Books to Series

(69 books)

Have you read the books that inspired your favourite TV series? Try the books in this stack to judge which you prefer - the series or the book?
Alias Grace

Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood

4.151996Mystery
Add

It's 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders.An up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories?EndorsementsCaptivating and disturbing, Alias Grace showcases best-selling, Booker Prize-winning author Margaret Atwood at the peak of her powers.

Station Eleven

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel

4.232014Fantasy
Add

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

Pachinko

Pachinko

Min Jin Lee

4.352017Historical Fiction
Add

Profoundly moving and gracefully told, Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them. Betrayed by her wealthy lover, Sunja finds unexpected salvation when a young tubercular minister offers to marry her and bring her to Japan to start a new life.So begins a sweeping saga of exceptional people in exile from a homeland they never knew and caught in the indifferent arc of history. In Japan, Sunja's family members endure harsh discrimination, catastrophes, and poverty, yet they also encounter great joy as they pursue their passions and rise to meet the challenges this new home presents. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, they are bound together by deep roots as their family faces enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.

Rebecca

Rebecca

Daphne Du Maurier

4.481938Romance
Add

On a trip to the South of France, the shy heroine of Rebecca falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower. Although his proposal comes as a surprise, she happily agrees to marry him. But as they arrive at her husband's home, Manderley, a change comes over Maxim, and the young bride is filled with dread. Friendless in the isolated mansion, she realises that she barely knows the man she has married. In every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, and the new Mrs de Winter walks in her shadow.

Boy Swallows Universe

Boy Swallows Universe

Trent Dalton

4.342018Historical Fiction
Add

Brisbane, 1983: A lost father, a mute brother, a mum in jail, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It's not as if Eli's life isn't complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart, learning what it takes to be a good man, but life just keeps throwing obstacles in the way — not least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer.But Eli's life is about to get a whole lot more serious. He's about to fall in love. And, oh yeah, he has to break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day to save his mum.A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will read all year.

All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr

4.402014Historical Fiction
Add

Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.By Anthony Doerr. A stunningly beautiful story about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.EndorsementsThe instant New York Times bestseller.

The Queen's Gambit

The Queen's Gambit

Walter Tevis

3.501983Historical Fiction
Add

When she is sent to an orphanage at the age of eight, Beth Harmon soon discovers two ways to escape her surroundings, albeit fleetingly: playing chess and taking the little green pills given to her and the other children to keep them subdued. Before long, it becomes apparent that hers is a prodigious talent, and as she progresses to the top of the US chess rankings she is able to forge a new life for herself. But she can never quite overcome her urge to self-destruct. For Beth, there’s more at stake than merely winning and losing.

Normal People

Normal People

Sally Rooney

4.012018Romance
Add

At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He's popular and well-adjusted, star of the school football team, while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her job at Marianne's house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers—one they are determined to conceal.A year later, they're both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

The Night Manager

The Night Manager

John le Carre

3.841993Espionage
Add

John le Carré, the legendary author of sophisticated spy thrillers, is at the top of his game in this classic novel of a world in chaos. With the Cold War over, a new era of espionage has begun. In the power vacuum left by the Soviet Union, arms dealers and drug smugglers have risen to immense influence and wealth. The sinister master of them all is Richard Onslow Roper, the charming, ruthless Englishman whose operation seems untouchable. Slipping into this maze of peril is Jonathan Pine, a former British soldier who’s currently the night manager of a posh hotel in Zurich. Having learned to hate and fear Roper more than any man on earth, Pine is willing to do whatever it takes to help the agents at Whitehall bring him down—and personal vengeance is only part of the reason why.Endorsements“A splendidly exciting, finely told story . . . masterly in its conception.” — The New York Times Book Review“Intrigue of the highest order.” — Chicago Sun-Times“Richly detailed and rigorously researched . . . Le Carré’s gift for building tension through character has never been better realized.” — People“Grimly fascinating, often nerve-wracking, and impossible to put down.” — Boston Herald

Outlander

Outlander

Diana Gabaldon

4.191991Time Travel
Add

The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord...1743.Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad

Colson Whitehead

4.062016Race
Add

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.

