|
|
New Adult Fiction - Authors A - F |
|
Newest items are displayed first. Click on a title for more information or to place a hold. |
|
|
|
Names Have Been Changed
by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow
Ophir's tale begins in Singapore, where a petty crime spins out of control, estranging her from home and family. Resorting to false identities and forged passports (being mixed-race helps), she crisscrosses the globe from a Paris-themed hostess bar in Tokyo, to a bustling Chinese restaurant in London, to a snowbound mountain town in Colorado and beyond. Broadcasting from an undisclosed location, Ophir is funny, prickly, tough, and vulnerable, entrancing her podcast listeners with an irresistible, no-holds-barred recounting of not only her crimes (plural) but also her deepest secrets and regrets. Even as she moves seamlessly across class lines and continents, she grapples with the shock of relentless dislocation, a painful reexamination of identity, and a deep yearning for home. She tries to find comfort in new lovers and ill-gotten luxury goods, but she can't help attracting trouble, and
she soon faces an unexpected, high-stakes choice that could change
her fate forever. Names Have Been Changed is a stylish, fast-paced debut novel that reveals the complicated paths we take to build a life and a home. Filled with danger and twists, it's ultimately a story about immigration and belonging--one unlike any you've seen before.
|
|
|
|
Enter the Nightmare
by Jayne Castle
Alice Radstone should have known not to return. Her life before the Hotel of Dreams had been one of a perfectly cloistered teacher at the Ballantine Academy. When the death of her mentor forced her out, she was left to reinvent herself in the big city. Since then, things have not gone well. Ten months ago, after her first trip to the hotel, she woke up in the locked ward of a hospital for the criminally insane and was informed that she had murdered her husband on their wedding night. She has no memory of the husband or the wedding, but after she escapes from the asylum, one thing is certain: she is never going back. Unfortunately, Alice's second reinvented life is also deteriorating rapidly, which is why she finds herself once more at the Hotel of Dreams--this time hiding in the shadows of her room with a dead body in the shower and two men wearing masks creeping toward the bed to kidnap her. Again. When the enigmatic and decidedly dangerous Owen March
shows up and claims he's there to rescue her, she has no choice but to accept his offer--and hope that he doesn't also intend to kidnap her.
With Alice and now Owen in the killer's sights, time is running out. They must trust each other and the electric passion between them if they are to make it out of this hotel alive.
|
|
|
|
Pool House
by Mary H. K. Choi
Stevie cannot escape her mother. Abandoning college plans to work a dead-end job, her days are a purgatorial bore. Many dream of moving
to L.A. and into the spotlight, but Stevie can't wait to move away from
it, and her mother's orbit, to start over. Moon is many things: an out-of-work actress, a recovering addict, whatever a mistress becomes when she's widowed, and a mother. Reeling in the aftermath of her lover and TV husband's death, Moon struggles to process her grief. And the last thing she expects is for Stevie to leave her too. Now, neither Stevie nor Moon can afford to quit each other. And their cost of living forces them into a glass-walled pool house in the backyard, while their home is rented out to pay the bills. But when Adam, Moon's former TV son and Stevie's forever crush, arrives for the funeral, the three are pulled into
a messy orbit, moving back into the 'Big House' and play-acting a picture-perfect family even as tensions rise and relationships unravel. Pool House is a course charted through the wilderness of motherhood,
a story about the challenges of navigating class, fame, burgeoning sexuality, and grief as two women grapple with what it means to grow up and grow older in Hollywood.
|
|
|
|
Icarus 17
by Charles Cumming
Max Radinsky thought he was living the perfect life in Athens. But when his girlfriend, Yasmine, is forced to flee the city, Max joins her on a desperate journey across Greece. What begins as an escape becomes a fight for survival as the young couple are targeted by an international manhunt. Untrained and living off their wits, they know their luck won’t last forever. Lachlan Kite, head of covert intelligence service BOX 88, hasn’t seen his former lover, Martha Raine, for more than twenty years. But when Martha begs his help in finding her missing son, Kite has no choice but to act. What they uncover is worse than either could have imagined. Yasmine is carrying a secret which could destabilize the
Middle East for a generation—and a team of merciless Israeli
intelligence agents have been given orders to kill her on sight. To save Max—and stop a global crisis—Kite and Martha must reach the young couple before their pursuers close in.
|
|
|
|
Teach the Torches to Burn
by Christina Dodd
Romeo and Juliet (yes, that Romeo and Juliet) invite you to join them in celebrating the union of their spinster daughter, Rosie (she's 20) to Escalus the younger, prince of Verona, where murder is the unexpected guest at the wedding. My Lady Jane meets Knives Out in Fair Verona, as New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd brings you the wedding of the season star-crossed with poison most discreet. Joining
us will be the royal and decorous kin of the groom, the Leonardis, as
well as the famously rival families, the upstart Montagues and the
snooty Capulets. All will be armed with swords and knives; at least one
is skilled with poison. At this joyous event, who could foresee what direful occurrences might befall? If I, the aforesaid Rosie, blushing
bride, noted cynic and sleuth, were asked to identify when the pre-wedding events spiraled out of control, I'd point to that moment when elderly Princess Ursula observed the display of gleaming swords and bared teeth and announced that she would hold a public seance to determine the future of the marriage. With the aid of Yorick's skull and her own considerable dramatic nature, Princess Ursula prophesied three things: the marriage would be joyous and fertile (the guests yawn), a long-lost treasure would be found, and foul and most unnatural murder would disrupt the fragile peace of Verona. Before the day was done,
two prophesies had been fulfilled.
