"Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends. Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side."-- Provided by publisher.

"From the inimitable Rabih Alameddine-National Book Award finalist and winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award-comes a tragicomic saga set in Lebanon, a modern story of family, memory, and the unbreakable attachment of a son and his mother. Across his oeuvre, Rabih Alameddine has distinguished himself as a master of the intimate and the political, celebrated for his caustic wit and "compelling, often jarring, blend of cynicism and hope" (The Economist). In this lively new work, Alameddine returns to Beirut-the setting of his breakout novel An Unnecessary Woman-and delivers a compulsively readable story of a winning duo navigating modern life in Lebanon. In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and "the neighborhood homosexual," Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son's desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja's work life and love life, boundaries be damned. When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn't be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja itching for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget. Told in Raja's irresistible and wickedly funny voice, the novel dances across six decades to tell the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities-a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and maybe even forgiveness. Above all, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is a wildly unique and sparkling celebration of love"-- Provided by publisher.

Four teenagers form a deep friendship that offers them refuge from troubled home lives and inspires the creation of a mysterious painting. Twenty-five years later, Louisa, a young artist, inherits the artwork and sets out on a journey to uncover its origin. As she pieces together the story behind the painting and its creators - Joar, Ted, Ali, and the reclusive artist - Louisa discovers not only their lasting impact on one another but also how art and connection can change lives.

"In Alison Bechdel's hilariously skewering and gloriously cast new comic novel confection, a cartoonist named Alison Bechdel, running a pygmy goat sanctuary in Vermont, is existentially irked by a climate-challenged world and a citizenry on the brink of civil war. She wonders: Can she pull humanity out of its death spiral by writing a scathingly self-critical memoir about her own greed and privilege? Meanwhile, Alison's first graphic memoir about growing up with her father, a taxidermist who specialized in replicas of Victorian animal displays, has been adapted into a highly successful TV series. It's a phenomenon that makes Alison, formerly on the cultural margins, the envy of her friend group (recognizable as characters, now middle-aged and living communally in Vermont, from Bechdel's beloved comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For). As the TV show Death and Taxidermy racks up Emmy after Emmy--and when Alison's Pauline Bunyanesque partner Holly posts an instructional wood-chopping video that goes viral--Alison's own envy spirals. Why couldn't she be the writer for a critically lauded and wildly popular reality TV show ... like Queer Eye ... showing people how to free themselves from consumer capitalism and live a more ethical life?!! Spent's rollicking and masterful denouement--making the case for seizing what's true about life in the world at this moment, before it's too late--once again proves that "nobody does it better" (New York Times Book Review) than the real Alison Bechdel"-- Provided by publisher.

"In an age of miracles where our greatest heroes from history have magically, unexplainably returned to shake us out of our confusion and hate, Harriet Tubman is back, and she has a lot to say. Harriet Tubman and four of the enslaved persons she led to freedom want to tell their story in a unique way - by following in the footsteps of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. Harriet wants to put on a show about her life, and she needs a songwriter to help her. She calls upon Darnell Williams, a once successful hip-hop producer who was topping the charts before being outed by a rival at the BET Awards. Darnell has no idea what to expect when he steps into the studio with Harriet, only that they have one week to write a Broadway caliber musical she can take on the road. Over the course of their time together, they not only mount a show that will take the country by storm, but confront the horrors of both their pasts, and learn to find a way to a better future"--Provided by publisher.

"Aiden Valentine has a secret: he's fallen out of love with love. And as the host of Baltimore's romance hotline, that's a bit of a problem. But when a young girl calls into the station asking for dating advice for her mom, the interview goes viral, thrusting Aiden and Heartstrings into the limelight. Lucie Stone thought she was doing just fine. She has a good job, an incredible family, and a smart, if slightly devious kid. But when all of Baltimore is suddenly scrutinizing her love life-or lack thereof-she begins to question if she's as happy as she thought. Maybe a little more romance wouldn't be such a bad thing. Everyone wants Lucie to find her happy ending... even the handsome, temperamental man calling the shots. But when sparks start to fly behind the scenes, Lucie must make the final call between the radio-sponsored happily ever after, or the man in the headphones next to her"-- Provided by publisher.

"Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar. An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers, namely: Who wrote it? Why? And how much of it is true? Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, it focuses in on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean"-- Provided by publisher.

"In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family's isolated mine for refuge. But safety proves fleeting as other dangers soon bare their teeth: Alba begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking, and violent convulsions. She senses something cold lurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong. Elías, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family's legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin's betrothed, is none of his business. Which is of course why he can't help but notice her every time she enters a room or the growing tension between them... and why he notices her deteriorate when the demon's thirst for blood grows stronger. In the fight for her life, Alba and Elías become entangled with the occult, the Church, long-kept secrets, and one another... not knowing that one of these things will spell their doom"-- Provided by publisher.

