Debut Benefits

Normally we reserve the first Thursday of every month for debut releases. A funny thing happened in the post-Thrillerfest ebb. There are no new releases this month. 

Our team here at The Thrill Begins is busy processing the new applications -- requests to join the Debut Author program are investigated by our membership group -- so I'm sure we'll have lots of striking covers to entice you next month. 

In order to become a member of the Debut Author program, an active ITW Author member must meets the following qualifications:

• Published by an ITW-recognized publisher.

• Is their first novel published in any format, anywhere.

• Is their first work of fiction published by a publisher or press with recognized status. Self-published works released prior to the debut novel preclude membership, as do novellas of any length (whether self-published or traditionally published), since the purpose of the debut program is to aide and support those going through the publication process for the very first time. Short stories released in an anthology or collection may not preclude membership; please mention these at the time that you apply so that they can be reviewed.

• The novel has or will be published after the most recent ThrillerFest. For instance, the last ThrillerFest was held July 7-11, 2015 and therefore an author who applied for the Debut Authors Program and whose first novel was released before July 7, 2015 was eligible for the Program. Conversely, an author whose book was released before the year’s ThrillerFest (any time before July 7, 2015) but who did not apply to the Debut Program until after July 11, 2015 is not eligible for the Program.

The benefits to the Debut Authors are many--some tangible, some nebulous but perhaps longer lasting. They include:

• The opportunity to appear at the Debut Authors Breakfast at ThrillerFest.  (Here are a few of our Debut Authors’ experiences at ThrillerFest: A Thrill a Minute by Anthony J. Franze and Jenny Milchman, Thrillerfest 2012: View from a Debut by Carter Wilson , and People, Passion, Places, Pain: ThrillerFest! by Donna Galanti.)

• The opportunity to receive media coverage concerning Debut Author events.  examples include a BookTrib.com profile and The Big Thrill, Library Journal, and Suspense Magazineran stories.

• Membership in the Debut Authors Discussion Forum and Mentor Forum.

Discussion Forum is a private forum where debut authors share experiences, give one another advice, post notices about upcoming events, and build relationships. The Forum also has archived resources, including a Debut Survival Guide, advice on getting blurbs, and much more.

The Mentor Forum features established ITW members who appear in the Forum to answer 

questions. Recent events have included a two-hour Skype session with Lee Child, as well as monthly on-line forums with David Morrell, Douglas Preston, Gayle Lynds, Harlan Coben, Lisa Gardner, and other bestselling thriller writers.  Read about one of those events here.

• Social media support, including inclusion on The Big Thrill’s Debut Author page, the opportunity to post on our blog, The Thrill Begins, and social media guidance and advice from Debut members. 

• A growing network and community, both with writers at just your stage, and with many of the greats in the business, which will provide support, resources, and opportunities at every stage of a career.

For me, working with the Debut Author Program been a wonderful opportunity to interact with so many authors as they prepare for their debut release. While I didn't make it to Thrillerfest--that pesky day job--I've met many of the debut authors at other conferences. The publishing world, especially the mystery/thriller/suspense world, can be a wonderful community. I'm delighted to be part of ITW, especially a program that reaches out to offer new members a hand.   

I hope everyone had a fabulous time at Thrillerfest or wherever your summer has taken you. I look forward to sharing the latest releases next month--on the First Thursday page.

July Debut Releases

It's the first Thursday in July and that means new releases.

Please take a look and let’s celebrate these debut authors' success!

VR Barkowski - A Twist of Hate (Five Star/Cengage) June 17, 2015

www.vrbarkowski.com

When the Cézanne his parents lend a local museum is replaced with a forgery, former homicide inspector turned security consultant Del Miller insists the museum's director call in the FBI. The painting, smuggled out of Nazi-occupied France along with Del's then-infant father, is not only priceless, it holds great sentimental value.
Soon, the museum director is dead, and a handwritten note in which he admits complicity in the theft arrives at a local news station. Then come allegations that Del's grandfather—a French Resistance hero who died at the hands of the Nazis—stole the missing masterpiece from a Paris gallery during the war. 

After the grandson of the long-deceased gallery owner comes forward to claim the Cézanne, he is found shot to death, and Del's father is implicated in both a conspiracy to hide the painting and murder. Del, now at a crossroads, sets out to uncover the truth.

From present-day San Francisco to war-torn France and Nazi death camps, A TWIST OF HATE is a story of family honor as Del seeks answers about the grandfather he never knew, the father he idolizes, and the secrets behind a missing painting that lay buried deep within his family's past.

Mark Leggatt - Names of the Dead (Fledgling Press) July 26, 2015

www.markleggatt.com 

Connor Montrose is running for his life. All that he held dear has been ripped away. Every Western intelligence agency and all the police forces of Europe are looking for him, with orders to shoot on sight. The only man who can prove his innocence, is the man that most wants him dead. 

