Barbara Braun Associates, Inc.

LUNCHEON OF THE BOATING PARTYby Susan Vreeland
Viking/Penguin, May 2007, hardcover; Penguin paperback, February 2008
Translation rights controlled by publisher. Film rights controlled by BBA.
Everyone knows this iconic Impressionist picture: a group of dashing young men in jerseys and boaters, and women in frilly dresses lounging in the dappled shade of a riverside restaurant near Paris on a Sunday afternoon. All the people in the picture were real Parisians of Renoir’s time—-artists, journalists, actresses, friends. In the latest of her fictional excursions into the world of great art and its creators, Vreeland examines the mixture of relationships and motives that brought everyone together and in the process offers an unforgettable portrait of a cherished time and place.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Rights to Italy (Neri Pozza), Germany (Heyne Verlag), Holland (Bzztoh) Israel (Kineret), Serbia (Laguna), Korea (Kang) and Portugal (Emergencia).

LIFE STUDIES
by Susan Vreeland
Viking/Penguin, December 2004, hardcover; December 2005, paperback
LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER

THE FOREST LOVER
by Susan Vreeland
Viking/Penguin, January 2004, hardcover; paperback December 2004

THE PASSION OF ARTEMISIA
by Susan Vreeland
Viking/Penguin, 2002, hardcover; 2003, paperback
Translated into 12 foreign languages.

GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE
by Susan Vreeland
MacMurray & Beck, 1999, hardcover; Viking/Penguin, 2000, paperback
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Translated into 26 foreign languages

BRUSH WITH FATE, Hallmark Hall of Fame TV Movie based on GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE, February 2003(screenplay by Richard Russo, starring Glenn Close, Ellen Burstyn, Thomas Gibson and Patrick Bergin)

LOOKING FOR SALVATION AT THE DAIRY QUEEN by Susan Gregg Gilmore
Shaye Areheart Books/Crown, February 2008, hardcover; paperback, June 2009
Catherine Grace, teenage daughter of a beloved preacher in a small Southern town, longs to get away to the big city until a series of dramatic events involving her long-dead mother, her father and a pretty schoolteacher, combine to show her that life in the slow lane can be just as exciting. A delightful and heart-warming debut brimful of Southern charm.
Now in its third printing.

Book Trailer

THE IMPROPER LIFE OF BEZELLIA GROVE
by Susan Gregg Gilmore
Shaye Areheart Books/Crown, July 2010, hardcover
The new novel by the author of the much-admired “Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen” is the story of a girl born very much on the right side of the tracks, and how she overcame her would-be genteel upbringing. With a father who can’t cope, a mother who drinks to forget imagined social slights, and a little sister living in a private world, Bezellia as she grows up manages to break a lot of Southern taboos as she creates her own idiosyncratic life.

THE BLACK ISLE by Sandi Tan
Grand Central/Hachette, hardcover, 2011
A “ghost history” of a South Asian metropolis in which an elderly psychic recalls her amazing role in the city state's growth from a backward island haunted by countless spirits to a center of world finance.

SUNFLOWERS
by Sheramy Bundrick
Avon/HarperCollins, trade paperback original, October 2009
Everyone knows Van Gogh cut off his ear, some know he gave it to an Arles prostitute. But who was she? In this tender, beautifully researched debut novel, art historian Bundrick creates a moving and believable love affair between the tormented painter and Rachel Courteau, in which she desperately tries, and fails, to save him from his demons.
Foreign and dramatic rights controlled by BBA.
Rights to Brazil (Editora Pruma),Israel(Miskal), Poland (Swiat Ksziazki),Spain (Viceversa).

"In a knockout debut novel, art historian Bundrick (Music and Image in Classical Athens) brings Vincent Van Gogh's paintings and personal story to vibrant life. ...an impressive volume of suspense, delight, and heartbreak.
-Publishers Weekly, 8/17/09 (starred review)
Already in its fifth printing

THE WIVES OF HENRY OADES
by Johanna Moran
Ballantine Books, February 2010, trade paperback
Based on a real case, this moving novel recounts the story of a man who in 1890s California lived happily with two wives and successfully fought a long prosecution for bigamy. Oades was an Englishman who emigrated to New Zealand with his wife and children only to have them kidnapped and held for years by the Maori. Convinced that they were dead, he started a new life and marriage in California; years later his family reappeared and found him. Moran’s powerful account is a tribute to the courage and good-heartedness of two remarkable women, as well as a page-turning drama.
UK rights to Harper Press, German to Bertelsmann Book Club.

