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Light of Day

The Louisiana Crime Syndicate. Software that threatens national security. A vengeful hitman. Jack Patterson is faced with a case determined to see him lose—either in court or his life—in the sixth novel from former Associate Attorney General of the United States and award-winning author, Webb Hubbell.

Every now and then, more frequently than he cares to admit, antitrust lawyer Jack Patterson gets involved in a case more complicated, more dangerous, than just defending big companies who’ve run afoul. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s about to take on a new client: the grandson of the head of the Louisiana crime syndicate in New Orleans.

Young David is a computer genius who has invented a software program considered to be a serious threat to both national security and most major technology companies. So when the FBI throws him in the DC jail without bond, and a conglomerate of tech companies sue him in Federal Court, Jack figures he can at least get the young man out on bail and be home for the weekend.

He couldn’t be more wrong. Before he can even meet with the client, his bodyguard is drugged and Jack is left for dead in the swamps of Cajun country. He must make his way back to DC, wage a battle in court, and dodge a hitman who lurks around every corner. Can Jack save his client and overcome those who will go to any length to prevent the software from seeing the light of day?

Author: Webb Hubbell

Hardcover: $24.95 (ISBN: 9780825309403)

Ebook: $14.99 (ISBN: 9780825308222)

FICTION / Thrillers / Political

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The Seafarer’s Secret

Secrets are revealed. Lies are exposed. And in order to have a future, William and Eva will have to delve into the past.

William Templeton, widower and police chief of Eden, North Carolina is working the scene of a local woman’s drowning when the body is found with an old gold coin in her pocket – identical to a coin that was discovered on Catherine’s body, his estranged wife, over a year ago. Catherine’s case, originally deemed a tragic accident, has been reopened, forcing William to step down as police chief.

Historian and Blackbeard expert, Eva Knightly, is brought into the investigation to help identify the coins and can’t understand why her good friend Catherine never mentioned anything about it. When more coins surface at a local church, Eva and William know it’s more than mere coincidence. With the entire town whispering about Blackbeard, cursed coins, and lost treasure, it becomes hard to separate what is true and what is a myth.

The Seafarer’s Secret is a thrilling cinematic mystery featuring the exigent slow-burning romance between William and Eva as they work together to reveal the secrets and lies of Eden, North Carolina. Though, in order to have a future, they’ll have to look deep into the past to keep from being a modern-day killer’s next victim.

Author: Carol Ann Collins

Paperback: $17.95 (ISBN: 9780825310287)

Ebook: $9.99 (ISBN: 9780825309076)

FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Amateur Sleuth

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Robert’s Rules

As the new Chairman of the Town Board, Fiona Campbell finds that life has become a series of petty squabbles, dull meetings, and papers everywhere, all complicated by her guardianship of the as yet unidentified screaming goat. In desperation, she hires an unknown newcomer, the compulsively orderly Oliver Robert, to run her office and keep her organized.

Roger’s fame as an idiosyncratic yoga practitioner continues to spread, and he and Elisabeth are looking for a new location to accommodate the growing crowds at their tiny coffee shop. Ferry Captain and poet Pali has an offer to leave the Island, and wonders whether it is time to introduce his son, Ben, to the larger world. Meanwhile, the Fire Chief is threatening to quit, and Fiona finds herself faced with an Island controversy and an unwanted set of new responsibilities.

As Pete Landry prepares to leave for one of his regular journeys, Fiona begins to suspect that his life may be more than it seems. His secrecy raises doubts in her mind about whether he can be trusted, and their breakup plunges her into grief.  The reliable Jim, always nearby, is all too ready to offer comfort.

Robert’s Rules is Book Three in the award-winning North of the Tension Line series, set on a remote island in the Great Lakes. Called a modern-day Jane Austen, author J.F. Riordan creates wry, engaging tales and vivid characters that celebrate the well-lived life of the ordinary man and woman.

About J.F. Riordan

Hardcover: $24.95 (ISBN: 9780825308772)

E-book: $16.99 (ISBN: 9780825307676)

Contemporary Fiction

400 pages

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The Embassy

In a distant war, in a city under siege, U.S. Ambassador John W. Blaney faced a terrible choice: abandon the mission or risk the lives of his team to give diplomacy a last chance…

In 2003, Liberia was one of the most dangerous and isolated countries in the world. President Charles Taylor, a feared warlord, presided over a fractured state and countless unruly militiamen and child soldiers as two rebel armies marched to depose him. When an international court indicted Taylor for war crimes, the rebels attacked the capital and months of vicious fighting ensued.

