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This Is the Honey

Kwame Alexander

In this comprehensive and vibrant poetry anthology, bestselling author and poet Kwame Alexander curates a collection of contemporary anthems at turns tender and piercing and deeply inspiring throughout. Featuring work from well-loved poets such as Rita Dove, Jericho Brown, Warsan Shire, Ross Gay, Tracy K. Smith, Terrance Hayes, Morgan Parker, and Nikki Giovanni, This Is the Honey is a rich and abundant offering of language from the poets giving voice to generations of resilient joy, "each incantation," as Mahogany L. Browne puts it in her titular poem, is "a jubilee of a people dreaming wildly."

This essential collection, in the tradition of Dudley Randall's The Black Poets and E. Ethelbert Miller's In Search of Color Everywhere, contains poems exploring joy, love, origin, race, resistance, and praise. Jacqueline A.Trimble likens "Black woman joy" to indigo, tassels, foxes, and peacock plumes. Tyree Daye, Nate Marshall, and Elizabeth Acevedo reflect on the meaning of "home" through food, from Cuban rice and beans to fried chicken gizzards. Clint Smith and Cameron Awkward-Rich enfold us in their intimate musings on love and devotion. From a "jewel in the hand" (Patricia Spears Jones) to "butter melting in small pools" (Elizabeth Alexander), This Is the Honey drips with poignant and delightful imagery, music, and raised fists.

Fresh, memorable, and deeply moving, this definitive collection a must-have for any lover of language and a gift for our time.

 

 

 

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Narcotopia

Patrick Winn

Nestled in the Golden Triangle of China, Burma, and Nepal, the Wa nation has existed and thrived for over five decades. Like mountain peoples from Chechnya to the Ozarks, the Wa like to do things their own way. A tribal authority called the United Wa State Army (or UWSA) controls their native terrain. The UWSA makes laws, defends the motherland, and builds roads and schools. It even issues driver's licenses. In every sense, it is a government. And as a nation, its armed forces command 30,000 troops and 20,000 reservists, more than the militaries of Sweden or Kenya. The Wa possess high-tech weaponry: cannons, drones, and missiles that can knock jets out of the sky. Yet the one difference from their nation and those that surround them is their preferred commodity: drugs. Illegal drugs are indeed one of the UWSA's top revenue sources. Over the years, tons of narcotics produced on Wa soil have hit the black market and traffickers have smuggled them onto American shores. Their ability to have a functioning government, economic system, and freedom from their neighbors derives from their sophisticated, profitable, and illegal trade. Yet, the origin story of this narco-army is smudged with American fingerprints. Not only did the CIA create the conditions for its inception, but one of its foremost leaders was a DEA asset. In Narcotopia, Patrick Winn investigates and uncovers the true story of Wa, untangling the relationship between the DEA, CIA, and Wa people. The result is a saga of an indigenous people who have tapped the power of narcotics to create a nation where there was none before and the covert operations of US intelligence to transform and undermine it for their own agenda.

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Mistress of Life and Death

Susan J. Eischeid

By the time of her execution at thirty-six, Maria Mandl had achieved the highest rank possible for a woman in the Third Reich. As Head Overseer of the women’s camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, she was personally responsible for the murders of thousands, and for the torture and suffering of countless more.

In this riveting biography, Susan J. Eischeid explores how Maria Mandl, regarded locally as “a nice girl from a good family,” came to embody the very worst of humanity. Born in 1912 in the scenic Austrian village of Münzkirchen, Maria enjoyed a happy childhood with loving parents—who later watched in anguish as their grown daughter rose through the Nazi system.

Mandl’s life mirrors the period in which she lived: turbulent, violent, and suffused with paradoxes. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, she founded the notable women’s orchestra and “adopted” several children from the transports—only to lead them to the gas chambers when her interest waned. After the war, Maria was arrested for crimes against humanity. Following a public trial attended by the international press, she was hanged in 1948.

For two decades, Eischeid has excavated the details of Mandl’s life story, drawing on archival testimonies, speaking to dozens of witnesses, and spending time with Mandl’s community of friends and neighbors who shared their memories as well as those handed down in their families. The result is a chilling and complex exploration of how easily an ordinary citizen chose the path of evil in a climate of hate and fear.

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Last to Eat, Last to Learn

Pashtana Durrani

Inspired by generations of her family’s unwavering belief in the power of education, Pashtana Durrani recognized her calling early in life: to educate Afghanistan’s girls and young women, raised in a society where learning is forbidden. In a country devastated by war and violence, where girls are often married off before reaching their teenage years and prohibited from leaving their homes, heeding that call seemed both impossible and dangerous.

Pashtana was raised in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan where her father, a tribal leader, founded a community school for girls within their home. Fueled by his insistence that despite being a girl, she mattered and deserved an education, Pashtana was sixteen when, against impossible odds, she was granted a path out of the refugee camp: admittance to a preparatory program at Oxford. Unthinkably and to her parents’ horror, she chose a different path. She chose Afghanistan.

Pashtana founded the nonprofit LEARN and developed a program for getting educational materials directly into the hands of girls in remote areas of the country, training teachers in digital literacy. Her commitment to education has made her a target of the Taliban. Still, she continues to fight for women’s education and autonomy in Afghanistan and beyond.

Courageous and inspiring, Last to Eat, Last to Learn is the story of how just one person can transform a family, a tribe, a country. It reminds us of the emancipatory power of learning and the transformational potential that lies within each of us.

 

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Nine Lives and Counting

Duane Chapman

Go behind-the-scenes with Duane "Dog" Chapman, star of the hit reality show Dog the Bounty Hunter and two-time New York Times bestselling author, as he shares new stories about his faith in Jesus, family, and the discovery of God's grace at work throughout his life.

From being in a motorcycle gang, to being incarcerated, and then becoming a widely-know TV personality, Duane's life has been anything but ordinary. But, through every success and failure, the one constant has been his faith in God. For the first time, Daune is sharing how his faith has brought him through life's greatest difficulties, giving him renewed purpose and meaning.

In Nine Lives and Counting Duane offers fresh insight into some of his well-known life events, and he also gives you access to previously untold stories. You will hear about:

  • memories of the painful events that shaped Duane's childhood,
  • the impact of his relationship with his praying mother,
  • the surprising hope he found in prison,
  • triumphs and failures from his days as a single dad,
  • new previously untold stories of bounty hunting,
  • the tragic loss of his beloved wife Beth to cancer,
  • the unexpected blessing of finding his new wife Francie,
  • the work he and Francie are doing to preach and share about Jesus,
  • his relationship with his kids and family,
  • and much more.

 

With all the plot twists of a page-turning novel, Nine Lives and Counting is a real-life chronicle of God's amazing grace and restoration that have marked Duane's journey of faith. You will be inspired.

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A Very Woodsy Murder

Ellen Byron

Down-on-her-luck sitcom writer Dee Stern is flipping the script. Twice divorced and wasting her talents on an obnoxious kids’ show, the lifelong Angeleno embraces the urge to jump in her car and keep driving. It's a road trip with no destination—until she pulls into a mid-century motel filled with cobwebs and retro charm. Nestled in the shadow of a national park, it’s a time capsule of a place that, like her, could use some work. So, in the most impulsive move of her life, Dee teams up with best friend, Jeff Cornetta—who happens to be her first ex-husband—to transform the aging ranch into the Golden Motel-of-the-Mountains, a hiker’s oasis on the edge of the wilderness . . .

But Dee and Jeff soon realize there couldn’t be two people more unprepared for the hospitality business. There’s also the panic-inducing reality of prowling bears and a general store as the only shopping spot for miles. Living and working in the middle of nowhere takes some getting used to—especially when a disrespectful guest ends up murdered! Now, with the motel duo topping the suspect list, Dee must steer clear of a meddling park ranger, face her past in show biz, and determine if the killer is a local or tourist. Because as she quickly finds out, there are many things worse than a one-star review.

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William

Mason Coile

Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home lab, has achieved the breakthrough of his career—he’s created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He calls the half-formed robot William.

No one knows about William. Henry’s agoraphobia keeps him inside the house, and his fixation on his project keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily.

When Lily’s coworkers show up, wanting to finally meet Henry and see the new house—the smartest of smart homes—Henry decides to introduce them to William, and things go from strange to much worse. Soon Henry and Lily discover the security upgrades intended to keep danger out of the house are even better at locking it in.

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The World After Alice

Lauren Aliza Green

When Morgan and Benji surprise their families with a wedding invitation to Maine, they’re aware the news of their clandestine relationship will come as a shock. Twelve years have passed since the stunning loss of sixteen-year-old Alice, Benji’s sister and Morgan’s best friend, and no one is quite the same. But the young couple decide to plunge headlong into matrimony, marking the first time their fractured families will reunite since Alice’s funeral.

As the arriving guests descend upon the tranquil coastal town, they bring with them not only skepticism about the impromptu nuptials but also deep-seated secrets and agendas of their own. Peter, Morgan’s father, may be trying to dissuade his daughter from saying “I do,” while Linnie, Benji’s mother, introduces a boyfriend who bears a tumultuous past of his own. Nick, Benji’s father, is scheming to secure a new job before his wife—formerly his mistress—discovers he’s lost his old one. Morgan, too, carries delicate secrets that threaten to jeopardize the happiness for which she has so longed. And as for Benji—well, he’s just trying to make sure the whole weekend doesn’t implode.

As the whirlwind weekend unfolds, old passions reignite, deep wounds resurface, and unearthed secrets threaten to shatter the fragile peace the wedding promises. With each new revelation, the to-be-weds and their complicated families are forced to question just how well they know the ones they hold dear.

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The Wrong Hands

Mark Billingham

Unconventional Detective Declan Miller has a problem. Well, two problems. First, there's his dead wife and her yet-to-be-solved murder. He really should stop talking to her ghosts...