"A delicious and painful tale of marriage, suffering, tolerance and sacrifice––a historical saga seen through the lens of two wives, one husband, and the disapproving, cantankerous rabble at the end of Victorian America––a stellar debut novel."
--Jamie Ford, bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

"Intriguing and evocative debut novel based on a real-life California bigamy case...it's the two women bonding that gives the book its heart and should make this book a book group winner."
--Publishers Weekly

"Moran is a careful writer, a spare stylist who never wastes a word. She also has a well-tuned ear for the jargon of the period, colorful language that adds warmth, humor, and humanity to her story."
--Boston Globe

THE SOUND OF BUILDING COFFINS
by Louis Maistros
The Toby Press, February 2009, hardcover
A dark, beautifully written tale, shot through with flashes of magic realism, about New Orleans at the birth of the jazz age. Whores, gamblers, voodoo queens, gravediggers and Buddy Bolden, whose cornet launched the new music, are among the large and lovingly created cast.

An "Indie Next" pick (April 2009)

"THE SOUND OF BUILDING COFFINS is easily one of the finest and truest pieces of New Orleans fiction I've ever read." -- Poppy Z. Brite

"Louis Maistros has written a lyrical, complex, and brave novel that takes enormous risks and pulls them all off. He is a writer to watch and keep reading, a writer to cherish." -- Peter Straub

"One has to write with considerable authenticity to pull off a story steeped in magic and swamp water that examines race and class, death and rebirth, Haitian voodoo, and the beginnings of jazz in 1891 New Orleans...The plot is complex and magical, grounded in the history of the city, without being overly sentimental. There is a comfort with death as a part of life in this work that reveals deep feeling for the city and its past....Highly recommended for all fiction collections, especially where there is an interest in jazz." -- Library Journal

"A book like THE SOUND OF BUILDING COFFINS couldn't have been set anywhere else than in New Orleans. This is a good thing — even people who haven't had the experience of living there can get a feeling for the place, thanks to the wonderful writing of Louis Maistros. But for anyone who has lived there, this book sings out in true jazz fashion — wildly inventive, oddly formed yet perfectly made, and never a sour note." -- The Anniston Star

HEMINGWAY CUTTHROAT
by Michael Atkinson
Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2010, hardcover
It is Madrid in 1936 in this sequel to Atkinson’s “Hemingway Deadlights,” and the celebrated author is there covering the Spanish Civil War, drinking and whoring-—not necessarily in that order. When word comes that an old friend from the States has been found executed, Hemingway’s buddy John Dos Passos insists that they look into it. Anyone who enjoyed “Deadlights” will revel in this new look at Ernest’s prowess as P.I.

HEMINGWAY DEADLIGHTS
by Michael Atkinson
Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, August 2009, hardcover
Can you imagine Ernest Hemingway investigating a murder? The time is 1955 and Hemingway is living in Key West in a blur of liquor, hangers-on and regrets. Then one of his drinking buddies is found slain, a whaling harpoon through him on the docks. Hemingway hadn’t been close to the man, but the police’s lack of interest in the case, and the weird quality of the interest shown in it by some unsavory others, piques him, and soon the old lion is roused to try and find out for himself what happened. It becomes a saga of drug-smuggling and mayhem that eventually leads back to Cuba and Fidel and Che Guevara as they prepare for their revolution.
Brazilian rights to Globo.

“Hemingway's terse yet moody style paved the way for legions of hard-boiled detective writers. Now Michael Atkinson lets America's most famous author finally horn in on the mystery game. Atkinson packs HEMINGWAY DEADLIGHTS with hilarious dialogue, irreverent literary shoptalk, and so much excellent sun-soaked atmosphere that you'd best consume it along with a few pitchers of something cool.”
--Ed Park, author of Personal Days

"What would a genre mystery by Ernest Hemingway read like? Say, a story about a heavy-drinking, womanizing, professionally frustrated amateur sleuth in Key West and Cuba? Great characters, great setup--what's that you say? HEMINGWAY DEADLIGHTS is not by him, but about him? Wow. Just, wow. You could've fooled me."
--Laurie R. King, author of The Beekeeper's Apprentice

"Marvelous!! Couldn’t ask for more."
--Tess Gerritsen, author of Body Double

"Atkinson deftly mixes fact and fiction with graphic sex and violence in a mystery sure to please Hemingway aficionados."
--Publishers Weekly

Book Trailer

CALL ME WHEN YOU LAND
by Michael Schiavone
The Permanent Press, 2011, hardcover
Katie, the protagonist of this observant, beautifully written family drama, has a number of problems: her rebellious teenage son C.J., his father, who has just died and left him a highly dubious bequest, her own rampant alcoholism, a lover and a sister both of whom she hardly knows. Out of her unpromising life debut novelist Schiavone extracts humor, compassion, courage and a deeply human determination to survive.

