The Last Thing He Wanted

The Last Thing He Wanted
Author: Joan Didion
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2008-07
Genre: Central America
ISBN: 0007291620

The first novel in over a decade from perhaps the most admired writer in America.

The Last Thing He Told Me

The Last Thing He Told Me
Author: Laura Dave
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2021-05-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1501171364

Don’t miss the #1 New York Times bestselling blockbuster and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick that’s sold 3 million copies strong—now an Apple TV+ limited series starring Jennifer Garner! The “page-turning, exhilarating” (PopSugar) and “heartfelt thriller” (Real Simple) about a woman who thinks she’s found the love of her life—until he disappears. Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared. Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they’re also building a new future—one neither of them could have anticipated. With its breakneck pacing, dizzying plot twists, and evocative family drama, The Last Thing He Told Me is a “page-turning, exhilarating, and unforgettable” (PopSugar) suspense novel.

The Last Thing I Remember

The Last Thing I Remember
Author: Andrew Klavan
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2010-06-07
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1418575755

High schooler Charlie West just woke up in a nightmare. He’s strapped to a chair. He’s covered in blood and bruises. He hurts all over. And a strange voice outside the door just ordered his death. Charlie West is a good kid. The last thing he can remember, he was a normal high-school student doing normal things—working on his homework, practicing karate, daydreaming of becoming an air force pilot, writing a pretty girl’s number on his hand. How long ago was that? And more to the point . . . How is he going to get out of this room alive? By calling on his deepest reserves of strength and focus, Charlie manages a desperate escape . . . only to find out that this nightmare isn't ending. There's a whole year of his life that he can't remember—a year in which he was convicted of murdering his best friend and working with terrorists. Now, with the police hunting him and a band of killers on his trail, he's got to find the answers to some of the deepest questions there are: Who am I? What do I stand for? And how am I going to stay alive? From Edgar Award winning and bestselling author Andrew Klavan comes the first installment of The Homelanders series. Exciting young adult suspense novel Approximately 82,000 words Part of the Homelanders series Book 1: The Last Thing I Remember Book 2: The Long Way Home Book 3: The Truth of the Matter Book 4: The Final Hour

Eight Hundred Grapes

Eight Hundred Grapes
Author: Laura Dave
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2015-06-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1476789290

FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME? Heralded as “impossible to put down” (Elle), and named a Best Book of the Summer by Glamour, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Marie Claire, and Us Weekly, Eight Hundred Grapes is a heartbreaking, funny, and deeply evocative novel about love, marriage, family, wine, and the treacherous terrain in which they all intersect. There are secrets you share, and secrets you hide… What if your beloved fiancé, he of the crinkly smile and irresistible British accent, had kept a life-changing secret from you? And what if, just a week before your dream wedding, you discovered it? Georgia Ford, bride-to-be, hops in her car and drives through the night, from Los Angeles to Sonoma, to her safe haven: her family, and the acclaimed family winery. Georgia craves the company of those who know her best, and whom she truly knows. Better yet, it’s the eve of the last harvest—the best time of the growing season, and Georgia knows she’ll find solace—and distraction—in the familiar rituals. But when Georgia arrives home, nothing is at all familiar. Her parents, her brothers, the family business, are all unrecognizable. It seems her fiancé isn’t the only one who’s been keeping secrets… Eight Hundred Grapes is a story about the messy realities of family, the strength (and weaknesses) of romantic love, and the importance of finding a place to call home. “This winning tale will both satisfy on a literary level and encourage oenophiles to pour themselves a glass of a recent vintage to enjoy while reading; it’s a tasty treat for wine lovers and teetotalers alike” (Publishers Weekly). You won’t be able to put this “addictive” (Us Weekly) novel down.

