[Manabi]

This month's Kindle First selections are out, they are:

The Last Girl (The Dominion Trilogy Book 1) by Joe Hart [Genre: Thriller]

A mysterious worldwide epidemic reduces the birthrate of female infants from 50 percent to less than 1 percent. Medical science and governments around the world scramble in an effort to solve the problem, but twenty-five years later there is no cure, and an entire generation grows up with a population of fewer than a thousand women.

Zoey and some of the surviving young women are housed in a scientific research compound dedicated to determining the cause. For two decades, she’s been isolated from her family, treated as a test subject, and locked away—told only that the virus has wiped out the rest of the world’s population.

Captivity is the only life Zoey has ever known, and escaping her heavily armed captors is no easy task, but she’s determined to leave before she is subjected to the next round of tests…a program that no other woman has ever returned from. Even if she’s successful, Zoey has no idea what she’ll encounter in the strange new world beyond the facility’s walls. Winning her freedom will take brutality she never imagined she possessed, as well as all her strength and cunning—but Zoey is ready for war.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

From the opening pages of author Joe Hart’s searing novel The Last Girl, it’s clear that this is an explosive story. I found myself riveted by the chilling question at the heart of the book: What if humanity could no longer produce female babies? Hart taps into deep fears and struggles that we all share, and he’s clearly onto something big here—something universal.

The canvas is huge: a world only one generation removed from our own, changed and ruined on the scale of Children of Men or even Mad Max. But the reader sees it through the limited perspective of one fierce woman, Zoey, who has been isolated under government “protection” all her life. I couldn’t turn away as she struggles to reconcile the propaganda she’s been fed with the dark reality at the edges of her vision.

Zoey has a choice to make: truth or safety. She has nothing to call her own: no real education, no family, not even a last name. But she does have an inner strength that drives her to fight for knowledge rather than settle for the false security of believing what she’s told. The Last Girl gives us a thrilling and terrifying glimpse of what it looks like when leaving everything behind is better than clinging to comfortable lies.

- Kjersti Egerdahl, Editor

Ghost Gifts by Laura Spinella [Genre: Romantic Suspense]

All Aubrey Ellis wants is a normal life, one that doesn’t include desperate pleas from the dead. Her remarkable gift may help others rest in peace, but it also made for an unsettling childhood and destroyed her marriage. Finally content as the real estate writer for a local newspaper, Aubrey keeps her extraordinary ability hidden—until she is unexpectedly assigned the story of a decades-old murder.

Rocked by the discovery of a young woman’s skeletal remains, the New England town of Surrey wants answers. Hard-nosed investigative reporter Levi St John is determined to get them. Aubrey has no choice but to get involved, even at the terrifying risk of stirring spirits connected to a dead woman’s demise and piquing her new reporting partner’s suspicions.

As Aubrey and Levi delve further into the mystery, secrets are revealed and passion ignites. It seems that Aubrey’s ghost gifts are poised to deliver everything but a normal life.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

Aubrey Ellis, the main character in Ghost Gifts, has a unique ability, but it’s not something she talks about—in fact, it’s not something she’s entirely comfortable with. Connecting with other people is challenging enough without attempting to convince them that ghosts sometimes speak to her and leave her small tokens, mementos of their lives that they wish to pass on.

And yet, Aubrey is tempted to help when she’s drawn into a decades-old mystery, even when revealing her gift means risking alienation and ridicule, and potentially inviting the rage of malicious spirits more intent on doing harm than serving justice.

Like author Laura Spinella, I’m not sure I believe in psychic senses or premonitions—at least, not entirely. But I’ve experienced a few uncanny moments in life—that gut-dropping wash of dread in the instant before the phone rings bringing bad news; the convergence of abnormal delays in my morning routine that ends up putting me in just the right place at the right time to run into a friend I haven’t seen in years but whom I’d been reminded of just the day before—and can’t simply dismiss the idea of the otherworldly.

There’s a deep-rooted appeal in the idea that the world isn’t entirely logical, that there are some mysteries we may never solve. And in Ghost Gifts, Laura skillfully blends that sense of the ineffable with the tragedy of a young life cut short, the allure of a new romance, and a heroine who seeks answers, no matter whether her source is living or dead.