 

Second, and most pressing, a young man has just appeared on his doorstep with a briefcase, containing a pair of severed hands. Miller knows this case is proof of a contract killing commissioned by local ne'er do well Wayne Cutler--a man he suspects might also be responsible for his wife's death. Now Miller has leverage, but unfortunately, he also has something that both Cutler and a villainous fast-food kingpin are desperate to get hold of.

 

Sprinkle in a Midsomer Murders-obsessed hitman, a psychotic welder, and a woman driven over the edge by a wayward Crème Egg, and Miller is in a mess that even he might not be able to dance his way out of.

 

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Long Time Gone

Charlie Donlea

On the first day of an elite two-year fellowship under the renowned Chief Medical Officer Dr. Livia Cutty, Sloan Hastings receives a research assignment in the emerging field of forensic genealogy. It’s the exciting, rapidly evolving science behind the recent breaks in high-profile cold cases from the Golden State Killer to the Cameron Young murder, and Sloan enthusiastically begins her research by submitting her own DNA to an online genealogy site. Her goal is to better understand the treasure trove of genetic information contained on ancestry websites, but the results she receives are shocking.

Raised by loving, supportive parents, Sloan has always known she was adopted. But her DNA profile suggests her true identity is that of Charlotte Margolis, aka “Baby Charlotte,” who captured the nation’s attention when she and her affluent parents mysteriously vanished in July 1995. Despite a large-scale investigation and months of broad media coverage, there were never any suspects in the family’s disappearance and the case has been cold for decades.

Racing to stay ahead of the media and true crime junkies ravenous to know what really happened to Baby Charlotte, Sloan’s search for answers leads her to Cedar Creek, Nevada, a small town north of Lake Tahoe. There, the Margolis family’s power and influence permeate every corner of the county, and while Sloan’s birth relatives are initially welcoming, they’re also mysterious and tight-lipped. Not everyone seems happy about Sloan’s return, or the questions she’s asking.

The more she learns, the more apparent it becomes that the answers Sloan seeks are buried in a graveyard of Margolis family secrets. And someone will do anything to keep them hidden . . .

 

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Deep Freeze

Michael C. Grumley

The accident came quickly. With no warning. In the dead of night, a precipitous plunge into a freezing river trapped everyone inside the bus. It was then that Army veteran John Reiff’s life came to an end. Extinguished in the sudden rush of frigid water.

There was no expectation of survival. None. Let alone waking up beneath blinding hospital lights. Struggling to move, or see, or even breathe. But the doctors assure him that everything is normal. That things will improve. And yet, he has a strange feeling that there's something they're not telling him.

As Reiff's mind and body gradually recover, he becomes certain that the doctors are lying to him. One-by-one, puzzle pieces are slowly falling into place, and he soon realizes that things are not at all what they seem. Critical information is being kept from him. Secrets. Supposedly for his own good. But who is doing this? Why? And the most important question: can he keep himself alive long enough to uncover the truth?

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Heartsong

TJ Klune

The Bennett family has a secret: They're not just a family, they're a pack. Heartsong is Robbie Fontaine's story.

All Robbie Fontaine ever wanted was a place to belong. After the death of his mother, he bounces around from pack to pack, forming temporary bonds to keep from turning feral. It’s enough—until he receives a summons from the wolf stronghold in Caswell, Maine. Life as the trusted second to Michelle Hughes-the Alpha of all-and the cherished friend of a gentle old witch teaches Robbie what it means to be pack, to have a home. But when a mission from Michelle sends Robbie into the field, he finds himself questioning where he belongs and everything he’s been told.

Whispers of traitorous wolves and wild magic abound—but who are the traitors and who the betrayed? More than anything, Robbie hungers for answers, because one of those alleged traitors is Kelly Bennett—the wolf who may be his mate.

The truth has a way of coming out. And when it does, everything will shatter.

 

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After Annie

Anna Quindlen

When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her children, and her closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the lynchpin of all their lives. Bill is overwhelmed without his beloved wife, and Annemarie wrestles with the bad habits her best friend had helped her overcome. And Ali, the eldest of Annie’s children, has to grow up overnight, to care for her younger brothers and even her father and to puzzle out for herself many of the mysteries of adult life.

Over the course of the next year what saves them all is Annie, ever-present in their minds, loving but not sentimental, caring but nobody’s fool, a voice in their heads that is funny and sharp and remarkably clear. The power she has given to those who loved her is the power to go on without her. The lesson they learn is that no one beloved is ever truly gone.

Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is about hope, and about the unexpected power of adversity to change us in profound and indelible ways.

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Last Night

Luanne Rice

A fierce blizzard is burying the eastern seaboard, but on the icy Rhode Island shore renowned artist Maddie Morrison finds warm sanctuary from a contentious divorce at the legendary Ocean House. Hours later, her body is found buried under a blanket of snow and her little daughter, CeCe, has disappeared without a trace.

For Detective Conor Reid; his brother, Tom, a coast guard commander; and Maddie's grieving sister, Hadley, the posh hotel becomes ground zero for an investigation. Trapped by the blizzard, they must hunker down and determine who in the young mother's life could have possibly wanted her dead. There are stories of a twisted romantic past. Of old jealousies and resentments that still cut to the bone. And a history of greed, rage, and revenge that created the perfect storm for murder. A storm that has just begun.

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House of Flame and Shadow

Sarah J. Maas

Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange new world, she's going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that's no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust.

Hunt Athalar has found himself in some deep holes in his life, but this one might be the deepest of all. After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, he's in the Asteri's dungeons again, stripped of his freedom and without a clue as to Bryce's fate. He's desperate to help her, but until he can escape the Asteri's leash, his hands are quite literally tied.

In this sexy, breathtaking sequel to the #1 bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath, Sarah J. Maas's Crescent City series reaches new heights as Bryce and Hunt's world is brought to the brink of collapse-with its future resting on their shoulders.

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The Weavers of Alamaxa

Hadeer Elsbai

Following up on one of the most exciting fantasy debuts, The Daughters of Izdihar, Hadeer Elsbai concludes her Alamaxa Duology--inspired by Egyptian history and myth--with a tale of magic, war, betrayal, sisterhood, and love.

The world is on fire...but some women can control it.

The Daughters of Izdihar--a group of women fighting for the vote and against the patriarchal rule of Parliament--have finally made strides in having their voices heard...only to find them drowned out by the cannons of the fundamentalist Ziranis. As long as Alamaxa continues to allow for the elemental magic of the weavers--and insist on allowing an academy to teach such things--the Zirani will stop at nothing to end what they perceive is a threat to not only their way of life, but the entire world.

Two such weavers, Nehal and Giorgina, had come together despite their differences to grow both their political and weaving power. But after the attack, Nehal wakes up in a Zirani prison, and Giorgina is on the run in her besieged city. If they can reunite again, they can rally Alamaxa to fight off the encroaching Zirani threat. Yet with so much in their way--including a contingent of Zirani insurgents with their own ideas about rebellion--this will be no easy task.

And the last time a weaver fought back, the whole world was shattered.

Two incredible women are all that stands before an entire army. But they've fought against power before and won. This time, though, it's no longer about rhetoric.

This time it's about magic and blood.

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Chalice of Darkness

Sarah Rayne

London, 1908. The Fitzglens are proud of their reputation as one of London's leading theatre families. They are, however, equally proud of another profession which they pursue very discreetly . . . When not on stage, they are thieves.

Jack Fitzglen's latest plan is to seek out the infamous Talisman Chalice, steal it and create a dazzling piece of theatre around it. He travels to Vallow Hall in Northumberland to find the mysterious Maude - the last known link to the Chalice - but uncovers something far darker. Scandal, secrets and danger lurk in every shady corner. Perhaps the legend of the Chalice has come true: that in the wrong hands, the Chalice drags a person into a darkness from which he or she can never emerge . . .

As past and present collide, can Jack find the Chalice, the truth and return to his theatre of thieves unscathed?

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Mad Honey

Jodi Picoult

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business.
 
Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start. 
 
And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet she wonders if she can trust him completely. . . .
 
Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in Ash, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.
 
Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.

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Indian Burial Ground

Nick Medina

A man lunges in front of a car. An elderly woman silently drowns herself. A corpse sits up in its coffin and speaks. On this reservation, not all is what it seems, in this new spine-chilling mythological horror from the author of Sisters of the Lost Nation.

All Noemi Broussard wanted was a fresh start. With a new boyfriend who actually treats her right and a plan to move from the reservation she grew up on—just like her beloved Uncle Louie before her—things are finally looking up for Noemi. Until the news of her boyfriend’s apparent suicide brings her world crumbling down.

But the facts about Roddy’s death just don’t add up, and Noemi isn’t the only one who suspects that something menacing might be lurking within their tribal lands.

After over a decade away, Uncle Louie has returned to the reservation, bringing with him a past full of secrets, horror, and what might be the key to determining Roddy’s true cause of death. Together, Noemi and Louie set out to find answers...but as they get closer to the truth, Noemi begins to wonder whether it might be best for some secrets to remain buried.

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The Destroyer of Worlds

Matt Ruff

In this thrilling adventure, a blend of enthralling historical fiction and fantastical horror, Matt Ruff returns to the world of Lovecraft Country and explores the meaning of death, the hold of the past on the present, and the power of hope in the face of uncertainty.

Summer, 1957. Atticus Turner and his father, Montrose, travel to North Carolina to mark the centennial of their ancestor's escape from slavery, but an encounter with an old nemesis leads to a life-and-death pursuit.

Back in Chicago, George Berry is diagnosed with cancer and strikes a devil's bargain with the ghost of Hiram Winthrop, who promises a miracle cure--but only if George brings Winthrop back from the dead.

Fifteen-year-old Horace Berry, reeling from the killing of a close friend, joins his mother, Hippolyta, and her friend Letitia Dandridge on a trip to Nevada for The Safe Negro Travel Guide. But Hippolyta has a secret--and far more dangerous--agenda that will take her and Horace to the far end of the universe and bring a new threat home to Letitia's doorstep.

Hippolyta isn't the only one keeping secrets. Letitia's sister, Ruby, has been leading a double life as her white alter ego, Hillary Hyde. Now, the supply of magic potion she needs to transform herself is nearly gone, and a surprise visitor throws her already tenuous situation into complete chaos.

