Library Closure

All Chippewa River District Library locations will be closed for the Thanksgiving holiday beginning at 5 p.m., Wednesday, November 27 through Friday, November 29.

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The God of the Woods

Liz Moore

"When Barbara Van Laar is discovered missing from her summer camp bunk one morning in August 1975, it triggers a panicked, terrified search. Losing a camper is a horrific tragedy under any circumstances, but Barbara isn't just any camper: she's the daughter of the wealthy family who owns the camp--as well as the opulent nearby estate, and most of the land in sight. And this isn't the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared in this region. Barbara's older brother also went missing 16 years earlier, never to be found. How could this have happened yet again? Out of this gripping beginning, Liz Moore weaves a ... textured drama, both emotionally nuanced and propelled by a double-barreled mystery"--

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The Burning

Linda Castillo

Chief of Police Kate Burkholder investigates a gruesome murder that reveals a little-known chapter of early Amish history in this next riveting installment of the bestselling series by Linda Castillo.

Newlywed Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is awakened by an urgent midnight call summoning her to a suspicious fire in the woods. When she arrives at the scene, she discovers a charred body. According to the coroner, the deceased, an Amish man named Milan Swanz, was chained to a stake and burned alive. It is an appalling and eerily symbolic crime against an upstanding husband and father.

Kate knows all too well that the Amish prefer to handle their problems without interference from the outside world, and no one will speak about the murdered man. From what she’s able to piece together, Swanz led a deeply troubled life and had recently been excommunicated. But if that’s the case, why are the Amish so reluctant to talk about him? Are they protecting the memory of one of their own? Or are they afraid of something they dare not share?

When her own brother is implicated in the case, Kate finds herself not only at odds with the Amish, the world of which she was once a part, but also the English community and her counterparts in law enforcement. The investigation takes a violent turn when Kate’s life is threatened by a mysterious stranger.

To uncover the truth about the death of Milan Swanz, Kate must dive deep into the Anabaptist culture, peering into all the dark corners of its history, only to uncover a secret legacy that shatters everything she thought she knew about the Amish themselves—and her own roots.

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For the Love of Summer

Susan Mallery

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery comes an unforgettable beach read about the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters and finding friendship with the unlikeliest person, perfect for fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Emily Giffin...

As the owner of Twisted, Seattle's best salons, Erica knows that the sharpest cuts come from the people we love. She's terrified that she's losing her teen daughter, Summer, to her "other" family, especially to her stepmom, Allison.

All it takes to blow up Allison's happy life is one collect call. From prison. Her beloved husband, Peter, has been arrested, leaving Allison pregnant, broke, scared and alone with a toddler. But when her stepdaughter ferrets out the truth, the teen rushes to the last person Allison wants to ask for help--her husband's battle-ax ex.

Erica would do anything for Summer, even take in the woman her daughter loves like a second mom. Allison feels intimidated by Erica--a woman who would never let herself become so dependent on a man. But the more time they spend together, the more Allison realizes what Erica truly needs is a friend. Can two women who married the same man move beyond their complicated past and rethink what it means to be family?

Don't miss Susan Mallery's newest joyful and utterly irresistible holiday tale, One Big Happy Family, about a mother who couldn't love her kids more hopes that, just this once, they don't come for Christmas.

Discover more heartwarming tales by Susan Mallery:

  • One Big Happy Family
  • The Summer Book Club
  • The Happiness Plan
  • Home Sweet Christmas
  • The Boardwalk Bookshop

 

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The Briar Club

Kate Quinn

"Quinn evocatively balances the outward cheerfulness of the 1950s with historical observations exploring racism, misogyny, homophobia and political persecution in this sharply drawn, gripping novel." - People Magazine

 

The New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye and The Rose Code returns with a haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

 

Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation's capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman's daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women's baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy's Red Scare.

Grace's weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?

Capturing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and evoking the changing roles for women in postwar America, The Briar Club is an intimate and thrilling novel of secrets and loyalty put to the test.

A beautiful, foil cover, first edition.

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Hard to Kill

James Patterson

Instant New York Times Bestseller!

"With Jane Smith, Alex Cross has reason to be jealous" (Good Morning America). Hard to Kill features James Patterson's greatest character yet-a tough-as-nails attorney up against a relentless killer.

Attorney Jane Smith is mounting an impossible criminal defense.

Her client, Rob Jacobson, is the unluckiest of the unlucky. No sooner is he accused of killing a family of three in the Hamptons than a second family is gunned down.

It's not double jeopardy. It's not double murder. It's double triple homicide.

Jane's career has spanned from NYPD beat cop to Hamptons courtroom. She's tough to beat. She's even tougher to kill.

The defense may never rest.

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The Winged Tiara

J'Nell Ciesielski

Diamonds and danger dazzle in Ciesielski's latest enchanting romp through post-war Europe as estranged spouses and jewel thieves hunt an elusive Valkyrie tiara.

November 12, 1918. It was a match made in champagne-soaked heaven, but all too soon the bubbles dried up, and Esme Fox awakens the morning after celebrating the end of the Great War to find herself shockingly and accidentally married. She gathers her belongings and slips out before her new husband can stop her. After all, she knows it's best to leave before he does.

Four years later, Jasper Truitt, after having made a name for himself in the underground world of jewel thieves, is on the hunt for a valuable heirloom: a one-of-a-kind winged tiara--the last Valkyrie tiara ever created. So it's with great surprise that he discovers it at a charity event atop the head of a woman he's never forgotten. His long-lost wife . . . who happens to be pursuing the tiara for a vengeful opera diva desperate to obtain the jewel for herself.

The reunion is cut short when Esme vanishes--again--but their separation is temporary. With a hitman on their heels and a deadline looming, the pair find themselves in an epic game of cat and mouse across Europe following leads from the French Riviera to a shop of wonders in Venice, a fairy-tale castle in Bavaria, and a veritable circus thrown by a champagne heiress, all before a dramatic horseback flight through the French countryside.

In the end only one can win, and with both of their hearts on the line, the winner may well turn out to be the loser.

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Where Trees Touch the Sky

Karen Barnett

Some secrets have shadows as long as the redwoods are tall.


In the early 1920s, the accelerating destruction of the California redwoods is more than nature-loving Marion Baker can bear. Throwing herself headlong into the work of the Save the Redwoods League, she is shocked to learn that Frank Duncan, a man she's grown to love, is the son of one of the area's worst timber barons. Though devastated by the betrayal, she realizes this could also be an opportunity--if only she can convince him to help preserve her favorite grove from his father's greedy grasp. Is her love strong enough to persuade him to save these precious trees? Or will Marion choose to sacrifice her beliefs to keep Frank by her side? 


Nearly fifty years later, in 1972, polio survivor June Turner is deeply proud of the legacy her great aunt Marion has left as a redwood warrior. And despite her disability, June is determined to prove herself capable as a ranger at the recently established Redwood National Park, even if it means taking to the trails with her crutch in hand. What better way to carry on the family tradition of preserving God's magnificent creation?
When aspiring film student Adam Garner approaches June to help make a documentary about Marion's life, she swiftly grabs the opportunity to spread her aunt's worthy reputation. That is, until they unearth a secret that might shatter the family legacy. In the scramble for answers, June may lose not only her family pride but also her own dreams.

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A Token of Love

Carrie Turansky

Separated by centuries, the lives of two women intertwine through their shared pursuit of love, truth, and justice.

In 1885 London, Lillian Freemont embarks on a treacherous journey to reunite with her long-lost niece, Alice, who was abandoned at the Foundling Hospital eight years ago. Fueled by her sister's plea and armed with the gold token that identifies her niece, Lillian teams up with investigative reporter Matthew McGivern to expose the grim reality of the shadowed streets of London. As Lillian and Matthew unravel the mystery of Alice's disappearance, their partnership blossoms into one of shared purpose and undeniable attraction.

In present-day London, Janelle Spencer finds herself unexpectedly running the Foundling Museum. When filmmaker Jonas Conrad arrives to document the museum's history, their collaboration takes a surprising turn as they uncover articles from the past that shed light on a haunting connection to the present. As Janelle becomes caught between exposing the truth and protecting the museum's reputation, she must decide if she can risk everything for what she believes.

 

 

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Target Acquired

Lynette Eason

Tough-as-nails Kenzie King has finally earned her place as a tactical medic on a SWAT team. But not everyone on the all-male team accepts her. Rumor is, she didn't get the position because of what she could do but because of who she knew. Which means she has to work harder and longer than anyone else to prove herself.

Cole Garrison is a man with deep faith who is finally ready to settle down and build a family of his own--if he can find the right person, that is. Kenzie sure has set off his interest meter, but trouble seems to follow in her wake. Since she joined the team, someone has begun to ambush and pick off team members, one by one.

It's all hands on deck to discover the culprit and end the killing. Can Kenzie and Cole put aside their differences and work together as a team? Or will their budding attraction be snuffed out by a sniper's bullet?

As you've come to expect from bestselling author Lynette Eason's stories, this tightly wound plot unfurls at breakneck speed and will leave you breathless.

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Lowcountry Lost

Lowe, T. I.

Sometimes what haunts you most is wondering what could have been.

Avalee Elvis prides herself with being able to fix just about anything. . . except her past. Unable to put the puzzle of her life together, she pours heart and soul into making neglected places whole again. As the owner of Lowcountry Lost, Avalee spends her days in hot-pink Carhartt overalls and a tool belt reclaiming Lowcountry properties. Making them beautiful again releases the deep sigh that soothes the hurt she holds.

Avalee's latest project takes her to tiny Somewhere, South Carolina, a long-abandoned town. She ignores its ghostly folklore but can't miss the shock of hearing the familiar Irish brogue that materializes on the job site--the voice of the man she never wanted to see again.

Rowan Murray is a structural engineer hired by investors to oversee the redevelopment of the quaint downtown Avalee is bringing back to life. Once upon a time, he was also the man who knew Avalee better than anyone else--or so he thought. Six years ago, neither of them was prepared for the tragedy they would face together or what would happen in its wake. But as they work together to complete the rehabbing of Somewhere, their broken pieces and the pain that nearly consumed them begin to lose its grip, and both begin to wonder if it's not too late for a restoration of their own.

 

 

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Lethal Standoff

Mills, DiAnn

Hostage negotiator Carrington Reed is called to the scene when reports come in that fifteen hostages are being held by the Kendrix brothers in an abandoned house in south Texas. When she arrives on site, Carrington quickly learns that the brothers are armed and refuse to release their victims, a group of undocumented immigrants, until the local police identify their father's murderer.

Working closely with Levi Ehrlich, a handsome investigative reporter who has covered some of Carrington's negotiations in the past, she finds herself being undeniably drawn to him. Carrington digs deeper into the death of the Kendrixes' father and begins to notice that some details surrounding his death aren't adding up.

As Carrington investigates the brothers' claims and tries to piece together their motive for taking innocent people captive, it soon becomes clear that they are trying to hide something and that revenge for their father's death may not be what they're really bargaining for after all. To protect the hostages and ensure the brothers don't carry out the rest of their sinister plot, Carrington must get to the bottom of one family's secret and the truth they're trying so hard to hide before time runs out.

 

 

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The Forge

Kendrick Bros LLC

As Cynthia Wright's marriage implodes, she is forced to raise her teenage son, Isaiah, alone. The pressure of providing for them through her salon is a full-time job in itself. When Cynthia sees Isaiah pulling away and escaping into video games, tensions rise and prayers feel unanswered. Angry and hurt, Isaiah starts acting like the father who abandoned him, and Cynthia gives him an ultimatum while turning to her twin sister, Elizabeth Jordan, for support. Elizabeth enlists a seasoned prayer warrior who challenges Cynthia to pray boldly and believe God for the impossible.

Caught in the middle, Isaiah longs for respect, but sees no clear path to becoming a good man. Desperate for a job, he wanders into Moore Fitness, Inc. and encounters the owner, Joshua Moore, who introduces him to the concept of working for a coach rather than a boss. Needing the work, Isaiah reluctantly begins his mentoring process with Joshua. While Cynthia clings to hope, no one sees the coming storms brewing at the company and in Isaiah's heart.

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The Cloverton Charade

Sarah E. Ladd

A long-held family feud reignites when two rival antiquities brokers arrive at the same house party in Regency England.

Olivia Brannon knows her goals are unconventional. As a young woman in Regency England, her best bet--according to society--is to marry well and secure a steady future for herself. But Olivia has never been interested in convention. She'd prefer to follow in her deceased father's footsteps and journey to foreign lands in search of rare and valuable antiquities.

