The epic conclusion to the intensely romantic and beautifully written story that started in Divine Rivals.
Two weeks have passed since Iris Winnow returned home bruised and heartbroken from the front, but the war is far from over. Roman is missing, and the city of Oath continues to dwell in a state of disbelief and ignorance. When Iris and Attie are given another chance to report on Dacre’s movements, they both take the opportunity and head westward once more despite the danger, knowing it’s only a matter of time before the conflict reaches a city that’s unprepared and fracturing beneath the chancellor’s reign.
Since waking below in Dacre’s realm, Roman cannot remember his past. But given the reassurance that his memories will return in time, Roman begins to write articles for Dacre, uncertain of his place in the greater scheme of the war. When a strange letter arrives by wardrobe door, Roman is first suspicious, then intrigued. As he strikes up a correspondence with his mysterious pen pal, Roman will soon have to make a decision: to stand with Dacre or betray the god who healed him. And as the days grow darker, inevitably drawing Roman and Iris closer together…the two of them will risk their very hearts and futures to change the tides of the war.
Ever wonder what really goes on behind the scenes at one of the most prestigious residential buildings in New York City—a multiple dwelling Upper East Side building located on Fifth Avenue, where the 0.01% of society pretends to commingle with the meager 1%—and jaw-droppingly told through the introspective eyes of an intelligent, browbeaten, misanthropic, self-medicating doorman?
“Never give in to psychiatry when in pursuit of the American Dream.” – Daire Feeney.
In his debut series of novels, Daire Feeney has been loosely described as Frank McCourt meets Chuck Palahniuk as he tells an unbelievable transgressive story of a Fifth Avenue doorman. BOAT SHOES – SOLILOQUY OF A USELESS EATER tells the story of a first-generation son of Irish immigrants who, after falling on hard financial times, and a subsequent failed suicide attempt, finds himself seeking employment at his old high school job as a Fifth Avenue doorman.
The reader follows the NYC native throughout a grueling 16-hour doorman shift as he is ridiculed by his employers, plied with narcotics by the old guard, sexually assaulted by residents, and becomes witness—and participant—to a wide range of inconceivable acts of moral turpitude; all in the pursuit of his specious American Dream.
The earth, from here, is like heaven. It flows with colour. A burst of hopeful colour.
A book of wonder, Orbital is nature writing from space and an unexpected and profound love letter to life on Earth.
Six astronauts rotate in their spacecraft above the earth. They are there to collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments, and test the limits of the human body. But mostly, they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.
Yet although separated from the world, they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction. The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?
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.
He knows how to score, on and off the ice.
Allie Hayes is in crisis mode. With graduation looming, she still doesn’t have the first clue about what she’s going to do after college. To make matters worse, she’s nursing a broken heart thanks to the end of her longtime relationship. Wild rebound sex is definitely not the solution to her problems, but gorgeous hockey star Dean Di Laurentis is impossible to resist. Just once, though, because even if her future is uncertain, it sure as heck won’t include the king of one-night stands.
It’ll take more than flashy moves to win her over.
Dean always gets what he wants. Girls, grades, girls, recognition, girls…he’s a ladies' man, all right, and he’s yet to meet a woman who’s immune to his charms. Until Allie. For one night, the feisty blonde rocked his entire world—and now she wants to be friends? Nope. It’s not over until he says it’s over. Dean is in full-on pursuit, but when life-rocking changes strike, he starts to wonder if maybe it’s time to stop focusing on scoring…and shoot for love.
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.
Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped.
Now he is...
Without a home
Waiting for his stand-up career to take off
Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking
Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story…
In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.
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.
There is a place in modern-day America with no electricity, no plumbing, and no modern conveniences. In this place, there is no room for dreams, no space for self-expression, and no tolerance for ambition.
In this place, there is a boy with the body of a god and the heart of a warrior. He is strong and faithful and serves his family honorably. But he dares to dream of more.
In this place, there is a girl with the face of an angel and a heart full of courage. To her family, she is the vision of obedient perfection. But she dares to want that which she has been told can never be hers.
Becoming Calder is the story of good versus evil, fear versus bravery, and the truth that the light of love has always found its way into even the darkest of places, from the beginning of time to the end of the world.