Yet these troubles are soon eclipsed by the return of Caleb Braithwhite. Stripped of his magic and banished from Chicago at the end of Lovecraft Country, he's found a way back into power and is ready to pick up where he left off. But first he has a score to settle . . .

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Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow

Steve Almond

In Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow, Steve Almond shares the insights gleaned from three decades as a beloved teacher and mentor, and a considerably less-beloved literary rabble rouser. His tone is irreverent. His ideas are iconoclastic. And his approach is stubbornly, radically, empathic. The goal is to explode the well-meaning but misguided myths that hold us back from writing our deepest and most honest work, to awaken the joys of storytelling while also confronting how grueling the process can be. Truth features chapters on plot, character, and chronology, but travels far beyond the earnest aims of most creative writing books, with essays about humor, sex, obsession, and writer's block, as well as prompts to generate new work and a rollicking Frequently Asked Questions section. You'll never think about writing the same way again.

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The Vacancy in Room 10

Seraphina Nova Glass

When Anna Hartley's husband, Henry, calls her with a terrible, guilty confession, she can't believe what she hears. It has to be a bad joke--the mild, predictable artist she married would never hurt a fly, let alone commit murder. But her confusion turns to horror when police find his body washed up on the banks of the Rio Grande.

Desperate for answers to the millions of questions his untimely death has raised, Anna checks in to The Sycamores, the run-down motel turned apartment Henry rented as an art studio. As she absorbs every bit of gossip the eclectic mix of residents are willing to share about her husband and each other, she begins to piece together a picture of a very different man than the one she married, and the life he led behind her back. The more she learns, and the less sense things seem to make, she finds herself wondering: Did she ever really know Henry at all?

But Henry's secrets aren't the only ones; as Anna's search for clues expands, Cass, the mysterious, jaded motel manager, seems more and more determined to keep Anna in the dark. And when threatening letters start appearing at her door, Anna has to decide what's more important--the truth, or her own safety.

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Watching New York

Johnny Cirillo

Watching New York is an A-Z visual exploration capturing the best street style New York City has to offer. Dubbed the "The People's Paparazzi," Johnny Cirillo has been making a name for himself with his candid shots of everyday people walking the streets of NYC--from Williamsburg to Soho--and capturing their creative, one-of-a-kind looks on his popular Instagram and TikTok accounts @watchingnewyork, where he has amassed millions of dedicated followers.

The book will be a continuation of Johnny's mission of highlighting the best, quirkiest, and most authentic looks and the incredibly creative minds behind them. A combination of Humans of New York meets The Sartorialist, Watching New York will include new and old photos and will be organized by look or style from A to Z (from accessories to zebra stripes) with a heavy emphasis on interviews and quotes appearing throughout to showcase the people who make NYC the fashion capital of the world.

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Toxic Prey

John Sandford

Gaia is dying.

That, at least, is what Dr. Lionel Scott believes. A renowned expert in tropical and infectious diseases, Scott has witnessed the devastating impact of illness and turmoil at critical scale. Society as it exists is untenable, and the direct link to Earth’s death spiral; population levels are out of control and people have allowed disarray and disorder to run rampant. While most are concerned about deadly disease, Scott knows that it is truly humanity itself that will destroy Gaia. It’s only by removing the threat that the planet can continue to prosper, and luckily, Scott is just the right man for the job…

When Scott then disappears without a trace, Letty Davenport is tasked with tracking down any and all leads. Scott’s connections to sensitive research into virus and pathogen spread has multiple national and international organizations on high alert, and his shockingly high clearance levels at various institutions, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory, make him the last person they’d like to go missing. As the web around Scott becomes more tangled, Letty calls in her father, Lucas, help her lead a group of specialists to find Scott as soon as possible. But as Letty and Lucas begin to uncover startling and disturbing connections between Scott and Gaia conspiracists, their worst fears are confirmed, and it quickly becomes a race to find him before the virus he created becomes the perfect weapon.

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The Songbird of Hope Hill

Kim Vogel Sawyer

Driven by survival to a life at a house of ill repute, Birdie Clarkson now longs only for escape. So when Reverend Isaiah Overly and his son, Ephraim, appear and offer a better life, she jumps at the chance. Ignoring the furious raging of the madam, Birdie climbs into the back of the preacher’s wagon. 
 
The men take her to Hope Hill, the haven the reverend and his wife, Ophelia, founded so women like Birdie can be taught skills to help them rise above their pasts. Soon a resistant Birdie finds herself singing in the choir Ephraim leads at revival meetings, even though she’s certain she’s the last person who should be representing God. 
 
Reverend Overly teaches that no one is irredeemable, but even as Ephraim is falling in love with her, Birdie remains convinced that she’s past saving. After all she’s been through, can she ever believe that God’s redemption wipes every soul clean? And can Ephraim convince her that God loves her more than she can grasp—and that he does, too?

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The Road to Freedom

Joseph E Stiglitz

We are a nation born from the conviction that people must be free. But since the middle of the last century, that idea has been co-opted. Forces on the political Right have justified exploitation by cloaking it in the rhetoric of freedom, leading to pharmaceutical companies freely overcharging for medication, a Big Tech free from oversight, politicians free to incite rebellion, corporations free to pollute, and more. How did we get here? Whose freedom are we--and should we--be thinking about?

In The Road to Freedom, Nobel prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz dissects America's current economic system and the political ideology that created it, laying bare their twinned failure. "Free" and unfettered markets have only succeeded in delivering a series of crises: the financial crisis, the opioid crisis, and the crisis of inequality. While a small portion of the population has amassed considerable wealth, wages for most people have stagnated. Free and unfettered markets have exploited consumers, workers, and the environment alike. Such failures have fed populist movements that believe being free means abandoning any obligations citizens have to one another. As they grow in strength, these movements now pose a real threat to true economic and political freedom.

As an economic advisor to presidents and as chief economist at the World Bank, Stiglitz has witnessed these profound changes firsthand. As he argues, the failures follow from the elites' unshakeable dedication to "the neoliberal experiment." Explicitly taking on giants such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, Stiglitz exposes accepted ideas about our political and economic life for what they are: twisted visions that tear at the social fabric while they enrich the very few.

The Road to Freedom breaks new ground, showing how economics--including recent advances in which Stiglitz has played such an important role--reframes how to think about freedom and the role of the state in a twenty-first century society. Drawing on the work of contemporary philosophers, Stiglitz explains a deeper, more humane way to assess freedoms--one that considers with care what to do when one person's freedom conflicts with another's. We must reimagine our existing economic and legal systems and embrace forms of collective action, including regulation and investment, if we are to create an innovative society in which everyone can flourish. The task could not be more urgent, and Stiglitz's latest book is essential reading for those committed to the American ideal of an economic and political system that delivers well-being, opportunity, and meaningful freedoms for all.

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What This Comedian Said Will Shock You

Bill Maher

Some of the smartest commentary about what’s happening in America is coming from a comedian—this comedian being Bill Maher. If you want to understand what’s wrong with this country, it turns out that one of the best informed and most thought-provoking analysts is this very funny pothead.

The book was inspired by the “editorial” Bill delivers at the end of each episode of Real Time. These editorials are direct-to-camera sermons about culture, politics, and what’s happening in the world. To put this book together, Maher reviewed more than a decade of his editorials, rewriting, reimagining, and updating them, and adding new material to speak exactly to the moment we’re in. Free speech, cops, drugs, race, religion, the generations, cancel culture, the parties, the media, show biz, romance, health—Maher covers it all. The result is a hugely entertaining work of commentary about American culture in the tradition of Mark Twain, Will Rogers, and H. L. Mencken.

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The Husbands

Holly Gramazio

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There's only one problem--she's not married. She's never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they've been together for years.

As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can't remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you've taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?

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The Militia House

John Milas

It’s 2010, and the recently promoted Corporal Loyette and his unit are finishing up their deployment at a new base in Kajaki, Afghanistan. Their duties here are straightforward—loading and unloading cargo into and out of helicopters—and their days are a mix of boredom and dread. The Brits they’re replacing delight in telling them the history of the old barracks just off base, a Soviet-era militia house they claim is haunted, and Loyette and his men don’t need much convincing to make a clandestine trip outside the wire to explore it.

It’s a short, middle-of-the-day adventure, but the men experience a mounting agitation after their visit to the militia house. In the days that follow they try to forget about the strange, unsettling sights and sounds from the house, but things are increasingly . . . not right. Loyette becomes determined to ignore his and his marines’ growing unease, convinced that it’s just the strain of war playing tricks on them. But something about the militia house will not let them go.

Meticulously plotted and viscerally immediate in its telling, The Militia House is a gripping and brilliant exploration of the unceasing horrors of war that’s no more easily shaken than the militia house itself.

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One Way Back

Christine Blasey Ford

On September 27, 2018, Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee which was considering the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. She described an alleged sexual assault by the Supreme Court nominee that took place at a high school party in the 1980s. Her words and courage on that day provided some of the most credible and unforgettable testimony our country has ever witnessed.

In One Way Back, Ford recounts the months she spent trying to get information into the right hands without exposing herself and her family to dangerous backlash. Drawing parallels to her life as a surfer, she explains the process of paddling out into unknown waters despite the risks and fears, knowing there is only one way back to shore. The book reveals riveting new details about the leadup to her testimony and its overwhelming aftermath and describes how she continues to navigate her way out of the storm.

This is the real story behind the headlines and the soundbites, a complex, page-turning memoir of a scientist, a surfer, a mother, a patriot and an unlikely whistleblower. Ford’s experience shows that when one person steps forward to speak truth to power, she adds to a collective whole, causing "a ripple that might one day become a wave.”

