Southbury Public Library will be closed Friday, March 29, and Sunday, March 31, 2024.

Southbury Public Library will be closed Friday, March 29, 2024 in observance of Good Friday. We will also be closed Sunday, March 31, 2024 for Easter Sunday.

List

Category
Audience
Tags

A Feather on the Water

Lindsay Jayne Ashford

For three women in postwar Germany, 1945 is a time of hope--lost and found--in this powerful novel by the bestselling author of The Woman on the Orient Express.

Just weeks after World War II ends, three women from different corners of the world arrive in Germany to run a Displaced Persons camp. They long to help rebuild shattered lives--including their own...

For Martha, going to Germany provides an opportunity to escape Brooklyn and a violent marriage. Arriving from England is orphaned Kitty. She hopes working at the camp will bring her closer to her parents, last seen before the war began. For Delphine, Paris has been a city of ghosts after her husband and son died in Dachau. Working at the camp is her chance to find meaning again by helping other victims of Hitler's regime.

Charged with the care of more than two thousand camp residents, Martha, Delphine, and Kitty draw on each other's strength to endure and to give hope when all seems lost. Among these strangers and survivors, they might find the love and closure they need to heal their hearts and leave their troubled pasts behind.

View Details >>

Long Way Home

Lynn Austin

In this gripping portrait of war and its aftermath from bestselling author Lynn Austin, a young woman searches for the truth her childhood friend won’t discuss after returning from World War II, revealing a story of courage, friendship, and faith.

Peggy Serrano couldn’t wait for her best friend to come home from the war. But the Jimmy Barnett who returns is much different from the Jimmy who left, changed so drastically by his experience as a medic in Europe that he can barely function. When he attempts the unthinkable, his parents check him into the VA hospital. Peggy determines to help the Barnetts unravel what might have happened to send their son over the edge. She starts by contacting Jimmy’s war buddies, trying to identify the mysterious woman in the photo they find in Jimmy’s belongings.

Seven years earlier, sensing the rising tide against her people, Gisela Wolff and her family flee Germany aboard the passenger ship St. Louis, bound for Havana, Cuba. Gisela meets Sam Shapiro on board and the two fall quickly in love. But the ship is denied safe harbor and sent back to Europe. Thus begins Gisela’s perilous journey of exile and survival, made possible only by the kindness and courage of a series of strangers she meets along the way, including one man who will change the course of her life.

View Details >>

Persian Blue Puzzle

Susan Page Davis

An antisocial cat, an elusive investment broker, and a hope-selling psychic raise suspicions in a western Kentucky community.

 

Someone's broken into Miss Louanne's house. Campbell McBride and her father Bill have moved their home and detective business into an old Victorian house. Their new neighbors bring in unexpected cases for True Blue Investigations to unravel.

 

While helping Miss Louanne look for her missing cat, Campbell learns of other suspicious activities in Murray. Another neighbor tells the detectives about a stranger in town who's peddling an investment plan. They aren't sure any crimes have been committed, but they're intrigued enough for Campbell to visit a psychic along with police detective Keith Fuller's mom and to start checking up on the financier. Things heat up when a customer threatens the psychic and then she vanishes.

View Details >>

Sold on Love

Kathleen Fuller

She's a high-fashion realtor; he's a low-maintenance mechanic. What on earth could they have in common?

Dressed in designer labels and cruising around town in her red Mercedes, workaholic realtor Harper Wilson presents the picture of success in charming Maple Falls. But Harper's carefully cultivated image is resting on a shaky foundation. With a sudden drought in sales, she's starting to see her professional dreams--along with her posh lifestyle--slipping away.

Car trouble brings her to mechanic Rusty Jenkins, and their unlikely friendship is taken to the next level when the laid-back Rusty allows her to give him a makeover for a charity bachelor auction. Harper soon discovers that beneath the town mechanic's wild beard and grease-stained clothing lies a true Southern gentleman--someone with a kind heart and dreams of his own. Their chemistry is undeniable, but as they get closer, past fears and relationships start to creep in, reminding them of just how much is at stake when carefully constructed facades fall apart.

Maybe their worlds aren't so separate after all. And maybe covering up who you really are keeps you from discovering what was always meant to be.

  • Third book in the Maple Falls contemporary romance series

    • Book One: Hooked on You

    • Book Two: Much Ado About a Latte

    • Book Three: Sold on Love

  • Can be read as a stand-alone novel

  • Book length: 81,000 words

  • Includes discussion questions for book clubs

View Details >>

Goodbye Again

Mariah Stewart

A woman strives to move beyond her devastating past in an uplifting novel filled with hope and second chances by New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart.

In the wake of her daughter's unexplained suicide and her husband Jim's sudden abandonment, Liddy Bryant is determined to move on and make some positive changes in her life. In her hometown of Wyndham Beach, the neglected and shuttered bookstore is also in need of renewal, and Liddy recognizes an opportunity to get herself and the bookshop back on track. With a little help from her friends, she's well on her way.

Local contractor Tuck Shelby has been a friend of Liddy's forever. He's made himself indispensable in the rehab of her shop--and in her life--but now he wants out of the friend zone. Then Jim returns with a long-overdue apology, hoping for forgiveness and a chance to start over, and Liddy has a life-changing choice to make.

Into a year when Liddy's faced changes and the shocking truth of a well-kept secret comes not only a second chance at love, but a second chance at life.

View Details >>

The Lights of Sugarberry Cove

Heather Webber

The Lights of Sugarberry Cove is a charming, delightful story of family, healing, love, and small town Southern charm by USA Today bestselling author Heather Webber.

Sadie Way Scott has been avoiding her family and hometown of Sugarberry Cove, Alabama, since she nearly drowned in the lake just outside her mother’s B&B. Eight years later, Sadie is the host of a much-loved show about southern cooking and family, but despite her success, she wonders why she was saved. What is she supposed to do?

Sadie’s sister, Leala Clare, is still haunted by the guilt she feels over the night her sister almost died. Now, at a crossroads in her marriage, Leala has everything she ever thought she wanted—so why is she so unhappy?

When their mother suffers a minor heart attack just before Sugarberry Cove’s famous water lantern festival, the two sisters come home to run the inn while she recovers. It’s the last place either of them wants to be, but with a little help from the inn’s quirky guests, the sisters may come to terms with their strained relationships, accept the past, and rediscover a little lake magic.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

View Details >>

Just Another Love Song

Kerry Winfrey

Two high school sweethearts get a second chance at their perfect ending in this charming new romance by Kerry Winfrey, author of Very Sincerely Yours.

Once upon a time, Sandy Macintosh thought she would have her happily ever after with her high school sweetheart, Hank Tillman. Sandy wanted to be an artist, Hank was the only boy in town who seemed destined for bigger things, and they both had dreams to escape town together. But when Sandy’s plans fell through, she stayed in their small town in Ohio while Hank went off to Boston to follow his dreams to be a musician, with the promise to stay together. Only that plan fell through, too.
 
Fifteen years later, Sandy runs a successful greenhouse while helping her parents with their bed and breakfast. Everything is perfect…until Hank rolls back into town, now a famous alt-country singer with a son in tow. She’s happy with the life she’s built by herself, but seeing Hank makes her think about what might have been. There aren’t enough cliché love songs in the world to convince Sandy to give Hank another chance, but when the two of them get thrown together to help organize the town’s annual street fair, she wonders if there could be a new beginning for them or if what they had is just a tired old song of the past.

View Details >>

A Rip Through Time

Kelley Armstrong

In this series debut from New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong, a modern-day homicide detective finds herself in Victorian Scotland—in an unfamiliar body—with a killer on the loose.

"A great read." —Charlaine Harris

MAY 20, 2019: Homicide detective Mallory Atkinson is in Edinburgh to be with her dying grandmother. While out on a jog one evening, Mallory hears a woman in distress. She’s drawn to an alley, where she is attacked and loses consciousness.

MAY 20, 1869: Housemaid Catriona Mitchell had been enjoying a half day off, only to be discovered that night strangled and left for dead . . . exactly one hundred and fifty years before Mallory is strangled in the same spot.

When Mallory wakes up in Catriona’s body in 1869, she must put aside her shock and adjust quickly to her new reality: life as a housemaid to an undertaker in Victorian Scotland. She soon discovers that her boss, Dr. Gray, also moonlights as a medical examiner and has just taken on an intriguing case, the strangulation of a young man, similar to the attack on herself. Her only hope is that catching the murderer can lead her back to her modern life . . . before it’s too late.

In A Rip Through Time, New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong introduces a brand-new series mixing mystery, romance, and fantasy with thrilling results.

View Details >>

Smells Like Tween Spirit

Laurie Gelman

From the author of Class Mom and You've Been Volunteered comes Laurie Gelman's next laugh-out-loud novel Smells Like Tween Spirit.

As a new Mat Mom of the Pioneer Middle School (PMS) Wrestling team, Jen Dixon finds herself thrown in the middle of the "guerrilla war against so-called perfect mothers, armed only with her cutting wit and acerbic sense of humor. (New York Times Book Review)

Handling a whole host of new challenges, from the dreaded seventh-grade science fair to a school fundraiser (again!), Jen faces the somewhat-terrifying new social dynamics of the wrestling moms with her trademark combination of reluctance and exceptional delivery.

Between school events and teaching spin classes, Jen finds herself fully immersed in sports mom competitiveness. These parents seem perfectly unassuming, until their kids start to wrestle, and they become raging pubescent monsters. Learning to navigate this new world while fielding calls from the principal because of Max's newfound misogynistic behavior, Jen steels herself for the indignities of middle-school life--with her loyal spin class attendees and her bossy four-year-old granddaughter giving her the strength she needs to press on.

Mix in a Parent Night, New Year's Party, and Valentine's Day Dance, and Jen Dixon certainly has her hands, and her calendar, full. And through it all, Jen continues to charm with her riotously funny quips and memorable one-liners.

View Details >>

The Seaplane on Final Approach

Rebecca Rukeyser

A TIME Best Book of the Summer - One of The Week's Best Novels of 2022 - A lusty young woman seeks out experience on a remote Alaskan homestead in this erotic and darkly humorous novel that perfectly telegraphs the suspended animation of tourist-trap life within an eerie life-changing season, the gravity of which will only be felt decades later (Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch).

Humor, insight and just the right amount of raunch.--Angela Flournoy, author of The Turner House​

Sexy and dark and strange and absolutely perfect.--Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House ​

Tourists arrive all summer, by boat or seaplane, at Stu and Maureen Jenkins's Lavender Island Wilderness Lodge in the Kodiak Archipelago, expecting adventure. But the spontaneity of their authentic Alaskan wilderness experience is meticulously scripted, except when real danger rears its head. Stu and Maureen's lodge is failing, as is their marriage.

Mira has been hired for the season as the lodge's baker and housekeeper. But she's also busy gleefully nursing twin obsessions: building a working theory of what constitutes "sleaze" and pursuing a young fisherman she deems the embodiment of all things deliciously sleazy. Her plans become more perverse and elaborate, even as life on Lavender Island starts to unravel.

By midseason, it becomes clear that Stu, the jovial, predatory patriarch of the lodge, has turned his sexual attentions to another young employee. As the mood of the lodge spirals into chaos, the inhabitants realize just how isolated Lavender Island really is.

The Seaplane on Final Approach brilliantly illuminates the mirage-thin line between the artificial and the feral. In this daring and psychologically razor-sharp debut, Rukeyser's characters tear aside the facade of good manners to reveal all of our deepest needs and naked desires.

View Details >>

The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

The brand new series, perfect for fans of DOWNTON ABBEY, from the author of the hugely successful MORLAND DYNASTY novels

Behind the doors of the magnificent Ashmore Castle, secrets are waiting to be uncovered . . .

1901. When the Earl of Stainton dies in a tragic hunting accident, Giles, the eldest son of the noble Tallant family, must step forward to replace him as the head of the family. But Giles has avoided the Castle and his stifling relatives for years, deciding instead to forge his own path away from the spotlight. Now, he must put aside his ambitions and honour his duty to the family.

With their world upended, the Tallants and their servants struggle to find their place in the house - and society - once again. And Giles realises that, along with the title and the castle, he's also inherited his father's significant financial troubles that threaten the security of his entire family.

In Kensington, Kitty Bayfield, the painfully shy but moneyed daughter of a Baronet, has just left school with her penniless companion Nina. Nina captures the new Earl's heart, but only Kitty can save his family from their debts, and soon Giles must choose between his duty and his heart . . .

The Secrets of Ashmore Castle is the first in a brand new historical family drama series, filled with heartbreak, romance and intriguing secrets waiting to be uncovered. The perfect read for fans of Downton Abbey, Bridgerton and rich period dramas

View Details >>

The Measure

Nikki Erlick

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!

"A story of love and hope as interweaving characters display: how all moments, big and small, can measure a life. If you want joy, love, romance, and hope—read with us." —Jenna Bush Hager

A luminous, spirit-lifting blockbuster for readers of The Midnight Library. 

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice.

It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out.

But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live.

From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?

As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?

The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything.

Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is a sweeping, ambitious, and invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.

View Details >>

Death By Beach Read

Eva Gates

Librarian Lucy’s new historic house comes with a lot of baggage and family secrets. Can she put them to rest or will a killer bring Lucy’s family to their downfall, in the 9th Lighthouse Library mystery.


It’s spring in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and Lucy and Connor have moved into their new home at last, a historic cottage on the Nags Head Beach. The house needs a lot of renovations, but they worked hard over the winter to get it ready. Lucy is now happily immersed in her work at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, planning her wedding, and decorating the house. That is, until a dead body disrupts their peaceful new abode.

The first night Lucy’s alone in the house, with the company of Charles the library cat, she hears sounds. Investigating they see footsteps in the dust of the unfinished living room, and the door to the outside is open. Lucy's reminded that the house is said to be haunted: forty years ago the teenage daughter of the owners fled in the night, and never again stepped foot inside her family home.

But the sounds have an all-too-human origin and one evening Lucy and Connor find the dead body of a man they don’t even recognize in their kitchen. They soon realize he has a long-time connection to their house. Lucy's forced to find out what happened all those years ago and why it’s threatening her happiness today.

Meanwhile, the Classic Novel Reading Club is reading The House of the Seven Gables by Nathanial Hawthorne, a book about another old house full of secrets. Can Lucy find parallels to her own situation in Hawthorne’s fiction before the killer strikes again?

View Details >>

A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

Sophie Irwin

“Bridgerton fans will swoon over this entertaining romp through Britain’s Regency-era high society.”
People

"A Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting is a sharp, modern, and absolutely delicious take on the marriage plot. Sophie Irwin's debut is one of the most fun, romantic books I've read in a long time. I cannot wait to see what she does next."

--Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Malibu Rising

A whip-smart debut that follows the adventures of an entirely unconventional heroine who throws herself into the London Season to find a wealthy husband.  But the last thing she expects is to find love…


Kitty Talbot needs a fortune. Or rather, she needs a husband who has a fortune. Left with her father’s massive debts, she has only twelve weeks to save her family from ruin.
 
 Kitty has never been one to back down from a challenge, so she leaves home and heads toward the most dangerous battleground in all of England: the London season. 
  
Kitty may be neither accomplished nor especially genteel—but she is utterly single-minded; imbued with cunning and ingenuity, she knows that risk is just part of the game. 
 
The only thing she doesn’t anticipate is Lord Radcliffe. The worldly Radcliffe sees Kitty for the mercenary fortune-hunter that she really is and is determined to scotch her plans at all costs, until their parrying takes a completely different turn….