With Washington split on how to respond and pressure mounting to shutter the chancery once and for all, the Ambassador kept the flag flying. The U.S. embassy served as a rallying point for international efforts to save Liberia. West African peacekeepers backed by U.S. forces prepared to deploy, but a final, merciless attack by the rebels left the capital split and Taylor’s forces dug in for a last, blood-soaked stand. With no margin for error, the Ambassador and his team made three forays across the front lines in a desperate bid to broker a local ceasefire that would lift the siege, stop the killing, and give space for peace to take root.

The Embassy is a graphic, cinematic retelling of the harrowing climax of the Liberian civil war and the U.S. and West African role in ending it. Through interviews with the Ambassador and key members of the country team, as well as with peacekeepers, U.S. troops, relief workers, foreign correspondents, senior Liberian officials and rebel leaders, Dante Paradiso reconstructs the violence and chaos of those times to create an enduring portrait of a U.S. embassy under fire and the kind of daring frontline diplomacy that can change the fate of a nation.

 The views expressed in this book are the author’s own and not necessarily those of the United States Department of State or the United States Government.

About: Dante Paradiso

Hardcover: $26.95 (ISBN: 9780825308253)

E-book: $14.95 (ISBN: 9780825307546)

History/World

320 pages

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The Adventures of Bubba Jones #2

After Inheriting legendary time travel skills from their Papa Lewis, Tommy “Bubba Jones,” and his sister Jenny “Hug-a-Bug,” embark on a Shenandoah National Park adventure to solve a family mystery. From the moment they reach the park entrance, the excitement begins. As they follow the clues, they travel back in time hundreds, thousands, and millions of years and come face to face with extinct creatures, endangered species, the areas first inhabitants, past presidents, former park residents, and some of the park founders. They travel deep down into mountain hollows, high up onto Talus mountain slopes, and discover more about the Shenandoah than they ever imagined. Explore the Shenandoah with Bubba Jones and family in a whole new way.

About: Jeff Alt, Hannah Tuohy

Paperback: $9.99 (ISBN: 0825308313)

E-book: $9.99 (ISBN: 0825307589)

Juvenile Fiction/Action & Adventure

Age range: 8-12

200 pages

The Adventures of Bubba Jones #2 – Discussion-QuestionsDownload

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Garth Williams: The Unsung Hero of my Childhood

Monday, June 20th, 2016

On June 3rd, The New Yorker published an article on Beaufort’s new biography of Garth Williams, the largely unknown hand behind the illustrations of many children’s classics. You might not know Williams’ name (I didn’t) but you undoubtedly know the stories he helped give us, including Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, and Little House on the Prairie. In Garth Williams, American Illustrator: A Life, Elizabeth K Wallace and James D. Wallace tackle what Williams himself struggled to do: to write the story of a life that spanned seven countries, four marriages, and several professions, but has remained undiscovered by the public.

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The New Yorker article highlights the depth of Williams’ commitment to the integrity and nuance of the stories he illustrated, and his desire to convey a sense of truth. In his rendering of Stuart Little, the article remarks, “Stuart was both mouselike and dapper, anthropomorphized in a way that expressed the dignity and absurdity of the human condition and the animal condition alike”. What more can we ask for from a glimpse of truth than dignity and absurdity?gw2

With animal characters serving as human analogues, Williams gave them life in a way that was never reductive; these characters felt real sorrow, real joy, and allowed us as readers to do the same. Even as children, we have keen eyes for cheap shots, and no young reader is going to be moved by some dopey, grinning caricature. “No way José,” they would think, “that mouse is nothing like me! He’s not real, he’s a dumb rodent meant to teach me to behave.” But in Williams’ subtle hands, the likes of Wilbur, Stuart, Charlotte, and countless others are transformed into complicated, achingly real characters that seem more like friends.gw3

Williams’ drawings elicit a nostalgia that spans generations—his art passed down from its original young audience to their eventual children, preserved in that special medium of the bedtime story. I found myself shockingly moved by the drawings presented in Garth Williams, American Illustrator: A Life; they catapulted me back to memories I hadn’t touched in years. “Oh man, he really was terrific,” I thought, wiping my eyes discreetly as I poured over the book’s images of Wilbur. I watched as my past sprung up to meet me, I saw history wink and skip, and found myself grateful to a man I had never known I cared for, grateful to a talent to whom I never knew I owed so much.