|
|
|
|
A Founding Mother: A Novel of Abigail Adams
by Stephanie Dray
In the heart of revolutionary Boston, Abigail Adams raises her children amid riots, blockades, and the outbreak of war. While her husband,
John Adams, rises from country lawyer to nation-builder, often away for years at a time, Abigail builds her own independence--managing their farm, making lucrative investments, amassing savings, battling plague and loss, and defending their home. Unafraid to speak her mind, she famously offers fearless political counsel, urging John to remember the ladies in the new government. Through it all, she becomes his most trusted confidante and indispensable ally. When peace is secured,
Abigail steps onto the world stage--exchanging ideas with Thomas Jefferson in the French countryside, navigating court life as the wife of the Minister to Great Britain, and presiding over the parlor politics of
the early American republic in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. Even after her husband's presidential administration, she continues battling political foes and working behind the scenes to advance her family, secure independence for the women in her life, and ensure a better life for the next generation of Americans. From war-torn streets
to the chandeliered halls of power, A Founding Mother is the unforgettable story of a woman ahead of her time--one whose voice, vision, and valor still resonate powerfully today.
|
|
|
|
The Children
by Melissa Albert
Guinevere Sharpe has two childhoods. In one, she and her brother, Ennis, live in the wooded shadow of their family's isolated Vermont farmhouse; in the other, the pages of their mother's world-famous
Ninth City books, where their magical adventures have made them household names. In reality, Guinevere's childhood isn't the enchanted idyll her mother's readers imagine; she and Ennis are growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed, escaping each day to the wild woods they've made their playland. As Edith Sharpe's books explode into epic popularity, the threats of a rural childhood give way to the escalating perils of fame--until the night it all goes up in flames, leaving Edith's series unfinished and her children the sole survivors. Now an adult coasting on her mother's name, Guinevere is mid-promotion for a ghostwritten memoir when her estranged brother, an artist who has
until now spurned his family's legacy, announces an upcoming installation titled, simply, Mother. As rumors swirl around a death connected to his last show, unsettling recollections from Guinevere's childhood begin to surface. Her public facade starts to crack, forcing her to confront the questions she's spent the last twenty years running
from: What really happened the night of the fire? And what dark
history lies behind their mother's fantasy world?
|
|
|
|
The Unicorn Hunters
by Katherine Arden
Anne of Brittany was a child when France invaded and drove her royal father to his death. Now she is a young woman, sovereign duchess of
an occupied realm, and France means to crown their conquest by marrying her to their king. Such an alliance would put her title, her lands, and her body forever in the hands of her enemies. But Anne refuses to be the last duchess of Brittany. Her only hope of resisting conquest is another alliance sealed with marriage, so Anne arranges a daring last gambit: a secret betrothal to Charles of France's greatest rival. But secrets are hard to keep in a world where rival courts spy on each other with diviners. The forest of Broceliande was once the haunt of Merlin the Enchanter and the long-lost faerie queen. But magic is
long gone from Broceliande, except for the occasional sight of a
unicorn and one critical quirk: This ancient forest is completely hostile
to divination. While pretending compliance with France, Anne plans a unicorn hunt in Broceliande. A bit of pointless pageantry. A diversion so she can wed in secret. Or so she thinks.
|
|
|
|
The Fire Agent
by David Baerwald
Born into an aristocratic German Jewish family, Ernst Baerwald is a
gifted linguist, talented musician, and fearless idealist. When he's recruited in 1900 to become a spy--his cover working for a company
that would become the notorious chemical conglomerate IG Farben--his life becomes an extraordinary adventure spanning two continents, two world wars, and impossible choices that will haunt him forever. From Frankfurt to Milan to Tokyo, Ernst moves through a world of intrigue
and passion. He battles Japan's Yakuza while entertaining its royalty
and hosts Europe's most brilliant performers. He falls deeply in love . . . with two women. He witnesses the rise of fascism in both Japan and Germany. And when the forces of fascism in Japan meet the horrors of Hitler's Germany, this German Jew faces an impossible choice: destroy the country he loves most or become complicit in unimaginable evil. Based on the life of author David Baerwald's grandfather, The Fire
Agent is historical fiction that reads like a thriller.
|
|
|
|
Five
by Ilona Bannister
Have you ever tried to pass the time by imagining the lives of the strangers standing next to you? Ilona Bannister's Five introduces
readers to five seemingly random people waiting for a train. But these are not just any five people. From the beginning we know that one of them is going to die soon. Very soon. In five minutes the next train to London will arrive, killing one of them. But before this happens you will learn their stories. None of these people are saints. Readers might fall
in love with the beautiful young man who is on the verge of gambling
his life away. They may pity the cantankerous old woman who has fallen to the ground yet is refusing help. Perhaps readers will look away from the child throwing a tantrum. Or judge his mother, who must surely be
to blame. And some will be curiously compelled by the successful and damaged businessman orbiting them all. These are the candidates for this morning's misfortune. But they don't know it. Only you know. And you, our complicit reader, will not be able to resist deciding who
deserves to walk away, and who deserves only five more minutes to
live. An incredibly original novel that breaks the fourth wall and asks
the reader to be judge, jury, and executioner.
