Never Met a Duke Like You is a tale of opposites attracting in a dazzling Regency romance that's been compared to Clueless meeting Bridgerton. We meet Lady Vesper Lyndhurst, a beautiful and clever duke's daughter who revels in luxury and has a special talent for matchmaking. Although she's taken a vow against love for herself, she excels at arranging it for others.
Enter the Duke of Greydon, who, burdened by an insolvent estate, reluctantly returns to England to save his family's dwindling fortunes. He's been away for years, content to be free from his mother's grasp and the trivialities of high society. But upon his return, he finds that little has changed, including his feelings for the infuriatingly attractive heiress who lives next door.
An unforeseen incident lands the pair, who have evolved from friends to adversaries, trapped in an attic. In the close quarters, their undeniable chemistry sparks into a fiery connection that they find increasingly difficult to deny. Despite being complete opposites with seemingly incompatible lives, destiny, the ever-persistent matchmaker, seems to have a different plan in store for them.
So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men is a triptych of stories delving into the complexities of love, lust, betrayal, misogyny, and the fascinating interactions between women and men. Claire Keegan, celebrated for her powerful short fiction, offers three exquisite stories, newly revised and expanded, forming a brilliant examination of gender dynamics from her earliest to her most recent work.
In “So Late in the Day”, Cathal faces a long weekend, reflecting on a woman with whom he could have spent his life, had he behaved differently.
In “The Long and Painful Death”, a writer’s residency at the seaside home of Heinrich Böll is disrupted by an academic who imposes his presence and opinions.
And in “Antarctica”, a married woman travels out of town to explore infidelity and finds herself in the grip of a possessive stranger.
Each story probes the dynamics that corrupt potential connections between women and men, highlighting a lack of generosity, the weight of expectation, and the looming threat of violence. Potent, charged, and breathtakingly insightful, these three essential tales will linger with readers long after the book is closed.
So many ways to torpedo your career and your love life…So little time. A woman accidentally reveals all her secrets in this witty and charming novel from the author of Eight Perfect Hours.
Two years ago, thirty-year-old receptionist Millie Chandler had her heart spectacularly broken in public. Ever since, she has been a closed book, vowing to keep everything to herself—her feelings, her truths, even her dreams—in an effort to protect herself from getting hurt again.
But Millie does write emails—sarcastic replies to her rude boss, hard truths to her friends, and of course, that one-thousand-word love declaration to her ex who is now engaged to someone else. The emails live safely in her drafts, but after a server outage at work, Millie wakes up to discover that all her emails have been sent. Every. Single. One. As every truth, lie, and secret she’s worked so hard to keep only to herself are catapulted out into the open, Millie must fix the chaos her words have caused, and face everything she’s ever swept under the carpet.
How to Build a Boat is the story of a remarkable boy and his search for his mother. This tale is told with warmth, tenderness, and flair, capturing the essence of human connection and the quest for belonging.
Join this heartwarming adventure that explores the depths of family bonds and the courage it takes to navigate life's challenges. With every turn of the page, you'll be drawn into a world where hope sails high and dreams are crafted with care.
Hunt on Dark Waters is the first fantasy romance novel in the Crimson Sails series from Katee Robert, the New York Times bestselling author of the TikTok smash-hit Neon Gods.
Evelyn is a witch with a perfect storm of impulses: terrible taste in bed partners, sticky fingers, and a lust for danger. After she steals from her vampire ex and falls through a portal to another realm, she's fished out of the waters by a band of seafarers and their telekinetic captain.
She's immediately given a choice—join their ship's crew or die. Bowen, the captain, has no memory of his life before he became one of the Cŵn Annwn. He and his band of pirates patrol the magical sea in between realms, ensuring the safety of the portals to other worlds. Despite his guarded nature, he can't help but be attracted to the brassy pickpocket.
As the tension between Bowen and Evelyn heats up, so does the danger on the high seas. Evelyn, who has no intention of keeping her vows to the Cŵn Annwn, may force both herself and Bowen to pay the ultimate price if she betrays the crew.
Same Bed Different Dreams is a wild, sweeping novel that imagines an alternate secret history of Korea and the traces it leaves on the present. Loaded with assassins, mad poets, RPGs, slasher films, pop bands, and the perils of social media, this book challenges your view of twentieth-century history and offers a vision akin to A Gravity's Rainbow for another war, an unfinished war.
In 1919, Korean patriots establish the Korean Provisional Government (KPG) to protest the Japanese occupation. This government-in-exile proves mostly symbolic, but what if the KPG still existed today, clandestinely working toward a unified Korea? The novel weaves together three distinct narrative voices with an archive of mysterious images, twisting reality and blending Korean history with American pop culture.