 

–Some Intern

Reviews for A Game of Inches

Tuesday, May 31st, 2016

One of the best parts of making a book is hearing the great things people say about it. When someone likes your book, it makes all that hard work worth it. That’s why we’re excited to have our first review for A Game of Inches, the third book in Webb Hubbell’s Jack Patterson thriller series. You can read the full review by Dannye Powell of the Charlotte Observer here.

“So it’s been with great pleasure and, I admit, a bit of a surprise, to have discovered with his first Jack Patterson thriller, that Hubbell can spin out a darned good story. His latest, another Jack Patterson thriller, is just out. I was delighted to start A Game of Inches and, as with his previous Ginger Snaps, to fall right into its intrigue.”

And there’s even more from radio host and sports writer Paul Finebaum. Paul currently produces ESPN’s The Paul Finebaum Show, and he’s a leading authority on southeastern sports. Here’s what he has to say about Webb Hubbell and his book:

“Webb Hubbell has quickly become one of my favorite authors. A Game of Inches was simply spectacular. It grabbed me from the opening sentence and my only disappointment at the end is now having to wait a year until the next one. A compelling and gripping read that easily puts Hubbell in the front row of a must-read legal thrillers along with John Grisham, Scott Turow, and Richard North Patterson. I’ve read all of Webb Hubbell’s books and this is easily my favorite. You will not put this book down.”

A Game of Inches can be pre-ordered here.

Playboy Swings

Playboy—the magazine, the empire, the lifestyle—is one of the world’s best-known brands. Since the launch of Playboy magazine in 1953, two elements have been remarkably consistent: the first, obviously, is the celebration of nubile, female flesh. The second, readers may be surprised to learn, is Playboy’s involvement in the music scene. The Playboy experience was never just about sex but about lifestyle. Music—particularly the finest jazz, a personal passion of Hefner’s—has always been an essential component of that lifestyle.

Playboy Swings focuses specifically on Playboy’s involvement in the music scene, its impact on popular entertainment (and vice versa), and the fabulous cadre of performers who took to the stages of the mythic Playboy Clubs and Jazz Festivals. Throughout Playboy Swings, Farmer demonstrates how Playboy helped change the world through music by integrating the TV shows, festivals, and the clubs.

Complied through interviews with hundreds of people who were on the scene throughout Playboy’s rise, fall, and on-going renaissance, Playboy Swings carries readers on a seductive journey through the history of the empire—all the while focusing on the musical entertainment that made it unique. Hef’s personal passion for music—and his belief in it as a cornerstone of the Playboy ethos—has expressed itself in a wide range of media over Playboy’s 60-year history, and all of it comes alive in these pages.

Farmer takes the reader from the inception of the Playboy empire through the 1959 jazz festival, to the opening of club after club. With approximately 60 black and white photos, and a complete Playboy music reference guide, readers will think of music, not just Bunnies, when thinking about Playboy. Throughout the book, it is the artists who do most of the talking—and they have a lot to say about the golden era of Playboy entertainment.

About: Patty Farmer

Hardcover: $24.95 (ISBN: 9780825307881)

Ebook: $4.99 (ISBN: 9780825307171)

Popular Culture

320 pages

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Former Men in Blue, John Cutter and Robert Nivakoff Debut Crime Thriller, The Squad Room

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016

“Based on the experiences of police chiefs John Cutter and Robert Nivakoff, The Squad Room is an intriguing murder mystery.” ~ ForeWord Reviews

(New York, NY): John Cutter and Robert Nivakoff started their careers as police officers and worked their way to hold high level positions in the police department. With a combined total of seven decades of service, Cutter and Nivakoff took their years of experience and wrote the chilling page turner, The Squad Room (Beaufort Books, April 2016).