Maid

Maid

Stephanie Land

3.852019Memoir
Add

At 28, Stephanie Land’s plans to break free from the roots of her hometown in the Pacific Northwest to chase her dreams of attending university and becoming a writer were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unexpected pregnancy. She turned to housekeeping to make ends meet, and with a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, she worked days, took classes online to earn a college degree, and began to write relentlessly.Maid explores the underbelly of upper-middle-class America and the reality of what it’s like to be in service to them. “I’d become a nameless ghost,” Stephanie writes about her relationship with her clients, many of whom do not know her from any other cleaner, but who she learns plenty about. As she begins to discover more about her clients’ lives—their sadness and love, too—she begins to find hope in her own path.Her writing as a journalist gives voice to the "servant" worker and to those pursuing the American Dream from below the poverty line. Maid is Stephanie’s story, but it’s not her alone.

Defending Jacob

Defending Jacob

William Landay

4.002012Thriller
Add

Award-winning author William Landay has written the consummate novel of an embattled family in crisis — a suspenseful, character-driven mystery that is also a spellbinding tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying speed at which our lives can spin out of control.Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: His fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.

Lockwood & Co.

Lockwood & Co.

Jonathan Stroud

4.242013Horror
Add

For more than fifty years, Britain has been terrorised by an epidemic of murderous ghosts. A number of Psychic Investigations Agencies have sprung up to destroy them...Lucy Carlyle, a talented young agent, arrives in London hoping to begin a shining new chapter in her career. Instead she finds herself joining Lockwood & Co., the most ramshackle agency in the city, whose ineptitude is matched only by the charisma of its owner.But Lockwood & Co. have one last chance for redemption. All they have to do is spend the night in one of the most haunted houses in England... and come out alive.The first book in an amazingly addictive, binge-worthy series, this is an electrifying, witty and brilliantly spooky thriller, perfect for fans of Rivers of London and Good Omens.

Firefly Lane

Firefly Lane

Kristin Hannah

4.002008Romance
Add

A powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship.In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all—beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become TullyandKate. Inseparable.So begins Kristin Hannah’s magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives.From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness.Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn’t know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she’ll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she’ll envy her famous best friend.For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship—jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they’ve survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test.Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone’s Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it’s the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It’s about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you—and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you’ll never forget . . . one you’ll want to pass on to your best friend.EndorsementsFrom the New York Times bestselling author of On Mystic Lake

The Lincoln Lawyer

The Lincoln Lawyer

Michael Connelly

4.422005Legal Thriller
Add

Mickey Haller has spent all his professional life afraid that he wouldn’t recognize innocence if it stood right in front of him. But what he should have been on the watch for was evil.Haller is the Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car. He travels between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. Bikers, con artists, drunk drivers, drug dealers — they’re all on Mickey Haller’s client list. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence — it’s about negotiation and manipulation. Sometimes it’s even about justice.A Beverly Hills playboy arrested for attacking a woman he picked up in a bar chooses Haller to defend him, and Mickey has his first high-paying client in years. It is a defense attorney’s dream, what they call a franchise case. And, as the evidence stacks up, Haller comes to believe this may be the easiest case of his career.Then someone close to him is murdered and Haller discovers that his search for innocence has brought him face-to-face with evil as pure as a flame. To escape without being burned, he must deploy every tactic, feint, and instinct in his arsenal — this time to save his own life.