The protagonist, Soon Sheen, a former writer now working for the tech giant GLOAT, stumbles upon an unfinished manuscript seemingly penned by the KPG. This revisionist history connects both well-known figures and lesser-known individuals to the KPG's grand project, from Syngman Rhee and architect-poet Yi Sang to Jack London and Marilyn Monroe. Even the television series M*A*S*H, the Moonies, and a history of violence from the assassination of President McKinley to the downing of a passenger plane that almost sparked a war are woven into the narrative.
Authored by Ed Park, acclaimed for Personal Days, Same Bed Different Dreams is a raucously funny achievement of imagination. A thrilling blend of history and fiction, it pulls readers into another dimension—one in which utopia is not just a dream, but a possibility.
Naomi Alderman, the bestselling, award-winning author of The Power, delivers a dazzling tour de force with The Future. This novel is a thrilling tale where a handful of friends plot a daring heist to save the world from the tech giants whose greed threatens life as we know it.
When Martha Einkorn fled her father's isolated compound in Oregon, she never expected to find herself working for a powerful social media mogul hell-bent on controlling everything. Surrounded by mega-rich companies designing private weather, predictive analytics, and covert weaponry, Martha must confront technological prophecies and apocalyptic warnings that once seemed like mere parables.
Meanwhile, across the world, Lai Zhen, an internet-famous survivalist, finds herself fleeing from an assassin in a mall in Singapore. As she's cornered and desperate, a remarkable piece of software appears on her phone, guiding her escape. The origins of this software and its ultimate purpose become the burning questions that could define their very survival.
Martha and Zhen's worlds are on a collision course, setting off an explosive chain of events. While a few billionaires assure their own safety, leading the world to destruction, Martha's relentless drive and Zhen's insatiable curiosity might just lead to something beautiful or the cataclysmic end of civilization.
By turns thrilling, hilarious, tender, and always piercingly brilliant, The Future unfolds at breakneck speed, highlighting the corrupting power of the few and the courage required to stand up to them. The future is coming. The Future is here.
An intimate, sharply funny novel about a couple heading toward their wedding, and the three friends who may draw them apart.
Meet Celine and Luke—for all intents and purposes the happy couple. Luke (a serial cheater) and Celine (more interested in piano than in domestic life) plan to marry in a year. Archie (the best man) should be moving on from his love for Luke and up the corporate ladder, but he finds himself utterly stuck. Phoebe (the bridesmaid and Celine’s sister) just wants to get to the bottom of Luke’s frequent unexplained disappearances. And Vivian (a wedding guest), as the only one with any emotional distance, observes her friends like ants in a colony.
As the wedding approaches and these five lives intersect, each will find themselves looking for a path to their happily ever after—but does it lie at the end of an aisle?
Elegy plus comedy is the only way to express how we live in the world today, says a character in Sigrid Nunez’s ninth novel. The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past.
Humor, to be sure, is a priceless refuge. Equally vital is connection with others, who here include an adrift member of Gen Z and a spirited parrot named Eureka. The Vulnerables reveals what happens when strangers are willing to open their hearts to each other and how far even small acts of caring can go to ease another’s distress.
A search for understanding about some of the most critical matters of our time, Nunez’s new novel is also an inquiry into the nature and purpose of writing itself.
Absolution is a captivating tale that delves deep into the complexities of forgiveness, redemption, and the human condition. Crafted with Alice Mc Dermott's signature eloquence and insight, the novel takes readers on a profound journey through the lives of its characters as they seek solace and understanding in a world that often seems unforgiving.
In a narrative that weaves past and present, Absolution challenges the reader to confront their own notions of guilt and absolution, while offering a powerful exploration of love, loss, and the possibility of healing. Mc Dermott masterfully creates a poignant story that resonates with the heart and mind, making it an unforgettable reading experience.
A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion narrates this fever dream of a novel, carrying us on a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing modern day L.A.
A lonely, lovable, queer mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Fascinated by the voices around them, the lion spends their days protecting a nearby homeless encampment, observing hikers complain about their trauma and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their own identity.
When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call 'ellay'. As they confront a carousel of temptations and threats, the lion takes us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate choice: do they want to eat a person, or become one?
Feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Henry Hoke's debut novel Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling that brings the mythic to life.
Iris Kelly Doesn't Date is a witty and heartfelt new romantic comedy by Ashley Herring Blake. Iris Kelly, a romance author, is surrounded by love in every corner of her life, yet she prefers to stick to her commitment-free lifestyle, despite the pressure to settle down. But as she faces a looming deadline for her second book, Iris finds herself completely out of inspiration.