|
|
|
|
A Pair of Aces
by Marie Benedict
Eunice Carter, assistant district attorney for the City of New York and Manhattan's first Black female prosecutor, has her sights set on the one and only Lucky Luciano, head of New York City's five largest organized crime families. Other prosecutors have tried to bring down Lucky, but they've all focused on the crime syndicate's traditional businesses--bootlegging, gambling, loan sharking, and drug dealing--or tax evasion. No one has thought to approach the mob through its role in
prostitution. Until Eunice. But she can't get Luciano alone. Polly Adler
has worked long and hard to build up her high-class brothel business. Her client list is filled with well-known names, both the famous and the infamous, who all know her booze is top-notch, her music first-rate, her food exquisite, and her girls the best. But Lucky has gone too far,
putting her girls in danger, and Polly finally sees the chance to end his reign once and for all. Together, Eunice and Polly fashion a case utilizing a network of women. Bridging the enormous divide between them and risking their own lives, they assemble evidence bit by bit, under the
nose of the man they're trying to convict. It is this very alliance--of two women from vastly different worlds--that launches the most sensational trial New York City has ever seen.
|
|
|
|
They All Fall in Love at the End
by Haili Blassingame
It's the fall of 2024, and twenty-four-year-old Cat isn't asking for too much: all she wants is three boyfriends, to write her little novels, and to survive another chaotic presidential election. She's in an open relationship with her college sweetheart Jay, but nonmonogamy isn't
just a hot trend she's trying. It's her sliver of freedom in a world eager
to wrestle it from her for being a Black woman going after what she wants with reckless abandon. While political tensions roil the campus where Cat is slowly earning her creative writing degree, she finds
herself drawn to Jay's best friend, Tristan, who's smart, super hot, and...in a monogamous relationship. And then she meets Tristan's girlfriend, Nia, a captivating art student with her own gravitational pull. Friends and family urge her to just be happy with Jay, but Cat is determined to have it all--or blow up her life trying. As she falls for all the wrong people, racking up lies, betrayals, and terrible drafts of her novel, she tries to write her way to a happy ending. But in art, politics, and love, true liberation may take more than rewriting the old scripts.
It may mean inventing something entirely new.
|
|
|
|
Blunt Instrument
by Amy Bloom
A failed professor solves a murder on campus in this new whodunit
from bestselling author Amy Bloom. The case of the bludgeoned
lecturer has all of Cromwell University reeling, even though the elderly Professor Bullfinch wasn't particularly well-liked. His ornery nature and Old World approach to campus politics ruffled more than a few feathers over the years, and present tensions within his department mean there are more suspects than mourners in the wake of his death. And the murder weapon--a bronze bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne--does seem to indicate that the attack may have been academically motivated. Enter Dell Chandler, the failed English professor turned self-taught private detective whom Dr. Cutty calls in to investigate the crime. She has the background to tease out the motives among the staff and just enough experience to conduct a thorough inquiry. If she solves the case before the cops do, the university could keep the whole thing quiet, avoiding sensational media about the dark side of campus life. But to do so,
she'll have to dodge her own demons from her past life as a disgraced academic.
|
|
|
|
Baby in a Box: Stories
by Sarah Braunstein
These stunning stories, steeped in dark humor, startle and dismay, and introduce us to a cast of eccentric and wholly believable characters. Unexpected encounters confine and define the lives of strangers, while parents and partners navigate blended families and modern love: An older woman tells her waitress that she once left a newborn on church steps. A motel housekeeper makes a radical proposal to a guest. A teenager grapples with atheism and grief and eBay. A mother’s world is disrupted and recharged after a neighborhood man gives her young daughter a telescope. Strange, heartfelt, sly, and wryly funny, Sarah Braunstein’s stories ask us to confront the ways we try to make sense
of our lives―and what happens when we escape from these preconceptions.
|
|
|
|
Voyagers
by Meg Charlton
When the Signal--a mysterious transmission pulsing from the edge of
the solar system-- arrives, the world changes overnight. Planes are grounded, satellites fail, and speculation abounds. With many believing this could be first contact with extraterrestrial life, humanity holds its breath. But for Alex, a thirtysomething lawyer who's spent years distancing himself from the unexplainable, the Signal feels deeply personal--the opening of an old wound. Decades ago, Alex and a girl named Ana both vanished for thirty-six hours while on vacation near Palm Springs. When they returned, dazed but unharmed, the six-year-olds' account of their experience had all the hallmarks of an alien abduction. The media frenzy that followed made them famous, and the long months of child stardom, of talk shows and sitcom cameos, forged
a seemingly unbreakable bond between them--until the mystery behind their disappearance began to tear them apart. Now, with the world on edge and the Signal growing stronger, Alex is drawn back to the one person who might have answers. Ana--now a professional advocate for experiencers of extraterrestrial contact--is leading a retreat near Palm Springs, a stone's throw from the site of their childhood disappearance. As the former best friends tentatively reunite, what starts as a quest to confront the reality of their original experience becomes a larger reckoning with friendship, faith, family, and truth itself--what it means
to see the stories we tell ourselves for what they really are.
