Most Popular Books by John Searles

"A winner: tense and terrifying with a twist you’ll never see coming. You won’t soon forget these characters and the shocking ways their lives intersect." -- Laura Dave, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me Every marriage has its secrets…. Skyla lives alone in the shadow of the defunct drive-in movie theater that she and her husband ran for nearly fifty years. Ever since Hollis’s death in a freak accident the year before, Skyla spends her nights ruminating about the regrets and deceptions in her long marriage. That is, until she rents a cottage on the property to a charming British man, Teddy Cornwell…. A thousand miles away, Linelle is about to turn fifty. Bored by her spouse and fired from her job when a questionable photo from her youth surfaces on social media, her only source of joy is an on-line affair with her very first love, a man she’s not seen in nearly thirty years, Teddy Cornwell… While in New York City, Jeremy, a failed and bitter writer, accepts an assignment to review a new restaurant in Providence. Years ago, Providence was the site of his first great love and first great heartbreak—and maybe, just maybe, he’ll look her up when he’s back in town… Part page-turning thriller, part homage to film noir, and dazzling in its insight into the often desperate desires of the human heart, Her Last Affair is a tense and atmospheric novel of love lost and found again.

It is June 1971. Dominick Pindle, a tenderhearted but aimless Massachusetts teenager, spends his nights driving around with his mother and dragging his wayward father out of bars. Late one evening, Dominick''s search puts him face-to-face withhis father''s seductive mistress, Edie Kramer. Instantly in lust, he begins a forbidden relationship with this beautiful, mysterious woman. Before long, though, their erotic entanglement leads to a shocking death, and Dominick discovers that the mother he betrayed hid secrets as dark and destructive as his own. Charged with the exhilarating narrative pace of a thriller and set during a complicated and explosive era, Boy Still Missing is the critically acclaimed debut novel from John Searles. It renders a deeply affecting portrait of a boy whose passage into adulthood proves as complex and impassioned as the history that unfolds before his eyes.

An orphaned teen investigates the deaths of her demonologist parents in this occult mystery and coming of age tale by a New York Times–bestselling author. "A dazzling, dark portrait of a troubled family beset by the supernatural. Searles ratchets up the tension with every passing chapter, and delivers authentic and well-earned scares—all written through the lens of a lonely teenager searching for answers. The result is a novel both frightening and beautiful." —Gillian Flynn Sylvie Mason''s parents have an unusual occupation: helping "haunted souls" find peace. After receiving a strange phone call late one snowy night, they are lured to an old church on the outskirts of town, where Sylvie falls asleep in the car and is awoken by the sound of gunshots. Orphaned on that night, Sylvie comes under the care of her reckless, distant older sister, still living in the rambling Tudor house that guards the relics of her parents'' past. As she pursues the mystery of their deaths. Sylvie''s story weaves back and forth between the time leading up to the murders and the months following, uncovering the truth of what happened that night—and the secrets that have haunted her family for years. A Boston Globe Best Crime Novel of the Year An Entertainment Weekly Top Ten "Must List" Winner of the American Library Association''s Alex Award Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist starred reviews "I was completely consumed by Help for the Haunted; I read it in one sitting. I just can''t decide what I loved the most: its perfectly pitched teenage narrator; the ghost story that kept me riveted; the thriller that made me say, Oh, just one more chapter." —Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Lone Wolf and The Storyteller "Searles craftily uses the conventions of the horror novel to cast light on the troubled dynamics at work inside a family, as well as the pressures from the outside world. His novel is both a suspenseful page turner and a provocative look at what it means to be haunted." — The Columbus Dispatch

Now a Major Motion Picture starring Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, and Blythe Danner. "Sinister and complex.... You''ll race right through it."— New York Times After a mysterious fall from his New York City apartment, Philip Chase has moved back home with his mother, Charlene, a bitter woman who has never fully accepted the death of her younger son, Ronnie, five years earlier. Surrounded by memories of the family he no longer has, and trying to forget the reasons he left New York, Philip is in stasis. But everything changes late one windy February night when Ronnie''s high school girlfriend shows up on their doorstep. A sad young woman who still bears the scars of the accident that took Ronnie''s life, Melissa is nine months pregnant. The father, she claims, is Ronnie. Now Philip and his mother must confront not only Melissa''s past but also their own: the secrets each has buried and the lies each has told. But not everyone wants the past exposed.... At once a moving story of redemption and a heart-stopping work of suspense, Strange but True "will hold you transfixed" (Salon.com).