This is a frothy pleasure, full of brilliant repartee and enticing wit--one that readers will find an irresistible delight.

View Details >>

Acts of Violet

Margarita Montimore

A DAZZLING NEW NOVEL FROM NATIONAL BESTSELLING AND GMA BOOK CLUB PICK MARGARITA MONTIMORE, AUTHOR OF OONA OUT OF ORDER

“[A] twisty, genre-defying family drama...Reminiscent of Taylor Jenkins Reid's Daisy Jones & the Six.” --Shelf Awareness (starred review)

Nearly a decade ago, iconic magician Violet Volk performed her greatest trick yet: vanishing mid-act. While Violet sought out the spotlight, her sister Sasha, had to be the responsible one. But Sasha can never seem to escape her sister’s tumultuous orbit. Then there’s Cameron Frank, determined to finally get his big break hosting a podcast devoted to all things Violet—though keeping his job hinges on an exclusive interview with Sasha, the last person who wants to talk to him. As the ten-year anniversary approaches, the podcast picks up steam, and Cameron’s pursuit of Sasha becomes increasingly intrusive. Meanwhile, Sasha begins to experience an unsettling series of sleepwalking episodes and coincidences, which all lead back to Violet. Pushed to her emotional limits, Sasha must finally confront the most painful truths about her sister, and herself, even at the risk of losing everything.

Alternating between Sasha’s narration and Cameron’s podcast transcripts, interspersed with documents that offer a tantalizing peek at Violet herself, Acts of Violet is an utterly original, propulsive story of fame, deception, and forgiveness that will make you believe in magic.

View Details >>

Mademoiselle Revolution

Zoe Sivak

A powerful, engrossing story of a biracial heiress who escapes to Paris when the Haitian Revolution burns across her island home. But as she works her way into the inner circle of Robespierre and his mistress, she learns that not even oceans can stop the flames of revolution.

Sylvie de Rosiers, as the daughter of a rich planter and an enslaved woman, enjoys the comforts of a lady in 1791 Saint-Domingue society. But while she was born to privilege, she was never fully accepted by island elites. After a violent rebellion begins the Haitian Revolution, Sylvie and her brother leave their family and old lives behind to flee unwittingly into another uprising--in austere and radical Paris. Sylvie quickly becomes enamored with the aims of the Revolution, as well as with the revolutionaries themselves--most notably Maximilien Robespierre and his mistress, Cornélie Duplay.

As a rising leader and abolitionist, Robespierre sees an opportunity to exploit Sylvie's race and abandonment of her aristocratic roots as an example of his ideals, while the strong-willed Cornélie offers Sylvie safe harbor and guidance in free thought. Sylvie battles with her past complicity in a slave society and her future within this new world order as she finds herself increasingly torn between Robespierre's ideology and Cornélie's love.

When the Reign of Terror descends, Sylvie must decide whether to become an accomplice while a new empire rises on the bones of innocents...or risk losing her head.

View Details >>

The Pallbearers Club

Paul Tremblay

"Paul Tremblay delivers another mind-bending horror novel . . . The Pallbearers Club is a welcome casket of chills to shoulder." - Washington Post

"Uncertainty is Tremblay's stock-in-trade. Over the last decade, he has grown from hot new thing to horror icon without compromising on his uniquely inexplicable nightmares." - Esquire

"[A] deliciously confusing thriller." - Weekend Edition (NPR)

A cleverly voiced psychological thriller from the nationally bestselling author of The Cabin at the End of the World and Survivor Song.

What if the coolest girl you've ever met decided to be your friend?

Art Barbara was so not cool. He was a seventeen-year-old high school loner in the late 1980s who listened to hair metal, had to wear a monstrous back-brace at night for his scoliosis, and started an extracurricular club for volunteer pallbearers at poorly attended funerals. But his new friend thought the Pallbearers Club was cool. And she brought along her Polaroid camera to take pictures of the corpses.

Okay, that part was a little weird.

So was her obsessive knowledge of a notorious bit of New England folklore that involved digging up the dead. And there were other strange things - terrifying things - that happened when she was around, usually at night. But she was his friend, so it was okay, right?

Decades later, Art tries to make sense of it all by writing The Pallbearers Club: A Memoir. But somehow this friend got her hands on the manuscript and, well, she has some issues with it. And now she's making cuts.

Seamlessly blurring the lines between fiction and memory, the supernatural and the mundane, The Pallbearers Club is an immersive, suspenseful portrait of an unusual and disconcerting relationship.

View Details >>

The Polish Girl

Malka Adler

In the eye of the war
That tore the world apart
A mother wants a son
A daughter needs a mother

Winter 1939: Danusha and her family are forced to flee their home when the Nazis invade Poland. Danusha’s mother, Anna, changes her name and secures a position as a housekeeper in a German doctor’s mansion in Kraków where Gestapo meetings are hosted in the kitchen...

Her secret is their salvation, but what Danusha remembers most is the solitude, with only her baby brother and the girl in the mirror for company.

All Anna ever wanted was a firstborn son. All Danusha ever wanted was a mother who would love her like a firstborn son. Instead she got one who could look a Nazi straight in the eye but not into the eyes of her own daughter.

It is only years later, when their neighbours gather in the living room to hear Anna’s stories, that Danusha finally realises her mother was never a cold unknowable sea but a storm-wracked sky – sometimes bright, sometimes dark, and always watching over her.

The Polish Girl is a heartbreaking and unforgettable historical novel by the author of international bestseller The Brothers of Auschwitz – perfect for fans of Antonio Iturbe and Edith Eger.

View Details >>

We Had to Remove This Post

Hanna Bervoets

WHAT IS “NORMAL”?

WHAT IS “RIGHT”?

AND WHO GETS TO DECIDE?

To be a content moderator is to see humanity at its worst—but Kayleigh needs money. So she takes a job working for a social media platform whose name she isn’t allowed to mention. Her task: review offensive videos and pictures, rants and conspiracy theories, and decide which need to be removed. It’s grueling work. Kayleigh and her colleagues spend all day watching horrors and hate on their screens, evaluating them with the platform’s ever-changing moderating guidelines. Yet Kayleigh is good at her job, and she finds in her colleagues a group of friends—even a new girlfriend—and for the first time in her life, her future seems bright.

But soon the job seems to change them all, shifting their worlds in alarming ways. How long before the moderators’ own senses of right and wrong begin to bend and flex?

From one of the most acclaimed Dutch writers of her generation, We Had to Remove This Post is a chilling, powerful, and urgent literary masterpiece about who or what determines our worldview, who sets the boundaries, and just how much a person can be asked to accept.

View Details >>

Gilt

Jamie Brenner

A luxurious and richly compelling new novel from the bestselling author of Blush, about a famous family jewelry dynasty and the hidden past that could topple it all.

One perfect diamond is all it takes to divide a family. Could one summer be enough to fix it?

The Pavlin family built an empire on love. As the first jewelers to sell diamond rings exclusively for proposals, they started a tradition that has defined engagements ever since. But when an ill-fated publicity stunt pits the three Pavlin sisters against one another for a famous family jewel, their bond is broken. No ordinary diamond ring, the Electric Rose splinters the sisters, leaving one unlucky in love, one escaping to the shores of Cape Cod, and the other, ultimately, dead.

Now, over a decade later, Gemma Maybrook is still reconciling the reality of her mother's death. Left orphaned and cast out by her family after the tragic accident, Gemma is ready to reclaim what should have been hers: the Electric Rose. And, as a budding jewelry designer in her own right, Gemma isn't just planning on recovering her mother's lost memento, she's coming back for everything.

From Manhattan’s tony Fifth Avenue to the vibrant sands of Provincetown, Gilt follows the Pavlin women as they are forced to confront the mistakes of the past if they have any hope of finding love and happiness of their own.

View Details >>

Keya Das's Second Act

Sopan Deb

A poignant, heartwarming, and charmingly funny debut novel about how a discovered box in the attic leads one Bengali American family down a path toward understanding the importance of family, even when splintered.

Shantanu Das is living in the shadows of his past. In his fifties, he finds himself isolated from his traditional Bengali community after a devastating divorce from his wife, Chaitali; he hasn’t spoken to his eldest daughter Mitali in months; and most painfully, he lives each day with the regret that he didn’t accept his teenaged daughter Keya after she came out as gay. As the anniversary of Keya’s death approaches, Shantanu wakes up one morning utterly alone in his suburban New Jersey home and realizes it’s finally time to move on.

This is when Shantanu discovers a tucked-away box in the attic that could change everything. He calls Mitali and pleads with her to come home. She does so out of pity, not realizing that her life is about to shift.

Inside the box is an unfinished manuscript that Keya and her girlfriend were writing. It’s a surprising discovery that brings Keya to life briefly. But Neesh Desai, a new love interest for Mitali with regrets of his own, comes up with a wild idea, one that would give Keya more permanence: what if they are to stage the play? It could be an homage to Keya’s memory, and a way to make amends. But first, the Dases need to convince Pamela Moore, Keya’s girlfriend, to give her blessing. And they have to overcome ghosts from the past they haven’t met yet.

A story of redemption and righting the wrongs of the past, Keya Das’s Second Act is a warmly drawn homage to family, creativity, and second chances. Set in the vibrant world of Bengalis in the New Jersey suburbs, this debut novel is both poignant and, at times, a surprising hilarious testament to the unexpected ways we build family and find love, old and new.

View Details >>

All the Things We Don't Talk About

Amy Feltman

A “big-hearted, lively, and expansive portrait of a family” that follows a neurodivergent father, his nonbinary teenager, and the sudden, catastrophic reappearance of the woman who abandoned them (Claire Lombardo, New York Times bestselling author).

Morgan Flowers just wants to hide. Raised by their neurodivergent father, Morgan has grown up haunted by the absence of their mysterious mother Zoe, especially now, as they navigate their gender identity and the turmoil of first love. Their father Julian has raised Morgan with care, but he can’t quite fill the gap left by the dazzling and destructive Zoe, who fled to Europe on Morgan’s first birthday. And when Zoe is dumped by her girlfriend Brigid, she suddenly comes crashing back into Morgan and Julian’s lives, poised to disrupt the fragile peace they have so carefully cultivated.

Through it all, Julian and Brigid have become unlikely pen-pals and friends, united by the knowledge of what it’s like to love and lose Zoe; they both know that she hasn’t changed. Despite the red flags, Morgan is swiftly drawn into Zoe’s glittering orbit and into a series of harmful missteps, and Brigid may be the only link that can pull them back from the edge. A story of betrayal and trauma alongside queer love and resilience, ALL THE THINGS WE DON’T TALK ABOUT is a celebration of and a reckoning with the power and unintentional pain of a thoroughly modern family.
 

View Details >>

The Rabbit Hutch

Tess Gunty

The Rabbit Hutch is a stunning debut novel about four teenagers—recently aged out of the state foster-care system—living together in an apartment building in the post-industrial Midwest, exploring the quest for transcendence and the desire for love. • “The narrative … luxuriates in language.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A profoundly wise, wildly inventive, deeply moving work of art whose seemingly infinite offerings will remain with you long after you finish it.”—Jonathan Safran Foer, best-selling author of Everything Is Illuminated


The automobile industry has abandoned Vacca Vale, Indiana, leaving the residents behind, too. In a run-down apartment building on the edge of town, commonly known as the Rabbit Hutch, a number of people now reside quietly, looking for ways to live in a dying city.

Here live four teenagers who have recently aged out of the state foster-care system: three boys and one girl, Blandine, who The Rabbit Hutch centers around. Hauntingly beautiful and unnervingly bright, Blandine is plagued by the structures, people, and places that not only failed her but actively harmed her. Now all Blandine wants is an escape, a true bodily escape like the mystics describe in the books she reads.

Set across one week and culminating in a shocking act, The Rabbit Hutch chronicles a town on the brink, desperate for rebirth. How far will its residents—especially Blandine—go to achieve it? Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch is a gorgeous and provocative tale about the tensions between loneliness and community, entrapment and freedom. It announces a major new voice in American fiction, one bristling with intelligence and vulnerability.

View Details >>

We Do What We Do in the Dark

Michelle Hart

 

"Hart’s novel does something exceptional that few pieces of fiction have done successfully….[H]as flashes of Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends." New York Times

“An unforgettable account of a forbidden romance.”
– Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Patsy

“Moving and memorable.” – Meg Wolitzer, author of The Female Persuasion

“Sensual and wise.” – Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage

A novel about a young woman’s life-altering affair with a much older, married woman.

Mallory is a freshman in college when she meets the woman. She sees her for the first time at the university’s gym, immediately entranced by this elegant, older person, whom she later learns is married and works at the school. Before long, they begin a clandestine affair. Self-possessed, successful, brilliant, and aloof, the woman absolutely consumes Mallory, who is still reeling from her mother’s death a few months earlier. Mallory retreats from the rest of the world and into a relationship with this melancholy, elusive woman she admires so much yet who can never be fully hers, solidifying a sense of solitude that has both haunted and soothed her as long as she can remember.
 
Years after the affair has ended, Mallory must decide whether to stay safely in this isolation, this constructed loneliness, or to step fully into the world and confront what the woman meant to her, for better or worse. This simmering, unsettling debut novel reveals the consequences of desire and influence, portraying two women whose lives have been transformed by love, loss, and secrecy.

 

View Details >>

Calling for a Blanket Dance

Oscar Hokeah

"STUNNING." Susan Power, author of The Grass Dancer

A moving and deeply engaging debut novel about a young Native American man finding strength in his familial identity, from a stellar new voice in fiction.

Oscar Hokeah’s electric debut takes us into the life of Ever Geimausaddle, whose family—part Mexican, part Native American—is determined to hold onto their community despite obstacles everywhere they turn. Ever’s father is injured at the hands of corrupt police on the border when he goes to visit family in Mexico, while his mother struggles both to keep her job and care for her husband. And young Ever is lost and angry at all that he doesn’t understand, at this world that seems to undermine his sense of safety. Ever’s relatives all have ideas about who he is and who he should be. His Cherokee grandmother, knowing the importance of proximity, urges the family to move across Oklahoma to be near her, while his grandfather, watching their traditions slip away, tries to reunite Ever with his heritage through traditional gourd dances. Through it all, every relative wants the same: to remind Ever of the rich and supportive communities that surround him, there to hold him tight, and for Ever to learn to take the strength given to him to save not only himself but also the next generation.

How will this young man visualize a place for himself when the world hasn’t made room for him to start with? Honest, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting, Calling for a Blanket Dance is the story of how Ever Geimausaddle finds his way home.

View Details >>

Benevolence

Julie Janson

"How good it is to hear a Darug voice speaking of Darug history."--Kate Grenville, author of The Secret River, winner of the Commonwealth Prize

Blending the mythical power of Téa Obreht and the epic scope of Min Jin Lee, a searing historical novel that tells a story of colonization, survival, and resistance in a way never done before--a beautiful, brilliant, and brutal reimagining of the first contact between Indigenous people and white British settlers and the far-reaching consequences for one Aboriginal girl coming of age in an unsteady and dangerous world.

For all known time, Muraging's people, the Darug, have lived on this land between the river and the sea. But change comes swiftly in the early years of the nineteenth century when White settlers begin to arrive, laying claim to the continent, long inhabited by Aboriginal tribes like Muraging's, for the British empire.