THE FOUR SEASONS by Laurel Corona
Voice/Hyperion, Fall 2008, trade paperback
Most of the myriad works for which the 17th century Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi became famous (including the ubiquitous Four Seasons) were written for the female performers of the Pieta, a local home for foundling girls. Corona’s vivid, deeply touching and beautifully researched novel imagines a pair of foundling sisters who become Vivaldi’s protoges. It tells of their struggles and ambitions in the lusty, vividly colored Venice at a momentous time in the history of music.
Book of the Year, San Diego Book and Writing Awards, 2009
Portuguese rights (Portugal) to Esfera dos Livros, Portuguese (Brazil) to Ed. Luciana, German to Weltbilt, Turkish to Alfa/Artemis, Spanish to El Ateneo, French to Pygmalion/Flamarion, Bulgarian to Uniscorp, Hungarian to Geopen, Croatian to Lievak Naklada.

BILLY BOYLE WORLD WAR II MYSTERY SERIES by James R. Benn
A KILLING GAME
Soho Press, September 2012 hardcover; paperback September 2013
In the sixth entry in the Billy Boyle World War II mystery series, Billy investigates a series of murders that appear to be the work of a soldier during the Italian Anzio campaign.

RAG AND BONE
Soho Press, September 2011, hardcover; paperback, September 2012
In the fifth entry in the Billy Boyle World War II mystery series, Billy is contacted by the Polish government in exile to investigate the massacre of 20,000 Polish officers by the Soviets, many buried in the Katyn Forest.

EVIL FOR EVIL
Soho Press, September 2009, hardcover; paperback, September 2010
In the fourth book in his popular series of Billy Boyle mysteries set during WWII, Benn has moved the action to Ireland, a strange place indeed during the war. Ireland was officially neutral, but was in fact a hotbed of espionage and plotting by the Irish Republican Army, often in cahoots with the Nazis, against the British war effort. When Billy is called on to investigate a murder there of a U.S. soldier, his warring loyalties, involving his Irish heritage and his devotion to the Allied cause, tear him apart.

"A twisting, turning plot...gripping...Benn offers no easy answers in this rich mix of Irish history and wartime intrigue."
--Publisher's Weekly

BLOOD ALONE
Soho Press, September 2008, hardcover; paperback, September 2009
In the third book of the series, Billy Boyle awakens in a field hospital in Sicily with amnesia. In his pocket is a yellow silk handkerchief embroidered with the initial L. Gradually he remembers: he has been sent ashore in advance of the troops with this token from Lucky Luciano to contact the head of the Sicilian Mafia. But he must also thwart a murderous band of counterfeiters of Army scrip led by Vito Genovese.

An "Indie Next" pick (October 2008).

"Characterization and atmosphere carry Benn's third WWII mystery, a convincing blend of fact and fiction...The hero's gradual rediscovery of his memories lets him question what kind of person he is, in particular whether he's more than a brutal killer. Benn also does a fine job of depicting a dusty, poverty-stricken Sicily, where warm loyalty is the reverse side of pitiless vendetta." -- Publisher's Weekly

THE FIRST WAVE
Soho Press, September 2007, hardcover; September, 2008, paperback
For his second outing, Billy Boyle is in on the 1942 invasion of French North Africa. He's part of an American unit sent to test the Vichy will to fight on the side of the Nazis, and soon finds himself involved with some wartime crooks in Algiers. Drug smuggling was always a strong local industry, and with brand-new and enormously valuable American drugs like penicillin being brought in by the military, it's a potential heyday for the gangsters. Soon Billy finds himself looking at several murders, the capture and humiliation of his English girl friend Diana by Vichy forces and the planned hijacking of a load of priceless drugs. In the end he has to go it alone to bring the gangster kingpin to a crude justice.

