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Didn't You Use to Be Queenie B?

Terri-Lynne DeFino



 

For everyone who loved The Bear! An utterly winning, crowd-pleaser of a novel about a disgraced celebrity chef, her striving protégé, and their path through the kitchen to redemption.

Regina Benuzzi is Queenie B--a culinary goddess with Michelin Star restaurants, a bestselling cookbook empire, and multimillion-dollar TV deals. It doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous and curvaceous, with cascading black hair and signature red lips.

She had it all. Until she didn't.

After an epic fall from grace, Queenie B vanishes from the public eye, giving up everything: her husband, her son, and the fame that she'd fought to achieve. Her shows are in rerun, her restaurants still popular, but her disappearance remains a mystery to her legions of fans.

Local line cook Gale Carmichael also knows a thing or two about disaster. Newly sober and struggling, Gale's future dreams don't hold space for culinary stardom; only earning enough to get by. Broke at the end of the week, he finds himself at a local soup kitchen in one of the roughest parts of New Haven, Connecticut. But Gale quickly realizes that the food coming out of the kitchen is not your standard free meal--it is delicious and prepared with gourmet flair.

Gale doesn't recognize Regina, the soup kitchen's cranky proprietor, whose famous black mane is now streaked with gray. It's been more than ten years since Queenie B vanished into her careful new existence. But she sees Gale's talent and recognizes a brokenness in him that she knows all too well. The culinary genius in hiding takes him under her wing.

Teaching Gale, Regina's passion to create is reignited, and they both glimpse a shot at the redemption that had always seemed out of reach. When Gale is chosen to compete on the hit cooking show, Cut!, it's a turning point for them both.

It's Gale's time to shine. And that means Queenie B might just have to come out of hiding...

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Whistle

Linwood Barclay

"Terrific."-- Stephen King on Whistle

New York Times bestselling author Linwood Barclay enters new territory with a supernatural chiller in which a woman and her young son move to a small town looking for a fresh start, only to be haunted by disturbing events and strange visions when they find a mysterious train set in a storage shed.

Evil has a one track mind....

Annie Blunt has had an unimaginably terrible year. First, her husband was killed in a tragic hit-and-run accident, then one of the children's books she's built her writing and illustrating career on ignited a major scandal. Desperate for a fresh start, she moves with her son Charlie to a charming small town in upstate New York where they can begin to heal.

But Annie's year is about to get worse.

Bored and lonely in their isolated new surroundings, Charlie is thrilled when he finds a forgotten train set in a locked shed on their property. Annie is glad to see Charlie happy, but there's something unsettling about his new toy. Strange sounds wake Annie in the night--she could swear she hears a train, but there isn't an active track for miles--and bizarre things begin happening in the neighborhood. Worse, Annie can't seem to stop drawing a disturbing new character that has no place in a children's book.

Grief can do strange things to the mind, but Annie is beginning to think she's walked out of one nightmare straight into another, only this one is far more terrifying...

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The Love Haters

Katherine Center

Featuring beautiful spray-painted edges with vibrant designed endpapers.

It’s a thin line between love and love-hating in the newest laugh out loud, all the feels rom-com by New York Times bestselling author Katherine Center. 

Katie Vaughn has been burned by love in the past—now she may be lighting her career on fire. She has two choices: wait to get laid off from her job as a video producer or, at her coworker Cole’s request, take a career-making gig profiling Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Key West. The catch? Katie’s not exactly qualified. She can’t swim—but pretends that she can. 

Plus, Cole and Hutch are brothers. And they don’t get along. Next stop: paradise! But paradise is messier than it seems. As Katie gets entangled with Hutch (the most scientifically good-looking man she has ever seen . . . but maybe a bit of a love hater), along with his colorful aunt Rue and his rescue Great Dane, she gets trapped in a lie. Or two. 

Swim lessons, helicopter flights, conga lines, drinking contests, hurricanes, and stolen kisses ensue—along with chances to tell the truth, to face old fears, and to be truly brave at last.

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Eat the Ones You Love

Sarah Maria Griffin

"A twisted, tangled story about workplace love-affairs, and plants with a taste for human flesh. During a grocery run to her local shopping center, Shell Pine sees a 'HELP NEEDED' sign in a flower shop window. She's just left her fiancâe, lost her job, and moved home to her parents' house. She has to make a change and bring some good into her life, so she goes inside and takes a chance. Shell realizes right away that flowers are just the good thing she's been looking for, as is Neve, the beautiful florist who wrote the sign asking for help. The thing is, Neve needs help more than Shell could possibly imagine. An orchid growing out of sight in the heart of the mall is watching them closely. His name is Baby, and the beautiful florist belongs to him. He's young, he's hungry, and he'll do just about anything to make sure he can keep growing big and strong. Nothing he eats - nobody he eats - can satisfy him, except the thing he most desires. Neve. He adores her and wants to consume her, and will stop at nothing to eat the one he loves. This is a story about possession, and monstrosity, and working retail. It is about hunger and desire, and other terrible things that grow"--

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The Amalfi Curse

Sarah Penner

"This intoxicating story blends old-world magic and modern-day mystery with a delicious dash of amore." --People 



Powerful witchcraft. A hunt for sunken treasure. Forbidden love on the high seas. Beware the Amalfi Curse...



Haven Ambrose, a trailblazing nautical archaeologist, has come to the sun-soaked village of Positano to investigate the mysterious shipwrecks along the Amalfi Coast. But Haven is hoping to find more than old artifacts beneath the azure waters; she is secretly on a quest to locate a trove of priceless gemstones her late father spotted on his final dive. Upon Haven's arrival, strange maelstroms and misfortunes start plaguing the town. Is it nature or something more sinister at work?



As Haven searches for her father's sunken treasure, she begins to unearth a centuries-old tale of ancient sorcery and one woman's quest to save her lover and her village by using the legendary art of stregheria, a magical ability to harness the ocean. Could this magic be behind Positano's latest calamities? Haven must unravel the Amalfi Curse before the region is destroyed forever...



Against the dazzling backdrop of the Amalfi Coast, this bewitching novel shimmers with mystery, romance and the untamed magic of the sea.

 

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The Staircase in the Woods

Chuck Wendig

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.

“Chuck Wendig weaves his magic once more, turning a lonely staircase in the woods into a searing, propulsive, dread-filled exploration of the horrors of knowing and being known.”—Kiersten White, author of Hide and Lucy Undying

ONE OF VULTURE’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR (SO FAR)

Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.

Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere.

One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.

Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . .

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Cold Burn

A. J. Landau

Agent Michael Walker returns when multiple deaths at Glacier Bay National Park are just the first steps in a potential global disaster.

National Park Service investigator Michael Walker is battling smugglers stealing priceless artifacts when he’s dispatched to Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, where, in the first stage of a potential global disaster, a team of scientists has gone missing.

Meanwhile, in Florida’s Everglades National Park, FBI special investigator Gina Delgado traces the murder of an environmental science intern back to another U.S. Geological Survey team’s ongoing experiments that are decimating the fragile ecosystem. That is before she’s dispatched to the scene of a sunken U.S. nuclear submarine, the entire crew of which has inexplicably been killed.

The connection between these disparate investigations lies in a deadly prehistoric organism, frozen for thousands of years in the ice until global warming brings it back to life in what could mean the death of all life on Earth. An organism that a rogue billionaire sees as the ultimate fuel source and a Russian strongman views as the ultimate weapon that can shift the global balance of power forever. Against that backdrop, Walker and Delgado find themselves desperately doing battle across multiple fronts against an ancient, unstoppable enemy.

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The Devils

Joe Abercrombie

An Instant New York Times, USA Today, and Indie Bestseller

A brand-new epic fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Joe Abercrombie, featuring a notorious band of anti-heroes on a delightfully bloody and raucous journey

Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds.

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.

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A Curse Carved in Bone

Danielle L. Jensen

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A shield maiden fights to break the shackles of prophecy—and to overcome the betrayal of the man who broke her heart—in this searing conclusion to the Norse-inspired fantasy romance duology that began with the bestselling A Fate Inked in Blood.

The stunning first edition hardcover will feature foil page edges, a custom-stamped case, and a premium dust jacket!

The secret of her divine heritage revealed, Freya finds herself on a path that will see thousands of lives lost to the magic in her blood. Desperate to avoid this dark fate, she risks an alliance with Skaland’s greatest enemy to seek answers from the seer who foretold her future—the same seer who sent Bjorn to kill her. 

While Freya still seethes with rage over Bjorn’s betrayal, the blood oaths that bind her demand that she keep him close as she hunts for a way to avert the looming war. Her magic draws her to the front lines of an old enmity, embroiling her with Nordeland’s Unfated—children of the gods who serve the king she was raised to fear. The same king who, unlike Bjorn, is now willing to fight at her back. For despite the desire that burns hot between Bjorn and Freya, his growing distrust of her chosen path threatens to drag them further apart.

As war approaches, gods and mortals must choose their weapons. Yet the fiercest battle will be the one Freya wages within herself. With the magic of two goddesses burning in her veins, she must weave the threads of destiny to decide her own fate: Will she be the shield that protects her people or the curse that destroys them?

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The Last Ferry Out

Andrea Bartz

Paradise hides a deadly secret. From the New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club pick We Were Never Here . . .

On a trip to the tropical island where her fiancée died, a young woman begins to suspect the death was no accident—and the killer’s closer than she could’ve imagined—in this “unputdownable” thriller from “a master of suspense” (Elle).

“This book is Bartz at her best: twisty, shocking, and riveting—with a narrator you won’t stop rooting for.”—Laura Dave, #1 bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me

When Abby steps foot on Isla Colel, she isn’t sure what—if anything—she’ll find. She only knows that she needs to see the place where her fiancée, Eszter, died to try and make sense of the tragic accident.

The island is nothing like Abby expected: Though it was once a bustling tourist hub, a hurricane has left it a shell of its former self, with only a handful of residents remaining. Even the once-daily ferry to the mainland now runs every week or so.

There, Abby befriends an alluring group of expats, but her sense of unease surges when one of them says he knows the truth about Eszter’s final days. Before he can tell her more, though, he vanishes from the island. Hours turn to days with no sign of him, and the others are chillingly cavalier about his disappearance.

As her quest for the truth unearths dark secrets, shady pasts, and a web of lies, Abby grows more determined than ever to find out what happened to the love of her life. And the deeper she gets in the close-knit expat community, the more she suspects that one of them is Eszter’s killer—and will do anything to keep the truth buried. But will Abby discover who it is before she becomes the island’s next victim?

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Hidden Nature

Nora Roberts

The #1 New York Times-bestselling author presents a novel about an injured cop who must fight to bring down a pair of twisted killers...

Natural Resources police officer, Sloan Cooper, and her partner had just taken down three men preying on hikers in the Western Maryland mountains. Driving back, she pulled in at a convenience store—and walked right into a robbery in progress. One gunshot from a jittery thief was about to change her world.

After being shocked back to life on the operating table, she has a long recovery ahead, so she moves back to her parents’ peaceful house in Heron’s Rest. As for the boyfriend who dumped her via text while she was in the hospital, good riddance.

She may be down, but she’s not out. So when a woman vanishes, leaving her car behind in a supermarket parking lot, Sloan searches online for similar cases. She finds them, spread across three states. Men and women, old and young—the missing seem to have nothing in common. And the abductions keep happening.

Luckily, the new man in her life shares her passion for solving this mystery. But it will take every ounce of endurance to get to the dark heart of this bizarre case—and she's willing to risk her life again if that's what it takes to stop the horror.

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Peace Is a Shy Thing

Alex Vernon

The first literary biography of Tim O'Brien, the preeminent American writer of the war in Vietnam and one of the best writers of his generation, drawing on never-before-seen materials and original interviews.

"Vietnam made me a writer." —Tim O'Brien

Featuring over one hundred interviews with family, friends, peers, and others—not to mention countless exchanges with Tim O'Brien himself—Peace is a Shy Thing provides a nearly day-by-day, gripping account of O'Brien's thirteen months as an infantryman in Vietnam and gives equal diligence to reconstructing O'Brien's writing process.

This meticulously researched biography explores the life and journey that turned O’Brien into a literary icon and a household name. It includes an unpublished short story about O'Brien from a college girlfriend, documentation of his comical involvement with the Washington Post's coverage of Watergate, and a 1989 attic exchange between American and Vietnamese writers on the eve of the publication of O'Brien's most beloved book, The Things They Carried, years before the two countries normalized relations.

Peace is a Shy Thing is as much a history of the era as it is a story of O'Brien's life, from his small-town midwestern mid-century childhood, to winning the National Book Award and his status as literary elder statesman. A story which Vernon, a combat veteran of the Persian Gulf War and a literary scholar trained by officers and professors of the Vietnam era, is uniquely suited to tell.

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The Sailing of the Intrepid

Montel Williams

From twenty-two-year naval and marine veteran Montel Williams comes a page-turning history of how one World War II aircraft carrier's crew defied all odds, redefining the very meaning of what it means to struggle, persevere and survive.



1944. The USS Intrepid set sail on its first combat voyage, only to be struck by a Japanese torpedo plane, jamming its rudder at a forty-five-degree angle. It could only sail in circles amid treacherous waters.



