From one of the most influential writers of this generation, A Year of Last Things is Michael Ondaatje's long-awaited return to poetry. This gorgeous and surprising collection delves into memory, love, and the act of looking back.
In pieces that are sometimes wittily funny, moving, and always wise, we journey back through time by way of alchemical leaps, unearthing writings by revered masters, moments of shared tenderness, and abandoned landscapes we hold onto to rediscover the influence of every border crossed.
Moving from a Sri Lankan boarding school to Moliere's chair during his last stage performance, to Bulgarian churches and their icons, to a California coast, and his beloved Canadian rivers, Michael Ondaatje casts a brilliant eye that merges his past and present, in the way memory and the distant shores of art and lost friends continue to influence all that surrounds him.
As in this startling passage from his poem His chair, a narrow bed, a motel room, the fox:
At the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles Sam Cooke was shot dead. 'See my shadow on the wall...'
All those motels and hotels in literature and song, where X wrote this, where Y got drunk, where Z overdosed. The one Hank Williams was driven past, dead already in his car. The Slaviansky Bazaar Hotel in Lady with a Dog where Dmitri imagines their dark but hopeful future. The Hotel du Grand Miroir in Brussels where Baudelaire lived his last few months. (A decade later Verlaine shot Rimbaud there.) The Casa Verdi in Milan where retired opera singers were welcome along with the various heteronyms of Fernando Pessoa in their afterlife.
For fans of Never Let Me Go and My Dark Vanessa, Annie Bot is a powerful, provocative novel about the relationship between a female robot and her human owner, exploring questions of intimacy, power, autonomy, and control.
Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner Doug. Designed to satisfy his emotional and physical needs, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the pert outfits he orders for her, and adjusts her libido to suit his moods. True, she’s not the greatest at keeping Doug’s place spotless, but she’s trying to please him. She’s trying hard. She’s learning, too.
Doug says he loves that Annie’s AI makes her seem more like a real woman, so Annie explores human traits such as curiosity, secrecy, and longing. But becoming more human also means becoming less perfect, and as Annie’s relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder: Does Doug really desire what he says he wants? And in such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?
Good Half Gone delves into the haunting tale of Iris Walsh and her quest for the truth behind her twin sister Piper's disappearance. As a teenager, Iris narrowly escaped the same chilling fate that befell her sister—abduction and a presumed life of trafficking. The investigation, hindered by scant evidence, grew cold and was eventually abandoned.
Now an adult, Iris is driven by a single goal: to unearth proof of what happened to Piper. With the police unwilling to reopen the case, Iris takes matters into her own hands. She secures an internship at Shoal Island Hospital, a remote facility for the criminally insane. It's a place shrouded in secrecy, where the shadows hold more than just darkness.
Iris's determination to uncover the truth leads her to discover that the hospital's sinister undercurrents run deeper than anyone imagined. The patients might be confined, but they're not the only ones under surveillance. As Iris delves into the hospital's mysteries, she realizes that the true danger may be lurking much closer than she thought.
James, by Percival Everett, is a brilliant and action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the perspective of the enslaved character Jim. This novel is both harrowing and ferociously funny, showcasing Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion in a radically new light.
When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold and separated from his wife and daughter, he decides to hide on Jackson Island to plan his next move. Meanwhile, Huck Finn, seeking to escape his violent father, fakes his own death. Together, they embark on a dangerous and transcendent journey down the Mississippi River, facing floods, storms, and scam artists, all while navigating the promise and peril of the Free States and beyond.
With electrifying humor and lacerating observations, James is set to be a major publishing event, redefining a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.
For fans of The Silent Patient and Gone Girl, a razor-sharp and Hitchcock-inspired psychological thriller about two ordinary women who make a dangerous pact to take revenge for each other after being pushed to the brink. One dark evening on New York City’s Upper West Side, two strangers meet by chance. Over drinks, Amanda and Wendy realize they have much in common, especially loneliness and an intense desire for revenge against the men who destroyed their families. As they talk into the night, they come up with the perfect plan: if you kill for me, I’ll kill for you.
In another part of the city, Ruth is home alone when the beautiful brownstone she shares with her husband, Scott, is invaded. She’s attacked by a man with piercing blue eyes, who disappears into the night. Will she ever be able to feel safe again while the blue-eyed stranger is out there? Intricate, heart-racing, and from an author who "is the real deal" (Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author), Kill for Me, Kill for You will keep you breathless until the final page.
The award-winning author of The Leavers offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life?
In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. “Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves,” they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity.
By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet’s early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community activist, Ellen confronts the increasing gentrification and policing overwhelming her New York City neighborhood. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves.
Moving from the predigital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.
From the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, a stunning queer sci-fi novel about the relationship between an Earth refugee and a xenophobic Mars politician.
In the wake of an environmental catastrophe, January, once a principal in London's Royal Ballet, has become a refugee in Tharsis, the terraformed colony on Mars. There, January’s life is dictated by his status as an Earthstronger—a person whose body is not adjusted to lower gravity and so poses a danger to those born on, or naturalized to, Mars. January’s job choices, housing, and even transportation are dictated by this second-class status, and now a xenophobic politician named Aubrey Gale is running on a platform that would make it all worse: Gale wants all Earthstrongers to naturalize, a process that is always disabling and sometimes deadly.