- Alison Dasho, Editor

North of Here by Laurel Saville [Genre: Contemporary Fiction]

The sounds of unexpected tragedies—a roll of thunder, the crash of metal on metal—leave Miranda in shock amid the ruins of her broken family.

As she searches for new meaning in her life, Miranda finds quiet refuge with her family’s handyman, Dix, in his cabin in the dark forests of the Adirondack Mountains. Dix is kind, dependable, and good with an ax—the right man to help the sheltered Miranda heal—but ultimately, her sadness creates a void even Dix can’t fill.

When a man from her distant past turns up, the handsome idealist now known as Darius, he offers Miranda a chance to do meaningful work at The Source, a secluded property filled with his nature worshipers. Miranda feels this charismatic guru is the key to remaking her life, but her grief and desire for love also create an opportunity for his deception. And in her desperate quest to find herself after losing almost everything, Miranda and Dix could pay a higher price than they ever imagined.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

I’d barely gotten halfway through North of Here when I knew it was one of the most beautiful and compelling stories I’d ever read. But it wasn’t until I’d finished that I truly appreciated the full range of its beauty. This novel unfolds unlike any other I have read, taking you deeper and deeper into the thick of the woods—literally and metaphorically. And when you are immersed in the splendor of a forest, you don’t often stop to consider each leaf and branch. You most fully treasure it when you have reemerged from its canopy.

North of Here is gorgeous and heartbreaking, but ever hopeful. When twenty-three-year-old Miranda loses a loved one in a tragic accident at her family’s summer home, she is engulfed by her grief. The void the catastrophe leaves behind is more than she can bear, and she ends up in harm’s way. Her family’s handyman tries to rescue her, as does a town local. In the end, four lives intertwine to create this extraordinary novel.

North of Here is totally unforgettable, and it signals the emergence of an important writer in the world of fiction. I am sure you’ll be sharing your passion for this book with your friends, just as I am proud to do with you now.

- Danielle Marshall, Editor

Little Sister (A James Palatine Novel) by Giles O'Bryen [Genre: International Thriller]

Little Sister has vanished. The prototype device—real name IPD400—has powers of surveillance that governments and terrorist organisations would kill for. They might yet.

James Palatine, a trained killer with a surplus of conscience, invented the device and is the only person who can operate it. He’s determined to retrieve it, and so is Natalya Kocharian—the arms dealer who ‘inadvertently’ sold the prototype to a rogue dealer. But the current owner, holed up in the scorching void of the Western Sahara, won’t give in without a fight. Meanwhile MI6, fearing for their own reputation, will do anything to beat Palatine to the prize.

As the hunt for Little Sister goes from Whitehall errand to deadly international arms race, global security hangs in the balance. Knowledge is power, after all—and no secret is safe from Little Sister. With only Natalya on his side, can Palatine simultaneously take on his enemies, his demons and the dangerous power of his own invention?

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

From his arrival in the adrenaline-fueled opening pages, James Palatine is not a man you’re likely to forget. He’s also not your average brooding action hero. Palatine is both Bond and Q. Former military officer and genius software engineer, he has developed a weapon so powerful that the whole world wants it.

A surveillance tool that puts eyes in the back of the head of whoever possesses it, Little Sister is Big Brother for the twenty-first century—and it’s gone missing. Enter Natalya Kocharian, rising star of Grosvenor Systems, “the UK’s leading supplier of surveillance solutions.” Berated by her bosses for selling the thing, she sets off to buy it back and make a buck in the process. Meanwhile MI6 is freaking out at the loss of the superweapon they wanted for themselves, and the stage is soon set for a showdown in the Western Sahara—with James and Natalya at the center—the likes of which I had never read before.

When asked what inspired him to write this book—the first in the James Palatine series—Giles O’Bryen said, “I wanted to write a thriller in which the hero is pitched into a web of intrigue and must fight his way to the truth, and to have a heroine who is just as brave and resourceful as the hero.” O’Bryen has given us all this with Little Sister, and his “web of intrigue” will have you glued, trying to work it all out until the very last pages.