The task force abandoned ship as it tried to make the 3,300-mile voyage to Pearl Harbor. For a day, the captain was able to slalom, alternating use of the ship's engines, but the seas became too perilous. Until one resilient crewman came up with the ingenious idea of rigging a 3,000-square-foot high sail on the second deck to steer the ship home safe. Incredibly, the makeshift sail proved to be their ticket to the shorelines.



With grit and determination, this spellbinding story details a remarkable survival story against all odds, for readers of Tom Clavin and Bob Drury.

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Peace Is a Shy Thing

Alex Vernon

The first literary biography of Tim O'Brien, the preeminent American writer of the war in Vietnam and one of the best writers of his generation, drawing on never-before-seen materials and original interviews.

"Vietnam made me a writer." —Tim O'Brien

Featuring over one hundred interviews with family, friends, peers, and others—not to mention countless exchanges with Tim O'Brien himself—Peace is a Shy Thing provides a nearly day-by-day, gripping account of O'Brien's thirteen months as an infantryman in Vietnam and gives equal diligence to reconstructing O'Brien's writing process.

This meticulously researched biography explores the life and journey that turned O’Brien into a literary icon and a household name. It includes an unpublished short story about O'Brien from a college girlfriend, documentation of his comical involvement with the Washington Post's coverage of Watergate, and a 1989 attic exchange between American and Vietnamese writers on the eve of the publication of O'Brien's most beloved book, The Things They Carried, years before the two countries normalized relations.

Peace is a Shy Thing is as much a history of the era as it is a story of O'Brien's life, from his small-town midwestern mid-century childhood, to winning the National Book Award and his status as literary elder statesman. A story which Vernon, a combat veteran of the Persian Gulf War and a literary scholar trained by officers and professors of the Vietnam era, is uniquely suited to tell.

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Return to Sender

Craig Johnson

Walt Longmire is back after the escapades of First Frost and encounters one of his most baffling cases in Wyoming’s brutal and unforgiving Red Desert.

When Blair McGowan, the mail person with the longest postal route in the country of over three hundred mile a day, goes missing the question becomes—where do you look for her? The Postal Inspector for the State of Wyoming elicits Sheriff Longmire to mount an investigation into her disappearance and Walt does everything but mail it in; posing as a letter-carrier himself, the good sheriff follows her trail and finds himself enveloped in the intrigue of an otherworldly cult.

Packed to the brim with twists and turns, the 21st novel in the New York Times bestselling Longmire series pushes Walt to his absolute limits, forcing him to wrestle with the impossible question: What good are your morals, if you’re marked for the dead letter office?

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Doggone Bones

Carolyn Haines

The next novel in the series that Kirkus Reviews characterizes as “Stephanie Plum meets the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” featuring sassy Southern private investigator Sarah Booth Delaney.

After a dog belonging to local pet activist Tilly Lawson is snatched right out of her backyard in Sunflower County, MS, Sarah Booth and the Delaney Detective Agency are up to their ears in concerned pet owners. Could Tilly's work liberating abused animals have come back to bite her, or was this a random act of dognapping?

Delaney Detective Agency has their work cut out for them, especially as a troublesome online pet detective agency tries nosing their way into the investigation. But as Sarah Booth and Tinkie start to sink their teeth into the mystery, they discover there's much more at play than they thought: neighborhood rivalries, questionable dog breeders, and an illegal dogfighting operation.

As their digging churns up dangerous attention—and with their own beloved dogs, Sweetie Pie and Chablis, possibly next in line to be dognapped—Sarah Booth and Tinkie are in a race against time to track down the thieves and return the missing pets home.

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The Correspondent

Virginia Evans

“Subtly told and finely made, The Correspondent is a portrait of a small life expanding. Virginia Evans shows how one woman changes at a point when change had seemed impossible. That change, like this novel, turns out to be a cause for celebration.”—Ann Patchett

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • LIBRARYREADS APRIL PICK • NAMED A GOOD HOUSEKEEPING (UK) MOST ANTICIPATED DEBUT

“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle, or, a better metaphor, if dated, the links of a long chain, and even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”

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.

Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person. It is about the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime. 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.

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The Road to Tender Hearts

Annie Hartnett

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A darkly comic and warm-hearted novel about an old man on a cross-country mission to reunite with his high school crush—bringing together his adult daughter, two orphaned kids, and a cat who can predict death—by the beloved author of Rabbit Cake and Unlikely Animals 

“A miraculous novel—an actual and spiritual road trip you won’t forget.”—John Irving

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 sweetheart, 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.

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Another Fine Mess

Lindy Ryan

From Lindy Ryan, "one of the most electrifying voices in the horror genre” (Gwendolyn Kiste), Another Fine Mess brings the Evans women back around in this unputdownable, crackling, rollicking mystery of humor, heart, and horror.

Making sure dead things stay buried is the family business...

For over a hundred years, the Evans women have kept the undead in their strange southeast Texas town from rising. But sometimes the dead rise too quick–and that’s what left Lenore Evans, and her granddaughter Luna, burying Luna’s mother, Grace, and Lenore’s mother, Ducey. Now the only two women left in the Evans family, Luna and Lenore are left rudderless in the wake of the most Godawful Mess to date.

But when the full moon finds another victim, it’s clear their trouble is far from over. Now Lenore, Luna, and the new sheriff—their biggest ally—must dig deep down into family lore to uncover what threatens everything they love most. The body count ticks up, the most unexpected dead will rise–forcing Lenore and Luna to face the possibility that the undead aren’t the only monsters preying on their small town.

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I Will Blossom Anyway

Disha Bose

A romantic coming-of-age story about one woman’s inspiring journey to find self-love, reconnect with family, and forge a new path for her future, from the author of the Good Morning America Book Club pick Dirty Laundry

Durga is named after the Bengali goddess—pure of heart, filled with goodness. But the goddess has an alter ego—fearless Kali, of fire and crackling with energy.

The third of four children born to a middle-class Calcutta family, quiet Durga is surprisingly the first to leave the nest of her loving, overbearing family. She is not as charming as her older sister, Tia, as lighthearted as her brother, Arjun, or as clever as her younger sister, Parul. But when she arrives in Ireland to work at a tech company, she finds that for the first time ever she is free—to have fun, to stay out, to sample everything that life has to offer. Suddenly, Durga can be whoever she wants to be. And she wants it all.

But freedom comes at a price. Durga falls in love with handsome, charismatic Jacob, and grows close with his sister, Joy, now Durga’s flatmate and best friend. But when Jacob breaks up with Durga, she’s unmoored. Will she stay in Ireland with her newfound identity and livelihood, or will she return to India, where she is comfortable? Perhaps neither option is enough. Durga must summon her inner Kali, the brave and fearless warrior, and fight for the life she truly desires.

Modern, thought-provoking, and mirthful, I Will Blossom Anyway is a story about what it means to be caught between opposing worlds and the pressures and freedoms of millennial life, and what it really means to be a modern woman today—anywhere.

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Shopgirls

Jessica Anya Blau

From the author of the "delightful" (New York Times Book Review) Mary Jane, a new novel of found family, growing up, and the best and worst of the 1980s, revolving around San Francisco's most exclusive department store, I. Magnin.

Nineteen-year-old Zippy can hardly believe it: she's the newest and youngest salesgirl at I. Magnin, "San Francisco's Finest Department Store." Every week, she rotates her three spruced-up Salvation Army outfits and Vaseline-shined pumps; still, she's thrilled to walk those pumps through the employee entrance five days a week as she saves to buy something new. For a girl who grew up in a one-bedroom apartment above a liquor store with her mother and her mother's madcap boyfriend, Howard; a girl who wanted to go to college but had no help in figuring out how; I. Magnin represents a real chance for a better and more elegant life. Or, at the very least, a more interesting one.

Zippy may not be in school, but she's about to get an education that will stick with her for decades. Her fellow salesgirls (lifetime professionals) run the gamut from mean and indifferent to caring and helpful. The cosmetics ladies on the first floor share both samples and advice ("only date a man with a Rolex"); and her new roommate, Raquel, an ambitious lawyer, tells Zippy she can lose ten pounds easy if she joins Raquel in eating only every other day. Just when Zippy thinks she's getting a handle on how to be an adult woman in 1985, two surprises threaten both her sense of self and her coveted position at I. Magnin.

Set in the Day-Glo colors of 1980s San Francisco, Shopgirls is an intoxicating novel of self-discovery, outrageous fashion, and family both biological and found.



 

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The Night Birds

Christopher Golden

The next gripping, atmospheric horror novel from New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden, set in a deteriorated, half-sunken freighter ship off the coast of Galveston, TX.

Charlie Book and Ruby Cahill have history. After their love ended in heartbreak years ago, they never expected to see each other again.

Now, as part of his work for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Book lives aboard the Christabel, a 19th century freighter half-sunken off the shore of Galveston. Over many years, a massive forest of mangrove trees has grown up through the deck of the ship, creating a startlingly beautiful enigma Book calls the Floating Forest. As a powerful storm churns through the Gulf, he intends to sleep on board as usual.

But when he arrives at the dock, he’s stunned to find Ruby there waiting for him. And she’s not alone. With her are a mysterious woman and her infant child, asking Book to hide them safely aboard the Christabel while they're on the run. Only it isn’t the police who are after them, it’s a coven of witches the woman, Mae, has fled, stealing away the helpless infant for whom the coven had hideous plans...or so Mae claims.

It’s lunacy and Book wants nothing to do with it. But after the way he and Ruby ended things, and the unspoken pain between them, he can’t refuse. Yet even as he brings them out to the ruined ship and its floating forest, there are shadowed figures looming back in Galveston, waiting out the storm. And despite the worsening wind and rain, the night birds are flying, scouring the coastline for their prey.

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Meet Me on Lilac Lane

Andrea Christenson

Mia Jonathon Franklin has been living a nightmare since her husband, Troy, died in a tragic accident, leaving her alone with two young children and a dwindling bank account. So when Mia is offered a chance to save her house, it seems like the answer to her prayers-until she learns the ridiculous quota required to complete the deal. She's in over her head...but then her deceased husband's best friend steps up to help. Enter Cody Hart-Troy's best friend, haunted by his own grief and survivor's guilt. He has loved Mia from afar for years, and when he sees her struggle, he can't just stand by. Torn between his dreams of reviving his family's fishing business and his desire to support Mia, Cody steps in to help. As they work side by side to breathe new life into the island's Main Street, old feelings resurface, and the chemistry between them ignites. But will their shared past and the weight of their losses keep them apart?

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A Dead Draw

Robert Dugoni

An Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling series.

A killer fueled by revenge. A detective haunted by the past. They are headed for a high-stakes showdown in this bone-chilling new Tracy Crosswhite novel by New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni.

Detective Tracy Crosswhite isn't one to lose her cool. Until her interrogation of the taunting and malicious Erik Schmidt, a suspect in two cold case killings. Schmidt also has unnerving ties to the monster who murdered Tracy's sister, stirring memories of the crime that shaped Tracy's life. After a critical mistake during a shooting exercise, Tracy breaks.

Haunted by nightmares and flashbacks, Tracy heads to her hometown of Cedar Grove to refocus. Just a peaceful getaway with her husband, her daughter, and their nanny at their weekend house. But Tracy's sleepless nights are only beginning. A legal glitch has allowed Schmidt to go free. And Tracy has every reason to fear that he's followed her.

Forced into a twisted game of cat and mouse, Tracy must draw on all her training, wits, and strength to defeat a master criminal before he takes away everyone Tracy loves.

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Heart of the Sun

Mia Sheridan

For a limited time only. From mega-bestseller and TikTok sensation Mia Sheridan comes an all-new epic second-chance romance with an unexpected and gritty speculative twist, in deluxe paperback with beautiful sprayed edges and foil detail. Pre-order your copy today!



When the world is plunged into darkness,

Who would you turn to?



Amid the sun-drenched orange groves of California, childhood friends Tuck Mattice and Emily Swanson shared a bond that seemed unbreakable--until life ripped them apart.



Thirteen years later, Emily is a rising pop sensation in need of security, and Tuck, a brooding ex-con, is in need of a fresh start. When fate brings them together once again, Emily hires him on as her new bodyguard. They butt heads and bicker, just like the old days--yet neither can deny the heat rekindling between them.



But when a cataclysmic solar flare disrupts the electrical grid, society is suddenly plunged into chaos and darkness. For Emily, the familiar comforts of fame and fortune crumble, but for Tuck, this stark new reality could be the chance he needs to finally prove himself. As they come to terms with all they've lost and the bitterness that's kept them apart, they must find their way back to one another and discover a new place, under the sun.



For fans of:

 

  • Childhood Best Friends turned Enemies to Lovers
  • Slow Burn Romance
  • Second Chances
  • Popstar + Bodyguard
  • The HBO show The Last of Us meets Carley Fortune's Every Summer After



 

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An Unexpected Grace

Tracie Peterson

Can unexpected grace lay the foundation for a second chance at love? 

