In My TBR Stack:

Where the Sun Will Rise Tomorrow
by Rashi Rohatgi
Galaxy Galloper Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

It’s 1905, and the Japanese victory over the Russians has shocked the British and their imperial subjects. Sixteen-year-old Leela and her younger sister, Maya, are spurred on to wear homespun to show the British that the Indians won’t be oppressed much longer, either, but when Leela’s betrothed, Nash, asks her to circulate a petition amongst her classmates to desegregate the girls’ schools in Chandrapur, she’s wary. She needs to remind Maya that the old ways are not all bad, for soon Maya will have to join her betrothed and his family in their quiet village. When she discovers that Maya has embarked on a forbidden romance, Leela’s response shocks her family, her town, and her country firmly into the new century.

In My TBR Stack:

No Truth Left to Tell: A Novel
by Michael McAuliffe
Greenleaf Book Group Press
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

February 1994—Lynwood, Louisiana: Flaming crosses light up the night and terrorize the southern town. The resurgent Klan wants a new race war, and the Klansmen will start it here. As federal civil rights prosecutor Adrien Rush is about to discover, the ugly roots of the past run deep in Lynwood.

For Nettie Wynn, a victim of the cross burnings and lifelong resident of the town’s segregated neighborhood, the hate crimes summon frightful memories of her youth, when she witnessed white townspeople lynch a black man. Her granddaughter Nicole DuBose, a successful journalist in New York City, returns to Lynwood to care for her grandmother. Rush arrives from DC and investigates the crimes with Lee Mercer, a seasoned local FBI special agent. Their partnership is tested as they clash over how far to go to catch the racists before the violence escalates. Rush’s role in the case becomes even more complicated after he falls for DuBose. When crucial evidence becomes compromisethreatening to upend what should be a celebrated conviction—the lines between right and wrong, black and white, collide with deadly consequences.

No Truth Left to Tell is a smart legal thriller that pulls readers into a compelling courtroom drama and an illusive search for justice in a troubled community.

In My TBR Stack:

One Pill Makes You Stronger: The Drug That Scorched My Soul
by Jill Stegman
Transformation Media Books
Trade Paperback

From the publisher's website:

After forty years of marriage, Jill and Don Stegman had it all—two beautiful children, a stable relationship, fulfilling careers. But a brush with cancer and subsequent complications upended their lives. Don survived the cancer but was saddled with a sinister sidekick that transformed this gentle Dr. Jekyll into an evil Mr. Hyde: a white pill called prednisone. What was supposed to save him instead killed him—by his own hand.

With 44 million prescriptions written per year, for everything from allergies to immune system disorders, prednisone is something of a miracle drug. But the side effects—mania, psychosis, depression—took Don's life and nearly ruined Jill's.

In the months and years after Don's death, Jill reels from grief but finds her own way of coping. A memoir written in beautiful prose, One Pill Makes You Stronger is a love story, a cautionary tale, and a true testament to human resilience.

In My TBR Stack:

The 7 Secrets of Responsive Leadership: Drive Change, Manage Transitions, and Help Any Organization Turn Around
by Jackie Jenkins-Scott
Career Press
Trade Paperback

From the book publicity:

Being a responsive leader means playing to win. Responsive leadership can thrive anywhere, unlike systematic leadership. The latter imposes methods and laws; principles govern action. In contrast, responsive leadership is a living, changing set of traits and skills that adapts to new people and environments. You may have an impressive grasp of how to influence, inspire, and build teams, but you must know how to adapt your abilities to each new organization, or to changes within the organization—new board members, new staff members, new shareholders.

The 7 Secrets of Responsive Leadership spotlights how to build the skills to be a leader in any environment. Richly illustrated with stories from the author’s decades of experience as a CEO, the book explores how to:

• Take advantage of opportunity
• Turn around an organization
• Compete well by leading with heart
• Keep your bags packed
• Echo one message at a time
• Look for opposition
• Value the interconnectedness of people
• Recover quickly

At its core, this book is about the intimate relationship between leadership and opportunity. The author lived that relationship in transforming a major urban health care center and a college from struggling and failing organizations to thriving, international leaders in their field.

On My Radar:

Facebook: The Inside Story
by Steven Levy
Blue Rider Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

As a college sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg created a simple website to serve as a campus social network. 
 
Today, Facebook is nearly unrecognizable from its first, modest iteration. In light of recent controversies surrounding election-influencing “fake news” accounts, the handling of its users’ personal data, and growing discontent with the actions of its founder and CEO—who has enormous power over what the world sees and says—never has a company been more central to the national conversation. 
 
Millions of words have been written about Facebook, but no one has told the complete story, documenting its ascendancy and missteps. There is no denying the power and omnipresence of Facebook in American daily life, or the imperative of this book to document the unchecked power and shocking techniques of the company, from growing at all costs to outmaneuvering its biggest rivals to acquire WhatsApp and Instagram to developing a platform so addictive even some of its own are now beginning to realize its dangers. 

