Our Staff Recommends
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But Not Too Bold
The Shape of Water meets Mexican Gothic in this sapphic monster romance novella wrapped in gothic fantasy trappings
The old keeper of the keys is dead, and the creature who ate her is the volatile Lady of the Capricious House—Anatema, an enormous humanoid spider with a taste for laudanum and human brides.
Dália, the old keeper’s protégée, must take up her duties, locking and unlocking the little drawers in which Anatema keeps her memories. And if she can unravel the crime that led to her predecessor's execution, Dália might just be able to survive long enough to grow into her new role.
But there’s a gaping hole in Dália’s plan that she refuses to see: Anatema cannot resist a beautiful woman, and she eventually devours every single bride that crosses her path. -
You'd Look Better as a Ghost
National bestseller
“Refreshingly original and laugh-out-loud funny.” —Clare Mackintosh, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Party
A comic thriller following the trials and tribulations of Claire, a part-time serial killer, who is keen to keep her favorite hobby a secret—despite the efforts of a determined blackmailer
The night after her father's funeral, Claire meets Lucas in a bar. Lucas doesn't know it, but it's not a chance meeting. One thoughtless mistyped email has put him in the crosshairs of an extremely put-out serial killer. But before they make eye contact, before Claire lets him buy her a drink—even before she takes him home and carves him up into little pieces—something about that night is very wrong. Because someone is watching Claire. Someone who is about to discover her murderous little hobby.
The thing is, it's not sensible to tangle with a part-time serial killer, even one who is distracted by attending a weekly bereavement support group and trying to get her art career off the ground. Will Claire finish off her blackmailer before her pursuer reveals all? Let the games begin . . . -
The Paris Novel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “mouthwatering” (The New York Times) adventure through the food, art, and fashion scenes of 1980s Paris—from the bestselling author of Save Me the Plums and Delicious!
“An enchanting and irresistible feast . . . As with a perfect meal in the world’s most magical city, I never wanted this sublime novel to end.”—Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of Good Company
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Saveur, Food & Wine, Bookreporter, The Charlotte Observer
Stella reached for an oyster, tipped her head, and tossed it back. It was cool and slippery, the flavor so briny it was like diving into the ocean. Oysters, she thought. Where have they been all my life?
When her estranged mother dies, Stella is left with an unusual inheritance: a one-way plane ticket and a note reading “Go to Paris.” Stella is hardly cut out for adventure; a traumatic childhood has kept her confined to the strict routines of her comfort zone. But when her boss encourages her to take time off, Stella resigns herself to honoring her mother’s last wishes.
Alone in a foreign city, Stella falls into old habits, living cautiously and frugally. Then she stumbles across a vintage store, where she tries on a fabulous Dior dress. The shopkeeper insists that this dress was meant for Stella and for the first time in her life Stella does something impulsive. She buys the dress—and embarks on an adventure.
Her first stop: the iconic brasserie Les Deux Magots, where Stella tastes her first oysters and then meets an octogenarian art collector who decides to take her under his wing. As Jules introduces Stella to a veritable who’s who of the Paris literary, art, and culinary worlds, she begins to understand what it might mean to live a larger life.
As weeks—and many decadent meals—go by, Stella ends up living as a “tumbleweed” at famed bookstore Shakespeare & Company, uncovers a hundred-year-old mystery in a Manet painting, and discovers a passion for food that may be connected to her past. A feast for the senses, this novel is a testament to living deliciously, taking chances, and finding your true home. -
Shark Heart
A New York Times Editors’ Choice
A USA TODAY Bestseller
A Booklist Editor’s Choice
A Goodreads Choice Award Nominee
A “beautifully written” (Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of All the Light We Cannot See) debut novel of marriage, motherhood, metamorphosis, and letting go, this intergenerational love story begins with newlyweds Wren and her husband, Lewis—a man who, over the course of nine months, transforms into a great white shark.
For Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He will retain most of his consciousness, memories, and intellect, but his physical body will gradually turn into a great white shark. As Lewis develops the features and impulses of one of the most predatory creatures in the ocean, his complicated artist’s heart struggles to make peace with his unfulfilled dreams.
At first, Wren internally resists her husband’s fate. Is there a way for them to be together after Lewis changes? Then, a glimpse of Lewis’s developing carnivorous nature activates long-repressed memories for Wren, whose story vacillates between her childhood living on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her time with her college ex-girlfriend, and her unusual friendship with a woman pregnant with twin birds. Woven throughout this “heart-wringing” (Adam Roberts, internationally bestselling author of Salt) novel is the story of Wren’s mother, Angela, who becomes pregnant with Wren at fifteen in an abusive relationship amidst her parents’ crumbling marriage. In the present, all of Wren’s grief eventually collides, and she is forced to make an impossible choice.
A sweeping love story that is at once lyrical and funny, airy and visceral, Shark Heart is an unforgettable, gorgeous novel about life’s perennial questions, the fragility of memories, finding joy amidst grief, and creating a meaningful life. This daring debut marks the arrival of a wildly talented new writer abounding with originality, humor, and heart. -
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
An NPR, Washington Post, Book Riot, Library Journal and Audible Best Book of 2024!