After a decade away, Parker Bennett returns home with a traveling troupe to perform a play based on Uncle Tom's Cabin at the Kalispell Opera House. Parker has relished his life on the road, but being home awakens long-buried emotions when he encounters his first love, Johanna St. John. He can't help but wonder if there might still be a place for him in her heart. 

Widowed for three years, Johanna devotes all her time to a demanding toddler, an injured father, and a successful millinery business. After the loss of her husband, she desires to move on, but reconnecting with her past love leaves her unsure of what lies ahead. Both committed to God's distinct calling on their lives, Johanna and Parker struggle to see how their futures can unite, and when strange things start happening around town, their second chance at a life together seems more unlikely than ever. 

Tracie Peterson and Kimberley Woodhouse present another journey to the American Frontier with themes of second chances and the enduring power of grace despite life's trials. An Unexpected Grace makes a compelling read for fans of Christian romance novels, exploring love through the lens of faith.

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Songs of Summer

Jane L. Rosen

A young woman crashes the wedding of the summer on Fire Island in search of her birth mother—and gets a whole lot more than she bargained for—in this warm, heart-stopping getaway from Jane L. Rosen

As featured in ParadeThe New York Post ∙ Woman's World ∙ Katie Couric Media ∙ The Nerd Daily ∙ Zibby Media ∙ and more!

Maggie May Wheeler is living her best life—at thirty, she has big plans for her vintage record shop and is about to be engaged to her childhood best friend. But when she stumbles across a letter she wrote to her future self when she was thirteen, she realizes it may not be enough. The letter ignites a desire to find her birth mother and discover where she really belongs.

Her search takes her to dreamy Fire Island, where her birth mother is a guest at a wedding. As Maggie spies on her biological family, she’s caught between diving into their chaotic lives and returning to her comfortable world. Things heat up when a charming local makes her an offer to crash the wedding as his date.

Is it the island’s magic, the whirlwind of the weekend, or the thrill of a fake beau that has her rethinking everything? Swept away by every love song she hears, Maggie must figure out where her heart truly lies.

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Rules for Ruin

Mimi Matthews

A Most Anticipated Romance for Paste Magazine · The Nerd Daily · BookBub · Marie Claire · Book Riot · Bookish · Fangirlish

No one betrays the Academy. But now Euphemia must decide: break the rules for her enemy, or let the rules break her heart.

On the outskirts of London sits a seemingly innocuous institution with a secretive aim—train young women to distract, disrupt, and discredit the patriarchy. Outraged by a powerful lord’s systematic attack on women’s rights in Parliament, the Academy summons its brightest—and most bitter—pupil to infiltrate the odious man’s inner circle. A deal is struck: bring down the viscount, and Miss Euphemia Flite will finally earn her freedom.

But betting shop owner Gabriel Royce has other plans. The viscount is the perfect pawn to insulate Gabriel’s underworld empire from government interference. He’s not about to let some crinoline-clad miss destroy his carefully constructed enterprise—no matter how captivating he finds her threats.

From the rookeries of St. Giles to the ballrooms of Mayfair, Euphemia and Gabriel engage in a battle of wits and wills that’s complicated by a blossoming desire. Soon Euphemia realizes it’s not the broken promises to her Academy sisters she should fear. . . . It’s the danger to her heart.

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Problematic Summer Romance

Ali Hazelwood

What is wrong meets what feels right in this romance set in Italy by the New York Times bestselling author of Deep End.

Maya Killgore is twenty-three and still in the process of figuring out her life. 

Conor Harkness is thirty-eight, and Maya cannot stop thinking about him.

It’s such a cliché, it almost makes her heart implode: older man and younger woman; successful biotech guy and struggling grad student; brother’s best friend and the girl he never even knew existed. As Conor loves to remind her, the power dynamic is too imbalanced. Any relationship between them would be problematic in too many ways to count, and Maya should just get over him. After all, he has made it clear that he wants her gone from his life.

But not everything is as it seems—and clichés sometimes become plot twists.

When Maya’s brother decides to get married in Taormina, she and Conor end up stuck together in a romantic Sicilian villa for over a week. There, on the beautiful Ionian coast, between ancient ruins, delicious foods, and natural caves, Maya realizes that Conor might be hiding something from her. And as the destination wedding begins to erupt out of control, she decides that a summer fling might be just what she needs—even if it’s a problematic one.

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We Are Not Strangers

Josh Tuininga

Inspired by a true story, this graphic novel follows a Jewish immigrant's efforts to help his Japanese neighbors while they're incarcerated during World War II. Winner, Best in Young Adult Non-Fiction from the Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards

"A powerful book about advocating for friends and neighbors during times of great division." --Kazu Kibuishi, #1 New York Times bestselling author-illustrator of the Amulet series

An evocative and beautiful graphic novel revealing the truth of one man's extraordinary efforts, We Are Not Strangers converges two perspectives into a single portrait of a community's struggle with race, responsibility, and what it truly means to be an American.

Marco Calvo always knew his grandfather, affectionately called Papoo, was a good man. After all, he was named for him. A first-generation Jewish immigrant, Papoo was hardworking, smart, and caring.

When Papoo peacefully passes away, Marco expects the funeral to be simple. But he' caught off guard by something unusual. Among his close family and friends are mourners he doesn't recognize--Japanese American families--and no one is quite sure who they are or why they are at the service. How did these strangers know his grandfather so well?

Set in the multicultural Central District of Seattle during World War II and inspired by author Josh Tuininga's family experiences, We Are Not Strangers explores a unique situation of Japanese and Jewish Americans living side by side in a country at war.

Following Papoo's perspective, we learn of his life as a Sephardic Jewish immigrant and his friendship with Sam Akiyama, a Japanese man whose life is upended by Executive Order 9066, which authorized the incarceration of nearly all Japanese Americans and residents of Japanese ancestry. Determined to keep Sam's business afloat while he and his family are unjustly imprisoned, he and Papoo create a plan that will change the Akiyama's lives forever.

"At its core, a relatable tale of friendship, shared experiences of discrimination, and the power of individuals to make a difference." -- The Beat

Introduction by award-winning author Ken Mochizuki

Afterword by Devin Naar, author of Jewish Salonica

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The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association

Caitlin Rozakis

From the NYT-bestselling author of Dreadful, Big Little Lies goes to magic school, cozy fantasy perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, Olivia Atwater and Heather Fawcett. Featuring orange sprayed and stencilled edges, with magic symbols, unicorns and baked goods from the book.

Two parents and their recently-bitten-werewolf daughter try to fit into a privileged New England society of magic aristocracy. But deadly terrors await them – ancient prophecies, remorseless magical trials, hidden conspiracies and the PTA bake sale.

When Vivian’s kindergartner, Aria, gets bitten by a werewolf, she is rapidly inducted into the hidden community of magical schools. Reeling from their sudden move, Vivian finds herself having to pick the right sacrificial dagger for Aria, keep stocked up on chew toys, and play PTA politics with sirens and chthonic nymphs and people who literally can set her hair on fire. 

As Vivian careens from hellhounds in the school corridors to demons at the talent show, she races to keep up with all the arcane secrets of her new society—shops only accessible by magic portal, the brutal Trials to enter high school, and the eternal inferno that is the parents’ WhatsApp group. 

And looming over everything is a prophecy of doom that sounds suspiciously like it’s about Aria. Vivian might be facing the end of days, just as soon as she can get her daughter dressed and out of the door…

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Voyage of the Damned

Frances White

Don't miss this stunning deluxe paperback edition of the TikTok sensation, VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED--featuring gorgeous, sprayed and stenciled edges with gold foiling!



"Hilarious and full of heart."--A.S. Webb, author of Daughter of Chaos



Twelve magical Blessings.



Twelve days at sea.



One chance to stop a killer



and save the world...



For a thousand years, Concordia has maintained peace between its provinces. To mark this incredible feat, the emperor's ship embarks upon a twelve-day voyage to the sacred Goddess's Mountain. Aboard are the twelve heirs of the provinces of Concordia, each graced with a unique and secret magical ability known as a Blessing.



All except one: Ganymedes Piscero--class clown, slacker and all-around disappointment.



When a beloved heir is murdered, everyone is a suspect. Stuck at sea and surrounded by powerful people and without a Blessing to protect him, Ganymedes's odds of survival are slim.



But as the bodies pile higher, Ganymedes must become the hero he was not born to be. Can he unmask the killer and their secret Blessing before this bloody crusade reaches the shores of Concordia?



Or will the empire as he knows it fall?



For fans of:

 

  • Unlikely Snarky Heroes
  • Found Families
  • LGBTQIA+ Rep
  • Locked Room Mysteries
  • Second Chances
  • Magical Fantasies with a Touch of Romance



 

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The Busybody Book Club

Freya Sampson

LibraryReads Pick

They can’t even agree on what to read, so how are they going to solve a murder?

Having recently moved from London to a small Cornish seaside village, Nova Davies started a book club at the local community center, but so far it’s a disaster. The five members disagree on everything, and to make matters worse, a significant sum of money is stolen during one of the meetings, putting the much-loved community center at risk.

Suspicion for the theft falls on book club member Michael, especially when he disappears and a dead body turns up at his house. But the book club has their own theories. Agatha Christie superfan Phyllis is determined to prove Michael’s been framed, while romance reader Arthur believes there’s a mystery woman involved, and teenage sci-fi fan Ash thinks dark forces are at play. 

While trying to locate Michael, solve the murder and recover the stolen money, each of them has their own secrets to protect. But despite the danger closing in, they won’t rest until they’ve cracked the case and gotten everyone safe at home with a book, where they belong.

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This Vicious Dream

Stacia Stark

Once, I helped save a kingdom.Now, I'm trapped in a prison of thorns and nightmares.

My crime? Knowing the location of a power that could reshape the world-a grimoire I swore to protect with my life.

That secret is the only thing keeping me alive while my captors wait for me to break.

Until he arrives.

Beautiful. Ruthless.

Dark, inscrutable eyes. A dangerously wicked grin.

But he's not here to rescue me. He wants the grimoire for himself--and he'll destroy anyone who stands in his way.

My only choice is a fragile, temporary alliance with a man I can never trust.

Because there's more at stake than just a stolen grimoire or an ancient grudge.

And behind his mask of effortless allure, he's hiding something far more dangerous than a thirst for power.

Something that could destroy us all.

 

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Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me

Django Wexler

Dark Lord Davi rules the kingdom, but she must now break the time loop that binds her in this hilariously bloody conclusion to the Dark Lord Davi duology.



After countless failures (let's not dwell on it), Davi has finally saved the kingdom from evil-by becoming the Dark Lord herself. But now, the hordes of wilders are at her command, and they still want blood. Human blood. And Davi's not sure she can commit to the total extermination of humanity. 



With restless armies at her doorstep, a treasonous duke scheming for power, and the legend of an ancient magician looming over her shoulder, Davi must find a way towards peace and uncover the truth behind her time loop if she is to bring harmony to the kingdom. Also, her girlfriend is mad at her. So, there's that too.

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The Near Miss

Lily Joseph

Nick and Wren have never met. But fate is about to change everything. Could true love be just a catastrophe away?



Local reporter Wren just wants a quiet life with no surprises. Sure, her boyfriend Alex is a bit vain and controlling, and maybe their relationship isn't as exciting as it used to be. But excitement is overrated, right? 



Handyman Nick is keen to keep his head down too, while adapting to the breakdown of his relationship and learning how to be a single father. All he wants is for his business to take off, to see his daughter, and crack on with things. 



But then, Nick accidentally drops a glass window, which lands mere inches from Wren's head. From there, from electrocutions to car malfunctions, slippages, bookcases and muggings, fate isn't going to leave these two alone. Not until they meet. 



When Wren heads to Italy on what should have been a trip for two, she has no idea that Nick is there too, looking for his estranged father. And when yet another near‑death experience finally throws them together, sparks fly. 



But Nick and Wren soon find out their lives are even more entwined that they thought. Will their love survive, or will it be another near miss?

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Left of Forever

Tarah DeWitt

An emotional, irresistible second-chance romance filled with sparkling humor, big feelings, and "melt your face off intimacy" (Jessica Joyce) from celebrated USA Today bestselling author Tarah DeWitt. 

This time, they'll get it right.

Wren and Ellis Byrd fell in love as kids, had their son Sam when they were only teenagers, and built a life together in the coastal town of Spunes, Oregon. They were made for one another . . . until they fell apart. Now divorced and in their 30s, Wren runs the bakery in town, while Ellis works as a firefighter. They live separate lives, though they are hardly off each other’s minds.

When Ellis and Wren move Sam into college, Ellis convinces Wren to take an extended road trip back to Spunes to see if they can give their relationship one last chance. Amid the gorgeous California coastline and the intimacy they have missed for years, Wren starts to think it just might be possible. But can the past truly be left behind? When words fail and old wounds resurface, it’s a soul-baring letter that could finally reveal the truth—or close the door on them forever.

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Anji Kills a King

Evan Leikam

An unlikely assassin struggles to escape a legendary bounty hunter in this breakneck fantasy debut that will grab you by the throat—perfect for fans of Joe Abercrombie, R.F. Kuang, and Christopher Buehlman.

