Books published by Open Road Media

A Confederate soldier confronts the horror of battle and the power of grace in this ';poignant, haunting, and important' novel of the Civil War (The Tennessean, Nashville). A New York Times Notable Book and Winner of the William Boyd Award for Best Military Novel In November 1864, Gen. John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee prepares to launch an assault on Union forces near Franklin, Tennessee. Dirty, exhausted, and hungry, the Confederate soldiers form a line of battle across an open field. Among them stands Pvt. Bushrod Carter, a twenty-six-year-old rifleman from Cumberland, Mississippi. Against all odds, Bushrod has survived three years of war unscathedbut his luck is about to run out. Wounded in the battle, Bushrod is taken to a makeshift hospital on a nearby plantation. There, he falls under the care of Anna Hereford, who bears her own scars from years of relentless bloodshed and tragedy. In the grisly aftermath of one of the Confederate army's most disastrous campaigns, Anna and Bushrod seek salvation and understanding in each other. Their fragile bond carries with it the hope of a life beyond the war, and the risk of a pain too devastating to endure. Written with profound empathy and meticulous attention to historical detail, The Black Flower brilliantly portrays the staggering human toll of America's bloodiest conflict. In his award-winning debut novel, ';Howard Bahr casts a tale of war as powerful as any you'll ever find' (Southern Living).

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize: An unhappy marriage is further shaken when IRA terrorists invade the couple's home in this ';first rate' thriller (The New York Times). Michael Dillon, a self-described ';poet in a business suit,' is a once-aspiring writer in Belfast whose dreams have been consumed by a stultifying career as a hotel manager and a hateful marriage to his unstable wife, Moira. But on the day he decides to leave Moira for his younger lover and take off for London, IRA terrorists break into the Dillon home. Their plan is simple: They'll hold Moira hostage while Michael plants a bomb designed to kill a rabble-rousing Protestant and his flock convening for a political rally. If Michael goes to the police, Moira dies. It's only the first choice of manybecause in Brian Moore's ';breathtakingly constructed' nightmare, the day has just begun (Los Angeles Times). ';The plot [is] one that only a spoiler would revealand risk ruining the surprises that detonate throughout the novel like cleverly hidden and elegantly designed incendiary devices. The notion of ';unbearable suspense' is, of course, a cliche, but I found that I kept briefly putting down the novel to postpone the moment when I had to face what might happen next.' Francine Prose, The New York Times

A New York Times Notable Book: Darkly comic fables of modern life from a ';major discovery' whose ';writing gets in your bloodstream like a fever' (The Washington Post Book World). A housewife with a ravenous lust for the adolescent boy who mows her lawn swallows him whole. A woman nonchalantly hacks off her leg at a posh private club. A father babyproofs his house so thoroughly he never sees his wife and child. And a businessman passing through an airport risks it all to save a giant lobster from death. In these ';brisk, funny, stylish, original' stories, the award-winning author of Carnivore Diet merges the mundane with the unimaginable, and peels back the squeaky-clean faade of suburbia to expose the strangeness underneath (Elle). Combining biting wit, wild imagination, and ';unsettling, hallucinatory' prose, Julia Slavin masterfully satirizes the world of upscale families and young professionals as they confront their greatest fantasies and most grotesque fears in unexpected, and often hilarious, ways (The New York Times Book Review).

Abandoned by his wife, a man tries to protect his family during the Great Depression, in this ';powerful' novel by the bestselling author of Songs in Ordinary Time (Publishers Weekly). During the Great Depression, rural Vermont suffers along with the rest of the country, and Henry Talcott, with only occasional work as a butcher, is reduced to moving into a tent on the edge of Black Pond with his two children. Their beautiful but unreliable mother has left them, and Henry is devastated by her desertion. He hasn't told Thomas or Margaret why she leftor if she will return. Told from twelve-year-old Thomas's perspective, The Lost Mother follows this shattered family as a wealthy neighbor begins to woo the children as companions for her strange, housebound son, and Henry weighs an unexpected proposition, the consequences of which may cost him everything. ';A perfectly lovely story about perfectly awful things' by the New York Timesbestselling and National Book Awardnominated author of A Dangerous Woman and Light from a Distant Star, The Lost Mother is ';the quietest, subtlest novel that has ever kept [its readers] up into the small hours of the night, unable to look away' (The Washington Post).