At ten years old, Muraging is given over to the Parramatta Native School by her father, where the missionaries call her Mary James, force her to abandon her culture and language, and teach her subjects they believe will save her soul: English, Christianity, and housework. Six years later, seeking a brighter future, Muraging flees the school, embarking on a journey of discovery and a search for a safe place in an unfamiliar and unsteady new world--an odyssey far more winding and treacherous than she ever dreamed.

Spanning two decades, from 1816-1835, and set around the Hawkesbury River area, the home of the Darug people in Parramatta and Sydney, Benevolence sheds light on the heartbreaking violence and erasure of colonization, as well as remarkable survival and resistance--a vivid and compelling portrait of the Aboriginal Australians whose way of life is forever altered.

Award-winning Australian writer Julie Janson's draws on historical events to recreate this pivotal time--things that may have happened to her own ancestors--giving voice to an Aboriginal experience of early-settlement in Australia.

View Details >>

When We Were Bright and Beautiful

Jillian Medoff

“Two parts Gone Girl, two parts Notes on a Scandal. . .will play with your expectations about who’s the villain and who’s the victim.” — Jennifer Weiner, USA Today

The acclaimed, bestselling author of This Could Hurt returns with her biggest, boldest novel yet—an electrifying, twisty, and deeply emotional family drama, set on Manhattan’s glittering Upper East Side, that explores the dark side of love, the limits of loyalty, and the high cost of truth.

You can have everything, and still not have enough. 

Cassie Quinn may only be twenty-three, but she knows a few things. One: money can’t buy happiness, but it’s certainly better to have it. Two: family matters most. Three: her younger brother Billy is not a rapist.

When Billy, a junior at Princeton, is arrested for assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Cassie races home to Manhattan to join forces with her big brother Nate and their parents, Lawrence and Eleanor. The Quinns scramble to hire the best legal minds money can buy, but Billy fits the all-too-familiar sex-offender profile—white, athletic, and privileged—that makes headlines and sways juries.

Meanwhile, Cassie struggles to understand why Billy’s ex Diana would go this far, even if the breakup was painful. And she knows how the end of first love can destroy someone: Her own years-long affair with a powerful, charismatic man left her shattered, and she’s only recently regained her footing.   

As reporters converge outside their Upper East Side landmark building, the Quinns gird themselves for a media-saturated trial, and Cassie vows she’ll do whatever it takes to save Billy. But what if that means exposing her own darkest secrets to the world?

Lightning-paced and psychologically astute as it rockets toward an explosive ending, When We Were Bright and Beautiful is a dazzling novel that asks: who will pay the price when the truth is revealed? 

View Details >>

Firestorm

Taylor Moore

DEA Special Agent Garrett Kohl must rescue a CIA officer when she’s kidnapped in Texas by a nefarious band of criminals in this pulse-pounding thriller for fans of C. J. Box.

Special Agent Garrett Kohl has just taken down a dangerous and deadly cartel boss when he finds trouble brewing back on his family’s homestead. A powerful energy consortium, Talon Corporation, has started an aggressive mining operation that threatens to destroy Garrett’s land, his family’s way of life, and everything they hold dear. To achieve its goals, Talon is flouting the law, bribing public officials, and meeting anyone who challenges it with physical violence. When the Kohls themselves are attacked by Talon guards, Garrett goes on the offensive, embarking on an investigation that he hopes will rid the Texas High Plains of the intruders once and for all.

Garrett soon discovers that the company has origins in the dark hinterlands of countries across the globe. Using coercion and assassination levied by men from former Russian special operations forces, Talon is working on a highly secretive scheme to commandeer precious U.S. resources. The tit for tat exchange between Talon and the Kohls erupts into a full-scale war when Russian spy, Alexi Orlov, kidnaps Garrett’s friend and ally, CIA operative Kim Manning. While Talon may be accustomed to getting its way in many places around the world, they have yet to encounter this rare breed of warrior down in Texas—a man who will fight to the death to protect those that he loves.       

View Details >>

The Red Cross Orphans

Glynis Peters

From the bestselling author of The Secret Orphan comes her brand new unputdownable historical fiction novel!

A journey into war, but not one she'll take alone...

Orphan Kitty Pattison is young, naïve and ready to do her bit for the war effort when she volunteers with the Red Cross and pledges to help those most in need. It's one of the most nerve-wracking moments of her life, but then she meets fellow volunteers Joan Norfolk and Trixie Dunn, and a bond of friendship is forged in the fire of life on the wards during the Blitz.

Days are spent nursing injured soldiers back to life and nights are spent anticipating bombs falling from the sky and then trawling through the wreckage to save who she can, but the light and laughter she finds with Jo and Trix see Kitty through the darkest hours.

And when Kitty starts growing closer to handsome Canadian doctor Michael McCarthy, it's her friends who help her to find the courage to realise that no matter what has happened or what is to come, we all deserve love...

This stunning new historical novel from the internationally bestselling The Secret Orphan takes readers on an emotional journey and follows in the footsteps of the brave women who volunteered with the Red Cross during the Second World War.

Readers LOVE The Red Cross Orphans:

'Wow, what a page turner. Just loved this book, sleep was unimportant whilst reading it' Elaine

'Make sure you have lots of tissues handy as I sobbed most of the way through it' Karyn

'A marvellous historical novel set during World War II on the home front. I was completely consumed' Julia

'The incredibly drawn background of a country at war, rich with historical detail, this book is definitely a must read for fans of World War Two fiction - or, indeed, those who adore a great love story' Jane

'First time reading this author and what an outstandingly poignant tale' Jeanie

'What an emotional book...I felt like I was actually in the storyline' Angela

View Details >>

The Swell

Allie Reynolds

"Fast-paced, nail-bitingly tense and packed full of twists and turns. I found it unputdownable – loved it!"--Sarah Pearse, author of The Sanatorium

Point Break meets And Then There Were None in a pulse-pounding beach read that explores the dangerous ties between a group of elite surfers who are determined to find the perfect waves at any cost…even murder.

The waves are to die for.

Three years ago, passionate surfer Kenna Ward lost her two great loves—after her boyfriend drowned, she hung up her surfboard and swore off the water for good. But she is drawn back to the beach when her best friend, Mikki, announces her sudden engagement to a man Kenna has never met—a member of a tight-knit group of surfers. Kenna travels to a remote Australian beach, entering a dangerous world far from civilization where the waves, weather, and tides are all that matter. Kenna is tempted back into the surf, and drawn into the dazzling group and the beach they call their own.

But this coastal paradise has a dark side, and members of the group begin to go missing. Kenna realizes that in order to protect Mikki and learn more about the surfers, she must become one of them…without becoming one of their victims. What follows is an adrenaline-fueled thriller packed with twists and turns, exploring the dangerous edge between passion and obsession.

View Details >>

Second Chance Spring

JoAnn Ross

Second Chance Spring: Pro quarterback Burke Mannion is at a crossroads in his career--nearing retirement age, he wonders if it's time to hang up his cleats, or keep pushing his body and head to training camp in a few short weeks. The decision is delayed by an upsetting phone call from his brother, and without blinking, Burke packs for Honeymoon Harbor and the home he hasn't seen in years. The last person he expects to see when he arrives is the woman he once thought might be the one--who broke up with him by text as she left New York. Having heard Burke's stories about Honeymoon Harbor, Lily Fletcher never really believed there was any place as idyllic as he'd made it sound. She's avoided making personal connections her entire adult life to keep her past in the past and figured it was the one place Burke would never guess she'd be. As Lily and Burke fall back into their unresolved feelings for one another, she knows she has to come clean about who she really is, as he struggles with the choice to go back to the celebrity life he knows or embrace the one he's beginning to think could be the true path to happiness.

View Details >>

Dark Objects

Simon Toyne

Forensics expert Laughton Rees hunts an unusually clever killer who appears to be staging murder scenes just for her in this twisty new psychological thriller by the bestselling author of the Sanctus trilogy.

How do you catch a killer if the victim doesn’t exist?

A glamorous woman is murdered in her ultra-luxurious London mansion and her husband goes missing. But according to public records, neither of them exists.

The only leads police have are several objects arranged around the woman’s body, including a set of keys and a book called How to Process a Murder by Laughton Rees—a book that appears to have helped the killer forensically cleanse the crime scene.

Laughton Rees is an academic who doesn’t usually work live cases after the brutal murder of her mother as a teen left her traumatized and emotionally scarred. But the presence of her book at this scene draws her unwillingly into the high-profile investigation and media circus that springs up around it. As the dark objects found beside the body lead her closer to the victim’s identity, a dangerous threat to Laughton and her daughter emerges, as well as painful memories of her past related to the man she has always blamed for her mother’s death: John Rees, Laughton’s father, the current Metropolitan Chief Commissioner and a man she has not spoken to in twenty years.

Laughton’s family was destroyed once and she built herself a new one. Now, she has to face her darkest fears and help catch a killer before this one is destroyed too.

View Details >>

Reputation

Sarah Vaughan

“Astonishingly timely and clever, it’s also utterly gripping.” —Lucy Foley, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Sarah Vaughan has done it again. Superb.” —Shari Lapena, New York Times bestselling author

The bestselling author of Anatomy of a Scandal—now a hit Netflix series—returns with a new psychological thriller about a politician whose less-than-perfect personal life is thrust into the spotlight when a body is discovered in her home.

As a politician, Emma has sacrificed a great deal for her career—including her marriage and her relationship with her daughter, Flora.

A former teacher, the glare of the spotlight is unnerving for Emma, particularly when it leads to countless insults, threats, and trolling as she tries to work in the public eye. As a woman, she knows her reputation is worth its weight in gold but as a politician, she discovers it only takes one slip-up to destroy it completely.

Fourteen-year-old Flora is learning the same hard lessons at school as she encounters heartless bullying. When another teenager takes her own life, Emma lobbies for a new law to protect women and girls from the effects of online abuse. Now, Emma and Flora find their personal lives uncomfortably intersected…but then the unthinkable happens.

A man is found dead in Emma’s home. A man she had every reason to be afraid of and to want gone. Fighting to protect her reputation, and determined to protect her family at all costs, Emma is pushed to the limits as the worst happens and her life is torn apart.

Another breathless and twisty novel from an absolute “master of suspense” (CrimeReads), Reputation brilliantly illustrates that it isn’t who you are that matters…it’s who people think you are.

View Details >>

The Murder Book

Mark Billingham

A spate of brutal murders threatens the newfound happiness of “one of the most credible and engaging heroes in contemporary crime fiction” (Ian Rankin).

Tom Thorne finally has it all.

In Nicola Tanner and Phil Hendricks, Thorne has good friends by his side. His love life is newly reformed by a promising relationship and he is happy in the job he has devoted his life to.

As he sets off hunting the woman responsible for a series of grisly murders, Thorne has no way of knowing that he will be plunged into a nightmare from which he may never wake. A nightmare that has a name. Thorne’s past threatens to catch up with him and a ruinous secret is about to be revealed. If he wants to save himself and his friends, he will have to do the unthinkable.

Tom Thorne finally has a lot to lose.

Praise for the Tom Thorne series

“Morse, Rebus, and now Thorne. The next superstar detective is already with us—don’t miss him.” —Lee Child

“Billingham is a world-class writer and Tom Thorne is a wonderful creation. Rush to read these books.” —Karin Slaughter

“With each of his books, Mark Billingham gets better and better. These are stories and characters you don’t want to leave.” —Michael Connelly 

“Mark Billingham has brought a rare and welcome blend of humanity, dimension, and excitement to the genre.” —George Pelecanos

“A fantastic thriller, combining a gripping plot and lead characters of remarkable depth . . . Readers who grab this one but aren’t familiar with its predecessors will be seeking them out. A series to savor.” —Booklist (starred review)

View Details >>

Iced

Felix Francis

In the tradition of Clive Cussler and James Lee Burke, Iced, the latest in Francis's fictional world, is a heart-pounding thriller that will keep you racing to the next page.

Seven years ago, Miles Pussett was a steeplechase jockey, loving the rush of the race. But after an unfortunate event, he left horseracing behind and swore he would never return. Now he gets his adrenaline rush from riding headfirst down the Cresta Run, a three-quarter-mile Swiss ice chute, reaching speeds of up to eighty miles per hour.

Finding himself in St Moritz during the same weekend as White Turf, when high-class horseracing takes place on the frozen lake, he gets talked into helping out with the horses. Against his better judgement, he decides to assist, but things aren’t as innocent as they seemed.

When he discovers something suspicious is going on in the races, something that may have a profound impact on his future, Miles begins a search for answers. But someone is adamant about stopping him—and they’ll go to any length to do it.

View Details >>

Rock of Ages

Timothy Hallinan

Junior Bender, Los Angeles burglar and off-the-books detective to the felonious, is reminded that rock and roll will never die (no matter how fervently he wishes some of it would) when Hollywood's most dangerous geriatric mobster, Irwin Dressler, retains Junior's investigative services to solve a rather unharmonious problem.

Four of Dressler's old gangster colleagues have put together a national tour of once-popular rock bands they own a piece of: three nights of concerts by guys (and a few gals) who were big shots back in the 1960s and 1970s, and who are now hoping for one more gasp of glory with this nostalgia exhibition. The Rock of Ages tour has proved itself to be anything but a love fest: plenty of the bandmates have been feuding for forty years, and—perhaps unsurprisingly—drugs and bad behavior have created health, wellness, and legal problems for the musicians and managers. Plus there have been two near-fatal accidents that might have been attempted murders.

But they're not what Irwin Dressler is concerned about. It's that someone—one of his own colleagues—is using the tour as a front to steal Dressler's money. And that simply cannot be allowed.

Now the tour has pulled into LA, and Junior has one weekend to figure out who's to blame—a weekend that begins with his tires being slashed, threatening notes left on his car, and a theatrical backdrop falling on a drummer during the truly terrible first set of the first concert. To make things worse, Junior is saddled for the weekend with his teenage daughter, Rina, who lately has been much, much too interested in how her father earns his living. Can Junior recover Dressler's money, prevent a murder, talk his daughter out of pursuing a life of crime, and somehow survive all that bad music?

View Details >>

Girl, Forgotten

Karin Slaughter

“It’s Slaughter’s prodigious gifts of characterization that make her stand out among thriller writers.”   — Washington Post

From the New York Times bestselling author of Pieces of Her, comes an electrifying thriller featuring newly minted US Marshal Andrea Oliver as she investigates a cold case with links to her father’s past. 

A small town hides a big secret…

Who killed Emily Vaughn?

A girl with a secret…

Longbill Beach, 1982. Emily Vaughn gets ready for the prom. For an athlete, who is smart, pretty and well-liked, this night should be the highlight of her high school career. But Emily has a secret. And by the end of the evening, that secret will be silenced forever. 

An unsolved murder…

Forty years later, Emily’s murder remains a mystery. Her tight-knit group of friends closed ranks; her respected, wealthy family retreated inwards; the small town moved on from her grisly attack. But all that’s about to change.

One final chance to uncover a killer…

US Marshal Andrea Oliver arrives in Longbill Beach on her first assignment: to protect a judge receiving death threats. But, in reality, Andrea is there to find justice for Emily. The killer is still out there—and Andrea must discover the truth before she gets silenced, too…

View Details >>

Vacationland

Meg Mitchell Moore

The Sarah Selects July Book Club Pick!

"As sophisticated and delicious as lobster bisque." -- Amanda Eyre Ward, New York Times bestselling author of The Lifeguards and The Jetsetters

Louisa has come to her parents’ house in Maine this summer with all three of her kids, a barely-written book, and a trunkful of resentment. Left behind in Brooklyn is her husband, who has promised that after this final round of fundraising at his startup he will once again pick up his share of the household responsibilities. Louisa is hoping that the crisp breeze off Penobscot Bay will blow away the irritation she is feeling with her life choices and replace it with enthusiasm for both her family and her work.