She killed for a cause. Will she die for it too?

Anji works as a castle servant, cleaning laundry for a king she hates. So when a rare opportunity presents itself, she seizes the chance to cut his throat. Then she runs for her life. In her wake, the kingdom is thrown into disarray, while a bounty bigger than anyone could imagine lands on her head.

On her heels are the fabled mercenaries of the Menagerie, whose animal-shaped masks are magical relics rumored to give them superhuman powers. It’s the Hawk who finds Anji first: a surly, aging swordswoman who has her own reasons for keeping Anji alive and out of the hands of her fellow bounty hunters, if only long enough to collect the reward herself.

With the rest of the Menagerie on their trail, so begins an alliance as tenuous as it is temporary—and a race against death that will decide Anji’s fate, and may change the course of a kingdom.

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Can't Get Enough

Kennedy Ryan

"Can't Get Enough balances brutal emotion, whip-smart humor, and delicious spice. Moving, romantic, and thrumming with life, this is Ryan's best work yet." ―Talia Hibbert



Hendrix Barry lives a fabulous life. She has phenomenal friends, a loving family, and a thriving business that places her in the entertainment industry's rarefied air. Your vision board? She's probably living it.



She's a woman with goals, dreams, ambitions--always striving upward. And in the midst of everything, she's facing her toughest challenge yet: caring for an aging parent. Who has time for romance? From her experience, there's a low ROI on relationships. Anyway, she hasn't met the man who can keep up with her. Until...him.



Tech mogul Maverick Bell is a dilemma wrapped in an exquisitely tailored suit and knee-melting charm. From their first charged glance at the summer's hottest party, Hendrix feels like she's met her match. Only he can't be. Mav may be the first to make her feel this seen and desired, but he's the last one she can have. Forbidden fruit is the juiciest, and this man is off limits if she plans to stay the course she's set for herself.



But when Maverick gives chase--pursuing her, spoiling her, understanding her--is it time to let herself have something more?



"Kennedy Ryan pours her whole soul into everything she writes, and it makes for books that are heart-searing, sensual, and life affirming." ―Emily Henry



"One of the finest romance writers of our age." -Entertainment Weekly

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Spectrum of Independence

Kristin Lombardi

As a parent of a neurodiverse child, milestones that many families take for granted--like seeing your kid graduate from high school or college, get a rewarding job, and, eventually, leave the nest--may be fraught with uncertainty. How can kids who need loads of support to get through the day ever learn to take care of themselves? This motivating, practical book gives you concrete strategies for maximizing the independence of your child or teen with autism, intellectual disabilities, or other forms of neurodiversity. Exercises and downloadable worksheets are rooted in scientifically based behavioral principles and illustrated with vivid, empathic examples. By breaking down tasks like getting dressed, brushing teeth, or making a sandwich into manageable "microsteps," you will learn to phase out assistance gradually and systematically as kids take ownership of their routines. Actively boost your child's autonomy--this book shows how.

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Mayo Clinic Guide to Your Baby's First Years, 3rd Edition

Kelsey Klaas

Your child's first few years are a wild ride. This book is your essential guide to the key stages of early childhood development, with comprehensive information on infant and toddler health from top Mayo Clinic pediatric experts with real-life parenting experience.



Inside, you'll find expert recommendations and practical insights to help you care for your infant and toddler with confidence, from sleep routines and safety tips to family media use and mental health (yours!). Month-by-month chapters cover your child's growth and movement, as well as their sensory, mental, and social development.



You'll also find guidance on:

  • Bonding with your new baby
  • Bathing and comforting your child
  • Feeding your baby and toddler as they grow
  • Diapering and toilet learning
  • Finding a pediatrician and healthcare for your child
  • Childcare, traveling and emergency care
  • Challenges for parents and other family members in the transition to life with a new baby
  • Special circumstances such as adoption, caring for multiples, premature babies, autism spectrum disorder and more



In this revised third edition, key updates address the questions and issues facing today's parents. To help you make the best decisions for your family, you'll find information on screen time, vaccines, new devices, and parental depression and anxiety. Other additions help you navigate toddler nap transitions, picky eating, big feelings, and behavior issues.



From birth to your child's third birthday, this guide is your trusted companion through the great adventure of infant- and toddlerhood.



Mayo Clinic Parenting Guides provide trusted expertise for every step of your journey.

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The Simplest Potty Training Book in the World: The Illustrated, Grab-And-Do Guide for Quick, Stress-Free Potty Success

S. M. Gross

Say hello to simplicity and potty training your child with ease and assurance thanks to The Simplest Potty Training Book in the World.

This breakthrough guide is designed to take the stress and confusion out of potty training by distilling the best of the best approaches from the experts down to their essentials in clear, easy-to-follow, illustrated steps. Parents will be empowered to help their children learn more confidently and naturally.

Simplest Potty Training brings to life proven techniques, helpful tips, and practical scripts and strategies, which sets it apart from other guides by emphasizing simplicity and flexibility over harsh, rigid methods. The Simplest approach is ideal for busy parents who want a straightforward, stress-free experience in helping their child achieve potty independence without all the worry and stress.

 

* Truly the simplest approach: Remove the overwhelm with the most illustrated, most practical guide of easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions to make learning fast and easy.

 

* Proven techniques from the experts: The most up-to-date and modern techniques, including troubleshooting methods that show you how to overcome training challenges, triumph over setbacks, and handle those inevitable oops! moments.

 

* All the information you need: From determining readiness, preparing your child, managing accidents, handling challenges, dealing with regression, managing fear and pushback, and teaching hygiene to applying the Simplest method and overcoming setbacks, this is the only guide you will need.

 

* Perfect for busy parents: With no requirement to be quarantined for days, this flexible approach fits into any lifestyle and schedule.

 

* Doable, not daunting: Unlike many methods that demand intensive schedules and promise unrealistic overnight success, Simplest incorporates the best training techniques and advice to succeed without excessive pressure.

 

* Customizes to your child''s specific development needs: Unlike one-size-fits-all methods, this guide allows adjustments for your toddler''s specific needs, as no two children are the same.

 

* Encouraging scripts: We provide a series of positive phrases and interactions for you and your child so you know what to say to make the process go smoothly and to help you stay calm and consistent, even when an accident happens.

 

But we''re not stopping there! We''ve sprinkled in some humor, because--let''s face it--potty training can be a comedy of errors. You''ll laugh, you''ll learn, and most importantly, you''ll conquer the potty training challenge like a pro.

There is nothing like this guide on the market. Whether you are a first-time parent or looking for a gentler method, this is the only guide you will need. So, get ready to conquer the diaper days and make potty training a breeze. No nonsense, no fluff, no stress, just pure practicality.

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Marvel Comics For Dummies

Troy Brownfield

Explore the iconic super heroes and storylines from Marvel Comics

You may be familiar with heroic characters from Marvel Comics like Black Panther, Iron Man, and Wolverine, or villains like Loki and Thanos. But how much do you know about Squirrel Girl, Cyclops, or the Leader? With over 85 years of comics published since their founding, the Marvel Comics archive is a vast universe of iconic stories and legendary characters. Marvel Comics For Dummies is your shortcut to navigating this immense collection of heroes and their adventures. Learn the background of key characters, explore essential storylines, and discover the interconnectedness of the Marvel universe. Created in collaboration with Marvel Comics, this full-color guide contains striking comic book artwork along with interesting insights that serve as an exciting map to the Marvel universe.

  • Uncover Marvel’s origin story
  • Get to know iconic Marvel super heroes and villains
  • Tour the Marvel Comics Multiverse
  • Make sense of Marvel’s many super-hero teams
  • Explore definitive storylines that span the history of Marvel Comics

From curious newbie to long-time reader, Marvel Comics For Dummies brings the Marvel Multiverse to life.

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Behooved

M. Stevenson

DELUXE EDITION—a beautiful paperback edition featuring gorgeous pink sprayed edges.

A charming slow-burn fantasy featuring a duty-bound noblewoman with a chronic illness, a prince who would rather be in a library than on a throne, and a magical ride through a world of cozy enchantment

Bianca knows her duty comes before her heart. So when the threat of war looms, she agrees to marry the neighboring kingdom’s heir. But not all royal weddings are a fairytale, and Prince Aric, Bianca’s betrothed, is cold, aloof, and seems to hate her on sight. 

To make matters worse, on their wedding night, an assassination attempt goes awry—leaving Aric magically transformed into a horse. Bianca does what any bride in this situation would do: she mounts her new husband and rides away to safety.

Sunset returns Aric to human form, but they soon discover the assassination attempt is part of a larger plot against the throne. Worse, Bianca has been framed for Aric’s murder, and she’s now saddled with a husband who is a horse by day and a frustratingly attractive man by night. 

As an unexpected romance begins galloping away with their hearts, Bianca and Aric must rely on each other to unravel the curse and save the throne.

"Behooved is bewitchingly charming, a romantic fairy-tale adventure that will sweep you off your feet (or hooves)!"—Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop

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32 Days in May

Betty Corrello

"[A] deeply emotional tour de force...Readers with chronic illnesses will feel especially seen--and anyone who values resilient heroines is sure to root for Nadia." -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)

Return to the Jersey Shore with a new romance by Summertime Punchline author Betty Corrello in which a young woman recently diagnosed with lupus attempts a no-strings fling with a former television star.

"Laugh-out-loud funny, deeply sexy, and heartbreakingly real... It's a total knockout." --LEX CROUCHER, New York Times bestselling author

Nadia Fabiola wants to lose herself in Evergreen--the Jersey Shore town where she grew up vacationing with her family--and never look back at her glamorous, gainfully employed former self. After a shocking lupus diagnosis turned her life upside down, she's desperate for a sense of control over her body, her life, and her mental health. Nadia plans on keeping her life small and boring, while continuing to ignore her sister's relentless questioning.

Nadia's sister isn't the only person worried about her. When her rheumatologist not-so-subtly sets her up with his infamous former-actor cousin, Marco Antoniou, Nadia is skeptical. But Marco is gorgeous--despite carrying his own baggage from a very public burnout. After a messy (but fun) first date, they decide that a May-long fling could be just what the doctor ordered: no commitment, no strings, just one month of escape.

Their undeniable chemistry starts to feel a lot like something more and while Marco pulls Nadia deeper into his life, she is dead set on keeping her diagnosis from him. But there are only so many days in May, and only so much pretending she can do. As the stress of their whirlwind romance takes its toll on Nadia's health, she's forced to decide if a chance at love is worth the risk of trusting someone new.

Travel from the Jersey Shore to Rome and back in this delightfully funny, beautifully honest exploration of love, intimacy, and vulnerability while living with a chronic illness.

"[S]exy, funny, messy, and heartfelt to boot. You need this on your shelves and in your heart." -- SHIRLENE OBUOBI, author of Between Friends and Lovers?

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Dying to Meet You

Sarina Bowen

From the author of The Five Year Lie comes a new twisty thriller that probes how well we actually know the men in our lives.

Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring an historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine. But inside, she's a mess. She knows that stalking her ex's avatar all over Portland on her phone isn't the healthiest way to heal from their breakup. But she's out of ice cream and she's sick of romcoms.

Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He's dining out while she's wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car.

Instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder--and the primary suspect.

But Rowan isn't the only one keeping secrets. As she digs for the truth, she discovers the dead man was stalking her too, gathering intimate details about her job and her past.

Struggling to clear her name, Rowan finds herself spiraling into the shadowy plot that killed him.

Will she be the next to die?

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Dream On, Ramona Riley

Ashley Herring Blake

A small-town waitress and a Hollywood star’s worlds collide in this new romance by Ashley Herring Blake, USA Today bestselling author of Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date.

Once upon a time, Ramona Riley was a student at a prestigious art school, with dreams of landing in Hollywood as a costume designer to the stars. But after her father’s car accident, she had to quit and return to her small New Hampshire town, Clover Lake, to help take care of her younger sister. Twelve years later, Ramona is still working at the town’s café, all but given up on her dream. But when a big-budget romantic comedy comes to Clover Lake to film, she wonders if this could be her chance. There’s only one problem—Dylan Monroe, her first kiss and Hollywood’s favorite wild child—is the star.

Dylan Monroe has always lived an unconventional life, having famous rock icons for parents. But she wants to prove that she’s not some chaotic, talentless nepo baby, that she has actual skills, that she’s just a normal person. To do that, Dylan takes on a project at a charming lake town—she even works at the town’s café (very quaint), shadowing a local waitress there (very cute), and asks her to take Dylan around to do Normal People Things.

But Dylan soon realizes it’s not just some small-town waitress she’s getting to know—Ramona Riley is someone she’s met before, someone who remembers her even more vividly. Before long, however, reality hits them, and both women must decide if the spark between them can fan the flames of their individual dreams, or if it will extinguish their light.

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Lawman's Duty

James Clay

Thad Jarrett became a living legend when he outdrew and killed the vicious gunfighter, Music Matt McCall. Twenty-two years later, McCall's son is presumably hiding out in the town of Travis, Arizona, where Jarrett is now the sheriff. Like his father, the son sings hymns. Unlike his father, the son of Music Matt McCall strikes late at night leaving behind nothing but corpses....