Selected as a Book Sense Notable Book for September 2007

"Benn’s hero is still wide-eyed and bushy-tailed in THE FIRST WAVE... but his character has deepened... spirited wartime storytelling." -- Marylin Stasio, New York Times "High-spirited... gripping... [a] lively story" -- Publisher's Weekly

BILLY BOYLE: A WORLD WAR II MYSTERY
Soho Press, September 2006, hardcover; paperback, September 2007
This first of a series about the WWII exploits of Billy Boyle introduces Billy as a Boston Irish police detective who, thinking to land a soft desk job in the war, instead finds himself with Eisenhower’s staff in London as the general's unofficial private investigator. This case involves the murder of a Free Norwegian official at a country manor where the possible invasion of Nazi-held Norway is being planned, and finds Billy in a life-and death struggle with a German spy on which the whole future of the war may depend.

BILLY BOYLE has been selected for Bookspan's Military History, American Compass and Mystery Book Clubs. It was named by Kirkus one of the top thirty books for fall 2006, and is also a Book Sense Choice, an Ingram Premier Pick and an IMBA bestseller.

THICKER THAN WATER
by Janet Majerus
Five Star, June 2010, hardcover
Jessie Schroeder, a children’s author returned to her small Midwestern hometown of Riverport, finds murder on her doorstep. A large bequest in an eccentric family, a fatal case of arson, a strange auto accident and a sinister priest – these are just a few of the threads that she’s forced to unravel as she attempts to crack the case. Add to this her own oddball family and her ongoing affair with the police chief, and Majerus, author of “The Best Laid Plans,” has created another sprightly, engaging mystery.

THE BEST LAID PLANS
by Janet Majerus
Five Star, 2006, hardcover
A crackling plot, an assortment of brilliantly observed small-town characters, and a particulary ingratiating heroine, make the author of this cozy mystery a real find.
Now in its second printing.

"This promising crime debut combines a crisp evocation of small-town life with an engaging mystery. Cozy fans should take note." -- Booklist

THE BLUE COTTON GOWN: A MIDWIFE’S MEMOIR by Patricia Harman
Beacon Press, Fall 2008, hardcover; September 2009, paperback
World English and translation rights controlled by BBA.
Nurse-midwife Patricia Harman runs a West Virginia women’s health care center with her OB/GYN husband. In a page-turning narrative nonfiction account of a year in the life of their practice, we see dozens of patients, including a student whose life leads her into an array of sexually transmitted diseases, a woman who can’t have an orgasm, another who wants to become a man, and a wife who flees a dangerous husband with her seven children. To all of them, Harman brings deep empathy and knowing care, empowered by her conviction that a midwife is a woman’s health companion for life.

A Publisher's Weekly "Indie Sleeper" pick.

"A flower child who found her calling after coaching a friend through a home birth, nurse-midwife Harman works with her ob-gyn husband at a West Virginia clinic. In her sweetly perceptive memoir, she reveals how her exam room becomes a confessional. Coaxing women in thin gowns to share secrets -- about abusive boyfriends, OxyContin habits, unplanned pregnancies -- she reminds them that they're not alone."
-People Magazine

"The whole book is touchingly revelatory of how valuable a medical practitioner who commits more than the current average of four minutes to each patient can be....deeply moving."
—Booklist, starred review

“As the mother of seven children and veteran of eight pregnancy losses, I knew when I ran my bath that I would be unable to resist Patricia Harman’s memoir of midwifery. What I didn’t realize was that it would cause me, a sensible person, to get into the bath with one sock still on and rise from it when the candle was gone and the water cold. Utterly true and lyrical as any novel, Harman’s book should be a little classic.”
—Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean and Cage of Stars

“The many moving stories of the women that Patricia Harman cares for as a nurse-midwife add up to a remarkable account of a life spent listening, helping, and taking care. Inviting us into her clinic in rural West Virginia, she shows us the joys and sorrows of listening to women's stories and attending to their bodies, and she leads us through the complicated life of a healer who is profoundly shaped by her patients and their journeys.”
—Perri Klass, author of The Mercy Rule and Treatment Kind and Fair

HAVANA DECO
by Martino Fagiuoli, Alejandra Alonso and Petry Contreras
W. W. Norton, November 2007, hardcover
A noted photographer, a critic and an art historian combine to celebrate the lavish creations of the prewar Art Deco period that illuminate the Cuban capital. This beautiful volume, hitherto available only in Cuba and Italy, makes its U.S. debut in a completely revised edition.

