Patrick Price
Patrick Price knows how to steer big ideas into even bigger books. With ten years' experience at Simon & Schuster, the former senior editor acquired and edited such #1 New York Times bestselling titles as He's Just Not That Into You and sTori Telling - Tori Spelling's memoir, along with "new mommy" favorite, Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay and Tim Gunn's bestseller, Gunn's Golden Rules.
Combined, his titles have spent more than 100 weeks on the NYT list. Most recently, as Editorial Director at Simon & Schuster's YA imprint Simon Pulse, he worked with such notable authors as Sarah Ockler, Tom Leveen, and S.E. Green (Killer Instinct).
Patrick's experience is eclectic and unabashedly commercial, including both young adult and adult fiction as well as nonfiction in the categories of memoir, relationships, modern parenting, and whatever else he finds refreshingly irresistible.
Authors have described Patrick’s editorial style as "a writer's dream," "uncannily perceptive," and a "razor-sharp scalpel of just what readers want to read." Whether working with a first-time author or a seasoned pro, he gives each project his thoughtful, undivided attention.
Many of Patrick's books may be found below, but you may find a longer list here.
"An absorbing, skillfully written depiction of two teens caught in a vortex of doubt, insecurity and miscommunication." - Kirkus Reviews
It starts with a scribbled note in class: I like your sparkle. Harper had casually threaded a piece of blue and silver tinsel through her ponytail in honor of school spirit day. And that carefree, corny gesture is what grabs Penn Mattingly’s eye. Penn - resident heartbreaker of the senior class. Reliably unreliable. Trouble with a capital “T.” And okay, smolderingly sexy.
Harper’s surprised by Penn’s attention - and so is Penn. The last thing he needs is a girlfriend. Or even a friend-with-benefits. The note is not supposed to lead to anything. Oh, but it does. They hang out. They have fun. They talk. They make out. And after a while, it seems like they just click.
Harper and Penn understand their attraction is illogical, yet something keeps pulling them together. It’s like a crazy roller coaster - exhilarating, terrifying, and amazing all at once. And neither knows how to stop the ride…
"Readers will feel completely submerged in Ruth’s first-person, present-tense narrative...An intense and unsettling survival story." - Publisher's Weekly
Ruth Carver has always competed like her life depends on it. Ambitious. Tough. Maybe even mean. It’s no wonder people call her Ruthless.
When she wakes up with a concussion in the bed of a moving pickup trick, she realizes she has been entered into a contest she can’t afford to lose.
At a remote, rotting cabin deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Ruth’s blindfold comes off and she comes face-to-face with her captor. A man who believes his mission is to punish bad girls like Ruth. A man who has done this six times before.
The other girls were never heard from again, but Ruth won’t go down easy. She escapes into the wilderness, but her hunter is close at her heels. That’s when the real battle begins. That’s when Ruth must decide just how far she’ll go in order to survive.
"Phenomenally well-written like all Sarah Alderson’s books, the sexual tension crackles off the page.... it will leave you begging for more." - Becky Wicks, bestselling Romance author
From the highly-acclaimed, award-winning author of Hunting Lila comes a thrilling romance with a dark reality at its heart.
When 17-year old Liva witnesses a brutal murder she's taken into police custody for her own protection. But when bullets start flying, it becomes clear that Liva is not just a witness, she's a target.
Together with a car thief called Jay, Liva manages to escape the massacre - but now the two of them are alone in New York, trying to outrun two killers who will stop at nothing to find them.
When you live on the edge, there's a long way to fall.
"This cute coming-of-age romance that deals with grown-up feelings of love and loss may just be a bridge over the generation gap." - School Library Journal
Back to the Future meets Fast Times at Ridgemont High when Haley’s summer vacation takes a turn for the retro in this totally rad romantic fantasy.
Summer officially sucks. Thanks to a stupid seizure she had a few months earlier, Haley’s stuck going on vacation with her dad and his new family to Disney’s Fort Wilderness instead of enjoying the last session of summer camp back home with her friends. Fort Wilderness holds lots of childhood memories for her father, but surely nothing for Haley. But then a new seizure triggers something she’s never before experienced - time travel - and she ends up in River Country, the campground’s long-abandoned water park, during its heyday.
