Join authors Brett Battles, Claire Jiminez, Alex Marwood, and Matthew Quirk along with Back Room hosts Karen Dionne and Hank Phillippi Ryan for an evening of great conversation!
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The Authors
Brett Battles is a USA Today bestselling and Barry Award-winning author of over forty-five novels, including the Jonathan Quinn series, the Project Eden series, and the time bending Rewinder series.
He is the coauthor, with Stuart Woods, the latest Stone Barrington and Teddy Fay novels. He’s also the coauthor, with Robert Gregory Browne, of the Alexandra Poe series. His newest novel is Near Miss, written with Stuart Woods.
He lives and writes in Ventura County, California. Learn more at brettbattles.com.
Claire Jiminez is a Puerto Rican writer who grew up in Brooklyn and Staten Island. She is the author of the short story collection Staten Island Stories, which received the 2019 Hornblower Award for a first book from the New York Society Library and was named a finalist for the International Latino Book Awards, a New York Public Library Favorite Book about New York, and Best Latino Book of 2019 by NBC News.
She received her MFA from Vanderbilt University and her PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In 2020, she cofounded the Puerto Rican Literature Project, a digital archive. Currently she is an Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina. Her fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in Remezcla, AfroHispanic Review, PANK, The Rumpus, and Eater, among other publications.
What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez is her debut novel. Learn more at clairejimenez.com.
Internationally bestselling author Alex Marwood spent a decade in journalism before jumping over the wall to write novels. Her first, The Wicked Girls, won an Edgar for Best Paperback Original, and her follow-up, The Killer Next Door, won the MacAvity Award for best mystery of its year. Her books have achieved widespread critical and industry praise: of The Darkest Secret, Stephen King wrote “if there’s a better mystery-suspense story in the past decade, I can’t think of it”.
Raised in Oxford, England, where her father was a military historian, she has spent her adulthood kicking around and getting into trouble in London. Both her grandmothers were successful novelists.
Her latest novel, The Island of Lost Girls, came out in mid-June. Set on a fictional Mediteerranean island that’s become a billionaire’s playground, it’s about people-trafficking, the corruption that comes with extreme wealth, how families will fall apart when faced with tragedy and how help, when you need it, can come from the most unlikely of sources. Learn more at alexmarwoodbooks.com.
Matthew Quirk is a New York Times Bestselling novelist and journalist who is best known for his book The Night Agent, a political conspiracy thriller, which was adapted to a Netflix TV Show by Shawn Ryan.
Prior to becoming a novelist, he studied history and literature at Harvard College. After graduation, he spent five years at The Atlantic reporting on crime, private military contractors, terrorism prosecutions, and international gangs. He lives in San Diego and likes surfing at Sunset Cliffs and hiking Lagunas.
His newest thriller is Inside Threat, in which an attack on the White House sends the President and his top aides to take shelter in a top secret government facility buried deep underground—but they soon discover the threat is locked inside with them. Learn more at matthewquirk.com.
Authors’ Books
Near Miss by Brett Battles
Following a string of adventures, Stone Barrington is enjoying some downtime in New York City when a chance encounter introduces him to a charming new companion. Too bad she also comes with the baggage of a persistent ex-boyfriend intent on retribution.
As Stone skillfully dodges each disturbance, it becomes clear that there’s an even more treacherous game being played behind the scenes. When long-standing grudges resurface, Stone is brought back into the orbit of some familiar enemies. He must use all of his tricks—as well as those of a few old friends—to evade trouble before it’s too late. But this time, danger just might catch up with him.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jiminez
The Ramirez women of Staten Island orbit around absence. When thirteen-year-old middle child Ruthy disappeared after track practice without a trace, it left the family scarred and scrambling. One night, twelve years later, oldest sister Jessica spots a woman on her TV screen in Catfight, a raunchy reality show. She rushes to tell her younger sister, Nina: This woman’s hair is dyed red, and she calls herself Ruby, but the beauty mark under her left eye is instantly recognizable. Could it be Ruthy, after all this time?