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Feet of Clay

Terry Pratchett

It's murder in Discworld!—which ordinarily is no big deal. But what bothers Watch Commander Sir Sam Vimes is that the unusual deaths of three elderly Ankh-Morporkians do not bear the clean, efficient marks of the Assassins' Guild. An apparent lack of any motive is also quite troubling. All Vimes has are some tracks of white clay and more of those bothersome "clue" things that only serve to muck up an investigation. The anger of a fearful populace is already being dangerously channeled toward the city's small community of golems—the mindless, absurdly industrious creatures of baked clay, who can occasionally be found toiling in the city's factories. And certain highly placed personages are using the unrest as an excuse to resurrect a monarchy—which would be bad enough even if the "king" they were grooming wasn't as empty-headed as your typical animated pottery.

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The Inn at Tansy Falls

Cate Woods

Enjoy this heartwarming story about starting over, healing through grief, and falling in love in a charming, tight-knit community--perfect for readers of Lori Wilde, Robyn Carr, and Jenny Hale.

Dearest Nell, if you're reading this letter, I'm already gone...



You're my best friend in the world, and as my last request I'm asking you to lay me to rest hundreds of miles away, in my crazy gorgeous, totally one-of-a-kind hometown of Tansy Falls. I know you're a born-and-bred city girl, but hear me out. After first losing Adrian, and then me... I know your heart is hurting, Nell. I think you'll find that you need Tansy Falls as much as I do.



So, I've got it all planned out. For two weeks, you'll be staying at the sweet, local inn and every day you'll be trying something new. And if you follow my instructions to the letter, you may discover there's more to my story than you think. A surprise something... or someone at the end of it? Only you can find out!



Some last advice before you set off, Nell. Don't forget your sturdy boots and make sure to give Boomer, the inn's resident dog, a belly rub from me. Stay well away from former quarterback Brody Knott (boy, do I have some stories about him!). And finally, let the future bring what it brings. While Tansy Falls may look small, I know better than anyone that new beginnings can be found in all kinds of places. That little Vermont town you'd never heard of? Well, it might suddenly begin to feel just like coming home...

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When I'm with You

Linda Lael Miller

Explore the wilder side of New York Times bestselling authors Linda Lael Miller and JoAnn Ross in four steamy short stories . . .

One Last Weekend
College sweethearts Teague and Joanna Darby never imagined they’d end up on the brink of divorce. But when a ferry strike leaves them stranded at their beloved beach cottage, the most awkward weekend ever becomes the perfect chance to fall for each other all over again . . .

Batteries Not Required
Rodeo star Tristan McCullough isn’t quite the boy Gayle Hayes left behind when she put her Montana hometown in her rearview mirror. Now that she’s back, the spark still zinging between them might just light up the rest of their lives together . . .

Cajun Heat
Emma Quinlan has to stop thinking about her former Cajun crush, movie star Gabe Broussard. So she makes a list of all the things she wishes he would do to her and buries it in a graveyard at night. Except Gabe somehow gets hold of it—and he intends to make every blissful item come true . . .

Love Potion #9
It’s bad enough that Hollywood hotshot Sloan Hawthorne’s knowledge of Roxi Dupree’s witchcraft comes from comic books and fairytales. She’s also falling hard for the outrageously sexy hunk—and their natural ability to conjure up some mischievous magic for those steamy Savannah nights . . .

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Destroyer of Worlds

Larry Correia

IF IT'S WAR YOU WANT . . . The best of military epic fantasy as the best-selling Saga of the Forgotten Warrior series continues.

The Great Extermination has begun.

In the Capitol, Grand Inquisitor Omand Vokkan hatches a plot to kill every member of the untouchable caste in all of Lok, down to the last man, woman, and child. As a member of the Order of Inquisition, Vokkan has no official say in the creation of Law, but he has powerful allies willing to do his bidding. Through them, he has convinced the Judges that the genocide will be swift, complete, and without complication. Nothing is further from the truth.

Lord Protector Devedas has sworn to uphold the Law. Once, he and the traitor Ashok Vadal had been like brothers. Now, he hunts Vadal and the Sons of the Black Sword, heretics and rebels who seek to live outside the rule of the Law. All Devedas must do is find and kill his best friend and order will be restored to Lok.

The rebels seek the secret kingdom spoken of by the Prophet Thera, a paradise where water is pure and food plentiful, where there are no castes, where the people rule themselves, and are not slaves to the Capitol. Ashok Vadal is not sure he believes in such a paradise, but he—along with his allies—do seek refuge in the rebellion’s hideout in Akershan. But Vadal, a former High Protector who has turned his back on the corrupt Law, will not merely wait meekly, hoping that fleeing to Akershan will spare the rebellion from the clutches of the Great Extermination. No, if it’s a war the Capitol wants, Vadal, who has faced down gods and demons, will be all too willing to give it to them.


 

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The Build Up

Tati Richardson

A truly unfortunate first day of work leads to unexpected love in this sparkling debut from Romance in Colour podcast cohost Tati Richardson.

Rumpled and ragged was not how architect Ari James envisioned kicking off her first day at a new firm. And few things can top the horror of her new--and extremely hot--colleague walking in on her at the worst moment ever. Learning that she'll be working with him on the project that's supposed to get her career back on top makes it harder than ever to focus on her big comeback.

With a partnership at his firm on the line, nothing is going to stand in the way of Porter Harrison absolutely killing it on his new project: not his obnoxious rival, not his unpredictable brother and definitely not his new coworker whose gorgeous curves he accidentally saw and now can't get out of his head.

Though neither of them is looking for love, once their creative juices get flowing, Ari and Porter's connection is obvious. But when their shared goal has always been winning at work, building a solid foundation for a relationship might end up costing them everything...

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Alaskan Wilderness Rescue

Sarah Varland

A missing person rescue

is now a K-9 manhunt for a killer...

A missing person case sends search and rescue worker Elsie Montgomery and her K-9 to a remote Alaskan island...only to discover she's got a target on her back. Now she must partner with pilot Wyatt Chandler, the one man she doesn't trust, to stay alive while confronting her shadowy past. But can they capture a killer before their time together runs out for good?

 

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A Haunting in the Arctic

C. J. Cooke

The year is 1901, and Nicky is attacked, then wakes on board the Ormen, a whaling ship embarked on what could be its last voyage. With land still weeks away, it’s just her, the freezing ocean, and the crew – and they’re all owed something only she can give them...

Now, over one hundred years later, the wreck of the Ormen has washed up on the forbidding, remote coast of Iceland. It’s scheduled to be destroyed, but explorer Dominique feels an inexplicable pull to document its last days, even though those who have ventured onto the wreck before her have met uncanny ends.
 
Onboard the boat, Dominique will uncover a dark past riddled with lies, cruelty, and murder—and her discovery will change everything. Because she’ll soon realize she’s not alone. Something has walked the floors of the Ormen for almost a century. Something that craves revenge.

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The Power of Love

Beatriz Chadour-Sampson

Romance, love, and courtship are as universal as the precious jewels they inspire, objects we bestow upon loved ones to express deep affection, eternal commitment, or passionate desire. The Power of Love: Jewels, Romance and Eternity traces the history of these ornaments, exploring their origins, their changing fashions, and their cultural significance over time and across cultures.

In The Power of Love, international art historian and jewelry expert Beatriz Chadour-Sampson sheds new light on the storied pasts of these magnificent jewels, providing important context and historical analysis. The ring is the most personal of all jewels, its circular form symbolizing the everlasting union of two people. Though the tradition of giving a betrothal or wedding ring as a promise of marriage goes back to ancient Rome, it was not until the fifteenth century that diamond rings came to be associated with marriage. From the earliest times, rubies or garnets were emblems of passionate love; diamonds or rock crystals symbolized virtue and constancy; sapphires denoted eternal love; and emeralds signified desire and hope. Decorative motifs such as clasped hands, lovers' knots, crowned hearts, Cupid's arrows, flowers with hidden messages, snakes, and butterflies were imaginatively used by jewelers to create symbols of romantic love.

The stories presented in this volume-accompanied by one hundred color photos-illustrate and illuminate these mysterious precious stones.

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50 Years of Ms.

Katherine Spillar

For the past five decades Ms. has been the nation’s most influential source of feminist ideas, and it remains at the forefront of feminism today, affecting thought and culture with a younger-than-ever readership (ages 16-20!).

Ms. was the first U.S. magazine to: 

  • feature prominent American women demanding the repeal of laws that criminalized abortion

 

  • explain and advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment
  • rate presidential candidates on women’s issues
  • feature domestic violence and sexual harassment on its cover, long before either was widely understood or acknowledged
  • commission and publish a national study on date rape

Here is the best reporting, fiction, and advertising, decade by decade, as well as the best photographs and features that reveal and reflect the changes set in motion by Ms., along with the iconic covers that galvanized readers. 

Here are essays, profiles, conversations with and features by: Alice Walker, Cynthia Enloe, Pauli Murray, Nancy Pelosi, bell hooks, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Brittney Cooper, and Joy Harjo, as well as fiction and poetry by Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, Adrienne Rich, Rita Dove, and Sharon Olds, and many others.

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Lone Women

Victor LaValle

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.

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A Light Most Hateful

Hailey Piper

Three years after running away from home, Olivia is stuck with a dead-end job in nowhere town Chapel Hill, Pennsylvania. At least she has her best friend, Sunflower.

Olivia figures she’ll die in Chapel Hill, if not from boredom, then the summer night storm which crashes into town with a mind-bending monster in tow.

If Olivia’s going to escape Chapel Hill and someday reconcile with her parents, she’ll need to dodge residents enslaved by the storm’s otherworldly powers and find Sunflower.

But as the night strains friendships and reality itself, Olivia suspects the storm, and its monster, may have its eyes on Sunflower and everything she loves.

Including Olivia.

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Vampire Weekend

Mike Chen

Being a vampire is far from glamorous...but it can be pretty punk rock.

Everything you've heard about vampires is a lie. They can't fly. No murders allowed (the community hates that). And turning into a bat? Completely ridiculous. In fact, vampire life is really just a lot of blood bags and night jobs. For Louise Chao, it's also lonely, since she swore off family ages ago.

