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New Releases

Books released in the last six months by Torchflame Books

The Bob Verga Shift: How One Man’s Illness Changed History and Saved Duke Basketball

The Bob Verga Shift: How One Man’s Illness Changed History and Saved Duke Basketball

$18.99eBook: $6.99

In 1966, an all-black basketball team from the University of Texas El Paso (then Texas Western University) defeated an all-white team from the University of Kentucky to win the NCAA championship in a game that has become famous as a civil rights milestone. A closer inspection of the events leading to that momentous game reveals the unlikely circumstances that made a way for those two teams to walk onto that court.

Travel back in time to 1960s North Carolina, Kentucky, and Texas to unravel the remarkable truth behind the teams involved in the famous 1966 final four, and see how one man's absence changed history and paved the way for desegregation and civil rights progress.

This new look at basketball's impact on American history shows how supposedly minor events can have significant historical consequences.

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What Bear Said: about Love, Life, and Other Stuff

What Bear Said: about Love, Life, and Other Stuff

The boy has a lot of questions—hard ones about love, honesty, grief and loss, prejudice, forgiveness, why we are here, and more. Bear answers with wisdom, honesty and heart.

Walk with these two for awhile in the woods and see what you might learn about life, love and other stuff.

What Bear Said, read by adults and children together, will inspire rich conversations. Bear and boy are likely to become part of your family to be revisited regularly.

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Someone Had to Lie

Someone Had to Lie

Reeling from the sudden death of a close friend, James Butler and Erica Walsh are pulled back into the shadow world of Mexican cartels and the CIA. Seeking to avenge the murder of their friend with only his haphazard notes to guide them, they puzzle through the possible connections searching for anything concrete. As they investigate his murder, and his notes, they find unsettling links between drug trafficking, American gangs, the CIA, and the opioid epidemic.

Determined to find the truth hidden among cases they thought were long closed, Butler and Walsh call on friends and colleagues to help them survive the crosshairs that got their friend killed. With the threat spreading across more of their contacts, they must uncover the truth before they are buried in lies.

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Bare Naked in Public: An earnest and humorous account of one modern American woman trying to have it all

Bare Naked in Public: An earnest and humorous account of one modern American woman trying to have it all

$18.99eBook: $6.99

Christine Amoroso did everything right to achieve the perfect life. Falling for a sandy-haired surfer and landing pregnant at seventeen, she knew the “right” thing to do. She could have it all, even if in the “wrong” order: beautiful children, a good marriage, and approval from those around her. Until it all fell apart.

Ever the overachiever, she continued to take on too much, finishing college with two kids in tow. But as her responsibility grew, so did her resentment. A stressed-out young mom, an inattentive husband, and the attention of another man made the perfect recipe for disaster. Hard work and responsible decisions had not guaranteed a happy life or lasting love. She had failed, and now she floundered as she tried to find a fresh start. She turned inward for answers rather than seeking external validation.

After a few missteps, she slowly learned her worth couldn’t come from a list of accolades, achievements, or some guy. Her story is an earnest and humorous account of what it’s like to be a modern American woman trying to have it all and the dangers of losing oneself in the process.

Bare Naked in Public is a must-read memoir for burnt-out overachievers seeking answers about their worth while finally forgiving their past.

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Deadly Quiet (The Eliza Fox Files, #1)

Deadly Quiet (The Eliza Fox Files, #1)

Eliza Fox must be smarter than the police and a step ahead of the killer.

When an exchange student is found dead in the music practice rooms of Wexford College, there are few suspects and no clear answers. Martina Noto's parents will fly into California from Rome as soon as they can, but until then the nearest relatives are Martina's cousins: Private Investigator Eliza Fox and her mother, Francesca Noto-Fox.

As detectives Byron Comstock and Jessica Fonseca get familiar with the case, Eliza is determined to help catch Martina's killer. She quickly begins her own investigation and is soon caught up in the twists and turns of finding the murderer, a far cry from her usual work as a paralegal. Often out of her depth, Eliza must overcome her own inexperience and learn to trust her instincts as she fumbles through her first high-stakes case.

Filled with both humor and suspense, this is one traditional mystery novel you don't want to miss.

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The Overexamined Life of Jacob Hart: a novel

The Overexamined Life of Jacob Hart: a novel

$18.99eBook: $6.99

Jacob Hart has always been convinced there is an answer to any problem. That belief propelled him to a successful engineering career at corporate giant, GoldOrb Diversified. But following an abrupt retirement and his wife's untimely death, Jacob suffers an existential crisis. The man who once believed that anything could be solved becomes all consumed with uncovering the role of a higher power in his seemingly crumbling world. Plagued with prophetic visions, he travels to Lake Paradise in pursuit of his coveted answer to life's mysteries.

Joined in his quest by a kind Rabbi who has lost his faith, an unruly Ivy League professor, and the powerful CEO of GoldOrb, Jacob enters into a philosophical pursuit for the ages. But the troubles of the real world follow the friends to paradise, and soon they are ensnared in a high stakes political scandal that threatens to destroy everything.

The Overexamined Life of Jacob Hart tests the bonds of friendship, family, and country and infuses existential questions from time immemorial with modernity, intrigue, and sheer excitement.

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Dear Henchman

Dear Henchman

Kevin and Himari didn't plan to be heroes.

Henchmen and sidekicks aren't supposed to fall in love. Or save the world. They're supposed to brew coffee, take pics of their hero or villain for social media, and stay in the background.

That was the plan for sidekick slash frat boy Kevin and henchwoman slash tech genius Himari, until a taxidermy-collecting villain robs Kevin's hero of his powers and leaves Himari's villain wounded. Now it's up to the sidekicks and henchmen to save the world.

Without powers, they'll go up against the Shadow Assassins (a deadly organization that can't work a PowerPoint to save their lives), road trips slash kidnappings, and weird initiation rituals that may or may not involve singing campfire songs. Himari and Kevin will battle the odds, their insecurities, and a strangely polite Midwestern villain as they discover if they have what it takes to profess their love through Mexican food metaphors—and save the world from a nuclear disaster.

The sequel to Dear Hero, this darkly humorous chat fiction novel told entirely through texts, transcriptions, and direct messages goes behind the scenes of the superworld.

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