The years since Ruthy’s disappearance haven’t been easy on the Ramirez family. It’s 2008, and their mother, Dolores, still struggles with the loss, Jessica juggles a newborn baby with her hospital job, and Nina, after four successful years at college, has returned home to medical school rejections and is forced to work in the mall folding tiny bedazzled thongs at the lingerie store.
After seeing maybe-Ruthy on their screen, Jessica and Nina hatch a plan to drive to where the show is filmed in search of their long-lost sister. When Dolores catches wind of their scheme, she insists on joining, along with her pot-stirring holy roller best friend, Irene. What follows is a family road trip and reckoning that will force the Ramirez women to finally face the past and look toward a future–with or without Ruthy in it.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
The Island of Lost Girls by Alex Marwood
It’s paradise for the super-rich, but hell for the girls whose lives they’ve stolen
1985
To twelve-year-old Mercedes, La Kastellana is home, an island with deep-rooted traditions untouched by the modern world. But this secluded paradise is upended with the arrival of multimillionaire Matthew Meade and his pampered young daughter, Tatiana. While the Meades lavishly spread unimaginable wealth around La Kastellana, the price Mercedes and the rest of the islanders will pay is more than they could ever have imagined.
2016
Robin has been desperately searching for her seventeen-year-old daughter Gemma, who’s been missing for more than a year. Finding herself on La Kastellana, an island playground for the international jet set, Robin quickly realizes she’s out of her depth. No one is willing to help and Robin fears she’s running out of time to find her child.
But someone has been watching, silently waiting for the moment to expose the dark truth of what really happens on the island of lost girls.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
Inside Threat by Matthew Quirk
Assume the worst. Code Black.
The day that every secret service agent trains for has arrived. The White House has been breached; the President forced to flee to a massive doomsday bunker outside DC to defend against whatever comes next. Only the most trusted agents and officials are allowed in with him—those dedicated to keeping the government intact at all costs.
Among these is Erik Hill, who has given his life to the Secret Service. They are his purpose and his family, and his impressive record has made him a hero among them. Despite his growing disillusionment from seeing Washington corruption up close, Erik can’t ignore years of instincts honed on the job. The government is under attack, and no one is better equipped to face down the threat than he is.
The evidence leads him to a conspiracy at the highest levels of power, with the attack orchestrated by some of the very individuals now locked in with him. As the killers strike inside the bunker, it will take everything Erik Hill has to save his people, himself, and his country.
Purchase online at www.bookshop.org.
Your Hosts
Karen Dionne is the USA Today and #1 internationally bestselling author of two psychological suspense novels set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wilderness, The Marsh King’s Daughter and The Wicked Sister, both published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in the US and in dozens of other languages.
Praised by The New York Times Book Review as “subtle, brilliant, and mature,” The Marsh King’s Daughter is soon to be a major motion picture starring Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn.
Visit Karen at www.karen-dionne.com
Karen’s newest novel is The Wicked Sister. “Dionne paints a haunting portrait of a family hurtling toward the tragic destiny they can foresee but are powerless to stop.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review; best book of 2020)
Purchase The Wicked Sister online at www.bookshop.org.
Hank Phillippi Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of 14 psychological thrillers, winning the genre’s most prestigious awards: five Agathas, five Anthonys, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. She’s also investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV, winning 37 EMMYs. National book reviewers call her “a superb and gifted storyteller.”
Hank is the co-host of The Back Room and First Chapter Fun, as well as host of her CRIME TIME interview show on A Mighty Blaze. She lives with her husband, a criminal defense and civil rights attorney, in Boston.
Learn more at www.HankPhillippiRyan.com.
Her newest is the page-turning standalone The House Guest – a story of psychological manipulation exploring the dark heart of marriage and friendship—it’s Gaslight meets Thelma & Louise. Publishers Weekly says, “Ryan is a master of suspense!” and the Library Journal starred review calls it “Binge-worthy.”
Purchase The House Guest online at www.bookshop.org.