"One night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the beach. He's carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later Louisa is found washed up by the tide, barely alive. Her father is gone. She is ten years old. In chapters that shift from one member to the next, turning back again and again to that night by the sea, Susan Choi's Flashlight chases the shockwaves of one family's catastrophe. Louisa is an only child of parents who have severed themselves from the past. Her father, Serk, an ethnic Korean born and raised in Japan, lost touch with his family when they bought into the promises of postwar Pyongyang and relocated to the DPRK. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her family after a reckless adventure in her youth. And then there is Tobias, Anne's illegitimate son, whose reappearance in their lives will have astonishing consequences. What really happened to Louisa's father? Why did he take Louisa and her mother to Japan just before he disappeared? And how can we love, or make sense of our lives, when there's so much we can't see?"-- Provided by publisher.

"From the critically-acclaimed author of Disorientation, a multi-genre story collection that explores the limits and possibilities of storytelling. A mail order bride from Taiwan is packed up in a cardboard box and sent via express shipping to California, where her much older husband awaits her. Two teenage girls meticulously plan how to kill and cook their downstairs neighbor. An American au pair moves to Paris to find herself, only to find her actual French doppelgänger. A father reunites with his estranged daughter in unusual circumstances: as a background actor on the set of her film. A writer's affair with a married artist tests the line between fact and fiction, self-victimization and the victimization of others. In these six ... stories and a novella that pivot from the terrible to the beautiful to the surreal, Elaine Hsieh Chou confronts the slipperiness of truth in storytelling"-- Dust jacket flap.

"When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father's car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family--and the family business--together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante's recklessness has placed them all in real danger. Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he's forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: himself, and his own particular set of skills. Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything. Because everything burns"-- Provided by publisher.

"Egypt, 1936: When Charlotte Cross is offered a coveted spot on an archaeological dig in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, she leaps at the opportunity. That is until an unbearable tragedy strikes. New York City, 1978: Nineteen-year-old Annie Jenkins is thrilled when she lands an opportunity to work for former Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who's in the midst of organizing the famous Met Gala, hosted at the museum and known across the city as the 'Party of the Year.' Meanwhile, Charlotte is now leading a quiet life as the associate curator of the Met's celebrated Department of Egyptian Art. She's consumed by her research on Hathorkare--a rare female pharaoh dismissed by most other Egyptologists as unimportant. The night of the gala, one of the Egyptian Art collection's most valuable artifacts goes missing, and there are signs Hathorkare's legendary curse might be reawakening. Annie and Charlotte team up to search for the missing antiquity, and a desperate hunch leads the unlikely duo to one place Charlotte swore she'd never return: Egypt. But if they have any hope of finding the artifact, Charlotte will need to confront the demons of her past--which may mean leading them both directly into danger"-- Provided by publisher.

"When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive Sonia and Sunny apart. Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next"-- Dust jacket flap.

"'Fell down the stairs and woke up a trad wife.' Max is thirty, a published poet and grossly overpaid legal counsel for a tech company. With a lifetime of dysphoria and fuccbois rattling around in her head, Max is plagued with a deep dissatisfaction during what should be the best years of her life. After taking a spill down the stairs at a New Year's Eve party, she decides to make some changes. First things first: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity. Max thinks she's found the answer in Vincent, a corporate lawyer and hobby baker, whose trad friendship group may as well speak a foreign language, and whose Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman. This uncharted territory may have rough terrain, but Vincent cares for Max in a way she'd long given up on as a foolish fantasy. Yet Vincent is carrying his own baggage from his gap year in Thailand a decade prior: an explosive entanglement with a mysterious, gorgeous traveler. Voice-driven, warm, and poignant, Disappoint Me is an exploration of millennial angst, race, trans panic, and the allure of bourgeois domesticity that asks if we are defined by our worst mistakes"-- Provided by publisher.

"On October 22, 1895, a steam train sets out from the Normandy coast, speeding toward Paris's Montparnasse Station, her driver and stoker under relentless pressure from the Company to keep her on schedule. Her carriages are packed with rich and poor passengers from all over the world, cooped up together for a day that will not end the way any of them expect. A member of parliament is chafing at the confines of life with an invalid wife, and a secretary tries to convince her boss that moving pictures could have a future. A medical student suspects a girl may have a fatal disease, and a woman fleeing her village for the anonymity of the capital finds herself going into labor. Only the train herself is aware that there's an anarchist aboard whose dearest wish is to kill them all. Based on a catastrophe that was recorded in a series of surreal photographs, and featuring dozens of real people"-- Dust jacket flap.

Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters--to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter. Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has--a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness. Sybil Van Antwerp's life of letters might be "a very small thing," but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.

"In Grim Wolds, England, Winifred Notty takes on the role of governess at Ensor House, where she must navigate the twisted dynamics of the dysfunctional Pounds family while suppressing her own violent past; as Christmas approaches, she plans sinister gifts for her charges, revealing her true nature"-- Provided by publishers.

"In the heart of the Maine woods, forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis has vanished along the Appalachian Trail two hundred miles from her destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hope alive. At the center of the investigation into Valerie's disappearance is Beverly, the determined Maine state game warden leading the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena--a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community--becomes an unexpected armchair detective. As the story alternates among these ... voices, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search ... as it appears Valerie's disappearance may not have been accidental"-- Dust jacket flap.

"Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. But then she is orphaned, and her guardian--an enigmatic and volatile man--spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends her guardian's servant and the two develop an intense attraction. But when their relationship is discovered, they are brutally punished and abandoned on a small island with no hope for rescue. Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she'd never before needed. Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival"-- Dust jacket flap.

"One morning in December, Kyungha receives a message from her friend Inseon saying she has been hospitalized in Seoul and asking that Kyungha join her urgently. The two women have last seen each other over a year before, on Jeju Island, where Inseon lives and where, two days before this reunion, she has injured herself chopping wood. Airlifted to Seoul for an operation, Inseon has had to leave behind her pet bird. Bedridden, she begs Kyungha to take the first plane to Jeju to save the animal. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon's house at all costs, but the icy wind and snow squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save Inseon's bird--or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn't yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into the darkness which awaits her at her friend's house. There, the long-buried story of Inseon's family surges into light, in dreams and memories passed from mother to daughter, and in the archive painstakingly assembled at the house, documenting a terrible massacre on the island"-- Provided by publisher.

"Sir Una Everlasting was Dominion's greatest hero: the orphaned girl who became a knight, who died for queen and country. Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children's books and recruiting posters - but her life as it truly happened has been forgotten. Centuries later, Owen Mallory - failed soldier, struggling scholar - falls in love with the tale of Una Everlasting. Her story takes him to war, to the archives - and then into the past itself. Una and Owen are tangled together in time, bound to retell the same story over and over again, no matter what it costs. But that story always ends the same way. If they want to rewrite Una's legend - if they want to tell a different story - they'll have to rewrite history itself"-- Provided by publisher.

"At sixty-three years old, million-dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts, if it weren't for the tragedies of his life: the sudden death of his eldest daughter and the way his marriage fell apart after that. Since then, PJ spends both his money and his time at the bar, and he probably doesn't have much time left--he's had three heart attacks already. But when PJ reads the obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes his high school crush, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again. Filled with a new enthusiasm for life, PJ decides he's going to drive across the country to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona to win Michelle back. Before PJ can hit the road, tragedy strikes Pondville, leaving PJ the sudden guardian of his estranged brother's grandchildren. Anyone else would be deterred from the planned trip, but PJ figures the orphaned kids might benefit from getting out of town. PJ also thinks he can ask Sophie, his adult daughter who's adrift in her twenties, to come along to babysit. And there's one more surprise addition to the roster: Pancakes, a former nursing-home therapy cat with a knack of predicting death, who recently turned up outside PJ's home. This could be the second chance PJ has long hoped for--a fresh shot at love and parenting--but does he have the strength to do both those things again? It's very possible his heart can't take it"-- Dust jacket flap.

"Enka meets Mathilde in art school and is instantly drawn to her. Mathilde makes art that feels truly original, and Enka - trying hard to prove herself in this fiercely competitive world - pours everything into their friendship. But when Mathilde's fame and success cause her to begin to drift away, Enka becomes desperate to keep her close. Enter SCAFFOLD. Purported to enhance empathy, this cutting-edge technology could allow Enka to inhabit Mathilde's mind and access her memories, artistic inspirations, and deep-seated trauma. Undergoing this procedure would link Enka and Mathilde forever. But at what cost?"-- Dust jacket flap.

"April is a young mother raising her daughter in an intergenerational house of unspoken secrets and loud arguments. Her only refuge is to hide away in a locked bathroom, her ears plugged into an ambient soundscape, and a mantra on her lips: dead inside. That is, until one day, as she finds herself spiraling toward the volcanic rage she calls the white hot, a voice inside her tells her to just...walk away. She wanders to a bus station and asks for a ticket to the furthest destination; she tells the clerk to make it one-way. That ticket takes her from her Philly home to the threshold of a wilderness and the beginning of a nameless quest--an accidental journey that shakes her awake, almost kills her, and brings her to the brink of an impossible choice. The White Hot takes the form of a letter from mother to daughter about a moment of abandonment that would stretch from ten days to ten years--an explanation, but not an apology"-- Provided by publisher.

