mississippi—a place of abject poverty, the neighborhood is commonly referred to as “Around the Way.” When a troubling discovery is made, the entire neighborhood is rocked, and James is forced to confront his own past in order to help the community have a future.
Full of never-ending twists and turns, no one can prepare themselves for the surprises in store. Mr. Jimmy From Around the Way is a story about failure, self-discovery, empowerment, and the possibility of redemption.
“Blount makes us pause to take an up-close look at poverty and racism in our collective backyard. This powerful novel shows the true meaning of ‘it takes a village,’ and that doing the right thing should be color blind.”
Karen White, New York Times Bestselling Author
During a 34-year career at NBC News, Jeffrey directed a decade of Meet The Press, the Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and major special events. He is the first African-American to direct the Today Show. He is also an award-winning documentary scriptwriter for films and interactives that are now on display in the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. A Virginia native, he graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in Communications/Broadcast Journalism. He now lives in Washington, DC.
Beaufort Books is an independent publisher based in New York City. Beaufort publishes a mix of non-fiction and fiction titles. Since 2007, Beaufort has published four New York Times bestsellers.
For more information about Mr. Jimmy from Around the Way, or to arrange an interview with the author, please contact Emma St. John at emma@beaufortbooks.com
Synopsis: As the editorial director of Palm Beach Confidential, Maribelle Walker knows what lurks beneath the glittering facade of the moneyed elite on Florida’s most glamorous coast. Or does she?
When her adored and impressive husband, Samuel, dies suddenly, the secrets and lies between Maribelle and her sisters rise to the surface. Compounding the anguish, the authenticity of their socially ambitious mother and lavish lifestyle of mansions, privilege and couture clothes is thrown into doubt.
As their carefully constructed image unravels, each sister realizes she must fend for herself. The pathway out is steep and worth any risk. Until the winner takes all.
Critique:A carefully crafted, original, inherently riveting, and impressively compelling tale of deception and family loyalty, “Maribelle’s Shadow” by author Susannah Marren is a riveting read that will be of immense interest to fans of contemporary women’s fiction. While especially and unreservedly recommended for community library Contemporary General Fiction collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that “Maribelle’s Shadow” is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.49).
Editorial Note: Susannah Marren (http://www.susanshapirobarash.com) is the author of Between the Tides, A Palm Beach Wife and A Palm Beach Scandal and the pseudonym for Susan Shapiro Barash, who has written over a dozen nonfiction books, including Tripping the Prom Queen, Toxic Friends, You’re Grounded Forever, But First Let’s Go Shopping, and A Passion for More. For over twenty years she has taught gender studies at Marymount Manhattan College and has guest taught creative nonfiction at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. Presently she is teaching at the Westport Writers Workshop.
Tullan Holmqvist, one-half of the writing duo that brought you Lacie’s Secrets and The Woman in the Park, discusses the trials and triumphs of collaborating.
I love questions. And I am usually the one asking them. It’s just my nature. I am curious and have always wanted to figure things out, why people do what they do, what makes them tick, and how things are done. So when I am asked a question, I usually have to take time to really think about it. When people ask about the writing collaboration in creating our thrillers The Woman in the Park and Lacie’s Secrets with Teresa Sorkin, I have to laugh a little.
When I was a kid, I hated having to collaborate. At school, I dreaded the group projects where you had to “find someone to work with.” If I could, I would just do them myself. I’m independent, I like quick solutions, less discussion, and more doing. As a child, my family and I moved every few years, and so I found myself in a new country, not knowing the language, the local ways, or the rules. Born in Sweden to two adventurous parents, I went to nursery school in Nigeria, elementary school in Austria, middle school in Italy, and high school at a French school back in Sweden. As a first grader in a new country and confronted with a language I didn’t speak, I had to find other ways to understand what was going on, picking up on body language, and visual, energetic clues.
When I was ten years old, I got my first sweet taste of the theater when I was cast as the lead in a school play in Rome. I experienced the spell of the stage, the thrill of getting a laugh or a tear from the audience, and, most of all, the warm embrace of the community created in the theater. I discovered that collaborating can be exhilarating and can add up to so much more than each individual. Magic can blossom from a creative coming together with a common purpose. And that’s what I try to keep in mind – the goal of creating a story that can be shared.
Stories often emerge out of curiosity and a wish to understand others. Our psychological thriller The Woman in the Park was born from an interesting character, a woman in a park we both had seen independently, and had piqued our interest. She was elegant and always alone, seemingly talking to herself, lost in her own world. We took aspects of that character, planted the seed of our story, and let it grow. We added more characters, worked through the story and its arcs, and took turns writing and editing.
Together, we discussed scene organization and character development, and then let the writing take over, giving each other space to create.