|
|
|
|
A River Red with Blood: A Thriller
by John Connolly
Two intertwined disappearances leave a rural community in shock in the latest gripping Charlie Parker novel from New York Times bestselling author John Connolly. In a darkly brilliant thriller set in Maine's rural Kennebec River Valley, the body of a young runaway from a troubled teens school has been found in the water, seemingly drowned, while a teenage girl has gone missing, believed dead. Now it is up to one man, private investigator Charlie Parker, to find the connection, and bring two evils--one new and one ancient--to an end.
|
|
|
|
Thistlemarsh
by Moorea Corrigan
Faeries disappeared over one hundred years ago, as suddenly as
slipping through a doorway. It was only the very foolish, or the very determined, who held out hope for their return. Welcome to Thistlemarsh--a ramshackle estate where an impoverished orphan and
a beguiling Faerie collide in an enchanting novel of love, revenge, and ruin. In the wake of The Great War, the world is a decidedly unmagical place for Mouse Dunne. She once dreamed of becoming a Faerie anthropologist, but with one telegram, her world shattered. At the
Battle of the Somme, her cousin's body disappeared into the mud, and her brother was left with debilitating shell shock. It was time, she knew, to put aside childish dreams. When Mouse receives news that her uncle has left her the Faerie-blessed Thistlemarsh Hall, a dilapidated manor in the English countryside, she must leave her brother's side and return to her childhood home to claim her birthright. But there is a catch in her uncle's offer: If Mouse does not rehabilitate the crumbling house in one month's time, she will forfeit her inheritance and any hope of caring for her brother. It quickly becomes clear it's impossible to repair the manor in the allotted time, until a mysterious Faerie appears with a proposition. He offers to restore Thistlemarsh...for a price. Mouse knows better than to trust a Faerie--especially one so insufferably handsome and
arrogant--but she is out of options. There are dark and magical forces
at work in the house, and Mouse must confront the ghosts of her past and the secrets of her heart or lose Thistlemarsh, and herself, in the process.
|
|
|
|
Clive Cussler Cold Fire
by Graham Brown
In the frigid air high above the Arctic Ocean, an American C-17 carrying a cutting-edge laser of immense power, successfully shoots down a ballistic missile nearly four hundred miles away. Before the celebration can even begin, the aircraft goes dark, vanishing off radar and disappearing into mist at the top of the world. As the details emerge, it becomes obvious that the aircraft has been hijacked and the crew murdered at their stations. Its last known heading would take it directly to Russia, but the CIA insisted it never arrived. An odd signal suggests
it crashed into the Arctic Ocean halfway between Norway and the North Pole. In a tense meeting, the President asks how deep the waters are in that area. Not deep enough, is the answer. Russian ships are seen putting out to sea in large numbers. Chinese vessels are spotted north
of Norway. The only American asset in the area is a small research
vessel operated by NUMA. The President orders NUMA to send it into
the fray. Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala lead the search but soon find that
all is not as it seems. The Chinese were waiting for the planes arrival,
the Russians had expected it to land on their territory and now all three are closing in on a shooting war to keep the others from finding the missing plane. With the rules of engagement suspended and lives hanging in the balance, Kurt and the NUMA special projects team pull
on the threads connecting the mystery only to discover the great
nations of the world being manipulated by a single man with a deadly plan of revenge.
|
|
|
|
Contrapposto
by Dave Eggers
Cricket Dib, born on the American prairie, has no particular prospects or ambitions until, in grade school, he realizes he can draw. He soon
meets a girl, Olympia Argyros, one year older, who is captivating and brilliant and far more worldly. Recognizing his talent, she convinces him to deface, with profound vulgarity, a popular playground. Under her direction, he does it willingly, already in love, and thus begins a sixty-five-year entwining between Cricket and Olympia, encompassing friendship, working partnership and love affair. Together they go to art school--an experience of dubious value--and then navigate the art
world for the next fifty years, together and apart. Contrapposto is a moving and very funny novel about allies and art, and what it means to be an artist. The novel is a wild and beautiful examination of the rules and market forces of the art world, but chiefly it's about two friends
who believe they can change that world, and bring new meaning to it,
if only they can start their own movement, dodge charlatans, remain open-eyed and open-hearted, avoid going mad, avoid dying young of rare cancers, stay true to their ideals, and never tire of beauty. Not
easy, but not impossible, either.
|
|
|
|
Red Sheet
by James Ellroy
It's late October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis has just concluded. The Russkies blinked and pulled their ICBMs out of Cuba. Attorney General Robert Kennedy fears reprisals from seething commies. He orders a red probe and puts the LAPD on the job. Freddy Otash is injudiciously
named the lead investigating officer. He's a stone-cold criminal with police sanction and a harrowing dope habit. He homes in on a red-front trade union. There's a murder on Halloween night. It may link to ex-VP and current gubernatorial candidate Richard Nixon and two commie snuffs from eight years back. Freddy's overworked and overamped.