"In seven days Jet Mason will be dead. Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old and back living with her parents, she's still waiting for her life to begin. I'll do it later, she always says. She has time. Until Halloween night, when she is violently attacked by an unseen intruder, suffering a catastrophic head injury. Doctors are certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a deadly aneurysm. Jet never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her former best friend turned sister-in-law, her ex-boyfriend. She has just seven days, and as her condition deteriorates, she has only her childhood friend Billy for help. But nevertheless, she's absolutely determined to finally finish something: Jet is going to solve her own murder"-- Dust jacket flap.

"Two women. Two pivotal moments. One dream for justice and equality. In the fall of 1959, Freda Gilroy arrives on the campus of Fisk University full of hope, carrying a suitcase and the voice of her father telling her she's part of a family legacy of greatness. Soon, the ugliness of the Jim Crow South intrudes, and she's thrust into a movement for social change. Freda is reluctant to get involved, torn between a soon-to-be doctor her parents approve of and an audacious young man willing to risk it all in the name of justice. Freda finds herself caught between two worlds, and two loves, and must decide how much she's willing to sacrifice for the advancement of her people. In 1992 Chicago, Freda's daughter Tulip is an ambitious PR professional on track for an exciting career, if workplace politics and racial microaggressions don't get in her way. But with the ruling in the Rodney King trial weighing heavily on her, Tulip feels called to action. When she makes an irreversible professional misstep as she seeks to uplift her community, she must decide, just like her mother had three decades prior, what she's willing to risk in the name of justice and equality"-- Provided by publisher.

"A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice. A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones"-- Provided by publisher.

"Eve Ambroise may be a rising star playwright, but her personal life is falling apart. Desperate for a fresh start, she breaks up with her fiancé, cuts off her parents, and heads to the Tennessee mountains. But keeping up the lie that she's just on a writing retreat becomes near impossible when faced with the well-meaning townspeople and a neighbor who has just as much baggage as she has. Coming off a contentious custody battle, Jamie Gallagher is restructuring what his life looks like as a single dad, and spending more days at his cabin makes his new "free time" a little less empty. Especially when he meets the beautiful-and prickly-woman next door. The last thing he needs is a new romance to shake up his family dynamics even more, but there's something about Eve. What starts out as a fling quickly becomes more serious, and it's not long before Eve is running scared once again. She's loved and lost in every possible way, and risking it one more time could finally break her. But like the fireflies that fill the mountains around them, Jamie's and Eve's lives keep falling into sync. A fairy-tale ending could be in the cards, but only if the new couple can get out of their heads and put their hearts first"--Provided by publisher.

"In the fall of her senior year of college, [the narrator] meets two star students from her seventeenth-century lit class: Sam and Yash. Best friends living in the elegant house of a professor on sabbatical, the boys invite her into their intoxicating world of academic fervor, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. They nickname her Jordan, and she quickly discovers the pleasures of friendship and her own intellectual ambition. But youthful passion is unpredictable, and soon she finds herself at the center of a charged and intricate triangle. As graduation comes and goes, choices made will alter these three lives forever. Decades later, the vulnerable days of Jordan's youth seem comfortably behind her. But when a surprise visit and unexpected news brings the past crashing into the present, she returns to a world she left behind and must confront the decisions and deceptions of her younger self"-- Dust jacket flap.

"One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. A mesmerizing Mobius strip of a novel that asks who we are to the people we love. Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She's an elegant and accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He's attractive, troubling, and young--young enough to be her son. Who is he to her--and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day--partner, parent, creator, muse--and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us best. Taut, hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best"-- Provided by publisher.

"Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world. That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault. Grimes is now in Hell, and she's going in after him. Because his recommendation is the key to her future, and he could hold her dreams in his now incorporeal hands. Unfortunately her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the very same conclusion. With nothing but the records of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, bundles of chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they don't even like. But Hell is not like the storybooks say, Magick isn't always the answer, and there's something in Alice and Peter's past that could forge them into the perfect allies...or lead to their doom"-- Dust jacket flap.

