Today's Featured Books

Today's line-up of Featured Books is indicative of the great work coming out of the indie publishing world. Scroll down to learn more. 

What's New in Historical Fiction: Tune in to this regular panel series featuring historical novelists. This week: Erika Robuck, author of Sisters of Night and Fog; Patricia Bernstein author of A Noble Cunning; Edie Cay author of A Viscount's Vengeance; and Stephanie Marie Thornton author of Her Lost Words. Thursday, March 23, 7 p.m. CDT.  

"People of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things." ~Leonardo da Vinci

Congratulations to Ben Nickol and Vine Leaves Press on the release of The Sea Lanterns, a novel in which future may mean not banishing ghosts, but living forever in their company.

“A wickedly funny examination of college sports, colliding egos, and the often inadvisable ways we go about the pursuit of our dreams.” ~Margaret Malone, author of People Like You

The Sea Lanterns by Ben Nickol

Marooned at a backwater college and hungry for more, Athletic Director Scott Darrow plots his ascent to a better job at a better school.

He has the talent, charm, and Machiavellian nerve to go far, but when he hires a famous coach to run his basketball program, the coach proves to be unstable and possibly insane.

To escape professional oblivion, Darrow must maneuver and manipulate this coach, and manage the town’s intensifying suspicions. No measure is too drastic. No tactic too cruel. But complicating Darrow’s work is his own unsettled history, and in wrestling with this history, Darrow begins to understand his frail coach with jarring personal clarity.

Perhaps the two men aren’t as dissimilar as they’d seemed. And perhaps Darrow’s future—even if it’s triumphant—will mean not banishing his ghosts, but living forever in their company.
 
Praise for The Sea Lanterns
“A poignant and uncompromising novel with gritty and luminous prose. Nickol demands the reader’s attention on every page as he explores the price of ambition at all costs.” ~Soon Wiley, When We Fell Apart

“Who knew a book about a mediocre JuCo basketball team in a gloomy Pacific Northwest town could be such a delight with so much heart.” ~Margaret Malone, People Like You

Celebrate great indie books today (and every day!) with the LitNuts Newsletter and LitNuts.com. And be sure to celebrate World Poetry Day tomorrow, March 21, by taking time to read the works of your favorite poets from around the globe. Learn more at Poets.org. 

“What cannot be said will be wept.” ~Sappho

“A tremendous book—sweeping but intimate, elegiac but urgent, subtle but intense." -Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series. A woman discovers her parents were not the people she thought. And why is someone trying to kill her? Set The Night on Fire travels back to the late Sixties to answer those questions. Part thriller, part historical novel, and part love story, Fire paints an unforgettable portrait of a group of young idealists who tried to change the world. “A top-rate thriller that taps into the 1960s… Hellman’s insightful, politically charged whodunit explores a fascinating period in American history.” -Publishers Weekly. From $0.99 SHOP NOW / 

Victor has cared for Cymbeline his whole life, but Cymbeline declared Viktor her arch-enemy when they were children. Now, she sees him as a hero, but she still can't let go of the idea that her destiny is waiting somewhere else in the world. Will Cymbeline come to terms with her life and wake up to the idea of love before it's too late? Book 4 in the Emerson Pass Historicals series. 4.6 stars, 2000+ ratings. From $5.99. Free via KU. SHOP NOW / 

What do you do with a drunken sailor when the world is underwater? Twenty years after the pandemic that nearly wiped out humanity, seventeen-year-old trainwreck Bird Howsley is struggling to find her place. In a world mostly underwater—beset not just by pandemics but also by climate change—sailing isn’t just a pastime: it’s the way of life. Unfortunately, Bird is a terrible sailor, with a drinking habit to boot. Fortunately, she has a lifeline: her best friend Sargo, a second-generation immigrant and Bird’s straight-laced sailing instructor. From $0.99. Free via KU. SHOP NOW / 

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Being of Irish descent, we (LitNuts cofounders Mike O'Mary and Kathleen O'Mary Meyer) take pride in our literary heritage: Jonathan Swift, W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, C.S. Lewis, Elizabeth Bowen, Molly Keane, Samuel Beckett, Iris Murdoch, Frank McCourt, Edna O'Brien, Seamus Heaney, Maeve Binchy, Roddy Doyle, etc. Is it any surprise we ended up publishing a newsletter about the written word?

Speaking of the written word...there's a great free online literary event this weekend: The Hudson Valley Writers Center presents An Afternoon of Poetry with Monica Youn and Joshua Bennett. Sunday, March 19, 4:00 p.m. EDT.

"All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed." ~Sean O'Casey

Dial T for Terrorist. Kahlil Sharivar can destroy the electrical grid with only a few keystrokes on a smartphone. His target: Montana’s Hungry Horse Dam. Who will be blamed? Tawny Lindholm. Once he places the incriminating device in Tawny’s hands, her life spins out of control. Soon the feds are chasing her, and her family is in peril. Can Tawny turn the instrument back on the devil who set her up? Book 1 in the Tawny Lindholm Thriller series. Winner of Zebulon Award and Kindle Scout competition. 4.5 stars, 142 ratings. From $0.99 SHOP NOW /