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A Wager with the Matchmaker

Jody Hedlund

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After her brother's entanglement with an Irish gang threatens their family's safety, Alannah Darragh flees St. Louis and her troubled past, seeking refuge as a maid for the affluent Shanahan family. Alannah's resolve to avoid romance is tested by the undeniable attraction she feels for Kiernan Shanahan. Determined to maintain her position and the safety it provides, she vows to resist the pull of her heart despite the growing bond between them and their undeniable chemistry.





 

In the wake of a devastating fire, Kiernan Shanahan sees a shrewd opportunity to invest in a clay mine and brickyard to aid the city's rebuilding. To secure his venture, he seeks a wealthy bride with a substantial dowry. However, the matchmaker he consults has different plans. As danger looms and Alannah fights to keep her brother safe, Kiernan's protective instincts draw them closer, but a future together seems too far out of reach. It will take a miracle--or a wager with the wily matchmaker--to form a match between the unlikely couple.





 

Award-winning author Jody Hedlund presents a sweeping finish to her Irish matchmaking series with sizzling chemistry and closed-door romance for fans of the marriage of convenience trope, Mimi Matthews, and Elizabeth Camden.

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A Mind of Her Own

Danielle Steel

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Rising above the devastation of World War I, a young half-French, half-American woman remains true to her own independent spirit in this powerful historical novel by bestselling author Danielle Steel.

Alexandra Bouvier is born in Paris in 1900, at the dawn of a new century. From an early age, she is encouraged to think for herself by her enlightened family: her father, a French doctor; her mother, an American nurse; and her maternal grandfather a highly regarded newspaperman back in the Midwest.

At age fourteen, Alex’s comfortable life is upended as war erupts across Europe. Her parents follow their sense of duty to the front, performing triage at a field hospital and confronting the horrors of poison gas and trench warfare. The merciless fighting, coupled with the fast-spreading Spanish flu, wreaks havoc on the continent, as well as on Alex’s loved ones. By the time she is eighteen, she has suffered unimaginable losses.

With her grandfather’s support, she attends the University of Chicago and decides to follow his footsteps into journalism. As a newspaper intern she meets reporter Oliver Foster, who is covering the gang wars sparked by Prohibition. He too has known devastating loss, and the two are drawn to each other, though both fear any attachment. As it turns out, Alex has good reason to be cautious.

Danielle Steel’s sweeping historical novel is a story of resilience and the courage to open one’s heart—no matter how many times it’s been broken—and believe in oneself.

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Dead Land

Chris Mullen

Following a series of traumatic events, Cass and his wife Raven leave Houston for the refuge of their recently inherited West Texas ranch, the CR. But the tranquility they seek begins to unravel when they cross paths with enigmatic neighboring ranchers and the intolerable Levi Flint....

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The Summer Guests

Tess Gerritsen

When former spy Maggie Bird retired to the seaside hamlet of Purity, Maine, she settled in for a quiet life with breathtaking views. But enemies from her past soon threatened to destroy everything. Maggie survived, thanks to her wits and the collective intelligence of the Martini Club, the circle of ex-CIA friends in her cocktail-sipping book club. Their handiwork, however, caught the attention of young police chief Jo Thibodeau. Now Jo and her neighborhood ex-spies have an uneasy alliance....

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The Meathead Method

Meathead



 

In his long-awaited follow-up to his New York Times bestselling Meathead, BBQ Hall of Famer and founder of Amazingribs.com Meathead presents an unmatched guide to the science of great barbecue, grilling, griddling, and outdoor cooking with the latest cutting-edge science, covering even more cooking techniques--plus more than 110 creative and inspiring recipes.

Let Meathead take you where barbecue goes next. In his long awaited, must-have companion book to Meathead, Meathead shares even more cutting-edge science and imaginative recipes in The Meathead Method.

You'll find cooking methods and techniques not covered in his first book, like brinerades (combining brines and marinades), sous vide que (combining sous vide and the grill or smoker), grill frying (the grill is the perfect place for deep frying), faux frying (great crunchy breadings without all the oil), griddling, cooking with koji, stir-frying on a grill with a wok, tea smoking, tandoori cooking, pizza making, smoking cheeses, building rubs and sauce, and much more.

All along the way, Meathead busts even more myths, reveals little known facts, and shares hot tips to master your grill (or griddle or smoker).

  • Myth. Soak your wood for more smoke. Busted! There's a reason they build boats out of wood--wood doesn't absorb water and soaking it prevents smoke.
  • Myth. Cook chicken until the juices run clear. Busted! Pink juice in cooked chicken is due to myoglobin and cytochrome, which may not turn clear until 180°F (which is overcooked).
  • Myth. Marinades will penetrate faster under a vacuum. Busted! When you suck the air out from around the meat, you are creating a vacuum outside the meat and it will suck the juices out of the meat, not in.

And he follows it all up with more than 110 tested creative recipes to inspire you to break out of the traditional barbecue box--experiment with new ingredients, techniques, and impressive recipes not covered in other barbecue books, with dishes like Championship Pork Ribs, Pho with Leftover Brisket and Smoked Bone Broth, Real Fried Chicken on a Gas Grill (It's Safe!), The Ultimate Smash Burger, Mussels with Smoked Fettucine, Crawfish on Dirty Rice, Squash Bisque, and Drunken Peaches and Cream.

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We All Want to Change the World

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

A sweeping look back at the protest movements that changed America from activist and NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, with personal and historical insights into lessons they can teach us today

“A compelling case for standing up for justice at a time when everything, it seems, is on the line.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

For many, it can feel like change takes too long, and it might seem that we have not moved very far. But political activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar believes that public protest is a vital part of affecting change, even if that change doesn’t come “right now.”

In We All Want to Change the World, he examines the activism of people of all ages, ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds that helped change America, documenting events from the Free Speech Movement through the movement for civil rights, the fight for women’s and LGBTQ rights, and, of course, the protests against the Vietnam War. At a time in our history when we are witnessing protests across campuses, within the labor movement, and following the killing of George Floyd, Abdul-Jabbar reminds us that protests are a lifeblood of our history:

“Protest movements, even peaceful ones, are never popular at first. . . . But there is a reason protest gatherings have been so frequent throughout history: They are effective. The United States exists because of them.”

Part history lesson and part personal reminiscences of his own activism, We All Want to Change the World will resonate with anyone who recognizes the need for social change and is willing to do the work to make it happen.

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The Incandescent

Emily Tesh

Naomi Novik's Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

"Look at you, eating magic like you're one of us."

Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood School and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school's boundaries from demonic incursions.

Walden is good at her job—no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from—is herself.

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Awake in the Floating City

Susanna Kwan

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK FROM PEOPLE MAGAZINE • An utterly transporting debut novel about the unexpected relationship between an artist and the 130-year-old woman she cares for—two of the last people living in a flooded San Francisco of the future, the home neither is ready to leave.

"An astonishing work of art...This is the kind of book that changes you, that leaves you seeing more vividly, and living more fully, in its wake." —Rachel Khong, author of Real Americans

Bo knows she should go. Years of rain have drowned the city and almost everyone else has fled. Her mother was carried away in a storm surge and ever since, Bo has been alone. She is stalled: an artist unable to make art, a daughter unable to give up the hope that her mother may still be alive. Half-heartedly, she allows her cousin to plan for her escape—but as the departure day approaches, she finds a note slipped under her door from Mia, an elderly woman who lives in her building and wants to hire Bo to be her caregiver. Suddenly, Bo has a reason to stay.

Mia can be prickly, and yet still she and Bo forge a connection deeper than any Bo has had with a client. Mia shares stories of her life that pull Bo back toward art, toward the practice she thought she’d abandoned. Listening to Mia, allowing her memories to become entangled with Bo’s own, she’s struck by how much history will be lost as the city gives way to water. Then Mia’s health turns, and Bo determines to honor their disappearing world and this woman who’s brought her back to it, a project that teaches her the lessons that matter most: how to care, how to be present, how to commemorate a life and a place, soon to be lost forever.

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Fever Beach

Carl Hiaasen

Another instant classic from Carl Hiaasen—laugh-out-loud funny, tackling the current chaotic and polarized American culture (following in the path of Squeeze Me), with two wonderful Hiaasen heroes

“The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Shores, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he’d take him there after finishing an errand.”

Thus begins Fever Beach, with an errand that leads—in pure Hiaasen-style—into the depths of Florida at its most Floridian: a sun-soaked bastion of right-wing extremism, white power, greed, and corruption. Figgo, it turns out, is the only hate-monger ever to be kicked out of the Proud Boys for being too dumb and incompetent. On January 6, 2021 he thought he was defacing a statue of Ulysses S. Grant, but he wound up spreading feces all over a statue of James Zacharia George, a Civil War Confederate war leader.

Figgo's already messy life is about to get more complicated, thanks to two formidable adversaries. Viva Morales is a newly transplanted Floridian, a clever woman recently taken to the cleaners by her ex-husband, now working at the Mink Foundation, a supposedly philanthropic organization, and renting a room in Figgo’s apartment because there’s no place else she can afford. Twilly Spree has an anger management problem, especially when it comes to those who deface the environment, and way too many inherited millions of dollars. He's living alone a year after his dog died, two years after he sank a city councilman’s party barge, and three years after his divorce.

Viva and Twilly are plunged into a mystery—involving dark money and darker motives—they are determined to solve, and become entangled in a world populated by some of Hiaasen’s most outrageous characters: Claude and Electra Mink—billionaire philanthropists with way too much plastic surgery and a secret right-wing agenda—and Congressman Clure Boyette—who dreams of being Florida’s (and maybe America’s) most important politician. The only things standing in his way are his love for hookers and young girls, and his total lack of intelligence. We meet Noel Kristianson—a Scandinavian agnostic injured when Figgo thinks he’s a Jewish threat to humanity and runs him over with his car; Jonas Onus—Figgo’s partner in white power idiocy; and many, many more. Hiaasen ties them all together and delivers them to their appropriate fates, in his wildest and most entertaining novel to date.

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Marble Hall Murders

Anthony Horowitz

Murder links past and present once again in this mind-boggling metafictional mystery from Anthony Horowitz featuring detective Atticus Pünd and editor Susan Ryeland, stars of the New York Times bestsellers Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders.

Editor Susan Ryeland has left her Greek island, her hotel and her Greek boyfriend, Andreas, in search of a new life back in England.

Freelancing for a London publisher, she's given the last job she wants: working on an Atticus Pünd continuation novel called Pünd's Last Case. Worse still, she knows the new writer. Eliot Crace is the troubled grandson of legendary children's author Miriam Crace who died twenty years ago. Eliot is convinced she was murdered--by poison.

To her surprise, Susan enjoys reading the manuscript which is set in the South of France and revolves around the mysterious death of Lady Margaret Chalfont, days before she was about to change her will. But when it is revealed that Lady Margaret was also poisoned, alarm bells begin to ring.

The more Susan reads, the clearer it becomes that Eliot has deliberately concealed clues about his grandmother's death inside the book.

Desperately, Susan tries to prevent Eliot from putting himself in harm's way--but his behaviour is becoming increasingly erratic. Another murder follows . . . and suddenly Susan finds herself to be the number one suspect.

Once again, the real and the fictional worlds have become dangerously entangled. And if Susan doesn't solve the mystery of Pünd's Last Case, she could well be its next victim.

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Run for the Hills

Kevin Wilson

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK BY: Time, People, LitHub, and BookRiot

An unexpected road trip across America brings a family together, in this raucous and moving new novel from the bestselling author of Nothing to See Here.

Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it's been just Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While it's a bit lonely, she sometimes admits, and a less exciting life than what she imagined for herself, it's mostly okay. 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 every new incarnation. Who are they to one another? What kind of man will they find? And how will these new relationships change Mad's previously solitary life on the farm?

Infused with deadpan wit, zany hijinks, and enormous heart, Run for the Hills is a sibling story like no other--a novel about a family forged under the most unlikely circumstances and united by hope in an unknown future.

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Tough Broad

Caroline Paul

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Gutsy Girl, a funny, inspiring, deeply researched exploration into the science and psychology of the outdoors and our place in it as we age.

Caroline Paul has always filled her life with adventure: From mountain biking in the Bolivian Andes to pitching a tent, mid-blizzard, on Denali, she has never been a stranger to the exhilaration the outdoors can hold. Yet through it all, she has long wondered, Why aren't women, like men, encouraged to keep adventuring into old age? 

Tough Broad is her quest to understand not just how to live a dynamic life in a changing body, but why we must. She dives deep into the current research on aging, and highlights the results with the stories of women like ninety-three-year-old hiker Dot Fisher-Smith, eighty-year-old scuba diver Louise Wholey, fifty-two-year-old BASE jumper Shawn Brokemond, sixty-four-year-old birdwatcher Virginia Rose, and the many septuagenarian Wave Chasers who boogie board together in the San Diego surf. These women aren't experts. But their experiences and the scientific studies that back them up offer important insight into our own physical and emotional health as we age, showing that growing older is no reason for women to sell themselves short. Tough Broad is a high-spirited call for women to embrace the outdoors, not back away from it, in our fifties, sixties, seventies, and beyond, casting our own futures in a new and dazzling light

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Hubris Maximus

Faiz Siddiqui

The rise, fall, and revival of the Caesar of Silicon Valley.