But all isn’t well in Maine. Louisa’s father, a retired judge and pillar of the community, is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Louisa’s mother is alternately pretending everything is fine and not pretending at all. And one of Louisa’s children happens upon a very confusing and heartfelt letter referring to something Louisa doesn’t think her father could possibly have done.

Louisa’s not the only one searching for something in Maine this summer. Kristie took the Greyhound bus from Pennsylvania with one small suitcase, $761, and a lot of baggage. She’s got a past she’s trying to outrun, a secret she’s trying to unpack, and a new boyfriend who’s so impossibly kind she can’t figure out what she did to deserve him. But she can’t keep her various lives from colliding forever.

As June turns to July turns to August, secrets will be unearthed, betrayals will come to light, and both Louisa and Kristie will ask themselves what they are owed and what they owe others. A delicious summer read and an exploration of family, responsibility, ambition and loss, Vacationland is Meg Mitchell Moore at her best.

View Details >>

Fox Creek

William Kent Krueger

The latest in the New York Times bestselling Cork O’Connor Mystery Series from the “master storyteller” (Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author) follows Cork in a race against time to save his wife, a mysterious stranger, and an Ojibwe healer from bloodthirsty mercenaries.

The ancient Ojibwe healer Henry Meloux has had a vision of his death. As he walks the Northwoods in solitude, he tries to prepare himself peacefully for the end of his long life. But peace is destined to elude him as hunters fill the woods seeking a woman named Dolores Morriseau, a stranger who had come to the healer for shelter and the gift of his wisdom.

Meloux guides this stranger and his great niece, Cork O’Connor’s wife, to safety deep into the Boundary Waters, his home for more than a century. On the last journey he may ever take into this beloved land, Meloux must do his best to outwit the deadly mercenaries who follow.

Meanwhile, in Aurora, Cork works feverishly to identify the hunters and the reason for their relentless pursuit, but he has little to go on. Desperate, Cork begins tracking the killers but his own skills as a hunter are severely tested by nightfall and a late season snowstorm. He knows only too well that with each passing hour time is running out. But his fiercest enemy in this deadly game of cat and mouse may well be his own deep self-doubt about his ability to save those he loves.

From “an author who never disappoints” (Bookreporter), this is another gripping and richly told addition to a masterful series.

View Details >>

The Stardust Thief

Chelsea Abdullah

Inspired by stories from One Thousand and One Nights, this book weaves together the gripping tale of a legendary smuggler, a cowardly prince, and a dangerous quest across the desert to find a legendary, magical lamp.

Neither here nor there, but long ago . . . 

Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land—at the cost of sacrificing all jinn.

With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan's oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulie's past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everything—her enemy, her magic, even her own past—is not what it seems, and she must decide who she will become in this new reality.

View Details >>

All the Secrets of the World

Steve Almond

"A breathtaking success . . . dazzling." --San Francisco Chronicle

"[A] rollicking, wide-ranging, unpredictable novel--part crime story, part coming-of-age, part satire, part deadly serious." --Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer finalist for The Great Believers

Who pays for the secrets we keep? For the lies we tell ourselves?

Lorena Saenz has just been paired with Jenny Stallworth for a school project by a teacher hoping to unite two girls from starkly different backgrounds. Jenny is pretty and popular, and Lorena is quickly drawn into the family's picture-perfect suburban lifestyle. Jenny's mother, Rosemary, is glamorous, but needy--she treats Lorena like a friend, if only to break up the monotony of lonely afternoons. Jenny's father, Marcus, spends his days teaching and his nights wandering the desert, absorbed in his research on the scorpions of Death Valley. Outwardly, they are the perfect family, poised for success in 1981 Sacramento at the dawn of a glorious American decade. Lorena finds her access intoxicating and alluring, a far cry from her life in the small apartment she shares with her single mother.

But the veneer is shattered when Marcus disappears. The prime suspect: Lorena's troubled older brother, Tony.

To uncover the truth, Lorena must embark on an unforgiving odyssey into the desert, into the secrets and lies of the Stallworth family, and the dark heart of America's criminal justice system. A shape-shifting social novel, All the Secrets of the World is a propulsive tour de force from a writer at the height of his powers.

 

 

View Details >>

It Dies with You

Scott Blackburn

Scott Blackburn’s searing literary debut explores the dangerous world of secrets threatening to upend a rural Southern town, perfect for fans of David Joy and Brian Panowich.

For nearly a decade, twenty-nine-year-old Hudson Miller has made his living in the boxing ring, but a post-fight brawl threatens to derail his career. Desperate for money, Hudson takes a gig as a bouncer at a dive bar. That’s when life delivers him another hook to the jaw: his estranged father, Leland, has been murdered in what appears to be a robbery-gone-bad at his salvage yard, Miller’s Pull-a-Part.

Soon after his father’s funeral, Hudson learns he’s inherited the salvage yard, and he returns to his Bible-belt hometown of Flint Creek, North Carolina, to run the business. But the business is far more than junk cars and scrap metal. It was the site of an illegal gun-running ring. And the secrets don’t end there; a grisly discovery is made at the yard that thrusts Hudson into the fight of his life.

Reeling for answers, Hudson joins forces with his father’s former employee, 71-year-old, beer-guzzling Vietnam vet Charlie Shoaf, and a feisty teenage girl, Lucy Reyes, who’s fiercely seeking justice for her own family tragedy. With a murderer on the loose and no answers from the local cops, the trio of outcasts launch an investigation. The shocking truth they uncover will shake Flint Creek to its very core.

View Details >>

Remember Love

Mary Balogh

'One of the best!' Julia Quinn, Sunday Times bestselling author of the Bridgerton series

A new series by Mary Balogh, bestselling author of The Westcott series. If you loved Bridgerton, you'll adore Mary Balogh.

The handsome and charismatic Earl of Stratton, Caleb Ware, has been exposed to the ton for his clandestine affairs-by his own son.

As a child, Devlin Ware thought his family stood for all that was right and good in the world. They were kind, gracious, and shared the beauty of Ravenwood, their grand country estate, by hosting lavish parties for the entire countryside. But at twenty-two, he discovered his whole world was an elaborate illusion, and when Devlin publicly called his family to account for it, he was exiled as a traitor.

So be it. He enlisted in the fight against Napoleon and didn't look back for six years. But now his father is dead, the Ware family is broken, and as the heir he is being called home. It's only when Gwyneth Rhys-the woman he loved and then lost after his family banished him-holds out her hand to help him that he is able make the difficult journey and try to piece together his fractured family.

It is Gwyneth's loyalty, patience, and love that he needs. But is Devlin's war-hardened heart even capable of offering her love in return?

Praise for Mary Balogh

'A grand mistress of the genre' Romantic Times

'Balogh is the queen of spicy Regency-era romance, creating memorable characters in unforgettable stories' Booklist

'Mary Balogh sets the gold standard in historical romance' New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

'A romance writer of mesmerising intensity, Mary Balogh has the gift of making a relationship seem utterly real and utterly compelling' Mary Jo Putney

View Details >>

How to Fall Out of Love Madly

Jana Casale

“Three relatable thirty somethings drive this ode to womanhood. Learning the hard way to love themselves, the women teach invaluable lessons.”—People

“Everyone who loves Sally Rooney should be reading Jana Casale!”—Julie Buntin, author of Marlena

 
Three women confront the compromises they’ve made to appease the men they love.

Joy and Annie are friends and roommates whose thirty-something lives aren’t exactly what they’d imagined. To make ends meet, they decide to rent their extra bedroom to Theo, who charms Joy with his salt-and-pepper hair and adoration of their one-eyed cat. When Annie goes to live with her boyfriend, Theo and Joy settle into a comfortable domesticity. Then Theo brings home Celine, the girlfriend he’s never mentioned, who is possibly the most stunning woman Joy has ever seen. Joy resolves to do whatever it takes to hold on to him, falling ever deeper into an emotional hellscape of her own making. She is too obsessed to realize that Celine’s beauty doesn’t protect her from pain. Haunted by an event from her past, Celine can’t escape her shame and finds herself in an endless cycle of self-sabotage.

Annie is baffled by Joy’s senseless devotion to Theo, but she’s consumed by her own obsessions: she can’t stop parsing her commitment-phobic boyfriend’s texts in an exhausting mission to maintain his approval. At work, where she fully embraces her natural assertiveness, Annie is a star. But when an anonymous letter lands on her desk accusing her esteemed and supportive boss of sexual misconduct, she is forced to decide who and what she’s willing to stand up for.

Perceptive, mordantly funny, and full of heart, How to Fall Out of Love Madly examines women’s many relationships—with one another, their mothers, their work, men, and themselves—to reveal their underlying power and complexity. It asks, why do so many smart, compassionate, otherwise empowered women tolerate egregious behavior from the men they love? And what will it take for them to reclaim control?

View Details >>

One of the Girls

Lucy Clarke

 

The latest twisty psychological thriller from internationally-bestselling author Lucy Clarke, One of the Girls is the delicious story of a bachelorette trip on a stunning Greek island... that ends in murder.

It was supposed to be the perfect weekend away. Six very different women travel to a sun-soaked Greek island for a bachelorette trip, to celebrate Lexi’s upcoming wedding. From the glorious ocean views to the quaint tavernas and whitewashed streets, the vacation seems too good to be true. But dangerous undercurrents run beneath the sunset swims and midnight cocktails – because each of the women is hiding a secret. Someone is determined to make sure that Lexi’s marriage never happens – and that one of them doesn’t leave the island alive.

Gripping, twisty, and full of sun-soaked suspense, this timely thriller examines the joys of female friendship…as well as the deadly consequences when a relationship goes wrong.

 

View Details >>

A History of Present Illness

Anna DeForest

“A revelation.” –The New York Times
“Brutal and brave, DeForest's novel is one of the best in the ‘making of a doctor’ genre. And its plucky protagonist, casualty and hero, roars a universal truth, ‘We all hurt.’” Booklist, starred review 
A Lit Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2022
A Publishers Weekly “Writer to Watch”

A young woman puts on a white coat for her first day as a student doctor. So begins this powerful debut, which follows our unnamed narrator through cadaver dissection, surgical rotation, difficult births, sudden deaths, and a budding relationship with a seminarian.
 
In the troubled world of the hospital, where the language of blood tests and organ systems so often hides the heart of the matter, she works her way from one bed to another, from a man dying of substance use and tuberculosis, to a child in pain crisis, to a young woman, fading from confusion to aphasia to death. The long hours and heartrending work begin to blur the lines between her new life as a physician and the lifelong traumas she has fled.   

In brilliant, wry, and biting prose, A History of Present Illness is a boldly honest meditation on the body, the hope of healing in the face of total loss, and what it means to be alive.

View Details >>

Hurricane Girl

Marcy Dermansky

A propulsive and daring new novel by the author of Very Nice about a woman on the run from catastrophe, searching for love, home, a swimming pool, and for someone who can perhaps stop the bleeding from her head.

"Marcy Dermansky is one of the most wildly original writers that I've ever read, and Hurricane Girl showcases what makes her so amazing. In tracking the unpredictable movements of a strange and hypnotic journey in the aftermath of a natural disaster, Dermansky nails the sensation of being alive, of navigating a world so strange that it’s almost a dream, of trying, again and again, to anchor yourself to a moment, to assure yourself that you exist, to withstand anything and somehow keep living." —Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here


Allison Brody is thirty-two and newly arrived on the East Coast after just managing to flee her movie producer boyfriend. She has some money, saved up from years of writing and waitressing, and so she spends it, buying a small house on the beach. But then a Category 3 hurricane makes landfall and scatters her home up and down the shore, leaving Allison adrift.

Should she go home from the bar with the strange cameraman and stay in his guest room? Is that a glass vase he smashed on her skull? Can she wipe the blood from her eyes, get in her car, and drive to her mother’s? Does she really love the brain surgeon who saved her, or is she just using him for his swimming pool? And is it possible to ever truly heal without seeking some measure of revenge?

A gripping, provocative novel that walks a knife’s edge between comedy and horror, Hurricane Girl is the work of a singular talent, a novelist unafraid to explore the intersection of love, sex, violence, and freedom—while celebrating the true joy that can be found in a great swim and a good turkey sandwich.

View Details >>

Child Zero

Chris Holm

From molecular biologist turned Anthony Award-winning author of The Killing Kind comes a fact-based thriller about our species’ next great existential threatperfect for fans of Michael Crichton.

It began four years ago with a worldwide uptick of bacterial infections: meningitis in Frankfurt, cholera in Johannesburg, tuberculosis in New Delhi. Although the outbreaks spread aggressively and proved impervious to our drugs of last resort, public health officials initially dismissed them as unrelated.
 
They were wrong. Antibiotic resistance soon roiled across the globe. Diseases long thought beaten came surging back. The death toll skyrocketed. Then New York City was ravaged by the most heinous act of bioterror the world had ever seen, perpetrated by a new brand of extremist bent on pushing humanity to extinction.
 
Detective Jacob Gibson, who lost his wife in the 8/17 attack, is home caring for his sick daughter when his partner summons him to a sprawling shantytown in Central Park, the apparent site of a mass murder. Jake is startled to discover that, despite a life of abject squalor, the victims died in perfect health—and his only hope of finding answers is a twelve-year-old boy on the run from some very dangerous men.

View Details >>

All the Seas of the World

Guy Gavriel Kay

Returning triumphantly to the brilliantly evoked near-Renaissance world of A Brightness Long Ago and Children of Earth and Sky, international bestselling author Guy Gavriel Kay deploys his signature ‘quarter turn to the fantastic’ to tell a story of vengeance, power, and love.  

On a dark night along a lonely stretch of coast a small ship sends two people ashore. Their purpose is assassination. They have been hired by two of the most dangerous men alive to alter the balance of power in the world. If they succeed, the consequences will affect the destinies of empires, and lives both great and small.  
   
One of those arriving at that beach is a woman abducted by corsairs as a child and sold into years of servitude. Having escaped, she is trying to chart her own course—and is bent upon revenge. Another is a seafaring merchant who still remembers being exiled as a child with his family from their home, for their faith, a moment that never leaves him. In what follows, through a story both intimate and epic, unforgettable characters are immersed in the fierce and deadly struggles that define their time.  
  
All the Seas of the World is a page-turning drama that also offers moving reflections on memory, fate, and the random events that can shape our lives—in the past, and today.

View Details >>

Circa

Devi S. Laskar

For fans of The Burning Girl by Claire Messud and Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi, a stunning, gut-punch of a novel that follows a young Indian American woman who, in the wake of tragedy, must navigate her family's expectations as she grapples with a complicated love and loss.
 
On the cusp of her eighteenth birthday, Heera and her best friends, siblings Marie and Marco, tease the fun out of life in Raleigh, North Carolina, with acts of rebellion and delinquency. They paint the town’s water towers with red anarchy symbols and hang out at the local bus station to pickpocket money for their Great Escape to New York. But no matter how much Heera defies her strict upbringing, she’s always avoided any real danger—until one devastating night changes everything.
 
In its wake, Marco reinvents himself as Crash and spends his days womanizing and burning through a string of jobs. Meanwhile, Heera’s dream to go to college in New York is suddenly upended. Over the years, Heera’s and Crash’s paths cross and recross on a journey of dreams, desires, jealousies, and betrayals.
 