Fade

Fade
Author: Kyle Mills
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2010-04-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429907207

New York Times bestselling author of Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp novels Kyle Mills rewrites the rules for thrillers with Fade -- a novel ripped from today's headlines Welcome to the new war on terror. A secret wing of Homeland Security is recruiting agents to work undercover in the Middle East, and the director wants his second-in-command, Matt Egan, to bring aboard an old friend, Salam Al Fayed—better known as Fade. He's perfect: An ex-Navy Seal and the son of immigrants, he speaks flawless Arabic. Trouble is, he's "retired"; he was wounded in the line of duty, and the government refused to pay for the risky surgery that could have helped him. Now he's walking around with a bullet lodged near his spine, and he's not too fond of anyone in the government -- least of all, his ex-best friend Matt Egan, whom he blames for his present condition. Against Egan's wishes, the director tries to "persuade" Fade to join the team. But Fade is prepared to fight back at any cost. The chase is on -- will Matt be able to find his friend-turned-fugitive before Fade can take the ultimate revenge? Fade is a remarkable, take-no-prisoners program from an unparalleled writer at the height of his talents.

Democracy

Democracy
Author: Joan Didion
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 243
Release: 1995-04-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0679754857

From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Let Me Tell You What I Mean—a gorgeously written, bitterly funny look at the relationship between politics and personal life. Moving deftly between romance, farce, and tragedy, from 1970s America to Vietnam to Jakarta, Democracy is a tour de force from a writer who can dissect an entire society with a single phrase. Inez Victor knows that the major casualty of the political life is memory. But the people around Inez have made careers out of losing track. Her senator husband wants to forget the failure of his last bid for the presidency. Her husband's handler would like the press to forget that Inez's father is a murderer. And, in 1975, America is doing its best to lose track of its one-time client, the lethally hemorrhaging republic of South Vietnam. As conceived by Joan Didion, these personages and events constitute the terminal fallout of democracy, a fallout that also includes fact-finding junkets, senatorial groupies, the international arms market, and the Orwellian newspeak of the political class.

Joan Didion: The 1980s & 90s (LOA #341)

Joan Didion: The 1980s & 90s (LOA #341)
Author: Joan Didion
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-04-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1598536834

Library of America continues its definitive edition of one of the most electric writers of our time with a volume gathering her iconic reporting and novels from mid-career This second volume in Library of America's definitive Didion edition includes two novels and three remarkable essay collections with which she extended the compass of the extraordinary journalistic eye first developed in the celebrated books Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album. Gather here are Salvador, a searing look at terror and Cold War politics in the Central American civil war of the early 1980s; Miami, a portrait not just of a city but of immigration, exile, the cocaine trade, and political violence; and After Henry, in which she reports on Patty Hearst, Nancy Reagan, the case of the Central Park Five, and the Los Angeles she once called home. The novels Democracy and The Last Thing He Wanted, the latter recently adapted for film by Netflix, are fast-paced, deftly observed narratives of power, conspiracy, and corruption in American political life. Taken together, these five books mark the remarkable mid-career evolution of one of the most dynamic writers of our time.

I Am Still Alive

I Am Still Alive
Author: Kate Alice Marshall
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2018-07-24
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0425290999

"This tense wire of a novel thrums with suspense. . . . [this book] just might be the highlight of your summer.”–The New York Times Cheryl Strayed's Wild meets The Revenant in this heart-pounding story of survival and revenge in the unforgiving wilderness. After: Jess is alone. Her cabin has burned to the ground. She knows if she doesn’t act fast, the cold will kill her before she has time to worry about food. But she is still alive—for now. Before: Jess hadn’t seen her survivalist, off-the-grid dad in over a decade. But after a car crash killed her mother and left her injured, she was forced to move to his cabin in the remote Canadian wilderness. Just as Jess was beginning to get to know him, a secret from his past paid them a visit, leaving her father dead and Jess stranded. After: With only her father’s dog for company, Jess must forage and hunt for food, build shelter, and keep herself warm. Some days it feels like the wild is out to destroy her, but she’s stronger than she ever imagined. Jess will survive. She has to. She knows who killed her father…and she wants revenge.

Salvador

Salvador
Author: Joan Didion
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 115
Release: 2011-01-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307787362

"Terror is the given of the place." The place is El Salvador in 1982, at the ghastly height of its civil war. Didion "brings the country to life" (The New York Times), delivering an anatomy of a particular brand of political terror—its mechanisms, rationales, and intimate relation to United States foreign policy. As ash travels from battlefields to body dumps, Didion interviews a puppet president, and considers the distinctly Salvadoran grammar of the verb "to disappear." Here, the bestselling, award-winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Let Me Tell You What I Mean gives us a book that is germane to any country in which bloodshed has become a standard tool of politics.