Based on hundreds of interviews inside and outside the company, Levy’s sweeping narrative of incredible entrepreneurial success and failure digs deep into the whole story of the company that has changed the world and reaped the consequences.

On My Radar:

Somebody's Gotta Do It: Why Cursing at the News Won't Save the Nation, But Your Name on a Local Ballot Can
by Adrienne Martini
Henry Holt and Co.
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Back in the fall of 2016, before casting her vote for Hillary Clinton, Adrienne Martini, a knitter, a runner, a mom, and a resident of rural Otsego County in snowy upstate New York, knew who her Senators were, wasn’t too sure who her Congressman was, and had only vague inklings about who her state reps were. She’s always thought of politicians as . . . oily. Then she spent election night curled in bed, texting her husband, who was at work, unable to stop shaking. And after the presidential inauguration, she reached out to Dave, a friend of a friend, who was involved in the Otsego County Democratic Party. Maybe she could help out with phone calls or fundraising? But Dave’s idea was: she should run for office. Someone had to do it.

And so, in the year that 26,000 women (up from 920 the year before) contacted Emily’s List about running for offices large and small, Adrienne Martini ran for the District 12 seat on the Otsego County Board. And became one of the 14 delegates who collectively serve one rural American county, overseeing a budget of $130 million. Highway repair? Soil and water conservation? Child safety? Want wifi? Need a coroner?

It turns out, local office matters. A lot.

In My TBR Stack:

Act of Murder: A Doc Brady Mystery
by John Bishop M.D.
Mantid Press
Trade Paperback

From the author's website:

Doc Brady became an orthopedic surgeon to avoid being surrounded by death. But now it's everywhere around him. 

One spring day in 1994 Houston, Dr. Jim Bob Brady witnesses his neighbor's ten-year-old son killed by a hit-and-run driver. An accident, or an act of murder? After the death, Brady enlists the help of his twenty-year-old son J. J. and his wife Mary Louise in chasing down clues that take them deeper and deeper into a Houston he never imagined existed. In the process, they discover a macabre conspiracy stretching from the ivory towers of the largest teaching hospital in Texas, to the upper reaches of Houston's legal community, to the shores of Galveston.

Doc Brady soon realizes that the old adage remains true: The love of money is the root of all evil.

Currently Reading:

The Big Lie: A Jack Swyteck Novel
by James Grippando
Harper
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

The country is reeling. For the sixth time in American history, the winner of the popular vote will not occupy the Oval Office. President Malcolm MacLeod, the Machiavellian incumbent, was spared from impeachment only because his political foes were certain they would oust him at the ballot box. Now, he appears to have secured a second term, thanks to a narrow victory in the Electoral College. 

His opponent, Florida Senator Evan Stahl, saw his campaign rocked by allegations of an extramarital affair—with another man. Despite the salacious headline-making scandal and the surrounding media frenzy, most Americans chose Stahl to lead the politically polarized nation. But Stahl is refusing to concede. Backed by millions of supporters, he looks to individual members of the Electoral College to cross party lines.

Gun lobbyist Charlotte Holmes is one of Floridas twenty-nine electors who is bound by law and by oath to cast her vote for MacLeod, who won Florida by the thinnest of margins. When Charlotte announces that she intends to vote her conscience and throw the Electoral College to Stahl, the president and his Florida machine haul her into court on felony charges—which, for some, isn’t nearly punishment enough.

Miami attorney Jack Swyteck is going to use every legal maneuver he can to keep his new client free—and alive. MacLeod’s hand-picked prosecutor is determined to prove Charlotte is unfit to cast a vote. Dredging through her past, he’s looking for skeletons to humiliate and discredit her, while others with far deadlier intentions have begun acting on their threats. 

As the pressure mounts, Charlotte and Jack must decide how far they’ll go to stand their ground in the stand-your-ground state.

In My TBR Stack:

Death is But a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life's End
by Christopher Kerr, MD, PhD
Avery Books
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Christopher Kerr is a hospice doctor. All of his patients die. Yet he has cared for thousands of patients who, in the face of death, speak of love and grace. Beyond the physical realities of dying are unseen processes that are remarkably life-affirming. These include dreams that are unlike any regular dream. Described as “more real than real,” these end-of-life experiences resurrect past relationships, meaningful events and themes of love and forgiveness; they restore life’s meaning and mark the transition from distress to comfort and acceptance. 

Drawing on interviews with over 1,400 patients and more than a decade of quantified data, Dr. Kerr reveals that pre-death dreams and visions are extraordinary occurrences that humanize the dying process. He shares how his patients’ stories point to death as not solely about the end of life, but as the final chapter of humanity’s transcendence. Kerr’s book also illuminates the benefits of these phenomena for the bereaved, who find solace in seeing their loved ones pass with a sense of calm closure.

Beautifully written, with astonishing real-life characters and stories, this book is at its heart a celebration of our power to reclaim the dying process as a deeply meaningful one. Death Is But a Dream is an important contribution to our understanding of medicine’s and humanity’s greatest mystery.