At least she's gone to decades of punk rock shows. And if she can join a band of her own (while keeping her...situation under wraps), maybe she'll finally feel like she belongs, too.

Then a long-lost teenage relative shows up at her door. Whether it's Ian's love of music or his bad attitude, for the first time in ages, Louise feels a connection.

But as Ian uncovers Louise's true identity, things get dangerous--especially when he asks her for the ultimate favor. One that goes beyond just family...one that might just change everything vampires know about life and death forever.
 

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The Madman's Gallery

Edward Brooke-Hitching

Brought to light from the depths of libraries, museums, dealers, and galleries around the world, these forgotten artistic treasures include portraits of oddballs such as the British explorer with a penchant for riding crocodiles, and the Italian monk who levitated so often he's recognized as the patron saint of airplane passengers. Discover impossible medieval land yachts, floating churches, and eagle-powered airships. Encounter dog-headed holy men, armies of German giants, 18th-century stuntmen, human chessboards, screaming ghost heads, and more marvels of the human imagination. A captivating odditorium of obscure and engaging characters and works, each expertly brought to life by historian and curator of the strange Edward Brooke-Hitching, here is a richly illustrated and entertaining gallery for lovers of outré art and history.

A GLOBAL SURVEY: Here are European painters who used ground up Egyptian mummies as pigment, examples of the antique Japanese art of Gyotaku (fish stone rubbings) using dried fish as printing plates, a Parisian art hoax featuring paintings actually created by a chimpanzee, and much more.

ODDITIES ABOUND: Depictions of the demon worms believed to cause toothaches carved into human molars: Check. A nude version of the Mona Lisa painted by the "bad boy" apprentice of Leonardo da Vinci: Here it is. The most admiring portrait of a cannibal likely ever produced: Presented in full color.

EXPERT AUTHOR: Edward Brooke-Hitching is a master of taking visually driven deep dives into unusual historical subjects, such as the maps of imaginary geography in The Phantom Atlas or ancient pathways through the stars in The Sky Atlas, imaginative depictions of heavens, hells, and afterworlds in The Devil's Atlas, and the strangest books imaginable in The Madman's Library.

Perfect for:

  • Fans of beautifully illustrated works, art history, and unusual world atlas collections
  • Readers of quirky history such as Schott's Miscellany, Atlas Obscura, and the wildly popular QI series (for which the author is a writer and researcher)
  • Gift for a graduate, teacher, or student of world history, art history, library science, archeology, sociology, or any discipline engaged in the exploration of curiosities and human nature
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Out There Screaming

Jordan Peele

A cop begins seeing huge, blinking eyes where the headlights of cars should be that tell him who to pull over. Two freedom riders take a bus ride that leaves them stranded on a lonely road in Alabama where several unsettling somethings await them. A young girl dives into the depths of the Earth in search of the demon that killed her parents. These are just a few of the worlds of Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele’s anthology of all-new horror stories by Black writers. Featuring an introduction by Peele and an all-star roster of beloved writers and new voices, Out There Screaming is a master class in horror, and—like his spine-chilling films—its stories prey on everything we think we know about our world . . . and redefine what it means to be afraid.
 
Featuring stories by: Erin E. Adams, Violet Allen, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Maurice Broaddus, Chesya Burke, P. Djèlí Clark, Ezra Claytan Daniels, Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, N. K. Jemisin, Justin C. Key, L. D. Lewis, Nnedi Okorafor, Tochi Onyebuchi, Rebecca Roanhorse, Nicole D. Sconiers, Rion Amilcar Scott, Terence Taylor, and Cadwell Turnbull.

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Dolls of Our Lives

Mary Mahoney

Which American Girl are you?

Are you a Molly (a patriotic overachiever with a flair for drama)? Felicity (the original horse girl)? Kirsten (a cottagecore fan who seems immune to cholera), Samantha (a savior complex in a sailor suit), or Josefina (who dealt with grief by befriending a baby goat)? Have you ever wondered how Britney Spears or Michelle Kwan would answer that question? And why do we care so much which girl we are?

Combining history, travelogue, and memoir, Dolls of Our Lives follows Allison Horrocks and Mary Mahoney on an unforgettable journey to the past as they delve into the origins of this iconic brand. Continuing the conversations that began on their podcast, they set out to answer the lingering questions that keep them up at night. What did American Girl inventor Pleasant Rowland hope to say to children with these dolls? Was girl power something that could be ordered from a catalogue, described by a magazine, or modeled in the plot lines of books? And how - and why - did this brand shape an entire generation?

Through interviews with a legion of devoted doll lovers, a field trip to Colonial Williamsburg, a place that inspired Pleasant to create American Girl, and an exploration of their own (complicated) fandom, this is a deep dive into one of the 90s most coveted products - the American Girl doll.

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How to ADHD

Jessica McCabe

Forget “try harder.” When your brain works differently, you need to try different.
 
Diagnosed with ADHD at age twelve, Jessica struggled with a brain that she didn’t understand. She lost things constantly, couldn’t finish projects, and felt like she was putting more effort in than everyone around her while falling further and further behind. At thirty-two years old—broke, divorced, and living with her mom—Jessica decided to look more deeply into her ADHD challenges. She reached out to experts, devoured articles, and shared her discoveries on YouTube.
 
In How to ADHD, Jessica reveals the tools that have changed her life while offering an unflinching look at the realities of living with ADHD. The key to navigating a world not built for the neurodivergent brain, she discovered, isn’t to fix or fight against its natural tendencies but to understand and work with them. She explains how ADHD affects everyday life, covering executive function impairments, rejection sensitivity, difficulties with attention regulation, and more. You’ll also find ADHD-specific strategies for adapting your environment, routines, and systems, including:
 
• Boost the signal and decrease the noise. Facilitate focus by putting your goals where you can see them and fighting distractions with distractions.
• Have less stuff to manage. Learn why you have trouble planning and prioritizing, and why doing more starts with doing less.
• Build your “time wisdom.” Work backward when you plan, and track how long it actually takes you to do something.
• Learn about your emotions. Understand how naming your emotions and letting yourself experience them can make them easier to regulate.
 
With quotes from Jessica’s online community, chapter summaries, and reading shortcuts designed for the neurodivergent reader, How to ADHD will help you recognize your strengths and challenges, tackle “bad brain days,” and be kinder to yourself in the process.

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Meadow Falls

Carolyn Brown

Angela Marie has spent all of her thirty-five years on Meadow Falls, the farm that's been in her Texas family for generations. It wasn't her plan. It was an obligation. Now that her parents-less loving kin than strangers-have passed, the whole shebang belongs to Angela. And a legacy she never wanted is hers to uphold.

She can't forsake it now. Her beloved nanny, Mandy, who was always more of a mother, needs a caregiver herself. And Mandy's great-granddaughter, as close to Angela as a sister, has returned to roost. When a handsome veteran arrives seeking work as a farmhand, Angela thinks the future might not be half-bad after all.

But it's the past that proves enlightening. Mandy is revealing secrets Angela never knew about her parents. As the clouds on her family history begin to part, the inheritance feels more like a precious gift, and Meadow Falls more like the home Angela's been looking for her whole life.

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California Bear

Duane Swierczynski

Jack Queen has been exonerated and freed from prison thanks to retired LAPD officer Cato Hightower. But when guilt gnaws at Jack, he admits: "I actually did it." To which Hightower responds: "Yeah, no kidding." You see, the ex-cop has a special job in mind for the ex-con.

THE GIRL DETECTIVE: Fifteen-year-old Matilda Finnerty has been handed a potential death sentence in the form of a leukemia diagnosis. But that's not going to stop her from tackling the most important mystery of her life: Is her father guilty of murder?

GENE JEANIE: Jeanie Hightower mends family trees for a living, but the genealogist is unable to repair her own marriage. And her soon-to-be ex may have entangled her in a scheme that has drawn the bloody wrath of...

THE BEAR: A prolific serial killer who disappeared forty years ago, who is only now emerging from hibernation when the conditions are just right. And this time, the California Bear is not content to hunt in the shadows...

From two-time Edgar nominee Duane Swierczynski, California Bear is clever, moving, and surprising as it takes aim at the true crime industry, Hollywood, justice, and the killers inside us all.

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Where the Dead Sleep

Joshua Moehling

Bill Sanderson--former high school quarterback, husband to Carrie, one-time husband to Sheri, used car salesman, lover of easy money--had a plan. Now, it's Labor Day weekend and Bill's dead in his bed. An early morning call brings Deputy Ben Packard to the scene of a home invasion.

Everyone Packard talks to has a story about Bill, but no one has a clear motive for wanting him dead. The business partner. The ex-wife. The current wife. The high-stakes poker buddies. Any of them--or none of them--could be guilty.

As the investigation begins, tragedy strikes the Sheriff's department, forcing Packard to make a difficult choice about his future: step down as acting Sheriff and pursue the quiet life he came to Sandy Lake in search of, or subject himself to the scrutiny of an election for the full-time role of Sheriff, a job he's not sure he wants.

There's a hidden history to Sandy Lake that Packard, ever the outsider, can't see. Bad blood and old secrets run deep. But an attempt on Packard's life means he's getting uncomfortably close to the dangerous legacy of the quiet Minnesota town. And someone will do anything to keep it hidden.

 

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A Step Past Darkness

Vera Kurian

There's something sinister under the surface of the idyllic, suburban town of Wesley Falls, and it's not just the abandoned coal mine that lies beneath it. The summer of 1995 kicks off with a party in the mine where six high school students witness a horrifying crime that changes the course of their lives.

The six couldn't be more different.
Maddy, a devout member of the local megachurch, Kelly, the bookworm next door, James, a cynical burnout, Casey, a loveable football player, Padma, the shy straight-A student, and Jia, who's starting to see visions she can't explain.

When they realize that they can't trust anyone but each other, they begin to investigate what happened on their own. As tensions escalate in town to a breaking point, the six make a vow of silence, bury all their evidence, and promise to never contact each other again. Their plan works - almost.