He's running the probe, and Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman--
Tricky Dick Nixon's head goons--have hired him to keep Nixon away
from the smear-minded press. L.A. is coming unglued. Ex-cop/lawyer Tom Bradley is running for a city council seat and pushing the Rumford Fair Housing Act. Playboy kingpin Hugh Hefner is along for the ride, out to exploit racial tension and peddle untold copies of his smut rag. Red Sheet is James Ellroy's most crazed kamikaze run and a daring, subversive work of fiction.
|
|
|
|
Rasputin Swims the Potomac
by Ben Fountain
Reporter Clarence Thomas Jr. is looking for a great story, former
country music teen star Faith Spack has parlayed her fame into a job at the White House, and the two-term incumbent president is campaigning for a constitutionally dubious third term. After an outbreak at a
campaign rally, a mysterious new pandemic of weeping sickness sweeps the nation, threatening the president's hold on the Oval Office. Desperate to retain power, he enlists the mystical pro wrestler Rasputin to help ensure his reelection and guarantee additional seasons of his presidential reality TV show, The Real West Wing. But as Rasputin's appeal threatens to exceed the president's, and the wrestler's supposedly supernatural powers start to seem like the real thing, the campaign finds itself trapped in a spandex-clad destiny no number of executive orders can control, one in which both Clarence and Faith are compelled to play increasingly large parts. Hilarious, compelling, and tragically relevant, Rasputin Swims the Potomac is both an escape and
a warning, a scathing satire that explores the twists and turns of American democracy as it hurtles toward authoritarianism.
|
|
|
|
Hunger and Thirst
by Claire Fuller
1987: After a childhood trauma and years in and out of the care system, sixteen-year-old Ursula finds herself with a new job delivering mail at a local art school, a bed in a halfway house, and some new friends, including wild-child Sue. When Ursula is invited to join a squat at the Underwood, a mysterious house whose owners met a terrible end, she can't resist this hodgepodge family. But as Sue's behavior and demands become more extreme, Ursula, who has always been hungry--for food, but more importantly for love and acceptance--carries out her friend's terrible dare. And, for this, Ursula finds herself literally haunted. Thirty-six years later, Ursula is a renowned but reclusive sculptor living under
a pseudonym in London when her identity is exposed by a true-crime documentarian researching an unsolved disappearance. But the filmmaker is not the only one who has discovered Ursula's whereabouts, and as her past catches up with her present, Ursula must work out whether the monsters are within her or without--and if they will finally make her pay for her past mistakes.
|
|
|
|
Waiting on a Friend
by Natalie Adler
Renata is a young dyke-about-town who can see ghosts, something
she's doing more and more of lately as too many of her friends are
dying of a new, terrifying disease. When Renata's best friend Mark dies of complications from AIDS, Renata is devastated by the loss of the person she loved most in the world. And to her disappointment and increasing despair, Mark seems unwilling or unable to return for the proper goodbye they both were denied. While Renata waits anxiously
for Mark, she must stay vigilant: a mysterious, police-like force has begun ridding their East Village neighborhood of anything abnormal or inexplicable. What first seems like a scam reveals itself to be far more sinister, targeting the soul of Renata's community. With her band of lovably eccentric pals and lovers, Renata is determined to fight back against the erasure of her friends' memories and the sanitizing of her beloved New York. But haunting her every step is Mark, the one ghost who stubbornly refuses to reappear.
|
|
|
|
One Leg on Earth
by 'Pemi Aguda
Something is haunting the pregnant women of Lagos. Across the city, they are walking into water . . . and drowning. Twenty-three-year-old Yosoye arrives in Lagos ready to start her life. Working for a slick architectural firm, she finds a city of adventure and opportunity. Her
new world is one of fancy gallery openings, glamorous friends, and all the shiny potential of the future, encapsulated in projects like Omi City, the ultra-luxury development her company is building, a symbol of the dawn of a brighter Lagos. But Yosoye’s idyllic vision of Lagos soon
begins to seem naive, and its darker, stranger layers trouble her. Something is not right about Omi City, and as construction speeds ahead, stories of strange deaths in the city’s open waters reach a fever pitch. And then, after a chance encounter, Yosoye discovers she is pregnant . . . a revelation which puts her on a collision course with an inexplicable force that is as seductive as it is deadly.
|
|
|
|
The Fine Art of Lying
by Alexandra Andrews
In the beginning, there was art. It was Clare Bast's love of art that
saved her from a bleak, predictable life in upstate New York, and drew her to the cultured world of Manhattan's Upper East Side where she
met Jed, her doting, affluent husband. Despite her best efforts--
including a half-finished PhD, abandoned when her daughter Sadie was born--Clare secretly can't help but feel like an impostor in Jed's one-percent, Park-Avenue life. When the well-connected wife of Jed's new boss introduces her to influential friends--a curator here, a gallerist there, an aficionado abroad--Clare feels an essential part of herself coming alive again. And when she discovers that an important work painted by the subject of her unfinished dissertation is hanging in the brownstone of a seductively attractive dealer, she believes fate is
leading her where she belongs . . . until she finds herself at the scene
of a gruesome murder and a stolen masterpiece. Caught in the perfectly wrong place at the perfectly wrong time, every clue the investigation uncovers points back to her. Suddenly, Clare is trapped inside a dark
and treacherous art world filled with unscrupulous dealers and international criminals. What, exactly, has she gotten herself into . . .