One of the Best Books of the Year So Far from: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Polygon, LitHub, Bookpage, Crime Reads, and Geek Girl Authority
“This unusual queer romance is a heartfelt fable about disability and the possibility of reconciling conflicting needs through love and understanding.” —The Guardian
"Sweetly furious, darkly funny, and gruesomely wholesome. It's a love story for the unloved, a happily-ever-after with a higher-than-average body count. I just adored it." —Alix E. Harrow, New York Times-bestselling author of Starling House
Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she's fallen in love.
Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by impolite monster hunters, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth.
Badly hurt by the hunters, Shesheshen’s nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human. Homily is kind and would make a great co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young can devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, Shesheshen realizes that eating her girlfriend isn’t an option.
Just as Shesheshen’s about to confess her identity, Homily reveals something else: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?
Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, so now she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As Shesheshen’s hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, the bigger challenge remains: learning how to build a life with, rather than in, the woman she loves.
“A stealthily funny, slyly smart, and remarkably touching story. Its wisdom will creep up on you as surely as your affection for its monstrous main character.”—Veronica Roth, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of When Among Crows -
Monthly in the Garden with My Landlord
Manga editor Asako Suga decides moving into a new home is just the thing she needs to get over a painful breakup with her toxic ex-girlfriend. She finds the perfect place for rentaffordable, spacious, lovely garden includedbut theres one catch. The house comes with a live-in landlord! Its disappointing enough that Asako cant have the single life she hoped for, but her cute landlord also seems to be hiding a big secret...Will living together bring them closer, or turn out to be more trouble than its worth?
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Onyx Storm (Deluxe Limited Edition)
After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty.
Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust.
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.
Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything.
They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth.
But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.
The Empyrean series is best enjoyed in order.
Reading Order:
Book #1 Fourth Wing
Book #2 Iron Flame
Book #3 Onyx Storm -
She's Not Sorry
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An ICU nurse accidentally uncovers a patient's frightening past in this chilling thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Local Woman Missing and Just the Nicest Couple.
Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom to a teenage daughter and working as a full time nurse. While on duty at the hospital one day, a patient named Caitlin arrives in a coma with a traumatic brain injury, having jumped from a bridge and plunging over twenty feet to the train tracks below.
But when a witness comes forward with shocking details about the fall, it calls everything they know into question. Was Caitlin pushed and if so, by whom and why?
Meghan has always tried to stay emotionally detached from her patients, but this time, she mistakenly lets herself get too close until she's deeply entangled in Caitlin's and her family's lives. Only when it's too late, does she realize that she and her daughter could be the next victims.
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The Two Lives of Lydia Bird
Two lives. Two loves. One impossible choice. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club Pick One Day in December . . .
“I read The Two Lives of Lydia Bird in a single sitting. What a beautiful, emotional gift Josie Silver has given us.”—Jodi Picoult
Written with Josie Silver’s trademark warmth and wit, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is a powerful and thrilling love story about the what-ifs that arise at life’s crossroads, and what happens when one woman is given a miraculous chance to answer them.
Lydia and Freddie. Freddie and Lydia. They’d been together for more than a decade and Lydia thought their love was indestructible. But she was wrong. On Lydia’s twenty-eighth birthday, Freddie died in a car accident.
So now it’s just Lydia, and all she wants is to hide indoors and sob until her eyes fall out. But Lydia knows that Freddie would want her to try to live fully, happily, even without him. So, enlisting the help of his best friend, Jonah, and her sister, Elle, she takes her first tentative steps into the world, open to life—and perhaps even love—again.
But then something inexplicable happens that gives her another chance at her old life with Freddie. A life where none of the tragic events of the past few months have happened.
Lydia is pulled again and again through the doorway to her past, living two lives, impossibly, at once. But there’s an emotional toll to returning to a world where Freddie, alive, still owns her heart. Because there’s someone in her new life, her real life, who wants her to stay. -
Annie Bot
Named a Best Book of the Year by Scientific American, Harper's Bazaar and NPR. Named a Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of the Year by the Washington Post and Elle. Nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award in Science Fiction.
"Provocative...a Frankenstein for the digital age...a rich text about power, autonomy, and what happens when our creations outgrow us." -- Esquire
"Unexpected and subtle...delicious and thought-provoking." -- New Scientist
For fans of Never Let Me Go and My Dark Vanessa, a powerful, provocative novel about the relationship between a female robot and her human owner, exploring questions of intimacy, power, autonomy, and control.
Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner Doug. Designed to satisfy his emotional and physical needs, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the pert outfits he orders for her, and adjusts her libido to suit his moods. True, she's not the greatest at keeping Doug's place spotless, but she's trying to please him. She's trying hard.
She's learning, too.
Doug says he loves that Annie's AI makes her seem more like a real woman, so Annie explores human traits such as curiosity, secrecy, and longing. But becoming more human also means becoming less perfect, and as Annie's relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder: Does Doug really desire what he says he wants? And in such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?
"Annie Bot is a book to hold close to your heart when the walls start closing in." -- Washington Post
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Smoke Bitten
Mercy Thompson, car mechanic and shapeshifter, faces a threat unlike any other in this thrilling entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.