"We arrive to wreckage -- a restaurant smashed to rubble, with tables and chairs upended riotously. Under the swampy nighttime cover of a Montreal heat-wave, this is where we meet our protagonist, Cannon, dripping in little beads of regret sweat. She was supposed to be closing the restaurant for the night, but instead, well, she destroyed it. The mess feels a bit like a horror-scape -- not unlike the horror films Cannon and her best friend, Trish, watch together. Cooking dinner and digging into deep cuts of Australian horror films on their scheduled weekly hangs has become the glue in their rote relationship. In high school, they were each other's lifeline -- two queer second-generation Chinese nerds trapped in the suburbs. Now, on the uncool side of their twenties, the essentialness of one another feels harder to pin down. Yet, when our stoic and unbendingly well-behaved Cannon finds herself -- very uncharacteristically -- surrounded by smashed plates, it is Trish who shows up to pull her the hell outta there. In Cannon, Lee Lai's much anticipated follow-up to the critically-acclaimed and award-winning Stone Fruit, the full palette of a nervous breakdown is just a slice of what Lai has on offer. As Cannon's shoulders bend under the weight of an aging Gung-gung and an avoidant mother, Lai's sharp sense of humor and sensitive eye produce a story that will hit readers with a smash" -- Provided by publisher.

"Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA's algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days. The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom."-- Provided by publisher.

"Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin--and that's before he causes the tragedy that tears apart his family. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he witnesses frightful acts of brutality. But he also experiences small acts of kindness and kinship. Buoyed by those and by his mother's enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can those he loves ever forgive his crimes?"--Provided by publisher.

"Certainty Bulrush wants to be useful--to the Guild of Mages that took her in as a novice, to the little brother who depends on her, and to anyone else she can help. Unfortunately, her tepid magic hasn't proven much use to anyone. When Certainty has the chance to earn her magehood via a seemingly straightforward assignment, she takes it. Nevermind that she'll have to work with Mage Aurelia, the brilliant, unfairly attractive overachiever who's managed to alienate everyone around her. The two must transport minorly magical artifacts somewhere safe: Shpelling, the dullest, least magical village around. There, they must fix up an old warehouse, separate the self-turning butter churns from the kind-of-flaming swords, and above all: avoid complications. The Guild's uneasy relationship with citizens is at a tipping point, and the last thing needed is a magical incident. Still, as mage and novice come to know Shpelling's residents--and each other--they realize the Guild's hoarded magic might do more good being shared. Friendships blossom while Certainty and Aurelia work to make Shpelling the haven it could be. But magic is fickle--add attraction and it might spell trouble"-- Provided by publisher.

"In a near-future Kolkata ravaged by floods and decay, Ma is preparing to leave for a new life in America with her young daughter, Mishti, and her aging father, Dadu. Their visas and passports finally secured, they're just days away from joining Ma's husband in Michigan--until Ma's purse, holding all their precious documents, is stolen. The theft shatters their hopes and alters their lives forever. The story unfolds from two perspectives: Ma's desperate struggle to recover what's lost and Boomba's, the impoverished thief whose act of survival sets tragedy in motion. Through their intertwined fates, Megha Majumdar delivers a powerful and compassionate portrait of love, loss, and endurance amid poverty and corruption in a world on the brink of collapse"--Provided by publisher.

"Sera Swan used to be one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead, lost most of her magic, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her Guild. Now she (slightly reluctantly and just a bit grumpily) helps her great-aunt run an enchanted inn in Lancashire, where she deals with her quirky guests' shenanigans, tries to keep said talking fox in check, and longs for the future that seems lost to her. But then she finds out about an old spell that could hold the key to restoring her power.... Enter Luke Larsen, a handsome and icy magical historian, who arrives on a dark winter evening and might just know how to unlock the spell's secrets. Luke has absolutely no interest in getting involved in the madcap goings-on of the inn and is definitely not about to let a certain bewitching innkeeper past his walls, so no one is more surprised than he is when he agrees to help Sera with her spell. Worse, he might actually be thawing. Running an inn, reclaiming lost magic, and staying one step ahead of the watchful Guild is a lot for anyone, but Sera Swan is about to discover that she doesn't have to do it alone ... and that the weird, wonderful family she's made might be the best magic of all"-- Provided by publisher.

"Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world's largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore. Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again. But Rowan isn't telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all must decide if they can trust one another enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it's too late - and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together"-- Dust jacket flap.

"2014: At a dinner for close friends and colleagues, renowned poet Francis Blundy honors his wife's birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, 'A Corona for Vivien.' Much wine is drunk as the guests listen, and a delicious meal is consumed. Little does anyone gathered around the candlelit table know that for generations to come people will speculate about the message of this poem, the only copy of which goes missing, leading to an enduring mystery. 2119: Just over one hundred years in the future, much of the Western world has been submerged by rising seas following a catastrophic nuclear accident. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost. In the waterlogged south of what used to be England, Thomas Metcalfe, a lonely scholar and researcher, longs for the early twenty-first century as he chases the ghost of one poem, 'A Corona for Vivien.' How wild and full of risk their lives were, thinks Thomas, as he pores over the archives of that distant era, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the elusive poem's discovery, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a brutal crime that destroy his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well"-- Dust jacket flap.