One night, Iris's visit to a Portland bar leads her to Stefania, a sexy stranger with whom she shares a night of passion, only for it to turn into a disaster. The plot thickens when Iris auditions for a local play and encounters Stefania again, who is actually named Stevie. In a twist of fate, Stevie convinces Iris to pose as her girlfriend, sparking an arrangement that could provide the perfect fodder for Iris's book.
As they act out their fake relationship, Iris and Stevie find themselves in a blur of emotions, questioning the authenticity of their connection and who will dare to make the first real move.
From Jesmyn Ward—the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow—comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.
“‘Let us descend,’ the poet now began, ‘and enter this blind world.’” — Inferno, Dante Alighieri
Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.
Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.
From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this miracle of a novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land—the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward’s most magnificent novel yet, a masterwork for the ages.
Julia: A Novel is an imaginative, feminist, and brilliantly relevant-to-today retelling of Orwell's 1984, from the point of view of Winston Smith's lover, Julia, by critically acclaimed novelist Sandra Newman. Julia Worthing is a mechanic, working in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. It's 1984, and Britain (now called Airstrip One) has long been absorbed into the larger trans-Atlantic nation of Oceania.
Oceania has been at war for as long as anyone can remember, and is ruled by an ultra-totalitarian Party, whose leader is a quasi-mythical figure called Big Brother. In short, everything about this world is as it is in Orwell's 1984. All her life, Julia has known only Oceania, and, until she meets Winston Smith, she has never imagined anything else.
She is an ideal citizen: cheerfully cynical, always ready with a bribe, piously repeating every political slogan while believing in nothing. She routinely breaks the rules, but also collaborates with the regime when necessary. Everyone likes Julia. Then one day she finds herself walking toward Winston Smith in a corridor and impulsively slips him a note, setting in motion the devastating, unforgettable events of the classic story.
Julia takes us on a surprising journey through Orwell's now-iconic dystopia, with twists that reveal unexpected sides not only to Julia, but to other familiar figures in the 1984 universe. This unique perspective lays bare our own world in haunting and provocative ways, just as the original did almost seventy-five years ago.
From "a master of verbal burlesque [and] a connoisseur of psychological blackmail" (John Updike), Witold Gombrowicz's harrowing and hilarious pastiche of the Gothic novel, now in a new, authoritative English translation.
Witold Gombrowicz is considered by many to be Poland's greatest modernist, and in The Possessed, he demonstrates his playful brilliance and astonishing range by using the familiar tropes of the Gothic novel to produce a darkly funny and lively subversion of the form.
With dreams of escaping his small-town existence and the limitations of his class, a young tennis coach travels to the heart of the Polish countryside to train Maja Ocholowska, a beautiful and promising player whose bourgeois family has fallen upon difficult circumstances. Yet as Maja and the young man are alternately drawn to and repulsed by the other, they find themselves embroiled in the fantastic happenings taking place at the dilapidated castle nearby, where a mad prince haunts the halls, and bewitched towels, conniving secretaries, famous clairvoyants, and uncanny doubles conspire to determine the fate of the lovers.
Serialized first in Poland in the days preceding the Nazi invasion, and now translated directly into English for the first time by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, The Possessed is a comic jewel, a hair-raising thriller, and a provocative early masterpiece from the acclaimed author of classics like Pornografia and Cosmos.
Tremor, a novel by award-winning author Teju Cole, is a profound exploration of the essence of a meaningful existence within the context of a world marred by violence. The story invites readers to delve into the life of Tunde, a West African man who teaches photography at a prestigious New England campus. Tunde, an avid reader, listener, and traveler, navigates through a tapestry of narratives—ranging from historical epics, personal anecdotes, to tales he encounters in literature and cinema.
Through Tunde's perspective, we experience a series of events that shape his daily life. From a weekend marred by the shadows of colonial atrocities to an evening walk disrupted by casual racism, and the intricate dynamics of a loving marriage, the novel presents a diverse spectrum of experiences. These stories, collectively, form the days that constitute Tunde's life and, in turn, create a composite of what it means to live.
Tremor is an arresting fusion of realism and creativity, engaging with themes of literature, music, race, and history. It scrutinizes the passage of time and the various ways we commemorate it. The novel confronts the harshness of history, which often lacks symmetry and comfort, yet it also stands as a testament to the enduring potential of happiness. Echoing the narrative prowess showcased in his debut, Open City, Teju Cole presents a narration that is fully aware, striking, and crucial to the contemporary literary scene.