and how is she going to get herself, and her family, out?
|
|
|
|
Phoebe Berman's Gonna Lose It
by Brooke Averick
Is it possible to find true love when going on a date makes you want to throw up? Phoebe Berman fears the one thing she wants the most:
love. Thanks to an extremely unfortunate first kiss attempt, crippling intimacy anxiety has plagued her since she was a teen. Phoebe has so much going for her: a dream teaching job, a supportive and hilarious group of best friends, and all the romance novels a girl could want at
her fingertips--but she can't help but beat herself up over the one
thing she can't quite seem to figure out. Determined to change this,
she drafts up the ultimate Guide to Losing My Virginity checklist with
the hope of finally getting laid. Suddenly, she goes from a relatively boring (basically non-existent) dating life to juggling three romantic prospects at once. There's the gorgeous new fourth grade teacher at
her school, a former high school classmate that resurfaces through Words with Friends, and there will always be her roommate, who might just be the best friends-to-lovers situation of her dreams. Phoebe Berman's Gonna Lose It is a brutally honest and completely relatable story for anyone who's ever felt stuck between coming of age and coming apart.
|
|
|
|
Japanese Gothic
by Kylie Lee Baker
October, 2026: Lee Turner doesn't remember how or why he killed his college roommate. The details are blurred and bloody. All he knows is
he has to flee New York and go to the one place that might offer
refuge--his father's new home in Japan, a house hidden by sword ferns and wild ginger. But something is terribly wrong with the house: no animals will come near it, the bedroom window isn't always a window, and a woman with a sword appears in the yard when night falls.
October, 1877: Sen is a young samurai in exile, hiding from the imperial soldiers in a house behind the sword ferns. A monster came home from war wearing her father's face, but Sen would do anything to please him, even turn her sword on her own mother. She knows the soldiers will soon slaughter her whole family when she sees a terrible omen: a
young foreign man who appears outside her window. One of these people is a ghost, and one of these stories is a lie. Something is hiding beneath the house of sword ferns, and Lee and Sen will soon wish they never unburied it.
|
|
|
|
Lázár
by Nelio Biedermann
At the turn of the 20th century, the Lazars welcome their newest member in their rural summer estate, surrounded by a menacingly
dark, enchanting forest. Lajos von Lazar is a baby boy with translucent skin and light-blue eyes who looks nothing like the rest of his family. Sandor, the imposing patriarch, is ashamed of his son's peculiarity.
Ilona finds her baby brother quite ugly. Maria is terrified that her son's uncanny resemblance to the stagehand who died a couple weeks
earlier might spell disaster. While Imre, Sandor's brother whose otherworldly foresight is often confused for insanity, is struck by visions of a great catastrophe. Lajos's birth is emblematic of the many secrets, affairs, and peculiar otherworldly happenings that plague the Lazars.
As the decades go by, they will continue to fall prey to their desires, leading grand lives, and experiencing even greater tragedies as they're swept by the tides of war and revolution that befall their country. But time and again, in the lighter years, extraordinary love and hope shine through.
|
|
|
|
Hope House
by Joe Bond
Set in 1980s Kentucky, this striking debut novel is told from inside a treatment home for troubled teenagers, where lost boys become more than their pasts and dare to imagine different futures. They came from the streets, the sticks and every place in between. They'd stolen cars, dealt dope and hurt people. They'd been hurt themselves. Told in
chorus through the intersecting lives of a group of teenage boys, Hope House follows its ensemble cast through a five-phase program as they grapple with their pasts and search for the one thing none of them
have ever really had: a family.
|
|
|
|
Good News
by Alexa Yasemin Brahme
Maggie is on the brink. Her MFA thesis--a vast canvas of twenty women suspended between life and death--is met with polite confusion,
sending her into the throes of an obsessive work spiral. She's ignoring calls from her frantic Turkish mother and drifting apart from her marriage-material boyfriend, Rob, who, lately, spends every waking moment at the office, including some suspiciously late nights. To make matters worse, her brother John (perfect, doctor) is dating Maggie's
art-world rival: a performance artist who constantly seems to be skyrocketing toward fame even after renouncing her name to be called simply the Artist. But it's when Maggie's ex reappears that her forced composure starts to slip. A smooth-talking art critic with power and charm, Rakib sees Maggie in a way that completely mystifies her. Then come whispers that her painting might be nominated for a grant that could launch her career. With deadlines looming, her relationship with Rob faltering, and her sense of self in flux, Maggie begins to question
not just her art but the entire life she's been trying to build.
|
|
|
|
The Shippers
by Katherine Center
After a lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton vows to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister's destination wedding on a cruise ship. Armed with pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her first crush and first kiss (and who just happens to be a newly-divorced wedding guest). Determined to woo him for closure, she ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, as her wingman. Cooper: who RSVPed no, but showed
up anyway. Cooper: who moved to London without a word four years ago. Cooper: who broke her heart. Shipboard antics abound in this
witty, heart-tugging, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance, as JoJo and Cooper team up, fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, get jealous, answer long-held questions, and finally, at last, discover truths about each other that will change everything.