Eager to make a name for herself in the antiquities world, Olivia jumps at an invitation to join a wealthy widow at the famed Cloverton Hall to evaluate her private antiquities collection. Secrecy of the task is vital, and in order to conceal her efforts Olivia must pretend to be a house party guest to avoid suspicion and to explain her presence.

Lucas Avery, whose father was a rival of Olivia's father, has also arrived at the Cloverton Hall house party, hired by the new master of Cloverton Hall--the widow's nephew--to appraise the renowned Cloverton Hall collection. When Lucas discovers Olivia masquerading as a party guest while covertly conducting her own assessment, he's keen to renew the family rivalry. But as their paths frequently cross, he's unprepared for the effect the refreshingly honest--and beautiful--Olivia has on him.

Yet all is not as it seems. Both Olivia and Lucas are shocked by the astonishing discovery of counterfeit pieces, and when the unexpected occurs, everyone is a suspect . . . and Olivia and Lucas both must choose whom they will trust. Only the hidden treasure will allow Louisa and her sister to gain their freedom

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Christmas at Sugar Plum Manor

Roseanna M. White

The Nutcracker and Edwardian-Era England combine to weave a magical tale of love and friendship at Christmastime.

As the beloved stepdaughter of the Earl of Castleton, Lady Mariah Lyons cherishes her home at Plumford Manor, but her idyllic world will be threatened when the estate passes to Cyril Lightbourne, a childhood friend she hasn't seen or heard from in years. Once, Mariah dreamed their friendship would kindle into something more, but that was before she heard Cyril was courting the cruelhearted Lady Pearl. Now Mariah is willing to welcome him as a friend and pray he will be the heir her stepfather needs, but she'll keep her heart locked safely away from anyone with such poor taste.

Cyril Lightbourne has long avoided returning to Plumford Manor, yet he reluctantly arrives in time for Christmas. When his friendship with Lady Mariah reignites, he finds himself caught between his affection for her and her family's misunderstanding of his attachment to Lady Pearl. Then, more trouble arrives in the form of a Danish lord on a mission to win Mariah's hand by Christmas. Will the magic of the holiday season help lead to the discovery of true love, or will duty to country leave all longing for what could have been?

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By Evening's Light

Leslie Gould

Treva Zimmerman finds herself at a crossroads in life after a heartbreaking failed relationship. Returning to Lancaster County to visit her Amish grandparents and elderly aunt, Treva plans to leave her Plain heritage behind for a fresh start in Alaska. Torn between the expectations of her community and her own desires, she seeks to follow her own path--but all that changes when her aunt Rosene suffers a heart attack.

As her aunt recounts her own past--a poignant journey through Cold War Germany and a fervent desire to escape her Plain life to search for a lost love--Treva is determined to discover the whereabouts of Rosene's former sweetheart. Amid the turmoil, their former farmhand Gabe Johnson returns unexpectedly, throwing Treva's plans into further disarray.

While working hard to save the farm and explore her own destiny, Treva confronts her deep-rooted ties to her heritage and must decide if she will embrace her family's legacy or break free from the pressures of her past to forge a life of her own.

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Beyond Ivy Walls

Rachel Fordham

Reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast, a recluse and a young woman discover that the scars of life are no match against an act of love.

Iowa, 1903. All of Monticello believes Otis Taylor has been away fostering his musical genius. But the truth is that his father exiled him long ago, rejecting Otis's appearance and the scars that came with it. Now that he is the last living Taylor, Otis has covertly returned to settle his family's affairs and rid himself of his past for good. However, he soon discovers that he may not have been the only abandoned Taylor and begins a tireless search for his missing toddler niece.

At twenty-three years old, Sadie West left her family farm and found employment at the Hoag feather duster factory. It isn't a romantic job, but she's hardly had a glimmer of romance since her beau went off to college, leaving her with no promise of a future together. Desperate to save money and help her family make ends meet, she trespasses and finds shelter in an abandoned building--and is thrown in the path of the town's mysterious bachelor.

Otis's wounds are deep, but as Sadie's friendship with him grows, she begins to fall for the man beneath the mask. Locating his long-lost niece, however, is more difficult than either could have imagined, and Sadie West may be the key to Otis Taylor finally finding his way home.

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Village Politics Can Be Murder

Jeanne M. Dams

A trip to the Lake District proves to be anything but idyllic when Dorothy and Alan investigate a mysterious death.

Dorothy Martin and her husband, retired chief constable Alan Nesbitt, jump at the chance to holiday in the beautiful Lake District when Alan's old friend, Christopher Prideaux, invites them to visit him in Grasmere.

A party at Christopher's cottage is the perfect way to meet the locals, but one stands out - accountant Donald Atkinson, an egoist hoping to become a politician, clearly isn't popular among his fellow villagers. When he's found mysteriously dead during the Fell Race, could his demise be due to a sudden, fatal medical emergency, or was it murder? Dorothy and Alan find themselves catapulted into a disturbing case that will lead them back in time, and to a terrible, scandalous secret that someone is determined to keep hidden.

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Mockingbird Summer

Lynda Rutledge

A powerful and emotional coming-of-age novel set amid the turmoil and profound changes of the 1960s by the bestselling author of West with Giraffes.

In segregated High Cotton, Texas, in 1964, the racial divide is as clear as the railroad tracks running through town. It's also where two girls are going to shake things up.

This is the last summer of thirteen-year-old Corky Corcoran's childhood, and her family hires a Haitian housekeeper who brings her daughter, America, along with her. Corky is quick to befriend America and eager to share her favorite new "grown-up" novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. America's take on it is different and profoundly personal. As their friendship grows, Corky finds out so much more about America's life and her hidden skill: she can run as fast as Olympian Wilma Rudolph!

When Corky asks America to play with her girls' softball team for the annual church rivals game, it's a move that crosses the color line and sets off a firestorm. As tensions escalate, it fast becomes a season of big changes in High Cotton. For Corky, those changes will last a lifetime.

Set on the eve of massive cultural shifts, Mockingbird Summer explores the impact of great books, the burden of potential, and the power of friendship with humor, poignancy, and exhilarating hope.

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Forget Me Never

Susan Wittig Albert

Olivia Andrews is locally famous for her blog and podcast, "Forget Me Not: A Crime Victim's Storyboard," which is dedicated to telling the stories of victims of crime. Now, she has a stunning story to tell about a decades-old murder mystery involving a prominent citizen of Pecan Springs--someone who isn't the man everybody thinks he is. But she is killed by a hit-and-run driver while she's out jogging early one morning. Was it an accident--or something else? Her sister wants to know.



​And Olivia's friend China Bayles also wants to know, urgently. Who is the prominent citizen Olivia was about to expose? How did he manage to get away with murder twenty years ago? Did he kill Olivia to keep her from revealing his secret? What is local lawyer Charlie Lipman trying to hide? And when there's another murder . . . well, it has to be a part of the same story, doesn't it? And so does the scrapbook a cousin has compiled to honor the memory of one of the victims and make sure she won't be forgotten. It might hold the answer--except that the one person whose face China wants to see has been scissored out of every photo.



Forget Me Never asks the compelling questions Who remembers? What do we choose to remember? Why do we forget? Like other novels in the China Bayles eries, Susan Wittig Albert's book is an engaging mix of mystery, murder, and herb lore, past sins and present secrets, and characters who are as real as your friends and neighbors.

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Encore

Helen Hardt

A tale of four souls…and the effects of near tragedy…

When Brianna Steel and Jesse Pike hold each other for what they fear may be the last moment of their lives, they realize they’re meant to be together for the long haul.

But for Brianna’s cousin, David Simpson, and Jesse’s sister, Madeline Pike, the event has more far-reaching consequences.

Dave, after helping his father and his Uncle Jonah deal with horrific happenings on the Steel property, needed a vacation. Joining his cousins on Dragonlock’s European tour seemed like a no-brainer, and hooking up with Maddie Pike was some decadent icing on the cake. But after looking his mortality in the eye, he’s questioning everything about the path he’s on—including his budding relationship with Maddie.

Maddie, too, is evaluating her own dreams and aspirations, and she desperately seeks a deeper connection to the world around her. Is a relationship with Dave, who she’s been crushing on forever, in the cards? She’s not sure where he stands, but she’s having a difficult time keeping her distance because the chemistry between them is hot and sizzling.

But in the end, a family member’s illness and a near-fatal accident could be their undoing.

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A Death in Cornwall

Daniel Silva

#1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva delivers another stunning thriller in his action-packed tale of high stakes international intrigue.

A brutal murder, a missing masterpiece, a mystery only Gabriel Allon can solve . . .

Art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon has slipped quietly into London to attend a reception at the Courtauld Gallery celebrating the return of a stolen self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh. But when an old friend from the Devon and Cornwall Police seeks his help with a baffling murder investigation, he finds himself pursuing a powerful and dangerous new adversary.

The victim is Charlotte Blake, a celebrated professor of art history from Oxford who spends her weekends in the same seaside village where Gabriel once lived under an assumed identity. Her murder appears to be the work of a diabolical serial killer who has been terrorizing the Cornish countryside. But there are a number of telltale inconsistencies, including a missing mobile phone. And then there is the mysterious three-letter cypher she left behind on a notepad in her study.

Gabriel soon discovers that Professor Blake was searching for a looted Picasso worth more than a $100 million, and he takes up the chase for the painting as only he can--with six Impressionist canvases forged by his own hand and an unlikely team of operatives that includes a world-famous violinist, a beautiful master thief, and a lethal contract killer turned British spy. The result is a stylish and wildly entertaining mystery that moves at lightning speed from the cliffs of Cornwall to the enchanted island of Corsica and, finally, to a breathtaking climax on the very doorstep of 10 Downing Street.

Supremely elegant and suspenseful, A Death in Cornwall is Daniel Silva at his best--a dazzling tale of murder, power, and insatiable greed that will hold readers spellbound until they turn the final page.

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To the Stars and Back

Alastair Reynolds

Eric Brown was one of the UK's finest SF authors. His work won him awards, his storytelling won him readers; more than that, though, he was a special person, and that won him many friends.

 

Containing all new stories from some of the UK's finest genre writers, this volume, released to mark what would have been Eric's 64th birthday, is dedicated to Eric and his family. It is our way of celebrating someone whose work inspired us and whose friendship made a difference.

 

Eric Brown: (24 May 1960 - 21 March 2023)

 

Contents:

Introduction by Ian Whates

Rodeo Day - Philip Palmer

Last Orders - Una McCormack

The Scurlock Compendium - Alastair Reynolds

President Max - Josh Lacey

Untold - Keith Brooke

The Peaceable Kingdom - Chris Beckett

The Guardian - Kim Lakin

A Sea Change - Donna Scott

May You Rise - James Lovegrove

The Neglected Bookshop - Phillip Vine

Masterchef on Mars - Ian Watson

Peppercorns - Rebecca Rajendra

Bartering with Ghosts - Ian Whates

The Place of the Mice - Justina Robson

Eric and the Kethani - Tony Ballantyne

About the Contributors

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The Family Experiment

John Marrs

From the acclaimed author of The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and brilliant speculative thriller about families: real and virtual.

Some families are virtually perfect...

The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, the breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families, let alone raise them.

But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality TV show called The Substitute. It will follow ten couples as they raise a virtual child from birth to the age of eighteen but in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child, or risk it all for the chance of a real baby...

Set in the same universe as John Marrs's bestselling novel The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and twisted thriller about the ultimate Tamagotchi--a virtual baby.

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Confessions of the Dead

James Patterson

In this chilling mystery from a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a small New England town is hit with a wave of crimes after the arrival of a mysterious stranger who brings more questions than answers.



Hollows Bend, New Hampshire, is a picture-perfect New England town where weekend tourists flock to see fall leaves and eat breakfast at the Stairway Diner. The crime rate--zero--is a point of pride for Sheriff Ellie Pritchett.



The day the stranger shows up is when the trouble starts. The sheriff and her deputy investigate the mysterious teenage girl. None of the locals can place her. She can't--or won't3⁄4answer any questions. She won't even tell them her name.



While the girl is in protective custody, the officers are called to multiple crime scenes leading them closer and closer to a lake outside of town that doesn't appear on any map...

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The Lost Story

Meg Shaffer

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case—from the author of The Wishing Game.

“This is the book you’ve been waiting for.”—Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls and the North Bath Trilogy


As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.

Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons’ investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.

Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie’s sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories.

Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months—for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.

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The Black Bird Oracle

Deborah Harkness

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Diana Bishop journeys to the darkest places within herself—and her family history—in the highly anticipated fifth novel of the beloved All Souls series.