National Book Award Finalist: A man, woman, and child are bound by a desperate needand a terrible secretin this suspenseful, ';astonishing' novel (Vogue). Aubrey Wallace is the kind of man no one notices. Dotty Johnson is the kind of woman no one can ignore. One afternoon, they both disappear from the small Vermont town where they live. The next day, two hundred miles away, a toddler is kidnapped from her Massachusetts home. For the next five years, Aubrey, Dotty, and the kidnapped childunited by a mix of strange love, desperate need, and the crime that brought them togetherare trapped in a nomadic existence governed by their constant fear of discovery. Canny, the little girl, becomes Aubrey's entire existence. But Dotty wants out. She is tired of being saddled with this fearful man, and when she meets a brutal ex-convict, the wheels of Canny's return to her natural parents are wrenched fatally into motion. A dark, riveting tale about the impulses and weaknesses that underlie an evil act, Vanished was nominated for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and marked the debut of the New York Timesbestselling author of Songs in Ordinary Time and A Dangerous Woman.

The ';compelling, suspenseful' novel of a vulnerable misfit in a small town by the New York Timesbestselling author of Light from a Distant Star (Publishers Weekly). Named one of the five best novels of the year by Time magazine, A Dangerous Woman is the story of the damaged and emotionally unstable Martha Horgan, an outcast in her small Vermont town. She stares; she has violent crushes on people; and, perhaps most unsettling of all, she cannot stop telling the truth. After a traumatic experience during her teenage years, the thirty-two-year-old now craves love and companionship, but her relentless honesty makes her painfully vulnerable to those around her: Frances, her wealthy aunt and begrudging guardian; Birdy Dusser, who befriends her and then cruelly rejects her; and Colin Mackey, the seductive man who preys on her desires. Confused and bitter, distrusting even those with her best interests at heart, Martha is slowly propelled into a desperate attempt to gain control over her own life. The National Book Awardnominated author of Songs in Ordinary Time tells a tale of unnerving suspense and terrifying psychological insight that is ';at once thrilling and deeply affecting' (The New York Times).

A mother's search for the son she gave up uncovers terrifying secrets in a Minnesota town in this ';masterfully depicted true-crime tale' (Publishers Weekly). In 1962, Jerry Sherwood gave up her newborn son, Dennis, for adoption. Twenty years later, she set out to find himonly to discover he had died before his fourth birthday. The immediate cause was peritonitis, but the coroner had never decided the mode of death, writing ';deferred' rather than indicate accident, natural causes, or homicide. This he did even though the autopsy photos showed Dennis covered from head to toe in ugly bruises, his clenched fists and twisted facial expression suggesting he had died writhing in pain. Harold and Lois Jurgens, a middle-class, churchgoing couple in picturesque White Bear Lake, Minnesota, had adopted Dennis and five other foster children. To all appearances, they were a normal midwestern family, but Jerry suspected that something sinister had happened in the Jurgens household. She demanded to know the truth about her son's death. Why did authorities dismiss evidence that marked Dennis as an endangered child? Could Lois Jurgens's brother, a local police lieutenant, have interfered in the investigation? And most disturbing of all, why had so many people who'd witnessed Lois's brutal treatment of her children stay silent for so long? Determined to find answers, local detectives and prosecutors rebuilt the case brick by brick, finally exposing the shocking truth behind a nightmare in suburbia. A finalist for the Edgar Award, A Death in White Bear Lake is ';a distinguished entry in the annals of crime documentary,' and a vivid portrait of the all-American town that harbored a sadistic killer (The Washington Post).

From a New York Timesbestselling author: An island off the Georgia coast holds the memory of a broken heart and the secrets of a woman's past. It's been years since Lacey Ames last saw Hampton Island, where she grew up amid the sandy marshes with her childhood sweetheart, Giles Severn, and her cousin Eliseand where Elise had stolen the man Lacey loved. Lacey never forgot the hurt and betrayal she once suffered at Giles's grand family home of Sea Oaks, but a curious and compelling summons from Elise prompts her return. Once Lacey arrives, she realizes how little has changed. Giles is still the handsome charmer she fell in love with, and Elise is still the wily seductress whose succession of lovers has risked a family scandal. But when a series of anonymous harmless pranks turns threatening, Lacey must finally confront the pastand a decade-old secret from one haunting summer at Sea Oaks. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Phyllis A. Whitney including rare images from the author's estate.