Elon Musk has cast himself as the savior of humanity, an altruistic force whose fortune is tied to noble pursuits from halting our dependence on fossil fuels to colonizing Mars. Once frequently heralded as a modern-day Edison, Musk has taken up a new place in the public consciousness with his growing desire to disrupt not just the automotive and space industries but the policies that shape our nation, placing him at the center of America’s most complex undertakings in manufacturing, politics, and defense and technology, even as his increasingly erratic personal behavior has raised questions about his stability and judgement.

Musk famously leads his companies from a bully pulpit, eroding guardrails and cutting through red tape whenever possible with little regard for the fallout as long as it serves his larger goals. Many in his orbit have seen their lives upended or their careers throttled by believing in his utopian vision. As the scale of the wagers he makes with his fortune and concerns about his credibility have grown in recent years, he alternately seems to be in complete command or on the verge of a meltdown. Yet in the long run, he has only become wealthier, and now the stakes have risen. Thanks to astute political maneuvering, Musk is no longer limited to gambling with a company’s bottom line or the livelihoods of his workers; he is poised to apply his uncompromising approach to business to the foundational rules and regulations that hold our society together.

At a moment when America’s tech gods are more influential than ever, Hubris Maximus is a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of lionizing magnetic leaders. Washington Post journalist Faiz Siddiqui offers a gripping, detailed portrait of a singularly messy and lucrative period in Musk’s career, as well as a case study in the power of using one’s platform to shape the public narrative in a world that can’t turn away from its screens.

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Overgrowth

Mira Grant

Day of the Triffids meets Gretchen Felker-Martin's Cuckoo.

This is just a story. It can't hurt you anymore.

Since she was three years old, Anastasia Miller has been telling anyone who would listen that she's an alien disguised as a human being, and that the armada that left her on Earth is coming for her. Since she was three years old, no one has believed her.

Now, with an alien signal from the stars being broadcast around the world, humanity is finally starting to realize that it's already been warned, and it may be too late. The invasion is coming, Stasia's biological family is on the way to bring her home, and very few family reunions are willing to cross the gulf of space for just one misplaced child.

What happens when you know what’s coming, and just refuse to listen?

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The Names: A Read with Jenna Pick

Florence Knapp

READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY | AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

“Dazzling. . . The Names is startlingly joyful and paced like a thriller…Knapp tirelessly and beautifully replicates not just loss and grief but endless rebirth and delight.” —The Washington Post

“Elegant. . . this is a wholly original work.” —People Magazine "Book of the Week"

“A magnificent novel, thrumming with life in all its pain and precariousness, yet suffused with the glorious possibilities of love and redemption.” —Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Horse


The extraordinary novel that asks: Can a name change the course of a life?

In the wake of a catastrophic storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son's birth. Her husband, Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to name the infant after him. But when the registrar asks what she'd like to call the child, Cora hesitates...

Spanning thirty-five years, what follows are three alternate and alternating versions of Cora's and her young son's lives, shaped by her choice of name. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing.

With exceptional sensitivity and depth, Knapp draws us into the story of one family, told through a prism of what-ifs, causing us to consider the "one . . . precious life" we are given. The book’s brilliantly imaginative structure, propulsive storytelling, and emotional, gut-wrenching power are certain to make The Names a modern classic.

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Old School Indian

Aaron John Curtis

A Kirkus Editor's Pick * A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Cowboys & Indians | Brit + Co | Debutiful

"With amazing dexterity, Aaron John Curtis's moving debut novel combines raucous humor with respect for ancestral traditions." --Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

"Electrifying. . . . This astonishes." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A novel of pure heart and mastery." ―Morgan Talty, bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit

"An inspired novel by an author whose voice absolutely sizzles on the page." ―Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of Wellness and The Nix

A coming-of-middle-age novel about an Ahkwesáhsne man's reluctant return home and what it takes to heal.

Abe Jacobs is Kanien'kehá:ka from Ahkwesáhsne--or, as white people say, a Mohawk Indian from the Saint Regis Tribe. At eighteen, Abe left the reservation where he was raised and never looked back.

Now forty-three, Abe is suffering from a rare disease--one his doctors in Miami believe will kill him. Running from his diagnosis and a failing marriage, Abe returns to the Rez, where he's persuaded to undergo a healing at the hands of his Great Uncle Budge. But Budge--a wry, recovered alcoholic prone to wearing punk T-shirts--isn't all that convincing. And Abe's time off the Rez has made him a thorough skeptic.

To heal, Abe will undertake a revelatory journey, confronting the parts of himself he's hidden ever since he left home and learning to cultivate hope, even at his darkest hour.

Delivered with crackling wit, Old School Indian is a striking exploration of the power and secrets of family, the capacity for healing and catharsis, and the ripple effects of history and culture.

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The Original Daughter

Jemimah Wei

In this dazzling debut, Stegner Fellow Jemimah Wei explores the formation and dissolution of family bonds in a story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in working-class Bedok, Genevieve is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead. As the two girls grow closer, they must navigate the intensity of life in a place where the urgent insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice. Knowing that failure is not an option, the sisters learn to depend entirely on one another as they spurn outside friendships, leisure, and any semblance of a social life in pursuit of academic perfection and passage to a better future.

When a stinging betrayal violently estranges Genevieve and Arin, Genevieve must weigh the value of ambition versus familial love, home versus the outside world, and allegiance to herself versus allegiance to the people who made her who she is. In the story of a family and its contention with the roiling changes of our rapidly modernizing, winner-take-all world, The Original Daughter is a major literary debut, rife with emotional clarity and searing social insight.

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The Cartoonists Club: a Graphic Novel

Raina Telgemeier

#1 New York Times bestselling cartoonists Raina Telgemeier and Scott McCloud team up for a one-of-a-kind friendship story about creativity and self-expression that blends how-to and comics magic. Welcome to the club!

 

Makayla is bursting with ideas but doesn't know how to make them into a story. Howard loves to draw, but he struggles to come up with ideas and his dad thinks comics are a waste of time. Lynda constantly draws in her sketchbook but keeps focusing on what she feels are mistakes, and Art simply loves being creative and is excited to try something new. They come together to form The Cartoonists Club, where kids can learn about making comics and use their creativity and imagination for their own storytelling adventures!

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Karen's Prize: A Graphic Novel (Baby-Sitters Little Sister #10)

Ann M. Martin

Another graphic novel in this fun series spin-off of The Baby-sitters Club, adapted by Mimi series creator Shauna J. Grant!

 

Karen loves to spell words. She is very good at it, too. First, she wins the spelling bee in her class. Then Karen wins another spelling contest. And another... and another! Soon Karen might be the best junior speller in the state of Connecticut. She's even going to be on TV!

Karen thinks that is so great. But her friends don't. They think Karen is a show-off!

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Wildflowers

Chris Thorogood

Discover the fascinating stories behind around 300 species of wildflowers, and marvel at a botanical beauty and diversity you never knew existed.

Did you know that orchids existed alongside dinosaurs? And that 30,000 plant species are used as medicine worldwide? In this stunning book, leading botanist Chris Thorogood brings you closer to 300 species of wildflowers through fascinating facts, plant profiles, and detailed illustrations. More than just meadows, discover wildflowers that are pollinated by birds, that look like stones, and that feed on the creatures around them.

Humans have had a close relationship with wildflowers throughout history, from growing dahlias as crops and comfrey as medicine, to carrying posies to ward off the plague and roses down the aisle. Bringing together natural history, culture, food, medicine, and technology, this fascinating book will open your eyes to the botanical wonders all around us.

With a guide to the wildflowers growing in every habitat, identification notes, a grow-your-own guide, and more, this is the ultimate flower lover's companion. 
 

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Shred Happens: So Easy, So Good

Arash Hashemi

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The creator of Shred Happens shares 100+ low-carb, high-protein recipes―all flavored with Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flair―that he developed to lose 100 pounds.

“The beautifully vibrant photographs in this book tell you one thing: This is some seriously body-loving food.”—Kat Ashmore, New York Times bestselling author of Big Bites

Arash Hashemi is a regular, food-loving guy who lost 100 pounds by changing the way he eats. He taught himself how to cook to get maximum flavor in minimum time while meeting his macros. His secret? Drawing inspiration from his Persian roots, Mediterranean favorites, and other world cuisines to create crave-worthy spice combinations and sauces for his filling meals. When he started sharing his healthy, easy recipes on social media, they took off, as did his viral low-carb, high-protein Kaizen Pasta. Now, in his debut cookbook, he shares his formula for success: mouthwatering meals built on protein, veggies, and satisfying lower-carb alternatives, dressed up with amazing flavors and sauces.

You’ll find:
Shareable Plates: Invite your friends to split Warm Roasted Eggplant with Tahini and Walnuts.
Spreads & Dips: Make dips a lifestyle with Grilled Eggplant Dip (Baba Ghanoush) and Garlic Feta Dip.
Salads: Hearty faves like Spicy Tuna Salad and Mediterranean Chicken Salad won’t leave you hungry.
Mains: You’ll crave the main event with Lamb Koftas with Cucumber Dill Yogurt Sauce, Ricotta-Stuffed Eggplant Rolls, and Spicy Walnut Jumbo Scallops.
Pasta & Rice: Pasta Carbonara and “Marry Me” Chicken Pasta will soothe your soul.
Power Bowls: Arash’s viral Salmon Power Bowl and Korean Beef Bowl will crush your macros and your hunger.
Sauces & Salsas: Chili Lime Everything Sauce, Zhoug, Chermoula, and Spicy Yum Yum Sauce are absolute game-changers that elevate the most basic plate of protein and veggies into a whole new dimension.
Desserts: Satisfy your sweet tooth without the carbs with Lemon Ricotta Crepes and Baklava Pancakes.

With a philosophy geared toward approachable meals that anyone can make in 30 minutes or less and stunning photography, these recipes deliver soul-satisfying goodness that sets you up for success.

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Living Well with Autoimmune Diseases

Julius Birnbaum

A comprehensive guide to managing autoimmune diseases.

Twenty million adults in the United States live with an autoimmune disease. In this compassionate guide, Dr. Julius Birnbaum offers essential advice for navigating the complex world of various autoimmune diseases. Living Well with Autoimmune Diseases will help patients, caregivers, and health care professionals understand the diagnosis, management, and treatment of conditions like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren's syndrome, and more.

Dr. Birnbaum, an expert in both neurology and rheumatology, covers a wide range of topics, from the basics of autoimmunity to the nuances of various rheumatic diseases and their interconnected nature. With an engaging blend of scientific rigor and compassion, Dr. Birnbaum:

• provides a primer on autoimmunity, explaining how the immune system can mistakenly attack the body's own tissues;
• discusses the roles and limitations of blood tests and biopsies;
• covers the complexities of various treatment options, including when to use immunosuppressive therapy and when simpler symptomatic treatments might be appropriate;
• emphasizes the importance of personalized treatment plans that consider the unique needs of each patient;
• debunks common myths about rheumatic diseases and provides practical pearls of wisdom that can help improve quality of life; and
• provides captivating patient narratives from his clinical practice that clarify how to diagnose and treat autoimmune diseases.

This essential overview of autoimmune diseases, supplemented with helpful tools for readers and their loved ones, offers hope and empowerment for managing these complex conditions.

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Art! Trash! Terror!

Chris Alexander

From filmmaker, former Fangoria editor-in-chief, and Corman/Poe author Chris Alexander comes ART! TRASH! TERROR! Adventures in Strange Cinema, a treasure trove of in-depth essays and edifying interviews that celebrate some of the most eccentric and unforgettable movies in cult cinema history. From recognized classics (George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead, David Lynch's The Elephant Man) to misunderstood masterpieces (Michael Mann's The Keep, Boris Sagal's The Omega Man) to unfairly maligned curios (Kostas Karagiannis' Land Of The Minotaur, Brett Leonard's Hideaway), the author takes an alternately serious and playful but always personal look at several strains of international horror, dark fantasy, and exploitation film -- motion pictures that transform, transgress, challenge, infuriate, shock, and entertain. 

Connecting these passionate and critical essays are insightful interviews with revered talents, such as John Waters (writer/director, Cecil B. Demented), Michael Winner (director, The Sentinel), Nicolas Cage (actor, Vampire's Kiss), Gene Simmons (co-founder/bassist, KISS), William Crain (director, Blacula), William Lustig (director, Maniac), Werner Herzog (director, Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht) and many more, as well as witty, heartfelt memoirs charting the author's oddball experiences on the fringes of Hollywood and beyond. 

Illustrated with more than 200 startling photographs!

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The Devil's Kitchen

Mark Thielman

A murder in Yellowstone reveals a historical conspiracy, drawing a park ranger into the heart of a centuries-old mystery.

"...a masterful blend of historical intrigue and contemporary mystery." --Gary McAvoy, bestselling author of The Magdalene Deception

When a history professor is fatally shot at the base of Yellowstone Canyon, seasonal park ranger and former homicide detective Clarence Johnson finds himself roped into the murder investigation. Alongside Special Agent Alison Nance, he quickly realizes they are uncovering more than just a killer.