"'Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches': That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva--stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that's why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales. In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay's most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances. As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay's manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch. Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved"-- Dust jacket flap.

"People Like Us is Jason Mott's electric new novel. It is not memoir, yet it has deeply personal connections to Jason's life. And while rooted in reality, it explodes with dreamlike experiences that pull a reader in and don't let go, from the ability to time travel to sightings of sea monsters and peacocks, and feelings of love and memory so real they hurt. In People Like Us, two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds"-- Provided by publisher.

"Adela Woods is sixteen years old and pregnant. Her parents banish her from her comfortable upbringing in Indiana to her grandmother's home in the small town of Padua Beach, Florida. When she arrives, Adela meets Emory, who brings her newborn to high school, determined to graduate despite the odds; Simone, mother of four-year-old twins, who weighs her options when she finds herself pregnant again; and the rest of the Girls, a group of outcast young moms who raise their growing brood in the back of Simone's red truck. The town thinks the Girls have lost their way, but really they are finding it: looking for love, making and breaking friendships, and navigating the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood"-- Provided by publisher.

"A cozy near-future novella about a crew of leftover robots opening their very own noodle shop, from acclaimed sci-fi author Annalee Newitz. You don't have to eat food to know the way to a city's heart is through its stomach. So when a group of deactivated robots come back online in an abandoned ghost kitchen, they decide to make their own way doing what they know: making food--the tastiest hand-pulled noodles around--for the humans of San Francisco, who are recovering from a devastating war. But when their robot-run business starts causing a stir, a targeted wave of one-star reviews threatens to boil over into a crisis. To keep their doors open, they'll have to call on their customers, their community, and each other--and find a way to survive and thrive in a world that wasn't built for them"-- Provided by publisher.

"In the remotest reaches of Central Asia a minor god is chained to a mountainside. Tongues follows his friendship with the eagle who comes everyday to eat his liver, a young girl on an errand of murder and a young man with a teddy bear strapped to his back lost in a wilderness and heading to a crossroads. Set in a version of modern Central Asia, Tongues is a retelling of the Greek myth of Prometheus. It follows the captive god's friendship with the eagle who carries out his daily sentence of torture, and chronicles his pursuit of revenge on the god that has imprisoned him. Prometheus' story is entwined with that of an East African orphan on an errand of murder, and a young man with a teddy bear strapped to his back, wandering aimlessly into catastrophe (a character readers may recognize from Nilsen's Dogs and Water). The story is set against the backdrop of tensions between rival groups in an oil-rich wilderness. Tongues is loosely based on a trilogy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus, of which two plays are lost and only dimly reconstructed by historians. Key to the story of Tongues is Prometheus' role as creator and protector of humanity. In flashbacks and in Prometheus' conversations with the eagle and others, the book will touch on humanity's deep evolutionary past and its complicated prospects for a future. Tongues is both adventure story and meditation on human nature in our present fraught historical moment"-- Provided by publisher.

"Hisataro, a young member of the wealthy Fuchigami family, has a mysterious ability. Every now and then, against his will, he falls into a time-loop in which he is obliged to re-live the same day a total of 9 times. Little does he know how useful this ability will be, until one day, his grandfather mysteriously dies... As he returns to the day of the murder time and again, Hisataro begins to unravel its secrets. With a sizeable inheritance up for grabs, motives abound, and everyone is a suspect. Can Hisataro solve the mystery of his grandfather's death before his powers run out?"-- Provided by publisher.

"In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition. Three startling stories surround Stag Dance: 'Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones' imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend. In 'The Chaser,; a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last story, 'The Masker,' a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides: a handsome mystery man who objectifies her in thrilling ways, or a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood"-- Provided by publisher.