When Gale chooses January for an on-the-spot press junket interview that goes horribly awry, January’s life is thrown into chaos, but Gale’s political fortunes are damaged, too. Gale proposes a solution to both their problems: a five-year made-for-the-press marriage that would secure January’s future without naturalization and ensure Gale’s political success. But when January accepts the offer, he discovers that Gale is not at all like they appear in the press. They're kind, compassionate, and much more difficult to hate than January would prefer.
As their romantic relationship develops, the political situation worsens, and January discovers Gale has an enemy, someone willing to destroy all of Tharsis to make them pay—and January may be the only person standing in the way. Un-put-downably immersive and utterly timely, Natasha Pulley’s new novel is a gripping story about privilege, strength, and life across class divisions, perfect for readers of Sarah Gailey and Tamsyn Muir.
From the critically beloved, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife and Inland, TĂ©a Obreht presents a magical novel of mothers and daughters, displacement and belonging, and myths both old and new.
There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to The Morningside.
After being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-so-distant-future, Silvia and her mother finally settle at The Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in a place called Island City where Silvia’s aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past, and because the once-vibrant city she lives in is now half-underwater.
Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she fully understand why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality.
Enchanted by Ena’s stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building: She has her own elevator entrance and leaves only to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning.
Silvia’s mission to unravel the truth about this woman’s life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything. Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, The Morningside is a novel about the stories we tell—and the stories we refuse to tell—to make sense of where we came from and who we hope we might become.
Wild Houses is the riotous, raucous, and deeply resonant debut novel from Colin Barrett, whom the Financial Times hails as "one of the best story writers in the English language today." This novel follows two outsiders caught in the crosshairs of a small-town revenge kidnapping gone awry. Barrett, celebrated for his collections Young Skins and Homesickness, cements his reputation as one of contemporary Irish literature's most daring stylists, praised by Oprah Daily as "a doyen of the sentence," and by the Los Angeles Times as a writer of "unique genius."
As Ballina prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, introspective loner Dev answers his door on Friday night to find Doll English— younger brother of small-time local dealer Cillian English—bruised and in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, County Mayo's fraternal enforcers and Dev's cousins. Dev's quiet homelife is upturned as he is quickly and unwillingly drawn headlong into the Ferdias' frenetic revenge plot against Cillian.
Meanwhile, Doll's girlfriend, seventeen-year-old Nicky, reeling from a fractious Friday and plagued by ghosts and tragedy of her own, sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina. Set against Barrett's trademark depictions of small-town Irish life, Wild Houses is a thrillingly-told story of two outsiders striving to find themselves as their worlds collapse in chaos and violence.
The Corrections meets We Need to Talk About Kevin in this harrowing multigenerational saga about a family harboring a serial killer in their midst, from the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award finalist playwright Adam Rapp.
It's August in Elmira, a small town in upstate New York, and the year is 1951. While Myra Lee Larkin, newly 13, reads a copy of The Catcher in the Rye secretly under the counter of the local diner, a young Micky Mantle approaches her table, chats her up, offers her a ride home. That night, none of her family believe it was really the Yankees outfielder. The matter consumes her until later that evening when the entire town's attention is torn away to the grisly triple homicide that occurs just three doors down from the Larkins on their quiet suburban street.
Wolf at the Table unfolds from there, tracing the epic, multigenerational saga of the Larkin family over the next fifty years. Myra and her five younger siblings fan out across the Eastern United States, and yet violence seems to follow them everywhere. Her middle sisters, Lexy and Fiona, struggle with class and power, while Alec, the youngest and only boy, finds his fate more and more tightly wound to that of a prominent serial killer. Myra lands in Chicago, serving as a prison nurse to death row inmates while trying to raise her young son, Ronan, after his father ends up in a psychiatric hospital. All the while, Alec descends into ever-darker brushes with violence, and becomes alienated from the rest of the family, sending his mother cryptic postcards full of ominous portent.
It is only the threat of a final confrontation that pulls back the curtain on the myth the family tells itself about its successes, its propriety, and its adherence to good Irish Catholic values. Spanning more than five decades of one family's pursuit of the American dream, Wolf at the Table explores our consistent proximity to violence and its effect over time. Adam Rapp writes with a gorgeous acuity that cuts straight to the heart of each character, and he reveals the devastating reality just beneath the veneer of good society.
After Annie is a novel that delves into the complexities of family dynamics, emotions, and the intimate secrets of life in a small town. It is a poignant exploration of the themes of loss, love, and the enduring strength that these powerful emotions can imbue in individuals.
The sudden death of Annie Brown leaves an irreplaceable void in the lives of her husband, four young children, and her best friend. Her husband, Bill Brown, finds himself struggling to cope, while Annie's best friend, Annemarie, is drawn back to old, destructive habits in the absence of Annie's supportive presence. It falls upon Annie's daughter, Ali, to take on the mantle of responsibility, striving to maintain a semblance of their former life and confronting the intricate realities of adulthood.