As Johnson and Nance hunt for the killer, clues gleaned from the professor's research hint at a historic conspiracy involving an ancient relic believed to have been secreted away by royalists during the French Revolution. Their hunt through the wilds of Yellowstone leads them to realize that the professor's death and the missing artifact are intricately connected.

But Johnson and Nance's suspects are disappearing at an alarming rate, pitting them in a race against time before those determined to do anything to protect the secrets of the past strike again.

From the secrets of antiquity to the rugged beauty of America's first national park, The Devil's Kitchen is a masterful blend of historical fiction and suspense that challenges the boundaries between past and present--revealing that the deadliest secrets are often hidden in plain sight.

_________________________

Praise for The Devil's Kitchen: A Murder in Yellowstone:

"Thielman's novel offers something for nearly every reader..."--Library Journal

"Beautifully written, slyly crafted." --Jane K. Cleland, Agatha Award winning author

"Part historical and part procedural with flawlessly executed parallel timelines to keep the readers turning pages. One fantastic read!" --Bruce Robert Coffin, international bestselling coauthor of The Turner and Mosley Files

_________________________

What readers are saying:

★★★★★ "...well-researched..."
★★★★★ "...fast-paced action..."
★★★★★ "...half historical half thriller..."
★★★★★ "...strong character development..."
★★★★★ "A masterful blending of the past and present..."

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Silent Horizons

Chad Robichaux

He's gone behind enemy lines countless times before. But this time, he's going alone.

Foster Quinn is more than a former Force Recon Marine. He's a husband. A father. A faithful brother to his teammates. When one of them is killed during a high-risk operation to track down a dangerous arms dealer, Foster struggles to balance his roles as a dedicated family man and an elite warrior. Despite his inner demons--or maybe because of them--Foster can't walk away from his brothers.

Then he gets the chance to step in where his best friend left off, assuming a cover identity in Iran that will get him close to the arms dealer and pave the way for a critical mission. On his own in a new country, he must carefully choose who to trust. An Iranian taxi driver. An American hunter. A British oil executive. One wrong move could spell disaster. Not just for the mission, but for Foster.

The clock is ticking. A team of tier-one warriors is set to plummet through the night sky in enemy territory. They've trained for this. But their success hinges on just one man.

From former Force Recon Marine Chad Robichaux and Navy TOPGUN fighter pilot Jack Stewart comes the first book in a thrilling new series that gives readers a pulse-pounding glimpse into the clandestine side of special operations.

 

  • From author, speaker, and former Force Recon Marine Chad Robichaux, author of Saving Aziz and A Mission Without Borders, a USA Today bestseller
  • A high-stakes suspense novel for fans of Jack Carr, Mark Greaney, and Simon Gervais
  • Filled with action and international intrigue, interwoven with themes of military brotherhood, bravery, and loyalty
  • First book in the Silent Horizons series
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Capture the Moment

Suzanne Woods Fisher

She's ready for adventure--isn't she? 

Kate Cunningham is facing the opportunity of a lifetime. As a zoo photographer, she's spent years photographing animals in carefully controlled environments, but now National Geographic has dangled an irresistible prize: If Kate can snag a unique photo of a legendary bear in Grand Teton National Park, they just might publish it. It's the kind of challenge Kate has been waiting for, and she's eager to prove herself in the wild.  

With more enthusiasm than experience, Kate soon realizes that capturing an image of this bear isn't as simple as she hoped. Fortunately, she crosses paths with Grant Cooper, a seasonal park ranger who knows the terrain--and the bears--better than anyone. His tracking skills could be exactly what Kate needs to succeed, and it doesn't hurt that he's easy on the eyes. But they're not the only ones with an interest in the park's most famous bear. And his motives are far from innocent. 

A clean, kisses-only contemporary romance and summer read by Suzanne Woods Fisher for wildlife, travel, and photography enthusiasts set in Grand Teton National Park.

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Friends with Benefits

Marisa Kanter

Printing with sprayed edges for a limited time! 

Lifelong best friends say 'I do' to a marriage of convenience, trading vows for a financial safety net and benefits. Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Katherine Center.

Evie Bloom pays attention to the details. Her very job depends on it—as an aspiring Foley artist, she’s responsible for every crisp footstep, smacking kiss, and distinct sound in film and television. So when she’s selected for a fellowship opportunity that would make all her career dreams come true, she’s quick to spot the catch: there are no health benefits, and for someone with a chronic illness, that’s a non-starter.

Theo Cohen is an elementary school teacher who can't afford to live on his own in LA, and is facing eviction after his roommates couple up and move out of their rent-controlled apartment. But there is one loophole in his lease: each tenant must meet an income threshold, unless the tenants are married.

For Theo, the answer is obvious. Marry Evie, his best friend since forever. It’s not as if they don’t spend all their free time together anyways. Not only will Theo be able to keep his apartment, but Evie can be added to his insurance plan so she can accept her dream fellowship. It’s such a logical, practical solution. Never mind that Evie doesn’t really want to be married—not to Theo, not to anyone—ever. Or the small, complicating fact that Theo has always been a little bit in love with Evie.

But it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Marriage. It will just give them space to breathe, and much-needed relief from the daily financial stress. It won’t change anything.

It’s . . . going to change everything.

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One Golden Summer

Carley Fortune

A radiant escape to the lake from #1 New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After and This Summer Will Be Different

As featured in People ∙ Good Morning America ∙ Cosmopolitan ∙ TODAY ∙ E! News ∙ Buzzfeed ∙ ELLEUs WeeklyThe New York Post ∙ SheReads ∙ and more!

I never anticipated Charlie Florek.

Good things happen at the lake. That’s what Alice’s grandmother says, and it’s true. Alice spent just one summer there at a cottage with Nan when she was seventeen—it’s where she took that photo, the one of three grinning teenagers in a yellow speedboat, the image that changed her life.

Now Alice lives behind a lens. As a photographer, she’s most comfortable on the sidelines, letting other people shine. Lately though, she’s been itching for something more, and when Nan falls and breaks her hip, Alice comes up with a plan for them both: another summer in that magical place, Barry’s Bay. But as soon as they settle in, their peace is disrupted by the roar of a familiar yellow boat, and the man driving it.

Charlie Florek was nineteen when Alice took his photo from afar. Now he’s all grown up—a shameless flirt, who manages to make Nan laugh and Alice long to be seventeen again, when life was simpler, when taking pictures was just for fun. Sun-slanted days and warm nights out on the lake with Charlie are a balm for Alice’s soul, but when she looks up and sees his piercing green gaze directly on her, she begins to worry for her heart.

Because Alice sees people—that’s why she is so good at what she does—but she’s never met someone who looks and sees her right back.

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A Letter from the Lonesome Shore

Sylvie Cathrall

Dive into the charming conclusion to the Sunken Archive duology, a heart-warming magical academia fantasy filled with underwater cities, romance of manners and found family, perfect for fans of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries.



Former correspondents E. and Henerey, accustomed to loving each other from afar, did not anticipate continuing their courtship in an enigmatic underwater city. When their journey through the Structure in E.'s garden strands them in a peculiar society preoccupied with the pleasures and perils of knowledge, E. and Henerey come to accept--and, more surprisingly still, embrace--the fact that they may never return home.



A year and a half later, Sophy and Vyerin finally discover one of the elusive Entries that will help them seek their siblings. As the group's efforts bring them closer to E. and Henerey, an ancient, cosmic threat also draws near...



"An underwater treasure-chest to be slowly unpacked, full of things I adore." --Freya Marske



"A shimmering, delicately crafted delight." --H.G. Parry



"A fascinating and charming story told in a uniquely elegant voice." --Louisa Morgan



"Both the setting and the story are exquisite." --Megan Bannen

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Matriarch: Oprah's Book Club

Tina Knowles

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • A revealing personal life story like no other—enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering—and a testament to the world-making power of Black motherhood

“A fascinating memoir of Tina Knowles’s journey to become the global figure she is today.”—Oprah Winfrey

“You are Celestine,” she said. She squatted to push the hair off my face and pull leaves off my pajama legs. “Like my sister and my grandmother.” And there, under the pecan tree, as she did countless times, that day my mother told me stories of the mothers and daughters that went before me.

Tina Knowles, the mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Solange Knowles, and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland, is known the world over as a Matriarch with a capital M: a determined, self-possessed, self-aware, and wise woman who raised and inspired some of the great artists of our time. But this story is about so much more than that.

Matriarch begins with a precocious, if unruly, little girl growing up in 1950s Galveston, the youngest of seven. She is in love with her world, with extended family on every other porch and the sounds of Motown and the lapping beach always within earshot. But as the realities of race and the limitations of girlhood set in, she begins to dream of a more grandiose world. Her instincts and impulsive nature drive her far beyond the shores of Texas to discover the life awaiting her on the other side of childhood.

That life’s journey—through grief and tragedy, creative and romantic risks and turmoil, the nurturing of superstar offspring and of her own special gifts—is the remarkable story she shares with readers here. This is a page-turning chronicle of family love and heartbreak, of loss and perseverance, and of the kind of creativity, audacity, and will it takes for a girl from Galveston to change the world. It’s one brilliant woman’s intimate and revealing story, and a multigenerational family saga that carries within it the story of America—and the wisdom that women pass on to one another, mothers to daughters, across generations.

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Fair Play

Louise Hegarty

"Louise Hegarty's genre-splicing debut is a treat--clever, confident, and always surprising, a mystery story that ingeniously escapes the locked room of the genre to take on the biggest questions of life and death."--Paul Murray, author of The Bee Sting

For fans of Anthony Horowitz and Lucy Foley, a wonderfully original, genre-breaking literary debut from Ireland that's an homage to the brilliant detective novels of the early twentieth century, a twisty modern murder mystery, and a searing exploration of grief and loss.

A group of friends gather at an Airbnb on New Year's Eve. It is Benjamin's birthday, and his sister Abigail is throwing him a jazz-age Murder Mystery themed party. As the night plays out, champagne is drunk, hors d'oeuvres consumed, and relationships forged, consolidated or frayed. Someone kisses the wrong person; someone else's heart is broken.

In the morning, all of them wake up--except Benjamin.

As Abigail attempts to wrap her mind around her brother's death, an eminent detective arrives determined to find Benjamin's killer. In this mansion, suddenly complete with a butler, gardener and housekeeper, everyone is a suspect, and nothing is quite as it seems.

Will the culprit be revealed? And how can Abigail, now alone, piece herself back together in the wake of this loss?

Gripping and playful, sharp and profoundly moving, Fair Play plumbs the depths of the human heart while subverting one of our most popular genres.

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How to Seal Your Own Fate

Kristen Perrin

An April 2025 Library Reads Pick

“A brilliant follow-up that proves Kristen Perrin is here to stay...A thrilling story that ends with a big reveal you won't see coming, even though the clues were in front of you the entire time!”—G.T. Karber, international bestselling author of Murdle

New York Times bestselling author Kristen Perrin is back and better than ever with her second Castle Knoll Murder Mystery.

Welcome to Castle Knoll, the idyllic English village home to a surprising number of murderers. 

Present day: Annie Adams is just settling into life in Castle Knoll when local fortune teller Peony Lane shares a cryptic message only hours before being found dead inside the locked Gravesdown Estate. Annie has no choice but to delve into the dark secrets of her new countryside home in order to find out just what Peony Lane was trying to warn her about, before her brand new life comes crashing down around her.

1967: Teenage Frances Adams, Annie’s great aunt, finds herself caught between two men. Ford Gravesdown is one of the only remaining members of a family known for its wealth and dubious uses of power. Archie Foyle is a local who can’t hold down a job and lives above the village pub. But when Frances teams up with Archie to investigate the car crash that killed most of Ford's family, it quickly becomes clear that this was no accident—hints of cover-ups, lies, and betrayals abound. The question is, just how far does the blackness creep through the heart of Castle Knoll? When Frances uncovers secrets kept by both Ford and Archie, she starts to wonder: What exactly has she gotten herself into?

As Annie and Frances investigate two new mysteries spanning decades, they’ll unlock the next level of secrets held in Castle Knoll’s dark heart.

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The Missing Half

Ashley Flowers

Two women haunted by their sisters’ unsolved disappearances band together in this captivating mystery from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of All Good People Here and host of the #1 true crime podcast Crime Junkie.

“Sharp, slick, and chilling, with a whiplash ending you’ll never see coming.”—Jeneva Rose, author of Home Is Where the Bodies Are

Nicole “Nic” Monroe is in a rut. At twenty-four, she lives alone in a dinky apartment in her hometown of Mishawaka, Indiana, she’s just gotten a DWI, and she works the same dead-end job she’s been working since high school, a job she only has because her boss is a family friend and feels sorry for her. Everyone has felt sorry for her for the last seven years—since the day her older sister, Kasey, vanished without a trace.