Born with pedigrees but without the pocketbooks to match, The Mitfords were certainly no strangers to lies, intrigue, or scandal. Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah. All six sisters were weaned on their family's well-documented upper class eccentricities: a ne'er do well would-be entrepreneur father; a stern, stiff-upper-lipped mother; a revolving door of governesses of varying propriety, all against the backdrop of a crumbling estate falling into disrepair. The sisters grew from cloistered turn-of-the-century country girls into debutantes who would marry into political influence--for better or worse. Is it any wonder that a young, working class Mimi in Southern California becomes enamored with The Mitfords' downright fanciful rich-and-famous lifestyle? This charming, inventively cartooned, and lovingly researched biography captures the dramatic, over-the-top antics of high society's strongest personalities as they rubbed elbows with some of history's most infamous fascists and communists. Pond's genius for classic cartooning in the vein of the Vanity Fair caricature and the satirical illustrations of Charles Addams brings the aesthetic decadence of the 1920s and '30s to life with effortless aplomb, warts and all.

"Cece is in love. She has arrived early at her future in-laws’ lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a young doctor with a brilliant life ahead of him. Charlie has asked Garrett, his best friend from college, to officiate the ceremony, though Cece can’t imagine anyone more ill-suited for the task--an airport baggage handler haunted by a tragedy from his and Charlie’s shared past. But as Cece spends time with Garrett, his gruff mask slips, and she grows increasingly uncertain about her future. And why does Garrett, after meeting Cece, begin to feel, well, human again? As a contagious stomach flu threatens to scuttle the wedding, and Charlie and Garrett’s friendship is put to the ultimate test, Cece must decide between the life she’s dreamed of and a life she’s never imagined. The events of that summer have long-lasting repercussions, not only on the three friends caught in its shadow but also on their children, who struggle to escape their parents’ story. Spanning fifty years and set against the backdrop of a rapidly warming Montana, Dream State explores what it means to live with the mistakes of the past--both our own and the ones we’ve inherited"-- Provided by publisher.

"Even before the rumors about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbed to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die. But when the villagers start to hear barking, and one claims to see the Mansfield sisters transform before his very eyes, the allegations spark fascination and fear like nothing has before. The truth is that though the inhabitants of Little Nettlebed have never much liked the Mansfield girls--a little odd, think some; a little high on themselves, perhaps--they've always had plenty to say about them. As the rotating--and frequently conflicting--perspectives of five villagers quickly make clear, now is no exception. Even if local belief in witchcraft is waning, an aversion to difference is as widespread as ever, and these narratives all point to the same ultimate conclusion: something isn't right in Little Nettlebed, and the sisters will be the ones to pay for it. A richly atmospheric parable of the pleasures and perils of female defiance, The Hounding considers whether in any age it might be safer to be a dog than an unusual young girl"-- Dust jacket flap.

"Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. She is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA's space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space. Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston's Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, easygoing even when the stakes are high; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer who can fix any engine and fly any plane. As they become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe. Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant"-- Dust jacket flap.

"The Antidote is bookended by two real weather events that happened within months of each other in western Nebraska: the Black Sunday dust storm of 1935 and the flooding of the Republican River, which received twenty-four inches of rain within twenty-four hours. Within the confines of this shadow history we meet a prairie witch who excels in the exile of memory and who calls herself the Antidote, having discovered her bleak magic at the age of fifteen when her baby was stolen from her at a home for unwed mothers; Harp Oletsky, a farmer whose land remains strangely unharmed while the town around him is obliterated by dust and drought; Dell Oletsky, his niece, a motherless daughter in furious flight from her grief, player-captain of a girls' basketball team abandoned by its sponsor, intent on making it to the playoffs while facing down the storm of the century; a voluble scarecrow; and Cleo Allfrey, a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town's secrets and its fate"-- Dust jacket flap.

"This is a story about hunger. 1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada. A young girl grows up wild and wily--her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. She vows to have no regrets. This is a story about love. 1827. London. A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family's estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte's tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow--but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined. This is a story about rage. 2019. Boston. College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That's why Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, her present, and her future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers...and revenge"--Provided by publisher.

"The Bradford-Shmulkin family is falling apart. A very modern blend of Russian, Jewish, Korean, and New England WASP, they love one another deeply, but the pressures of life in an unstable America are fraying their bonds. There's Daddy, a struggling, cash-thirsty editor whose Russian heritage gives him a surprising new currency in the upside-down world of twenty-first-century geopolitics; his wife, Anne Mom, a progressive, underfunded blue blood from Boston who's barely holding the household together; their son, Dylan, whose blond hair and Mayflower lineage provide him pride of place in the newly forming American political order; and, above all, the young Vera, half Jewish, half Korean, and wholly original. Observant, sensitive, and always writing down new vocabulary words, Vera wants only three things in life: to make a friend at school, to keep Daddy and Anne Mom together, and to meet her birth mother, Mom Mom, who will at last tell Vera the secret of who she really is and how to ensure love's survival in this great, mad, imploding world"-- Provided by publisher.