|
|
|
|
Shy Creatures
by Clare Chambers
The London suburb of Croydon,1964: Helen Hansford is unmarried and in her thirties. Something of a disappointment to her middle-class parents, she’s an art therapist at the Westbury Park psychiatric hospital, where she has been having a rebellious love affair with her colleague
Gil, a dashing, but married, doctor. One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance at a derelict, vine-covered Victorian house a
few miles up the road. There the police find a mute, thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, his hair and beard down to his waist. It appears he lives in the old house with his elderly, frail aunt, who expires as soon as she’s admitted to the hospital. No one knows why William
has been shut away for decades, unseen by neighbors, with only his
two now-deceased aunts for company. Westbury Park becomes his refuge. When it emerges that William is not only sane but a talented artist, Helen comes to see him as something of a personal project. But as she tries to solve the puzzle of the Hidden Man’s past, Helen’s own carefully constructed life of secrets begins to unravel...
|
|
|
|
How to Fake It in Society
by KJ Charles
It is 1821 and Nicolas-Marc, Comte de Valois de La Motte is making a splash in London Society. The son of Jeanne de Valois de La Motte, infamous for stealing a priceless diamond necklace meant for Marie Antoinette, Nico hopes to restore his wronged mother's reputation, if only he can raise the funds. But he must operate with great secrecy, because the Bourbon dynasty murdered his mother, and he fears for
his life. At least, that's what he tells Titus Pilcrow. Titus was a simple shopkeeper, making and selling artists' paints, when he found himself suddenly married to an immensely wealthy woman who wanted to disinherit her nephew on her deathbed. As word spreads of his fortune, Titus finds himself a target of every scammer and beggar in London...including one Nicolas-Marc, Comte de Valois de La Motte.
Nico is on his last legs, out of money, and on the run from some terrifying gangsters. When Titus offers Nico a space in his household,
it's the perfect chance for him to exploit London's newest golden
purse--until he falls in love with the man he needs to cheat. Still, Nico
is sure they can have a happy ending together. If he can just find his way out of his own web of lies...
|
|
|
|
The Hill
by Harriet Clark
Suzanna Klein was a baby when her mother got up early one morning
to rob a bank with a group of fellow radicals. Now, every Saturday, Suzanna lines up at the prison gates among the other children, each dressed as if for celebration. Inside there is a nursery and a cemetery; there are watchful guards and distractable nuns; there are women counting down to release and women like Suzanna's mother, who will never be released. At home, Suzanna is raised by her grandmother,
who is entirely unforgiving of her daughter's crime and refuses to visit the prison. Surrounding Suzanna are her grandmother's friends, who know one another from their years in the Communist Party and still spend extended cocktail hours debating the Hitler-Stalin pact. Though these women once insisted on changing the world, they are torn between teaching Suzanna how the world works and shielding her from it. Suzanna vows to return to the prison forever, but her mother wants her to be free. Harriet Clark's The Hill is an incandescent novel of a
child growing up between worlds, the last of three generations whose fates have been tied to punishment. It is the tale of a family broken apart by the desire for change, told with irreverent wisdom and
visionary force.
|
|
|
|
The Girls Trip
by Ally Condie
Hope, Ash, and Caro met at an online book club. Over the past two years, they've been there for each other in every way--except in person. When each of their lives reach a crossroads, they decide to meet in real life at the gorgeous Sonnet Resort at Eden National Park. Hope, an actress, has become entirely too famous and needs to get away from it all. Ash, a successful online entrepreneur, isn't sure what has happened to her marriage. Caro, a doctor, has lost a patient and doesn't know if she wants to carry on or start all over. None of them are telling each other the full story...and one of them vanishes on the trip.
|
|
|
|
The Dorians
by Nick Cutter
On a remote island in the Canadian wilderness, five elderly volunteers from different walks of life are given a tantalizing offer: to stall their biological clocks or even reverse them, restoring their lost youth. The chance to put death on pause--forever, perhaps. The remarkable secret lies in the high-tech harnessing of an ancient and extraordinary
biological agent...one with no conscience, yet possessed with a single-minded purpose that has helped it persist for eons: the will to survive. The dark heart of unbridled human ambition finds its apex in an unholy experiment that now tests the limits of both creator and subject, eclipsing all bounds of morality and sanity.
|
|
|
|
The Burning Side
by Sarah Damoff
When April and Leo's house burns in the middle of the night, they escape with their two young children and the quiet knowledge that the fire is not the only thing threatening their family. They retreat to April's childhood home in Dallas, where her spirited parents and siblings
provide both comfort and complication. As the family reckons with the aftermath--grief, guilt, logistics, and memories scorched and intact--the fire exposes the cracks already forming in April and Leo's marriage. The novel unfolds in alternating perspectives: from April, who feels the crushing weight of motherhood, marriage, and self-blame; from Leo, a high school history teacher shaped by a lonely, fractured childhood;
from Deb, April's generous and no-nonsense mother who has to
contend with her husband's recent Alzheimer's diagnosis; and from flashbacks that trace April and Leo's relationship from its earliest days
of connection to the devastating decisions that led them here. A family saga suffused with humor, longing, and heartbreak, The Burning Side is about what we inherit and what we choose, about forgiveness and the ache of being known. It is, above all, about the meaning of home and the costs of long love.