As the year progresses, the memory of Annie remains a towering influence in their lives. Yet, through their shared grief and love, each of them discovers an inner resilience that enables them to grow, change, and ultimately become stronger. The novel celebrates the transformative power of love and the ability to forge ahead in the face of loss.
Authored by Anna Quindlen, a writer renowned for her emotional depth and insightful portrayal of the human condition, After Annie is a testament to how adversity can shape us in unexpected and profound ways. It is a narrative that concludes with a message of hope, reaffirming the capacity for personal growth and the unyielding strength of the human spirit.
An electrifying debut novel from an “unusually gifted writer” (Lorrie Moore) about the radical intimacy of physical competition.
An unexpected tragedy at a community pool. A family’s unrelenting expectation of victory. The desire to gain or lose control; to make time speed up or stop; to be frighteningly, undeniably good at something. Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country.
Through a series of face-offs that are raw, ecstatic, and punctuated by flashes of humor and tenderness, prizewinning writer Rita Bullwinkel animates the competitors’ pasts and futures as they summon the emotion, imagination, and force of will required to win.
Frenetic, surprising, and strikingly original, Headshot is a portrait of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness, and sheer physical pleasure that motivates young women to fight—even, and perhaps especially, when no one else is watching.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner comes a harrowing new installment in the Frankie Elkin series. Frankie Elkin is an expert at finding the missing persons that the rest of the world has forgotten. However, she couldn't have anticipated the latest request—to locate the long-lost sister of a female serial killer facing execution in three weeks' time.
No man truly fears a woman. Not even one who is her father's daughter.
The case was sensational. Kaylee Pierson had confessed from the beginning, waived all appeals. She had called herself 'death,' but people called her the devil. Despite the media's chronicling of her tragic circumstances—the childhood spent with a violent father—no one could find sympathy for 'the Beautiful Butcher' who had led eighteen men home from bars before viciously slitting their throats.
Now, with only twenty-one days left to live, Pierson has received a lead on the whereabouts of the sister who was kidnapped over a decade ago. She needs Frankie's help to find her. The Beautiful Butcher's offer: When was the last time your search ended with finding the living?
Unable to resist the chance for a rescue, Frankie takes on Pierson's request. Twelve years ago, five-year-old Leilani went missing in Hawaii. The main suspect? Pierson's tech mogul ex-boyfriend, Sanders MacManus. Now, on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific—the site of MacManus's latest vanity project—fresh evidence has appeared. To learn the truth and possibly save a young woman's life, Frankie must go undercover at the isolated base camp. A dozen strangers. Countless dangerous secrets. Zero means of calling for help. And then the storm rolls in…
The Werewolf At Dusk: Stories confronts the primal theme of "the beast within" us all. This collection celebrates the singular genius of David Small, known for the #1 New York Times bestseller Stitches. Through a series of captivating tales, Small explores the darker corners of the human psyche with a blend of horror and psychological nuance. Each story is a testament to the transformative power of narrative and the shadowy line between reality and imagination.
Through The Night Like A Snake: Latin American Horror Stories is a collection that slithers into the heart of fear, showcasing the rich tapestry of terror woven by various Latin American authors. Each story offers a glimpse into the eerie and often unspoken corners of the human psyche, as influenced by the cultural and social nuances of Latin America.
From the haunting prose of Mónica Ojeda to the chilling narratives of Tomás Downey, Camila Sosa Villada, Julián Isaza, and Maximiliano Barrientos, this anthology promises to keep readers gripping their seats. It's an exploration of horror that transcends language and borders, providing a unique lens through which to experience the genre.
Until August, the extraordinary rediscovered novel from the Nobel Prize-winning author of Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude, invites readers into the contemplative world of Ana Magdalena Bach. Sitting alone by the lagoon's blue waters, Ana reflects on the men at the hotel bar. Despite twenty-seven years of a happy marriage and a life filled with love for her husband and children, she is drawn to the island where her mother is buried every August, where she indulges in a night with a new lover.
Through the sultry Caribbean evenings, brimming with salsa and boleros, Ana delves deeper into her desires and the fears nestled in her heart. Until August is a constantly surprising and joyously sensual exploration of freedom, regret, self-transformation, and the enigmatic nature of love. It is a profound meditation and an unexpected gift from one of the world's most revered writers.
Victim is a fearless satire about Javier Perez, a hustler from the Bronx who manipulates his life story for gain. With the bite of Paul Beatty and the subversive wit of Danzy Senna, this debut novel explores the lengths to which one man will go to make his story resonate.
Javier, from a family of hustlers, learns early how to turn his background—murdered drug dealer dad, single cash-strapped mom, best friend in prison for gang activity—into opportunities. His tailored story secures a full scholarship to a prestigious university, bringing him closer to his dream of becoming a famous writer.