"Vera Wong is back and as meddling as ever. Ever since a man was found dead in Vera's teahouse, life has been good. For Vera, that is. She's surrounded by loved ones, her shop is bustling, and best of all, her son, Tilly, has a girlfriend! All thanks to Vera, because Tilly's girlfriend is none other than Officer Selena Gray. The very same Officer Gray she had harassed while investigating the teahouse murder. Still, Vera wishes more dead bodies would pop up in her shop, but one mustn't be ungrateful, even if one is slightly... bored. Then Vera comes across a distressed young woman who is obviously in need of her kindly guidance. The young woman is looking for a missing friend. Fortunately, while cat-sitting at Tilly and Selena's, Vera finds a treasure trove: Selena's briefcase. Inside is a file about the death of an enigmatic influencer--who also happens to be the friend that the young woman was looking for. Online, Xander had it all: a parade of private jets, fabulous parties with socialites, and a burgeoning career as a social media influencer. The only problem is, after his body is fished out of the water at Mile Rock Beach, the police can't seem to actually identify him. Who was Xander Lin? Nobody knows. Every contact is a dead end. Everybody claims not to have known him, even his parents. Vera is determined to solve Xander's murder. After all, doing so would surely be a big favor to Selena, and there is nothing she wouldn't do for her future daughter-in-law"-- Provided by publisher.

A newcomer to New York, Wyeth is a Black painter who grew up in the South and is trying to find his place in the contemporary Manhattan art scene. It's challenging. Gallery shows displaying bad art. Pretentious artists jockeying for attention. The gossip and the backstabbing. While his part-time work for an art restorer is engaging, Wyeth suffers from artist's block with his painting and he is finding it increasingly difficult to spark his creativity. When he meets Keating, a white former seminarian who left the priesthood, Wyeth begins to reconsider how to observe the world, in the process facing questions about the conflicts between Black and white art, the white gaze on the Black body, and the compromises we make--in art and in life.

"A novel about the rich stories of small places. A woman settles in a remote Polish village where she knows no one. It has few inhabitants, but it teems with the stories of the living and the dead. There’s the drunk Marek Marek, who discovers that he shares his body with a bird, and Franz Frost, whose nightmares come to him from a newly discovered planet. There’s the man whose death--with one leg on the Polish side, one on the Czech--was an international incident. And there are the Germans who still haunt a region that not long ago they called their own. From the founding of the town to the lives of its saints, these shards piece together not only a history, but a cosmology"-- Dust jacket flap.

"A year in the life of a wayward young man in New England who, by chance, becomes the caretaker for an eighty-two-year-old widow living with dementia, powering a story of friendship, loss, and how much we're willing to risk to claim one of life's most treasured mercies: a second chance"-- Provided by publisher.

"Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it's just been Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While she sometimes admits it's a bit lonely, and a less exciting a life than she imagined for herself, it's mostly ok. Mostly. Then one day, Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she's his half-sister. Reuben--left behind by their dad thirty years ago--has hired a detective to track down their father and a string of other half siblings. And he wants Mad to leave her home and join him for the craziest kind of road trip imaginable to find them all. As Mad and Rube--and eventually the others--share stories of their father, who behaved so differently in each life he created, they begin to question what he was looking for with each new incarnation. Who are they to each other? What kind of man will they find? And how will these new relationships change Mad's previously solitary life on the farm?"-- Provided by publisher.

"Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of rural Australia. She doesn't believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident. But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signaling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past"-- Provided by publisher.

"In this razor-sharp, diabolical debut thriller, a young woman steps into her deceased twin's influencer life, only to discover dark secrets hidden behind her social media façade. Julie Chan has nothing. Her twin sister has everything. Except a pulse. Julie Chan, a supermarket cashier with nothing to lose, finds herself thrust into the glamorous yet perilous world of her late twin sister, Chloe VanHuusen, a popular influencer. Separated at a young age, the identical twins were polar opposites and rarely spoke, except for one viral video that Chloe initiated (Finding My Long-Lost Twin and Buying Her a House #emotional). When Julie discovers Chloe's lifeless body under mysterious circumstances, she seizes the chance to live the life she's always envied. Transforming into Chloe is easier than expected. Julie effortlessly adopts Chloe's luxurious influencer life, complete with designer clothes, a meticulous skincare routine, and millions of adoring followers. However, Julie soon realizes that Chloe's seemingly picture-perfect life was anything but. Haunted by Chloe's untimely death and struggling to fit into the privileged influencer circle, Julie faces mounting challenges during a weeklong island retreat with Chloe's exclusive group of influencer friends. As events spiral out of control, Julie uncovers the sinister forces that may have led to her sister's demise and realizes she might be the next target"-- Provided by publisher.