The Black Bird Oracle deftly explores the nexus of memory, history, and parenthood—the magic, pain, and promises mothers pass onto their children.”—Jodi Picoult

The stunning hardcover of The Black Bird Oracle features a custom-stamped case, beautiful endpapers, and a premium dust jacket!

Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, an Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two otherworldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family line.

Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana.

On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family’s dark past and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power—if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it.

In this stunning new novel, grand in scope, Deborah Harkness deepens the beloved world of All Souls with powerful new magic and long-hidden secrets, and the path Diana finds at Ravenswood leads to the most consequential moments yet in this cherished series.

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W.E.B. Griffin Zero Option

Peter Kirsanow

Dick Canidy races to stop an assassin from disrupting a vital conference that will shape the course of World War II in the latest electrifying entry in W.E.B. Griffin's New York Times bestselling Men at War series.

November 1943. Stalin is pressing the Allies to open a second front in Europe in order to ease the pressure on the bloody grinding war in the East. Roosevelt and Churchill agree to meet the Soviet premier in Tehran.
Wild Bill Donovan, the charismatic leader of the OSS, has intelligence that someone is planning to assassinate either or both of the Western leaders at the conference. He sends his best agent, Dick Canidy, to thwart the plan, but how can he do that when he doesn't even know if the killer is a Nazi or an Ally?

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Flashpoint

Catherine Coulter

Agents Savich and Sherlock are back in the latest installment in Catherine Coulter's #1 New York Times bestselling FBI Thriller series, where the past refuses to stay buried.

A year has passed since Elizabeth Palmer was nearly killed with hundreds more in the attempted bombing of St. Paul's in London, believed to be a terrorist act until the police discovered it was a cover for something even more sinister. For Elizabeth, life is finally back to normal. She's optimistic, her painting is getting accolades, when suddenly her world changes in a flash. With three new attempts on her life, and her connection to the terrorist attack, MI-5 gets involved to find out who is trying to kill her and why.

Autumn Backman, twelve years old, begrudgingly accepts a summer job to shepherd Tash Navarro, a shy, bullied little boy. He's staying with his uncle while his father and stepmother go on a honeymoon in Europe. Then the unexpected happens. Autumn learns Tash is gifted psychically, like her, and Tash's father, Archer Navarro, is suspected of embezzling from his own firm. The FBI and Interpol are on the case, but Archer and his new wife have disappeared. Tash is scared and convinced his father needs help, so Autumn reaches out to Dillon Savich, the only person she knows who can find them.

Desperate for answers, Elizabeth flies to Washington, D.C., to seek out Savich and Sherlock and is assigned Special Agent Rome Foxe for protection. With deadly assailants in terrifying pursuit, Elizabeth and Rome soon find themselves neck deep in danger and in a race for survival.

Buckle up for a nonstop, action-packed thriller from the one and only Catherine Coulter.

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Saved by the Matchmaker

Jody Hedlund

After her annulment is finalized, Enya Shanahan finds herself caught in a web of scandal and obligation while carrying a secret that threatens to shatter her family's reputation. Determined to find a suitable marriage for Enya, her father turns to a wily matchmaker to save them from their circumstances.

Sullivan O'Brien, a steamboat captain committed to aiding enslaved people on their path to freedom, is faced with an ultimatum from his father. Forced to marry or lose his livelihood, a marriage of convenience seems to be the only solution. As he and Enya face the trials of their pasts and a city consumed by fire, they must confront their deepest fears and learn to trust in love, even when darkness threatens to engulf them.

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One Last Promise

Susan May Warren

After years as a pilot of a Navy rescue chopper, Arlo "Moose" Mulligan returned home to start Air One Rescue--and made a name for himself. He loves his job, his life, and his routines, which include breakfast at the Skyport Diner, always at one of Tillie Young's tables. She's sweet and pretty, but Moose knows his life has no room for anything more. Until the day Tillie shows up beaten and desperate and needing his help.

Tillie Young never thought her ex would track her to Alaska, but somehow he's found her. When he kidnaps her daughter, she'll do anything to get her back--even enlist help from her favorite grumpy customer. But Moose Mulligan is no match for a former MMA boxer and possible child trafficker, right?

Maybe, maybe not, but he's not going to let another child go missing on his watch. Worse, when Moose finds himself accused as the kidnapper, there's no backing down. He must find the girl, keep Tillie safe, and outwit a man fueled by revenge. It will take all of Moose's Alaskan savvy to keep them alive--but who is going to protect him from the love he never saw coming?

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Between the Sound and Sea

Amanda Cox

Every family has its secrets. Josephina Harris wouldn't mind if her family still had a few of their own after a lawsuit tarnishes their name. When an opportunity opens to become a temporary keeper of a decommissioned lighthouse on a North Carolina island, she jumps at the chance to escape her small town to oversee its restoration.

As the work begins, "Joey" discovers strange notes tucked deep in the crevices of the old stone walls--pages torn from a lighthouse keeper's log signed by someone named Mae who recounts harrowing rescues at sea. Fascinated by a woman lighthouse keeper, Joey digs into the past only to discover there's never been a record of a lighthouse keeper by that name.

When things start to go amiss on the island, locals are convinced that it is the ghost of the lighthouse keeper and his daughter who were lost at sea during World War II. As Joey sifts through decades of rumors and legends and puts together the pieces of the past, what emerges is a love story--one that's not over yet.

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Meeting Her Match

Jen Turano

Miss Camilla Pierpont, a renowned matchmaker and influential member of the New York Four Hundred, has vowed never to marry after suffering a devastating heartbreak during her debut years ago. However, when she is nearly abducted along the Hudson River, she finds herself rescued by an annoyingly outspoken, albeit fascinating, gentleman who challenges her in a manner she wasn't expecting.

After learning that Camilla Pierpont has enjoyed success with taking wayward young ladies in hand, Mr. Owen Chesterfield travels to the Hudson River Valley determined to convince Camilla to sponsor his sister, who is in desperate need of social rehabilitation.

Knowing her life is in danger, Camilla agrees to Owen's proposition and travels with him to West Virginia, finding herself charmed by the less-than-formal attitude of his small hometown, as well as by Owen himself. But danger waits in the shadows, disrupting what she knows would be the most spectacular match she's ever made--her own.

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Matters of the Heart

Kelly Irvin

He's the community's jokester auctioneer. She's the serious caregiver for her siblings who also works at the local plant nursery. What future could they have together?

Declan Miller has always had feelings for Bethel King. Back when they were in school, she was the smartest girl in the class and, in his opinion, by far the prettiest. Now the two of them are in their twenties and while the attraction is still there, Declan is as hesitant as ever to let Bethel know how he feels. His corny jokes and wisecracks cover a heart that's afraid of rejection.

Bethel can't deny Declan is nice, funny, hardworking, and pleasing to the eye--a perfect match if you asked any Plain girl in the area. But marrying Bethel would also mean marrying into her family. Two of her younger brothers have a rare form of muscular dystrophy, and her sister Claire is now showing signs of having it as well. Fiercely loyal and nurturing, Bethel has promised herself her siblings will always come first. With a good chance that she carries the gene and could pass it on to her children, Bethel has tried to convince herself marriage and family just aren't in the cards for her.

When a devastating diagnosis of his own turns Declan's world upside down, he looks to Bethel for understanding, compassion, and a realistic outlook. As they share their dreams and fears and grow together in faith, a bond begins to develop between them. Perhaps their combination of optimistic extrovert and thoughtful introvert really isn't such a bad thing--perhaps it's actually a part of God's beautiful design.

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Flashpoint

Susan May Warren

The Hollywood heartthrob and the firefighter with a secret...

Rookie firefighter Emily Micah is determined to prove herself as a new recruit to the elite Jude County Hotshots wildfire team. Assigned to the film set of The Drifters, Emily's mission is to protect the cast and crew from the special effects that could ignite the tinder-dry Montana forest and start a wildfire.

If only her favorite actor-TV star Spenser Storm-wasn't getting in her way.

What could go wrong?

Haunted by the memory of a rabid stalker, former child TV star Spenser Storm is hoping to revive his career, but he's torn between the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and the life of a cowboy on his family's ranch in Montana. It doesn't help when he sees the movie that's supposed to launch his future is going up in flames.

And then there's beautiful and brave Emily Micah, who not only saves his life, but seems to understand him, maybe better than she should.

As an arsonist threatens the film production, seemingly with the goal of destroying the movie entirely, Spenser realizes he'll stop at nothing to protect his future and the woman now stealing his heart.

But Emily harbors a secret...one that could destroy the flame between them. And when it comes out, it could cost them everything, and ignite an inferno that could destroy all of the northern Montana forest.

Chasing Fire: Montana Series, Book One-Flashpoint-delivers a thrilling and emotional rollercoaster ride that will leave you breathless, yearning for more, and eager to dive into the next chapter of the thrilling series.

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Finding You

Amy Clipston

Both of them want a relationship -- but is beginning it a big mistake?

On the outside, twenty-seven-year-old Darcy Larsen is a pretty, put-together professional -- but inside she's falling apart. Eighteen months ago, she lost her fiancé in an accident she still blames herself for. After a successful transplant, her kidney disease seems to be in check, but she worries that her future children -- if she has any -- will also suffer from the same condition. And she's overcome with indecision about finding her birth mother, discovering potentially devastating information, and hurting her adoptive parents.

Mechanic Carter Donovan seems to have everything going for him at first glance. Stunning good looks. A wicked sense of humor. And a heart of gold. But Carter's seemingly perfect exterior hides a host of secrets. After a rough breakup and mounting medical bills from a medical emergency that left him drowning in debt, he doesn't feel like the catch everyone says he is. Plus, he's about to turn thirty--with no romantic prospects on the horizon.

When Darcy's Lexus breaks down in her doctor's parking lot, Carter appears on the scene to try to jump-start her car--and her heart. But despite their immediate connection right from the start, the two have perhaps too many obstacles to overcome. Carter questions if getting involved with Darcy will be his next big mistake. And Darcy wonders if she can ever move past her grief and guilt to embrace the gift of Happily Ever After that's dangling in front of her.

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Cold Vengeance

Nancy Mehl

When a renowned crime podcaster vanishes without a trace, former FBI behavioral analysts turned private investigators River Ryland and Tony St. Clair are called upon to track her down. As they wade through the evidence she left behind, they unearth a startling connection -- she may have discovered the existence of an unknown killer, and he will stop at nothing to carry out a deadly plan.

As the pair delves deeper, they soon find themselves the targets of a relentless enemy determined to silence them. With their lives--and hearts -- on the line, can they confront the evil that threatens them before it consumes them both?

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What We Hide

Colleen Coble

Family secrets. Historical wrongs. And the truths that refuse to stay buried.

Savannah Webster is trying to find her way forward. She and her husband, Hez, have been separated since tragedy tore them apart and he began numbing his grief and guilt with alcohol. She returned to Tupelo Grove University, which her family helped found over a century ago, to teach history.

When Hez turns up in her classroom asking for a second chance, she rejects the idea immediately. But twenty-four hours later she's under suspicion for murder, and since Hez is the best attorney she knows, she reluctantly asks him for help. They suspect the murder is tied to someone selling off the university's pre-Columbian artifacts, but the secrets go much deeper than they realize.

The only hope they've got is each other, and they're going to have to put their past behind them if they're going to stay alive long enough to uncover all that's hidden

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The Storekeeper's Daughter

Wanda E. Brunstetter

Enter a place where time seems to stand still, but can Naomi Fisher's Amish lifestyle hold back the hand of tragedy? Left at a young age to care for her siblings while her widowed father plods along without a wife, Naomi turned her back on one basic duty, and now she feels unworthy to accomplish any task set before her. How can she escape the weight on her spirit that is paralyzing her emotions? Is there any redemption for a failure like herself? Other books in the series include The Quilter's Daughter: Book 2 and The Bishop's Daughter: Book 3.

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The Quilter's Daughter

Wanda E. Brunstetter

Abby Miller leaves her successful quilt shop and patient fiance in Ohio to help her newly remarried and now pregnant mother in Lancaster County. While she's away, Abby's world is shattered in one fell swoop. How can God make anything good come out of this tragedy? With shaken faith, Abby is forced to look for answers away from friends and family. Will she find them in the ashes of the past, in her love of quilting, or in the heart of an overlooked Amish man? Can her faith withstand the flames of tragedy? The Quilter's Daughter is book 2 in the Daughters of Lancaster's County series. Other books in the series include The Storekeeper's Daughter: Book 1 and The Bishop's Daughter: Book 3.