Virgin River

Virgin River

Robyn Carr

4.022007Romance
Add

Wanted: Midwife/nurse practitioner in Virgin River, population six hundred. Make a difference against a backdrop of towering California redwoods and crystal clear rivers. Rent-free cabin included.When the recently widowed Melinda Monroe sees this ad, she quickly decides that the remote mountain town of Virgin River might be the perfect place to escape her heartache, and to reenergize the nursing career she loves. But her high hopes are dashed within an hour of arriving—the cabin is a dump, the roads are treacherous and the local doctor wants nothing to do with her. Realizing she’s made a huge mistake, Mel decides to leave town the following morning.But a tiny baby abandoned on a front porch changes her plans…and former marine Jack Sheridan cements them into place.Welcome back to Virgin River with the book that started it all…EndorsementsA Netflix Original Series!

The 100

The 100

Kass Morgan

3.782013Romance
Add

No one has set foot on Earth in centuries—until now.Ever since a devastating nuclear war, humanity has lived on spaceships far above Earth's radioactive surface. Now, one hundred juvenile delinquents—considered expendable by society—are being sent on a dangerous mission: to recolonize the planet. It could be their second chance at life... or it could be a suicide mission.Clarke was arrested for treason, though she's haunted by the memory of what she really did. Wells, the chancellor's son, came to Earth for the girl he loves—but will she ever forgive him? Reckless Bellamy fought his way onto the transport pod to protect his sister, the other half of the only pair of siblings in the universe. And Glass managed to escape back onto the ship, only to find that life there is just as dangerous as she feared it would be on Earth.Confronted with a savage land and haunted by secrets from their pasts, the hundred must fight to survive.They were never meant to be heroes, but they may be mankind's last hope.

Big Little Lies

Big Little Lies

Liane Moriarty

4.122014Chick Lit
Add

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare but she is paying a price for the illusion of perfection. New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. These three women are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place.Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the little lies that can turn lethal.A murder...A tragic accident...Or just parents behaving badly? What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.

The Last Kingdom

The Last Kingdom

Bernard Cornwell

4.382004Adventure
Add

This is the story of the making of England in the 9th and 10th centuries, the years in which King Alfred the Great, his son and grandson defeated the Danish Vikings who had invaded and occupied three of England’s four kingdoms.The story is seen through the eyes of Uhtred, a dispossessed nobleman, who is captured as a child by the Danes and then raised by them so that, by the time the Northmen begin their assault on Wessex (Alfred’s kingdom and the last territory in English hands), Uhtred almost thinks of himself as a Dane. He certainly has no love for Alfred, whom he considers a pious weakling and no match for Viking savagery, yet when Alfred unexpectedly defeats the Danes and the Danes themselves turn on Uhtred, he is finally forced to choose sides. By now he is a young man, in love, trained to fight and ready to take his place in the dreaded shield wall. Above all, though, he wishes to recover his father’s land, the enchanting fort of Bebbanburg by the wild northern sea.This thrilling adventure—based on existing records of Bernard Cornwell’s ancestors—depicts a time when law and order were ripped violently apart by a pagan assault on Christian England, an assault that came very close to destroying England.

House of Cards

House of Cards

Michael Dobbs

3.971989Thriller
Add

Francis Urquhart is Chief Whip. He has his hands on every secret in politics — and is willing to betray them all to become Prime Minister.Mattie Storin is a tenacious young political correspondent. She faces the biggest challenge of her life when she stumbles upon a scandalous web of intrigue and financial corruption at the very highest levels.She is determined to reveal the truth, but she must risk everything to do so...

Cathedral of the Sea

Cathedral of the Sea

Ildefonso Falcones

4.152006Historical Fiction
Add

Arnau Estanyol arrives in Barcelona and joins the powerful guild of stone-workers building the magnificent cathedral of Santa Maria del Mar, while his adoptive brother Joan studies to become a priest. As Arnau prospers, he secretly falls in love with a forbidden woman. When he is betrayed and hauled before the Inquisitor, he finds himself face-to-face with his own brother. Will he lose his life just as his beloved cathedral is finally completed, or will his brother spare him?In the tradition of Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth, this is a thrilling historical novel of friendship and revenge, plague and hope, love and war, set in the golden age of 14th-century Barcelona.Endorsements"riveting" — The Washington Post

Tales of the City

Tales of the City

Armistead Maupin

4.011978Classics
Add

San Francisco, 1976. A naïve young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cutthroat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, and outrageous—unmistakably the handiwork of Armistead Maupin.

