January 5, 2025 – New Year, New Books!

New Year, New Books!

January 5, 2025 at 7pm ET

Alafair Burke
Joseph Finder
Rachel Howzell Hall
Lisa Williamson Rosenberg

Registration for this event is closed.

First Name Last Name Email Address

I would like to register for the January 5, 2025 Back Room event.

By registering for this event you agree to receive event notifications from The Back Room. You can unsubscribe at any time, however please be aware that if you unsubscribe before the event, you will not receive log in information.

Alafair Burke

Alafair Burke is the Edgar-nominated, New York Times best-selling author of fifteen novels of suspense, including The Ex, The Wife, The Better Sister, Find Me, and The Note, which comes out on January 7. She also coauthored the best-selling Under Suspicion series. A former prosecutor, she is now a professor of criminal law. She is a prior president of the Mystery Writers of America and lives in New York.

The Note

Growing up, May Hanover was a good girl, always. Well-behaved, top of her class, a compulsive rule-follower. Raised by a first-generation Chinese single mother with high expectations, May didn’t have room to slip up, let alone fail. Her friends didn’t call her the Little Sheriff for nothing.

But even good girls have secrets. And regrets. When it comes to her friendship with Lauren and Kelsey, she’s had her fair share of both. Their bond–forged when May was just twelve years old–has withstood a tragic accident, individual scandals, heartbreak and loss. Now the three friends have reunited for the first time in years for a few days of sun and fun in the Hamptons. But a chance encounter with a pair of strangers leads to a drunken prank that goes horribly awry.

When she finds herself at the center of an urgent police investigation, May begins to wonder whether Lauren and Kelsey are keeping secrets from her, testing the limits of her loyalty to lifelong friends.

What had they gone and done?

Joseph Finder

Joseph Finder is the New York Times bestselling author of 17 novels, most recently The Oligarch’s Daughter. His books have won numerous awards, including the ITW Thriller Award, the Strand Critics Award, and the Barry Award. Two of his novels have been made into major motion pictures, High Crimes and Paranoia.

The Oligarch's Daughter

Paul Brightman is a man on the run, living under an assumed name in a small New England town with a million-dollar bounty on his head. When his security is breached, Paul is forced to flee into the New Hampshire wilderness to evade Russian operatives who can seemingly predict his every move.

Six years ago, Paul was a rising star on Wall Street who fell in love with a beautiful photographer named Tatyana–unaware that her father was a Russian oligarch and the object of considerable interest from several U.S. intelligence agencies. Now, to save his own life, Paul must unravel a decades-old conspiracy that extends to the highest reaches of the government.

Rivaling the classic spy novels of the Cold War, The Oligarch’s Daughter is built for the frightening world we live in now.

Rachel Howzell Hall

Rachel Howzell Hall is the author of twelve novels, including the bestselling thriller What Fire Brings and The Last One, the explosive debut romantasy in her new series. She is also the author of bestselling novels, including What Never Happened, We Lie Here and multiple award-nominated And Now She’s Gone and These Toxic Things. Rachel is a two-time finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is a former member of the board of directors for Mystery Writers of America and was a featured writer on NPR’s acclaimed Crime in the City series and the National Endowment for the Arts weekly podcast.

The Last One

Thrown into a desolate land of sickness and unnatural beasts, Kai wakes in the woods with no idea who she is or how she got there. All she knows is that if she cannot reach the Sea of Devour, even this hellscape will get worse. But when she sees the village blacksmith fight invaders with unspeakable skill, she decides to accept his offer of help.

Too bad he’s as skilled at annoying her as he is at fighting.

As she searches for answers, Kai only finds more questions, especially regarding the blacksmith who can ignite her body like a flame, then douse it with ice in the next breath.
And no one is what–or who–they appear to be in the kingdom of Vinevridth, including the man whose secrets might be as deadly as the land itself.

Lisa Williamson Rosenberg

Lisa Williamson Rosenberg is an author and psychotherapist in private practice specializing in developmental trauma and racial identity. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Lisa’s short fiction has appeared in Literary Mama and The Piltdown Review, her essays in Literary Hub, Longreads, Narratively, The Common, Grok Nation, and Mamalode. Her debut novel, Embers on the Wind, was released on August 1, 2022 by Little A Books. Lisa’s second novel, Mirror Me, will be released on December 1, 2024, also by Little A.

A born-and-raised New Yorker, Lisa now lives in Montclair, New Jersey with her husband and dog. She is the mother of two college kids.

Mirror Me

Eddie Asher arrives at Hudson Valley Psychiatric Hospital panicked that he may have murdered his brother’s fiancée, Lucy, with whom he shared a profound kinship. He can’t imagine doing such a terrible thing, but Eddie hasn’t been himself lately.

Eddie’s anxiety is nothing new to Pär, the one Eddie calls his Other, who protects Eddie from truths he’s too sensitive to face. Or so Pär says. Troubled by Pär’s increasing sway over his life, Eddie seeks out Dr. Richard Montgomery, a specialist in dissociative identities. The psychiatrist is Eddie’s best chance for piecing together the puzzle of what really happened to Lucy and to understanding his inexplicable memories of another man’s life. But Montgomery’s methods trigger a kaleidoscope of memories that Pär can’t contain, bringing Eddie closer to an unimaginable truth about his identity.