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Hallmark Sends Class Into Production
by Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 8/8/2008 8:31:00 AM |
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The Bridge: Murder, Intrigue and a Struggle for Justice In Nicaragua
by Michael Glasgow | |||
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At the core of the story are the facts
surrounding a horrific murder and the trial that quickly followed. The Bridge
is also an examination of exactly what factors contributed to the "perfect
storm" as well as how a deeply religious family coped with the imprisonment
of their son in a foreign land for a crime they know he did not commit. The result
is a book that is part true crime, part historical review and assessment, part
cultural interpretive, and part a story of faith and courage.
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River
of No Return: Tennessee Ernie Ford and the Woman He Loved - Cumberland House,
Spring 2008 by Jeffrey Buckner Ford | ||||
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In a sweeping, cinematic narrative, told with heartbreaking honesty, wry humor and riveting intimacy, River of No Return: Tennessee Ernie Ford and the Woman He Loved carries the reader from their first meeting on a desert airbase at the dawn of World War Two, through a brilliant, meteoric rise to the heights of Hollywood's second Golden Age, to Ford's controversial departure from Hollywood at the zenith of his career, and to their last moments together nearly half a century later. The story of Ernie and His Lovely Wife, Betty is an American love story, an American tragedy; an unforgettable portrait of an ordinary couple changed forever by an extraordinary life. River of No Return: Tennessee Ernie Ford and the Woman He Loved is currently scheduled for publication by Cumberland House Publishing in April, 2008 | ||||
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Bar Flower: My Decadently Destructive Days And Nights As A Tokyo
Nightclub Hostess - St. Martin’s Press, Spring 2008 by Lea Jacobson | ||||
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Smotherhood™ - Skirt/Globe Pequot, Fall 2007 by Amanda Lamb | ||||
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"Smotherhood ™: Wickedly Funny Confessions from the Early Years (Globe Pequot Press, Skirt! Imprint, September 1, 2007) is ripe material for a television or feature film comedy. Viewers will connect with Amanda's hilarious and imperfect balancing act and relate to her bawdy sense of humor as she tries to keep too many balls in the air at one time. From the graphic play-by-play of her husband's vasectomy experience, to the things that take a ride on the roof of her Volvo (think pizzas and cell phones) because she's too distracted to notice, to the non-working mothers who expect her to take time out of her busy day to make Play-Doh from scratch and volunteer at story time, working mothers everywhere will commiserate with Amanda's crazy life. The backdrop of the television news world only adds to the chaos and hilarity as Amanda shares coffee and secrets with old-school cops, interviews her share of crusty rednecks and hardcore criminals, and covers breaking news that keeps her from getting to her children's dance class or swim team banquet.
"Smotherhood ™" is timely and culturally relevant to today's working women who approach everything- their jobs and their parenting- passionately, without excuses, and with a lot of laughter in between.
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THE
LAST NIGHTINGALE - Random House, June, 2007 by Anthony Flacco | ||||
 It
is April of 1906 - immediately after the Great San Francisco Earthquake and fires
and much of the city has been leveled. In the chaos of the aftermath, crime spikes
upward. A serial killer, presumed female, has been dubbed "The Surgeon"
for her heavy-bladed knife work, and is hard at work among the ruins. SGT. RANDALL BLACKBURN (32) is a tough beat cop who walks the "Barbary Coast" district every night on the midnight shift, sometimes tripping over The Surgeon's latest handy-work. Blackburn takes on the hunt for The Surgeon with the persistence of a compulsive man with nothing else to do - he has not had any life outside of his work since his wife and infant daughter died in childbirth years before. This one-sided existence is ordinarily very bad news for the crooks, but The Surgeon's body count continues to rise while the perpetrator somehow eludes capture. In addition, Blackburn is saddled with another major murder investigation of one of the city's major citizens. That one isn't going any better for Blackburn than the hunt for The Surgeon. His standing with the Department is dropping by the day by the time he receives a note from a young street orphan named SHANE NIGHTINGALE (12), tipping him off to the real killer in the high society case. The clues that Shane provides actually break that case, which immediately cements Blackburn's interest in Shane. He is fascinated as to why a boy so young should posses such insight into lethal crime, involving people he has never met and a rarified social world he knows nothing about. But Shane is sitting on a world of secrets, branded deep inside of him. The experience of spending three days and nights following the Great Earthquake hidden in a small kitchen pantry while a mysterious home invader slowly tortured and disposed of his adoptive family has shattered him. He had only been out of the orphanage for a year. Now he is fighting for scraps of his sanity, living in the tool shed of a cemetery with the broken and smoldering city stretched out all around him. He has intuitively identified the real killer in the high society case simply by reading about it in the paper. In Shane's new and broken existence, his three-day lesson into the mind of a psychopath has left him highly sensitized to the dark side of human nature and able to understand and predict various levels of criminal motive. Shane is flabbergasted when VIGNETTE (10), a girl from his old orphanage, shows up and announces that she has learned they are brother and sister. She tells him that she has run away and wants to stay with him. She has only concocted the story in her desperation for a sense of family, but Shane believes her and takes her in. He soon learns that Vignette is like a female Huck Finn loose in the city. Her wild-child resourcefulness helps him to begin to compensate for his scalded and reticent nature, even as the memories of the Nightingale family crimes continue to haunt him. It is when The Surgeon finds reason to target Shane Nightingale that Randall Blackburn finds himself pulled into the lives of both Shane and Vignette. When events force Blackburn to pursue The Surgeon with no help from the Department, he is guided by Shane and Vignette, who both manage to move in the adult world with a surprisingly effective array of hard-won skills in dealing with the darkest sides of human nature.