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A Choice Considered

Tracie Peterson

Love has a way of derailing even the most carefully laid plans.
Melody Doyle has spent years following her father across the country as the transcontinental railroad is built. When she announces her desire to settle down in Cheyenne, her father presents her with an unconventional challenge: he will allow her to stay if she finds a husband before his departure. As word spreads and the men in town vie for her hand, she wonders if she could ever be happy with a husband chosen in such a way.

Charles Decker, heir to a banking dynasty, has been sent west by his father to manage their family's new bank. His heart yearns for a simple life of teaching, but banking is the family business, and Charlie feels obligated to fall in line. When his friendship with Melody blossoms, he's drawn to this remarkable woman who defies conventions. Will he be able to come to terms with his growing feelings for her and confront the true desires of his own heart before it's too late?

 

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The Bishop's Daughter

Wanda E. Brunstetter

Leona is Bishop Jacob Weaver's daughter and a dedicated teacher in a one-room Amish schoolhouse. After her father's tragic accident, Leona's faith wavers. How could God allow something like this to happen to one of His servants? Outlander Jimmy Scott comes to Pennsylvania in search of his real family. When he is hired to paint an Amish schoolhouse, Jimmy and Leona find themselves irresistibly drawn to each other. Can anything good come from the love between an Amish woman and an English man? What secrets will be revealed and what miracles await God's people in Lancaster County? The Bishop's Daughter is book 3 in the Daughters of Lancaster County series. Other books in the series include The Storekeeper's Daughter: Book 1 and The Quilter's Daughter: Book 2.

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Until Our Time Comes

Nicole M. Miller

American horse trainer Adia Kensington is living her dream of working at the famous Janów Podlaski stables in Poland, where they breed the best Arabian horses in the world. But her plans to bring the priceless stallion Lubor to the US are derailed when the German army storms into her adopted country in 1939. Little does she know this is just the beginning of six long years of occupation that will threaten her beloved horses at every turn.

Bret Conway is at Janów Podlaski under the guise of a news reporter, but his true mission is intelligence gathering for the British. That and keeping Adia safe, which is harder and harder to do as she insists they must evacuate 250 horses to save them from being stolen, sold, or eaten by the invading forces. What follows will test their physical, mental, and emotional strength, as well as their faith in God, humankind, and each other.

Drawn from true events of World War II, this epic story of escape, capture, resistance, and love from debut novelist Nicole M. Miller will thunder into your heart like a herd of beautiful horses across a raging river.

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The Summer of Yes

Courtney Walsh

Sometimes you're so busy writing other people's stories that you lose the plot of your own.

This wasn't how Kelsey Worthington's day was supposed to go. She wasn't supposed to be picking up Starbucks for her smarmy boss. She wasn't supposed to get hit by a car that jumped the curb. And she certainly wasn't supposed to wake up in a hospital room next to Georgina Tate -- the legendary matriarch of New York City businesswomen.

Kelsey and Georgina couldn't be more opposite. Kelsey's a dreamer, a writer who questions her own skill. And Georgina is a confident businesswoman whose years of shouldering her way into boardrooms and making her voice heard have made her far too outspoken for the faint of heart.

But now, when Georgina's failing kidneys force her to face some big regrets about the way she's lived her life, the two women recognize they share a common thread. Maybe it's time to confront a few things. They must ask themselves: What if I said yes to everything I've always said no to?

With Georgina as her companion, Kelsey soon finds herself doing things she's never done before. Eating street food. Swimming in the ocean. Matchmaking for Georgina with the help of Georgina's handsome son. And writing her own romance -- both in book form and in real life.

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Meet Me at the Starlight

Rachel Hauck

1987. Supermodel Harlow Hayes seeks solace in a quaint Florida beach town to heal from a heartbreak that shattered her entire world. To her surprise, she encounters Matt Knight--a Hollywood A-lister with a bad-boy reputation--who has returned to his hometown to help his plucky grandmother, Tuesday, save her century-old skating rink, the Starlight.

The Starlight holds a special place in the hearts of the community, once acting as a refuge for Depression-era families and bringing the town together with gatherings and celebrations. Tuesday's determination even protected her beloved rink from her husband's shady business dealings. Yet when the Starlight is threatened with demolition, Tuesday begins to wonder if an era has come to an end.

As Matt and Harlow strategize to save the rink, they find themselves on a journey of surprises, self-discovery, and the kind of healing that leads to love.

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Summer Romance

Annabel Monaghan

AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“A BINGEABLE FIVE-STAR READ.” —ABBY JIMENEZ, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"I loved it—brims with heart, wit, and longing.”—CARLEY FORTUNE, #1 New York Times bestselling author

The romantic and hilarious story of a professional organizer whose life is a mess, and the summer she gets unstuck with the help of someone unexpected from her past, by the bestselling author of Nora Goes Off Script.


Benefits of a summer romance: It’s always fun, always brief, and no one gets their heart broken.

Ali Morris is a professional organizer whose own life is a mess. Her mom died two years ago, then her husband left, and she hasn’t worn pants with a zipper in longer than she cares to remember.

No one is more surprised than Ali when the first time she takes off her wedding ring and puts on pants with hardware—overalls count, right?—she meets someone. Or rather, her dog claims a man for her...by peeing on him. Ethan smiles at Ali like her pants are just right—like he likes what he sees. He looks at her like she’s a younger, braver version of herself. The last thing newly single mom Ali needs is to make her life messier, but there’s no harm in a little summer romance. Is there?

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Sleepaway

Kevin Prufer

A haunting debut novel from celebrated poet Kevin Prufer.

It's 1984, and the invisible mists are falling, mists that cause people to slip into dreamless slumber--sleeps from which most, but not all, awaken. Those who do wake live in fear of the next mist, and the next, each a little longer and more dangerous than the last.

Alternating between the perspectives of a kleptomaniac waitress named Cora and her twelve-year-old friend Glass, Sleepaway depicts a small-town America turned alarming. This is a place where loved ones are lost to a state between life and death; where denial, delusion, and desperation take hold of those remaining; where dealers of the antisleep drug Eight Track disappear into shadows, and a murderous wannabe kingpin hunts for victims.

As civilization is shaved away one sleep storm at a time, people struggle to go on, making and losing allies and discovering new strengths and weaknesses. Cora sets out on an ill-fated road trip hoping to reclaim her sister's love, only to discover a more powerful bond than blood. Glass, having lost his only parent to one of the first mists, searches for a stability he has never had and may never achieve. All the while, buildings rise outside town to cope with the mounting number of sleepers. Some see them as hospitals, others as repositories, and yet soon the air around them fills with ash.

An allegory for post-pandemic America, Sleepaway grapples with questions concerning friendship, race, and family amid the horror of inexplicable, arbitrary annihilation.

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The Ministry of Time

Kaliane Bradley

A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.
s, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape o
She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calvef the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.

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Malas

Marcela Fuentes

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK
 
“A vivacious, page-turning novel of rebellion and rebirth.” —Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming and Anita de Monte Laughs Last

A story full of passion and revenge, following one family living on the Texas Mexico border and a curse that reverberates across generations"Fuentes has achieved something rare and indelible with this story of complex women.” (Erika L. Sánchez)
 
In 1951, a mysterious old woman confronts Pilar Aguirre in the small border town of La Cienega, Texas. The old woman is sure Pilar stole her husband and, in a heated outburst, lays a curse on Pilar and her family.

More than forty years later, Lulu Muñoz is dodging chaos at every turn: her troubled father’s moods, his rules, her secret life as singer in a punk band, but most of all her upcoming quinceañera. When her beloved grandmother passes away, Lulu finds herself drawn to the glamorous stranger who crashed the funeral and who lives alone and shunned on the edge of town.

Their unexpected kinship picks at the secrets of Lulu’s family’s past. As the quinceañera looms—and we move between these two strong, irascible female voices—one woman must make peace with the past, and one girl pushes to embrace her future.

Rich with cinematic details—from dusty rodeos to the excitement of a Selena concert and the comfort of conjunto ballads played at family gatherings—this memorable debut is a love letter to the Tejano culture and community that sustain both of these women as they discover what family means.

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Horror Movie

Paul Tremblay

Pre-order now to get a book with red-stained edges - available only on the first printing!

A chilling twist on the "cursed film" genre from the bestselling author of The Pallbearers Club and The Cabin at the End of the World.

In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick.

The weird part? Only three of the film's scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot.

The man who played "The Thin Kid" is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he's going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions--demons of the past be damned.

But at what cost?

Horror Movie is an obsessive, psychologically chilling, and suspenseful feat of storytelling genius that builds inexorably to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion.

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Godwin

Joseph O'Neill

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • From the acclaimed author of Netherland (a New York Times Book Review Best Book of the year): the odyssey of two brothers crossing the world in search of an African soccer prodigy who might change their fortunes.

Mark Wolfe, a brilliant if self-thwarting technical writer, lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Sushila, and their toddler daughter. His half-brother Geoff, born and raised in the United Kingdom, is a desperate young soccer agent. He pulls Mark across the ocean into a scheme to track down an elusive prospect known only as “Godwin”—an African teenager Geoff believes could be the next Lionel Messi.

Narrated in turn by Mark and his work colleague Lakesha Williams, Godwin is a tale of family and migration as well as an international adventure story that implicates the brothers in the beauty and ugliness of soccer, the perils and promises of international business, and the dark history of transatlantic money-making.

As only he can do, Joseph O’Neill investigates the legacy of colonialism in the context of family love, global capitalism, and the dreaming individual.

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Floating Hotel

Grace Curtis

This cozy science fiction novel tells a story of misfits, rebels, found family—and a mystery that spans the stars

Welcome to the Grand Abeona Hotel: home of the finest food, the sweetest service, and the very best views the galaxy has to offer. All year round it moves from planet to planet, system to system, pampering guests across the furthest reaches of the milky way. The last word in sub-orbital luxury—and an absolute magnet for intrigue. Intrigues such as: Why are there love poems in the lobby inbox? How many Imperial spies are currently on board? What is the true purpose of the Problem Solver’s conference? And perhaps most pertinently—who is driving the ship?

Each guest has a secret, every member of staff a universe unto themselves. At the center of these interweaving lives and interlocking mysteries stands Carl, one time stowaway, longtime manager, devoted caretaker to the hotel. It’s the love of his life and the only place he’s ever called home. But as forces beyond Carl’s comprehension converge on the Abeona, he has to face one final question: when is it time to let go?

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Continuum

Annabelle Dolidon

Classic French science fiction short stories translated into English for the first time.
This unique collection of newly translated short stories offers a taste of classic and contemporary French science fiction to English-language readers. These stories cover a range of fascinating topics including simulated reality, speciesism, ecology, and transhumanism--all while exploring universal themes of belonging, death, and identity. Some of the authors featured in this anthology, like Julia Verlanger, Sylvie Denis, or Jean-Claude Dunyach, have shaped the history of French science fiction after World War II. Curated by Annabelle Dolidon and Tessa Sermet, French language and literature professors who share a love for the genre, these nine stories showcase some of the brilliant mid- to late twentieth and twenty-first century French contributions to science fiction.

Dolidon and Sermet provide illuminating expansions that accompany each tale and fascinating insights into the evolution of French and American science fiction. The discussion opportunities are also a wonderful resource for teachers and students of French literature and French culture as well as English and comparative literature. This anthology is a great opportunity to discover French sci-fi in English translation for fans or readers new to the genre.

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Clete

James Lee Burke

In the latest installment in his famous Detective Dave Robicheaux series, New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke brings Dave's partner and friend Clete Purcel to the forefront for the first time as Clete and Dave attempt to stop ruthless smugglers of a dangerous new drug

 

Clete Purcel - private investigator, ex-member of the New Orleans Police Department, and war veteran with a hard shell and just a few soft spots - is Dave Robicheaux's longtime friend and partner in detective work. But he has a troubled past. When Clete leaves his car at the local car wash, only to return to find it ransacked by a group of thugs tied to the drug trade from Mexican cartels to Louisiana, it feels personal - his grandniece died of a fentanyl overdose, and his fists curl when he thinks of the dealers who sold it.

 

 

Just as Clete starts to trail the culprits, Clara Bow, a woman with a dark past hires Clete as a detective to investigate her scheming, slippery ex-husband, and a string of brutal deaths all link back to a heavily tattooed man who seems to lurk around every corner. Clete is experiencing shockingly lifelike hallucinations and questioning Clara's ulterior motives when he and Dave start to hear rumors of a dangerous substance with potentially catastrophic effects. The thugs who destroyed his car might have been pawns in a scheme far darker than they could've imagined.