Our second collaborative thriller, Lacie’s Secrets, grew out of a “What if?” scenario, fantasizing an actual situation – a holiday week at an isolated villa with a group of friends where something goes horribly wrong – and letting our imaginations wander. In the actual creation, the excitement came from seeing where the story and the characters lead us. Lacie’s Secrets has been described as a “riveting thriller” reminiscent of classic suspense novels (by Publishers Weekly), and Big Little Lies meets The Haunting of Hill House at a seaside estate in Maine.
Collaborating takes openness in communication, active listening, and constant compromise. While muddling through the messy forest of details, collaboration requires keeping the goal of the story in mind, finding creative solutions, and abiding by the golden rule of improvisation – “Yes, and…”
Lacie’s Secrets and The Woman in the Park are published by Beaufort Books. www.tullanh.com
The sounds of feet clopping down the hallway. The smell of pencil shavings and eraser marks. The taste of metallic water fountains. You know what this means – school is back in session. Bilbeau Baggins here, your friendly neighborhood teacher & summer intern, checking in to provide you and your family with your essential back-to-school reading lists.
Before school officially starts, it might behoove you to brush up on your grammar skills. A good place to start is A Few Words About Words by Joe Diorio. The accessibility of this review guide is what really makes it stand out. Based on the widely-read newsletter, Diorio’s book will have you familiar and confident with the intricacies of the English language in no time. Click on the picture below for more information!
While we’re on the topic of brushing up, why not stop by the annals of geography? Jeff Alt’s Bubba Jones series is perfect for your adventurous middle-schooler. The most recent novel in the series features none other than the Grand Canyon, where your kiddos will explore the past, present, and future without having to leave their school district. Imagine how impressive their summer vacation stories (not to mention reading logs) will be!
A fun history class pick is Dennis Duncan’s recent release Index, the History of: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age. This one really is, as its subtitle suggests, a grand adventure for anyone bookish enough to go on it. Not relegated to the index alone, this written history details everything from the printing press to page numbers. I highly recommend the audiobook version, which you can listen to on the school bus while feeling super sophisticated.
And if you have (or are) a high-schooler looking for adventure, try Andrew Smith’s young adult award-winner Ghost Medicine, about a group of friends who need to get out of trouble on their small-town ranch. A sort of young adult western Ghost Medicine will have your blood pumping, and is the perfect story to get you back in the groove of early mornings. It was one of my summer’s top reads, and is one not to be missed!
And finally, while it’s a nice sentiment that we’ll all feel great to be back (or have our kids back) in school, there’s a little piece of all of us that will miss summer vacation. The cure for this particular nostalgia is Camp Boyfriend by R.K. Rock. Featuring an underdog triumph and a charming teenage romance, this book series is sure to make your first few weeks back more bearable. Not only is this the perfect book for adults to look back on their glory days, it’s also the book your student will want to sneak-read under their desk.
Here at Beaufort, we love seeing folks of all ages preparing for the upcoming school year. We wish you the best of luck on your back-to-school shopping, organizing, and most importantly, reading.
April is here, readers! With Spring springing (or just around the corner, depending on where you’re reading from), there is a lot to look forward to this month here at Beaufort Books. The biggest being the publication of our newest suspense novel, Lacie’s Secrets! The cinematic and psychological thriller publishes April 12th, 2022.
While April showers bring May flowers, Beau Weasley has compiled a list of similar thrilling novels to read on a rainy day to prep for the dark twists Lacie’s Secrets will enthrall you with.
To set the scene, reminiscent of classic suspense novels, Lacie’s Secrets is the latest psychological thriller from writing duo Teresa Sorkin and Tullan Holmqvist.
For the past 18 years, Kate Williams has tried to forget that fateful summer, the summer that ripped her family apart. But when her estranged mother unexpectedly dies and Kate inherits Villa Magda, the family’s summer home on the Maine coast, Kate decides that enough time has passed. With the help of her husband, her son, and their close group of friends, Kate decides to face the past and go back to Villa Magda for one last trip.
But the sprawling, ocean-side house isn’t as picturesque as it seems, and as the week goes on, inexplicable incidents and suspicious visitors begin to torment Kate, threatening to expose her deepest secrets.
The closer Kate gets to learning the truth about what happened that summer, the faster she realizes the house might be holding more secrets than she can handle.
As tensions run high and friendships unravel, Kate starts to question her decision to return to Villa Magda. But when tragedy strikes and a body is found floating in the pool, questions arise that demand answers: What really happened at Villa Magda 18 years ago? How much did Kate know? And how can the house be stopped from claiming its next victim? Set on a remote and gorgeous Maine estate, Lacie’s Secrets is an exciting and cinematic psychological thriller with surprising twists that will keep the reader guessing until the very last page.
When Manhattanite Sarah Rock meets a mysterious and handsome stranger in the park, she is drawn to him. Sarah wants to get away from her daily routine, her cheating husband and his crazy mistress, her frequent sessions with her heartless therapist, and her moody children. But nothing is as it seems. Her life begins to unravel when a woman from the park goes missing and Sarah becomes the prime suspect in the woman’s disappearance. Her lover is nowhere to be found, her husband is suspicious of her, and her therapist is talking to the police. With no one to trust, Sarah must face her inner demons and uncover the truth to prove her innocence. A thriller that questions what is real-with its shocking twists, secrets, and lies—The Woman in the Park will leave readers breathless.