In 2002, Anthony was also hired by the Discovery Channel to write a two-hour documentary entitled Deadly Spree, based on another true crime story, which still airs. His true crime writing was also featured on a one-hour episode of The Prosecutors for Court TV. In 2003, Anthony served as a national Judge for the Illinois Arts Council, writing individual evaluations for over 100 screenplays for their 2003 Writing Awards. He also worked on finishing his longest running project, the historical novel, Tesla's Best Secret. His screenplay adaptation of that novel was a finalist in the Alfred Sloan Fellowship for Sundance in 2003. Throughout 2004, in addition to his own writing, Anthony served as a freelance editor for books and book proposals that have recently sold to Hay House, Vanderwyck & Burnham, and Rodale Press. He also wrote book proposals for other authors who have gone on to garner publication contracts with Rodale Press, Random House, and St. Martin's Press. During 2005, Anthony completed his nonfiction book Tiny Dancer for Thomas Dunne Books at St. Martin's Press, and the advance copy was selected by Reader's Digest as their Editor's Choice for August, 2005 -- their 1,000th Commemorative Issue. The Kansas City Star named Tiny Dancer "one of the Top 100 Noteworthy Books of 2005." He also edited the first two manuscripts for a new series of humorous books written by gay and straight writing teams which have sold to Marabout for French translation. In April, 2006 Anthony sold The Last Nightingale in a two-book deal to Mortalis, a new mystery imprint of Random House. The first novel of this series begins with the Great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, and follows the development of a young boy with freakish criminal profiler insights and a tough police sergeant who befriends him. The novel will be published in Spring, 2007.  | ||||
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Deadly Dose - Berkley Publishers/Penguin Putnam by Amanda Lamb | ||||
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About
the Author:  Amanda
Lamb is in her eighteenth year as a local television reporter. She covers
the crime beat for one of the top CBS affiliates in the country, WRAL-TV. Besides
doing daily live television reports for WRAL-TV, Amanda also writes a column for
the station's website about her experiences on the street. Dispatches from
a Reporter's Notebook can be viewed at www.WRAL.com.
Amanda has also appeared on network news programs recently
on multiple occasions including FOX News' On the Record with Greta Van
Susteren and Court TV's Catherine Crier Live to talk about a high-profile
murder investigation that she has been covering involving the beating death of
a young pregnant mother. Amanda also writes non-fiction humorous stories about parenting. Her first book titled Smotherhood: Wickedly Funny Confessions from the Early Years will be published in the fall under Globe Pequot's new imprint, SKIRT. Amanda has been previously published in This Day in the Life of American Women, and is a regular contributor to an award-winning parenting website, www.dot-moms.com. For more about Amanda's creative writing go to www.alambauthor.com. For Book Trailer of Deadly Dose link here: | ||||
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By Ron Saxen | ||||
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At 16, having eaten his way to School Fatso and becoming desperate for a date, Ron resolves to lose weight. When the new Thin Ron takes a part-time job in a nearby town he discovers a duel identity-at work, he's Mr. Cool Guy, dating the town's beauty queen. At home, he's just "the fat kid who lost weight."