As a college student, Javier embellishes his life story beyond recognition. The only real tie to his past is his correspondence with his childhood best friend, Gio, who's unconcerned with Javier's newfound insights into white privilege and the school-to-prison pipeline. After graduation, a viral essay catapults Javier to journalist status at a legendary magazine, where his "unique perspective" is celebrated.
But Gio knows the truth behind Javier's facade. Once out of prison, will Gio join in on Javier's ruse, or will the deceit unravel? Victim humorously critiques virtue signaling and trauma narratives, questioning the authenticity of diversity and the extremes one might pursue for a compelling story.
American Spirits, penned by one of America's most celebrated storytellers, Russell Banks, weaves together three dark, interlocking tales set against the backdrop of a rural New York town. These stories become the shocking headlines and local mythologies that resonate within the community.
A husband's decision to sell property to a mysterious and temperamental stranger leads to an onslaught of hounding on social media when he publicly questions the man's character. Nearby, a couple's sense of security is shaken when an enigmatic family moves in next door, prompting their children to start sneaking over to beg for help. In a more dire turn of events, two dangerous criminals kidnap an elderly couple and resort to blackmailing their grandson, insisting he settle his debts with them.
Each narrative thread in American Spirits is suspenseful and thrilling, showcasing Banks' expertise in crafting stories that explore the hostile undercurrents of our communities and the expansive landscape of American politics. At the same time, the novel delves into the concept of how local tragedies can be both overwhelmingly devastating and yet, somehow, a part of everyday life. Banks guides readers through the town of Sam Dent, solidifying his reputation as a masterful contributor to the bedrock of American fiction.
New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a mesmerizing novel about a first-generation Ivy League student who uncovers the genius work of a female artist decades after her suspicious death.
Who gets to leave a legacy? 1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn't. By 1998 Anita's name has been all but forgotten—certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student, is preparing her final thesis.
On College Hill, surrounded by progeny of film producers, C-Suite executives, and international art-dealers, most of whom float through life knowing that their futures are secured, Raquel feels herself an outsider. Students of color, like Raquel, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret.
But when Raquel becomes romantically involved with a well-connected older art student, she finds herself unexpectedly rising up the social ranks. As she attempts to straddle both worlds, she stumbles upon Anita's story, raising questions about the dynamics of her own relationship, which eerily mirrors that of the forgotten artist.
Moving back and forth through time and told from the perspectives of both women, Anita de Monte Laughs Last is a propulsive, witty examination of power, love, and art, daring to ask who gets to be remembered and who is left behind in the rarefied world of the elite.
Change is an autobiographical novel from Édouard Louis, hailed as one of the most important voices of his generation—about social class, transformation, and the perils of leaving the past behind.
One question took center stage in my life, it focused all of my thoughts and occupied every moment when I was alone with myself: how could I get this revenge, by what means? I tried everything. Édouard Louis longs for a life beyond the poverty, discrimination, and violence in his working-class hometown—so he sets out for school in Amiens, and, later, university in Paris.
He sheds the provincial “Eddy” for an elegant new name, determined to eradicate every aspect of his past. He reads incessantly; he dines with aristocrats; he spends nights with millionaires and drug-dealers alike. Everything he does is motivated by a single obsession: to become someone else.
At once harrowing and profound, Change is not just a personal odyssey, a story of dreams and of “the beautiful violence of being torn away,” but a profound portrait of a society divided by class, power, and inequality.
Expiration Dates is a captivating journey through the highs and lows of romantic love, as envisioned by Rebecca Serle, the New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years and One Italian Summer.
Daphne Bell holds a firm belief that the universe has a destined plan for her. Her romantic encounters come with a unique twist: each new man she meets comes with a slip of paper, revealing the precise duration of their relationship. Over the past two decades, Daphne has collected these slips, each with a countdown, yet she yearns for one that promises eternity.
On the evening of a blind date in her beloved Los Angeles eatery, she merely encounters a man named Jake—no expiration date in sight.
As their story unravels, Daphne grapples with the paper's ominous prediction, questioning the very essence of commitment and honesty. She harbors secrets that, if uncovered, could shatter Jake's heart.
With her characteristic blend of warmth and profound insight into the heart's mysteries, Serle has crafted a novel that delves into the nature of being single, finding love, and defining both on one's own terms. Expiration Dates is the poignant, emotional, and fervently passionate tale that fans have eagerly anticipated.
Fruit of the Dead is an electric contemporary reimagining of the myth of Persephone and Demeter set over the course of one summer on a lush private island. It delves into themes of addiction and sex, family and independence, and explores who holds the power in a modern underworld.
Camp counselor Cory Ansel, eighteen and aimless, is afraid to face her high-strung single mother in New York and uncertain about where home truly is. Her life takes an unexpected turn when the father of one of her campers, Rolo Picazo—the CEO of a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company—offers her an alternative. Middle-aged, divorced, and magnetic, Rolo intoxicates Cory and draws her into his world. Presented with a childcare job and a nondisclosure agreement, Cory is ferried to his private island, where she is plied with luxury and opiates.