From the best-selling author of Three Strong Women comes a thrilling novel about a triple homicide that dredges up unsettling memories from a lawyer's childhood.
The heroine of Marie NDiaye's new novel is a quiet middle-aged lawyer, living a modest existence in Bordeaux. She has been so effectively consumed by her job she is known to all simply as Maître Susane. But when Gilles Principaux shows up at her office asking her to defend his wife, who is accused of a horrific crime, Maître Susane begins to crack.
She seems to remember having been alone with him in her youth for a significant event, one her mind obsesses over but can't quite reconstruct. Who is this Gilles Principaux? And why would he come to her, a run-of-the-mill lawyer, for the most important trial of his life?
While this mystery preoccupies Maître Susane, at home she is greeted by Sharon, her faithful but peculiar housekeeper. Sharon arrived from Mauritius with her husband and children, and she lacks legal residency in France. And while Maître Susane has generously offered Sharon her professional services, the young maid always finds ways to evade her, claiming the marriage certificate Maître Susane requires is being held hostage. Is Sharon being honest with Maître Susane, or is something more sinister going on?
Told in a slow seethe recalling the short novels of Elena Ferrante and the psychological richness of Patricia Highsmith's work, Vengeance Is Mine is a dreamlike portrait of a woman afflicted by failing memories, tortured uncertainty, and an unreliability that frightens her.
From the bestselling author of We the Animals, Blackouts mines lost histories—personal and collective.
Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly but who has haunted the edges of his life: Juan Gay. Playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized, Juan has a project to pass along, one built around a true artifact of a book—Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns—and its devastating history. This book contains accounts collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried.
The voices of these subjects have been filtered, muted, but it is possible to hear them from within and beyond the text, which, in Juan’s tattered volumes, has been redacted with black marker on nearly every page. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator recount for each other moments of joy and oblivion; they resurrect loves, lives, mothers, fathers, minor heroes. In telling their own stories and the story of the book, they resist the ravages of memory and time.
The past is with us, beside us, ahead of us; what are we to create from its gaps and erasures? A book about storytelling—its legacies, dangers, delights, and potential for change—and a bold exploration of form, art, and love, Justin Torres’s Blackouts uses fiction to see through the inventions of history and narrative. A marvel of creative imagination, it draws on testimony, photographs, illustrations, and a range of influences as it insists that we look long and steadily at what we have inherited and what we have made—a world full of ghostly shadows and flashing moments of truth.
A reclamation of ransacked history, a celebration of defiance, and a transformative encounter, Blackouts mines the stories that have been kept from us and brings them into the light.
Rome—metropolis and monument, suspended between past and future, multi-faceted and metaphysical—is the protagonist, not the setting, of these nine stories. This collection marks the first short story compilation by the Pulitzer Prize–winning master since the number one New York Times bestseller Unaccustomed Earth, and is heralded as a major literary event.
In “The Boundary,” a family vacations in the Roman countryside, yet we glimpse their lives through the perspective of the caretaker’s daughter, who harbors a scar from her family’s immigrant history. “P’s Parties” recounts how a Roman couple, now without children at home, discover solace and fellowship with internationals at their friend’s annual birthday celebration—until the husband oversteps a boundary. “The Steps” introduces us to a public staircase bridging two communities and the individuals traversing it, showcasing Italy’s capital in its full social and cultural spectrum, brimming with the dynamics of an evolving city: visibility and invisibility, spontaneous acts of aggression, the dilemma of navigating different worlds and cultures, and the essence of home.
These are magnificent, inquisitive tales, penned in Jhumpa Lahiri’s chosen language of Italian and impeccably translated by the author alongside Knopf editor Todd Portnowitz. The stories are imbued with the atmospheres of Italian virtuoso Alberto Moravia and in the final narrative, are led by the unavoidable spirit of Dante Alighieri, whose verses steer the protagonist towards an altered path of life.
The Hive and the Honey is a spectacular collection of unique stories from the beloved author Paul Yoon. Each story in this collection confronts themes of identity, belonging, and the collision of cultures across countries and centuries.
A boy searches for his father, a prison guard on Sakhalin Island. In Barcelona, a woman is tasked with spying on a prizefighter who may or may not be her estranged son. A samurai escorts an orphan to his countrymen in the Edo Period. A formerly incarcerated man starts a new life in a small town in upstate New York and attempts to build a family.
The Hive and the Honey portrays the vastness and complexity of diasporic communities, with each story bringing to light the knotty inheritances of their characters. From a North Korean defector connecting with the child she once left behind to the traumas that haunt a Korean settlement in Far East Russia, Paul Yoon's stories are laced with beauty and cruelty, marking the work of an author writing at the very height of his powers.