At the age of twenty, 300-pound Fat Again Ron is a waiter whose greatest achievement is to convince a friend who accidentally shot himself in the leg to hit the Burger King drive-thru on their way to the emergency room. But the next year, a starvation diet and a cruel and unusual exercise program transform His Plumpness into a Chiseled Temporary Hottie once more, and customers startle him by asking if he's a model. He does some research and finds out that he will have to lose twenty more pounds to truly be considered model-thin, so he cranks up his exercise program and sets the level at Torture. Weeks later, a shell-shocked Skinny Ron finds himself in a situation that feels surreal-sitting in the Excel Modeling Agency lobby, waiting to be seen.
Then a chocolate cake calls his name. Fighting the slide back to obesity, Ron exercises feverishly, takes up smoking and tries that new methamphetamine diet he's heard so much about. But when a fashion show director says he needs to lose five more pounds, he fakes a smile and goes on an all-night binge. Six months later, seventy pounds heavier and minus one bombshell, Ron is back working at the restaurant. His humiliation is complete when his agent tracks his fat, apron-wearing self down to ask him to sign a release for the TV commercial starring Thin Ron, which Fat Ron will get to watch on TV for the next year. Twelve months later, Fat Ron is serving lunch to the most beautiful and nice woman he's ever met when he has a minor but undignified heart attack. He hits the dirt at her feet. When he swims back to consciousness, he finds her again; a publishing executive named Amanda Nash is standing by his hospital bed. She comes back to see him the next day, and the next. Then Ron finds out she's engaged to a pretentious stock broker and sneaks out of the hospital without saying goodbye. Over the next two years, Ron recovers from his eating disorder, loses weight and finally reconnects by phone with the not-yet-married Amanda. He hatches a plan to meet her in his new thin body, without telling her who he is. But when he does, he discovers Amanda's true feelings for the man he always was, the one he is just now coming to accept. Click Here For A Video Book-Byte
Click A Logo To See Ron's Appearances | ||||
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TRUTH
AT LAST, TRUTH AT LAST: The Real Story of James Earl Ray, assassin of Martin Luther King - Lyons Press, March 2008 by John Larry Ray with Lyndon Barsten | ||||
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James Earl Ray was inducted by the C.I.A. while still a young man in the Army and subjected to mind control experimentation - in that same era when the hallucinogenic drug LSD is known to have been administered by the armed services to unknowing recruits. The mind control work on James Earl Ray took place more than twenty years before he would become known to the world as the assassin of civil rights icon, Martin Luther King.
Author Lyndon Barsten was a friend of the late James Earl Ray and also an admirer of Dr. King. Thus he became obsessed with finding out the truth of the Memphis murder. In pursuit of the information presented in this book, he has submitted in excess of four thousand of Freedom of Information requests to agencies of the US government, and also made similar requests to the governments of Canada, England and Portugal. The conclusion that these documents support is obvious on the face of it - the same mix of strange CIA "coincidences" documented in the case of Lee Harvey Oswald's Kennedy assassination also crop up here. How can that be? The case that will be laid out by this book, and by the supporting documentation, will show that there is no credible way in which James Earl Ray acted alone. To that end, we will offer the reader everything except for that one, fool-proof, courtroom-ready piece of evidence -- the kind that would trigger a federal investigation. We are dealing with the CIA, here - the Freedom of Information Act only takes you so far with them. If you are one of those people who believe that O.J. Simpson is not guilty and that the jury's verdict was correct - you will also lack the common sense to accept the evidence offered here. However, there is an all important line of difference between what you can prove in court and what you just know by employing common sense. About the Authors: John Larry Ray is the eldest living brother of James Earl Ray. He was a secret witness to much of his brother's covert life, and has come forward to facilitate the revealing of how James Earl Ray was "handled" into committing his infamous crime. John has spent a quarter of a century in federal prison, mostly in solitary confinement. He reveals how he was falsely convicted in the court of Judge William H. Webster - who would later head both the FBI and CIA - in order to silence him about his brother's association with the CIA. John currently resides in his childhood home of Quincy, Illinois. Lyndon Barsten is a lay historian who has
been studying the assassination of Dr. King since the mid 1990s. For only the
second time in the history, the FBI put an investigative file in a CD-Rom format,
