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A CLOSER LOOK AT NOVEMBER’S FOUR BOOK CLUB-WORTHY TITLES

WHITE FLAG

By Judy L. Mandel
Why are some able to raise their white flag of surrender?

Cheryl said many times that “I’m done with that life, I’ll never go back to it.” But she did. When her Aunt Judy finds her in jail after two years of thinking she may be dead, she hopes and prays this is a second chance for her niece. Her sensitive, funny, bookworm niece. Her big sister’s eldest daughter, the sister who has since died. And through writing White Flag, bestselling author Judy L. Mandel finds that it didn’t start with Cheryl, but that the tentacles of trauma explored in her first book Replacement Child have grabbed hold of her niece too. She struggles with being powerless to help Cheryl, and she discovers that transgenerational trauma and epigenetics may have started this avalanche of pain. She wonders why some people can recover from addiction, and others cannot. Why some are able to raise their white flag of surrender.

THE AUTHOR

JUDY L. MANDEL is a former reporter and marketing executive. Her New York Times Bestseller, REPLACEMENT CHILD was the #1 Memoir in Amazon, won an IPPY award, a Writer’s Digest Award, and was named Book-of-the-Month by the Jewish Book Club. Her new book, WHITE FLAG, is related to her first book as she becomes aware of the tentacles of transgenerational trauma stemming from the family tragedy.

Judy holds an MFA from Stony Brook University. She also writes essays and articles and is a co-founder of the Replacement Child Forum. Judy lives in Connecticut with her husband and obese orange cat. She plays guitar and is learning piano.

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Follow Judy Mandel on FacebookTwitter, and Instagram.
To learn more about Judy Mandel, visit her website.
Invite Judy Mandel to your book club.

MYSTERY AT THE WINDSWEPT FARM

By Wendy Sand Eckel
Suspense, humor, and mouth-watering menus await!

In Wendy Sand Eckel’s much-anticipated third book in the Rosalie Hart Mystery Series, Rosalie’s hard-earned organic farm certification is threatened by a toxic neighbor who is about to crop dust his winter wheat. When their impulsive farm hand decides to confront him, she finds his lifeless body inside the door of his home on Windswept Farm.

In the midst of the mayhem, Rosalie’s beloved Day Lily Café hosts a 5-day cooking school. Marco Giovanelli, a celebrated Italian chef, arrives in Cardigan and a sumptuous situation ensues. When one of the students falls ill with the same poison that killed the farmer, Rosalie and her best friend and head waiter, Glenn, take matters, and homemade pasta dough, into their own hands.

THE AUTHOR

Degrees in criminology and social work, followed by years of clinical practice, helped award-winning author WENDY SAND ECKEL explore her fascination with how relationships impact motivation, desire, and inhibition. Combined with her passion for words and meaning, writing mystery is a dream realized.

Eckel lives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in her dream house where she alternately gazes out her windows at the Chester River and hovers over the stove, creating succulent, sometimes experimental, meals for family and friends. She lives with the love of her life and two rescued orange tabbies, Frodo and Sam.

LEARN MORE

Follow Wendy Sand Eckel on FacebookTwitter, and Instagram.

To learn more about Wendy Sand Eckel, visit her website.

Invite Wendy Sand Eckel to your book club.

MORE AFTER THE BREAK

By Jen Maxfield
A reporter uncovers the rest of the story.

In More After the Break, Jen Maxfield revisits ten memorable stories from her career as a TV news reporter, describing in heart-pounding detail how the events unfolded and revealing what happened after the cameras went away. She introduces readers to unforgettable people who will inspire you with their hopefulness, even when confronting life’s greatest heartbreaks: a young man who lost both legs in a ferry crash, an endurance athlete with stage-four lung cancer, a fifth grader on a doomed field trip, an Ivy League undergrad sentenced to decades in prison, a young woman who gave her life for an animal, a Wall Street executive on an ill-fated bike ride, a preschooler whose health hinged on an immigration battle, a family who lost everything in a hurricane, a mother who fought back against domestic violence, and a man who stood up for his rights while seated in his wheelchair.