The Postcard is a moving novel from the bestselling author Anne Berest. In January 2003, the Berest family receive a mysterious, unsigned postcard. On one side was an image of the Opéra Garnier; on the other, the names of their relatives who were killed in Auschwitz: Ephraïm, Emma, Noémie, and Jacques.
Years later, Anne sought to find the truth behind this postcard. She journeys 100 years into the past, tracing the lives of her ancestors from their flight from Russia following the revolution, their journey to Latvia, Palestine, and Paris, the war and its aftermath. What emerges is a thrilling and sweeping tale based on true events that shatters her certainties about her family, her country, and herself.
At once a gripping investigation into family secrets, a poignant tale of mothers and daughters, and an enthralling portrait of 20th-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life, The Postcard tells the story of a family devastated by the Holocaust and yet somehow restored by love and the power of storytelling.
In Melissa Broder’s astonishingly profound new novel, a woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has fled to the California high desert to escape a cloud of sorrow—for both her father in the ICU and a husband whose illness is worsening.
What the motel provides, however, is not peace but a path discovered on a nearby hike. Out along the sun-scorched trail, the narrator encounters a towering cactus whose size and shape mean it should not exist in California. Yet the cactus is there, with a gash through its side that beckons like a familiar door. So she enters it.
What awaits her inside this mystical succulent sets her on a journey at once desolate and rich, hilarious, and poignant. Death Valley is Melissa Broder at her most imaginative and universal.
Heartbreaking and redeeming, Pearl is the story of a young woman in a small English village who is struggling with the disappearance of her mother, what feels like a lifetime ago. Marianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a small village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother’s love; the smell of fresh herbs, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood.
As time passes, Marianne finds it difficult to adjust, fixated on her mother’s disappearance and the secrets she’s sure her father is keeping from her. Yet, in one of her mother’s dusty old books, she discovers a medieval poem called Pearl, and, trusting in the promise of its consolation, it seems as if her life begins to parallel the poem's course. But questions remain. Marianne is ever more tormented by the unmarked gravestone in the abandoned chapel and the tidal pull of the river, and as her childhood home begins to crumble, the past leads her down a path of self-destruction.
Can Marianne ever come to understand her mother’s choices? And will her own future as a mother help her find her peace?
From one of contemporary literature’s most exciting new voices, a haunting story centered on the Hungarian polymath John von Neumann, tracing the impact of his singular legacy on the dreams and nightmares of the twentieth century and the nascent age of AI.
Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World electrified a global readership. In The Maniac, Labatut has created a tour de force on an even grander scale. A prodigy whose gifts terrified the people around him, John von Neumann transformed every field he touched, inventing game theory and the first programmable computer, and pioneering AI, digital life, and cellular automata.
Through a chorus of family members, friends, colleagues, and rivals, Labatut shows us the evolution of a mind unmatched and of a body of work that has unmoored the world in its wake. The Maniac places von Neumann at the center of a literary triptych that begins with Paul Ehrenfest, an Austrian physicist and friend of Einstein, who fell into despair when he saw science and technology become tyrannical forces; it ends a hundred years later, in the showdown between the South Korean Go Master Lee Sedol and the AI program AlphaGo, an encounter embodying the central question of von Neumann's most ambitious unfinished project: the creation of a self-reproducing machine, an intelligence able to evolve beyond human understanding or control.
A work of beauty and fabulous momentum, The Maniac confronts us with the deepest questions we face as a species.
Monica is a dazzling, spectacular tapestry of interconnected narratives that together tell a life story. Clowes calls upon a lifetime of inspiration to create the most complex and personal graphic novel of his distinguished career. Rich with visual detail, an impeccable ear for language and dialogue, and thrilling twists, Monica is a multilayered masterpiece in comics form that alludes to many of the genres that have defined the medium — war, romance, horror, crime, the supernatural, and more — but in a mysterious, uncategorizable, and quintessentially Clowesian way that rewards multiple readings.
Five years in the making, Monica marks the apex of creativity from one of the defining voices of the graphic novel boom over the past quarter-century.
From the best-selling author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, comes a searing multi-generational novel set in the 1980s in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia and in the tiny town of Bonaparte, Alabama, about a mother fighting for her sanity and survival.
From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter's squalid conditions: their cockroach-infested room, the barely edible food, and the shifty night security guard. She is determined to rescue her son from the perils and indignities of that place, and to save herself from the complicated past that led them there.