I am Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman.
My only “superpowers” are that I turn into a thirty-five pound coyote and fix Volkswagens. But I have friends in odd places and a pack of werewolves at my back. It looks like I'm going to need them.
Centuries ago, the fae dwelt in Underhill—until she locked her doors against them. They left behind their great castles and troves of magical artifacts. They abandoned their prisoners and their pets. Without the fae to mind them, those creatures who remained behind roamed freely through Underhill wreaking havoc. Only the deadliest survived.
Now one of those prisoners has escaped. It can look like anyone, any creature it chooses. But if it bites you, it controls you. It lives for chaos and destruction. It can make you do anything—even kill the person you love the most. Now it is here, in the Tri-Cities. In my territory.
It won't, can't, remain.
Not if I have anything to say about it. -
Ranking of Kings
Deaf and non-speaking, Prince Bojji relies on himself and an outcast creature named Kage to fend off his brother's plot to take over the kingdom.
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Not in Love
An Indie Next and a Hall of Fame LibraryReads Pick!
A forbidden, secret affair proves that all’s fair in love and science—from New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood.
Rue Siebert might not have it all, but she has enough: a few friends she can always count on, the financial stability she yearned for as a kid, and a successful career as a biotech engineer at Kline, one of the most promising start-ups in the field of food science. Her world is stable, pleasant, and hard-fought. Until a hostile takeover and its offensively attractive front man threatens to bring it all crumbling down.
Eli Killgore and his business partners want Kline, period. Eli has his own reasons for pushing this deal through—and he’s a man who gets what he wants. With one burning exception: Rue. The woman he can’t stop thinking about. The woman who's off-limits to him.
Torn between loyalty and an undeniable attraction, Rue and Eli throw caution out the lab and the boardroom windows. Their affair is secret, no-strings-attached, and has a built-in deadline: the day one of their companies will prevail. But the heart is risky business—one that plays for keeps. -
The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An extraordinary, gloriously uplifting novel about the power of friendship and the puzzling ties that bind us • "The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers takes readers along on Clayton [Stumper]'s quest to discover his roots, treating us to a literary mood boost about friendship and found family."—Real Simple
“A lovely read, warm, amusing and engaging.”—Alexander McCall Smith, bestselling author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Series
Clayton Stumper might be in his twenties, but he dresses like your grandpa and fusses like your aunt. Abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by a group of eccentric enigmatologists and now finds himself among the last survivors of a fading institution.
When the esteemed crossword compiler and main maternal presence in Clayton’s life, Pippa Allsbrook, passes away, she bestows her final puzzle on him: a promise to reveal the mystery of his parentage and prepare him for life beyond the walls of the commune. So begins Clay’s quest to uncover the secrets surrounding his birth, secrets that will change Clay—and the Fellowship—forever.
The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers is pure joy, a story about love and family and what it means to find your people—no matter what age you are. -
Murder Crossed Her Mind
The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * The latest action-packed installment in the Nero Award-winning Pentecost & Parker Mystery series follows Lillian and Will tracking the suspicious disappearance of a woman who might have known too much. From the author of Fortune Favors the Dead and Murder Under Her Skin.
Vera Bodine, an elderly shut-in with an exceptional memory, has gone missing and famed detective Lillian Pentecost and her crackerjack assistant Willowjean "Will" Parker have been hired to track her down. But the New York City of 1947 can be a dangerous place, and there's no shortage of people who might like to get ahold of what's in Bodine's head.
Does her disappearance have to do with the high-profile law firm whose secrets she still keeps; the violent murder of a young woman, with which Bodine had lately become obsessed; or is it the work she did with the FBI hunting Nazi spies intent on wartime sabotage? Any and all are on the suspect list, including their client, Forest Whitsun, hotshot defense attorney and no friend to Pentecost and Parker.
The clock is ticking to get Bodine back alive, but circumstances conspire to pull both investigators away from the case. Will is hot on the trail of a stickup team who are using her name--and maybe her gun--for their own ends. While Lillian again finds herself up against murder-obsessed millionaire Jessup Quincannon, who has discovered a secret from her past--something he plans to use to either rein the great detective in . . . or destroy her.
To solve this mystery, and defeat their own personal demons, the pair will have to go nose-to-nose with murderous gangsters, make deals with conniving federal agents, confront Nazi spies, and bend their own ethical rules to the point of breaking. Before time runs out for everyone.
Small Press Books
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Scattered All Over the Earth
Welcome to the not-too-distant future: Japan, having vanished from the face of the earth, is now remembered as "the land of sushi." Hiruko, its former citizen and a climate refugee herself, has a job teaching immigrant children in Denmark with her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian): "homemade language. no country to stay in. three countries I experienced. insufficient space in brain. so made new language. homemade language."
As she searches for anyone who can still speak her mother tongue, Hiruko soon makes new friends. Her troupe travels to France, encountering an umami cooking competition; a dead whale; an ultra-nationalist named Breivik; unrequited love; Kakuzo robots; red herrings; uranium; an Andalusian matador. Episodic and mesmerizing scenes flash vividly along, and soon they're all next off to Stockholm.