On My Radar:

The Unexpected Spy: From the CIA to the FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World's Most Notorious Terrorists
by Tracy Walder
St. Martin's Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

When Tracy Walder enrolled at the University of Southern California, she never thought that one day she would offer her pink beanbag chair in the Delta Gamma house to a CIA recruiter, or that she’d fly to the Middle East under an alias identity.

The Unexpected Spy is the riveting story of Walder's tenure in the CIA and, later, the FBI. In high-security, steel-walled rooms in Virginia, Walder watched al-Qaeda members with drones as President Bush looked over her shoulder and CIA Director George Tenet brought her donuts. She tracked chemical terrorists and searched the world for Weapons of Mass Destruction. She created a chemical terror chart that someone in the White House altered to convey information she did not have or believe, leading to the Iraq invasion. Driven to stop terrorism, Walder debriefed terrorists—men who swore they’d never speak to a woman—until they gave her leads. She followed trails through North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, shutting down multiple chemical attacks.

Then Walder moved to the FBI, where she worked in counterintelligence. In a single year, she helped take down one of the most notorious foreign spies ever caught on American soil. Catching the bad guys wasn’t a problem in the FBI, but rampant sexism was. Walder left the FBI to teach young women, encouraging them to find a place in the FBI, CIA, State Department or the Senate—and thus change the world.

On My Radar:

The Watergate Girl: My Fight for Truth and Justice Against a Criminal President
by Jill Wine-Banks
Henry Holt and Co.
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

It was a time, much like today, when Americans feared for the future of their democracy, and women stood up for equal treatment. At the crossroads of the Watergate scandal and the women’s movement was a young lawyer named Jill Wine Volner (as she was then known), barely thirty years old and the only woman on the team that prosecuted the highest-ranking White House officials. Called “the mini-skirted lawyer” by the press, she fought to receive the respect accorded her male counterparts—and prevailed.

In The Watergate Girl, Jill Wine-Banks opens a window on this troubled time in American history. It is impossible to read about the crimes of Richard Nixon and the people around him without drawing parallels to today’s headlines. The book is also the story of a young woman who sought to make her professional mark while trapped in a failing marriage, buffeted by sexist preconceptions, and harboring secrets of her own. Her house was burgled, her phones were tapped, and even her office garbage was rifled through.

At once a cautionary tale and an inspiration for those who believe in the power of justice and the rule of law, The Watergate Girl is a revelation about our country, our politics, and who we are as a society.

In My TBR Stack:

Building: Lessons Learned in Real Estate and Life
by Brian Watson
Northstar Commercial Partners
Trade Paperback

From the book publicity:

A BLUEPRINT FOR OPPORTUNITY Building a successful life is often like constructing a skyscraper. Both require a firm foundation to support the structure rising above it. Both benefit from using the best materials available. And both fulfill the builder s vision with a carefully drafted blueprint based on the collaborative wisdom of others. Brian Watson knows how this construction process works, for both life and business, and in Building: Lessons Learned in Real Estate and Life, he shares some of the design details you need to build your best life.

In My TBR Stack:

High Risk High Reward: The Journey of an "Underdog Entrepreneur" Who Took Chances, Overcame Obstacles, and Built a $50 Million Business
by Steve Scher
Acrobat Advisors
Trade Paperback

From the book publicity:

Entrepreneurship is about living the dream, right?
 
And we're told it takes hard work, focus and dedication - but those are only broad concepts - they don't tell you what the first steps should be when you wake up tomorrow.
 
That's why High Risk, High Reward was designed to give aspiring business owners an honest and real insider look at entrepreneurship and all the twists and turns that go along with it.
 
Spoiler alert? It all comes down to culture, taking chances, and reacting quickly to your business and market conditions. And I'll walk you through it all because I've been there, and despite the odds, I came out on top.
 
After sinking my life savings into an underperforming company, I found out I actually acquired two unreliable employees, a culture rife with sabotage, zero strategy for marketing and sales, and a shabby office located in one of San Francisco's roughest neighborhoods.
 
So I rebuilt my company from scratch. I overcame virtually every roadblock possible. And I grew the business into a $50 million company with 18 offices coast-to-coast managed and staffed by thousands of loyal employees. Then, after 14 years at the helm I sold the company for 8 figures.

Guaranteed packed with creative solutions, this guide includes:
 
·  The low risk, low reward /high risk, high reward formula to transform your business
·  Real-world tips to create a loyal employee culture
·  The pros and cons of growing organically vs. acquisitions
·  How to make technology work for you and your bottom line
·  Inspiration to fight for your business every day
·  Tips to build out your business and maximize value
·  How to implement socially responsible recruitment by hiring military vets, reformed offenders and people with disabilities
·  A checklist to prepare your exit strategy, so you can get the highest sale price possible and experience true financial freedom!
 
High Risk, High Reward is an inspirational story of grit and determination and your go-to reference guide for real-life business success.