Ava has been estranged from her own mother, Dutchess, since she left her Alabama home as a young woman barely out of her teens. Despite their estrangement and the thousand miles between them, mother and daughter are deeply entwined, but Ava can't forgive her sharp-tongued, larger than life mother whose intractability and bouts of debilitating despair brought young Ava to the outer reaches of neglect and hunger. Ava wants to love her son differently, better.
But when Toussaint’s father, Cass, reappears, she is swept off course by his charisma, and the intoxicating power of his radical vision to destroy systems of racial injustice and bring about a bold new way of communal living. Meanwhile, in Alabama, Dutchess struggles to keep Bonaparte, once a beacon of Black freedom and self-determination, in the hands of its last five Black residents—families whose lives have been rooted in this stretch of land for generations—and away from rapidly encroaching white developers. She fights against the erasure of Bonaparte's venerable history and the loss of the land itself, which she has so arduously preserved as Ava's inheritance.
As Ava becomes more enmeshed with Cass, Toussaint senses the danger simmering all around him—his well-intentioned but erratic mother; the intense, volatile figure of his father who drives his fledgling Philadelphia community toward ever increasing violence and instability. He begins to dream of Dutchess and Bonaparte, his home and birthright, if only he can find his way there.
Brilliant, explosive, vitally important new work from one of America’s most fiercely talented storytellers.
Bright Young Women is a riveting thriller by Jessica Knoll, author of the bestselling novel Luckiest Girl Alive and the writer behind the Netflix adaption starring Mila Kunis. This novel masterfully blends elements of psychological suspense and true crime, delivering an exhilarating reading experience.
The story opens on a fateful Saturday night in 1978, just hours before a soon-to-be-infamous murderer descends upon a Florida sorority house, resulting in deadly consequences. The narrative follows the lives of those who survive, including sorority president and key witness, Pamela Schumacher, whose life is forever altered by the events of that night.
Meanwhile, across the country, Tina Cannon is certain her missing friend was targeted by the man known as the All-American Sex Killer—and that he has struck again. As she seeks justice, her path intersects with Pamela's, leading them on a relentless pursuit for answers that culminates in a final, shocking confrontation.
Bright Young Women is an unflinching and evocative tale that delves deep into the cultural obsession with serial killers and true crime, offering a sharp critique while also highlighting the dynamic and brilliant women who have the real stories to tell.
North Woods, a novel by Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason, is a sweeping tale that unfolds within the walls of a single house in the woods of New England. The narrative spans across centuries, weaving together the lives of its inhabitants—both human and nonhuman—in a genre-blurring display of storytelling magic.
The story begins with two young lovers who flee from a Puritan colony, unaware that their simple cabin in the woods is destined to become a nexus of remarkable lives. From an English soldier who forsakes the battlefields to cultivate apples, to spinster twins who navigate the trials of war and famine, the house witnesses an extraordinary array of characters. These include a crime reporter who stumbles upon an ancient mass grave, a lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a mysterious stalking panther, and even a lusty beetle.
As these inhabitants encounter the wonder and mystery of their surroundings, they come to understand that the vibrant past is not as distant as it seems. North Woods is not only a mesmerizing novel about secrets and destinies but also presents a unique perspective on the world. It poses the eternal question: How do we continue to exist, even after we are gone? With its deep exploration of history, nature, and the connections between us, North Woods is a work that truly captures the magical ways in which we are intertwined with our environment and each other.
From bestselling authors Kate Quinn and Janie Chang, a thrilling and unforgettable narrative about the intertwined lives of two wronged women, spanning from the chaos of the San Francisco earthquake to the glittering palaces of Versailles.
San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage. Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace.
His patronage offers Gemma and Suling the chance of a lifetime, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when a devastating earthquake rips San Francisco apart and Thornton disappears, leaving behind a mystery reaching further than anyone could have imagined. Until the Phoenix Crown reappears five years later at a sumptuous Paris costume ball, drawing Gemma and Suling together in one last desperate quest for justice.
An incandescent novel from one of our greatest living novelists (The Times) about the inheritance of trauma, wonder, and love across three generations of women.
Nell McDaragh never knew her grandfather, the famed Irish poet Phil McDaragh. But his love poems seem to speak directly to her. Restless, full of verve and wit, twenty-two-year-old Nell leaves her mother Carmel's home to find her voice as a writer and live a life of her choosing. Carmel, too, knows the magic of her Daddo's poetry—and the broken promises within its verses. When Phil abandons the family, Carmel struggles to reconcile "the poet" with the man whose desertion scars Carmel, her sister, and their cancer-ridden mother.