"Helms keeps the narrative nicely straightforward and sometimes humorous as she puts her characters into increasingly awkward situations." - Kirkus Reviews
Camilla can’t help hoping her secret crush, Benjamin, might randomly surprise her out of the blue with a promposal. But when she’s asked to prom by an irritating casual acquaintance - who’s wearing a fancy tux and standing in front of a news crew - she’s forced to say yes. However, all hope is not lost, as a timely school project gives Camilla a chance to get closer to Benjamin...and it seems like the chemistry between them is crackling. Is she reading into something that isn’t there, or will she get her dream guy just in time for prom?
Joshua has been secretly in love with his best friend Ethan since middle school. Just as he decides to bite the bullet and ask Ethan if he’d go to prom with him, even if just as friends, he gets a shocking surprise: Ethan asks Joshua for help crafting the perfect promposal - for another guy. Now Joshua has to suppress his love and try to fake enthusiasm as he watches his dreams fall apart...unless he can make Ethan see that love has been right in front of his eyes the whole time.
“[An] engrossing novel… The classic ‘I’m in love with my best friend’s boyfriend’ story with a 21st-century twist and lots of heart.” - School Library Journal
Lucy’s learned some important lessons from tabloid darling Jayla Heart’s all-too-public blunders: avoid the spotlight, don’t feed the Internet trolls, and keep your secrets secret. The policy has served Lucy well all through high school, so when her best friend, Ellie, gets sick before prom and begs her to step in as Cole’s date, she accepts with a smile, silencing about ten different reservations. Like the one where she’d rather stay home shredding online zombies. And especially the one where she’s been secretly in love with Cole since the dawn of time.
When Cole surprises her at the after-party with a kiss under the stars, it’s everything Lucy has ever dreamed of…and the biggest BFF deal breaker ever. But before they get the chance to ’fess up to Ellie, Lucy’s own Facebook profile mysteriously explodes with compromising photos of her and Cole, along with tons of other students’ party indiscretions. Tagged. Liked. And furiously viral.
"A gripping and sometimes downright scary look at friendship and manipulation." - Kirkus Reviews
Emma is tired of being good. Always the perfect daughter to an overprotective father, she moves to Los Angeles dying to reinvent herself. This is why meeting Siobhan is the best thing that ever happened to her. And the most dangerous. Because Siobhan is fun and alluring and experienced and lives on the edge - and she wants Emma to come with her.
And it may be more than Emma can handle.
Their high-stakes pacts are spinning out of control. Loyalties and boundaries are blurred. And it all comes to a head at the infamous Afterparty, where an intense, inescapable confrontation ends in a plummet from the rooftop…
"The story is short and fast-moving, and suspense builds quickly...Simple but suspenseful." - Kirkus Reviews
Sixteen-year-old Pelly has a master plan. After years of therapy,
medication, and even a stint in a mental hospital, she’s finally ready to re-enter the world of the living. Pelly has been suffering from severe panic attacks ever since her best friend, Tara, disappeared from a mall six years ago.
And her plan seems to be working, until an unkempt girl accompanied by an older man walks into the coffee shop where she works. Pelly thinks she’s seen a ghost, until the girl mouths “help me” on the way out, and Pelly knows she’s just seen Tara.
Too shocked to do anything, Pelly helplessly watches Tara slip away again as she steels herself against a renewed spiral of crippling anxiety. But rather than being overcome by anxiety, Pelly feels more energized than she has in years. Determined to track down enough evidence to force the police to reopen Tara’s file, Pelly’s master plan takes a dangerous turn.
"Unique, beautifully twisted and rich in mystery, S. E. Green spares no one in her debut, Killer Instinct." - Jennifer L. Armentrout, New York Times bestselling author
Lane is a typical teenager. Loving family. Good grades. After-school job at the local animal hospital. Martial arts enthusiast. But her secret obsession is studying serial killers. She understands them, knows what makes them tick.