From a New York Timesbestselling author: A young woman's search for her biological parents uncovers a secret history of murder and conspiracy. When her adoptive parents die in a train crash in Italy, writer Courtney Marsh becomes more determined than ever to find her roots. She was mysteriously abandoned when she was just an infant, and she never knew the truth about her biological parents. The only clues to her past are a golden unicorn pendant she's had all her life and a tattered newspaper clipping about an artist who hailed from one of the most prominent yet reclusive East Hampton families. Now, under the guise of a reporter, Courtney has arrived at the Rhodes's mansion on the dunes. She may be uncertain of her heritage, but she's as sure as the bracing ocean winds that this family is hiding something. Only the handsome son-in-law of the Rhodes clan, whose marriage is on the rocks, is particularly forthcomingespecially as he grows more intimately fond of the lovely and inquisitive young guest. But the more Courtney discovers, the more she has to fearbecause hers is a legacy of murder that has yet to play its final hand. The Golden Unicorn is a novel of buried family secrets in the New York art world from ';a superb and gifted storyteller' (Mary Higgins Clark). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Phyllis A. Whitney including rare images from the author's estate.

From an Edgar and Agatha Award winner: A mystery writer must solve the puzzle of her past when she meets the South Carolina family she never knew existed. Popular mystery novelist Molly Hunt knows all about the twists and turns of fiction, but real life has thrown her for a loop. Raised by adoptive parents on Long Island, Molly has just made a stunning discovery: She's the daughter of South Carolina blue bloods and was kidnapped as an infant from their ancestral home in Charleston. Now, she's heading south to solve the puzzle of her beginningstotally unprepared for where it will end. At Mountfort Hall, her birth family's imposing plantation, Molly comes face to face with her past: her neglected twin sister; her reclusive and mentally imbalanced mother; a calculating cousin, now the Mountfort patriarch who has no tolerance for this lovely new intruder; and a resident psychic who sees into a deadly world all her own. It's only when Molly discovers a letter from her late father that she comes to realize how much danger she's inand what it'll take to escape the shadows of Mountfort Hall alive. ';In one of her smoothest suspense novels ... Whitney combines a dynamic, likable heroine with eccentric characters, romantic entanglements, family ghosts and a charming setting' (Publishers Weekly). It's everything readers expect from the ';Queen of American gothics' (The New York Times). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Phyllis A. Whitney including rare images from the author's estate.

Family secrets are locked away at the intimidating Virginia estate of a prima ballerina in this suspenseful tale from a New York Timesbestselling author. Susan Prentice is a young nurse at a crossroads. She's broken off an engagement, the father who raised her has just died, and now she's leaving the western shores behind for a trip to her family's home on Virginia's Northern Neckwhere she saw her mother fall to her death twenty-five years ago. There, Susan's grandmother, former ballet diva Alexandrina ';Alex' Vargas Montoro, proves a formidable sentinel for the family's mysterious history. At first welcomed by her long-estranged relatives, spied on by suspicious neighbors, and drawn to Peter, Alex's handsome young doctor, Susan has nothing but questions. And for every answer, there's a warningand the fear that she has only Peter to trust in. But even the doctor's past is shaded with murder. Soon Susan will discover that she alone holds the key to her mother's suspicious death, hidden away in her shattered memories. And someone intimately close to her is prepared to bury the truth forever. The Ebony Swan is a ';carefully crafted novel of psychological suspense by ... [a] Mystery Writers of America Grand Master' (Publishers Weekly). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Phyllis A. Whitney including rare images from the author's estate.

A larger-than-life account of family, greed, and a courtroom showdown between Big Oil rivals from the New York Timesbestselling author of Private Empire. Pulitzer Prizewinning author Steve Coll is renowned for ';his ability to take complicated, significant business stories and turn them into quick-reading engaging narratives' (Chicago Tribune). Coll is at the height of his talents in this ';riveting' tale of one of the most spectacularand catastrophiccorporate takeovers of all time (Newsday). As the head of a sprawling oil empire, J. Paul Getty was once the world's richest man. But by 1984, eight years after his death, Getty's legacy was in tatters: His children were locked in a bitter feud over the family trust and the company he founded was riven by boardroom turmoil. Then Pennzoil made an agreement with Getty's son, Gordon, to purchase Getty Oil. It was a done dealuntil Texaco swooped in to claim the $10 billion prize. What followed was an epic legal battle that pit ';good ole boy' J. Hugh Liedtke of Pennzoil against the Wall Street brokers behind Texaco's offer. The scandalous details of the case would shock the business world and change the landscape of the oil industry forever. With a large cast of colorful characters and the dramatic pacing of a novel, The Taking of Getty Oil is a ';suspenseful' and ';always intriguing' chronicle of one of the most fascinating chapters in American corporate history (Publishers Weekly).