 

 

Gripping, violent, yet interlaced with Clete's humor and consistent drive to protect those he loves, Clete brings a fresh perspective to a truly iconic series. James Lee Burke proves yet again that he is the "heavyweight champ" and "great American novelist whose work, taken individually or as a whole, is unsurpassed" (Michael Connelly).

 

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Butcher

Joyce Carol Oates

From one of our most accomplished storytellers, an extraordinary and arresting novel about a women’s asylum in the nineteenth century, and a terrifying doctor who wants to change the world

In this harrowing story based on authentic historical documents, we follow the career of Dr. Silas Weir, “Father of Gyno-Psychiatry,” as he ascends from professional anonymity to national renown. Humiliated by a procedure gone terribly wrong, Weir is forced to take a position at the New Jersey Asylum for Female Lunatics, where he reigns. There, he is allowed to continue his practice, unchecked for decades, making a name for himself by focusing on women who have been neglected by the state—women he subjects to the most grotesque modes of experimentation. As he begins to establish himself as a pioneer of nineteenth-century surgery, Weir’s ambition is fueled by his obsessive fascination with a young Irish indentured servant named Brigit, who becomes not only Weir’s primary experimental subject, but also the agent of his destruction.

Narrated by Silas Weir’s eldest son, who has repudiated his father’s brutal legacy, Butcher is a unique blend of fiction and fact, a nightmare voyage through the darkest regions of the American psyche conjoined, in its startling conclusion, with unexpected romance. Once again, Joyce Carol Oates has written a spellbinding novel confirming her position as one of our celebrated American visionaries of the imagination.

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Stuart Woods' Smolder

Brett Battles

AN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER

In this latest adrenaline-fueled adventure in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, Stone Barrington faces his most vindictive threat yet.


Finally enjoying some downtime in Santa Fe, Stone Barrington agrees to attend an art exhibit with a dear friend. There, he encounters an intriguing woman who is on the trail of a ring of art thieves. Always one to please, Stone offers his help.

From Santa Fe to Los Angeles, it quickly becomes clear that her investigation has links to Stone—particularly to rare Matilda Stone art, his mother’s paintings. And when old grudges come to light, Stone is forced to reckon with a familiar enemy. Stone must act fast before whoever is out to get him finally closes in on him . . . for good.

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The Sword Unbound

Gareth Hanrahan

Gareth Hanrahan's acclaimed epic fantasy series of dark myth, daring warriors and bloodthirsty vengeance continues with The Sword Unbound.



He thought he was saving the world. That was his first mistake.




Twenty years ago, Alf and his companions defeated the Dark Lord and claimed his city. Now, those few of the Nine that remain find themselves unwilling rebels, defying the authority of both the mortal Lords they once served and the immortal king of the elves - the secret architect of everything they've ever known.



Once lauded as a mighty hero, Alf is now labelled a traitor and hunted by the very gods he seeks to bring down. As desperate rebellion blazes across the land, Alf seeks the right path through a maze of conspiracy, wielding a weapon of evil. The black sword Spellbreaker has found its purpose in these dark days. But can Aelfric remain a hero, or is his legend tarnished forever?



Praise for The Sword Defiant:



"A treat for all fantasy fans . . . . It's an absolute blast." ― Justin Lee Anderson, author of The Lost War




"In the tradition of Tolkien and Eddings, with a richly detailed narrative, well-drawn characters, epic battles, and political and religious intrigues, Hanrahan's outstanding first outing in the Lands of the Firstborn series will thrill fantasy readers--who will anxiously await the next book." ― Booklist (starred review)



"This novel has the potential to become a fan-favorite among those who appreciate vast and eloquent epic fantasy. Readers will enjoy the unique twists, absorbing intrigue, and endearing characters." ― Library Journal



"I will buy any novel that Gareth Hanrahan ever writes." ― The Fantasy Inn




For more from Gareth Hanrahan, check out:



The Black Iron Legacy

The Gutter Prayer

The Shadow Saint

The Broken God

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Swan Song

Elin Hilderbrand

The beloved #1 New York Times bestselling author brings her Nantucket novels to a brilliant finish: when rich strangers move to the island, social mayhem--and a possible murder follow. Can Nantucket's best locals save the day, and their way of life?

Chief of Police Ed Kapenash is about to retire. Blond Sharon is going through a divorce. But when a 22-million-dollar summer home is purchased by the mysterious Richardsons--how did they make their money, exactly?--Ed, Sharon, and everyone in the community are swept up in high drama. The Richardsons throw lavish parties, flirt with multiple locals, flaunt their wealth with not one but two yachts, and raise impossible hopes of everyone they meet. When their house burns to the ground and their most essential employee goes missing, the entire island is up in arms.

The last of Elin Hilderbrand's bestselling Nantucket novels, Swan Song is a propulsive medley of glittering gatherings, sun-soaked drama, wisdom and heart, featuring the return of some of her most beloved characters, including, most importantly, the beautiful and timeless island of Nantucket itself.

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One Deadly Eye

Randy Wayne White

From New York Times bestselling author Randy Wayne White, after the deadliest hurricane to hit Florida's Gulf Coast in a century, Doc Ford must stop a gang of thieves--and worse--during the twelve hours of chaos that follow the passing of a storm's eye.



A Russian diplomat disappears while Doc is tagging great white sharks in South Africa, and members of a criminal brotherhood, Bratva, don't think it's a coincidence. They track the biologist to Dinkin's Bay Marina on the west coast of Florida, where Brotherhood mercenaries have already deployed, prepared to pillage and kill in the wake of an approaching hurricane.



No one, however, is prepared for a cataclysmic event that will forever change the island and leaves Doc to deal with escapees from Russia's most dangerous prison, including a serial killer--the Vulture Monk--who has a taste for blood. His only ally is an enigmatic British inventor whose decision to ride out the storm might have more to do with revenge than protecting a priceless art collection.



Doc has a lot at stake--the lives of his fiancée, Hannah Smith, and their son, plus the fate of his hipster pal, Tomlinson, whose sailboat has disappeared in the Gulf of Mexico. The greatest threat of all, though, is a force that cannot be escaped--a Category Five hurricane that, minute by minute, melds sins of the past with Florida's precarious future.

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The Library Thief

Kuchenga Shenjé

A strikingly original and absorbing mystery about a white-passing bookbinder in Victorian England and the secrets lurking on the estate where we she works, for fans of Fingersmith and The Confessions of Frannie Langton



The library is under lock and key. But its secrets can't be contained.



1896. After he brought her home from Jamaica as a baby, Florence's father had her hair hot-combed to make her look like the other girls. But as a young woman, Florence is not so easy to tame--and when she brings scandal to his door, the bookbinder throws her onto the streets of Manchester.



Intercepting her father's latest commission, Florence talks her way into the remote, forbidding Rose Hall to restore its collection of rare books. Lord Francis Belfield's library is old and full of secrets--but none so intriguing as the whispers about his late wife.



Then one night, the library is broken into. Strangely, all the priceless tomes remain untouched. Florence is puzzled, until she discovers a half-burned book in the fireplace. She realizes with horror that someone has found and set fire to the secret diary of Lord Belfield's wife-which may hold the clue to her fate...



Evocative, arresting and tightly plotted, The Library Thief is at once a propulsive Gothic mystery and a striking exploration of race, gender and self-discovery in Victorian England.

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Truth Be Told

Patricia Raybon

Denver's newest detective. A garden's deadly secrets.

On a lovely June night in 1924, amateur detective Annalee Spain is mingling bravely at a high-class political fundraiser in the lush backyard garden of famed political fixer Cooper Coates, one of the wealthiest men in Denver's Black neighborhood of Five Points. When Coates's young daughter discovers a pretty stranger dead in her father's garden shed, Annalee is thrust onto the baffling new case just as she's reeling from another recent discovery -- a handwritten letter, found buried in her own garden, that reveals the identity of her mother.

Not ready to face the truth about her hidden past, Annalee throws herself into solving the mystery of the young woman's demise. With the help of her pastor boyfriend Jack Blake, her orphaned buddy Eddie, and her trustworthy church friends, Annalee follows the clues to three seemingly disconnected settings -- a traveling carnival set up downtown, a Black civic club, and a prestigious white seminary on the outskirts of Denver. Intriguing advice also comes from a famous, real-life Denver visitor. But is Annalee on the right track or just running in circles, fleeing from conflicts racing in her heart?
 
In a taut, heart-gripping narrative driven by secrets, romance, and lies, Annalee must unravel a case with higher stakes than she imagined -- one where answers about a lovely woman's death point to truths and tensions still throbbing today.

 

 

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Toward the Dawn

Mary Connealy

Kat Wadsworth and Sebastian Jones never imagined their lives would entwine so closely. Forced to flee on a wagon train from a vengeful uncle and an unknown gunman, they live in a hidden canyon with the family that rescued them. But as the days turn into months, they each have separate reasons for wanting to move back to society, and the best way to the independence they desperately crave might be through a marriage of convenience.

However, settling into their homestead in Cheyenne, Wyoming, reveals a different reality for Kat. Her new husband becomes consumed by his inventions, leaving her feeling lonely and isolated. And just when they think they've left the danger behind, a mysterious attacker lurks in the shadows, threatening the new life they've built. Together, they must confront the perils from their pasts to forge a future with hope and the prospect of love.

 

 

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Rocky Mountain Journey

Misty M. Beller

Faith Collins embarks on a perilous journey through the untamed wilderness of the Rocky Mountains in search of the Peigan Blackfoot woman who once saved her father's life. Masquerading as a man, she follows a group of trappers who may be able to lead her to the place the woman is hiding, but keeping Faith's identity a secret proves more difficult than she imagined.

Grant Allen is searching for his younger brother who was separated from him when their parents died many years ago. After receiving word that his brother went west to the Rockies, he joins a band of trappers, hoping they can lead him to his brother's location. Soon Grant realizes there's a woman hiding among the men, and he's determined to find out her identity, what she's hiding, and how he can keep her safe in this country of wild animals and even wilder men.

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Love's New Beginnings

Penny Zeller

Lydie Beauchamp recently moved with her aunts -- sisters Myrtle and Fern -- to the untamed Wyoming Territory. When a teaching position in nearby Willow Falls captures her attention, can she leave her aunts, one of whom just suffered a broken heart, and embark on this new adventure? Will she find the courage to persevere in the midst of challenges, one being a handsome challenge named Solomon Eliason?

Reverend Solomon Eliason has the goal of making a difference. Hired as the pastor of Willow Falls, he must convince the congregation that he is able to undertake the role of a reverend. When he's nominated to be the adult in charge of the annual prank tradition at the school, he embraces the idea, thinking the new teacher will be an elderly crotchety woman like his former teacher. What he doesn't realize until it's too late is that the teacher is far from crotchety and elderly.

When Lydie's and Solomon's paths cross in an unexpected way during the prank tradition at the Willow Falls school, can Solomon redeem himself in the eyes of the lovely new teacher?

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Her Part to Play

Jenny Erlingsson

Desperate for extra income after her mother's passing, Adanne accepts a last-minute job as a makeup artist for a movie filming in her small Alabama hometown. She's working to save her parents' legacy and help her brother, but the money hardly seems worth having to face the actor who got her fired from her last job in Hollywood.

John Pope has made his share of mistakes over the years. But after turning his life over to God and enduring a messy breakup, he's ready to start rebuilding his career. Imagine his surprise when the woman called in to cover for his usual makeup artist is a quiet but feisty newcomer on the set -- and definitely not a fan.

Sparks of tension -- and could that be attraction? -- fly between them, but Adanne hates the spotlight, and John's scheming manager has bigger plans for him than to end up with the humble makeup girl from the small-town South. Can these star-crossed lovers find their way to happiness? Or will the bright lights of Hollywood blind their eyes to what's right in front of them?

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Coal Black Lies

Cindy Sproles

Believing the bitter lies you tell yourself leaves little room for the sweetness of truth
Coal miner Joshua Morgan managed to do the impossible -- he broke away from the stranglehold of the iron-fisted Barton family and the Company Store, to whom all the miners in the Appalachian Mountains are indebted. But it cost him the life of his young daughter, who was run down by a posse led by Thomas Barton while coming to collect Joshua's payment to the store.

Five years later, a sweet but slow-witted young girl lands on his doorstep, and Joshua's desire to protect her from the clutches of the Bartons increases his thirst for vengeance. Joshua sets out to discover where the girl came from in order to take down the Barton family once and for all. 

His journey leads him to the truth about the day his daughter died, a reality he finds hard to accept. But when confronted by Thomas Barton himself, Joshua is forced to rethink the dark lies brewing in his heart. If he broke away, could Thomas have also? Despite his misgivings, can Joshua join forces with a man he once despised to free the miners from the tyrannical Barton family and forge a future of peace for both the young girl and himself?