BATH MASSACRE: AMERICA'S FIRST SCHOOL BOMBING
by Arnie Bernstein
University of Michigan Press, April 2009, simultaneous hardcover and trade paperback
One of the great but comparatively little remembered disasters of the early American 20th century was the bombing of the Bath Consolidated School in the lower Michigan peninsula, which in 1927 killed 38 schoolchildren and six adults. It was the first mass murder in U.S. history, and an uncanny harbinger of other school slayings to come. Chicago-based historian Bernstein recounts the story in chilling detail, including interviews with the few remaining survivors.

"In Bath Massacre, Arnie Bernstein meticulously chronicles the worst school bombing in American history. With a powerful sense of place and a sharp eye for human drama, Bernstein takes readers back to rural Michigan of the 1920s, revealing one man's decent into madness and the heartbreak of an entire town." -- Sean Chercover, best-selling author of Trigger City

"With the meticulous attention to detail of a historian and a storyteller's eye for human drama, Bernstein shines a beam of truth on a forgotten American tragedy. Heartbreaking and riveting."
--Gregg Olsen New York Times bestselling author of Starvation Heights

FLICKIPEDIA: Perfect Films for Every Occasion, Holiday, Mood, Ordeal, and Whim
by Michael Atkinson and Laurel Shiffman
Chicago Review Press, October 2007, trade paberback original
Goes through all the occasions of our life—birth, marriage, retirement, holidays, love affairs, even the choosing of a President—and suggests a list of appropriate movies for each, explaining why the movie works for that part of your life. The result is a wonderfully wide-ranging list of movies, from the most popular to the often obscure and little known but utterly deserving, with pithy commentary on each. An invaluable guide to viewing.

ACCORDION DREAMS: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music
by Blair Kilpatrick
University Press of Mississippi, Spring 2009, hardcover
Kilpatrick, a practicing psychologist, was a middle-aged mother of two who became infatuated with the sound of Cajun music while on vacation in New Orleans. Though she had no musical experience, she had recurring dreams of herself playing the accordion. She taught herself to play, found a mentor, began to connect with the Creole culture and eventually formed a Cajun Creole band, Sauce Piquante. Her book is a strongly written account of self-discovery and transformation, and a fascinating insight into a little-known culture.

SURFACES: VISUAL RESEARCH FOR ARCHITECTS, ARTISTS, AND DESIGNERSby Judy Juracek
W.W. Norton, 1997, hardcover, CD-ROM included. Now in its 9th printing.
First in the series, including SOFT SURFACES (2000) and NATURAL SURFACES (2002), and ARCHITECTURAL SURFACES: DETAILS FOR ARTISTS, ARCHITECTS, AND DESIGNERS (2005)
UK rights sold to Thames & Hudson, Chinese rights to Dalian University of Technology Press.
Entire SURFACES series is the winner of GOLDEN PEN AWARD from the U.S. Institute of Theatre Technology

UNTIL OUR LAST BREATH
by Michael D. Bart and Laurel Corona
St. Martin's Press, Hardcover, May 2008
This unique Holocaust story offers not only an eyewitness account of the partisans from the Vilna ghetto who fought back against the Nazis, but also a love story born among them that ended only 50 years later with the deaths of two survivors in California. Working with family documents, amazing photos and many original sources, including interviews with survivors, Michael Bart and novelist Laurel Corona have put together with remarkable specificity the story of Bart’s heroic and self-effacing parents and their life among the brave Jews who came to be known as The Avengers.
Best Biography, San Diego Book and Writing Awards, 2009
Winner of 2009 Christopher Award

HUMBLE PIE: MUSINGS ON WHAT LIES BENEATH THE CRUST by Anne Dimock
Andrews McMeel, Fall 2005, 2nd printing
The pie, once one of the iconic American symbols as the essence of home cooking, has fallen on hard days as a largely factory-made, store-bought product. Dimock, a deeply committed pie-baker, aims for a pie renaissance, and in this book, a glowing combination of memoir, celebration, cookbook and cultural history, she shows why it is essential and inevitable.

Finalist for the 2006 MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD

THE WORLD OF ANDREI SAKHAROV: A RUSSIAN PHYSICIST'S PATH TO FREEDOM
by Gennady Gorelik and Antonina Bouis
Oxford University Press, December 2005, hardcover
The story of the famed father of the Soviet nuclear weapons program, exploring his life in a scientific context for the first time as well as in his role as a humanitarian dissident.