February 18, 7 PM ET

Join authors Jeff Ayers, Allison Brennan, Amanda Jayatissa, and Abbott Kahler along with Back Room hosts Karen Dionne and Hank Phillippi Ryan for an evening of great conversation!

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The Authors

 

Jeff Ayers is the author of several works of fiction and nonfiction, including the guide to Star Trek novels, VOYAGES OF IMAGINATION, where he reviewed over 550 books and interviewed over 350 people, including William Shatner and John DeLancie.

He has been a freelance book reviewer for almost 25 years for Booklist, Library Journal, The Associated Press, Criminal Element, and firstCLUE. He has interviewed hundreds of authors, such as Dan Brown, Harlan Coben, and Michael Connelly, for magazines, newspapers, and podcasts.

Jeff is the Co-Executive Director for ThrillerFest for the International Thriller Writers, Inc.

His first book in the National Park thriller series LEAVE NO TRACE (written with Jon Land under the name A.J. Landau) comes out from Minotaur Books on February 27. He also just signed a deal at Grand Central Publishing for a nonfiction book.

Learn more at jeffayersbooks.com (forthcoming).

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New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Allison Brennan believes life is too short to be bored, so she had five kids and writes three books a year.

Allison and her husband currently live in Arizona with their two youngest children and assorted pets, and are very much enjoying the newest addition to the family — their first grandchild. Allison enjoys hiking, baseball, reading, classic movies, and (of course) writing.

Learn more at allisonbrennan.com.

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Abbott Kahler (previously writing as Karen Abbott) is the author of four New York Times bestselling works of historical narrative nonfiction: Sin in the Second City; American Rose; Liar Temptress Soldier Spy; and, most recently, The Ghosts of Eden Park, which was an Edgar Award finalist for Best Fact Crime. Her next nonfiction book, Then Came the Devil, is about a disparate (and scheming) group of settlers on the Galapagos islands in the 1930s.

Her debut novel, Where You End, is inspired by a true story of identical twins and a strange case of amnesia, and will be published on January 16.

Abbott has written for The New Yorker, New York Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Smithsonian Magazine. She is the host of an iHeartRadio podcast, REMUS: THE MAD BOOTLEG KING, about bootlegger George Remus. She lives in New York City with her husband and a very opinionated African Grey parrot, and is at work on her next novel. Learn more at www.abbottkahler.com.

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Authors’ Books

 

Leave No Trace by Jeff Ayers (writing as A.J. Landau)

In a daring, brutal act of terrorism, an explosion rocks and topples the Statue of Liberty. Special Agent Michael Walker of the National Park Service is awakened by his boss with that news and sent to New York as the agent-in-charge. Not long after he lands, he learns two things – one that Gina Delgado of the FBI has been placed in charge of the investigation as the lead of the Joint Terrorism Task Force and two, that threats of a second terrorism attack are already being called into the media. While barred from the meetings of the Joint Task Force for his lack of security clearance, Walker finds a young boy among the survivors with a critical piece of information – a video linking the attackers to the assault.

As a radical domestic terrorist group, led by a shadowy figure known only as Jeremiah, threatens further attacks against America’s cultural symbols, powerful forces within the government are misleading the investigation to further their own radical agenda.

Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.

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The Missing Witness by Allison Brennan

Detective Kara Quinn is back in Los Angeles to testify against a notorious human trafficker, finally moving past the case that upended her life. But when the accused is shot in broad daylight, the chaotic scene of the crime turns up few reliable bystanders. And one witness–a whistleblower who might be the key to everything–has disappeared.

After another person close to the case is killed, it’s clear that anyone who knows too much is in danger, and tracking down the witness becomes a matter of life-and-death. But as explosive secrets surface within the LAPD and FBI, Kara questions everything she thought she knew about the case, her colleagues and the life she left behind months ago.

Now with FBI special agent Matt Costa’s help, she must race to find the missing witness and get to the bottom of the avalanche of conspiracies that has rocked LA to its core…before it’s too late.

Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.

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Island Witch by Amanda Jayatissa

Being the daughter of the village Capuwa, or demon-priest, Amara is used to keeping mostly to herself. Influenced by the new religious practices brought in by the British Colonizers, the villagers who once respected her father’s craft have turned on the family. Yet, they all still seem to call on him whenever supernatural disturbances arise.

Now someone–or something–is viciously seizing upon men in the jungle. But instead of enlisting Amara’s father’s help, the villages have accused him of carrying out the attacks himself.

As she tries to clear her father’s name, Amara finds herself haunted by dreams that eerily predict the dark forces on her island. And she can’t shake the feeling that it’s all connected to the night she was recovering from a strange illness, and woke up, scared and confused, to hear her mother’s frantic cries: No one can find out what happened.

Lush, otherworldly, and recalling horror classics like Carrie and The Exorcist, Island Witch is a deliciously creepy and darkly feminist tale about the horrors of moral panic, the violent space between girlhood and adulthood, and what happens when female rage is finally unleashed.

Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.

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