The Squad Room gives readers a genuine insider’s view of a detective squad room in the NYPD and shows what it is like to handle real life and death situations every day. It brings a human face to the multitude of public servants, the nameless legion we only read about in the tabloids when something horrific happens.

The Squad Room follows Captain William “Bill” Morrison, a man haunted by his own demons. Morose, a borderline alcoholic, he finds a second family among the members of his task force, the only men and women as committed to the brotherhood as he is.

The face of unspeakable horror can come in many forms.  In The Squad Room a serial killer is terrorizing New York City, targeting young, helpless women. Morrison and his team are racing against time to identify and bring justice to the murderer. Meanwhile, the task force runs up against villains inside the system: a Chief and a Detective who got where they are by political maneuvering, rather than skill and merit.

With the body count up to five and a possible copycat killer on the loose, The Squad Room will keep readers on the edge of their seat until the very last page!

The Audacity of Goats

All is not well north of the tension line. A series of unsettling nighttime incidents have left the islanders alternating between nervousness and annoyance. Are these incidents simply an elaborate teenage prank, or is there a malevolent stranger lurking on the island?

Meanwhile, the out-of-state owners of a new goat farm seem to consider themselves the self-proclaimed leaders of the island, Pali the ferry captain is troubled by his own unique version of writer’s block, and Ben, the captain’s ten year-old son, appears to be hiding something. But it is only when the imperturbable Lars Olufsen announces his retirement from office, and Stella subsequently declares her intention to run, that the islanders realize that life as they know is about to change for the worse. Fiona must decide whether it is time to leave the island for good or to make another reckless gamble.

The Audacity of Goats, is the continuing tale of Fiona Campbell and her reluctant adventures among the pleasure, mystery, and exasperation of life on a small island in Door County, Wisconsin.

About: J. F. Riordan

Hardcover: $24.95 (ISBN: 9780825308260)

Paperback: $16.95 (ISBN: 9780825308475)

E-book: $24.95 (ISBN: 9780825307553)

Contemporary Fiction

450 pages

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Garth Williams, American Illustrator

Open the pages of so many children’s classics, “Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, Mister Dog, The Cricket in Time’s Square, The Rescuers, the Little House books,” and you will see page after page of the artistry that brought those stories to life. And behind the illustrations sparking the imagination of generations was a man who had an extraordinary existence.

Born in New York City in 1912, Williams was educated in England and trained on the continent. After enduring the Blitz in London, he returned to New York, where he encountered the vibrant art and cultural scene of the 1940s. He made his home first in New York, then Aspen, and finally Guanajuato, Mexico, and was married four times. During his life he met people who shaped and exemplified the twentieth century: Winston Churchill, E. B. White, Ursula Nordstrom, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and countless more.

This is a biography of Garth Williams as an artist and an illustrator. It is the story of how his journey led him from winning sculpture awards at the Royal College of Art in London, to capturing the essence of frontier life in the American West, to rendering the humanity of beloved animal characters. This biography also explores the historical context that affected Williams’ life and art, both in the old world and the new. Against the frenetic pace of postwar suburbanization, Williams’ illustrations nurtured a connection with the animal world and with a vanishing agrarian life. By tapping into American themes, Williams spoke to a postwar yearning for simplicity.

Complete with more than 60 illustrations, this is the first full biography of Garth Williams written with the help and cooperation of his family.

About: Elizabeth K. Wallace, James D. Wallace

Hardcover: $26.95 (ISBN: 9780825307959)

E-book: $19.95 (ISBN: 9780825307249)

Biography

375 pages

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The Conjured Woman

In the early 19th Century, Adelaide Lenormand, a fortune teller popular with the Paris elite, conjures a golem for Napoleon Bonaparte during a dinner party. But something goes wrong. It looks nothing like the manservant she promised. Even worse, immediately after it arrives, the golem steals the Emperor’s Emerald Scarab from a chain around his neck and mysteriously disappears.

Minutes later in London, Elise Dubois, an ER nurse from Tucson, is found sprawled in front of The Quiet Woman Public House. She’s wearing nothing but tattered shorts, a sports bra, and one pink running shoe. Gripped in her fist is an Egyptian jewel, the scarab.

Now Bonaparte’s Minister of Police is breathing down Adelaide’s neck while her wealthy clients are abandoning her. The women of La Société d’Isis, so wickedly encouraging when she’d first launched her plot, remain silent to her pleas for help. Adelaide has no choice but to find the golem and restore her reputation.