Heart-wrenching, darkly funny, and buoyed by gorgeous prose, Circa is at once an irresistible love story and a portrait of a young woman torn between duty and her own survival, between obligation and freedom.

View Details >>

The Girl and the Moon

Mark Lawrence

In the third exhilarating novel in this dazzling epic fantasy series, a young outcast will fight against staggering odds to save her world.

On the planet Abeth, a narrow Corridor of green land is surrounded on all sides by ice plains where only the strong survive. Ice triber Yaz has completed a perilous journey and arrived at the Corridor, and it exceeds and overwhelms all of her expectations. Everything seems different but some constants remain: her old enemies are still two steps ahead, bent on her destruction. She makes her way to the Convent of Sweet Mercy, where nuns train young girls who show the old gifts, but like the Corridor itself the convent is packed with peril and opportunity. Yaz has much to learn from the nuns—if they don’t decide to execute her.

The fate of everyone squeezed between the Corridor’s vast walls, and ultimately the fate of those laboring to survive out on ice itself, hangs from the moon, and the battle to save the moon centers on the Ark of the Missing, buried beneath the emperor’s palace. Everyone wants Yaz to be the key that will open the Ark – the one the wise have sought for generations. But sometimes wanting isn’t enough.

View Details >>

Friend of the Devil

Stephen Lloyd

High school can be hell. Literally.


A demonic detective novel best devoured in a single sitting--from acclaimed TV writer Stephen Lloyd.

Welcome to Danforth Putnam, boarding school for the elite, sprawled across its own private island off the coast of New England. Sam, a war vet who feels sure he’s seen it all, has been called here to find a stolen rare book. But as he corners D&D nerds, grills steroid-raging linemen, and interviews filthy-rich actresses, he soon senses that something far stranger—“witchy”, in fact—is afoot. When students start to meet mysterious and gruesome deaths, Sam realizes just how fast the clock is ticking.

After joining forces with plucky, epilepsy-defying school reporter Harriet, Sam ventures into increasingly dark territory, unravelling a supernatural mystery that will upend everything he thinks he knows about this school—and then shatter his own reality.

Toss Dracula into a blender, throw in a shot of hard-boiled detective fiction, splash in a couple drops of Stranger Things, and pour yourself a nice tall glass of Friend of the Devil.

View Details >>

The Perfect Golden Circle

Benjamin Myers

Summer 1989, deep in the English countryside — during a time of mass unemployment, class war, and rebellion . . . .
 
Over the course of a burning hot summer, two very different men — Calvert, an ex-soldier traumatized by his experience in the Falklands War, and his affable freind Redbone — set out nightly in a decrepit camper van to undertake an extraordinary project. 
 
Under cover of darkness, they traverse the fields of rural England in secret, forming crop circles in elaborate and mysterious patterns, painstakingly avoiding damaging the wheat to yield designs so intricate that their overnight appearances inspire awe amongst a mystified public.
 
And as the summer wears on, and their designs grow ever more ambitious, the two men find that their work has become a cult international sensation—and that an unlikely and beautiful friendship has taken root as the wheat ripens from green to gold. 
 
But as harvest-time beckons—and as media and the authorities begin to take too much interest in their work—Calvert and Redbone have to race against time to finish the most stunning and original crop circle ever conceived: the Honeycomb Double Helix.
 
Moving and exhilarating, tender and slyly witty, The Perfect Golden Circle is a captivating novel about the futility of war, the descruction of the English countryside, class inequality — ower of beauty to heal trauma and fight power. 

View Details >>

The Maker of Swans

Paraic O'Donnell

A New York Times Best Book of Summer

A Crime Reads Notable Book of the Year

A Crime Reads & Tor.com Best Book of June

“Truly bewitching.” —David Mitchell

It is no small matter, after all, to create something—to make it so only by setting down the words. We forget the magnitude, sometimes, of that miracle. 

In the dead of night, shots ring out over the grounds of a sprawling English estate. The world-weary butler Eustace recognizes the gunman—his longtime employer, Mr. Crowe—and knows he must think and act quickly. Who is the man lying dead on the lawn? Who is the woman in his company? Can he clean up his master’s mess like he always has before? Or will this bring a new kind of reckoning? 

Mr. Crowe was once famed for his gifts—unaccountable gifts, known only to the members of a secretive order. Protected and privileged, he was courted by countesses and great men of letters. But he has long since retreated from that glittering world, living alone but for Eustace and Clara, his mysterious young ward. He has been content to live quietly, his great library gathering dust and his once magnificent gardens growing wild. He has left the past behind. Until now. 

Because there are rules, even for Mr. Crowe and his kind, that cannot be broken. And this single night of passion and violence will have consequences, stirring shadows from the past and threatening those he now cares for. He and the faithful Eustace will be tested as never before. So too will Clara, whose own extraordinary gifts remain hidden, even from herself. If she is to save them all, she must learn to use them quickly and unlock the secret of who she is. 

It is a secret beyond imagining. A secret that will change everything.

View Details >>

You Have a Friend in 10A

Maggie Shipstead

From the Booker Prize nominee and New York Times best-selling author of Great Circle, a piercing, irresistible first collection of short stories exquisite in their craft and audacious in their range


A love triangle plays out over decades on a Montana dude ranch. A hurdler and a gymnast spend a single night together in the Olympic village. Mistakes and mysteries weave an intangible web around an old man’s deathbed in Paris, connecting disparate destinies. On the slopes of an unfinished ski resort, a young woman searches for her vanished lover. A couple’s Romanian honeymoon goes ominously awry, and, in the mesmerizing title story, a former child actress breaks with her life in a Hollywood cult.

In these and other stories, knockout after knockout, Maggie Shipstead delivers another “extraordinary” (New York Times) work of fiction and seals her reputation as a writer of “breathtaking range and skill” (Kirkus Reviews). Rich in imagination and dazzling in its shapeshifting style, You Have a Friend in 10A excavates the complexities of love, sex, and life in ways unsparing and hilarious, sharp-eyed and tender.

View Details >>

The Golden Season

Madeline Kay Sneed

How do you love a place that doesn’t love you back?

Emmy Quinn is West Texas through and through: her roots run deep in the sleepy small town of Steinbeck, where God sees all and football is king. She loves her community, but she knows that when she comes out as a lesbian, she may not be able to call Steinbeck—which is steeped in the Southern Baptist tradition—home anymore.

After a disastrous conversation with her dad, Emmy meets Cameron, a charismatic, whip-smart grad student from Massachusetts who hates everything Texas. But Texas is in Emmy's blood. Can she build a future with a woman who can't accept the things that make Emmy who she is?

Steve Quinn has just been offered his dream job as head coach of the struggling high school football team, the Steinbeck 'Stangs. The board thinks he can win them a state championship for the first time—but they tell him he can’t accept the position if he's got any skeletons in his closet. Steve is still wrestling with Emmy's coming-out: he loves his daughter, but he’s a man of faith, raised in the Baptist community. How can God ask him to choose between his dreams and his own daughter?

This lush, gorgeously written debut is a love letter to the places we call home and asks how we grapple with a complicated love for people and places that might not love us back—at least, not for who we really are. The Golden Season is a powerful examination of faith, queerness and the deep-seated bonds of family, and heralds the arrival of a striking new voice in fiction.

View Details >>

Round Up the Usual Peacocks

Donna Andrews

New York Times bestselling author Donna Andrews first introduced us to Meg Langslow as a crime-solving bridesmaid. In her 31st mystery, Round Up the Usual Peacocks, Meg returns to her roots, juggling cold cases and wedding guests.

Kevin, Meg's cyber-savvy nephew who lives in the basement, comes to her with a problem. He's become involved as the techie for a true-crime podcast, one that focuses on Virginia cold cases and unsolved crimes. And he thinks their podcast has hit a nerve with someone . . . one of the podcast team has had a brush with death that Kevin thinks was an attempted murder, not an accident.

Kevin rather sheepishly asks for Meg's help in checking out the people involved in a couple of the cases. "Given your ability to find out stuff online, why do you need MY help?" she asks. "Um . . . because I've already done everything I can online. This'll take going around and TALKING to people," he exclaims, with visible horror. "In person!" Not his thing. And no, it can't wait until after the wedding, because he's afraid whoever's after them might take advantage of the chaos of the wedding at Trinity or the reception at Meg and Michael's house to strike again.

So on top of everything she's doing to round up vendors and supplies and take care of demanding out-of-town guests, Meg must hunt down the surviving suspects from three relatively local cold cases so she can figure out if they have it in for the podcasters. Could there be a connection to a musician on the brink of stardom who disappeared two decades ago and hasn't been seen since?

View Details >>

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Gabrielle Zevin

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A JIMMY FALLON BOOK CLUB PICK In this exhilarating novel by the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

"Utterly brilliant. In this sweeping, gorgeously written novel, Gabrielle Zevin charts the beauty, tenacity, and fragility of human love and creativity. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is one of the best books I've ever read." —John Green
 
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
 
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.

View Details >>

You're Invited

Amanda Jayatissa

What could be worse than your ex-boyfriend marrying your childhood best friend? Getting accused of her murder… From the award-winning author of My Sweet Girl comes a dangerously addictive new thriller about a lavish Sri Lankan wedding celebration that not everyone will survive.

When Amaya is invited to Kaavi’s over-the-top wedding in Sri Lanka, she is surprised and a little hurt to hear from her former best friend after so many years of radio silence. But when Amaya learns that the groom is her very own ex-boyfriend, she is consumed by a single thought: She must stop the wedding from happening, no matter the cost. But as the week of wedding celebrations begin and rumors about Amaya’s past begin to swirl, she can’t help but feel like she also has a target on her back. When Kaavi goes missing and is presumed dead, all evidence points to Amaya. However, nothing is as it seems as Jayatissa expertly unravels that each wedding guest has their own dark secret and agenda, and Amaya may not be the only one with a plan to keep the bride from getting her happily ever after…

View Details >>

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night comes a lavish historical drama reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico.

“This is historical science fiction at its best: a dreamy reimagining of a classic story with vivid descriptions of lush jungles and feminist themes. Some light romance threads through the heavier ethical questions concerning humanity.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“The imagination of Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a thing of wonder, restless and romantic, fearless in the face of genre, embracing the polarities of storytelling—the sleek and the bizarre, wild passions and deep hatreds—with cool equanimity.”—The New York Times (Editors Choice)


Carlota Moreau: A young woman growing up on a distant and luxuriant estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatán peninsula. The only daughter of a researcher who is either a genius or a madman.

Montgomery Laughton: A melancholic overseer with a tragic past and a propensity for alcohol. An outcast who assists Dr. Moreau with his experiments, which are financed by the Lizaldes, owners of magnificent haciendas and plentiful coffers.

The hybrids: The fruits of the doctor’s labor, destined to blindly obey their creator and remain in the shadows. A motley group of part human, part animal monstrosities.

All of them live in a perfectly balanced and static world, which is jolted by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the charming and careless son of Dr. Moreau’s patron, who will unwittingly begin a dangerous chain reaction.

For Moreau keeps secrets, Carlota has questions, and, in the sweltering heat of the jungle, passions may ignite.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau is both a dazzling historical novel and a daring science fiction journey.

View Details >>

Mirror Made of Rain

Naheed Phiroze Patel

"The writing is sharp, beautiful, very evocative. The characters pop off the page and are instantly recognizable. Noomi is so achingly human and alive. I love the subtlety of Patel's hand in the way she depicts Noomi and her world in Mirror Made of Rain. Everything feels so lush and gorgeous as the story at the heart of the novel emerges and eventually coheres to devastating effect." --Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life and Filthy Animals

"A personal, empathetic view on mothers who society has deemed 'failures'" --NPR

Despite an embarrassing, alcoholic mother, Noomi Wadia is loathe to change her own hard-partying ways simply because it's what's expected in Kamalpur high society. As her peers begin to marry and her social obligations become more fraught, she finds herself under constant scrutiny at summer parties of the city's upper crust.

With her options in her hometown growing increasingly limited, Noomi leaves for Mumbai and quickly becomes a successful journalist. There she falls in love with Veer, who appreciates her for exactly who she is. When Noomi and Veer decide to marry, Noomi must observe a host of patriarchal wedding rituals at the behest of her new in-laws, whose cultural customs deviate from her own. Soon, Noomi realizes that her worst fears have come to pass--she is trapped in the same cycle of self-destructiveness as her mother, and she must battle her impulses or risk losing it all.

A riveting exploration of class and tradition in contemporary India, Noomi is as quick-witted as she is quick-tempered. At times funny and tragic, taking place over many years of Noomi's life, Naheed Phiroze Patel's exhilarating debut novel shows how society encourages us to see ourselves through the eyes of others.

View Details >>

Elsewhere

Alexis Schaitkin

Richly emotive and darkly captivating, with elements of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and the imaginative depth of Margaret Atwood, Elsewhere by Alexis Schaitkin conjures a community in which girls become wives, wives become mothers and some of them, quite simply, disappear.

Vera grows up in a small town, removed and isolated, pressed up against the mountains, cloud-covered and damp year-round. This town, fiercely protective, brutal and unforgiving in its adherence to tradition, faces a singular affliction: some mothers vanish, disappearing into the clouds. It is the exquisite pain and intrinsic beauty of their lives; it sets them apart from people elsewhere and gives them meaning.

Vera, a young girl when her own mother went, is on the cusp of adulthood herself. As her peers begin to marry and become mothers, they speculate about who might be the first to go, each wondering about her own fate. Reveling in their gossip, they witness each other in motherhood, waiting for signs: this one devotes herself to her child too much, this one not enough—that must surely draw the affliction’s gaze. When motherhood comes for Vera, she is faced with the question: will she be able to stay and mother her beloved child, or will she disappear?

Provocative and hypnotic, Alexis Schaitkin’s Elsewhere is at once a spellbinding revelation and a rumination on the mysterious task of motherhood and all the ways in which a woman can lose herself to it; the self-monitoring and judgment, the doubts and unknowns, and the legacy she leaves behind.

View Details >>

Mid-Air: Two Novellas

Victoria Shorr

Fate is explored in the fall and rise of two twentieth-century American families.

Victoria Shorr’s remarkable gift for depicting the inner lives of complex characters shines in two powerful explorations of family, ambition, class, and status.

In “Great Uncle Edward,” a family gathers for dinner. At ninety-three, Great Uncle Edward commands the table in his three-piece suit; Cousin Russell attended both Harvard and Yale but is now reduced to selling off the family books; sisters Betty and Molly are caught between ghosts of a storied past and creeping destitution. These lives are signposts along the downward spiral of an old aristocracy. “Cleveland Auto Wrecking” introduces Sam White, an immigrant from eastern Europe. He cannot read but has a gift for math and an instinct for the value of junk. We follow his clan through the Depression to the postwar boom in the West, where their fortunes soar, creating new tests of loyalty.

Taken together, these two novellas might be the reverse images of the American dream in the twentieth century. They ask to what degree, in the face of such powerful forces as love, death, and social constraints, do any of us have control over our own lives.

View Details >>

A Map for the Missing

Belinda Huijuan Tang

Longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s 2022 First Novel Prize!