pressured to do so by Lyndon, so that concerned citizens could have access to
the FBI King murder investigation file. Barsten has lectured about the murder
of Dr. King before the Congressional Black Caucus' Brain Trust, at the request
of Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. Several articles in regional and national
publications have been based on the findings of Barsten's research. He has known
and consulted with most of the surviving witnesses of the events surrounding the
King assassination. He resides in Minnesota with his Jamaican born wife, Cheryl,
and their three children. | ||||
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The
Rebel and the Rose, Cumberland House, Spring, 2007 by Wesley Millett and Gerald White | ||||
 It
is April 1865, and the Civil War is over for most Americans. More than 600,000
soldiers, north and south, have died, either from wounds or disease. The Union
army has overwhelmed the Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia, and Confederate
President Jefferson Davis has fled Richmond, the Southern capital. Accompanying
him, first by train and then on horseback, are most of his administration, an
escort of cavalry, various hangers-on... and the remainder of the Confederate
treasury.With the Davis party is a Navy paymaster, James A. Semple. In Washington, Georgia, a small town untouched by the war, Semple is entrusted with $86,000 in gold coin and bullion (which equates to about $1 million today) and disappears into the night with the gold loaded into the false bottom of a carriage. James Semple was one of the "shadow" people during the war, someone who reported to the highest levels of administration, but managed to escape scrutiny, then and now. He was competent and resourceful. "I have 'seen the Elephant in all its phases,' he once mused. A descendant of a prominent Virginia family, Semple was known to generals, sea captains, congressmen, and key officials of the Confederate government, including President and First Lady Jefferson and Varina Davis. The Rebel and the Rose reveals for the first time what happened to the gold. The historically accurate book, however, is more than an accounting of a missing treasury. It is the story of a man on the run, as he stashes the gold and seeks to escape capture by fleeing through a devastated South swarming with Federal troops. Hiding in the Okefenokee Swamp for months, he eventually reaches Nassau. Ultimately, he takes refuge in the North with Julia Gardiner Tyler, wife of former President of the United States John Tyler. Julia is the stepmother of Semple's estranged wife, Letitia, though they are about the same age. Once called the "Rose of Long Island" for an advertisement that used her image, Julia Gardiner Tyler is strikingly attractive, even at 45. She has long black hair, gray eyes, and a figure that drew dozens of suitors before she agreed to marry the President, then 30 years her senior. An ardent Confederate, Julia had made a difficult decision late in the war to leave Virginia for her mother's home on Staten Island, New York. Union soldiers were invading the countryside around Sherwood Forest, the Tyler plantation, and the safety of her young children was paramount. Now, with both her husband and her mother deceased, Julia is alone on Staten Island with the children, surrounded by "Yankees" who are not accepting of a Southern sympathizer in their midst. Semple is drawn to Julia, and she to him, by circumstances of war and the aftermath. Unable to accept the end of the Confederacy and Northern domination over the South, he collaborates with other disenfranchised leaders exiled in Canada, seeking to create a crisis between the U.S. and Great Britain. Drawing Britain into a war would force the North to turn to the South for military support, and ease the burden on the former Confederate states in rejoining the Union. Over the course of the next two years, Semple travels between the U. S. and Canada in clandestine activities, often using the alias Allen S. James. In between ventures, and whenever he is able to pass through New York City, he spends as much time as he can with Julia and her family. Through it all ? the final days of the war, the flight of the Davis government, his efforts to help the South, and the intimate interludes with Julia and her family ? Semple is the thread that binds events together… and Confederate gold plays a part in it all. Wesley Millett has been a researcher and a writer for more than thirty-five years. He currently operates a marketing research business and frequently contributes articles to various national and international publications. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Millett received his initial instruction in writing from noted authors, including William Faulkner. Gerald White, a native Texan, is a retired Air Force colonel who held senior intelligence positions and served on the faculty of the Air War College. White is a Vietnam veteran who also served in Germany. Since his retirement, he has written several studies on recent U.S. military operations. White holds degrees from Texas Christian University and the University of Utah and now resides in Williamsburg, Virginia.