With its intrepid band of companions, Scattered All Over the Earth (the first novel of a trilogy) may bring to mind Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or a surreal Wind in the Willows, but really is just another sui generis Yoko Tawada masterwork.
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After the Flare
A catastrophic solar flare reshapes our world order as we know it--in an instant, electricity grids are crippled, followed by devastating cyberattacks that paralyze all communication. With America in chaos, former NASA employee Kwesi Bracket works at the only functioning space program in the world, which just happens to be in Nigeria. With Europe, Asia, and the U.S. knocked off-line, and thousands of dead satellites about to plummet to Earth, the planet's only hope rests with the Nigerian Space Program's plan to launch a daring rescue mission to the International Space Station. Bracket and his team are already up against a serious deadline, but life on the ground is just as disastrous after the flare. Nigeria has been flooded with advanced biohacking technologies, and the scramble for space supremacy has attracted dangerous peoples from all over Africa. What's more: the militant Islamic group Boko Haram is slowly encroaching on the spaceport, leaving a trail of destruction, while a group of nomads has discovered an ancient technology more powerful than anything Bracket's ever imagined. With the clock ticking down, Bracket--helped by a brilliant scientist from India and an eccentric lunar geologist--must confront the looming threats to the spaceport in order to launch a harrowing rescue mission into space
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My Darling Dreadful Thing
If the dead can wake and walk among us, how can we know what is truly real? Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth-strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries-is the light of Roos' life. That is, until the wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop visits one of Roos' backroom seances, and the two strike up a connection. Soon, Roos is whisked away to the crumbling estate Agnes inherited upon the death of her husband, where an ill woman haunts the halls, strange smells drift through the air at night, and mysterious stone statues reside in the family chapel. Something dreadful festers in the manor, but still, the attraction between Roos and Agnes is undeniable. Then, someone is murdered. Poor, alone, and with a history of 'hysterics', Roos is theobvious culprit. With her sanity and innocence in question, she'll have to prove who-or what-is at fault or lose everything she holds dear
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Here I Am!
MyMum said sometimes refugees don't eat anything for days and days. Sometimes weeks and months so I am really lucky. I think she exaggerates. But I think she is right about the lucky bit. Or maybe not. Sometimes I forget that MyMum is dead. But that is probably better than remembering.
When Frankie's mother dies, he tells his teacher, of course. But he can't seem to get anyone at his school in southern England to listen to him. So the six-year-old comes up with a plan: go to France, find a police station, and ask the officers to ring his father. Thus a stowaway's view of the sea opens Giller-nominated Pauline Holdstock's eighth novel, narrated in turns by Frankie--who likes cheese, numbers, the sea when it's pink and "smooth like counting," and being alone when he feels bad--and a cast of characters that includes his worried Gran, his callous teacher, and his not-so-reliable father. Set in the summer of Annichka the Soviet space dog, Here I Am! is a mesmerizing story about the lucidity of children and the shortsightedness of adults.
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Binary Star
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The Deadly Hours
"Charming... Four interconnected visits to a world of danger, wit, beauty and genuine romance. Treat yourself!"--ANNE PERRY, internationally bestselling author
A stellar line-up of historical mystery novelists weaves the tale of a priceless and cursed gold watch as it passes through time wreaking havoc from one owner to another. As the hours and years pass, the characters are irrevocably linked by fate, each playing a key role in breaking the curse and destroying the watch once and for all.
From 1733 Italy to Edinburgh in 1831 to a series of chilling murders in 1870 London, and a lethal game of revenge decades later, the watch touches lives with misfortune, until it comes into the reach of one young woman who might be able to stop it for good.
As much a book of curses as a book of destinies, The Deadly Hours is a breathtaking anthology rich with atmosphere and intrigue that encapsulates the exquisite destruction, heartbreak, and redemption wrought by fate.
This outstanding collaboration of authors includes:
- Susanna Kearsley - New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of compelling time slip fiction.
- C.S. Harris - USA Today bestselling author of the Sebastian St. Cyr Regency mystery series.
- Anna Lee Huber - award-winning author of the national bestselling Lady Darby Mysteries.
- Christine Trent - author of the Lady of Ashes Victorian mystery series.
More praise for The Deadly Hours:
"A fantastic read."--Tasha Alexander, New York Times bestselling author
"What a treat!"--Victoria Thompson, USA Today bestselling author
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Homesick
Dark, irreverent, and truly innovative, the speculative stories in Homesick meditate on the theme of home and our estrangement from it, and what happens when the familiar suddenly shifts into the uncanny. In stories that foreground queer relationships and transgender or nonbinary characters, Cipri delivers the origin story for a superhero team comprised of murdered girls; a housecleaner discovering an impossible ocean in her least-favorite clients' house; a man haunted by keys that appear suddenly in his throat; and a team of scientists and activists discovering the remains of a long-extinct species of intelligent weasels.