“Belinda Huijuan Tang’s debut novel is a beautifully drawn, sensitively rendered portrait of a man desperately searching for his father—and for reconnection to the past and people he once knew and loved. Both rich in historical detail and timeless in scope, A Map for the Missing explores the costs of choosing your own path, whether what’s left behind can ever be retrieved, and whether it is possible to forgive the wounds we inevitably inflict on each other.” —Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere

“An engrossing saga of a young mathematician caught between two countries, two cultures, two eras, and two loves. Set against the violent turmoil of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, this powerful debut explores the wrenching impact of political ideologies on individual lives in a way that is resonant and timely.” —Ruth Ozeki, author of The Book of Form and Emptiness and A Tale for the Time Being

An epic, mesmerizing debut novel set against a rapidly changing post–Cultural Revolution China, A Map for the Missing reckons with the costs of pursuing one’s dreams and the lives we leave behind


Tang Yitian has been living in America for almost a decade when he receives an urgent phone call from his mother: his father has disappeared from the family’s rural village in China. Though they have been estranged for years, Yitian promises to come home.
 
When Yitian attempts to piece together what may have happened, he struggles to navigate China’s impenetrable bureaucracy as an outsider, and his mother’s evasiveness only deepens the mystery. So he seeks out a childhood friend who may be in a position to help: Tian Hanwen, the only other person who shared Yitian’s desire to pursue a life of knowledge. As a teenager, Hanwen was “sent down” from Shanghai to Yitian’s village as part of the country’s rustication campaign. Young and in love, they dreamed of attending university in the city together. But when their plans resulted in a terrible tragedy, their paths diverged, and while Yitian ended up a professor in America, Hanwen was left behind, resigned to life as a midlevel bureaucrat’s wealthy housewife.
 
Reuniting for the first time as adults, Yitian and Hanwen embark on the search for Yitian’s father, all the while grappling with the past—who Yitian’s father really was, and what might have been. Spanning the late 1970s to 1990s and moving effortlessly between rural provinces and big cities, A Map for the Missing is a deeply felt examination of family and forgiveness, and the meaning of home.

View Details >>

Desperate Undertaking

Lindsey Davis

In Lindsey Davis's next book in the beloved Flavia Albia Series, Desperate Undertaking, a mad killer (or killers!) is strewing bodies around in the most gruesome of manners and, true to form, it is up to Flavia Albia to determine what is really going on and stop this bacchanal of death.

In the first century, under Domitian's reign, strange and brutal goings on are nothing new in Rome. Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken over her father's business as a private informer but she tries to shy away from the brutal, the complicated, and the political - because nothing good comes of any of them. Unfortunately, she's not very good at turning them down.

This time a commission shows up on her doorstep - someone is staging brutal murders in some of the most beautiful buildings in Rome, each staging different. So far, the only clue was the phrase that one survivor managed to croak, "The undertaker did it..." With little to go on and bodies starting to pile up, Albia has to unravel the strangest mystery of her career in short order if she's to stop this dismaying orgy of murder.

View Details >>

Shifty's Boys

Chris Offutt

Army-CID-officer-cum-unofficial-PI Mick Hardin is up against unforeseen forces who will stop at nothing in this vividly atmospheric thriller from acclaimed novelist Chris Offutt.

 

 

Chris Offutt is
a literary master across genres, and his most recent novel THE KILLING HILLS
was one of his most successful, earning him a new audience and earning
praise from the likes of The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal,
and Crime Reads. His latest book, Shifty's
Boys
, is a compelling, propulsive thriller of murder and mayhem in the
hills of eastern Kentucky.

 

 

Mick Hardin is home on leave,
recovering from an IED attack, when a body is found in the center of town. It's
Barney Kissick, the local heroin dealer, and the city police see it as an
occupational hazard. But when Barney's mother, Shifty, asks Mick to take a
look, it seems there's more to the killing than it seems. Mick should be
rehabbing his leg, signing his divorce papers, and getting out of town--and most
of all, staying out of the way of his sister Linda's reelection as Sheriff--but
he keeps on looking, and suddenly he's getting shot at himself.

 

 

 

 

A dark, pacy crime novel about
grief and revenge, and the surprises hidden below the surface, Shifty's Boys
is a tour de force that confirms Chris Offutt's Mick Hardin as one of the
most appealing new investigators in fiction.

 

 

View Details >>

The Paris Showroom

Juliet Blackwell

 

In Nazi-occupied Paris, a talented artisan must fight for her life by designing for her enemies. From New York Times bestselling author Juliet Blackwell comes an extraordinary story about holding on to hope when all seems lost.
Capucine Benoit works alongside her father to produce fans of rare feathers, beads, and intricate pleating for the haute couture fashion houses. But after the Germans invade Paris in June 1940, Capucine and her father must focus on mere survival—until they are betrayed to the secret police and arrested for his political beliefs. When Capucine saves herself from deportation to Auschwitz by highlighting her connections to Parisian design houses, she is sent to a little-known prison camp located in the heart of Paris, within the Lévitan department store.
 
There, hundreds of prisoners work to sort through, repair, and put on display the massive quantities of art, furniture, and household goods looted from Jewish homes and businesses. Forced to wait on German officials and their wives and mistresses, Capucine struggles to hold her tongue in order to survive, remembering happier days spent in the art salons, ateliers, and jazz clubs of Montmartre in the 1920s.
 
Capucine’s estranged daughter, Mathilde, remains in the care of her conservative paternal grandparents, who are prospering under the Nazi occupation. But after her mother is arrested and then a childhood friend goes missing, the usually obedient Mathilde finds herself drawn into the shadowy world of Paris’s Résistance fighters. As her mind opens to new ways of looking at the world, Mathilde also begins to see her unconventional mother in a different light.
 
When an old acquaintance arrives to go “shopping” at the Lévitan department store on the arm of a Nazi officer and secretly offers to help Capucine get in touch with Mathilde, this seeming act of kindness could have dangerous consequences.

 

View Details >>

An Unthinkable Thing

Nicole Lundrigan

A tragedy brings a young boy into the home of a "perfect" family--one whose dark secrets begin closing in, until a horrifying moment changes everything.

Tommie Ware’s life is turned upside down the summer of 1958, just after his eleventh birthday. When his beloved aunt—the woman who raised him—doesn’t return after her shift as a night nurse and is later found murdered, there is only one place left for Tommie to go: “home” to the mother who handed him over the day he was born.
All is not as it seems behind the hedgerow surrounding the lavish Henneberry estate where Tommie’s mother, Esther, works as live-in housekeeper. Her employers have agreed he can stay until she “sorts things out,” but as she's at the family’s beck and call around the clock, Tommie is mostly left on his own to navigate the grounds, the massive house, and the twisted family inside.
Soon he is enmeshed in the oppressive attentions of matriarch Muriel, who is often heavily medicated, and of fifteen-year-old Martin, who treats Tommie sometimes like a kid brother, sometimes like a pawn in a confusing game. While Dr. Henneberry mostly ignores Tommie, he also seems eager for him to be gone. Then there’s the elderly neighbour, who may know more about the family's past than anyone else will say.
By summer's end, the secrets and games tighten around Tommie and his mother, until a horrific crime is discovered and we are faced with an unthinkable question: could an eleven-year-old boy really have committed cold-blooded murder?

View Details >>

Mr. Perfect on Paper

Jean Meltzer

From the author of The Matzah Ball comes a pitch-perfect romcom following a third-generation Jewish matchmaker who unwittingly finds her own search for love thrust into the spotlight...

The perfect Jewish husband should be:

  • A doctor or lawyer (preferably a doctor)
  • Baggage-free (no previous marriages, no children)
  • And of course—he must be Jewish


As the creator and CEO of the popular Jewish dating app J-Mate, matchmaker Dara Rabinowitz knows the formula for lasting love—at least, for everyone else. When it comes to her own love life, she’s been idling indefinitely. Until her beloved bubbe shares Dara’s checklist for “The Perfect Jewish Husband” on national television and charming news anchor Chris Steadfast proposes they turn Dara’s search into must-see TV.

As a non-Jewish single dad, Chris doesn’t check any of Dara’s boxes. But her hunt for Mr. Perfect is the ratings boost his show desperately needs. If only Chris could ignore his own pesky attraction to Dara—a task much easier said than done when Dara starts questioning if “perfect on paper” can compete with how hard she’s falling for Chris…

"A warm, heartfelt ode to self-acceptance, honesty, and tight-knit Jewish communities…a true pleasure to read."—Olivia Dade, author of Spoiler Alert, on The Matzah Ball

View Details >>

Crazy to Leave You

Marilyn Simon Rothstein

"A heartfelt, delicious story." --Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Magnolia Palace

From the author of Husbands and Other Sharp Objects comes a witty, bighearted novel about the happy accidents that lead to love and second chances.

Forty-one years old, the last of her friends to marry, and down to a size 12, Lauren Leo is in her gown and about to tie the knot. There's just one thing missing: the groom. With one blindsiding text, Lauren is unceremoniously dumped at the altar.

In the aftermath, her mother is an endless well of unsolicited advice (Stay on your diet and freeze your eggs). Her sisters only add to the Great Humiliation: one is planted on Lauren's couch while the other is too perfect.

Picking her heart up off the floor, Lauren turns to her work in advertising as she gathers courage to move on and plan her next step. She should know by now that nothing in life goes according to plan. What lies ahead is the road to self-acceptance and at long last feeling worthy. With a new way to measure love and success, Lauren chucks her scale--and finds a second chance in the most unexpected place.

View Details >>

The Soviet Sisters

Anika Scott

From bestselling author of The German Heiress, a gripping new historical novel filled with secrets, lies, and betrayals, following two spy sisters during the Cold War.

"Anika Scott pens a fascinating tale of secrets, surveillance, and sisterhood.... The Soviet Sisters will suck you in to the very last page!" —Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye

“Electrifying, meticulously researched, and expertly plotted, The Soviet Sisters is at once a Cold War thriller, a gripping spy story, a page-turning mystery, and a familial drama.” —Lara Prescott, New York Times bestselling author

Sisters Vera and Marya were brought up as good Soviets: obedient despite hardships of poverty and tragedy, committed to communist ideals, and loyal to Stalin. Several years after fighting on the Eastern front, both women find themselves deep in the mire of conflicts shaping a new world order in 1947 Berlin. When Marya, an interpreter, gets entangled in Vera’s cryptic web of deceit and betrayal, she must make desperate choices to survive—and protect those she loves.

Nine years later, Marya is a prisoner in a Siberian work camp when Vera, a doyenne of the KGB, has cause to reopen her case file and investigate the facts behind her sister's conviction all those years ago in Berlin. As Vera retraces the steps that brought them both to that pivotal moment in 1947, she unravels unexpected truths and discoveries that call into question the very history the Soviets were working hard to cover up.

Epic and intimate, layered and complex, The Soviet Sisters is a gripping story of spies, blackmail, and double, triple bluff. With her dexterous plotting and talent for teasing out moral ambiguity, Anika Scott expertly portrays a story about love, conflicting world views, and loyalty and betrayal between sisters. 

View Details >>

The Wife Before

Shanora Williams

Fans of Verity will be engrossed by this unpredictable novel of suspense as a new bride’s fairytale marriage becomes a prison of secrets. From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Perfect Ruin, this insidiously sexy, twist-filled psycho-drama is reminiscent of the classic gothic tale Rebecca.

BookBub’s Best Mysteries & Thrillers of 2022

Samira Wilder has never had it easy, and when her latest lousy job goes south, things only promise to get harder. Until she unexpectedly meets a man who will change her life forever. Renowned pro golfer Roland Graham is wealthy, handsome, and caring, and Samira is dazzled. Best of all, he seems to understand her better than anyone ever has. And though their relationship moves a bit fast, when Roland proposes, Samira accepts. She even agrees to relocate to his secluded Colorado mansion. After all, there’s nothing to keep her in Miami, and the mansion clearly makes him happy. Soon, they are married amid a media firestorm, and Samira can't wait to make a fresh start—as the second Mrs. Graham . . .
 
Samira settles into the mansion, blissfully happy—until she discovers long-hidden journals belonging to Roland’s late wife, Melanie, who died in a tragic accident. With each dusty page, Samira comes to realize that perhaps it was no accident at all—that perhaps her perfect husband is not as perfect as she thought. Even as her trust in Roland begins to dwindle and a shadow falls over her marriage and she begins to fear for her own life, Samira is determined to uncover the truth of Melanie’s troubled last days. But even good wives should know that the truth is not always what it seems . . .

“A shocking, sensual thriller.” —Tarryn Fisher, New York Times bestselling author on The Perfect Ruin

View Details >>

Cinder-Nanny

Sariah Wilson

What could come between a nanny and an earl in a fairy-tale love story? A reality check--in an endearing and witty romance by Sariah Wilson, the bestselling author of Roommaid.

With her sister's medical bills mounting, Diana Parker can't say no to a high-paying opportunity like this: accompany a wealthy couple to Aspen and nanny their precocious five-year-old son for three months. Necessary qualifications? She must know how to ski and teach math, speak fluent French, excel at social graces, and hold a master's degree in childhood development. Who'll be the wiser that Diana's only skill is packing for Colorado?

So far, so good--having a con woman for a mother has turned out to be a benefit, even if Diana has complicated feelings about telling lies. But she's doing this for her sister. And the perks--like a ticket to a lavish charity fundraiser, a new gown, and a Prince Charming-adjacent earl named Griffin Windsor--are pretty irresistible. Diana can't deny the Cinderella vibe.

Wary of gold diggers and scandal, England's most eligible bachelor is nevertheless falling for Diana, and sweeping the not-quite princess off her feet.

The warmer their relationship becomes, the slipperier the slopes are for Diana. Sooner or later, she'll have to come clean. When that happens, does an honest-to-goodness happy ending stand a chance?

View Details >>

The Man Burned by Winter

Pete Zacharias

An investigative journalist on the edge. A serial killer testing his limits. What they have in common can freeze the blood.

Still reeling from a personal tragedy, investigative journalist Rooker Lindström finds a grim hideaway from the world. It's the dilapidated cabin on Minnesota's Deer Lake bequeathed to him by his late father--one of the most notorious serial killers in the state. If the walls of this murder house could talk, they'd scream.

Detective Tess Harlow needs something from Rooker only he can provide: a window into the mind of a murderer. A copycat is on the prowl, following in the footsteps of Rooker's father. After reluctantly agreeing to take on the role of consultant, Rooker makes a chilling discovery. Every victim--five and counting--is a depraved taunt meant only for him. Rooker is not just tracking a killer playing sick games. In this brutal Minnesota winter, Rooker is confronting his past.

Maybe working with Tess is Rooker's last chance at redemption. But to outrun his father's legacy, he must follow a darker path still to come.

View Details >>

Grace Under Fire

Julie Garwood

Michael Buchanan will need every bit of his extensive skill set when he appoints himself as bodyguard to a woman determined not to need one in this thrilling new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Julie Garwood.

Grace Isabel MacKenna has a hundred things to do today. Killing someone isn't one of them. It is supposed to be a quick visit to Boston for the Buchanan anniversary party, then on to Scotland to collect an inheritance. She checks into her hotel and then decides to go for a brisk walk. But after getting lost, she ends up with a wounded man stumbling into her arms—and his shooter coming after them both. When she fires back in self-defense, she doesn’t expect him to drop dead. After Isabel endures an interrogation by police, she is free to go, thanks to the Buchanans dispatching former Navy SEAL and now lawyer Michael Buchanan to assist her.

Isabel knows she should be grateful for Michael’s help, but since she’s harbored an extreme dislike for him for years, gratitude is difficult to muster. Michael has appointed himself her de facto guardian, and she’s stuck with him despite their constant bickering and sizzling attraction. Even when Isabel goes to Scotland to claim her inheritance, Michael follows her—but he isn’t the only thing she can’t shake. Mysterious threats against Isabel surface, and before they can deal with their growing feelings for each other, Michael and Isabel must first survive.