Troubled by nightmares of a wild-eyed French woman and worried she might be losing her mind, Elise tries to blend in at the pub. But blending in is not her forte. She knows the moment the opportunity arises she’ll stop at nothing to return to 21st Century Arizona, even if that means breaking the heart of the one man who understands her.

The Conjured Woman is the first in the Emerald Scarab Adventure series aimed at lovers of hard-edged heroines. In a story of time travel, romance, and fortune, anything can happen.

About: Anne Gross

Paperback: $16.95 (ISBN: 9780825307980)

E-book: $16.95 (ISBN:9780825307515)

Fiction/ Historical Fantasy

300 pages

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North of The Tension Line

Fiona Campbell is a newcomer to tiny Ephraim, Wisconsin. Populated with artists and summer tourists, Ephraim has just enough going on to satisfy her city tastes. But she is fascinated and repelled by the furthest tip of Door County peninsula, Washington Island, utterly removed from the hubbub of modern life. Fiona’s visits there leave her refreshed in spirit, but convinced that only lunatics and hermits could survive a winter in its frigid isolation.

In a moment of weakness, Fiona is goaded into accepting a dare that she cannot survive the winter on the island in a decrepit, old house. Armed with some very fine single malt scotch and a copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Fiona sets out to win the dare, and discovers that small town life is not nearly as dull as she had foreseen. Abandoning the things she has always thought important, she encounters the vicious politics of small town life, a ruthless neighbor, persistent animals, a haunted ferry captain, and the peculiar spiritual renewal of life “north of the tension line.”

About: J. F. Riordan

Hardcover: $24.95 (ISBN: 9780825307348)

Paperback: $16.95 (ISBN: 9780825308291)

E-book: $4.99 (ISBN:9780825306679)

Contemporary Fiction

478 pages

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When Men Betray

Why would Woody Cole, a peaceful, caring man, shoot a US Senator in cold blood on live television? That’s the mystery facing attorney Jack Patterson as he returns to Little Rock, Arkansas, a town he swore he would never step foot in again.

When Men Betray is the first book of fiction from author, lecturer, and political insider Webb Hubbell. A departure from his previous book, Friends in High Places, an account of his rise and fall in Little Rock, Hubbell crafts a deft narrative of mystery and political intrigue. Set in a fictionalized version of his home town of Little Rock, Arkansas, readers will be immersed into the steamy world behind the southern BBQ and antebellum facade—a seedy underbelly of secrets and betrayals. Clever readers may recognize the colorful personalities and locales of the Arkansas political scene.

Jack is supported by a motley but able crew; loyal assistant Maggie, college-aged daughter Beth, feisty lawyer Micki, and his bodyguard Clovis. Together, Jack and his rag-tag team are in a race against time to discover Woody’s hidden motive. All he has is a series of strange clues, hired thugs gunning for him, and the one man who knows everything isn’t talking. Alliances are tested, buried tensions surface, and painful memories are relived as he tries to clear the name of his old college friend. Jack Patterson will find that even the oldest friendships can be quickly destroyed when men betray.

About: Webb Hubbell

Hardcover: $24.95 (ISBN: 9780825307294)

E-book: $24.95 (ISBN: 9780825306624)

Thriller/Suspense

330 pages

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Diary of a Rich Man’s Kid

Charles C. Pettijohn, Jr. has met the notable and the notorious, the famous and the infamous. From a childhood surrounded by the stars of Old Hollywood to a career in the golden age of television and film, he has seen it all.

Introduced by his daughter, Adrienne, Charles shares personal stories of life among American royalty in this intimate and folksy memoir. Frank and uncensored, Diary of a Rich Man’s Kid shows the real side of many larger-than-life figures. Entertainment notables like Carol Burnett, Burt Reynolds, and Red Skelton make appearances as well as world leaders like Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Kennedy. Diary of a Rich Man’s Kid presents a funny and heartwarming peek inside a bygone era.

About: Charles C. Pettijohn, Jr.

Paperback: $12.95 (ISBN: 9780825307317)

E-book: $12.95 (ISBN: 9780825306648)

Memoir/Autobiography

160 pages

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