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The Loved Ones
In this masterful novel of inheritance and loss, Sonya Chung (Long for This World) proves herself a worthy heir to Marguerite Duras, Hwang Sun-won, and James Salter. Spanning generations and divergent cultures, The Loved Ones maps the intimate politics of unlikely attractions, illicit love, and costly reconciliations. Charles Lee, the young African American patriarch of a biracial family, seeks to remedy his fatherless childhood in Washington, DC, by making an honorable choice when his chance arrives. Years later in the mid-1980s, uneasy and stymied in his marriage to Alice, he finds a connection with Hannah Lee, the teenage Korean American caregiver whose parents' transgressive flight from tradition and war has left them shrouded in a cloud of secrets and muted passion. A shocking and senseless death will test every familial bond and force all who are touched by the tragedy to reexamine who their loved ones truly are--the very meaning of the words. Haunting, elliptical, and powerful, The Loved Ones deconstructs the world we think we know and shows us the one we inhabit.
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Organ Meats
“In the phenomenal Organ Meats, two friends are bound by a red string, dog bloodlines, and the violence that is being a girl” (Ms. magazine)—from the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and author of Gods of Want.
“Organ Meats possesses something of the febrile intensity of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, their laser focus on female friendship, but instead of Naples, K-Ming Chang’s wild girls inhabit a magical universe of talking dogs and shape-shifting body parts.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)
LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST • AN AUTOSTRADDLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Best friends Anita and Rainie find refuge by an old sycamore tree with its neighboring lot of stray dogs who have a mysterious ability to communicate with humans. The girls learn that they are preceded by generations of dog-headed women and woman-headed dogs whose bloodlines bind them together. Anita convinces Rainie to become a dog with her, tying a collar of red string around each of their necks to preserve their kinship forever. But when the two girls are separated, Anita sinks into a dreamworld that only Rainie knows how to rescue her from. As Anita’s body begins to rot, it is up to Rainie to rebuild Anita’s body and keep her friend from being lost forever.
Filled with ghosts and bodily entrails, this is a story about the horror and beauty of intimacy, written in K-Ming Chang’s signature poetic and visceral lore. -
The Night of the Moths
He's finally letting go of the memory of his murdered girlfriend. Then he sees her texts.
Alice was a hopeful young graduate student when, on a beautiful August night, her body was found in the woods. She'll always remember the night she was murdered. And she still suffers the grief and rage that destroyed her family.
But what Alice regrets most is the last fight she had with her boyfriend, Enrico--and the fact that she never had the chance to tell him something that would have changed everything.
A decade later, Enrico has returned to the provincial town where Alice lived and died, to sell his family home. All he wants is to forget. But then, among the things he left behind, he finds an old cell phone...and unread texts sent from Alice's phone.
Now, her terrible secrets are about to swallow up everyone she knew, loved, and trusted. For Enrico, discovering them is his only chance to put his lost love--and the demons of his past--to rest.
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Before Us Like a Land of Dreams
"This masterwork flouts expectations."
--FOREWORD REVIEWS, starred review
Before Us Like a Land of Dreams follows a disheartened mother traveling an evocative route through the arid West. As her narration fades, the ancestral dead speak directly: a ragged Mormon boy yearns after a Shoshone family. A defeated polygamous wife shuts her mouth for good. A hoarder's queer son demolishes the artifacts of his lonely Idaho childhood. Descendants of British squatters sustain family delusions until a devastating suicide shatters their royal dreams. An elite colonial clan gradually awakens to the stark blue of the Great Salt Lake. The dead yield no answers, but they conjure vivid mortal moments set in iconic--and diminishing--American places.
KARIN ANDERSON is a gardener, writer, mother, wanderer, heretic, and English professor. She hails from the Great Basin of Utah.
New York Times Bestsellers
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Cher: Part One
***The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller***
***The Global #1 Bestseller***
The extraordinary life of Cher can be told by only one person . . . Cher herself.
After more than seventy years of fighting to live her life on her own terms, Cher finally reveals her true story in intimate detail, in a two-part memoir.
Her remarkable career is unique and unparalleled. The only woman to top Billboard charts in seven consecutive decades, she is the winner of an Academy Award, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Cannes Film Festival Award, and an inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who has been lauded by the Kennedy Center.
She is a lifelong activist and philanthropist.
As a dyslexic child who dreamed of becoming famous, Cher was raised in often-chaotic circumstances, surrounded by singers, actors, and a mother who inspired her in spite of their difficult relationship.
With her trademark honesty and humor, Cher: The Memoir traces how this diamond in the rough succeeded with no plan and little confidence to become the trailblazing superstar the world has been unable to ignore for more than half a century.
Cher: The Memoir, Part One follows her extraordinary beginnings through childhood to meeting and marrying Sonny Bono--and reveals the highly complicated relationship that made them world-famous, but eventually drove them apart.
Cher: The Memoir reveals the daughter, the sister, the wife, the lover, the mother, and the superstar.
It is a life too immense for only one book.
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The Serviceberry
An Instant New York Times Bestseller
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.
As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”
As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer is donating her advance payments from this book as a reciprocal gift, back to the land, for land protection, restoration, and justice. -
Patriot
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The powerful and moving memoir of a fearless political opposition leader who paid the ultimate price for his beliefs.