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Bitter and Sweet

Rhonda McKnight

-The Present-

When summoned to Georgetown, South Carolina, sisters Mariah Clark and Sabrina Holland both assume their ailing grandfather's health has gotten worse. Neither expects their grandmother's undeniable request--save the family restaurant.

Mariah is at a crossroad in her life. After being dumped by her husband and forced to walk away from their diner that she helped rescue from bankruptcy, bitter feelings consume her. Even though the restaurant has been in the family for eighty-six years, giving her all to another struggling business isn't something she wants to do.

Living out of her van and striving for a fresh start, Sabrina yearns for stability for herself and her daughter and a chance to turn her baking hustle into a bona-fide business. The family restaurant may be just the blessing she needs -- but as old tensions and angry disagreements resurface, Sabrina wonders if her sister will let her have a say.

-The Past-

After falling victim to a love she thought would last a lifetime, Tabitha Cooper finds herself away from home and struggling to survive in Charleston in the early twentieth century. She is determined to turn corn into cornbread and to take care of her children the best way she knows how -- by serving food that's good for the soul -- and along the way forges a path that leaves a legacy of success for generations to come.

Through letters that reveal Tabitha's complicated past, the sisters discover truths that just might be the right recipe to mend their hearts -- if they can find a way to savor the blessing of today and leave the bitter aftertaste of old memories behind them.

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All the World Beside

Garrard Conley

From the New York Times bestselling author of Boy Erased, an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the love story between two men in Puritan New England.

Cana, Massachusetts: a utopian vision of 18th-century Puritan New England. To the outside world, Reverend Nathaniel Whitfield and his family stand as godly pillars of their small-town community, drawing Christians from across the New World into their fold. One such Christian, physician Arthur Lyman, discovers in the minister’s words a love so captivating it transcends language.

As the bond between these two men grows more and more passionate, their families must contend with a tangled web of secrets, lies, and judgments which threaten to destroy them in this world and the next. And when the religious ecstasies of the Great Awakening begin to take hold, igniting a new era of zealotry, Nathaniel and Arthur search for a path out of an impossible situation, imagining a future for themselves which has no name. Their wives and children must do the same, looking beyond the known world for a new kind of wilderness, both physical and spiritual.

Set during the turbulent historical upheavals which shaped America’s destiny and following in the tradition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, All the World Beside reveals the very human lives just beneath the surface of dogmatic belief. Bestselling author Garrard Conley has created a page-turning, vividly imagined historical tale that is both a love story and a crucible.

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This Summer Will Be Different

Carley Fortune

This summer they’ll keep their promise. This summer they won't give into temptation. This summer will be different.

Lucy is the tourist vacationing at a beach house on Prince Edward Island. Felix is the local who shows her a very good time. The only problem: Lucy doesn’t know he’s her best friend’s younger brother. Lucy and Felix’s chemistry is unreal, but the list of reasons why they need to stay away from each other is long, and they vow to never repeat that electric night again.

It’s easier said than done.

Each year, Lucy escapes to PEI for a big breath of coastal air, fresh oysters and crisp vinho verde with her best friend, Bridget. Every visit begins with a long walk on the beach, beneath soaring red cliffs and a golden sun. And every visit, Lucy promises herself she won’t wind up in Felix’s bed. Again.

If Lucy can’t help being drawn to Felix, at least she’s always kept her heart out of it.

When Bridget suddenly flees Toronto a week before her wedding, Lucy drops everything to follow her to the island. Her mission is to help Bridget through her crisis and resist the one man she’s never been able to. But Felix’s sparkling eyes and flirty quips have been replaced with something new, and Lucy’s beginning to wonder just how safe her heart truly is.

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Lavash at First Sight

Taleen Voskuni

Sparks fly between two women pitted against each other in this delectable new romantic comedy by Taleen Voskuni, author of Sorry, Bro.

Twenty-seven-year-old Nazeli “Ellie” Gregorian enjoys the prestige of her tech marketing job but is sick of the condescending Patagonia-clad tech bros, her micromanaging boss, and her ex-boyfriend, who she’s forced to work with every day. When Ellie’s lovingly overbearing parents ask her to attend PakCon—a food packaging conference in Chicago—to help promote their company and vie to win an ad slot in the Superbowl (no big deal), she’s eager for a brief change and a delicious distraction.

At the conference, she meets witty, devil-may-care Vanya Simonian. Ellie can’t believe how easy it is to talk to Vanya and how much they have in common—both Armenian! From the Bay Area! Whose families are into food! Their meet-cute is cut short, however, when Ellie’s parents recognize Vanya as the daughter of the owners of their greatest rival, whose mission (according to Ellie’s mother) is to whitewash and package Armenian food for the American health-food crowd.
 
Sworn as enemies, Ellie and Vanya must compete against each other under their suspicious parents' scrutiny, all while their feelings for each other heat to sizzling temps.

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How to Read a Book

Monica Wood

"The perfect pick to really light a fire under my book club, and yours....A reminder that goodness, and books, can still win in this world." --New York Times Book Review

"A beautiful, big-hearted treasure of a novel." --Lily King

From the award-winning author of The One-in-a-Million Boy comes a heartfelt, uplifting novel about a chance encounter at a bookstore, exploring redemption, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.

Our Reasons meet us in the morning and whisper to us at night. Mine is an innocent, unsuspecting, eternally sixty-one-year-old woman named Lorraine Daigle...

Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher.

Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest.

Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn't yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed.

When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland--Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman--their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways.

How to Read a Book is an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.

"A deeply humane and touching novel; highly recommended for book clubs and fans of Shelby Van Pelt's Remarkably Bright Creatures." -- Booklist

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Every Time We Say Goodbye

Natalie Jenner

The bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls returns with a brilliant novel of love and art, of grief and memory, of confronting the past and facing the future.

In 1955, Vivien Lowry is facing the greatest challenge of her life. Her latest play, the only female-authored play on the London stage that season, has opened in the West End to rapturous applause from the audience. The reviewers, however, are not as impressed as the playgoers and their savage notices not only shut down the play but ruin Lowry's last chance for a dramatic career. With her future in London not looking bright, at the suggestion of her friend, Peggy Guggenheim, Vivien takes a job in as a script doctor on a major film shooting in Rome’s Cinecitta Studios. There she finds a vibrant movie making scene filled with rising stars, acclaimed directors, and famous actors in a country that is torn between its past and its potentially bright future, between the liberation of the post-war cinema and the restrictions of the Catholic Church that permeates the very soul of Italy.

As Vivien tries to forge a new future for herself, she also must face the long-buried truth of the recent World War and the mystery of what really happened to her deceased fiancé. Every Time We Say Goodbye is a brilliant exploration of trauma and tragedy, hope and renewal, filled with dazzling characters both real and imaginary, from the incomparable author who charmed the world with her novels The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls.

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When Hope Sank

Denise Weimer

Can Hope Resurface After Evil Tries to Drown It?



Introducing a series of 6 exciting novels featuring historic American disasters that transformed landscapes and multiple lives. Whether by nature or by man, these disasters changed history and were a day to be remembered.



The Civil War has taken everything from Lily Livingston--her parents, her twin brother, her home. Now she works at her uncle's inn and keeps her head down. Speaking up for her beliefs proved too costly in a part of Arkansas split by conflicting loyalties and overrun by spies and bushwhackers.



Emaciated in body but resilient in spirit, Lieutenant Cade Palmer is crowded onto the Sultana with other paroled Andersonville and Cahaba POWs for the journey north. But a fiery explosion on April 27, 1865, rends the steamer and empties two thousand men into the frigid Mississippi River.



Recovering from wounds that might end his career as a surgeon but clinging to his faith, Cade threatens both Lily's defenses and her heart. How can she tell him she might've prevented the tragedy if only she'd reported a suspected saboteur's claims? And when the man returns to town and encoded messages pass through the hotel, will Lily follow her convictions to prevent another tragedy?



Also available in the A Day to Remember series:

When the Waters Came by Candice Sue Patterson

When the Flames Ravaged by Rhonda Dragomir

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The Girl from the Hidden Forest

Hannah Linder

The nightmares may free her...but destroy the man she loves.



Enjoy another Gothic Style Regency from Hannah Linder.



Eliza Ellis has stayed hidden in Balfour Forest for as long as she can remember. Perhaps her only friends are the trees, or her little dog, or her story-telling father called Captain. But at least she is safe from the cruel world outside, a world Captain has warned her against and protected her from.



That is, until a handsome stranger named Felton Northwood invades her quiet forest and steals her away. Why does he tell such lies? Why does he insist that her name is Miss Eliza Gillingham, daughter of a viscount, who disappeared fourteen years ago after the murder of her own mother? A murder Eliza is said to have witnessed.



When Felton returns Eliza to Monbury Manor and reunites her with a man who is told to be her father, all she remembers are the strange nightmares that have plagued her since childhood. Why have they suddenly grown worse? Are the answers hidden inside her own mind?



As danger mounts and lethal attempts are made on her life, Eliza and Felton must work together to uncover the identity of a killer who has stayed silent for fourteen years. When she finally uncovers the horrendous memories trapped in her mind, will divulging the truth cost her the man she loves--and both of their lives?

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Holy City

Henry Wise

"Holy City is an amazing piece of work. A Southern novel that examines the pathos and ethos of small-town life and the weight of both grief and hatred. Love it."--S.A. Cosby

No one innocent. No one free. Nothing sacred.

Holy City is the captivating debut from Henry Wise about a deputy sheriff who must work alongside an unpredictable private detective after he finds himself on the outs from his sheriff's department over his unwillingness to look the other way when an innocent man is arrested for murder.

After a decade of exile precipitated by the tragic death of his mother, Will Seems returns home from Richmond to rural Southern Virginia, taking a job as deputy sheriff in a landscape given way to crime and defeat. Impoverished and abandoned, this remote land of tobacco plantations, razed forests, and boarded-up homes seems stuck in the past in a state that is trying to forget its complex history and move on.

Will's efforts to go about his life are wrecked when a mysterious, brutal homicide claims the life of an old friend, Tom Janders, forcing Will to face the true impetus for his return: not to honor his mother's memory, but to pay a debt to a Black friend who, in an act of selfless courage years ago, protected Will and suffered permanent disfigurement for it.

Meanwhile, a man Will knows to be innocent is arrested for Tom's murder, and despite Will's pleas, his boss seems all too content to wrap up the case and move on. Will must weigh his personal guilt against his public duty when the local Black community hires Bennico Watts, an unpredictable private detective from Richmond, to help him find the real killer. It would seem an ideal pairing--she has experience, along with plenty of sand, and Will is privy to the details of the case--but it doesn't take long for either to realize they much prefer to operate alone.

Bennico and Will clash as they each defend their untraditional ways on a wild ride that wends deep into the Snakefoot, an underworld wilderness that for hundreds of years has functioned as a hideout for outcasts--the forgotten and neglected and abused--leaving us enmeshed in the tangled history of a region and its people that leaves no one innocent, no one free, nothing sacred.

 

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Unforgiven

Shelley Shepard Gray

Ex-con Seth Zimmerman has spent the last three years making amends by helping the vulnerable in his former Amish community. Lately, this mission includes calling on Tabitha Yoder, whose divorce from her abusive husband has isolated her from the community. Even though she never comes out of her house to talk to him, Seth knows she watches him from the window while he chops wood, clears her driveway, and drops off food.

An uneasy friendship is just starting to take hold between them when small gifts begin to appear at Tabitha's home -- gifts that can only be from her ex-husband. Seth might be Tabitha's only hope at maintaining her hard-won freedom from the man whose violent outbursts had almost cost her life. But coming to her rescue might mean he ends up behind bars once again.

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The Road before Us

Janine Rosche

How far would you go to fix the mistakes you've made and regain the trust you lost? For Jade Jessup, the answer is 2,448 miles. Once one of Chicago's significant financial advisors, Jade lost her credibility when her fiancé (and coworker) stole millions of dollars from their clients in a Ponzi scheme. Now she's agreed to help one of them -- an aging 1960s Hollywood starlet named Berenice "Benny" Alderidge -- seek financial restoration.

Jade sets off along Route 66 with Benny and her handsome adult foster son, Bridger, who is filming a documentary retracing the 1956 trip that started the love story between Benny and her recently deceased husband, Paul. Listening to Benny recount her story draws Jade into memories of her own darker association with Route 66, when she was kidnapped as a child by a man the media labeled a monster--but she remembers only as daddy.

Together, all three of these pilgrims will learn about family, forgiveness, and what it means to live free of the past. But not before Jade faces a second staggering betrayal that changes everything.