- Jane Snelgrove, Editor

Winter Men by Jesper Bugge Kold (Author), K.E. Semmel (Translator) [Genre: War Fiction]

As the dark specter of the Nazis settles over Germany, two wealthy and educated brothers are suddenly thrust into the rising tide of war. Karl, a former soldier and successful businessman, dutifully answers the call to defend his country, while contemplative academic Gerhard is coerced into informing for the Gestapo. Soon the brothers are serving in the SS, and as Hitler’s hateful agenda brings about unspeakable atrocities, they find themselves with innocent blood on their hands.

Following Germany’s eventual defeat, Karl and Gerhard are haunted by their insurmountable guilt, and each seeks a way to escape from wounds that will never heal. They survived the war and its revelation of systematic horrors, but can they survive the unshakable knowledge of their own culpability?

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

This thought-provoking, spellbinding novel moves beyond making black-and-white distinctions between World War II’s winners and losers or simple “good and evil exists in everyone” platitudes. I was unsettled to the core by Winter Men, because I was able to relate so closely to the story. I discovered a newfound compassion for people who find themselves on the wrong side of history.

One Danish reviewer compared the novel to Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, and like that classic, which introduced me to the human cost of war, Winter Men demonstrates what people mean when they tell you war changes you. But this is not a book about soldiers; it’s about the men in the office, the educated manufacturers and engineers whose day jobs required them to organize large-scale atrocities. Through brothers Karl and Gerhard we experience two very different responses to the Nazification of their homeland, Germany. While Karl accepts the opportunity of lucrative business with the Third Reich, his brother Gerhard, a math professor, has a harder time submitting to the new order. But they both struggle, and through the details of their wartime experiences, the reader feels their outrage, their guilt, their sadness, their remorse, and above all, their humanity in the face of one of history’s most brutal regimes.

Long after reading the final words of Winter Men, here I sit, wondering how it would feel to live through such devastating times. But in that starkness I do not despair. I feel enriched by the empathy developed through reading great works of literature.

- Gabriella Page-Fort, Editor

All the Lasting Things by David Hopson [Genre: Literary Fiction]

The Fisher family of Alluvia, New York, is coming undone. Evelyn spends her days tending to her husband, Henry—an acclaimed and reclusive novelist slowly losing his battle with Alzheimer’s. Their son, Benji, onetime star of an ’80s sitcom called Prodigy, sinks deeper into drunken obscurity, railing against the bit roles he’s forced to take in uncelebrated regional theater. His sister, Claudia, tries her best to shore up her family even as she deals with the consequences of a remarkable, decades-old secret that’s come to light. When the Fishers mistake one of Benji’s drug-induced accidents for a suicidal cry for help, Benji commits to playing a role he hopes will reverse his fortune and stall his family’s decline. Into this mix comes Max Davis, a twentysomething cello virtuoso and real-life prodigy, whose appearance spurs the entire family to examine whether the secrets they thought were holding them all together may actually be what’s tearing them apart.

David Hopson’s All the Lasting Things is a beautiful, moving family portrait that explores the legacy we all stand to leave—in our lives, in our work—and asks what those legacies mean in a world where all the lasting things do not last.

From the Editor:

Spoiler:

As I read All the Lasting Things, I felt as though I was eavesdropping on a complicated, dysfunctional family—the kind that provides hours of riveting reading. And at its center was one of the most memorable characters I’ve met in a long time: Benjamin “Benji” Fisher, the scion of a clan falling apart at the seams.

Benji’s mother, Evelyn, spends her days tending to her husband, Henry—an acclaimed and reclusive novelist slowly losing his battle with Alzheimer’s. His sister, Claudia, teaches architecture and keeps a running tally of the many slights she’s suffered at her mother’s hands. And Benji, the one-time star of an ’80s sitcom, now survives on loans and alcohol. Things are turned upside down when a twentysomething cello virtuoso and real-life prodigy arrives in town and unearths a family secret. In the end, this novel is about the secrets we keep in order to protect the people we love, and the legacy we leave.

How will we be remembered? It’s the provocative, powerful question at the heart of this family saga, and All The Lasting Things renders a vivid, moving answer.

- Carmen Johnson, Editor