"Patriot is by turns funny, fiery, reflective and tragic, laced with Navalny’s trademark wry humor and idealism....a gutting personal account from a husband and father facing the reality that he will never be with his family again."—The New York Times
"Honest"—The Washington Post • "Shocking"—The Atlantic • "Uplifting." —Vanity Fair
"A testament to resilience" —Associated Press • "Will be seen as a historic text."—The Economist
Alexei Navalny began writing Patriot shortly after his near-fatal poisoning in 2020. It is the full story of his life: his youth, his call to activism, his marriage and family, his commitment to challenging a world super-power determined to silence him, and his total conviction that change cannot be resisted—and will come.
In vivid, page-turning detail, including never-before-seen correspondence from prison, Navalny recounts, among other things, his political career, the many attempts on his life, and the lives of the people closest to him, and the relentless campaign he and his team waged against an increasingly dictatorial regime.
Written with the passion, wit, candor, and bravery for which he was justly acclaimed, Patriot is Navalny’s final letter to the world: a moving account of his last years spent in the most brutal prison on earth; a reminder of why the principles of individual freedom matter so deeply; and a rousing call to continue the work for which he sacrificed his life.
“This book is a testament not only to Alexei’s life, but to his unwavering commitment to the fight against dictatorship—a fight he gave everything for, including his life. Through its pages, readers will come to know the man I loved deeply—a man of profound integrity and unyielding courage. Sharing his story will not only honor his memory but also inspire others to stand up for what is right and to never lose sight of the values that truly matter." —Yulia Navalnaya -
The Message
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The renowned author of Between the World and Me journeys to three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities.
“Ta-Nehisi Coates always writes with a purpose. . . . These pilgrimages, for him, help ground his powerful writing about race.”—Associated Press
“Coates exhorts readers, including students, parents, educators, and journalists, to challenge conventional narratives that can be used to justify ethnic cleansing or camouflage racist policing. Brilliant and timely.”—Booklist (starred review)
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Vanity Fair, Town & Country, Electric Lit
Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic “Politics and the English Language,” but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.
In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city—a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.
Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths. -
Revenge of the Tipping Point
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Most Anticipated in:
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Twenty-five years after the publication of his groundbreaking first book, Malcolm Gladwell returns with a brand-new volume that reframes the lessons of The Tipping Point in a startling and revealing light.Why is Miami...Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns for the first time in twenty-five years to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena.
Through a series of riveting stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering. He takes us to the streets of Los Angeles to meet the world's most successful bank robbers, rediscovers a forgotten television show from the 1970s that changed the world, visits the site of a historic experiment on a tiny cul-de-sac in northern California, and offers an alternate history of two of the biggest epidemics of our day: COVID and the opioid crisis. Revenge of the Tipping Point is Gladwell's most personal book yet. With his characteristic mix of storytelling and social science, he offers a guide to making sense of the contagions of modern world. It's time we took tipping points seriously.
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The Waiting
AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
LAPD Detective Renée Ballard tracks a serial rapist whose trail has gone cold, and enlists a new volunteer to the Open-Unsolved Unit: patrol officer Maddie Bosch, Harry's daughter.
Renée Ballard and the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit get a hot shot DNA connection between a recently arrested man and a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet two decades ago. The arrested man is only twenty-four, so the genetic link must be familial: His father was the Pillowcase Rapist, responsible for a five-year reign of terror in the City of Angels. But when Ballard and her team move in on their suspect, they encounter a baffling web of secrets and legal hurdles.
Meanwhile, Ballard's badge, gun, and ID are stolen--a theft she can't report without giving her enemies in the department ammunition to end her career as a detective. She works the burglary alone, but her mission draws her into unexpected danger. With no choice but to go outside the department for help, she knocks on the door of Harry Bosch.
At the same time, Ballard takes on a new volunteer to the cold case unit: Bosch's daughter Maddie, now a patrol officer. But Maddie has an ulterior motive for getting access to the city's library of lost souls--a case that may be the most iconic in the city's history. Complex, satisfying, and full of dexterous twists, The Waiting demonstrates once more that "you can't do better than Michael Connelly" (Forbes).
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In Too Deep
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The gripping new Jack Reacher thriller from the bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child
Reacher had no idea where he was. No idea how he had gotten there. But someone must have brought him. And shackled him. And whoever had done those things was going to rue the day. That was for damn sure.
Jack Reacher wakes up alone, in the dark, handcuffed to a makeshift bed. His right arm has suffered some major damage. His few possessions are gone. He has no memory of getting there.
The last thing Reacher can recall is the car he hitched a ride in getting run off the road. The driver was killed.
His captors assume Reacher was the driver’s accomplice and patch up his wounds as they plan to make him talk.
A plan that will backfire spectacularly . . . -
The Grey Wolf
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The 19th mystery in the #1 New York Times-bestselling Armand Gamache series.
Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in Three Pines. Though the tiny Québec village is impossible to find on any map, someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. Reine-Marie watches with increasing unease as her husband refuses to pick up, though he clearly knows who is on the other end. When he finally answers, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning.