When Manhattanite Sarah Rock meets a mysterious and handsome stranger in the park, she is drawn to him. Sarah wants to get away from her daily routine, her cheating husband and his crazy mistress, her frequent sessions with her heartless therapist, and her moody children. But nothing is as it seems. Her life begins to unravel when a woman from the park goes missing and Sarah becomes the prime suspect in the woman’s disappearance. Her lover is nowhere to be found, her husband is suspicious of her, and her therapist is talking to the police. With no one to trust, Sarah must face her inner demons and uncover the truth to prove her innocence. A thriller that questions what is real-with its shocking twists, secrets, and lies—The Woman in the Park will leave readers breathless.
When Manhattanite Sarah Rock meets a mysterious and handsome stranger in the park, she is drawn to him. Sarah wants to get away from her daily routine, her cheating husband and his crazy mistress, her frequent sessions with her heartless therapist, and her moody children. But nothing is as it seems. Her life begins to unravel when a woman from the park goes missing and Sarah becomes the prime suspect in the woman’s disappearance. Her lover is nowhere to be found, her husband is suspicious of her, and her therapist is talking to the police. With no one to trust, Sarah must face her inner demons and uncover the truth to prove her innocence. A thriller that questions what is real-with its shocking twists, secrets, and lies—The Woman in the Park will leave readers breathless.
When a bomb rips the façade off the Kensington Hotel in Tokyo, dozens are killed and injured while one man walks calmly away from the wreckage, a coy smile playing on his lips. Former Army intelligence officer Dan Reilly, now an international hotel executive with high-level access to the CIA, makes it his mission to track him down. He begins a jet-setting search for answers as the clock ticks down to a climactic event that threatens NATO and the very security of member nations. Reilly begins mining old contacts and resources in an effort to delve deeper into the motive behind these attacks and fast. Through his connections, he learns that the Tokyo bomber is not acting alone. But the organization behind the perpetrator is not who they expect. Facilitated by the official government from a fearsome global superpower, the implications and reasons for these attacks are well beyond anything Reilly or his sources in the CIA and State Department could have imagined, and point not to random acts of terror, but calculated acts of war. RED Hotel is an incredibly timely globe-trotting thriller that’s fiction on the edge of reality. The second book in the series, Red Deception, was released in 2021!
Seeking Hyde sticks closely to the biographical record as Robert Louis Stevenson struggles to write another book to be the successor to Treasure Island. After the infamous two characters, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, take form in a dream, Stevenson writes passionately for three days, convinced that he has crafted his masterpiece. His wife Fanny, a willful and demanding gypsy, offers a scathing critique, obliging him to start over from the beginning. While the revised tale is published to great acclaim, it is ultimately blamed for inspiring a gruesome series of murders in London’s East End. From that tragic historical irony, Seeking Hyde moves beyond the actual story of how Jekyll and Hyde came to be to explore the realm of “what if?” Desperate to address his own guilt, Stevenson enters the dark underworld of Victorian London. As he follows a twisted path through this midnight landscape, the author-turned-detective wrestles with the social demons of prostitution, police corruption, and the hypocrisy of powerful men—ultimately coming face-to-face with Jack the Ripper himself.
A secret destroys a man’s perfect life and sends him on a collision course with a deadly conspiracy in this shocking thriller. The Stranger appears out of nowhere, perhaps in a bar, or a parking lot, or at the grocery store. Their identity is unknown. Their motives are unclear. Their information is undeniable. Then they whisper a few words in your ear and disappear, leaving you picking up the pieces of your shattered world… Adam Price has a lot to lose: a comfortable marriage to a beautiful woman, two wonderful sons, and all the trappings of the American Dream: a big house, a good job, a seemingly perfect life.
Then he runs into the Stranger. When he learns a devastating secret about his wife, Corinne, he confronts her, and the mirage of perfection disappears as if it never existed at all. Soon Adam finds himself tangled in something far darker than even Corinne’s deception, and realizes that if he doesn’t make exactly the right moves, the conspiracy he’s stumbled into will not only ruin lives–it will end them.
Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. If he’s lucky, he’ll get a job at the hospital cafeteria. If he’s extra lucky, he’ll earn more than minimum wage. But Ray has a gift and a dream–he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music. When he discovers that his great-great-grandfather’s beat-up old fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach. Together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition–the Olympics of classical music–the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Ray will have to piece together the clues to recover his treasured Strad … before it’s too late. With the descendants of the man who once enslaved Ray’s great-great-grandfather asserting that the instrument is rightfully theirs, and with his family staking their own claim, Ray doesn’t know who he can trust—or whether he will ever see his beloved violin again.
May flowers can’t come fast enough, and neither can Lacie’s Secrets, but there’s nothing better than a good book while we wait.