Twenty years later, Jia calls them all back to Wesley Falls--Maddy has been murdered, and they are the only ones who can uncover why. But to end things, they have to return to the mine one last time.

 

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Always Remember

Mary Balogh

Left unable to walk by a childhood illness, Lady Jennifer, sister of the Duke of Wilby, has grown up to make a happy place for herself in society. Outgoing and cheerful, she has many friends and enjoys the pleasures of high society—even if she cannot dance at balls or stroll in Hyde Park. She is blessed with a large, loving, and protective family. But she secretly dreams of marriage and children, and of walking—and dancing.

When Ben Ellis comes across Lady Jennifer as she struggles to walk with the aid of primitive crutches, he instantly understands her yearning. He is a fixer. It is often said of him that he never saw a practical problem he did not have to solve. He wants to help her discover independence and motion—driving a carriage, swimming, even walking a different way. But he must be careful. He is the bastard son of the late Earl of Stratton. Though he was raised with the earl’s family, he knows he does not really belong in the world of the ton.

Jennifer is shocked—and intrigued—by Ben’s ideas, and both families are alarmed by the growing friendship and perhaps more that they sense developing between the two. A duke’s sister certainly cannot marry the bastard son of an earl. Except sometimes, love can find a way.

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The Ghost Orchid

Jonathan Kellerman

LAPD homicide lieutenant Milo Sturgis sees it all the time: Reinvention’s a way of life in a city fueled by fantasy. But try as you might to erase the person you once were, there are those who will never forget the past . . . and who can still find you.

A pool boy enters a secluded Bel Air property and discovers two bodies floating in the bright blue water: Gio Aggiunta, the playboy heir to an Italian shoe empire, and a gorgeous, even wealthier neighbor named Meagin March. A married neighbor.

An illicit affair stoking rage is a perfect motive. But a “double” in this neighborhood of gated estates isn’t something you see every day. The house is untouched. No forced entry, no forensic evidence. The case has “that feeling,” and when that happens, Milo turns to his friend, the brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware.

As Milo and Alex investigate both victims, they discover two troubled pasts. And as they dig deeper, Meagin March’s very identity begins to blur. Who was this glamorous but conflicted woman? Did her past catch up to her? Or did Gio’s family connections create a threat spanning two continents?

Chasing down the answers leads Alex and Milo on an exploration of L.A.’s darkest side as they contend with one of the most shocking cases of their careers and learn that that some secrets are best left buried in the past.

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The Sign of Four Spirits

Vicki Delany

When a psychic fair arrives in West London, Gemma Doyle, owner of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, wants nothing to do with it. But somehow, at the urging of Donald Morris, an enthusiastic Sherlockian, she finds herself talked into attending a séance, along with baker and best friend Jayne Wilson, store assistant, Ashleigh, and former pop star Bunny Leigh.

But to her surprise, Gemma finds herself banned from the séance and shown the door. Curious, she listens in from outside the room. The medium informs a disappointed Donald that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle will not be able to make it tonight. Then, Gemma hears a voice cut off, a cry for help, a scream. Gemma bursts into the library to see that someone has collapsed on the table--dead. The windows are all locked, and Gemma was guarding the only door. Someone in this room is a murderer. But who?

The game is once again afoot for Gemma Doyle, as she hunts a killer. But, this time, is the killer of flesh and blood or had the medium summoned doom from beyond the veil?

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Womb City

Tlotlo Tsamaase

Nelah seems to have it all: fame, wealth, and a long-awaited daughter growing in a government lab. But, trapped in a loveless marriage to a policeman who uses a microchip to monitor her every move, Nelah’s perfect life is precarious. After a drug-fueled evening culminates in an eerie car accident, Nelah commits a desperate crime and buries the body, daring to hope that she can keep one last secret.

The truth claws its way into Nelah’s life from the grave. 

As the ghost of her victim viciously hunts down the people Nelah holds dear, she is thrust into a race against the clock: in order to save any of her remaining loved ones, Nelah must unravel the political conspiracy her victim was on the verge of exposing—or risk losing everyone. 

Set in a cruel futuristic surveillance state where bodies are a government-issued resource, this harrowing story is a twisty, nail-biting commentary on power, monstrosity, and bodily autonomy. In sickeningly evocative prose, Womb City interrogates how patriarchy pits women against each other as unwitting collaborators in their own oppression. In this devastatingly timely debut novel, acclaimed short fiction writer Tlotlo Tsamaase brings a searing intelligence and Botswana’s cultural sensibility to the question: just how far must a woman go to bring the whole system crashing down?

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Exordia

Seth Dickinson

Anna, I came to Earth tracking a very old story, a story that goes back to the dawn of time. It’s very unlikely that you’ll die right now. It wouldn’t be narratively complete.

Anna Sinjari—refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker—has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. Enter Ssrin, a many-headed serpent alien who is on the run from her own past. Ssrin and Anna are inexorably, dangerously drawn to each other, and their contact reveals universe-threatening stakes.

While humanity reels from disaster, Anna must join a small team of civilians, soldiers, and scientists to investigate a mysterious broadcast and unknowable horror. If they can manage to face their own demons, they just might save the world.

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A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens

Raul Palma

Hugo Contreras’s world in Miami has shrunk. Since his wife died, Hugo’s debt from her medical bills has become insurmountable. He shuffles between his efficiency apartment, La Carreta (his favorite place for a cafecito), and a botanica in a strip mall where he works as the resident babaláwo.
 
One day, Hugo’s nemesis calls. Alexi Ramirez is a debt collector who has been hounding Hugo for years, and Hugo assumes this call is just more of the same. Except this time Alexi is calling because he needs spiritual help. His house is haunted. Alexi proposes a deal: If Hugo can successfully cleanse his home before Noche Buena, Alexi will forgive Hugo’s debt. Hugo reluctantly accepts, but there’s one issue: Despite being a babaláwo, he doesn’t believe in spirits.
 
Hugo plans to do what he’s done with dozens of clients before: use sleight of hand and amateur psychology to convince Alexi the spirits have departed. But when the job turns out to be more than Hugo bargained for, Hugo’s old tricks don’t work. Memories of his past—his childhood in the Bolivian silver mines and a fraught crossing into the United States as a boy—collide with Alexi’s demons in an explosive climax.
 
Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens explores questions of visibility, migration, and what we owe—to ourselves, our families, and our histories.

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The Retreat

Zara Raheem

In Zara Raheem's newest novel we meet Nadia Abbasi--whose attempts to save her marriage create unexpected complications--and follow her as she navigates the twists and turns of love. Perfect for fans of Sonali Dev, Christina Lauren, and Sara Desai.

 

 

Nadia Abbasi's marriage is falling apart. It starts with a gifted Roomba, but when she stumbles upon some questionable photos in her husband Aman's office, everything makes sense--the late-night texting, the sudden interest in fitness, the new clothes. Aman--the kind, thoughtful man she married--is having an affair.

Determined to find out what went wrong in her marriage, Nadia enlists the help of Zeba, the estranged sister she hasn't seen or spoken to since their mom's funeral over a year ago. As the two sisters fight to reconcile their past, Nadia realizes her relationship with Aman is not the only one that needs mending.

Nevertheless, the plan itself is simple: confront the "other woman" and win back her husband. Her clumsy attempt at sleuthing leads her from yoga studio--Aman's latest hangout--to a three-day wellness retreat in the foothills of the Santa Monica mountains. But somewhere in between falling out of tree pose and choking down plant-based meals, Nadia's plans unravel again when she discovers more than she expected about herself, her husband, and the nature of love.

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Alien Agendas

Ian Douglas

Reptilian aliens, Nazis in space, time-traveling humans, kidnapped girlfriends, government psychics--it all comes down to this: New York Times bestselling author Ian Douglas delivers the jaw-dropping finale to his action-packed military sci-fi Solar Warden adventure series.

 

 

The Saurians, a highly evolved reptilian species which escaped extinction 65 million years ago, have an agenda: to achieve behind-the-scenes dominance over Earth. Operating from hidden bases, they use psychosocial techniques to plant conspiracy theories and instill fear within the human population. Too weak in numbers to militarily conquer a world they believe to be their own, they seek to renew Nazi strongman ideologies and surrogates to gain absolute control.

 

 

Their first attempt is thwarted by the Talis, time-traveling humans from the far future. Yet, their assistance is limited as they face an all-out time war that could sweep modern humanity and their futuristic society into oblivion.

With the human species in danger, Commander Mark Hunter and his Joint Space Strike Team must work alongside Talis agents, the U.S. Space Force, and a young and talented government psychic to stop the Saurians from world dominance.

As if saving earth wasn't challenging enough, Hunter's girlfriend, Jerry, was kidnapped by the infamous Men in Black to control him. Now Hunter has just one chance to find and rescue his love and the rest of the captives before the Saurians bring the entire base crashing down around him and his people.

Commander Mark Hunter and his crew require a miracle, and perhaps even that might not be enough...

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The Wishing Pool and Other Stories

Tananarive Due

American Book Award-winning author Tananarive Due's second collection of stories includes offerings of horror, science fiction, and suspense--all genres she wields masterfully. From the mysterious, magical town of Gracetown to the aftermath of a pandemic to the reaches of the far future, Due's stories all share a sense of dread and fear balanced with heart and hope.

In some of these stories, the monster is racism itself; others address the monster within, each set against the supernatural or surreal. All are written with Due's trademark attention to detail and deeply drawn characters.

In addition to previously published work, this collection contains brand-new stories, including "Rumpus Room," a supernatural horror novelette set in Florida about a woman's struggle against both outer and inner demons.

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Zora Books Her Happy Ever After

Taj McCoy

Zora has committed every inch of her life to establishing her thriving DC bookstore, making it into a pillar of the community, and she just hasn't had time for romance. But when a mystery author she's been crushing on for years agrees to have an event at her store, she starts to rethink her priorities. Lawrence is every bit as charming as she imagined, even if his understanding of his own books seems just a bit shallow. When he asks her out after his reading, she's almost elated enough to forget about the grumpy guy who sat next to her making snide comments all evening. Apparently the grouch is Lawrence's best friend, Reid, but she can't imagine what kind of friendship that must be. They couldn't be more different.