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Out for Blood

Ryan Steck

Winters in Montana can be deadly, but it wasn't the cold that was killing Matthew Redd . . .

Gavin Kline, executive assistant director of the FBI's Intelligence Directorate, is escorting a high-value prisoner with the intel to bring down a global conspiracy when their plane comes under attack. In the aftermath, much of Kline's team is dead, but he recovers a phone from a member of the hit team that reveals another attack is imminent. This time they're going after the man who was instrumental in capturing the prisoner and foiling their plans: Matthew Redd.

When Redd learns he's in the crosshairs, he sends his family into hiding and heads for the mountains. He might be outnumbered, but the hit team will have to hunt him down on his own turf. With a snowstorm bearing down on Montana and no help in sight, Redd fights for survival in the harshest conditions. But when they take the fight to his hometown, he'll need all his allies at his back to save what he holds most dear.

A page-turning thriller set in the heart of Montana, Ryan Steck's third action-packed Matthew Redd novel is perfect for fans of the hit show Yellowstone and readers of C. J. Box and Jack Carr.

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One Last Chance

Susan May Warren

Axel Mulligan was built to be a Coast Guard rescue swimmer. He swam fast and endured long, a miracle for those in peril -- until a tragedy sent him home to Alaska. Now, three years later, he's not going to let the past repeat itself. As an Air One rescue swimmer, he'll do anything to save lives -- including sacrifice his own.

He expects to do just that while trying to rescue a group of tourists from the icy waters of the Gulf of Alaska. But if not for the voice on the other end of the ham radio, he might have given up and let hypothermia win. That voice awakened something in his heart, and he sets out to find the woman it belongs to.

Flynn Turnquist is not who Axel thinks she is. A national wildlife researcher, she's deep in the bush, tracking wolf pack patterns. Or is she? In fact, she's a former cop, tracking down a serial killer. She nearly had him--until he escaped into the wilds of the Alaska bush.

When Axel finds Flynn and discovers what she's really up to, it stirs up a terrible nightmare he's been dodging for years -- the kidnapping and death of his own cousin. Worse, he's led the killer right to her doorstep. Now, it's a race through Alaska to stay alive. And when tragedy strikes again, he must choose between rescue or redemption.

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Mary's Calico Hope

Anne Blackburne

If God wills it, Mary Yoder will do it, even if that means using crutches for the rest of her life. She was badly injured in a buggy accident as a child. Still, she is content living in the Dawdi Haus connected to her parents' farmhouse and with her work weaving baskets and raising specialty roosters whose feathers she uses to make excellent trout lures. She is truly happy at twenty-nine, but. . .she wouldn't mind finding a husband -- if the Lord wills it. Along comes Reuben King, a Mennonite doctor. They are attracted to one another, but how could they ever be together? She's a baptized Amish woman, so it seems impossible. Also, he wants her to have surgery to improve her mobility and lessen her day-to-day pain. She's sick and tired of surgeries! But if God wills it, she'll do it. And just maybe there will be a way for these two unlikely souls to connect.

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Love Overboard

Shannon Sue Dunlap

When a group of four quirky friends retire on a neverending round of cruises, their attire consists of more than floral shirts and gaudy skirts. Armed with walkie-talkies and battle plans, these relationship experts -- who've dubbed themselves the "Shippers" -- target hostess Lacey Anderson and director Jonathan King in their romantic schemes. But the young couple refuses to cooperate. They've been on the "love boat" together before, and it went down in flames.

Boss matchmaker Emily Windsor has orchestrated multiple romantic successes, and these two upstarts certainly won't get the best of her. The chemistry between Lacey and Jonathan is obvious, but the couple rebuffs every outlandish plot and "coincidental" meeting, forcing the matchmakers to chart a new course to true love--all while inadvertently thwarting drug smugglers threatening to ruin their floating home on the ocean.

This laugh-out-loud rom-com features loveable characters, over-the-top situations reminiscent of 1950s sitcoms, and a dash of mystery. The toe-curling romance will push the reader overboard and all in with Shannon Dunlap's new series.

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The Hudson Collection

Jocelyn Green

Elsa Reisner's lifelong dream of working as an ornithologist at the American Museum of Natural History is fading as the job begins to drain her passion. But fate takes an unexpected turn when she is assigned to catalog the bequest of a recently deceased patron whose Gothic country mansion holds secrets and treasures waiting to be discovered.

As Elsa delves into her task, she forms an unlikely bond with the estate's delightful gardener and her daughter, as well as an architectural salvage dealer who still bears scars from the Great War. Together, they embark on a thrilling treasure hunt for a missing relic intended to safeguard the servants' futures before the estate is sold. At the same time, Elsa's body seems to betray her with new symptoms from a childhood disease that isn't through with her yet.

With the brooding veteran and her handsome colleague joining the search, Elsa must navigate the tangled web of secrets and hidden motives along with the changing state of her health. As her deadline looms ever closer, will she be able to secure a new life for her friends before the estate slips from their grasp?

 

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Hidden in the Night

Elizabeth Goddard

At the behest of her ailing mother, former FBI special agent turned rare-book collector Ivy Elliott arrives in Alaska to secure an unpublished Jack London manuscript kept secreted away for decades. But when she arrives, she learns the manuscript is gone -- taken by the granddaughter of the woman who possessed it. Ivy sets off in pursuit, not just to save the manuscript but to save the vulnerable girl, who was previously trafficked and has no idea what she's getting herself into.

Joining forces with Alaska State Trooper Nolan Long, Ivy must battle a blizzard, sabotage, and the worst of an Alaskan winter as the search goes on. But every answer they find only raises more questions -- and the danger to their lives and to the missing girl may only be the tip of the iceberg.

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The Crown Conspiracy

Connie Mann

She's a master at spotting a forgery . . . and knowing how to create one. But can she solve a decades-old mystery?

The media spotlight is the last thing art thief and forger Sophie Williams needs. But when one of three long-missing royal portraits turns up in Germany at her best friend's art gallery, the spotlight is exactly what she gets. Since the tragic deaths of Princess Johanna of Neuhansberg and her two children forty years ago, the whereabouts of these portraits have been unknown . . . and the timing of their reappearance--just days before a new prince's coronation--reignites questions surrounding the infamous accident.

Then Sophie's best friend vanishes, and a rumor about hidden treasure connected to the paintings surfaces, seemingly confirmed by a cryptic message on the back of the first canvas. Convinced that finding the other two portraits will lead to her friend, Sophie begins a twisty investigation that pits her against other ruthless treasure hunters, a handsome investigator who seems to dog her trail at every turn, and a mysterious group that offers help, wearing an emblem identical to one on the painting.

From Germany's grand castles and soaring cathedrals through the Alps to the canals of Venice, Sophie must choose her allies carefully if she hopes to find the portraits, rescue her best friend--and perhaps save a throne--before time runs out.

 

 

  • A clean, contemporary adventure with a dash of romance
  • A thrilling cold case mystery
  • Includes discussion questions for book groups

 

 

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Born of Gilded Mountains

Amanda Dykes

A lost treasure. A riddled quest. The healing power of friendship.
Legends are tucked into every fold of the Colorado mountains surrounding the quaint town of Mercy Peak, where residents are the stuff of tall tales, the peaks are taller still, and a lost treasure has etched mystery into the very terrain.

In 1948, when outsider Mercy Windsor arrives after a scandal shatters her gilded world as Hollywood's beloved leading lady, she is determined to forge a new life in obscurity in this time-forgotten Colorado haven. She purchases Wildwood, an abandoned estate with a haunting history, and begins to restore it to its former glory.

But as she does, her every move tugs at the threads of the mountain's lore, unearthing what became of her long-lost pen pal Rusty Bright, and the whereabouts of the infamous Galloping Goose Railcar No. 8, which vanished years ago--along with the mailbag it carried, whose contents could change the course of countless lives. Not to mention the fabled treasure that--if found--could right so many wrongs.

Among the towering mountains that stand as silent witnesses, the ghosts of the past entangle with the courage of the present to find a place where healing, friendship, and hope can abide amid a world forever changed.

 

 

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Your Utopia

Bora Chung

"Chung builds out her stories with imagination, absurdity and a dry sense of humor, all applied with X-Acto knife precision." Alexandra Kleeman, The New York Times Book Review



"Bora Chung's stories glisten at the border of our weird world, and all our other weird worlds. A truly sublime book."Samantha Hunt, bestselling author of The Seas and The Unwritten Book



From the acclaimed author and translator of the National Book Award Finalist, Cursed Bunny, a fresh, uncanny, and utterly profound collection of stories set in near and distant futures that reflect our deepest fears--and deepest desires.



Bora Chung's inimitable blend of horror, absurdity, and dark humor reaches its peak in these tales of loss and discovery, dystopia and idealism, death and immortality. In a thrilling translation by the acclaimed Anton Hur, readers will experience a variety of possible fates for humanity, from total demise via a disease whose only symptom is casual cannibalism to a world in which even dreams can be monitored and used to convict people of crimes.



In "The Center for Immortality Research," a low-level employee runs herself ragged planning a fancy gala for donors only to be blamed for the chaos that ensues during the event in front of the mysterious celebrity benefactors hoping to live forever. In "A Song for Sleep," an AI elevator in an apartment complex develops a tender, one-sided love for an elderly resident. "Seed" traverses the final frontier of capitalism's destruction of the planet--but nature always creeps back to life.



If you haven't yet experienced the fruits of Chung's singular imagination, Your Utopia is waiting.

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You Only Call When You're in Trouble

Stephen McCauley

“I don’t think I will find a book I love more this year.”
—Jane Green, New York Times bestselling author

“Funny, poignant, joyous, explosive, but most of all affirming of our connections to one another. You Only Call When You're in Trouble is a book to cherish. A book that loves you back. What more could you want, my gosh? Read it!”
—Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less Is Lost

Is it ever okay to stop caring for others and start living for yourself?

After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece—“his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet.” Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay.

Naturally, that’s when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily—the real love of Tom’s life, as his boyfriend reminded him when moving out—is embroiled in a Title IX investigation at the college where she teaches that threatens her career and relationship. And after decades of lying, his sister wants him to help her tell Cecily the real identity of her father.

Tom does what he’s always done—answers the call. Thus begins a journey that will change everyone’s life and demonstrate the beauty or dysfunction (or both?) of the ties that bind families together and sometimes strangle them.

Warm, funny, and deeply moving, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble is an unforgettable showcase for Stephen McCauley’s distinctive voice and unique ability to create complex characters that jump off the page and straight into your heart.

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Women! In! Peril!

Jessie Ren Marshall

Full of wry humor, sharp social commentary, and an irrepressible sense of hope, a ferociously feminist debut short story collection from award-winning playwright Jessie Ren Marshall.

In this brash and unputdownable collection, we meet a sex bot trying to outlast her return policy, a skeptical lesbian grappling with her wife's mysterious pregnancy, and a post-Earth colonist struggling to maintain her faith in humanity as she travels to “Planet B.” Whether they exist in the grounded realism of a college dance studio or the speculative world of Deep Space, these women push against social norms and family expectations to reclaim their power, understand their mistakes, and find a better future.

Hilarious, heartbreaking, and defiantly optimistic, the twelve stories in Women! In! Peril! balance humor and gravitas to explore the complexities of queerness, toxic relationships, parenting and divorce, Asian and Asian American identity, and so much more.

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Wild Houses

Colin Barrett

The riotous, raucous and deeply resonant debut novel from "one of the best story writers in the English language today" (Financial Times) Wild Houses follows two outsiders caught in the crosshairs of a small-town revenge kidnapping gone awry

With his acclaimed and award-winning collections Young Skins and Homesickness Colin Barrett cemented his reputation as one of contemporary Irish literature's most daring stylists. Praised by the Oprah Daily as "a doyen of the sentence," and by the Los Angeles Times as a writer of "unique genius," Barrett now expands his canvas with a debut novel that contains as much grit, plot, and linguistic energy as any of his celebrated short stories.

As Ballina prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, introspective loner Dev answers his door on Friday night to find Doll English-- younger brother of small-time local dealer Cillian English--bruised and in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, County Mayo's fraternal enforcers and Dev's cousins. Dev's quiet homelife is upturned as he is quickly and unwillingly drawn headlong into the Ferdias' frenetic revenge plot against Cillian. Meanwhile, Doll's girlfriend, seventeen-year-old Nicky, reeling from a fractious Friday and plagued by ghosts and tragedy of her own, sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina.

Set against Barrett's trademark depictions of small town Irish life, Wild Houses is thrillingly-told story of two outsiders striving to find themselves as their worlds collapse in chaos and violence.