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Hollywood Reader by Michelle Kung | ||||
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An
Unfinished Canvas: The Mysterious Disappearance of Artist Janet March by Michael Glasgow and Phyllis Gobbell Berkley/Penguin Putnam, Fall 2007 | ||||
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Can a man be convicted of murder when the police have no body, no cause of death, no time of death, and no physical evidence of a homicide? The implications of this fascinating legal question are at the core of an electrifying new true-crime thriller, An Unfinished Canvas: The Mysterious Disappearance of Artist Janet March, written by Michael Glasgow and Phyllis Gobbell. Janet March vanished on August 15, 1996, after an argument with her attorney-husband Perry March. He has maintained that she packed a few things, took several thousand dollars in cash and said, "See ya!" and drove away in her car, promising to be back in twelve days for their son's 6th birthday - but no one has ever seen or heard from her since that night. The case has drawn national attention, with CBS's Emmy-winning investigative show 48 Hours airing four separate episodes over the last three years, including an hour-long program on December 10, 2005. Leslie Stahl has stated, "This is as good a mystery as you will ever see-in fiction or in real life." The setting of this compelling true-crime mystery is Nashville, Tennessee, a city of many faces: Music City USA, country music capital of the world; Athens of the South, with its full-scale replica of the Parthenon; and the new Nashville that promotes itself as the next Atlanta. This is where An Unfinished Canvas finds Perry and Janet March in 1996, living what appears to be a perfect life. An attractive young wife and doting mother of two small children, Janet is also a talented artist whose career is taking off, and Perry is a corporate lawyer to the rich and powerful. They are rising stars in a Southern city whose star is rising, as well. Having moved into a massive new dream home designed by Janet, they are at the right place, at the right time, with the right people. Life is good - really good - or so it would seem. No one knows that Janet and Perry March are keeping up an elaborate facade. In the tradition of haunting true-crime thrillers that have captivated the literary heartbeat of America, An Unfinished Canvas is a suspense-filled tale of love, sex, greed, betrayal, and murder. As in the cases of Jeffrey MacDonald (Fatal Vision), Thomas Capano (Summer Wind), Scott Petersen (A Deadly Game), and the East Hampton murder of Ted Ammon (Almost Paradise), An Unfinished Canvas evokes the complex character and personalities of the accused and those affected by his actions. At a time when readers and television viewers are fascinated by forensic science and cold case files, the authors paint a chilling, edgy, and tragic portrait of intersecting lives and a decade of persistent dedication to unravel the truth. Is Perry March a psychopath who murdered his wife while his children slept and almost got away with it, or a falsely accused devoted father whose life was destroyed when his wife mysteriously disappeared? An Unfinished Canvas will chronicle the facts, the theories, and the gossip in this high-profile case, beginning with the bizarre events on the night of Janet March's disappearance and the disturbing two weeks before she was reported missing. The nine-year investigation is punctuated by Perry March's flight with his children to Mexico and the international custody battle between Perry and Janet's parents, Carolyn and Larry Levine; the wrongful death civil case by the Levines and its staggering $113 million judgment; the formation of Nashville's first Cold Case Unit; the empanelment of a secret grand jury and indictment of Perry March; the involvement of the FBI and the office of the Mexican President in the arrest and deportation of Perry March; his extradition back to Tennessee from the same California jail that once housed O.J. Simpson; and the excellent detective work that uncovered a scheme by Perry March from behind bars, while awaiting trial, to hire a hit-man to murder his former in-laws. Nashville authors Phyllis Gobbell and Michael Glasgow bring a unique combination of talent and experience to the investigation and writing of An Unfinished Canvas. Gobbell, recipient of Tennessee's 2006 Individual Artist Literary Award, has a twenty-five year history of publication in both fiction and nonfiction. She has published two novels and more than thirty stories and articles. Among her recent writing awards are the Leslie Garrett Fiction Prize and a Pushcart nomination. Freelance writer Michael Glasgow practiced law for twenty years. He began his career as a law clerk for a Tennessee Supreme Court Justice and has served as co-defense counsel in a first-degree murder case. In addition, one of the principal participants at the heart of the case has agreed to work exclusively with the authors as a technical advisor.