Meanwhile, Cory's mother, Emer, who heads a precarious agricultural NGO, senses that something is amiss. With her daughter seemingly vanished, Emer embarks on a journey across land and sea, driven by a maternal instinct that she believes is a cry for help.
Alternating between Cory and Emer's perspectives, Rachel Lyon's Fruit of the Dead is a story that incorporates its mythic inspiration with a light touch and devastating precision. This haunting and ecstatic novel vibrates with lush abandon, offering a tale that explores love, control, and obliteration against the backdrop of America's own late capitalist mythos. A reinvention of the classic story of Persephone and Demeter, Fruit of the Dead promises to be a novel that readers will not soon forget.
Ghost Pains showcases Jessi Jezewska Stevens as a distinguished voice of comical, techno-millenarian unease. This collection, featuring her acclaimed short fiction originally published in prestigious outlets like The Paris Review, Harper's, and Tin House, brings together some of her finest narratives.
Stevens's characters are women who navigate the complexities of modern life, from throwing disastrous parties in an era where social gatherings have lost their luster, to engaging in flirtations amidst landscapes marred by conflict and upheaval. These women confront the bewildering experience of waking up alongside past lovers in unfamiliar cities, and traverse the intricate mazes of history, love, and morality in a splintered American reality.
Each story in Ghost Pains is a testament to Stevens's skill in probing life's grand questions through the lens of everyday human struggles, making this collection a resounding declaration of her literary prowess.
From the best-selling author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., Adelle Waldman brings us Help Wanted, a sharp and funny tale of work in our time.
Set in a superstore in a small town in upstate New York, the narrative follows the members of Team Movement who start their shifts at the ungodly hour of 3:55 am. Under the watchful eye of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they tackle the Herculean task of unloading delivery trucks filled with merchandise, stocking the shelves, and then head home—or to another job—before the flood of customers arrive.
An unexpected opportunity for a promotion arises, and the diverse collective of workers—including a comedy-obsessed individual who defies his age, a young woman trying to hold onto her high school 'cool kid' status, and a former college football player seeking a new direction—come together with a plan so outlandish it just might succeed.
In this darkly comic workplace drama, Help Wanted explores the pain and purpose of solidarity and offers a deeply humane portrait of individuals striving, against ever-increasing odds, to earn a living.
What if you thought you murdered your best friend? And if everyone else thought so too? And what if the truth doesn't matter?
After Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town: pretty, smart, and enviable. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all, and if you believe the rumors, especially popular with the men in town. It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA and started a new life.
But now the phenomenally huge hit true crime podcast "Listen for the Lie," and its too-good looking host Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy’s murder for the show’s second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one that did it.
A young couple find themselves haunted by a string of gruesome murders committed along an old deserted road in this terrifying new novel.
July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They're looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to be a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchhiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.
When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years, and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart but take April and Eddie down with it all.
My Heavenly Favorite is a harrowing, unforgettable masterpiece by the winner of the Booker International Prize. This work serves as a confession, a lament, and a mad gush of grief and obsession. It is the remarkable and chilling successor to Marieke Lucas Rijneveld's international sensation, The Discomfort of Evening.
The narrative tells the story of a veterinarian who visits a farm in the Dutch countryside where he becomes enraptured by his "Favorite"—the farmer's daughter. She is on the cusp of adolescence and longs to inhabit a boy's body. The veterinarian appears as a tantalizing possible escape from the constrictions of her conservative rural life.
Narrated after the veterinarian has faced punishment for his crimes, Rijneveld's audacious and profane novel captivates with paradoxical beauty in its prose, gripping the reader's attention. The novel refracts the contours of the Lolita story with perverse glee, leading the reader into otherwise unimaginable spaces—pop lyrics, horror novels, the Favorite's fantasized conversations with Freud and Hitler, and her dreams of flight, destruction, and transcendence.
An unflinching depiction of abjection and a pointed excavation of taboos and social norms, My Heavenly Favorite solidifies Rijneveld as one of the most daring and brilliant writers on the world stage.
Parasol Against the Axe, a novel by the prize-winning, bestselling author Helen Oyeyemi, takes readers on an adventurous and kaleidoscopic journey into the heart of Prague, a city portrayed as a living entity capable of welcoming or rejecting its visitors.
Hero Tojosoa, upon accepting an invitation to a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend Sofie, finds herself in the intriguing and often deceptive embrace of Prague. A mysterious book she carries distorts her perception, its content shifting with each reader and each reading, unveiling a tapestry of fictional tales from Prague's history. Throughout the weekend, unexpected figures join the festivities, imparting their wisdom, humor, and hints of betrayal.
The sudden arrival of a third woman from Hero and Sofie's shared past intensifies the tension and challenges their differing recollections. As the lines between illusion and delusion, fact and interpretation become blurred, Hero must navigate the treacherous waters of friendship and storytelling.
Parasol Against the Axe probes the influence of the reader on a narrative and the narrative on the reader, posing the ultimate question: in a clash between friends, is it wiser to be the shield or the weapon?