The Wren, the Wren brings to life three generations of women who contend with inheritances—of abandonment and of sustaining love that is "more than a strand of DNA, but a rope thrown from the past, a fat twisted rope, full of blood." In sharp prose studded with crystalline poetry, Anne Enright masterfully braids a family story of longing, betrayal, and hope.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Nix, Nathan Hill presents Wellness, a witty and poignant new novel about marriage, middle age, tech-obsessed health culture, and the bonds that keep people together.
When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the '90s, they quickly become a duo, each finding a kindred spirit in one another. Together, they strive to make a mark in Chicago's thriving underground art scene. Two decades later, as they navigate the complexities of married life and parenting, they find themselves amidst cults posing as mindfulness support groups, polyamorous advances, social media conflicts, and the enigmatic Love Potion Number Nine.
For the first time, Jack and Elizabeth face a struggle to recognize each other amidst the chaos. They confront unfulfilled career dreams and the shadows of their own dysfunctional families. In the process, they must embark on personal journeys of self-discovery or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other.
Wellness takes readers from the raw '90s Chicago art scene to a present-day suburbia rife with detox diets and renovation frenzies. It explores the absurdities of modern technology and modern love with depth and humor, offering profound insights into intimacy and connection. Nathan Hill reimagines the love story with a healthy dose of insight, irony, and heart.
Shocking news reaches the Thursday Murder Club.
An old friend in the antiques business has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing.
As the gang springs into action, they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters, and drug dealers, as well as heartache close to home.
With the body count rising, the package still missing, and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out? And who will be the last devil to die?
Set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world, Lessons is a sweeping and intimate novel from the Booker Prize-winning author Ian McEwan.
It follows the life of Roland Baines, whose world is forever altered by a chance encounter at school. The novel takes us through pivotal moments in Roland's life, from the Suez Crisis of 1956 to the COVID-19 pandemic, examining love, loss, and the passage of time. As Roland navigates the complexities of life, Lessons delves into the personal and political, creating a rich tapestry of human experience.
The narrative explores the intimate connections between the personal and the historical, as Roland's life intersects with the major events of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. McEwan's masterful storytelling weaves a tale that is both deeply personal and universally resonant, reflecting on the lessons we learn and the ones we choose to ignore.
Spring break, 2009. High school best friends Zoe and Dani are now freshman college students, meeting in a place they've wanted to visit forever: New York City. Tagging along is Dani's classmate Fiona, a mercurial art student with an opinion on everything.
Together, the three cram in as much of the city as possible, gleefully falling into tourist traps, pondering so-called great works of art, sidestepping creeps, and eating lots and lots of pizza (folded in half, of course). Roaming is a ground-breaking graphic novel from the authors behind New York Times bestseller and Caldecott Honor Book This One Summer.
The Secret Hours is a gripping standalone spy thriller from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Slow Horses, with a riveting reveal about a disastrous MI5 mission in Cold War Berlin—an absolute must-read for Slough House fans. New from the author of Slow Horses, now an Apple Original series from Apple TV+, starring Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas.
Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating "historical over-reaching" by the British Secret Service. Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so.
But MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn. Now the administration that created Monochrome has been ousted, the investigation is a total bust—and Griselda and Malcolm are stuck watching as their career prospects are washed away by the pounding London rain.
Until the eve of Monochrome’s shuttering, when an MI5 case file appears without explanation. It is the buried history of a classified operation in 1994 Berlin—an operation that ended in tragedy and scandal, whose cover-up has rewritten thirty years of Service history.
The Secret Hours is a dazzling entry point into Mick Herron’s body of work, a standalone spy thriller that is at once unnerving, poignant, and laugh-out-loud funny. It is also the breathtaking secret history that Slough House fans have been waiting for.
A taut and electrifying novel from celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, about one spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive.
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.
Lauren Groff’s new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.
Dragonsinger follows the journey of Menolly as she realizes her dream of becoming a Harper in the world of Pern. Despite the obstacles posed by her gender, Menolly faces hostility from male peers and masters. With the support of new friends, teachers, and her nine tiny, colorful dragons, she discovers that her musical talents may be stronger than anyone could imagine.
This tale is set within the beloved and bestselling Dragonriders of Pern series by science fiction legend Anne McCaffrey. It vividly captures the power of music and the strength found in perseverance and friendship.
Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King's most compelling and ingeniously resourceful characters, returns in this thrilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a midwestern town.
"Sometimes the universe throws you a rope." — BILL HODGES
Stephen King's Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly's gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges's partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King's new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.
When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl's desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.
Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie's disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.
Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.
From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, The Fraud is a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story—and about who deserves to be believed.
It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper—and cousin by marriage—of a once famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years. Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life, and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.
Andrew Bogle meanwhile grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. He knows that the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story.