Why? Because she might be one herself.
Lane channels her dark impulses by hunting criminals and delivering justice when the law fails. The vigilantism stops shy of murder, but with each visceral rush, the line of self-control blurs. And when a young preschool teacher goes missing - and returns in pieces - Lane gets a little too excited about tracking down “the Decapitator,” the vicious serial murderer who has come to her hometown.
"Spelling...manages to shatter the image of the spoiled daughter of a Hollywood heavyweight as she connects with her audience on an entirely new level." - Publisher's Weekly
She was television's most famous virgin - and, as Aaron Spelling's daughter, arguably its most famous case of nepotism. Portraying Donna Martin on Beverly Hills, 90210, Tori Spelling became one of the most recognizable young actresses of her generation, with a not-so-private personal life every bit as fascinating as her character's exploits. Yet years later the name Tori Spelling too often closed - and sometimes slammed - the same doors it had opened.
sTORI telling is Tori's chance to finally tell her side of the tabloid-worthy life she's led, and she talks about it all: her decadent childhood birthday parties, her nose job, her fairy-tale wedding to the wrong man, her so-called feud with her mother. Tori has already revealed her flair for brilliant, self-effacing satire on her VH1 show So NoTORIous and Oxygen's Tori & Dean: Inn Love, but her memoir goes deeper, into the real life behind the rumors.
"The production quality is excellent, and Mommywood is likely to have wide appeal." - Library Journal
Like most parents, Tori wants her children to have the one thing she didn’t have as a kid - a normal family. On their hit Oxygen reality show, Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood, the starlet and her husband Dean McDermott regularly wrestle dirty diapers, host the neighborhood block party, and tackle temper tantrums on the red carpet. But when the cameras aren’t rolling, Tori’s still having awkward run-ins with a former 90210 costar at a laser tag birthday party, scooping rogue poo out of the kiddie pool on a resort vacation, and racing to win back her pre-baby body before the media starts calling her fat. For all her suburban fantasies, Tori Spelling is no June Cleaver.
With the same down-to-earth wit that made her entertaining memoir sTORI telling a #1 New York Times bestseller, Tori tells the hilarious and humbling stories of life as a mom in the limelight, from learning to be the kind of parent her own mother never was to revealing what it’s like to raise a family while everyone is watching. Mommywood is an irresistible snapshot of celebrity parenthood that you won’t get from the paparazzi.
To the dedicated millions who can’t get enough of Heather’s unique style and hilarious stories on her hugely popular blog, there’s little she doesn’t share about her daily life as a recovering Mormon, wife of a charming geek, lover of awful television, and stay-at-home mom to five-year-old Leta, newborn Marlo, and two willful dogs.
Now, Heather shares, with biting wit and unrelenting honesty, all the other minor details of pregnancy and motherhood that no one cares to mention - like anxiety, constipation, and postpartum depression. There are lonely days, sleepless nights, and endless screaming. There’s the boredom that comes with caring for someone whose primary means of communication is through her bowels. And there’s the heart-swelling joy and utterly irresistible and totally redeemable fresh baby smell that makes it all worthwhile.
In the world according to Tim, there are no shortcuts to success. Hard work, creativity, and skill are just the beginning. By following eighteen tried-and-true principles, you can apply Tim’s rules to anything you set your mind to. You’ll learn why Tim frowns on displays of bad behavior, like the vitriolic outburst by Martha Stewart’s daughter about her mother’s name-brand merchandise. You’ll discover the downfalls of divadom as he describes Vogue’s André Leon Talley being hand-fed grapes and Anna Wintour being carried downstairs by her bodyguards. And you’ll get Tim’s view on the backstabbing by one designer on Project Runway and how it brilliantly backfired.