|
|
|
|
Tom Clancy Rules of Engagement
by Ward Larsen
The White House is stunned when the Secretary of Commerce is killed
in a plane crash in Turkey. President Jack Ryan isn't ready to write this off as a simple accident. Not only has he lost a good friend, but the Secretary was on an important mission: on the surface he was making an appearance at an economic conference, but the CIA was also using the flight as cover to extract an important asset from the Middle East. Soon, Lt. Commander Katie Ryan and her team are working with the investigators to find the cause of the tragedy, but one shocking revelation changes everything. There were supposed to be 16 people
on the plane, but there are only 15 bodies. The quest for answers will lead the team deeper and deeper into a quagmire of lies and deception that will force President Ryan to face an unprincipled enemy with
global ambitions.
|
|
|
|
A Parade of Horribles
by Matt Dinniman
As chaos and mass panic spread outside the dungeon in the wake of Faction Wars, Carl and Donut find themselves on the tenth floor, where they're forced to compete in a surprisingly normal set of tasks. Well, normal for the dungeon. Races. Get from point A to point B, and don't come in last. After each race, they pick an upgrade for their vehicle
and the track gets more challenging. It all seems a little too normal, a little too simple. Ignore those strange glitches that are occurring with increasing frequency. Don't listen to those whispers about what's happening on the mysterious eleventh floor, something the system AI calls A Parade of Horribles. Nobody, not even the showrunners, knows what that means. Just that the AI has ominously dubbed it a
coming-out party for the ages. Carl is planning a party of his own. It's a plan so dangerous, so insane, he can't even consult his friends lest the AI put a stop to it. Because if it goes wrong, it's not just the end of Carl and Donut. No. The stakes are higher than they've ever been.
|
|
|
|
Homebound
by Portia Elan
It's 1983 and Becks can't wait to get the hell out of Cincinnati. She's nineteen, blasting her Walkman, and hiding from the fact that her beloved uncle, the only person who understood her, is dead. But she has work to do: he left her a half-finished game to complete--one last collaboration to find her way out of loneliness. Little does she know, what Becks is making will echo far into the future and shape the lives of a scientist, a sentient automaton, and a flinty sea captain in ways she cannot imagine. All are bound together by their search for connection--and by a futuristic traveler on a mysterious mission through space. A novel about our deep interconnectedness, Homebound is a clear-eyed, hopeful adventure into humanity's future and capacity for love.
|
|
|
|
The Anniversary: A Thriller
by Alex Finlay
Every May 1st, a serial killer stalks a small town. Every year he comes
for them . . . On May 1, 1992, Jules Delaney and Quinn Riley hardly know each other. Jules is high school queen bee in a small Midwestern town when she survives a brutal attack by the elusive May Day Killer--a predator who strikes every May 1st and then vanishes without a trace. Quinn, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, is arrested the same night after trying to break up a fight and nearly killing someone. By morning, their lives are forever connected. A year later, Jules is haunted by trauma and guilt, tormented by one question: Why was she spared? Quinn is newly released from juvenile detention and returns home to devastating news--the unsolved murder of his mother. Over the next decade, their lives are revisited on a single day each year: May 1st. As the years pass, secrets surface, lies unravel, and the paths of Jules and Quinn draw closer together. Two mysteries edge toward the truth--what really happened the night Jules was attacked, and who murdered Quinn's mother? All the while, the May Day Killer is still out there. And the clock is racing toward another anniversary.
|
|
|
|
Our Perfect Storm
by Carley Fortune
Frankie and George have been best friends since they were eight years old. Both passionate, impulsive, and headstrong--they've always
clashed . . . and come back together. Until now. It's the eve of Frankie's wedding weekend, and she doesn't know where they stand or even if George will show up as her best man. Then, at the start of the
festivities, in walks George. For one glorious evening, surrounded by
her loved ones, Frankie's life is finally perfect. But it all comes crashing down when her fiance dumps her the next morning, leaving only a note as an explanation. Crushed and confused, Frankie returns to her
family's home to wallow. But George has a different idea and a plan for healing Frankie's broken heart. He wants her to go on her honeymoon. With him. For one week, to the lush rainforests and misty beaches of Tofino. Frankie agrees, seeing the trip for what it really is: one last chance to repair their friendship. Even if it means unearthing secrets
and long buried feelings neither knows how to handle. Even if it means falling apart for good.
|
|
|
|
Enormous Wings
by Laurie Frankel
At seventy-seven, Pepper Mills is too old to be a stranger in a strange land. She didn't choose the Vista View Retirement Community of Austin, Texas-that would be her three grown children-but when she grudgingly moves in, she not only makes new friends, she falls in love. Then the exhaustion, vomiting, and confusion start. Her children and grandchildren worry it's cancer, dementia, a stroke. But a raft of tests later, the news is even more shocking: she's pregnant. Once word gets out, everyone wants a piece of her: the press and the paparazzi,
activists and medical researchers, all descending on Vista View as
Pepper tries to determine her next move. Soon Pepper has some hard decisions to make-and some she's not allowed to make. Enormous
Wings is an urgent novel about female agency and bodily autonomy, morality and mortality. It's about what happens when you don't get to choose. It's about motherhood and family, sex and love and friendship, and how those bedrocks-even so late in the day-can still change, and then change everything.
|
|
|
|
|
|