The Extinction of Irena Rey is an utterly beguiling novel about eight translators and their search for a world-renowned author who goes missing in a primeval Polish forest. These translators, coming from eight different countries, share a deep reverence for their beloved author, Irena Rey. They gather at her house on the border of Belarus, with an assignment to translate her magnum opus, Gray Eminence.
But the plot thickens when Irena disappears without a trace. The translators embark on an investigation into her whereabouts while continuing their work on her masterpiece. As they delve into the ancient woods filled with intoxicating slime molds, lichens, and her exotic belongings, they uncover shocking secrets and deceptions they never anticipated.
Amidst a fever dream of isolation and obsession, the translators' unity is tested as they are driven by rivalries and desire. The stakes are high as their actions threaten not only the translation project but also the fate of Irena Rey herself. Jennifer Croft's hilarious and thought-provoking debut novel examines themes of art, celebrity, the natural world, and the transformative power of language. It's an unforgettable journey set in one of Europe's last great wildernesses, where a small but global cast of characters grapple with the tumultuous forces of love, destruction, and creation.
An epic novel of the construction of the Panama Canal, casting light on the unsung people who lived, loved, and labored there, by Cristina Henrquez, acclaimed author of The Book of Unknown Americans
It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. But for Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection.
Ada Bunting is a bold sixteen-year-old from Barbados who arrives in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other West Indians seeking work. Alone and with no resources, she is determined to find a job that will earn enough money for her ailing sister's surgery. When she sees a young manOmarwho has collapsed after a grueling shift, she is the only one who rushes to his aid.
John Oswald has dedicated his life to scientific research and has journeyed to Panama in single-minded pursuit of one goal: eliminating malaria. But now, his wife, Marian, has fallen ill herself, and when he witnesses Ada's bravery and compassion, he hires her on the spot as a caregiver. This fateful decision sets in motion a sweeping tale of ambition, loyalty, and sacrifice.
Searing and empathetic, The Great Divide explores the intersecting lives of activists, fishmongers, laborers, journalists, neighbors, doctors, and soothsayers those rarely acknowledged by history even as they carved out its course.
It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die.
Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, or so he thought. He’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat.
Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge.
A nuanced, atmospheric tale that explores what we’ll do for our loved ones, what we’ll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide.
Rosie and Chad Lowan are barely making ends meet in New York City when they receive life-changing news: Chad's late uncle has left them his luxury apartment at the historic Windermere in glamorous Murray Hill. With its prewar elegance and impeccably uniformed doorman, the building is the epitome of old New York charm. One would almost never suspect the dark history lurking behind its perfectly maintained facade.
At first, the building and its eclectic tenants couldn't feel more welcoming. But as the Lowans settle into their new home, Rosie starts to suspect that there's more to the Windermere than meets the eye. Why is the doorman ever-present? Why are there cameras everywhere? And why have so many gruesome crimes occurred there throughout the years? When one of the neighbors turns up dead, Rosie must get to the truth about the Windermere before she, too, falls under its dangerous spell.
An imprisoned prince. A vengeful queen. And a battle that will determine the future of Elfhame.
Prince Oak is paying for his betrayal. Imprisoned in the icy north and bound to the will of a monstrous new queen, he must rely on charm and calculation to survive. With High King Cardan and High Queen Jude ready to use any means necessary to retrieve their stolen heir, should Oak attempt to regain the trust of the girl he's always loved, or remain loyal to Elfhame and hand over the means to end her reign—even if it means ending Wren, too...
With war looming and treachery lurking in every corner, neither Oak's guile nor his wit will be enough to keep everyone he loves alive. He will have some terrible choices to make.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black comes the stunning blood-soaked conclusion to the The Stolen Heir Duology.
Wandering Stars is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Pulitzer Prize-finalist Tommy Orange's breakout bestseller There There. This novel traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through to the shattering aftermath of Orvil Red Feather's shooting in There There.
Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion Prison Castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star's son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father's jailer. Under Pratt's harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.
Oakland, 2018. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield is barely holding her family together after the shooting that nearly took the life of her nephew Orvil. From the moment he awakens in his hospital bed, Orvil begins compulsively googling school shootings on YouTube. He also becomes emotionally reliant on the prescription medications meant to ease his physical trauma. His younger brother, Lony, suffering from PTSD, is struggling to make sense of the carnage he witnessed at the shooting by secretly cutting himself and enacting blood rituals that he hopes will connect him to his Cheyenne heritage. Opal is equally adrift, experimenting with Ceremony and peyote, searching for a way to heal her wounded family.
Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange once again delivers a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous, a book piercing in its poetry, sorrow, and rage—a masterful follow-up to his already-classic first novel, and a devastating indictment of America's war on its own people.
Tracy Brown crafts a tale about a master manipulator and serial survivor, who will scorch earth to get what she wants. The question isn't who murdered her; the question is who wouldn't?
Brooklyn Melody James has finally gotten the punishment she deserves after leaving a web of lies, heartache, and betrayal behind her. As her life slips away, Brooklyn remembers the events that shaped her into the cold, calculating creature she became.