Returning to find these people years―even decades―after she featured their stories on the news gives Maxfield an opportunity to ask the burning questions she had always pondered: What happened after the live truck pulled away? What is the rest of the story?

THE AUTHOR

JEN MAXFIELD is an Emmy Award–winning reporter and substitute anchor who started at NBC New York in 2013. Prior to joining the station, she worked for Eyewitness News (ABC7) in New York City as a reporter and substitute anchor for ten years. Jen started her broadcast career in Binghamton, New York (WIVT), in 2000 and also worked in Syracuse (WIXT) before moving to New York City in 2002. She has reported live from thousands of news events over her twenty-two-year career and estimates she has interviewed more than ten thousand people. Maxfield is also an adjunct professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.

Maxfield and her husband, Scott, met as undergraduate students at Columbia. They live in New Jersey and have three children and a dog named Rocket.

LEARN MORE

Follow Jen Maxfield on FacebookTwitter and Instagram.

To learn more about Jen Maxfield visit her website.

Invite Jen Maxfield to your book club.

OVERRIDE

By Connell Cowan, Ph.D. and David Kipper, M.D.
Take control of your own brain.

Think you already own your brain? Think again. Your brain owns you. It pushes you around and insists upon getting its way, not yours. Rather than having your best interests in mind, your brain has its own very specific agendas and strategies the purpose of which is singular—to make it feel good. It doesn’t care that its goals are often at stark variance with your intentions or what you know is healthy and constructive in your life. Your brain is selfish, demanding, and devious.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Override introduces a new two-pronged theory of personality: serotonin types and dopamine types. Based on today’s breakthrough science into neurotransmitters—the chemicals that transmit signals through our nervous system—Override show readers how to recognize their own chemical imbalances, and what to do about them.

THE AUTHOR

CONNELL COWAN, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist. He co-wrote Smart Women/Foolish Choices, a runaway bestseller that spawned an entire genre of books dealing with male/female dilemmas. The book spent nearly a year on the New York Times bestseller list, sold millions of copies, has been published in 23 different languages, and was made into a hit musical. His second book, Women Men Love/Women Men Leave, also became a NYT bestseller. Husbands & Wives completed the relationship trio. He has appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows and his writings have been published in a number of journals, magazines, and newspapers internationally. Dr. Cowan also established the Human Sciences Center in Los Angeles––a non-profit center for research and treatment funded in part by a grant from the Eli Lilly Foundation. The innovative work he developed at the Center was featured on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”

He has taught at the California School of Professional Psychology and in UCLA’s School of Public Health. Along with his writings and clinical practice, Dr. Cowan has created and produced a number of television and video projects for syndication and cable blending both psychological information and drama.

LEARN MORE

To learn more about Connell Cowan, visit his website.

Invite Connell Cowan to your book club.

THE AUTHOR

DAVID KIPPER, M.D. has practiced internal medicine in Los Angeles for over three decades. He has appeared as an expert commentator on all major networks, has produced numerous programs on health and health care, appeared on the Today Show, and contributes to the Huffington Post. Dr. Kipper is currently a co-host for ABC radio’s The Medical Show, a weekly national call-in show addressing all areas of medicine. After 12 years on the air The Medical Show will be syndicated to a wide national audience with podcasts and a web presence that advocates for patients seeking personalized solutions to complicated health problems. Dr. Kipper co-founded the Medical Group of Beverly Hills, the largest multidisciplinary healthcare provider in Los Angeles.

He also co-founded the California Institute for Behavioral Medicine, a mind-body approach to managing stress, incorporating conventional and homeopathic therapies that Time Magazine described as “groundbreaking.” Dr. Kipper’s 2010 book The Addiction Solution (Rodale Press, 2010) helped create a paradigm shift in the treatment of this disease from a behavioral malady to a chronic medical illness, determined by our unique brain chemistry and triggered by stress.

LEARN MORE

To learn more about David Kipper, visit his website.

Invite David Kipper to your book club.

CONTACT: Jim Alkon, Editorial Director | BookTrib | [email protected] | 203-226-0199 | www.booktrib.com