View Details >>

Upgrade

Blake Crouch

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “If Michael Crichton had written a superhero novel, it would look a lot like Upgrade.”—The New York Times Book Review

“You don’t so much sympathize with the main character as live inside his skin.”—DIANA GABALDON, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Outlander series
 
“Mysterious, fascinating, and deeply moving—exploring the very nature of what it means to be human.”—ALEX MICHAELIDES, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient and The Maiden

The mind-blowing new thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter and Recursion—currently in development as a motion picture at Steven Spielberg's Amblin Partners


“You are the next step in human evolution.”

At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep.

But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways.

The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy.

Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost.

Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human.

And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if humanity’s only hope for a future really does lie in engineering our own evolution?

Intimate in scale yet epic in scope, Upgrade is an intricately plotted, lightning-fast tale that charts one man’s thrilling transformation, even as it asks us to ponder the limits of our humanity—and our boundless potential.

View Details >>

Look Closer

David Ellis

"Wildly entertaining."--New York Times Book Review

From the bestselling and award-winning author comes a wickedly clever and fast-paced novel of greed, revenge, obsession—and quite possibly the perfect murder.


Simon and Vicky couldn’t seem more normal: a wealthy Chicago couple, he a respected law professor, she an advocate for domestic violence victims. A stable, if unexciting marriage. But one thing’s for sure … absolutely nothing is what it seems. The pair are far from normal, and one of them just may be a killer. When the body of a beautiful socialite is found hanging in a mansion in a nearby suburb, Simon and Vicky’s secrets begin to unravel. A secret whirlwind affair. A twenty-million-dollar trust fund about to come due. A decades-long grudge and obsession with revenge. These are just a few of the lies that make up the complex web...and they will have devastating consequences. And while both Vicky and Simon are liars, just who exactly is conning who? Part Gone Girl, part Strangers on a Train, Look Closer is a wild rollercoaster of a read that will have you questioning everything you think you know.

View Details >>

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy

Jamie Ford

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!

“One of the most beautiful books of motherhood and what we pass on to those that come after us.” —Jenna Bush Hager, Today

The New York Times bestselling author of the “mesmerizing and evocative” (Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants) Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet returns with a powerful exploration of the love that binds one family across the generations.

Dorothy Moy breaks her own heart for a living.

As Washington’s former poet laureate, that’s how she describes channeling her dissociative episodes and mental health struggles into her art. But when her five-year-old daughter exhibits similar behavior and begins remembering things from the lives of their ancestors, Dorothy believes the past has truly come to haunt her. Fearing that her child is predestined to endure the same debilitating depression that has marked her own life, Dorothy seeks radical help.

Through an experimental treatment designed to mitigate inherited trauma, Dorothy intimately connects with past generations of women in her family: Faye Moy, a nurse in China serving with the Flying Tigers; Zoe Moy, a student in England at a famous school with no rules; Lai King Moy, a girl quarantined in San Francisco during a plague epidemic; Greta Moy, a tech executive with a unique dating app; and Afong Moy, the first Chinese woman to set foot in America.

As painful recollections affect her present life, Dorothy discovers that trauma isn’t the only thing she’s inherited. A stranger is searching for her in each time period. A stranger who’s loved her through all of her genetic memories. Dorothy endeavors to break the cycle of pain and abandonment, to finally find peace for her daughter, and gain the love that has long been waiting, knowing she may pay the ultimate price.

View Details >>

Fellowship Point

Alice Elliott Dark

The masterful story of a lifelong friendship between two very different women with shared histories and buried secrets, tested in the twilight of their lives, set across the arc of the 20th century.

Celebrated children’s book author Agnes Lee is determined to secure her legacy—to complete what she knows will be the final volume of her pseudonymously written Franklin Square novels; and even more consuming, to permanently protect the peninsula of majestic coast in Maine known as Fellowship Point. To donate the land to a trust, Agnes must convince shareholders to dissolve a generations-old partnership. And one of those shareholders is her best friend, Polly.

Polly Wister has led a different kind of life than Agnes: that of a well-off married woman with children, defined by her devotion to her husband, and philosophy professor with an inflated sense of stature. She exalts in creating beauty and harmony in her home, in her friendships, and in her family. Polly soon finds her loyalties torn between the wishes of her best friend and the wishes of her three sons—but what is it that Polly wants herself?

Agnes’s designs are further muddied when an enterprising young book editor named Maud Silver sets out to convince Agnes to write her memoirs. Agnes’s resistance cannot prevent long-buried memories and secrets from coming to light with far-reaching repercussions for all.

Fellowship Point reads like a classic 19th-century novel in its beautifully woven, multilayered narrative, but it is entirely contemporary in the themes it explores; a deep and empathic interest in women’s lives, the class differences that divided us, the struggle to protect the natural world, and, above all, a reckoning with intimacy, history, and posterity. It is a masterwork from Alice Elliott Dark.

View Details >>

The Half Life of Valery K

Natasha Pulley

From the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Kingdoms, an epic Cold War novel set in a mysterious town in Soviet Russia.

In 1963, in a Siberian prison, former nuclear specialist Valery Kolkhanov has mastered what it takes to survive: the right connections to the guards for access to food and cigarettes, the right pair of warm boots, and the right attitude toward the small pleasures of life so he won't go insane. But one day, all that changes: Valery's university mentor steps in and sweeps him from the frozen camp to a mysterious unnamed city. It houses a set of nuclear reactors, and surrounding it is a forest so damaged it looks like the trees have rusted from within.

In City 40, Valery is Dr. Kolkhanov once more, and he's expected to serve out his prison term studying the effect of radiation on local animals. But as Valery begins his work, he is struck by the questions his research raises. Why is there so much radiation in this area? What, exactly, is being hidden from the thousands who live in the town? And if he keeps looking for answers, will he live to serve out his sentence?

Based on real events in a surreal Soviet city, and told with bestselling author Natasha Pulley's inimitable style, The Half Life of Valery K is a sweeping new adventure for readers of Stuart Turton and Sarah Gailey.

View Details >>

Where the Sky Begins

Rhys Bowen

A woman's future is determined by fate and choice in a gripping WWII novel about danger, triumph, and second chances by the New York Times bestselling author of The Venice Sketchbook and The Tuscan Child.

London, 1940. Bombs fall and Josie Banks's world crumbles around her. Her overbearing husband, Stan, is unreachable, called to service. Her home, a ruin of rubble and ash. Josie's beloved tearoom boss has been killed, and Josie herself is injured, with nothing left and nowhere to go.

Evacuated to the English countryside, Josie ends up at the estate of the aristocratic Miss Harcourt, a reluctant host to the survivors of the Blitz. Awed as she is by the magnificent landscape, Josie sees opportunity. Josie convinces Miss Harcourt to let her open a humble tea shop, seeing it as a chance for everyone to begin again. When Josie meets Mike Johnson, a handsome Canadian pilot stationed at a neighboring bomber base, a growing intimacy brings her an inner peace she's never felt before. Then Stan returns from the war.

Now a threat looms larger than anyone imagined. And a dangerous secret is about to upend Josie's life again. Her newfound courage will be put to the test if she is to emerge, like a survivor, triumphant.

View Details >>

Aurora

David Koepp

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM NETFLIX AND ACADEMY AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR KATHRYN BIGELOW

“Fantastic story, a real page-turner. Impossible to put down." – Stephen King

From the author of Cold Storage comes a riveting, eerily plausible thriller, told with the menace and flair of Under the Dome or Project Hail Mary, in which a worldwide cataclysm plays out in the lives of one complicated Midwestern family. 

In Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is just trying to get by after her semi-criminal ex-husband split, leaving behind his unruly teenage son. 

Then the lights go out—not just in Aurora but across the globe. A solar storm has knocked out power almost everywhere. Suddenly, all problems are local, very local, and Aubrey must assume the mantle of fierce protector of her suburban neighborhood. 

Across the country lives Aubrey’s estranged brother, Thom. A fantastically wealthy, neurotically over-prepared Silicon Valley CEO, he plans to ride out the crisis in a gilded desert bunker he built for maximum comfort and security.

But the complicated history between the siblings is far from over, and what feels like the end of the world is just the beginning of several long-overdue reckonings—which not everyone will survive . . . 

Aurora is suspenseful storytelling—both large scale and small—at its finest. 

View Details >>

The Last Housewife: A Novel

Ashley Winstead

"During their senior year of college, Shay Evans and her best friend Laurel escaped from a violent, magnetic man and his equally violent views about women and society. Eight years later, Shay has built a new life for herself. But the horrifying news of Laurel's death shatters her world and makes her suspect that the people from her past are back and more dangerous than ever. Recruiting the help of a true-crime podcast host, Shay is determined to find out the truth. When clues lead her to a secret cult devoted to male superiority, she discovers what happened to her eight years ago was only the beginning. When Shay's search for answers turns into an obsession, forcing her to confront her own complicity and conditioning, she'll have to make a life-changing decision: how much would she give up to take down the men who've ruled her life?"-- Provided by publisher.

View Details >>

Red Flags

Lisa Black

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Black weaves her own professional expertise in forensic science into the first in a tantalizingly taut new forensic thriller series featuring Dr. Ellie Carr and Dr. Rachael Davies, Washington DC forensic scientists untangling a political scandal involving kidnapped children... Perfect for fans of Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli and Isles thrillers and Patricia Cornwall's Kay Scarpetta novels.

When D.C. crime scene analyst Dr. Ellie Carr is called to investigate the heartrending case of a missing baby, she's shocked to discover that the child's mother is her own cousin. Close during their impoverished childhoods, Ellie and Rebecca eventually drifted apart. Rebecca is now half of a Washington power couple, and she and her wealthy lobbyist husband, Hunter, have been living a charmed life in an opulent mansion--until their infant son is taken.

"Every contact leaves a trace." That's the basic principle of forensic science followed by pathologist Dr. Rachael Davies. A reluctant Ellie is teamed with Rachael, employed by Hunter to help with the investigation. Rachael is assistant dean at the prestigious Locard Forensic Institute, named in honor of the French criminologist who inspired the profession. But in this case, discovering where those traces lead quickly becomes a dangerous journey through a web of greed and deadly ambition.

At first antagonists, then allies, Ellie and Rachael race to find the baby alive and bring the kidnappers to justice. What seemed like a simple ransom grab reveals links to a lobbying effort to loosen regulations on a billion-dollar gaming empire. Unless they can piece together the evidence before the Senate hearing, Rebecca's son--and others like him--will face an unthinkable fate...

View Details >>

Peril at Pennington Manor

Tracy Gardner

Perfect for fans of Jane K. Cleland and Ellery Adams, the second volume in Tracy Gardner’s antiques-themed mystery series finds appraiser Avery Ayers sleuthing a murder in a castle.


Thanks to Aunt Midge’s unlikely friendship with Nicholas Pennington, the Duke of Valle Charme, Avery Ayers and her associates at Antiques and Artifacts Appraised head off to their most glamorous assignment yet—cataloguing and appraising the contents of a castle-like mansion on the Hudson River. But regal splendor becomes a backdrop to mayhem when the precious Viktor Petrova timepiece disappears—and housekeeper Suzanne Vick plummets from a parapet to her death.

Avery, her dad William, and colleagues Micah Abbott and Sir Robert Lane soon learn that Suzanne’s predecessor also met with an untimely end. Further, the housekeeper’s suspicious demise coincides with Avery’s discovery that many of the Duke’s most priceless heirlooms have been replaced by fakes.

Detective Art Smith lends his expertise, but the suspect list encompasses the Duke’s entire retinue—including his family. Could the killer be someone intimately familiar with the Pennington estate, such as caretaker couple Ira and Lynn Hoffman, the Penningtons’ chauffeur Roderick, or even one of the heirs to the Pennington fortune?

Then the duke himself is injured in an inexplicable riding accident, and the clock swiftly ticks toward a reckoning with a cold-blooded killer. A criminal mastermind is making a desperate bid for ill-gotten riches…can Avery bring the culprit to justice before her time is up?

View Details >>

The Blue Diamond

Leonard Goldberg

The fate of the allied forces lies in the hands of Joanna and the Watsons in the next Daughter of Sherlock Holmes mystery from USA Today bestselling author Leonard Goldberg.

During a critical stage in World War One, the Governor-General of South Africa journeys to London for a meeting of The Imperial War Conference. Days prior to the conference, the Governor-General is scheduled to have an audience at Buckingham Palace at which time a most precious blue diamond will be presented to King Edward as a symbolic gesture of the colonies’ resolute and never-ending allegiance to England.

The flawless blue diamond, with its magnificent luster, weighs nearly 3000 carats which renders it one of the world’s largest and most valuable gems. On the Governor-General’s arrival, he is ensconced at the fashionable Windsor Hotel under the tightest security, with his entire entourage and formidable security team occupying the entire penthouse floor. All entrances and exits are locked down and closely guarded, and no one is allowed entrance after 6 PM.

Despite the extreme precautions, the famous diamond is stolen from the Governor-General’s suite in the middle of the night, with no clues left behind. With Scotland Yard baffled, Joanna and the Watsons are called in to investigate the theft and it becomes clear that the crime is not simply the work of a master thief, but one that could greatly aid the Germans and turn the tide of war in their favor. Time is of the essence and the blue diamond must be recovered before it begins its travels which could cause irreparable damage to the allied war plans.

View Details >>

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words

Eddie Robson

Eddie Robson's Drunk on All Your Strange New Words is a locked room mystery in a near future world of politics and alien diplomacy.

Lydia works as translator for the Logi cultural attaché to Earth. They work well together, even if the act of translating his thoughts into English makes her somewhat wobbly on her feet. She’s not the agency’s best translator, but what else is she going to do? She has no qualifications, and no discernible talent in any other field.

So when tragedy strikes, and Lydia finds herself at the center of an intergalactic incident, her future employment prospects look dire—that is, if she can keep herself out of jail!

But Lydia soon discovers that help can appear from the most unexpected source...

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

View Details >>

Death at the Manor

Katharine Schellman

The tortured spirits of the dead haunt a Regency-era English manor—but the true danger lies in the land of the living in the third installment in the Lily Adler mysteries, perfect for fans of Deanna Raybourn.

Regency widow Lily Adler is looking forward to spending the autumn away from the social whirl of London. When she arrives in Hampshire with her friends, the Carroways, she doesn’t expect much more than a quiet country visit and the chance to spend time with her charming new acquaintance, Matthew Spencer.

But something odd is afoot in the small country village. A ghost has taken up residence in the Belleford manor, a lady in grey who wanders the halls at night, weeping and wailing. Half the servants have left in terror, but the family seems delighted with the notoriety that their ghost provides. Intrigued by this spectral guest, Lily and her party immediately make plans to visit Belleford.

They arrive at the manor the next morning ready to be entertained—only to find that tragedy has struck. The matriarch of the family has just been found killed in her bed.

The dead woman’s family is convinced that the ghost is responsible. Lily is determined to learn the truth before another victim turns up—but could she be next in line for the Great Beyond?

View Details >>

Should I Fall

Scott Shepherd

A retired Scotland Yard Inspector races to prove the innocence of a falsely accused fugitive--his daughter's fiancee--in this whodunnit from "a marvellous storyteller" (Michael Koryta).

 

When John Frankel's ex-wife is discovered dead on the floor of his Manhattan studio apartment, the NYPD Detective instantly becomes the prime suspect in her murder. Then more information surfaces, linking his gun to the fatal bullet, a motive is discovered, and Frankel flees the city, all of which further convinces his colleagues of his guilt.