But as she starts seeing Lawrence, and spending more and more time with Reid, Zora finds first impressions can be deceiving. Reid is smart and thoughtful--he's also interested. After years of avoiding dating, she suddenly has two handsome men competing for her affection. But even as she struggles to choose between them, she can't shake the feeling that they're both hiding something--a mystery she's determined to solve before she can find her HEA.
 

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Bitter Harvest

Ann Rule

From the bestselling true crime author comes the mesmerising true story of Debora Green, a beautiful, wealthy, successful doctor and mother of three whose murderous rage and jealousy brings death and destruction to her family. With direct access to all the principles including Green, the prosecutor, detectives and arson investigators Ann Rule gives us a horrifying portrait of a woman who had it all and lost it.

 

BITTER HARVEST is the chronicle of a tragedy in the heartland of America, the true story of the disintegration of a marriage and its horrifying consequences. As in her earlier books, Ann Rule takes the reader deep into the psyche of a killer whose behaviour, so twisted and so evil, defies belief. Her book is also the story of the tireless and skilful investigators, forensic scientists and prosecutors who finally brought that killer to justice. Gripping, powerful, and ultimately terrifying, BITTER HARVEST is a vivid re-creation of an unthinkable crime - and a depiction of the unimaginable depths of darkness within the human spirit.

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Whispers at Dusk

Heather Graham

When serial killers run rampant across Europe it's up to Blackbird, the Krewe of Hunters' international operatives, to stop them.

When darkness falls, there's nowhere to hide.
Four bodies have been discovered along Europe's riverbanks, placed with care--and completely drained of blood. Pinpricks on their throats indicate a slender murder weapon, but DNA found in the wounds suggests something far more sinister. Tasked with investigating, the FBI recruits Agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter to Blackbird, an international offshoot of the Krewe of Hunters. If you want to catch a vampire killer, you need agents who can speak with the dead.

The pair travel to Norway, where the shadowy forests of Lillehammer reveal a gruesome scene. The killer is thirsty for more victims, and the bloodless trail soon leads Della and Mason to a group that believes drinking blood is the key to immortality. To catch the culprit of such an intimate crime, the agents will have to get close. Mason's already lost one partner; he's not ready to risk Della as bait. But sometimes justice requires a sacrifice...

The Blackbird Trilogy

  • Book 1: Whispers at Dusk
  • Book 2: Secrets in the Dark
  • Book 3: Cursed at Dawn

 

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Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?

Crystal Smith Paul

REESE'S BOOK CLUB MAY 2023 PICK

A multigenerational saga that traverses the glamour of old Hollywood and the seductive draw of modern-day showbiz

When Kitty Karr Tate, a White icon of the silver screen, dies and bequeaths her multimillion-dollar estate to the St. John sisters, three young, wealthy Black women, it prompts questions. Lots of questions.

A celebrity in her own right, Elise St. John would rather focus on sorting out Kitty’s affairs than deal with the press. But what she discovers in one of Kitty’s journals rocks her world harder than any other brewing scandal could—and between a cheating fiancé and the fallout from a controversial social media post, there are plenty.

The truth behind Kitty's ascent to stardom from her beginnings in the segregated South threatens to expose a web of unexpected family ties, debts owed, and debatable crimes that could, with one pull, unravel the all-American fabric of the St. John sisters and those closest to them.

As Elise digs deeper into Kitty's past, she must also turn the lens upon herself, confronting the gifts and burdens of her own choices and the power that the secrets of the dead hold over the living. Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? is a sprawling page-turner set against the backdrop of the Hollywood machine, an insightful and nuanced look at the inheritances of family, race, and gender—and the choices some women make to break free of them.

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The Lost Summers of Newport

Beatriz Williams

2019: Andie Figuero has just landed her dream job as a producer of Mansion Makeover, a popular reality show about restoring America's most lavish historic houses. Andie has high hopes for her latest project: the once glorious but gently crumbling Sprague Hall in Newport, Rhode Island, summer resort of America's gilded class--famous for the lavish "summer cottages" of Vanderbilts and Belmonts. But Andie runs into trouble: the reclusive heiress who still lives in the mansion, Lucia "Lucky" Sprague, will only allow the show to go forward on two conditions: One, nobody speaks to her. Two, nobody touches the mansion's ruined boathouse.

1899: Ellen Daniels has been hired to give singing lessons to Miss Maybelle Sprague, a naive young Colorado mining heiress whose stepbrother John has poured their new money into buying a place among Newport's elite. John is determined to see Maybelle married off to a fortune-hunting Italian prince, and Ellen is supposed to polish up the girl for her launch into society. But the deceptively demure Ellen has her own checkered past, and she's hiding in plain sight at Sprague Hall.

1958: Lucia "Lucky" Sprague has always felt like an outsider at Sprague Hall. When she and her grandmother--the American-born Princess di Conti--fled Mussolini's Italy, it seemed natural to go back to the imposing Newport house Nana owned but hadn't seen since her marriage in 1899. Over the years, Lucky's lost her Italian accent and found a place for herself among the yachting set by marrying Stuyvesant Sprague, the alcoholic scion of her Sprague stepfamily. But one fateful night in the mansion's old boathouse will uncover a devastating truth...and change everything she thought she knew about her past.

As the cameras roll on Mansion Makeover, the house begins to yield up the dark secrets the Spragues thought would stay hidden forever....

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The Night Shift

Alex Finlay

It’s New Year’s Eve 1999. Y2K is expected to end in chaos: planes falling from the sky, elevators plunging to earth, world markets collapsing. A digital apocalypse. None of that happens. But at a Blockbuster Video in New Jersey, four teenagers working late at the store are attacked. Only one inexplicably survives. Police quickly identify a suspect, the boyfriend of one of the victims, who flees and is never seen again.

Fifteen years later, more teenage employees are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive.

In the aftermath of the latest crime, three lives intersect: the lone survivor of the Blockbuster massacre who’s forced to relive the horrors of her tragedy; the brother of the fugitive accused, who’s convinced the police have the wrong suspect; and FBI agent Sarah Keller who must delve into the secrets of both nights—stirring up memories of teen love and lies—to uncover the truth about murders on the night shift.

Twisty, poignant, and redemptive, The Night Shift is a story about the legacy of trauma and how the broken can come out on the other side, and it solidifies Finlay as one of the new leading voices in the world of thrillers.

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Seasonal Work

Laura Lippman

The award-winning master of psychological suspense is in top form in this collection of diverse and diabolically clever stories.

 

 

In the never-before-published "Just One More," a married couple--longing for that old romantic spark--creates a playful diversion that comes with unexpected consequences.

Lippman's beloved Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan keeps a watchful eye on a criminally resourceful single father in "Seasonal Work," while her mother, Judith, realizes that the life of "The Everyday Housewife" is an excellent cover for all kinds of secrets.

In "Slow Burner," a husband's secret cell phone proves to be a dicey temptation for a suspicious wife.

A father's hidden past piques the curiosity of a young snoop in "The Last of Sheila-Locke Holmes."

Plus seven other brilliantly crafted stories of deception, murder, dangerous games, and love gone wrong--irrefutable evidence that Laura Lippman's riveting fiction will more than satisfy any crime reader.

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Prose and Cons

Wendy Corsi Staub

It's been nine months since widowed mom Bella Jordan and her young son Max moved to Lily Dale, the quirky, close-knit New York community populated by people who can speak to the dead . . . if one believes in that kind of thing. Now she counts Valley View, the guesthouse she runs, as home and her psychic medium neighbours as friends. Even haughty, British Pandora, who used to own Valley View before her difficult divorce.

So when Pandora sweeps in, requesting an urgent tete-a-tete, Bella expects it to be another complaint about book club. It isn't. Pandora airily reveals her elderly Auntie Eudora is taking a last-minute cruise from London to New York with her gentleman friend Nigel - and minutes later Bella is bemused to find she's agreed to host them at Valley View free of charge.

Bella has enough on her plate: her son Max, their two kitties, a budding relationship with local vet Drew . . . not to mention this month's book club pick to read. But when she begins to have suspicions about one of her new guests, she's determined to uncover the truth for Pandora's sake - even if it kills her first.

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L.A. Weather

María Amparo Escandón

Oscar, the weather-obsessed patriarch of the Alvarado family, desperately wants a little rain. L.A. is parched, dry as a bone, and he’s harboring a costly secret that distracts him from everything else. His wife, Keila, desperate for a life with a little more intimacy and a little less Weather Channel, feels she has no choice but to end their marriage.

Their three daughters—Claudia, a television chef with a hard-hearted attitude; Olivia, a successful architect who suffers from gentrification guilt; and Patricia, a social media wizard who has an uncanny knack for connecting with audiences but not with her lovers—are left questioning everything they know. Each will have to take a critical look at her own relationships and make some tough decisions along the way.

With quick wit and humor, María Amparo Escandón follows the Alvarado family as they wrestle with impending evacuations, secrets, deception, and betrayal, and their toughest decision yet: whether to stick together or burn it all down.

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The Nature of Middle-Earth

J. R. R. Tolkien

The first ever publication of J.R.R. Tolkien's final writings on Middle-earth, covering a wide range of subjects and perfect for those who have read and enjoyed The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings, Unfinished Tales, and The History of Middle-earth, and want to learn more about Tolkien's magnificent world.

It is well known that J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937 and The Lord of the Rings in 1954-5. What may be less known is that he continued to write about Middle-earth in the decades that followed, right up until the years before his death in 1973.

For him, Middle-earth was part of an entire world to be explored, and the writings in The Nature of Middle-earth reveal the journeys that he took as he sought to better understand his unique creation. From sweeping themes as profound as Elvish immortality and reincarnation, and the Powers of the Valar, to the more earth-bound subjects of the lands and beasts of Númenor, the geography of the Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor, and even who had beards!