Only one woman, a Mossad sleeper in Paris, will stand by his side. With her help, he must now turn and fight. His journey of evasion and revenge take him from hidden Holocaust bank vaults in Zurich, to the stinking sewers of Paris and dust-choked souks of Morocco. Finally, in the back streets of Tehran, under the gaze of the Ayatollahs, he has the chance to end it, as it began. In blood.

Jeffrey Westhoff - The Boy Who Knew Too Much (Intrigue Publishing) June 1, 2015

www.jeffreywesthoff.com

While on a school trip to Europe, Milwaukee teenager Brian Parker hopes for just a taste of the glamour and excitement of his favorite spy novels. Brian gets way more than a taste, though, when he stumbles across a wounded spy in a Lucerne alley.

The man’s dying words catapult Brian into a desperate chase across the continent. America’s latest super weapon is at stake, and everyone from a rogue CIA officer to a sadistic criminal mastermind is after it – and Brian. New enemies emerge at every turn, but Brian soon finds a welcome ally in Larissa, a beautiful French girl who loves the Ramones and is handy with a blast of pepper spray. 

Brian faces a deadly path, but reading all those spy novels has taught him a few tricks of the trade. They just might save his life.

June Debut Authors

It's the first Thursday in June and that means new releases.

Please take a look and let’s celebrate these debut authors' success!

Christine Carbo - The Wild Inside (Atria Books/S&S) June 16, 2015

christinecarbo.com

A haunting crime novel set in Glacier National Park about a man who finds himself at odds with the dark heart of the wild—and the even darker heart of human nature.

It was a clear night in Glacier National Park. Fourteen-year-old Ted Systead and his father were camping beneath the rugged peaks and starlit skies when something unimaginable happened: a grizzly bear attacked Ted’s father and dragged him to his death.

Now, twenty years later, as Special Agent for the Department of the Interior, Ted gets called back to investigate a crime that mirrors the horror of that night. Except this time, the victim was tied to a tree before the mauling. Ted teams up with one of the park officers—a man named Monty, whose pleasant exterior masks an all-too-vivid knowledge of the hazardous terrain surrounding them. Residents of the area turn out to be suspicious of outsiders and less than forthcoming. Their intimate connection to the wild forces them to confront nature, and their fellow man, with equal measures of reverence and ruthlessness.

As the case progresses with no clear answers, more than human life is at stake—including that of the majestic creature responsible for the attack. Ted’s search for the truth ends up leading him deeper into the wilderness than he ever imagined, on the trail of a killer, until he reaches a shocking and unexpected personal conclusion.  

Alex Dolan - The Euthanist (Diversion Books) June 2, 2015 www.alexdolan.com

A young woman helps to end the lives of people with terminal diseases. But when she helps the wrong person, she will be roped into a plot to gain vengeance on behalf of dozens, and the last life she ends may be her own.

They know her as Kali. She is there to see them off into the afterlife with kindness, with efficiency, and with two needles. She’s been a part of the right-to-die movement for years, an integral member, complicit in the deaths of twenty-seven men and women, all suffering from terminal illnesses.

And she just helped the wrong patient.

Soon Kali is drawn into a mesmerizing game of cat-and-mouse with two ruthless predators—one behind bars, one free—who hold the secrets that could bring comfort to the families of their victims. This powerful journey towards grace and towards peace will force both Leland and Kali to question everything they believe to be true and just.

Eileen Magill - (Oak Tree Press) June 17, 2015
www.eileenmagill.com

A young widow...

Cindy is reeling from the loss of her husband, suddenly a single mother of two children and the sole caretaker for her aging aunt. She finds the perfect house to start anew.

A house with a past...

A rundown house in the Silicon Valley suburbs needs a lot of work, but Cindy is willing to take it on to get her dream house. Disclosure documents indicate that someone had died in the house, but they don't tell the whole story of the house's evil past.

A call for help from beyond the grave...

Cindy's dreams are invaded by a woman who shows Cindy the horrible murders that had taken place in the house. Her message to Cindy: Your family is next. When repairs on the house uncover the missing murder weapon, Cindy begins to believe that the strange woman is something more than just a dream. Using her journalism skills to research the property, the dark past of the house is revealed: a series of murders starting when the house was built more than 40 years earlier. But her meddling into the history awakens a killer's need to keep the past quiet, and Cindy is thrust into a struggle to find the killer before she and her family become the next victims.

May Debut Releases

It's the first Thursday in May and that means new releases.

Please take a look and let’s celebrate these debut authors' success!

John A Connell - Ruins of War  (Berkley/Penguin) May 5, 2015
http://johnaconnell.com

“A thrilling hunt…gripping and gruesome.” —James Becker, bestselling author of The Lost Testament 

In the winter of 1945, seven months after the Nazi defeat, Munich is in ruins. Mason Collins—former Chicago police detective, U.S. soldier, and prisoner-of-war—is now Chief Warrant Officer of the American Zone of Occupation. It’s his job to enforce the law in a place where order has been obliterated. And his job just became much more dangerous. 