The “Tichborne Trial”—wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title—captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task…
Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity, and the mystery of “other people.”
In The Long Game, a disgraced soccer exec, Adalyn Reyes, faces the challenge of her career when a viral video disrupts her meticulously crafted routine. Sent to redeem herself by turning around a struggling local soccer team in North Carolina, Adalyn's plans are further complicated by the team's unconventional practices and their fear of her.
Enter Cameron Caldani, a retired soccer star with a mysterious presence and a rocky first encounter with Adalyn. Despite the odds, Adalyn is determined to help this ragtag children's team succeed, with or without Cam's assistance. Her journey is a testament to resilience and the power of second chances in this heartwarming small-town love story reminiscent of Ted Lasso and It Happened One Summer.
A new collection—about loss, alienation, aging, and the strangeness of contemporary life—by the award-winning, and inimitable, author of The Book of Goose.
A grieving mother makes a spreadsheet of everyone she’s lost. Elsewhere, a professor develops a troubled intimacy with her hairdresser. And every year, a restless woman receives an email from a strange man twice her age and several states away. In Yiyun Li’s stories, people strive for an ordinary existence until doing so becomes unsustainable, until the surface cracks and the grand mysterious forces—death, violence, estrangement—come to light. And even everyday life is laden with meaning, studded with indelible details: a filched jar of honey, a mound of wounded ants, a photograph kept hidden for many years, until it must be seen.
Li is a truly original writer, an alchemist of opposites: tender and unsentimental, metaphysical and blunt, funny and horrifying, omniscient and unusually aware of just how much we cannot know. Beloved for her novels and memoirs, she returns here to her earliest form, gathering pieces that have appeared in The New Yorker, Zoetrope, and elsewhere. Taken together, the stories in Wednesday's Child, written over the span of a decade, articulate the cost, both material and emotional, of living—exile, assimilation, loss, love—with her trademark unnerving beauty and wisdom.
Happiness Falls is a thrilling page-turner and a deeply moving portrait of a family in crisis. This riveting book about a biracial Korean American family in Virginia is upended when their beloved father and husband goes missing.
Mia, the irreverent, hyperanalytical twenty-year-old daughter, isn't initially concerned when her father and younger brother Eugene don't return from a walk in a nearby park. But as time progresses, it becomes clear that something is terribly wrong. Eugene returns home bloody and alone, with their father nowhere to be found. The only witness to the father's disappearance is Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and cannot speak.
What follows is both a ticking-clock investigation into the father's whereabouts and an emotionally rich exploration of family dynamics. Angie Kim turns the missing-person story into something wholly original, creating an indelible tale of a family who must understand one another to uncover the truth.
From the author of the acclaimed novel Temporary, an intimate exploration of time, a fable about love, an epic daydream for a broken-hearted world.
Annie, Edward, and their young daughter, Rose, live in a cramped apartment. One night, without warning, they find a beautiful terrace hidden in their closet. It wasn't there before, and it seems to only appear when their friend Stephanie visits. A city dweller's dream come true! But every extra bit of space has a hidden cost, and the terrace sets off a seismic chain of events, forever changing the shape of their tiny home, and the shape of the world.
Terrace Story follows the characters who suffer these repercussions and reverberations: the little family of three, their future now deeply uncertain, and those who orbit their fragile universe. The distance and love between these characters expands limitlessly, across generations. How far can the mind travel when it's looking for something that is gone? Where do we put our loneliness, longing, and desire? What do we do with the emotions that seem to stretch beyond the body, beyond the boundaries of life and death?
Based on the National Magazine Award-winning story, Hilary Leichter's profound second novel asks how we nurture love when death looms over every moment. From one of our most innovative and daring writers, Terrace Story is an astounding meditation on loss, a reverie about extinction, and a map for where to go next.
The Bee Sting, by Paul Murray, is an exuberantly entertaining novel that delves into the lives of the Barnes family as they navigate a world on the brink of collapse. At the heart of their misfortunes is Dickie, whose once-thriving car business is now failing, leading him to obsessively build an apocalypse-proof bunker. His wife, Imelda, sells her jewelry on eBay and flirts with the idea of an affair, while their teenage daughter, Cass, is on a path of self-destruction. The youngest, PJ, contemplates running away from home.
The narrative poses a poignant question: if you could rewrite this family's story, how far back would you need to go? Could it be Imelda's wedding day, marred by a bee sting? A car accident preceding Cass's birth? Or even further back, to a summer day with Dickie and his father? The Bee Sting is both a portrait of post-crash Ireland and a tragicomic family saga, offering a dazzling exploration of the challenges in striving to be good in a world that's falling apart.