The ';shocking' and ';suspense-packed' bestseller about one teacher's stand against student violence, and the basis for the Academy Awardnominated film (The New York Times Book Review). After serving his country in World War II, Richard Dadier decides to become an English teacherand for the sin of wanting to make a difference, he's hired at North Manual Trades High School. A tough vocational school in the East Bronx, Manual Trades is home to angry, unruly teenagers exiled from New York City's regular public schools. On his first day, Dadier endures relentless mockery and ridicule and makes an enemy of the student body by rescuing a female colleague from a vicious attack. His fellow educators are bitter, disillusioned, and too afraid of their pupils to risk turning their backs on them in the classroom. But Dadier refuses to give up without a fight. Over the course of the semester, he tries again and again to break through the wall of hatred and scorn and win his students' respect. The more he learns about their difficult circumstances, the more convinced he becomes that a good teacher can make a difference in their lives. His idealism will be put to the ultimate test, however, when a long-simmering power struggle with his most intimidating student explodes into a violent schoolroom showdown. The basis for the blockbuster film starring Glenn Ford and Sidney Poitier, Evan Hunter's The Blackboard Jungle is a brutal, unflinching look at the dark side of American education and an early masterpiece from the author who went on to write the gritty 87th Precinct series as Ed McBain. Drawn from Hunter's own experiences as a New York City schoolteacher, it is a ';nightmarish but authentic' drama that packs a knockout punch (Time).

A governess becomes entangled with a dysfunctional and dangerous family in this novel by a New York Timesbestselling ';master of suspense' (Mary Higgins Clark). Finally liberated from her cruel and domineering mother, twenty-eight-year-old schoolteacher Jessica Abbott has accepted a position as governess in Hampden House, a crumbling plantation on the cliffs of St. Croix. Her charge is Leila Drew, the oppressed teenage daughter of a pathologically punishing mother. But the vulnerable girl is not Catherine Drew's only victim. For years, Catherine's desperate husband, King, a man to whom Jessica is irresistibly drawn, has been searching for the means to a safe escapefor himself and Leilafrom this ruin of a family. As Jessica becomes further entwined in the violent dynamics of the Drew family, she realizes Catherine's wretched power may be grounded in a secret that has trapped not only King and Leila, but herself as well. A recipient of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award, Phyllis A. Whitney was hailed by Mary Higgins Clark as ';a superb and gifted story teller, and a master of suspense.' This ebook features an illustrated biography of Phyllis A. Whitney including rare images from the author's estate.

A family's deepest secrets are exposed in this ';haunting domestic drama' from the award-winning author of A Wrinkle in Time (Publishers Weekly). When her teenage granddaughter comes to her with a troubling question, Camilla Dickinson must confront the painful history she's long kept hidden. Forced to relive her past, she relates a complex saga involving her beautiful, adulterous mother, her troubled son, and the difficult choices that have affected three generations of her family. As she goes through the difficult process of revealing her secrets, Camilla also lets go of the burden of lies she's told. A testament to the power of acceptance and forgiveness, A Live Coal in the Sea is ultimately an exploration of the lengths to which people will go for loveand the things they'll do to protect family. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Madeleine L'Engle including rare images from the author's estate.

This story collection ';showcases that lighter side of Paul Di Filippo ... with some memorable moments of brilliant wit and storytelling' (Infinity Plus). With twenty tales, a bold lack of restraint, and amazing stylistic diversity, Di Filippo makes strange bedfellows of a range of charactersfrom Jayne Mansfield to Pythagoras to Disney ';imagineers' to the Virgin Maryfit together inside a bountiful collection of surprises, humor, and the very, very strange. William Gibson has identified his writing as ';spooky, haunting, and hilarious,' and after you absorb all the shocks, you will inevitably agree.

Reprint. Originally published: London: Simon & Schuster, 2007.