A killer is stalking the devastated city—one who has knowledge of human anatomy, enacts mysterious rituals with his prey, and seems to pick victims at random. Relying on his wit and instincts, Mason must venture into dangerous places that put his own life at risk: from interrogation rooms with unrepentant Nazi war criminals to penetrating the U.S. Army’s own black market.

But what Mason doesn’t know is that the killer he’s chasing is stalking him as well…

Stu Strumwasser - The Organ Broker: A Novel (Arcade/Skyhorse Publishing) May 2015

www.theorganbroker.com

Every day twenty Americans die while waiting for an organ transplant. A small portion take “transplant tourism” trips to third-world countries where they buy life-saving replacement body parts from organ brokers like New York Jack. 

This book is the incredible story of how he meets the son he never knew he had and then finds himself caught between a $2 million commission and his desire to avoid participating in a string of murders. He races to South Africa and Brazil, staying just a step ahead of his adversary and the FBI, while he searches for one small act of redemption.

March Debut Releases

It's the first Thursday in March and that means new releases. 

Please take a look and let’s celebrate these debut authors' success!

Steve Cavanagh - The Defence (Orion Books) March 12, 2015
http://stevecavanagh.com/

Eddie Flynn used to be a con artist. Then he became a lawyer. Turned out the two weren't that different.

It's been over a year since Eddie vowed never to set foot in a courtroom again. But now he doesn't have a choice. Olek Volchek, the infamous head of the Russian mafia in New York, has strapped a bomb to Eddie's back and kidnapped his ten-year-old daughter, Amy.

Eddie only has forty-eight hours to defend Volchek in an impossible murder trial - and win - if he wants to save his daughter.

Under the scrutiny of the media and the FBI, Eddie must use his razor-sharp wit and every con-artist trick in the book to defend his 'client' and ensure Amy's safety. With the timer on his back ticking away, can Eddie convince the jury of the impossible?

Lose this case and he loses everything.

Glen Erik Hamilton - Past Crimes (William Morrow) March 3, 2015
http://glenerikhamilton.com

Van Shaw was raised to be a thief, but at eighteen he suddenly broke all ties to that life and joined the military—abandoning his illicit past and the career-criminal grandfather who taught him the trade. Now, after ten years of silence, his grandfather has asked him to come home to Seattle. But when Van arrives, he discovers his grandfather bleeding out on the floor from a gunshot to the head. With a lifetime of tough history between him and the old man, Van knows he’s the  main suspect.

The only way he can clear his name is to go back to the world he’d sworn to leave behind. Tapping into his criminal skills, he begins to hunt the shooter and uncover what drove his grandfather to reach out after so long. But in a violent, high-stakes world where right and wrong aren’t defined by the law, Van finds that the past is all too present . . . and that the secrets held by those closest to him are the deadliest of all. 

SJI Holliday - Black Wood (Black and White Publishing) March 19, 2015
http://sjiholliday.com

Something happened to Claire and Jo in Black Wood: something that left Claire paralysed and Jo with deep mental scars. But with Claire suffering memory loss and no evidence to be found, nobody believes Jo's story. Twenty-three years later, a familiar face walks into the bookshop where Jo works, dredging up painful memories and rekindling her desire for vengeance. And at the same time, Sergeant Davie Gray is investigating a balaclava-clad man who is attacking women on a disused railway, shocking the sleepy village of Banktoun.

But what is the connection between Jo's visitor and the masked man? To catch the assailant, and to give Jo her long-awaited justice, Gray must unravel a tangled web of past secrets, broken friendship and tainted love. But can he crack the case before Jo finds herself with blood on her hands?

February Debut Releases

It's the first Thursday in February and that means new releases. 

Please take a look and let’s celebrate these debut authors' success!

Susan Adrian - Tunnel Vision (St Martin's Griffin) January 20, 2015
http://www.susanadrian.net/


Jake Lukin just turned 18. He's decent at tennis and Halo, and waiting to hear on his app to Stanford. But he's also being followed by a creep with a gun, and there's a DARPA agent waiting in his bedroom. His secret is blown.

When Jake holds a personal object, like a pet rock or a ring, he has the ability to "tunnel" into the owner. He can sense where they are, like a human GPS, and can see, hear, and feel what they do. It's an ability the government would do anything to possess: a perfect surveillance unit who could locate fugitives, spies, or terrorists with a single touch.

Jake promised his dad he’d never tell anyone about his ability. But his dad died two years ago, and Jake slipped. If he doesn't agree to help the government, his mother and sister may be in danger. Suddenly he's juggling high school, tennis tryouts, flirting with Rachel Watkins, and work as a government asset, complete with 24-hour bodyguards.