 

In spite of the mounting evidence, Frankel's bride-to-be, Rachel Grant, and her father, Austin Grant, formerly of Scotland Yard, are certain of his innocence. But with the police under orders to use whatever force necessary to stop what they view as a dangerous criminal, the duo will have to act fast, before the manhunt goes violently wrong.

The investigation and relentless chase after Frankel takes them across the country, from the tropical shores of Hawaii to a deadly midnight rendezvous in a cemetery in northern Maine. And as that game of cat-and-mouse unfurls, so too does a complex murder plot with multiple victims--the ultimate solution of which will keep readers baffled and breathless until the very end.

The second mystery from Scott Shepherd, the showrunner and screenwriter whose credits include The Equalizer, The Dead Zone and Miami Vice, Should I Fall is a fast-paced and expertly-crafted whodunnit that is as puzzling as it is entertaining.

View Details >>

Inventions of the Heart

Mary Connealy

"Her heart seeks safety. But will trouble find her even here? After her sister's marriage, Michelle Stiles is left hiding at Two Harts Ranch with the handsome but stubborn Zane Hart. She's managed to stay one step ahead of her stepfather and his devious plans, but if he finds her, she will no longer be safe. Zane has problems of his own. Having discovered a gold mine on his property, he must figure out how to harvest it without kicking off a gold rush. Michelle, educated and trained to run her father's business, wants to manage all aspects of the mine, but Zane thinks for a person so smart she can have some misguided ideas. Running the mining operation will be a dangerous job, and he can't risk putting her in harm's way. But danger finds Michelle anyway when she's suddenly attacked. If they go to the sheriff, they'll reveal her location, but if they do nothing . . . their troubles have only just begun"-- Provided by publisher.

View Details >>

In Honor's Defense

Karen Witemeyer

"He's Faced Countless Perils on the Battlefield, but Nothing so Dangerous as Falling in Love. Luke Davenport has been fighting all his life--for respect, for country, and for those unable to fight for themselves. But now that his Horsemen brothers are domesticated, he's left alone to battle the wildness within. When an opportunity arises to take a job on his own, tracking down a group of rustlers, he jumps at the chance.Damaris Baxter has mastered the art of invisibility. Plain and quiet, she hides in books and needlework, content to be overlooked. Until her brother dies suddenly, leaving her custody of her nephew. She moves to Texas to care for Nathaniel, determined to create the family for herself that she never thought she'd have and to give him the family he desperately needs. When Nate finds himself knee-deep in trouble, Luke's attempt to protect him leaves Damaris feeling indebted to the Horseman. But suspicions grow regarding the mysterious death of Damaris's brother. And the more questions they ask, the more danger appears, threatening the family Luke may be unable to live without"--

View Details >>

The House That Jack Built

Clare Revell

"Receptionist Kate Dahlbeck accepts the final slot on reality TV show "Jack's House" and takes a leave of absence from her job to live in front of cameras, wired up to a microphone twenty-four hours a day. Despite the silly activities forced on the contestants, it's all fun and games...that is until one of them dies. Tired of desk duty while he recovers from injuries sustained in the line of duty, DS Zander Ellery is champing at the bit to investigate the suspicious death-from the inside. His partner DC Isabel York agrees to watch his back from the safety of the director's gallery in the studio. Zander packs the one bag he's allowed, and enters the house undercover. It doesn't take him long to work out the sinister link between housemates, but proving which one is a killer isn't easy. They're all hiding something, including Kate. Time is short. Can Zander catch the culprit before he-or she-strikes again? And will his growing attraction for the seemingly innocent Kate cloud his judgement or will he be carrying her off to the nick before the show's final wrap?"--Provided by publisher.

View Details >>

The Light at Wyndcliff

Sarah E. Ladd

Set in the same time period as Poldark and Bridgerton, this Regency romance follows a young man searching for truth among the debris of multiple shipwrecks on his newly inherited property.

Cornwall, England, 1820: Raised on the sprawling and rugged Wyndcliff Estate near the dangerous coast of South Cornwall, Evelyn Bray lives with her grandfather, a once-wealthy man now reduced to the humble post of steward. Evelyn’s mother, embarrassed by their lost wealth and status, left Pevlyn in search of a better life for them both, but never returns. Evelyn is still grieving her father’s death and her mother’s abandonment when a passing ship is dashed against the rocks.

Liam Twethewey is a mere two and twenty when he inherits Wyndcliff Estate from his great uncle. His optimistic plans to employ the estate’s tenants meets unexpected resistance, and rumors of smuggling and illegal activity challenge his newfound authority.

Brought together by troubling questions surrounding the shipwreck, Evelyn and Liam uncover even darker mysteries shrouding the estate. As they untangle truth from deception, their loyalties separate them—and their budding love might not be strong enough to overcome the distance.

  • Full-length Regency romance
  • Book 3 in the Cornwall novels (The Governess of Penwythe Hall, The Thief of Lanwyn Manor, and The Light at Wyndcliff), but can be read as a stand-alone story
  • Book length: 85,000 words
  • Includes discussion questions for book clubs
View Details >>

The Heart of the Deal

Lindsay MacMillan

Perfect for fans of Emily Giffin and Jojo Moyes, Lindsay MacMillan’s debut novel deftly captures the feeling of being adrift in your late twenties, with poignant commentary on female friendships, mental health, and what happiness really looks like.

Rae is in a romantic recession.

The Wall Street banker is single in New York City and overwhelmed by the pressure to scramble up the corporate and romantic ladders. Feeling her biological clock ticking, she analyzes her love life like a business deal and vows to lock in a husband before her 30th birthday.

The Manhattan dating app scene has as many ups and downs as the stock market, and outsourcing dates to an algorithm isn’t exactly Rae’s idea of romance. She considers cutting her losses, but her friends help her stay invested, boosting her spirits with ice cream and cheap wine that they share in their sixth-floor walk-up while recapping cringe-worthy dates.

And then Rae meets Dustin, a poetic soul trapped in a business suit, just like her. She starts to hear wedding bells, but Dustin’s struggles with depression will test their relationship, and no amount of financial modeling can project what their future will look like.

Can Rae free herself from the idea she had of what thirty was supposed to look like and let love breathe on its own timeline? Or is she too conditioned to stay on the “right track” to follow her unpaved intuition?

Moving and timely, The Heart of the Deal is the story of one woman’s reckoning with what success really is in a city, an industry, and a relationship whose low lows continually challenge the enchantment of the high highs.

View Details >>

Mercury Pictures Presents

Anthony Marra

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic tale of a brilliant woman who must reinvent herself to survive, moving from Mussolini’s Italy to 1940s Los Angeles—a timeless story of love, deceit, and sacrifice from the award-winning author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

“A genuinely moving and life-affirming novel that’s a true joy to read.”—Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere

“A great literary read.”—Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House


Like many before her, Maria Lagana has come to Hollywood to outrun her past. Born in Rome, where every Sunday her father took her to the cinema instead of church, Maria immigrates with her mother to Los Angeles after a childhood transgression leads to her father’s arrest.

Fifteen years later, on the eve of America’s entry into World War II, Maria is an associate producer at Mercury Pictures, trying to keep her personal and professional lives from falling apart. Her mother won’t speak to her. Her boss, a man of many toupees, has been summoned to Washington by congressional investigators. Her boyfriend, a virtuoso Chinese American actor, can’t escape the studio’s narrow typecasting. And the studio itself, Maria’s only home in exile, teeters on the verge of bankruptcy.

Over the coming months, as the bright lights go dark across Los Angeles, Mercury Pictures becomes a nexus of European émigrés: modernist poets trying their luck as B-movie screenwriters, once-celebrated architects becoming scale-model miniaturists, and refugee actors finding work playing the very villains they fled. While the world descends into war, Maria rises through a maze of conflicting politics, divided loyalties, and jockeying ambitions. But when the arrival of a stranger from her father’s past threatens Maria’s carefully constructed facade, she must finally confront her father’s fate—and her own.

Written with intelligence, wit, and an exhilarating sense of possibility, Mercury Pictures Presents spans many moods and tones, from the heartbreaking to the ecstatic. It is a love letter to life’s bit players, a panorama of an era that casts a long shadow over our own, and a tour de force by a novelist whose work The Washington Post calls “a flash in the heavens that makes you look up and believe in miracles.”

View Details >>

Honey & Spice

Bolu Babalola

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR, BOLU BABALOLA COMES THE ROMANCE WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR.

'A triumph of a novel.' BETH O'LEARY

'Honey & Spice is romantic, sexy, fun, delicious and important. I could not have loved it more.' MARIAN KEYES

'Hilarious, hot and heartfelt.' MEG CABOT

'Kiki compares her feelings for Malakai as like swallowing a star. That's a bit how I felt after reading this messy but joyful book.' THE TIMES

Recommended by New York Times - Entertainment Weekly - Elle - Esquire - Harper's Bazaar - Sunday Times Culture - Stylist - Bustle - Buzzfeed - Zoella - Time - Goodreads and more!

__________


Kiki Banjo is an expert in relationship-evasion.

In fact, she has made it her mission to protect the women of Whitewell University from the dangers of players and heartbreak, supplying advice, tips and essentials to paying men no mind on her student radio show, Brown Sugar.

And then Kiki meets distressingly handsome newcomer Malakai Korede, who threatens to tear apart the community of women she's fought so hard to protect.

Kiki publicly declares Malakai the 'Wasteman of Whitewell' on Brown Sugar and brings a stop to her girls chasing his attentions. But when she and Malakai suddenly find themselves shackled into a fake relationship to salvage their respective reputations and save their academic futures, she is in danger of falling for the very wasteman she warned her sisters about.

With her heart compromised and defences weakened, Kiki has to learn to open herself up to the perils of love... and face up to a past that forced her to close down in the first place.

A funny and sparkling debut, Honey & Spice is full of delicious tension and romantic intrigue that will make you weak at the knees.

__________

Why readers LOVE Honey & Spice

'This book breathes new life into the genre with its vibrant characters and sexy, authentic voice.' RED

'Smart, sexy and energetic. I'm excited for everyone to read this book.' EMMA GANNON

'Romance will never be dead, as long as Bolu is writing it.' JESSIE BURTON

'Everything you could ever want from a romance and more - the vibes are simply immaculate.' ZOELLA

'Equal parts sweet and hot.' THE INDEPENDENT

'A sizzling, addictive story.' HARPER'S BAZAAR

'Packed with will-they, won't-they sexual tension, it's the hot summer read you need.' THE SUN

'A refreshing portrait of what modern love really looks and feels like.' TIME

'A vibrant debut novel . . . Babalola is incisively funny, capturing the kick and sweetness of her title with her words.' ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

'Babalola's writing shines whether she's writing parry-riposte banter or fresh, evocative interiority.' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

'A fast-paced commercial novel with a refreshing take on a well-worn concept. Someone should adapt it for the screen.' SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE


'Babalola's hilarious romance debut will have you laughing out loud and reconsidering first impressions.' BUZZFEED

View Details >>

Things We Do in the Dark

Jennifer Hillier

*INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER*

"Propulsive and chilling." --People Magazine


"An intoxicating thrill ride. Hillier jams her foot on the accelerator and never lets up." --New York Times Book Review

Things We Do in the Dark is a brilliant new thriller from Jennifer Hillier, the award-winning author of the breakout novels Little Secrets and Jar of Hearts. Paris Peralta is suspected of killing her celebrity husband, and her long-hidden past now threatens to destroy her future.

When Paris Peralta is arrested in her own bathroom—covered in blood, holding a straight razor, her celebrity husband dead in the bathtub behind her—she knows she'll be charged with murder. But as bad as this looks, it's not what worries her the most. With the unwanted media attention now surrounding her, it's only a matter of time before someone from her long hidden past recognizes her and destroys the new life she's worked so hard to build, along with any chance of a future.

Twenty-five years earlier, Ruby Reyes, known as the Ice Queen, was convicted of a similar murder in a trial that riveted Canada in the early nineties. Reyes knows who Paris really is, and when she's unexpectedly released from prison, she threatens to expose all of Paris's secrets. Left with no other choice, Paris must finally confront the dark past she escaped, once and for all.

Because the only thing worse than a murder charge are two murder charges.

View Details >>

Either/Or

Elif Batuman

"From the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Idiot, the continuation of beloved protagonist Selin's quest for self-knowledge, as she travels abroad and tests the limits of her newfound adulthood Selin is the luckiest person in her family: the only one who was born in America and got to go to Harvard. Now it's sophomore year, 1996, and Selin knows she has to make it count. The first order of business: to figure out the meaning of everything that happened over the summer. Why did Selin's elusive crush, Ivan, find her that job in the Hungarian countryside? What was up with all those other people in the Hungarian countryside? Why is Ivan's weird ex-girlfriend now trying to get in touch with Selin? On the plus side, it feels like the plot of an exciting novel. On the other hand, why do so many novels have crazy abandoned women in them? How does one live a life as interesting as a novel-a life worthy of becoming a novel-without becoming a crazy abandoned woman oneself? Guided by her literature syllabus and by her more worldly and confident peers, Selin reaches certain conclusions about the universal importance of parties, alcohol, and sex, and resolves to execute them in practice-no matter what the cost. Next on the list: international travel. Unfolding with the propulsive logic and intensity of youth, Either/Or is a landmark novel by one of our most brilliant writers. Hilarious, revelatory, and unforgettable, its gripping narrative will confront you with searching questions that persist long after the last page"-- Provided by publisher.

View Details >>

The Kingdoms of Savannah

George Dawes Green

“Around these parts, the publication of a new George Dawes Green novel is an event. ... Green leans all the way into Southern Gothic, but the main grotesquerie is the city’s history, built on the backs of enslaved people. His prose is languid, even luxurious, but at critical moments of suspense, he pares it back to ramp up the terror.”
New York Times Book Review

Savannah may appear to be “some town out of a fable,” with its vine flowers, turreted mansions, and ghost tours that romanticize the city’s history. But look deeper and you’ll uncover secrets, past and present, that tell a more sinister tale. It’s the story at the heart of George Dawes Green’s chilling new novel, The Kingdoms of Savannah.


It begins quietly on a balmy Southern night as some locals gather at Bo Peep’s, one of the town’s favorite watering holes. Within an hour, however, a man will be murdered and his companion will be “disappeared.” An unlikely detective, Morgana Musgrove, doyenne of Savannah society, is called upon to unravel the mystery of these crimes. Morgana is an imperious, demanding, and conniving woman, whose four grown children are weary of her schemes. But one by one she inveigles them into helping with her investigation, and soon the family uncovers some terrifying truths—truths that will rock Savannah’s power structure to its core.

Moving from the homeless encampments that ring the city to the stately homes of Savannah’s elite, Green’s novel brilliantly depicts the underbelly of a city with a dark history and the strangely mesmerizing dysfunction of a complex family.

View Details >>

The Family Remains

Lisa Jewell

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell comes an intricate and affecting novel about twisted marriages, fractured families, and deadly obsessions in this standalone sequel to the “brilliantly chilling” (Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author) The Family Upstairs.

Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago.

Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock—news that her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer.

After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first-ever house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present.

As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they’re connected in ways they could have never imagined.

In this masterful standalone sequel to her haunting New York Times bestseller, The Family Upstairs, Lisa Jewell proves she is writing at the height of her powers with another jaw-dropping, intricate, and affecting novel about the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love and uncover the truth.

View Details >>