Behind Her Eyes

Behind Her Eyes

Sarah Pinborough

3.632017Thriller
Add

Why is everyone talking about the ending of Sarah Pinborough's Behind Her Eyes?Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. On a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar and sparks fly. Though he leaves after they kiss, she’s thrilled she finally connected with someone.When Louise arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David. The man from the bar. The very married man from the bar… who says the kiss was a terrible mistake but who still can’t keep his eyes off Louise.And then Louise bumps into Adele, who’s new to town and in need of a friend, but she also just happens to be married to David. David and Adele look like the picture-perfect husband and wife, but then why is David so controlling, and why is Adele so scared of him?As Louise is drawn into David and Adele’s orbit, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers. The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong, but Louise can’t guess how wrong — and how far a person might go to protect their marriage’s secrets.

The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

4.331985Fantasy
Add

Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state in what was formerly known as the United States. She is placed in the household of The Commander, Fred Waterford — her assigned name, Offred, means 'of Fred'. She has only one function: to breed. If Offred refuses to enter into sexual servitude to repopulate a devastated world, she will be hanged. Yet even a repressive state cannot eradicate hope and desire. As she recalls her pre-revolution life in flashbacks, Offred must navigate through the terrifying landscape of torture and persecution in the present day, and between two men on which her future hangs.Now an award-winning TV series starring Elisabeth Moss.EndorsementsThe Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller'A fantastic, chilling story. And so powerfully feminist' — Bernadine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other'This novel seems ever more vital in the present day' — Observer

Fleishman Is in Trouble

Fleishman Is in Trouble

Taffy Brodesser-Akner

3.642019Marriage
Add

Recently separated Toby Fleishman is suddenly, somehow — and at age forty-one, short as ever — surrounded by women who want him: women who are self-actualized, women who are smart and interesting, women who don't mind his height, women who are eager to take him for a test drive with just the swipe of an app. Toby doesn't mind being used in this way; it's a welcome change from the thirteen years he spent as a married man, the thirteen years of emotional neglect and contempt he's just endured. Anthropologically speaking, it's like nothing he ever experienced before, particularly back in the 1990s, when he first began dating and became used to swimming in the murky waters of rejection.But Toby's new life — liver specialist by day, kids every other weekend, rabid, somewhat anonymous sex at night — is interrupted when his ex-wife suddenly disappears. His ex may be on a vision quest or having a nervous breakdown — Toby doesn't know; she won't answer his texts or calls.Is Toby's ex just angry, like always? Is she punishing him, yet again, for not being the breadwinner she was? As he desperately searches for her while juggling his job and parenting their two unraveling children, Toby is forced to reckon with the real reasons his marriage fell apart, and to ask if the story he has been telling himself all this time is true.

The Leftovers

The Leftovers

Tom Perrotta

3.432011Fantasy
Add

With heart, intelligence and a rare ability to illuminate the struggles inherent in ordinary lives, Tom Perrotta's The Leftovers is a startling, thought-provoking novel about love, connection and loss.What if—whoosh, right now, with no explanation—a number of us simply vanished? Would some of us collapse? Would others of us go on, one foot in front of the other, as we did before the world turned upside down?That's what the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, who lost many of their neighbors, friends and lovers in the event known as the Sudden Departure, have to figure out. Because nothing has been the same since it happened—not marriages, not friendships, not even the relationships between parents and children.Kevin Garvey, Mapleton's new mayor, wants to speed up the healing process, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized community. Kevin's own family has fallen apart in the wake of the disaster: his wife, Laurie, has left to join the Guilty Remnant, a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence; his son, Tom, is gone, too, dropping out of college to follow a sketchy prophet named Holy Wayne. Only Kevin's teenaged daughter, Jill, remains, and she's definitely not the sweet "A" student she used to be. Kevin wants to help her, but he's distracted by his growing relationship with Nora Durst, a woman who lost her entire family on October 14th and is still reeling from the tragedy, even as she struggles to move beyond it and make a new start.EndorsementsA New York Times Notable Book for 2011A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book for 2011A USA Today "10 Books We Loved Reading" selection for 2011One of NPR's 10 Best Novels of 2011