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Verdigris

Michele Mari

 

 

 

 

 

At the tail end of the 1960s, the thirteen-year-old Michelino spends
his summers at his grandparents' modest estate in Nasca, near Lake Maggiore,
losing himself in the tales of horror, adventure, and mystery shelved in his
grandfather's library. The greatest mystery he's ever encountered, however,
doesn't come from a book--it's the groundskeeper, Felice, a sometimes
frightening, sometimes gentle, always colorful man of uncertain age who speaks
an enchanting dialect and whose memory gets worse with each passing day. When Michelino
volunteers to help the old man by providing him with clever mnemonic devices to
keep his memory alive, the boy soon finds himself obsessed with piecing
together the eerie hodgepodge of Felice's biography . . . a quest that leads to
the uncovering of skeletons in Nazi uniforms in the attic, to Felice's
admission that he can hear the voices of the dead, and to a new perspective on
Felice's endless war against the insatiable local slugs, who are by no means
merely a horticultural threat.

And yet nothing could be more fascinating to Michelino
than Felice's own secret origins. Where did he come from? Is he the victim or
the villain of his story? Is he a noble hero, a holy fool, or perhaps the very
thing that Michelino most wants and fears: a real-life monster.

 

 

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The Understory

Saneh Sangsuk

A novel of man's relationship with nature, faith, and the vitality of storytelling, from celebrated Thai author Saneh Sangsuk.

 

The lovable, yarnspinning monk Luang Paw Tien, now in his nineties, was the last person in his village to bear witness to the power and plenitude of the jungle before agrarian and then capitalist life took over his community. Now he entertains the children of his village nightly with tales from his younger years: his long pilgrimage to India, his mother's dreams of a more stable life through agriculture, his proud huntsman father who resisted those dreams, and his love, who led him to pursue those dreams all over again.

 

 

Thoroughly entertaining and already beloved, Sangsuk's first novel available in the U.S. is a celebration of the oral tradition of storytelling and that tradition's power to preserve (and embellish) cultural memory.

 

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Twilight Territory

Andrew X. Pham

The peak of the hot season, 1942: The wars in Europe and Asia and the Japanese occupation have upset the uneasy balance of French Indochina. In the Vietnamese fishing village of Phan Thiet, Tuyet ekes out a living at a small storefront with her aunt Coi, her cousin Ha, and her two-year-old daughter, Anh. She can hardly remember her luxurious life in the city of Saigon, which she left just two years ago.

The day Tuyet meets Japanese major Yamazaki Takeshi is inauspicious and stifling, with no relief from the sand-stirring wind. But to her surprise, she feels not fear or wariness, but a strange kinship. Tuyet is guarded, knowing how the townspeople might whisper, yet is drawn to Takeshi's warmth all the same. A wounded veteran with a good heart, Takeshi grows to resent the Empire for what it has taken--and the promises it has failed to keep. As the Viet Minh begin to battle the French and Takeshi risks his life for the Resistance, Tuyet and her family are drawn into the conflict, with devastating consequences.

A lushly panoramic novel, by turns gritty and profoundly moving, Twilight Territory is at once a war story and a love story that offers a fascinating perspective on Vietnam's struggles to break free of its French colonial past. At its heart is one woman's struggle for independence and her country's liberation.

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Tonight, I Burn

Katharine J. Adams

From one of the most exciting new voices in romantasy comes the tale of a thorn witch with the power to walk between the realms of Life and Death who finds herself at the center of a magical rebellion--and a dangerous romance--that could destroy her coven and her soul in this dark and decadent debut.

Penny Albright is a daughter of the thorn coven, forced to patrol the veil between the realms of Life and Death. Each night, one thorn witch--and only one--must cross the veil by burning at the stake. Each morning, that witch draws on their magic to return. Failure to follow the rules risks the veil and risks them all.

But one morning, Penny's favorite sister Ella doesn't return. And that night, determined to find her, Penny breaks the rules. She burns in secret. And she discovers that all isn't as it seems in Life or Death.

Her journey leads her to Malin, a devastating lord with too many secrets; to Alice, a mysterious captive prophet; and to a rebellion brewing in the shadows beneath the city. And as Penny's world splits, she'll face a devastating choice. Because it's not just her sister's life that hangs in the balance. It's the fate of all magic.

All it takes is one witch--and one spark--to set the world ablaze.

"With polyamory and a strong, queer main character, this is a breathtaking must-read for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Jennifer L. Armentrout."―Library Journal (Starred Review)

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The Titanic Survivors Book Club

Timothy Schaffert

"For weeks after the sinking of the Titanic, Yorick spots his own name among the list of those lost at sea. As an apprentice librarian for the White Star Line, his job was to curate the ship's second-class library. But just as he was about to board to tend to his library throughout the passage, a superior takes his place, leaving Yorick stranded at the dock. The Titanic was not Yorick's first brush with death, but as with every near-miss he manages to escape into the world of books. After he learns of the ship's sinking, he takes this twist of fate as a sign to follow his lifelong dream of owning a bookshop in Paris. It's at his shop that he receives an invitation to a secret society of survivors where he encounters other ticket-holders who didn't board the ship. Haunted by their good fortune, they decide to transform their group into a book society, where they can grapple with their own anxieties through the guise of discussing contentious works such as The Awakening or The Picture of Dorian Gray. Of the ragtag group of survivors, Yorick finds himself particularly drawn to the wealthy candy heiress Zinnia and the mysterious and alluring Haze. Yorick feels like an outsider looking in, falling hopelessly for Haze as Haze courts Zinnia; a tangled triangle of love and friendship forms between them. Yet with the Great War looming, their close-knit group is shattered, only brought back together once the death of a fellow book club member leaves them wondering what fate has in store for each of them."--

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This Wretched Valley

Jenny Kiefer

Take only pictures. Leave only bones.

This trip is going to be Dylan’s big break. Her geologist friend Clay has discovered an untouched cliff face in the Kentucky wilderness, and she is going to be the first person to climb it. Together with Clay, his research assistant Sylvia, and Dylan’s boyfriend Luke, Dylan is going to document her achievement on Instagram and finally cement her place as the next rising star in rock climbing.

Seven months later, three bodies are discovered in the trees just off the highway. All are in various states of decay: one a stark, white skeleton; the second emptied of its organs; and the third a mutilated corpse with the tongue, eyes, ears, and fingers removed.

But Dylan is still missing—and no trace of her, dead or alive, has been discovered.

Were the climbers murdered? Did they succumb to cannibalism? Or are their impossible bodies the work of an even more sinister force? 

This dread-inducing debut builds to a bloodcurdling climax, and will leave you shocked by the final twist.

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Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock

Maud Woolf

 

A washed up star creates a clone tasked with eliminating other clones of herself; a whip-smart and thrilling sci-fi read that's perfect for fans of Orphan Black, Killing Eve and Keeping it Real by Justina Robson.
Her purpose is to track down and eliminate her predecessors. Simple, right?

In the glitz and glamour of Bubble City even a washed-up film star simply has too much to do, too many places to be. Thank heavens for clones. Lulabelle Rock has twelve, doing the tiresome celebrity rounds.

But times have changed: you can have too much of a good thing. And time is up for the twelve Lulabelles. A thirteenth clone, an assassin is created.

Killing yourselves should be easy. We’re talking clones, not people; it’s not murder. Not really. But love has a way of complicating things… 


“An addictively enthralling SF thriller with razor sharp prose, cinematic scenes and a surprisingly tender exploration of the highs an lows of life and finding love.”
– Nils Shukla, Fantasy Hive


File Under: Science Fiction [ Blade Runner Barbie | Time to Kill | All of Me | Tarot Reading ]

 

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Real Americans

Rachel Khong

 

 

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER READ WITH JENNA’S MAY BOOK CLUB PICK • From the award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin: How far would you go to shape your own destiny? An exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures? 

"Mesmerizing"—Brit Bennett • "A page turner.”—Ha Jin • “Gorgeous, heartfelt, soaring, philosophical and deft"—Andrew Sean Greer • "Traverses time with verve and feeling."—Raven Leilani
Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.

In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers.

In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance—a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home.

Exuberant and explosive, Real Americans is a social novel par excellence that asks: Are we destined, or made? And if we are made, who gets to do the making? Can our genetic past be overcome?

 

 

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Principles of Emotion

Sara Read

A smart, poignant novel perfect for fans of Lessons in Chemistry

"An incredible STEMinist read."--The Honey Pop



Mathematical genius Dr. Meg Brightwood has just completed her life's work--a proof of a problem so impenetrable it's nicknamed the Impossible Theorem. Reclusive and burdened by anxiety, Meg has long since been dismissed by academia. Now everyone wants to get their hands on what she alone possesses--especially her own mathematician father.





Having grown up a prodigy in a field plagued by sexism and plagiarism, Meg opts for a public presentation so there will be no doubt of her authorship. But a panic attack obliterates her plans. In defeat, she goes home and locks away the only manuscript of her proof.





Then chance sends her the unlikeliest of allies: Isaac Wells--carpenter, high school dropout, in trouble with the law. And the one love of Meg's life. Fifteen years ago, they did little more than hold hands. Now, they find a tenuous space where they can love and be loved for who they are as adults.





But when Meg goes to retrieve her proof, she finds it missing. Her fight for the achievement of the century will test the limits of her brilliance and the endurance of two vulnerable hearts.



"Beguiling."--Publishers Weekly

"Poignant and compelling... A delightfully mathematical take on the opposites-attract paradigm."--Kirkus

"Lessons in Chemistry meets advanced mathematics in Sara Read's heartwarming, STEMinist novel."

--The Nerd Daily, "Swoonworthy 2024 Romance Book Releases You Need"

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Power to Yield and Other Stories

Bogi Takács

COMPLEX COMMUNITY​

Power to Yield is a collection of speculative tales exploring gender identity, neurodivergence, and religion from author Bogi Takács, who deftly blends sci-fi, fantasy, and weird fiction.

An AI child discovers Jewish mysticism. A student can give no more blood to their semi-sentient apartment and plans their escape. A candidate is rigorously evaluated for their ability to be a liaison to alien newcomers. A young magician gains perspective from her time as a plant. A neurodivergent woman tries to survive on a planetoid where thoughts shape reality...

​These are stories about the depth and breadth of the human condition, and beyond, identifying future possibilities of conflict and cooperation, identity and community.

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Headshot

Rita Bullwinkel

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by The Washington Post, NYLON, Lit Hub, The Millions, The Rumpus, and more

A March 2024 Indie Next Pick

“Make room, American fiction, for a meaningful new voice.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review

“As blazing and distinctive a performance as I’ve beheld in a long while . . . I’m amazed.” —Jonathan Lethem, author of Brooklyn Crime Novel and Motherless Brooklyn

An electrifying debut novel from an “unusually gifted writer” (Lorrie Moore) about the radical intimacy of physical competition


An unexpected tragedy at a community pool. A family’s unrelenting expectation of victory. The desire to gain or lose control; to make time speed up or stop; to be frighteningly, undeniably good at something. Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country. Through a series of face-offs that are raw, ecstatic, and punctuated by flashes of humor and tenderness, prizewinning writer Rita Bullwinkel animates the competitors’ pasts and futures as they summon the emotion, imagination, and force of will required to win.

Frenetic, surprising, and strikingly original, Headshot is a portrait of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness, and sheer physical pleasure that motivate young women to fight—even, and perhaps especially, when no one else is watching.

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A Flame in the North

Lilith Saintcrow

From New York Times bestselling author Lilith Saintcrow comes the first book in a thrilling Norse-inspired epic trilogy about ancient myth and magical destiny.



The Black Land is a myth: Centuries have passed since that Great Enemy was slain. Yet old fears linger, and on the longest night of the year, people in the South still light ritual bonfires to banish the dark.



In her village, this duty falls to Solveig, a girl favored by the gods with powerful fire magic. But when her brother kills a Northern lord's son during the ritual, it is Sol who faces punishment, by being weregild--part hostage, part guest--in the North for a year and a day.



As she journeys to her captivity, Sol starts to realize that the Black Land is no myth. The forests teem with foul beasts. Her travel companions are not what they seem, and their plans for her magic are shrouded in secrecy.



With only her loyal shieldmaiden and her own wits to rely upon, Sol must learn to master her powers and wrest control of her fate. For the Black Land's army stirs, ready to cover the world in darkness--unless Sol can find the courage to stop it.

The story continues in THE FALL OF WATERSTONE, available July 2024, and in the incredible conclusion DOOM OF THE ELDER, coming soon.

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