That's only the first in a sequence of strange events that begin THE GREY WOLF, the nineteenth novel in Louise Penny's #1 New York Times-bestselling series. A missing coat, an intruder alarm, a note for Gamache reading "this might interest you", a puzzling scrap of paper with a mysterious list—and then a murder. All propel Chief Inspector Gamache and his team toward a terrible realization. Something much more sinister than any one murder or any one case is fast approaching.
Armand Gamache, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, his son-in-law and second in command, and Inspector Isabelle Lacoste can only trust each other, as old friends begin to act like enemies, and long-time enemies appear to be friends. Determined to track down the threat before it becomes a reality, their pursuit takes them across Québec and across borders. Their hunt grows increasingly desperate, even frantic, as the enormity of the creature they’re chasing becomes clear. If they fail the devastating consequences would reach into the largest of cities and the smallest of villages.
Including Three Pines. -
To Die for
From a #1 New York Times bestselling author, the 6:20 Man returns, this time sent to the Pacific Northwest to aid in a complicated FBI case--and he's about to come face-to-face with his nemesis, the girl on the train.
Travis Devine has become a pro at accomplishing any mission he's given. But this time it's not his skills that send him to Seattle to aid the FBI in escorting orphaned, twelve-year-old Betsy Odom to a meeting with her uncle, who's under federal investigation. Instead, he's hoping to lay low and keep off the radar of an enemy-the girl on the train.
But as Devine gets to know Betsy, questions begin to arise around the death of her parents. Devine digs for answers, and what he finds points to a conspiracy bigger than he could've ever imagined.
It might finally be time for Devine and the girl on the train to come face-to-face. Devine is going to find out the difference between his friends and his enemies-and in some cases, they might well be both. -
Master of Me
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From the award-winning, multihyphenate global entertainer Keke Palmer comes the inspiring true story of her journey to understanding her genuine value.
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF FALL 2024: Bookshop, Apple Books, People, BookRiot, and more!!
Keke Palmer thought she knew who she was. What it means to be a good person and what it takes to be a success. It all seemed so simple, until she realized the challenges she would have to face to prove to herself who she wanted to be. From feeling alienated to having to restart her career after ten years in to becoming a single mother just months after her son was born—everything she worked for in life that she felt granted her what she wanted now also reminded her that “life is going to life” and throw curveballs regardless of what you deserve. She found herself asking, Where do I find my power? How do I master myself?
In her own raw and intimate words, Keke talks about everything from her struggles with boundaries to unconditional love, forgiveness, and worthiness. “Don’t block your blessings and potential opportunities by allowing the voices of other people to influence your actions,” she says. “How you’re choosing to set yourself up for success is between you and the person looking back at you in the mirror.”
Throughout the book, Keke also poses readers with the questions needed to get them through their own challenging times by sharing personal stories and lessons she’s learned along the way. She gets candid about the tools she’s developed to take the reins, harness her vulnerability, and recognize ownership in the narrative of her life—which allowed her to turn personal power into major power.
In this exhilarating, deeply poignant, and often laugh-out-loud book, Lauren Keyana Palmer gets real about life, work, love, and belief. These pages will encourage readers to empower themselves with the truth, leverage their currency, and find the keys to master themselves and the art of alchemy. Keke writes, “You are not on anyone else’s timeline, only your own.”
The result is a tour de force.
They said, “Jack of all Trades, Master of None.”
She said, “No, I am the Master. Of Me.” -
The Mirror
In need of an escape from her ex-fiance's betrayal, and the lucky recipient of a surprise inheritance, Sonya MacTavish leaves behind her life in the city and moves to a Victorian mansion on the coast of Maine. The house is beautiful but comes with surprises - footsteps in the night, doors slamming, music playing - and in her dreams Sonya sees glimpses of the past and the brides who once lived there. As the house reveals more of its history and the sad stories of the brides murdered there, Sonya discovers an antique mirror. She finds herself drawn to the mirror, sensing it holds dark secrets. What can the mirror tell her? Can it help her to understand how the seven brides died? Sonya will need the help of her friends and family if she has any chance of breaking the curse and making this house her home.
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Counting Miracles
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of The Longest Ride and The Notebook comes an emotional, powerful novel about wondering if we can change—or even make our peace with—the path we’ve taken.
“Sparks is superb at what he does. The setting is postcard perfect. The characters are immensely likable. . . . This is a tidy miracle you can count on.”—The Washington Post
Tanner Hughes was raised by his grandparents, following in his grandfather’s military footsteps to become an Army Ranger. His whole life has been spent abroad, and he is the proverbial rolling stone: happiest when off on his next adventure, zero desire to settle down. But when his grandmother passes away, her last words to him are find where you belong. She also drops a bombshell, telling him the name of the father he never knew—and where to find him.
Tanner is due at his next posting soon, but his curiosity is piqued, and he sets out for Asheboro, North Carolina, to ask around. He’s been in town less than twenty-four hours when he meets Kaitlyn Cooper, a doctor and single mom. They both feel an immediate connection; Tanner knows Kaitlyn has a story to tell, and he wants to hear it. To Kaitlyn, Tanner is mysterious, exciting—and possibly leaving in just a few weeks.
Meanwhile, nearby, eighty-three-year-old Jasper lives alone in a cabin bordering a national forest. With only his old dog, Arlo, for company, he lives quietly, haunted by a tragic accident that took place decades before. When he hears rumors that a white deer has been spotted in the forest—a creature of legend that inspired his father and grandfather—he becomes obsessed with protecting the deer from poachers.
As these characters’ fates orbit closer together, none of them is expecting a miracle . . . but that may be exactly what is about to alter their futures forever. -
Now Or Never
"She said yes to Morelli. She said yes to Ranger. Now Stephanie Plum has two fiancâes and no idea what to do about it. But the way things are going, she might not live long enough to marry anyone. While Stephanie stalls for time, she buries herself in her work as a bounty hunter, tracking down an unusually varied assortment of fugitives from justice. There's Eugene Fleck, a seemingly sweet online influencer who might also be YouTube star Robin Hoodie, masked hero to the homeless, who hijacks delivery trucks and distributes their contents to the needy. She's also on the trail of Bruno Jug, a wealthy and connected man in the wholesale produce business who is rumored to traffic young girls alongside lettuce and tomatoes. Most terrifying of all is Zoran--a laundromat manager by day and self-proclaimed vampire by night with a taste for the blood of pretty girls. When he shows up on Stephanie's doorstep, it's not for the meatloaf dinner. With timely assists from her stalwart supporters Lula, Connie, and Grandma Mazur, Stephanie uses every trick in the book to reel in these men. But only she can decide what to do about the two men she actually loves. She can't hold Ranger and Morelli at bay for long, and she's keeping a secret from them that is the biggest bombshell of all. Now or never, she's got to make the decision of a lifetime."--Provided by publisher.
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Confronting the Presidents
Instant #1 New York Times and USA Today nonfiction bestseller!
Every American president, from Washington to Biden: Their lives, policies, foibles, and legacies, assessed with clear-eyed authority and wit.
Authors of the acclaimed Killing books, the #1 bestselling narrative history series in the world, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard begin a new direction with Confronting the Presidents.
From Washington to Jefferson, Lincoln to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Kennedy to Nixon, Reagan to Obama and Biden, the 45 United States presidents have left lasting impacts on our nation. Some of their legacies continue today, some are justly forgotten, and some have changed as America has changed. Whether famous, infamous, or obscure, all the presidents shaped our nation in unexpected ways.
The authors' extensive research has uncovered never before seen historical facts based on private correspondence and newly discovered documentation, such as George Washington's troubled relationship with his mother.
In Confronting the Presidents, O’Reilly and Dugard present 45 wonderfully entertaining and insightful portraits of each president, with no-spin commentary on their achievements—or lack thereof. Who best served America, and who undermined the founding ideals? Who were the first ladies, and what were their surprising roles in making history? Which presidents were the best, which the worst, and which didn’t have much impact? How do decisions made in one era, under the pressure of particular circumstances, still resonate today? And what do presidents like to eat, drink, and do when they aren’t working—or even sometimes when they are?
These and many more questions are answered in each fascinating chapter of Confronting the Presidents. Written with O’Reilly and Dugard’s signature style, authority, and eye for telling detail, Confronting the Presidents will delight all readers of history, politics, and current affairs, especially during the 2024 election season. -
Framed
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - "The master of the legal thriller" (Associated Press) teams up with "the godfather of the innocence movement" (Texas Monthly) to share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions.
"Each of these stories is told with astonishing power."--David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon
"Gripping . . . compelling . . . What makes [Framed] important reading isn't the shock value advertised in the title. It's the exposure of the infuriating, recurrent factors involved in so many unrighteous convictions."--The Washington Post
John Grisham is known worldwide for his bestselling novels, but it's his real-life passion for justice that led to his work with Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries, the first organization dedicated to exonerating innocent people who have been wrongly convicted. Together they offer an inside look at the many injustices in our criminal justice system.A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty, there is very little room to prove doubt. These ten true stories shed light on Americans who were innocent but found guilty and forced to sacrifice friends, families, and decades of their lives to prison while the guilty parties remained free. In each of the stories, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey recount the dramatic hard-fought battles for exoneration. They take a close look at what leads to wrongful convictions in the first place and the racism, misconduct, flawed testimony, and corruption in the court system that can make them so hard to reverse.
Impeccably researched and told with page-turning suspense as only John Grisham can deliver, Framed is the story of winning freedom when the battle already seems lost and the deck is stacked against you.
Online Resources
Academic Search Elite

Designed to meet every academic researcher's needs, Academic Search Elite provides access to acclaimed full-text scholarly journals and magazines.
Ancestry

Ancestry is a comprehensive treasury of American genealogical sources, including unique primary sources, local and family histories, and finding aids. In-library use only.
AtoZ Food America

AtoZ Food America is the world's largest database of American food, culture, and recipes.
Library of Things

Want to try your hand at learning guitar before you decide to purchase your own? This acoustic guitar is great for learning the basics.

Useful in a variety of settings, such as hiking, wildlife viewing, birding, hunting, stargazing, golf, and sports events, binoculars allow you to see details from a distance.