Sharp Objects

Sharp Objects

Gillian Flynn

4.172006Thriller
Add

Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims — a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.

Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel

4.352009Historical Fiction
Add

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

Mindhunter

Mindhunter

John E. Douglas

4.091995True Crime
Add

FBI Special Agent and expert in criminal profiling and behavioural science, John Douglas, is a man who has looked evil in the eye and made a vocation of understanding it. Now retired, Douglas can let us inside the FBI elite serial crime unit and into the disturbed minds of some of the most savage serial killers in the world.The man who was the inspiration for Special Agent Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs and who lent the film's makers his expertise explains how he invented and established the practice of criminal profiling; what it was like to submerge himself mentally in the world of serial killers to the point of 'becoming' both perpetrator and victim; and individual case histories including those of Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy and the Atlanta child murders.With the fierce page-turning power of a bestselling novel, yet terrifyingly true, Mindhunter is a true crime classic.EndorsementsJohn Douglas knows more about serial killers than anybody in the world — Jonathan Demme, Director of The Silence of the LambsA cracker of a book — Esquire

The Terror

The Terror

Dan Simmons

4.072007Horror
Add

The men on board the HMS Terror — part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage — are entering a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, they struggle to survive with poisonous rations, a dwindling coal supply, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is even more terrifying: there is something out there in the frigid night — an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror clawing to get in.A masterfully chilling novel that inspired the hit AMC series.Endorsements"Masterfully chilling." — Entertainment Weekly"The best and most unusual historical novel I have read in years." — Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe

Orange Is the New Black

Orange Is the New Black

Piper Kerman

3.722010Autobiography
Add

With her career, live-in boyfriend and loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the rebellious young woman who got mixed up with drug runners and delivered a suitcase of drug money to Europe over a decade ago. But when she least expects it, her reckless past catches up with her; convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at an infamous women's prison in Connecticut, Piper becomes inmate #11187-424. From her first strip search to her final release, she learns to navigate this strange world with its arbitrary rules and codes, its unpredictable, even dangerous relationships. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with tokens of generosity, hard truths and simple acts of acceptance.

Tiny Pretty Things

Tiny Pretty Things

Sona Charaipotra

3.682015Romance
Add

Gigi, Bette, and June, three top students at an exclusive Manhattan ballet school, have seen their fair share of drama.Free-spirited new girl Gigi just wants to dance—but the very act might kill her.Privileged New Yorker Bette's desire to escape the shadow of her ballet-star sister brings out a dangerous edge in her.And perfectionist June needs to land a lead role this year or her controlling mother will put an end to her dancing dreams forever.When there's only room for one at the top, these girls will sacrifice, manipulate, and backstab to be the best of the best.From acclaimed authors Dhonielle Clayton and Sona Charaipotra comes a riveting story about three not-so-perfect ballerinas who will do anything to get to the top. Featuring a diverse cast of characters, plenty of gossip, lies, and scandals, Tiny Pretty Things is a riveting read for fans of Pretty Little Liars and One of Us Is Lying.