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Tesla’s
Best Secret - a historical novel by Anthony Flacco | ||||
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About the Author:
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by Brad Cohen | |||||||
Tourette Syndrome is a neurological disorder of the brain that causes the body to make strange sounds and violent twitches that can't be controlled. Brad is just one of several hundred thousand people who are afflicted. Many choose a quiet life in the shelter of their homes. But Brad Cohen is an inspiration in overcoming life's challenges. Nothing, not even Tourette Syndrome, stops him from pursuing and achieving his goals. Walk with Brad as he leads you through his unbelievable life from being suspended from school for making noises he could not control to appearing in the eighth grade on the Sally Jesse Raphael show. Live with him as he grows in confidence through his high school years, only to be regularly thrown out of movie theaters and restaurants for making sounds such as "woop!" and "cha,cha." Watch Brad rise through the ranks in a youth organization to become an international leader, and then be humiliated on job searches. From the depths of abuse that his teachers piled on him as a child, Brad Cohen became determined to become the teacher he never had. After several dozen rejection letters, Brad finally found a teaching home at Mountain View Elementary in Atlanta, where he taught second graders not only reading, writing and math, he taught them about love and acceptance of all people. His administration staff was so impressed that they chose him as their First Year Teacher of the Year, as did the state of Georgia. Today, Brad Cohen still gets ejected from movie theaters and restaurants, but he has turned the proverbial lemon into some very sweet lemonade. Brad Cohen is one of the most outgoing and positive people you will ever meet. He is cherished by his students, chairs a Relay for Life fund-raising program for Georgia's Cobb County, and spends his few free hours as "Homer," the mascot for the Atlanta Braves baseball team. He is on a mission to encourage and inspire today's youth and in the process, Brad Cohen has become an inspiration to us all. http://www.frontoftheclassbook.com/.
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by Suzanne Hansen | |||||
When Oregon native Suzanne Hansen lands a job as live-in nanny to the children of Hollywood super-agent Michael Ovitz, she has no idea what she’s gotten into: working 24/7 to fill the roles of pseudo-mommy, nurse, playmate, referee, and chauffer, all while handling the demands of the entertainment elite and making fast friends with the household staff and the underlings at her boss’s office. When the thankless drudgery takes its toll and Hansen finally quits, her boss blackballs her from ever nannying in Hollywood again. Befuddled but determined, Hansen manages to land gigs with Debra Winger and then Danny DeVito. Kind employers, cute kids, and the sort of insider glimpse at the entertainment world that celebrity junkies crave – looks like Hansen’s fallen into a real-life happy ending. But 24-hour workday rubs some of the glitz off LA living, and even bosses who treat her like family can’t help Hansen as she struggles with Hollywood’s lack of respect for nannies and everyone else who comes in the employee entrance – but without whom many showbiz households would grind to a halt. Peppering her own story with tales and tantrums experienced by other nannies to the stars, Hansen offers an intriguing peek into the playrooms of the privileged. You’ll Never Nanny in This Town Again is a treat for everyone who’s fascinated by the skewed priorities of Tinseltown – and for fans of “assistant-lit” like The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada who will devour this unparalleled – and unabashedly true – account of one girl’s tour of duty as Hollywood’s hired help.
SUZANNE HANSEN has been a high-risk labor and delivery nurse, lactation consultant, and childbirth educator. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children. For more info see: http://www.hollywoodnanny.com/
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By Dr. Vance McLaughlin | ||||
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John
Frank Hickey strangled his first victim five years before "Jack the Ripper"
began his killing rampage in London. This fascinating and extensively documented
story tells how a solitary Milquetoast of a man wandered the American East Coast
for decades, harboring a terrifying assortment of personal demons. Many of the
patterns of behavior that have long since come to be trademarks of the sociopathic
killer are revealed in Hickey's long and demented life of crimes, documented in
a long series of correspondence in the form of postcards, which eventually led
to his capture. See Dr. McLaughlin's website at: http://www.subjectcontrolsolutions.com
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by Anthony Flacco | |||||