In this comparative study of Philip Roth and John Updike, Searle examines their literary methods, provides background materials about each writer, and discusses their themes. He finds that Roth concentrates on the individual within the society, while Updike describes society''s typical individual; Roth writes in the first person, Updike in the third; setting is incidental to Roth, while Updike can be considered a regional writer. He points out that both writers share themes such as ethnicity, interpersonal relationship, moral responsibility and guilt, and are preoccupied with subsidiary concerns such as materialism, the importance of meaningful work, the fallen state of the clergy, and the idea of sport as metaphor. ISBN 0-8093-1175-5 : $16.95.

This lighthearted look at identity is packed with 30 quizzes that are divided into three sections--love, life, and lust--in true Cosmo style.

Workplace Communications: The Basics is the first text specifically intended for applied writing courses in community college and other settings where many students are academically underprepared and therefore intimidated by lengthy, theory-intensive tests. This text focuses instead on the basics of workplace writing by emphasizing practical applications. Written in a simple, conversational style, Workplace Communications is designed to be both accessible and useful, incorporating numerous examples, illustrations, and exercises.

DVĚ SESTRY. JEDNO TEMNÉ TAJEMSTVÍ... Jedné zasněžené zimní noci vezmou rodiče svou dceru Sylvii s sebou na tajemnou schůzku do nedalekého kostela. Zatímco dívka čeká v zaparkovaném autě, jsou její otec i matka za nejasných okolností brutálně zavražděni. Dospívající dívka, žijící po tragické události v péči starší sestry, se rozhodne na vlastní pěst zjistit, co se té osudné noci v kostele doopravdy stalo a kdo nese zodpovědnost za smrt rodičů. Během neúnavného pátrání se vrací do let předcházejících zločinu i do období těsně poté a postupně odhaluje temné a nelítostné události, které navždy změnily osud celé její rodiny, včetně jí samotné... „Bohatý a vzrušující příběh... Napínavý a zároveň citlivý pohled pod povrch záhady jménem rodina.“ – Khaled Hosseini, autor bestselleru LOVEC DRAKŮ

VRAŽDA A POMSTA, SMRT A LÁSKA... Po pádu z požárního schodiště u svého bytu na Manhattanu se Philip Chase nastěhuje zpátky domů ke své matce Charlene, zahořklé ženě, která se nikdy úplně nesmířila se smrtí mladšího syna Ronnieho, k níž došlo před pěti lety. Otupělý sledováním televize a hádkami s matkou upadne Philip do stavu netečnosti. Všechno se změní jedné zimní noci, kdy se na jejich prahu objeví Ronnieho přítelkyně ze střední školy Melissa Moodyová, aby jim oznámila, že je těhotná. A otcem, jak tvrdí, je Ronnie... Tak začíná podivuhodný příběh, v němž se Philip a jeho matka probírají Melissinou i svou minulostí. Ve snaze dobrat se odpovědí na otázky, které je trápily po celý život, podniknou neobvyklou cestu, během níž jsou nuceni čelit vraždě i pomstě, smrti i lásce, a na jejímž konci možná někdo z nich dojde i kýženého vykoupení... Podle knihy natáčí producent muzikálového hitu La La Land film s Amy Ryanovou a Gregem Kinnearem v hlavních rolích.