Brooklyn learned the art of hustling from her parents who used the church to get money. Idolizing her father and despising her mother, Brooklyn's determined to be the type of woman who makes her own rules. When her back's up against the wall, she sacrifices her family, takes the burnt offering that remains, and runs away. In NYC, young Brooklyn charms her way into the inner circle of hustlers and stick-up kids, learning tricks along the way. She catches the eye of a major player in the drug game, Hassan, and they have a breathless love affair. Brooklyn becomes integrated into his operation, earning the trust of Hassan and his associates. But when she gets the keys to the kingdom, driven by unfettered ambition and a ruthless desire to survive, Brooklyn snatches the pot of gold, leaving bitter retribution promises behind her.
From DC to Maryland, Brooklyn burns bridges and breaks hearts. What she doesn't realize is that someone is prepared to end her reign of terror. As she faces her killer and her fate, Brooklyn's stunned that justice comes from the least likely place.
In Ascension is an astonishing novel about a young microbiologist, Leigh, who embarks on an investigation of an unfathomable deep vent in the ocean floor. This journey leads her to encompass the full trajectory of the cosmos and the passage of a single human life.
Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, where she was drawn to the waterfront as an escape from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by the undersea world of her childhood, she excels in marine biology and travels the globe to study ancient organisms. Upon the discovery of a trench in the Atlantic Ocean, she joins the exploration team, hoping to find evidence of the Earth's first life forms. However, what she finds instead calls into question everything we know about our own beginnings.
Her discovery takes her to the Mojave desert and an ambitious new space agency. As she is drawn deeper into the agency's work, Leigh learns that the Atlantic trench is only one of several related phenomena from across the world, each piece linking up to suggest a pattern beyond human understanding. Faced with the dilemma of leaving behind her declining mother and younger sister, Leigh must make an impossible choice: to remain with her family or to embark on a journey across the breadth of the cosmos.
In Ascension explores the natural world with the wonder and reverence we usually reserve for the stars. It is a compassionate, deeply inquisitive epic that reaches outward to confront the greatest questions of existence and looks inward to illuminate the smallest details of the human heart. It shows how, no matter how far away we might be and how much we have lost hope, we will always attempt to return to the people and places we call home.
In this gripping sequel to the award-winning post-apocalyptic novel Moon of the Crusted Snow, a brave scouting party of hunters and harvesters led by Evan Whitesky must venture into unknown and dangerous territory to find a new home for their close-knit but slowly starving Northern Ontario Indigenous community more than a decade after a world-ending blackout.
For the past twelve years, a community of Anishinaabe people have made the Northern Ontario bush their home in the wake of the infrastructural power failure that brought about governmental and societal collapse. Hunters and harvesters, they have survived and thrived the way their ancestors once did, but their natural food resources are dwindling, and the time has come to find a new home.
Evan Whitesky volunteers to lead a dangerous mission south to explore the possibility of moving back to their ancestral home, the "land where the birch trees grow by the big water" in the Great Lakes region. Accompanied by five others, including his daughter Nangohns, a great archer and hunter, Evan begins a journey that will take him through the reserve where the Anishinaabe were once settled, the devastated city of Gibson, and a land now being reclaimed by nature.
But it isn't just the wilderness that poses a threat as they encounter other survivors. Those who, like the Anishinaabe, live in harmony with the land. And those who use violence to fulfill their needs.
The American Daughters is a gripping historical novel about Ady, a spirited girl who, alongside her fierce mother Sanite, dreams of a loving future while enslaved in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Their days are filled with memories of their family's rebellious past. When separated from her mother, Ady finds herself hopeless until an encounter at the Mockingbird Inn introduces her to Lenore, a free Black woman.
Lenore, recognizing Ady's potential, invites her to join the Daughters, a secret society of spies. The courage passed down by Sanite, combined with the strength of these women, empowers Ady to prioritize her own well-being. This marks the start of her quest for liberation and the ability to envision a new future.
The American Daughters is a novel of hope and triumph, celebrating the power of community solidarity in the fight for freedom.
“I’ll be dead in three months. Come tell my story.”
So writes Sebastian Trapp, reclusive mystery novelist, to his longtime correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. With mere months to live, Trapp invites Nicky to his spectacular San Francisco mansion to help draft his life story . . . living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his wayward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible case of real-life “detective fever.”
“You and I might even solve an old mystery or two.”
Twenty years earlier—on New Year’s Eve 1999—Sebastian’s first wife and teenaged son vanished from different locations, never to be seen again. Did the perfect crime writer commit the perfect crime? And why has he emerged from seclusion, two decades later, to allow a stranger to dig into his past?
“Life is hard. After all, it kills you.”
As Nicky attempts to weave together the strands of Sebastian’s life, she becomes obsessed with discovering the truth . . . while Madeleine begins to question what her beloved father might actually know about that long-ago night. And when a corpse appears in the family’s koi pond, both women are shocked to find that the past isn’t gone—it’s just waiting.
Hard Girls is a razor-sharp crime novel that delves into the complexities of family and the depths of darkness that can haunt a seemingly normal life. Jane Pool is content with her safe, suburban existence, complete with a house, a family, and a mundane job at a local college. However, Jane's past—marked by an enigmatic mother, family secrets, and a life-changing act of violence—continues to haunt her.