This new collection, which has been edited by Carl F. Hostetter, one of the world's leading Tolkien experts, is a veritable treasure-trove offering readers a chance to peer over Professor Tolkien's shoulder at the very moment of discovery: and on every page, Middle-earth is once again brought to extraordinary life.

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The Lies I Tell

Julie Clark

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight comes a twisted con-woman thriller about two women out for revenge--or is it justice?

Two women. Many aliases.

Meg Williams. Maggie Littleton. Melody Wilde. Different names for the same person, depending on the town, depending on the job. She's a con artist who erases herself to become whoever you need her to be--a college student. A life coach. A real estate agent. Nothing about her is real. She slides alongside you and tells you exactly what you need to hear, and by the time she's done, you've likely lost everything.

Kat Roberts has been waiting ten years for the woman who upended her life to return. And now that she has, Kat is determined to be the one to expose her. But as the two women grow closer, Kat's long-held assumptions begin to crumble, leaving Kat to wonder who Meg's true target is.

The Lies I Tell is a twisted domestic thriller that dives deep into the psyches and motivations of two women and their unwavering quest to seek justice for the past and rewrite the future.

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A Slow Fire Burning

Paula Hawkins

The scorching new thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train.

With the same propulsion that captivated millions of readers worldwide in The Girl on the Train and Into the Water, Paula Hawkins unfurls a gripping, twisting story of deceit, murder, and revenge.

When a young man is found gruesomely murdered in a London houseboat, it triggers questions about three women who knew him. Laura is the troubled one-night-stand last seen in the victim's home. Carla is his grief-stricken aunt, already mourning the recent death of yet another family member. And Miriam is the nosy neighbor clearly keeping secrets from the police. Three women with separate connections to the victim. Three women who are - for different reasons - simmering with resentment. Who are, whether they know it or not, burning to right the wrongs done to them. When it comes to revenge, even good people might be capable of terrible deeds. How far might any one of them go to find peace? How long can secrets smolder before they explode into flame?

Look what you started.

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Whiplash

Janet Dailey

From New York Times bestselling author Janet Dailey comes the latest Champions novel, set on the Alamo Canyon Ranch, where a legacy bull rearing operation is run by three sisters--women who aren't afraid to compete in a man's world, or to take on something as wild as love--and win.

When Val Champion returns to the family ranch, she's ready to put her past behind her. Her dreams of a Hollywood acting career have become a nightmare of fear. But once she sees rodeo man Casey Bozeman facing down a bull in the arena, she knows she's no safer at home. Face to face with her first and only true love, Val can't deny her still powerful feelings for Casey. Feelings she can never act on again...

Val's the one who got away, the woman who broke his heart so hard he still feels the sting. But there's no denying Casey's still drawn to the fiery beauty. And there's no way he can stand by when the high stakes Professional Bull Riding finals in Vegas bring out the danger Val's been running from. Suddenly the rugged cowboy is willing to risk it all for her once more, even if it means facing down those secrets lurking in her unforgettable eyes...

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The Heart Principle

Helen Hoang

USA Today bestselling author Helen Hoang returns with a witty and sizzling new romance that shows how wrong you can be about someone...and how right they can be for you.

To most people, Quan Diep is nothing but a surly-looking, underachieving playboy. The problem is he's not any of those things. And now that he's the CEO of an up-and-coming retail business, he's suddenly a "catch," and the rich girls who never used to pay any attention to him are looking at him in a new way--especially Camilla, the girl who brushed him off many years ago.

Anna Sun dislikes Quan Diep almost as much as germy bathroom door handles. Or so she tells herself. She will never admit that she has a secret crush on him, especially because he only has eyes for her charismatic and newly engaged younger sister Camilla. Over the years, Anna has worked hard to overcome her OCD, but she'll still need to find a way to bury her anxieties and seduce Quan so he doesn't ruin her sister's engagement, and with it, a crucial real estate development deal.

Slowly, Anna breaks down Quan's dangerous and careless exterior while peeling off her own tough, protective shell. But when Quan discovers Anna's true intentions, he's forced to confront his own hurtful past and learn to forgive, while Anna must face her greatest challenge: truly opening herself up to love.

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The Madness of Crowds

Louise Penny

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache returns to Three Pines in #1 New York Times bestseller Louise Penny's latest spellbinding novel

You’re a coward.

Time and again, as the New Year approaches, that charge is leveled against Armand Gamache.

It starts innocently enough.

While the residents of the Québec village of Three Pines take advantage of the deep snow to ski and toboggan, to drink hot chocolate in the bistro and share meals together, the Chief Inspector finds his holiday with his family interrupted by a simple request.

He’s asked to provide security for what promises to be a non-event. A visiting Professor of Statistics will be giving a lecture at the nearby university.

While he is perplexed as to why the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec would be assigned this task, it sounds easy enough. That is until Gamache starts looking into Professor Abigail Robinson and discovers an agenda so repulsive he begs the university to cancel the lecture.

They refuse, citing academic freedom, and accuse Gamache of censorship and intellectual cowardice. Before long, Professor Robinson’s views start seeping into conversations. Spreading and infecting. So that truth and fact, reality and delusion are so confused it’s near impossible to tell them apart.

Discussions become debates, debates become arguments, which turn into fights. As sides are declared, a madness takes hold.

Abigail Robinson promises that, if they follow her, ça va bien aller. All will be well. But not, Gamache and his team know, for everyone.

When a murder is committed it falls to Armand Gamache, his second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and their team to investigate the crime as well as this extraordinary popular delusion.

And the madness of crowds.

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Lightning Strike

William Kent Krueger

The author of the instant New York Times bestseller This Tender Land returns with a powerful prequel to his acclaimed Cork O’Connor series—a book about fathers and sons, long-simmering conflicts in a small Minnesota town, and the events that echo through youth and shape our lives forever.

Aurora is a small town nestled in the ancient forest alongside the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake. In the summer of 1963, it is the whole world to twelve-year-old Cork O’Connor, its rhythms as familiar as his own heartbeat. But when Cork stumbles upon the body of a man he revered hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp, it is the first in a series of events that will cause him to question everything he took for granted about his hometown, his family, and himself.

Cork’s father, Liam O’Connor, is Aurora’s sheriff and it is his job to confirm that the man’s death was the result of suicide, as all the evidence suggests. In the shadow of his father’s official investigation, Cork begins to look for answers on his own. Together, father and son face the ultimate test of choosing between what their heads tell them is true and what their hearts know is right.

In this masterful story of a young man and a town on the cusp of change, beloved novelist William Kent Krueger shows that some mysteries can be solved even as others surpass our understanding.

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The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

A New York Times Book Everyone Will Be Talking About

The 2020 National Book Award-nominated poet makes her fiction debut with this magisterial epic--an intimate yet sweeping novel with all the luminescence and force of Homegoing; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and The Water Dancer--that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era.

The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called "Double Consciousness," a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois's words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans--the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers--Ailey carries Du Bois's Problem on her shoulders.

Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother's family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that's made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women--her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries--that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.

To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family's past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors--Indigenous, Black, and white--in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story--and the song--of America itself.

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The Guide

Peter Heller

The best-selling author of The River returns with a heart-racing thriller about a young man who is hired by an elite fishing lodge in Colorado, where he uncovers a plot of shocking menace amid the natural beauty of sun-drenched streams and forests.

 

Kingfisher Lodge, nestled in a canyon on a mile and a half of the most pristine river water on the planet, is known by locals as Billionaire's Mile and is locked behind a heavy gate. Sandwiched between barbed wire and a meadow with a sign that reads Don't Get Shot! the resort boasts boutique fishing at its finest. Safe from viruses that have plagued America for years, Kingfisher offers a respite for wealthy clients. Now it also promises a second chance for Jack, a return to normalcy after a young life filled with loss. When he is assigned to guide a well-known singer, his only job is to rig her line, carry her gear, and steer her to the best trout he can find.

But then a human scream pierces the night, and Jack soon realizes that this idyllic fishing lodge may be merely a cover for a far more sinister operation. A novel as gripping as it is lyrical, as frightening as it is moving, The Guide is another masterpiece from Peter Heller.

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High Stakes

Iris Johansen

All bets are off as #1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen introduces gambler Logan Tanner, a man with a secret past that's about to come back to haunt him.

Logan Tanner lives the exhilarating life of a professional gambler, taking risks with nerves of steel. From casinos in Macau to Monte Carlo to Milan, he's racked up a fortune and become a living legend. But all the glitz and glamor hide a dark and violent past as an extractor--a world that comes rushing back to him when the beautiful and innocent Lara Balkon enters his life.

Soon Logan is drawn into the conflict between two Russian mafia bosses over Lara, whose life now hangs in the balance. Logan has been offered something more valuable to him than money--information he desperately needs--in exchange for getting Lara out of Russia and to safety. Once together, Tanner discovers that Lara is a force to be reckoned with in her own right. Tanner's search for the truth leads them to the bright lights of Las Vegas. Where the person who was hunting Lara now lies in wait for them.

With the stakes climbing with each deadly confrontation, Logan and Lara are soon catapulted into a game against pure evil. The odds are stacked against them, but it's a game they know they must play...even if it may cost them their lives.

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Forgotten in Death

J.D. Robb

In the latest novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, homicide detective Eve Dallas sifts through the wreckage of the past to find a killer.

The body was left in a dumpster like so much trash, the victim a woman of no fixed address, known for offering paper flowers in return for spare change—and for keeping the cops informed of any infractions she witnessed on the street. But the notebook where she scribbled her intel on litterers and other such offenders is nowhere to be found.

Then Eve is summoned away to a nearby building site to view more remains—in this case decades old, adorned with gold jewelry and fine clothing—unearthed by recent construction work. She isn’t happy when she realizes that the scene of the crime belongs to her husband, Roarke—not that it should surprise her, since the Irish billionaire owns a good chunk of New York. Now Eve must enter a complex world of real estate development, family history, shady deals, and shocking secrets to find justice for two women whose lives were thrown away...

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