Tout commence par un appel téléphonique, une nuit neigeuse de février. Couchée dans son lit, la jeune Sylvie Mason entend ses parents au téléphone à l’autre bout du couloir. Ce n’est pas la première fois qu’on les appelle si tard car ils ont une occupation pour le moins inhabituelle : ils prêtent main-forte aux « âmes tourmentées » pour les aider à retrouver la paix. Mais cette fois, Sylvie sent que cet appel n’est pas comme les autres, d’autant qu’on les convainc de se rendre à la vieille église à l’orée de la ville. Là, ses parents disparaissent, l’un après l’autre, par les portes rouges de l’édifice, laissant Sylvie seule dans la voiture. Bientôt, elle s’endort... réveillée un peu plus tard par des coups de feu. Au fil du roman, qui oscille entre les années ayant mené à cette nuit-là et les mois qui suivirent, la jeune Sylvie n’aura de cesse de chercher les réponses aux questions qui la harcèlent, quitte à découvrir des secrets qui hantent sa famille depuis des années. Alliant le sens dérangeant de l’étrange d’un Stephen King et la tendresse fantasque d’un John Irving, Pitié pour leurs âmes nous est raconté par la voix captivante d’une jeune héroïne bien décidée à découvrir la vérité sur ce qui s’est réellement passé cette nuit d’hiver. Traduit de l''anglais par Philippe Loubat-Delranc

An infectious and utterly charming fictionalization of the iconic Helen Gurley Brown''s early years at the helm of Cosmopolitan, and the intrepid group of women she took under her wing to create one of the most talked about magazines of all time. In 1965, Helen Gurley Brown, a soft spoken, self-professed "mouseburger," is fresh off the runaway success of her book Sex and the Single Girl, a revolutionary call to single women urging them not to rush into marriage on anyone''s timeline but their own, and, even more radically, to enjoy their sex lives, gloriously free of shame. Upon the book''s publication, half the country is outraged (her mother, for one, hates the book), and the other half will follow her anywhere. Moved by the thousands of letters arriving at her doorstep from readers desperate for advice, she marches from one Manhattan magazine conglomerate to another, looking for a perch from which to dispense her unconventional wisdom. At her last stop, she finally gets her shot: just three issues to turn around the flailing magazine Cosmopolitan. Helen quickly assembles a team of smart, savvy single girls up to the task. Soon, their lives become the stuff of magazine cover lines: the gorgeous Book Editor''s doomed romance with a man she didn''t know was married--and her bold idea for revenge. The (unofficial!) Sex Editor''s trip to soak in the world''s first champagne glass hot tub, which takes a very wrong turn. The Entertainment Editor''s clash with Joan Crawford and interview with a Park Avenue call girl that leads to unexpected revelations. Single Girls begins at the dawn of Helen''s legendary tenure and journeys back to her youth, uncovering the devastations and people who forged her into a controversial legend. It examines how one unsinkable group of women navigated gender roles and workplace power dynamics long before these issues entered the headlines. With dazzling, high-energy prose, it captures not just a movement, but a mood: one of ambition, reinvention, and the intoxicating thrill of being young when a new world was possible for a single girl if only she was fearless enough to reach out and grab it.

Get ready for a full year of the best sex ever with the latest offering fromCosmopolitan. This sexy game gives couples 365 ideas for turning up the heat in the bedroom and the living room and the car and on the kitchen counter...and, well pretty much anywhere. Players take turns pulling tickets, which roll out of the box to reveal a naughty task, such as: o Put on an exercise DVD and do it together naked. o Flip a coin. Heads, do it in the bedroom. Tails, on the floor in the kitchen. Flip it again. Heads, you''re on top. Tails, he''s on top. And one more time. Heads, lights on. Tails, lights off. o Undress each other and kiss or caress every body part as it comes into view. o Some tickets refer the players to a page number in the enclosed booklet, where they''ll find sex positions, fantasy cards, and sexy scenes to read aloud to each other. That''s one whole year of hot sex, with a new (and very naughty) carnal challenge to try every night.