Feature Screenplay Adapted from the Bantam/Dell/Doubleday Book By Anthony Flacco Reality and paranoia blend and blur in this deep psychological thriller. In Los Angeles, pretty 18 year-old Natasha Peernock is found in wreckage of a burning car next to her mother’s body. Natasha and her mother have both been severely beaten, and Natasha barely survives. In the hospital, we see from her POV while she tells a tale of being kidnapped by her own father, blindfolded, bound, and tortured for nearly eleven hours while he waited for his wife to come home. Natasha says that he then beat her mother to death and loaded both of them into the car and rigged it to crash. But Robert Peernock is a computer programmer for the state who has discovered government corruption in the awarding of state contracts, and he has been a victim of constant harassment from the forces he has exposed. He has already won numerous lawsuits against them, and is on the verge of releasing a detailed book that traces government corruption all the way up to the California Governor’s office. We see from his POV that he is being framed. His daughter was drugged and brainwashed, and the murder was set up to implicate him in order to destroy his credibility. That way the government will be safe from his book even if it is published. And Peernock has an alibi, even though the police reject it. Robert Peernock flees town, but he communicates with the police via his attorney. He is afraid to return, because the police force works for the very forces that Peernock is trying to expose and eliminate. He is sure that he will become a “jailhouse suicide” if he surrenders. He has plastic surgery in Las Vegas and returns to L.A. to hide, where his girlfriend helps him avoid capture for months before detectives track him down. But when civil attorney Victoria Doom enters the case pro bono to help shattered Natasha get on in life, she discovers a host of contracting facts. Doom becomes convinced that Peernock has committed a near-perfect murder. But why? He had already been granted his wife’s permission for a divorce, and even after splitting their estate, they would both be financially well off. And why would he attack his own daughter? Natasha herself talks about how she used to be the apple of his eye. In the meantime, young Natasha suffers violent recurring nightmares about the crime, but at the same time, her jailed father suffers from nightmares about being set up and convicted for murder. It is only because of Victoria Doom’s after-hours passion for this case that the truth finally comes out – Robert Peernock would have committed the perfect murder if he hadn’t been too obsessive to throw away his detailed checklist for murder. His fight against the state has driven his paranoia out of control and convinced him that both his ex-wife and his daughter have been enlisted in the state’s clandestine struggle to silence him. After a fierce trial full of screaming outbursts and a bound and gagged defendant, Peernock is convicted of Murder and a host of smaller crimes. Later, while Doom helps Natasha to quietly get on with her life in a secure, out-of-state location, word comes from the police that Peernock is in jail trying to hire a killer to go after his daughter and finish the job on her. However, alone in his jail cell, the story ends with Peernock in his solitary cell, penning the Foreword for his book exposing state corruption. He begins: “This is the story of an innocent man…” and smiles as he glances over at the letter from the NY publisher, along with the enclosed lucrative book contract. | |||||
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by Andy Schell Screenplay available | |||||
Based on Andy Schell's best selling novel, "MY BEST MAN" is a romantic comedy about a young man and his untamed stewardess friend who ultimately learn to be true to themselves and each other. HARRY FORD is the son of one of the wealthiest men in Kansas, but after his father commits suicide in his beloved Cadillac, Harry learns that he must marry by his next birthday if he wants to inherit his portion of the millions. Problem is, Harry is gay. So stubbornly resisting his father's post-partum threats, Harry moves to Texas where he becomes a flight attendant and meets a vivacious, over-the-top local girl with big blond hair and legs for days who will forever change his life: AMITY STONE. Amity is part beauty queen, part party girl, and fully irresistible. She brings hew life to Harry, as well as an opportunity for him to inherit his rightful fortune. Harry agrees to Amity's proposition of marriage. But as Harry begins to learn of Amity's secret past, he stars to wonder if Amity is marrying him for his own good—or for her own private agenda. As Harry increasingly struggles with this question (and Amity increasingly struggles to portray herself as sincere), Harry meets NICOLO, a stunningly handsome but inept waiter from Argentina. Harry, Amity, and Nicolo form a complicated triangle as each is determined to do the right thing by themselves—and each other. Even as the wedding march begins, no one is sure who will be THE BEST MAN! | |||||
Brad
Cohen and Lisa Wysocky's Front of the Class, about an elementary school
teacher in Georgia with Tourette's Syndrome, is being shuttled into
production. The book, optioned last year to Hallmark Hall of Fame, is
now set to air on CBS in early December according to Sharlene Martin
of Martin Literary Management, who made the deal with Steve Fisher at
APA. Tom Richman (Tuesdays with Morrie) is adapting and Peter Werner
is directing. 
For
Eric Volz, 25, a young American with a degree in Latin American Cultural Studies,
Nicaragua offered unlimited opportunity. There were the beautiful wide beaches
to surf, the numerous volcanic mountains to climb, the money to be made, and the
chance to make a difference in a country that was in the midst of a worldwide
rediscovery. Fluent in Spanish and with a thorough understanding of the history
and culture of this re-emerging part of the world, Eric Volz knew he had found
his paradise.
Michael
Glasgow knows how to write about complex true crime. A former attorney who has
been co-counsel in a first degree murder case, he is the co-author of An
Unfinished Canvas: A Story of Love, Family, and Murder in Nashville a
story of the ten-year investigatory saga of Janet and Perry March as featured
on CBS's 48 HOURS and COURT-TV, published in October 2007 by Berkley Publishing.