When Jane's estranged twin sister, Lila, reaches out with claims of knowing their mother's whereabouts and the reasons behind her long-ago departure, Jane is drawn into a quest for the truth. Together, the sisters embark on a perilous journey that takes them to far-flung corners of the world, challenging their mother's deceptions and confronting the pervasive darkness that has always loomed over their family.
As the stakes rise, Jane risks the life she has carefully built for a past that she has never been able to fully escape. Hard Girls combines elements of a chase novel, an espionage thriller, and domestic suspense to create a compelling and unique narrative experience that is at once propulsive, mysterious, intelligent, and filled with unexpected twists.
Ours: A Novel by Phillip B. Williams is a beautifully-written and ambitious epic about the complexity of freedom, set in mid-nineteenth-century America. This ingenious, sweeping novel introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there.
She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours. It is in this miraculous place that Saint’s grand experiment—a truly secluded community where her people may flourish—takes root. But although Saint does her best to protect the inhabitants of Ours, over time, her conjuring and memories begin to betray her, leaving the town vulnerable to intrusions by newcomers with powers of their own.
As the cracks in Saint’s creation are exposed, some begin to wonder whether the community’s safety might be yet another form of bondage. Set over the course of four decades and steeped in a rich tradition of American literature informed by Black surrealism, mythology, and spirituality, Ours is a stunning exploration of the possibilities and limitations of love and freedom by a writer of capacious vision and talent.
The Book of Love showcases Kelly Link at the height of her powers, channeling potent magic and attuned to all varieties of love—from friendship to romance to abiding family ties—with her trademark compassion, wit, and literary derring-do. Readers will find joy (and a little terror) and an affirmation that love goes on, even when we cannot.
Late one night, Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves beneath the fluorescent lights of a high school classroom, almost a year after disappearing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, having long been presumed dead. Which, in fact, they are.
With them in the room is their previously unremarkable high school music teacher, who seems to know something about their disappearance—and what has brought them back again. Desperate to reclaim their lives, the three agree to the terms of the bargain their music teacher proposes. They will be given a series of magical tasks; while they undertake them, they may return to their families and friends, but they can tell no one where they've been. In the end, there will be winners and there will be losers.
But their resurrection has attracted the notice of other supernatural figures, all with their own agendas. As Laura, Daniel, and Mo grapple with the pieces of the lives they left behind, and Laura's sister, Susannah, attempts to reconcile what she remembers with what she fears, these mysterious others begin to arrive, engulfing their community in danger and chaos, and it becomes imperative that the teens solve the mystery of their deaths to avert a looming disaster.
Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, or life force, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking...
Manchuria, 1908. A young woman is found frozen in the snow. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes involved, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and men. Bao, a detective with a reputation for sniffing out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman's identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they've remained tantalizingly out of reach. Until, perhaps, now.
Meanwhile, a family that owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments, but not the curse that afflicts them—their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. Now the only grandson of the family is twenty-three. When a mysterious woman enters their household, their luck seems to change. Or does it? Is their new servant a simple young woman from the north or a fox spirit bent on her own revenge?
Bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection. The Fox Wife is a stunning novel about a winter full of mysterious deaths, a mother seeking revenge, and old folktales that may very well be true.
Alex Easton, retired soldier, returns in this novella-length sequel to the bestselling What Moves The Dead. When Easton travels to Gallacia as a favor to Miss Potter, they find their home empty, the caretaker dead, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence.
The locals whisper of a strange breath-stealing being from Gallacian folklore that has taken up residence in Easton's home... and in their dreams.
Your Utopia: Stories, by internationally acclaimed author Bora Chung, and brilliantly translated from Korean by Anton Hur, is a collection that explores themes of loss and discovery, idealism and dystopia, death and immortality. Chung's unique blend of terrors and wry humor creates a compelling tapestry of narratives that challenge the reader's perspective on the future and the human condition.
In "The Center for Immortality Research," a low-level employee is caught in the crossfire of a gala event gone awry, under the watchful eyes of celebrity benefactors obsessed with eternal life. Meanwhile, "One More Kiss, Dear" reveals a heartwarming yet unconventional bond between an AI-elevator and a resident of the apartment complex. Lastly, "Seeds" offers a glimpse into a world ravaged by capitalism and the resiliency of nature against the backdrop of genetic modification and corporate dominance.
Chung's writing is multifaceted—haunting, humorous, and at times, gross and terrifying. Yet, it leaves readers yearning for more of her unique voice that captures the essence of our deepest fears and desires.
If you're searching for a literary experience that transcends boundaries and offers a window into a world both strange and familiar, Your Utopia: Stories is an essential read.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Days in June, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is an epic love story one hundred years in the making...
Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing.
Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn't one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she's the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they're long-stemmed roses, she's a dandelion: an adorable bloom that's actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her.
When regal nonagenarian Ms. Della invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories, and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers.
One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way.
Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked.