The First Cut

A Bustle Most Anticipated Book of January 2020 “Scalpel sharp.”—Kathy Reichs A young rookie medical examiner. A suspicious case. An underworld plot only she saw coming. From the New York Times bestselling authors of Working Stiff For San Francisco’s newest medical examiner, Dr. Jessie Teska, it was supposed to be a fresh start. A new job in a new city. A way to escape her own dark past. Instead she faces a chilling discovery when an opioid-overdose case contains hints of something more sinister. Jessie’s superiors urge her to close the case, but as more bodies land on her autopsy table, she uncovers a constellation of deaths that point to an elaborate plot involving drug dealers and Bitcoin brokers. Drawing on her real-life experiences as a forensics expert, Judy Melinek teams up with husband T.J. Mitchell to deliver the most exhilarating mystery of the year. Autopsy means “see for yourself,” and Jessie Teska won’t stop until she has seen it all—even if it means that the next corpse on the table could be her own.

In her debut, children's book, "Liam's First Cut: 'Taye Jones weaves together the beauty of fatherhood, community, and neurodiversity as Liam, an autistic Black child prepares for his first visit to a barbershop by using support from his family and school to manage his expectations and process sensory information he encounters.

With humor, compassion, and wisdom, Howard Carter recounts the semester he spent watching first-year medical students in a human anatomy lab. From the tentative early incisions of the back, the symbolic weight of extracting the heart, and by the end, the curious mappings of the brain, we embark on a path that is at once frightening, awesome, and finally redemptive.

First Cut offers an opportunity to learn what film editing really is, and to learn from the source. Gabriella Oldham's interviews with twenty-three award-winning film editors give a full picture of the complex art and craft of editing a film. Filled with animated anecdotes and detailed examples, and updated with a new preface, this book provides a comprehensive treatment of both documentary and feature film editing.

Both sixteen-year-old Chloe Montgomery and her long time rival, Nina, have made it through the first round of the California Teen Design Diva audition--but more rounds lie ahead and each round promises to be more challenging than the one before.

An astonishing novel about pain, release, and recovery from two-time National Book Award finalist, Patricia McCormick. A tingle arced across my scalp. The floor tipped up at me and my body spiraled away. Then I was on the ceiling looking down, waiting to see what would happen next. Callie cuts herself. Never too deep, never enough to die. But enough to feel the pain. Enough to feel the scream inside. Now she's at Sea Pines, a "residential treatment facility" filled with girls struggling with problems of their own. Callie doesn't want to have anything to do with them. She doesn't want to have anything to do with anyone. She won't even speak. But Callie can only stay silent for so long...

Senior year is full of surprises when Chloe returns home from her internship in New York City. While she was learning the ins and outs of the fashion industry, her friends were getting ready for senior year. Settling back into her old life proves to be harder than Chloe thought. As much as she tries to fall into her old routine, she can't help feeling left out and left behind. Chloe is ready to realize her dream of being a designer, but deciding on a fashion school is another story -- especially when that means deciding between California or New York. And when she agrees to design dresses for Winter Formal, the pressure grows even more intense. Can Chloe handle the stress of senior year and figure out what her future holds?

On a balmy June night, Kirsten, a young university student, strolls home through a silent moonlit park. Suddenly her tranquil mood is shattered by a swift and brutal act of violence. When she awakes she has lost all memory of that bloody night.