On the night Kasey went missing, her car was found over a hundred miles from home. The driver’s door was open and her purse was untouched in the seat next to it. The only real clue in her disappearance was Jules Connor, another young woman from the same area who disappeared in the same way, two weeks earlier. But with so little for the police to go on, both cases eventually went cold.

Nic wants nothing more than to move on from her sister’s disappearance and the state it’s left her in. But then one day, Jules’s sister, Jenna Connor, walks into Nic’s life and offers her something she hasn’t felt in a long time: hope. What follows is a gripping tale of two sisters who will do anything to find their missing halves, even if it means destroying everything they’ve ever known.

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South of Nowhere

Jeffery Deaver

The New York Times bestselling master of suspense returns to his beloved series, adapted for TV (CBS's Tracker, starring Justin Hartley) as reward seeker Colter Shaw races against the clock to save a flooding town from a full-fledged disaster, where the culprit lurks in the plain sight.

When a levee collapses in Hinowah, a small town in Northern California, Colter Shaw is brought on by his sister, Dorion, a disaster response specialist, to help locate a family swept away by the raging water, with mere hours to survive. 

But after a surprise attack along the river obstructs Colter's urgent search, the siblings are forced to consider a new reality: Is the levee at risk of failing from natural causes, or is someone sabotaging it? Colter and Dorion must race against a ticking clock to uncover the truth and save the citizens before the village washes out completely, destroying everything and everyone in its path.

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My Friends

Fredrik Backman

A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Goodreads • USA TODAY Marie Claire BookPage Literary Lifestyle Book Riot Sunset Magazine Totally Booked with Zibby Owens

#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.

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Papilio

Ben Clanton

A tale told in three parts by three friends! Powerhouse creators, Ben Clanton, Corey R. Tabor, and Andy Chou Musser, have come together to create a wholly inventive picture book that is perfect for fans of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Introducing Papilio Polyxenes, the Black Swallowtail Butterfly! She’s an adorable and hilarious caterpillar who is ready to join the world and become a butterfly! But growing up is a complicated work in progress, and Papilio encounters some hiccups as she learns to fly, fall, and feed. While avoiding foes and making friends, she transforms from caterpillar, to chrysalis, to butterfly...and most importantly, learns to believe in herself along the way.

Told in three parts and complete with backmatter about butterflies, mega-bestselling author-illustrator Ben Clanton (Narwhal and Jelly), Caldecott Honoree Corey R. Tabor (Mel Fell) and rising star Andy Chou Musser (Ploof) have come together to create an expressive character who exudes all of the emotions that accompany life's big firsts and the experiences that help us to discover our inner strength.

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Dear Bookstore

Emily Arrow

A picture-book love letter to bookstores, inspired by a song from award-winning children's songwriter and ukulele player Emily Arrow.

Dear Bookstore, I remember
the first time I ever visited you.

For one little girl, the local bookstore is not only the beginning of her reading journey, it's a world that's always there for her--one that allows her imagination to soar, provides any answers she needs, and sparks her curiosity. It's a place of wishes and dreams, where everybody and every book fits in. There's always someone there who is happy to see her and help find her next exciting chapter. With cozy, fanciful illustrations by Geneviève Godbout and based on musician Emily Arrow's song of the same name, Dear Bookstore is an ode to bookstores, the people who love them, and the books that fill them with magic.

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To the End of the World, Far, Far Away

Ronda Armitage

When Louis threatens to run away, Mom goes to playful lengths to express how much she'd miss him in this lyrical, beautiful, and reassuring story of parental love.

The splashing waves will call to me,
Louis's mother, why do you cry?

Louis has just spilled his milk, and Mom is a little frustrated, so her little bear decides it's time to head to the end of the world, far, far away. But just as Louis is prepared to depart, he can't help but ask Mom, "Will you be sad when I'm gone?" So Mom relays her tale--of a mama bear whose tears create a great sea, who searches for her boy under waves and on mountaintops and beseeches the wind and the swaying trees to help her find him. Will the sadness end there, or will even the child's toys begin to cry, with no one to tuck them in or hold them tight? Illustrating the depth and breadth of a mother's love, Ronda Armitage's heart-tugging tale is filled with Victoria Turnbull's rich, whimsical scenes full of wonder that will take children to the very ends of their imaginations.

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Home in a Lunchbox

Cherry Mo

**WINNER OF THE CALDECOTT HONOR**

Cherry Mo's stunning debut is about a young girl who immigrates to America and finds home in an unexpected place.

When Jun moves from Hong Kong to America, the only words she knows are hello, thank you, I don’t know, and toilet. Her new school feels foreign and terrifying.

But when she opens her lunchbox to find her favorite meals—like bao, dumplings, and bok choy—she realizes home isn’t so far away after all.

Through lush art and spare dialogue, Cherry Mo’s breathtakingly beautiful debut picture book reminds readers that friendship and belonging can be found in every bite.

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Rock

Laurel Croza

Award-winning creators Laurel Croza and Matt James have come together once again to tell the story of what happens when a bullying seagull and a rock meet on the beach.

When a seagull mistakes a small rock for food, it angrily spits it out. "What do you think you are?" the seagull demands. "I am a rock," the rock responds. But the seagull refuses to accept this, insisting that the rock is more like a pebble, or a stone. It predicts that the rock will be thrown into the water and sink, and even if it manages to be washed ashore, the same thing will happen again and again, until the rock is worn down to a mere speck. After all, the rock has no shine, color, crystals or speckles ... In short, it is nothing special.

But a child enjoying a day at the beach sees the rock differently, and their creation in the sand affirms what the rock has known about itself all along.

A quirky, vibrant and very memorable picture book about staying true to yourself.


 

Key Text Features

dialogue;illustrations


 

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.2

Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.4

Ask and answer questions about unknown words in a text.

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Wash Day Love

Tanisia Moore

This joyful, intergenerational love story celebrates Black hair, self-care, and cultural pride. Perfect for fans of Hair Love and Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut.

 

It's wash day--Tasha's least favorite day of the week!

Wash day means stinging eyes, aching back, and water everywhere, even in Tasha's ears!

But with big sis comforting her, Mama humming to the music, and Granny telling stories of wash days past, the weekly ritual soon becomes more than a weekend chore--it's a special bonding time for three generations of beautiful Black women.

Wash Day Love will affirm, empower, and reflect the lived experiences of Black children and resonate with families everywhere.

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When I Hear Spirituals

Cheryl Willis Hudson

Your spirit will soar! A girl connects with heritage, history, and a higher power through the lyrics of twelve beloved spirituals and four seminal events in African American history. 

A beautiful keepsake to be shared by multiple generations.

When I hear spirituals 
Sometimes 
A big, full feeling
Grows in my chest . . . 


Her heart pounds, she gets a lump in her throat, and tears flow down her cheeks. She wants to clap her hands and stomp her feet. There is healing, tenderness, strength, pride, and above all, hope.

The author of the classic picture book Bright Eyes, Brown Skin, Cheryl Willis Hudson, has woven together lyrics of twelve timeless, Black spirituals with a moving exploration of how music holds memories, emotions, and empowerment.

Songs include “Go down, Moses,” “Nobody Knows the Troubles I See,” “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” “Rock-a-My Soul,” “Get on Board, Little Children,” and more. 

Evocative illustrations by award-winning artist London Ladd depict important people and places in Black history and culture: Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Great Migration, and the Enslaved People’s Uprising of 1811. 

Journey through Black history and music in this layered picture book.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

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Bluey: Shadowlands

Penguin Young Readers Licenses

Play Shadowlands with Bluey and her friends in this fun storybook, based on the wildly successful animated series Bluey, as seen on Disney+

Bluey, Coco, and Snickers are playing Shadowlands, but Coco keeps wanting to change the rules! Can the three friends reach the cupcakes without breaking the rules? Read along to find out!

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Bluey: Daddy Robot

Penguin Young Readers Licenses

Help Bluey and Bingo clean the play room with Daddy Robot in this fun storybook based on the successful animated series Bluey, as seen on Disney+

Bluey and Bingo don't want to clean the play room. The solution? Get Daddy Robot to do it for them! But when he malfunctions, things get much messier. Can Bluey and Bingo fix Daddy Robot? Read along and find out!

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Bluey: Unicorse

Penguin Young Readers Licenses

Read a bedtime story with Bluey, Mum, and Unicorse! Based on the wildly successful animated series Bluey, as seen on Disney+

Bluey doesn't want to go to bed, so Mum decides to read her a story, when they're interrupted by Unicorse, the most annoying unicorn in the world. Will Bluey and Mum finish the bedtime story? Read along to find out!

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Will the Pigeon Graduate?

Mo Willems

From #1 New York Times bestselling, award-winning author and illustrator Mo Willems comes this class-ic graduation book.



The Pigeon had better graduate! He did the work! He paid attention to the little details! He overcame some BIG obstacles! The Pigeon's got this . . . Or does he?



Do YOU think The Pigeon will graduate?



Grab your caps, don your gowns, and raise your hands for The Pigeon's biggest adventure yet in this uplifting, hilarious, and inspirational graduation picture book from three-time Caldecott honoree Mo Willems. It's a PhD* in fun! 



(*Pigeon-y hilarious Diatribe)

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Big Bike, Little Bike

Kellie DuBay Gillis



 

A bike.

Is it a big bike or a little bike

Fast or slow

Dirty or clean

It all depends on who is taking it for a ride. . .

Join a charming cast of characters who discover just how far a different perspective--and one simple bike--can take you. Perfect for fans of books by Brendan Wenzel, Antoinette Portis, and Corey Tabor, Big Bike, Little Bike will wheel riders and readers away on a hilarious and heartfelt journey!

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Hello There, Sunshine

Tabitha Brown

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

From America's Mom--actress, New York Times bestselling author, NAACP Award-winning personality, and Emmy-winning host Tabitha Brown--comes an upbeat, inspiring story about finding your own light.

"Hello there, sunshine!"

Every morning, young Tabitha wakes up and greets the sun. She loves how it brings everyone JOY. But one day she wakes up and the sun is missing! So Tab hops on her strawberry shortcake bike with her puppy in tow and makes it her business to find the sun.

Can she do it? Or will Tabitha find out that sometimes the shine we're looking for is inside of us?

A perfect pick for fans of What Do You Do with an Idea?, You Matter, and Just Because, Brown's children's debut is a marvelous read-aloud and a great gift that will remind the youngest reader to always stay positive.

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Dino-Birthday

Lisa Wheeler

Every dino has one day / to spend in their own special way.

Playful rhyming verse from Lisa Wheeler and action-packed illustrations from Barry Gott highlight four dino birthday parties in four different seasons. Each party has a kid-friendly theme, and there are presents, cake, and lots of games for everyone!

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Hugs Are (Not) for Everybody

Ella Russell

An upbeat ode to setting and respecting personal boundaries

It's time for a birthday party! On this happy occasion, a friend arrives with hugs for everybody: in greeting, as a way to celebrate perfectly pinning the tail on the donkey and cracking open the piñata, and of course to wish a happy birthday.

But not everybody wants a hug--and that's okay! One child prefers to wave hello, and one likes to celebrate with high fives. One even suggests a silly, super-secret handshake that ends with a surprise magic trick. But wait! Are magic tricks for everybody? It turns out, they aren't for the bunny, who prefers not to disappear. An even sweeter ending? Delicious birthday cake for everyone to enjoy.

The delightful cast of characters from Pink Is for Everybody comes together again in this affirming story about setting and respecting body boundaries. This book cheerfully imparts that there are lots of ways, hugs and otherwise, to say hello, hooray, and happy birthday!

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Between You and Me

Rob Sanders

When a new kid moves to town, a beautiful friendship filled with wonder and imagination blooms in this lushly illustrated, inventive, and empathetic picture book.

Between strangers and friends..."Hello."

Lean into the in-between moments in this poetic picture book that celebrates all the small steps in a budding friendship between two new friends.

Between friends and friends forever...Promises and pinky swears.

Two young kids meet for the first time and a playful friendship begins. From their backyard to the rolling hills of their neighborhood to the unlimited dreamscape of their imaginations, the two discover what it's like to connect with a true friend in real life and make-believe.

With vibrant illustrations, Between You and Me is an exploration of the big and small ways we can empathize with one another, and it's the perfect book to share, whether it be with someone you love or someone you are just getting to know. Scenes flow from realistic depictions of playing in cardboard boxes to portrayals of magical landscapes, capturing the childhood spirit of make-believe perfectly.

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Head Full of Clouds

Joanne Schwartz

From the award-winning author of Town Is by the Sea comes a beautiful and meditative story about seeing the world around you in a new way.

A girl wakes up from a dream she can't shake.

Her head is full of clouds.

When she goes outside, the things she normally doesn't pay much attention to suddenly reveal their beauty: the plants growing in the cracks of the sidewalk, the shimmering puddles, the notes from a violin drifting in the air. She revels in this strangeness of the familiar, and eventually her dream comes back to her in all its surrealness.

When she meets a friend, she feels solid and connected again, part of the world — but she doesn't lose the gifts that this strange morning gave her: the quietly profound wonder of the everyday and the joy of being present.

Joanne Schwartz's lyrical text and Afsaneh Sanei's gorgeous art are a dreamy pairing that will reward readers with something special in every read.

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