The Eric Volz murder case, which has already been featured in the New York Times
and Wall Street Journal, as well as on the Today Show, Dateline, and Anderson
Cooper 360 is an international story of many layers with its roots beginning as
far back as 150 years ago. It requires a writer like Glasgow who loves research,
and who can deliver the complete story with all its suspenseful and surprising
twists and turns. . 
In
the tradition of 'Me and My Shadows - The Judy Garland Story', and 'Haywire',
the story of Leland Hayward and Margaret Sullivan, River of No Return: Tennessee
Ernie Ford and the Woman He Loved - the first book written chronicling
the lives and marriage of the legendary entertainer Tennessee Ernie Ford and his
wife, Betty- promises to rank among the great stories of Hollywood lives told
in our time.
One
minute television crime reporter Amanda Lamb is hot on the trail of a murder suspect
or a child molester, the next minute she is signing up to time her daughter's
swim meet or to bring brownies to the preschool picnic… It's in these two
clashing, co-existing worlds that her humor has become her best survival tool.
And
this book is just the beginning. With no shortage of material Amanda has already
started her second installment of what she hopes to be a series of "Smotherhood™"
books.
Anthony
Flacco
Chris
Morgan lives for justice. He wears a white felt fedora, sports a larger-than-life
personality, and espouses an old-school cop mentality. Photographs of murder victims,
some yellowed and furled, are pinned haphazardly to the cork board near his desk.
But there is nothing haphazard about how Morgan fights to find their killers.
Eric
Miller is on the cork board. He was a pediatric AIDS researcher at a prestigious
southern university when his life was cut short by arsenic poisoning. Miller suffered
for months as the poison slowly ate away at him until his body finally gave out.
The death of the promising young scientist stunned the local community and the
scientific community at large.
Right
away Morgan suspected that Ann Miller, Eric Miller's wife, was to blame. Ann Miller
was also a scientist for a prominent pharmaceutical company. On the outside Ann
Miller was pretty, demure, a loving mother, and a seemingly devoted wife. But
Morgan saw something else in Ann Miller. He saw a woman obsessed with creating
her own version of happiness at any cost- even if that meant killing someone.
Deadly
Dose is a true crime book told through the eyes of Chris Morgan. In an
exclusive agreement with the author, the retired homicide detective shares for
the first time publicly his dogged four-year pursuit of Ann Miller. It was a crusade
that consumed his every waking hour and ultimately became the swan song of his
lengthy career. Readers will hang on every word, every twist, every turn, as the
genteel, but shockingly candid investigator takes them inside the inner-workings
of catching a killer.
Size
Matters is a witty 21st century fairy tale-"The Princess and the Frog" if
the frog prince were a formerly hot straight male model trapped in a 300-pound
body. 
His
two worlds collide when he takes his cool girlfriend to his hometown senior prom.
She finds out about Fat Ron, dumps Thin Ron, and his affair with food heats up
again.
For
the next magical year he's a wildly successful model with a bombshell girlfriend.
His biggest problem is not passing out from hunger as he struts down the runway.
He appears on TV, works with famous designers and sees his own picture everywhere.
Except for the constant weakness and gnawing in the pit of his stomach, life is
good. 
For
the first time, the brother of James Earl Ray shares his knowledge of the murder
of MLK that has never been revealed before. 
"He
seems to have been highly unsettled after leaving the Army, and we would judge
that some traumatic experience occurred which he does not care to tell or cannot
verbalize."
Can
a murder case be built without the body or any other physical evidence? That's
the question at the heart of Michael Glasgow and Phyllis Gobbell's An Unfinished
Canvas: The Mysterious Disappearance of Artist Janet March, on submission to publishers
and producers. Sure to appeal to Court TV junkies, the manuscript explores the
1996 disappearance of a mother of two from her Nashville home and the subsequent
finger-pointing at her attorney husband, Perry-who was convicted of the killing
just last week. Glasgow and Gobbell are represented by Martin Literary Management's
Sharlene Martin. APA's Steve Fisher is Martin's co-agent for film rights.
From the 1890's through 1943, this true story follows genius NIKOLA TESLA, arguably
the most influential inventor in history-and certainly the most unfairly ignored.
His powerful work even exceeded that of the venerated Thomas Edison. The book's
portrayal of this tall, handsome figure is historically accurate and offers a
"young-to-old" portrayal of a genius' personality that explores the
greatest mysteries of this brilliant creative force. 