In the community of Acadia lives a boy named Calder with the body of a god and the heart of a warrior. He serves his family with faith and honor, but he dares to dream of more, especially when an angel-faced girl his age is brought to their community. To Acadia, Eden is obedient perfection, prophesized to lead them to eternal peace, but to Calder, even at first glance, she is so much more.
Calder and Eden were never meant to be friends. Certainly never meant to fall in love. After all, Eden is betrothed to Acadia's leader, secluded until the day of her destiny. But as she and Calder steal fleeting moments and forbidden kisses, their hearts grow dangerously tangled, and it's too late to heed the warnings.
In Acadia, they can never be together. But Acadia is all they know. If they want any chance at a future, they must risk everything to choose between the life they were taught to live and the dream their hearts want to follow.
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.
Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.
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 award-winning author, Gary Shelly, comes a story that simply must be told…
The phone call informing Sarah Nealle that her six-year-old daughter, Amy, has been in a school bus accident sends her on a journey she could never have imagined nor planned for. Doctors. The ICU. An epidural hematoma. Respirators. Apnea tests. Nationwide publicity. A mogul who wants to buy her daughter's heart. The grieving mother on television begging for a liver to save her son. Hospitals that fight over a first-grader's body. Relatives seeking revenge. A conspiracy to end organ transplants. The hero who can't save his own son.
A ninety-two-year old who brings wisdom and peace, together with a reporter who reveals her own story. Then, the lonely decision of how to let her daughter die with dignity and perhaps fulfill a mission Amy would've volunteered for.
Will her family provide support? Might those who wait for organs applaud? Can someone who faces this impossible choice in the future learn from her? Would Amy be proud? How does one measure what is best and what is not when nothing makes sense?
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.
An Old-Fashioned Girl tells the story of Polly Milton, a young girl from the countryside who goes to visit her wealthy and sophisticated friends in the city. The novel is structured in two parts, with the first part focusing on Polly's childhood visit and the second part on her experiences as a young woman.
In the first part, Polly stays with the Shaw family, including Tom, Maud, and Fanny. She is initially seen as old-fashioned and unsophisticated compared to her more fashionable city friends. However, her kindness, honesty, and good-hearted nature soon win over the Shaw family, and she becomes a beloved member of their household.
The novel explores the contrast between Polly's simple, virtuous upbringing and the more worldly values of her city friends. Polly's influence on the Shaws and her ability to maintain her integrity in the face of societal pressures serve as central themes.
In the second part of the book, Polly returns to the city as a young woman, and the story follows her experiences as she navigates the challenges of adulthood, including romance, career aspirations, and the importance of staying true to oneself. Polly's character development is a central focus as she matures and finds her place in the world.
An Old-Fashioned Girl is known for its moral and ethical themes, as well as its portrayal of the importance of character and virtue. It contrasts the values of simplicity and authenticity with the superficiality of social conventions. The novel also explores themes of friendship, love, and the pursuit of happiness. Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl is a charming and heartwarming coming-of-age story that continues to resonate with readers for its timeless lessons and the enduring appeal of its characters.
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.
Fate is calling...
After a strange encounter in a dark alley, journalist Tamriel’s life is turned upside down. She’s missing days, developing odd new abilities, and being followed by the mysterious Leyth. Dark, dangerous – and too gorgeous for his own good – Leyth is determined to teach Tamriel about her new life – as a werewolf! And he's just as intent on keeping their relationship strictly business.
But as their simmering bond grows, Tamriel and Leyth face a bigger challenge. Tam may be their kind’s strongest weapon against the Circle, a deadly group of paranormal creatures gone rogue. That is, if she’s ready to give in to her destiny and put up the fight of her life...
She’s smart, she’s sassy, and she’s sexy as hell - meet Tawny, aka “The Happy Spinster,” an auburn-haired siren whose seductive style has set many a male heart racing in old Montreal. While at her local one Friday night, she meets Troy, a Texas cowboy whose smoldering good looks immediately ignite Tawny’s sexual craving.
With a mutual attraction between them and a burning carnal desire within them, Tawny and Troy embark on an ardor-filled night of sensational sex and passionate lovemaking. But – will Tawny break the rules and fall in love with the handsome bronco buster? And is there a future for a woman from the city and a ranch hand from the Texas panhandle?
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.