Forced to lie to his friends and family, and then to choose whether to give up everything for their safety, Jake hopes the good he's doing—finding kidnap victims and hostages, and tracking down terrorists—is worth it. But he starts to suspect the good guys may not be so good after all. With Rachel's help, Jake has to try to escape both good guys and bad guys and find a way to live his own life instead of tunneling through others.

Sandra Block - Little Black Lies (Grand Central Publishing) February 17, 2015
www.sandraablock.com

She helps people conquer their demons. But she has a few of her own...

In the halls of the psychiatric ward, Dr. Zoe Goldman is a resident in training, dedicated to helping troubled patients. However, she has plenty of baggage of her own. When her newest patient arrives - a beautiful sociopath who murdered her mother - Zoe becomes obsessed with questions about her own mother's death. But the truth remains tauntingly out of reach, locked away within her nightmares of an uncontrollable fire. And as her adoptive mother loses her memory to dementia, the time to find the answers is running out.

As Zoe digs deeper, she realizes that the danger is not just in her dreams but is now close at hand. And she has no choice but to face what terrifies her the most. Because what she can't remember just might kill her.

Little Black Lies is about madness and memory - and the dangerous, little lies we tell ourselves just to survive. 

January Debut Releases

Happy New Year! A new year and new debut releases! 

It's the first Thursday in January. Please take a look and let’s celebrate their success!

Susannah Hardy - Feta Attraction (Berkley Prime Crime) January 6, 2015

www.susannahhardy.com

Georgie Nikolopatos manages the Bonaparte House, a Greek restaurant and historic landmark in beautiful upstate New York rumored to possess ghosts and hidden treasure. But when her husband disappears and her main competitor is found dead, it’s up to Georgie to solve a big fat Greek murder.

With her husband, Spiro, inexplicably gone for days, Georgie has her hands full running the restaurant and dealing with the crew of the TV show Ghost Squad, called in by Spiro to inspect the house for haunting. So when she has a chance to take a boating excursion on the St. Lawrence River with her friend Keith Morgan, she jumps on it. But their idyll is quickly ruined when they discover the body of rival restaurant owner Domenic “Big Dom” DiTomasso floating in the water.

When the police start asking questions, it doesn’t help that Spiro can’t be found—and with Georgie on their suspect list, it’s up to her to find her missing husband and find out who killed Big Dom before someone else’s order is up.

Includes delicious Greek recipes!

Susan Philpott - Blown Red (Simon and Schuster, Canada) January 6, 2015

susancphilpott.com 

Like a runaway train, Signy Shepherd has been blowing through danger signals all her life. 

Recruited to the Line, a shadowy underground railroad dedicated to helping women in peril, Signy has no idea that her first solo case will set her on a collision course with a renowned photographer concealing a murderous past, a relentless tracker with an explosive secret, and her own violent demons. 

Set during the height of a brutal heat wave, the pressure mounts as Signy and her young passenger race across the country toward a sanctuary that proves to be a deadly illusion.

December Debut Releases

It's the first Thursday in December, which means debut releases. Please take a look and let’s celebrate their success!

S. L. Ellis - Lane Changes (Black Opal Books) December 20, 2014
www.cassiecruise.com

Cassie Cruise wants her life back as a kick-ass P.I. Trouble is, she has zero credibility since bungling a case on reality TV. After a public tantrum, she slinks off to bury her head in the sandy beaches of Southwest Florida.

Just as she starts over as the owner of The Big Prick Tattoo Shop, a body is discovered in the trunk of her burning car. Cassie's aware there are those who'd get in line for their turn to torch her car. But murder?

You don't have to like her, but you damn well better respect her. And get out of her way—this is one case she intends to solve, with or without an audience.

Maggie King - Murder at the Book Group  (Simon & Schuster, Pocket Books)  December 30, 2014

www.Maggieking.com

Nothing can kill a good book group discussion like cold-blooded murder. Especially when the victim is one of the group’s own. Cyanide is the topic du jour for the mystery fanatics of Murder on Tour, but for their poor hostess, Car­lene Arness—who just published her own whodunit—it makes for a surprise ending. One minute, Carlene is speaking animatedly about featuring the poison in her new book. The next, she’s slumped over in a chair, dead from a sip of tea. Did the writer take her research too far? Or did one of the group’s members take a love of true crime to the extreme?

Founding member Hazel Rose is rounding up suspects. Any of her fellow bibliophiles could be the killer. And she soon discovers that almost all of them had a motive. Even Hazel herself, whose ex-husband married Carlene, could be accused of harboring jealousy. The truth is, Carlene wasn’t just hard to read, she was also hard to like—and the scandalous secrets Hazel unearths would make Carlene’s idol, Agatha Christie, turn over in her grave.