Then there are his down-to-earth guidelines for making life better - for yourself and others - in small and large ways, especially in an age that favors comfort over politeness, ease over style. Texting at the dinner table? Wearing shorts to the theater? Not in Tim’s book. Living a well-mannered life of integrity and character is hard work, he admits, but the rewards are many: being a good friend, being glamorous and attractive, and being a success - much like Tim himself!
"A brash, loud, expletive-peppered, unapologetic account of her manic drug-and-alcohol-infused career." - Publisher's Weekly
"Johnston's dry, self-deprecating, and brutal sense of humor shines through...[and draws] awareness to the importance of being proud of one's sobriety." - Library Journal
There is surprising emotional resonance under all the jokey self-deprecation. Another celebrity drug memoir - but an honest, brave and funny one." - Kirkus Reviews
Actress Kristen Johnston has written her first book, a surprisingly raw and triumphant memoir that is outrageous, moving, sweet, tragic, and heartbreakingly honest. Guts is a true achievement - a memoir that manages to be as frank and revealing as Augusten Burroughs, yet as hilarious and witty as David Sedaris. Johnston takes us on a journey so truthful and relatable, so remarkably fresh, it promises to stay with you for a long, long time.
"Bass reveals details that had been largely hidden by contracts and non-disclosure agreements." - The Chicago Tribune
At sixteen, Lance Bass received a phone call from Justin Timberlake that would change his life forever. Soon after, he left his small-town home in Clinton, Mississippi, to join an emerging musical group called *NSYNC.
Two years later *NSYNC was inspiring Beatles-esque mania around the world, becoming the face of the new MTV generation, and earning the all-time record for most album sales in a single day (more than one million) and in a single week for No Strings Attached.
He's remained in the spotlight ever since, and here he talks in depth for the first time about his childhood, his astonishing experiences as a young man and Christian growing up in one of the biggest bands in the world, his shock and frustration at the band's eventual dissolution, and his subsequent career, including his four months in Russia, training to become a cosmonaut.
He also frankly discusses life as a gay man - his first same-sex relationship at twenty-one, his struggle to keep his sexuality hidden from *NSYNC's fans in case it jeopardized the band's success, and the true circumstances that led to his decision to publicly come out at the age of twenty-seven.
2010 National Best Books Award
"..the story [Kahlili] tells - of the Iranian revolution and how he came to despise it-is genuinely powerful. It offers a vivid first-person narrative of how the zealots of the Islamic republic created what has become a nightmare for the Iranian people." - The Washington Post Book Review
This exhilarating, award-winning memoir of a secret double life reveals the heart-wrenching story of a man who spied for the American government in the ranks of the notorious Revolutionary Guards of Iran, risking everything by betraying his homeland in order to save it.
Reza Kahlili grew up in Tehran surrounded by his close-knit family and friends. But the enlightened Iran of his youth vanished forever, as Reza discovered upon returning home from studying computer science in the United States, when the revolution of 1979 ushered in Ayatollah Khomeini’s dark age of religious fundamentalism. Clinging to the hope of a Persian Renaissance, Reza joined the Ayatollah’s elite Revolutionary Guards. As Khomeini’s tyrannies unfolded, as fellow countrymen turned on each other, and after the deeply personal horrors he witnessed firsthand inside Evin Prison, a shattered and disillusioned Reza returned to America to dangerously become “Wally,” a spy for the CIA.
"The earnest narratives tell of coming out and hiding, of seeking the light, the path, the truth, the way and/or the writers' inner selves." - Kirkus Reviews
From the creators of Six-Word Memoirs comes The Moment, a collection of personal stories from writers both famous and obscure revealing how a single instant changed their lives forever. An innocuous decision, an unforeseen accident, a chance conversation, a tag sale, a terrorist strike, a tweet... sometimes all it takes is a single moment to redirect the course of an entire life.
In the tradition of Smith magazine’s Not Quite What I Was Planning and the sensational Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak - and in the spirit of StoryCorps, the Moth, and This American Life - The Moment unveils everyday people’s inner lives in narratives of all shapes and sizes, with stories from six to 1,000 words, photographs, comics, illustrations, handwritten letters, and more. It’s enough to change your life forever.