Cursed

Cursed

Marissa Meyer

4.022022Romance
Add

It isn't true, she wanted to whisper. To lean forward and nuzzle her cheek against his temple. To press him against the wall and mold her body to his. I am not his. I will never be his.Serilda and Gild cannot break the curses that tether their spirits to Adalheid's haunted castle. There they remain trapped for eternity. On the night of the Endless Moon, the Erlking means to capture one of the seven gods and so be reunited with his lover, Perchta, who has been banished to the underworld.But it soon becomes clear that the Erlking's hunger for vengeance won't be satisfied with a single wish, and his true intentions have the power to alter the mortal realm forever.Serilda and Gild have no choice but to thwart his plans, all the while solving the mystery of Gild's forgotten name, and freeing all the ghosts kept in servitude to the dark ones. As the evil forces gather, it seems only their love is strong enough to sustain them...Marissa Meyer concludes her young adult retelling of Rumpelstiltskin in this breathtaking sequel!Endorsements'The reigning queen of the genre.' — New York Times'Intricate worldbuilding and star-crossed romance.' — Publishers Weekly

The Letter for the King

The Letter for the King

Tonke Dragt

4.171962Adventure
Add

The rule-book says that a young man who is to be knighted by King Dagonaut must pass the eve of the grand ceremony in silent vigil. However, Young Tiuri, son of the famous Tiuri the Valiant, breaks the rules—he opens the door to a stranger who begs him to deliver a secret letter to the Black Knight with the White Shield. The letter is destined for the ruler of the neighbouring realm, King Unauwen, and concerns a matter of paramount importance. Tiuri accepts this dangerous mission, but when he arrives at the appointed place deep in the forest, he finds the Knight dying, murdered by the vicious Red Riders. As he races to deliver the letter to King Unauwen in the Knight's stead, Tiuri is pursued by the Red Riders, who threaten his life, but he is determined to fulfil his promise: the Black Knight must not have died in vain.

Coming Home

Coming Home

Lauren Brooke

4.102000Young Adult
Add

This powerful series follows Amy Fleming as she copes with the loss of her mother and struggles to continue the work at Heartland — a refuge for abused and abandoned horses.

Dare Me

Dare Me

Megan Abbott

3.232012Young Adult
Add

Addy Hanlon has always been Beth Cassidy's best friend and trusted lieutenant. Beth calls the shots and Addy carries them out, a long-established order of things that has brought them to the pinnacle of their high-school careers. Now they're seniors who rule the intensely competitive cheer squad, feared and followed by the other girls—until the young new coach arrives.Cool and commanding, an emissary from the adult world just beyond their reach, Coach Colette French draws Addy and the other cheerleaders into her life. Only Beth, unsettled by the new regime, remains outside Coach's golden circle, waging a subtle but vicious campaign to regain her position as "top girl"—both with the team and with Addy herself.Then a suicide focuses a police investigation on Coach and her squad. After the first wave of shock and grief, Addy tries to uncover the truth behind the death—and learns that the boundary between loyalty and love can be dangerous terrain.The raw passions of girlhood are brought to life in this taut, unflinching exploration of friendship, ambition, and power. A harrowing glimpse into the dark heart of the all-American girl.Endorsements"Tense, dark, and beautifully written" — Gillian Flynn"Total authority and an almost desperate intensity" — Tom Perrotta"Spectacular . . . It's Heathers meets Fight Club good." — Chelsea Cain, the New York Times Book Review

Codename Villanelle

Codename Villanelle

Luke Jennings

3.552014Thriller
Add

Villanelle (a codename, of course) is one of the world's most skilled assassins. A catlike psychopath whose love for the creature comforts of her luxurious lifestyle is second only to her love of the game, she specializes in murdering the world's richest and most powerful. But when she murders an influential Russian politician, she draws a relentless foe to her tail.Eve Polastri (not a codename) is a former MI6 operative hired by the national security services for a singular task: to find and capture or kill the assassin responsible, and those who have aided her. Eve, whose quiet and otherwise unextraordinary life belies her quick wit and keen intellect, accepts the mission.The ensuing chase will lead them on a trail around the world, intersecting with corrupt governments and powerful criminal organizations, all leading towards a final confrontation from which neither will emerge unscathed.Codename Villanelle is a sleek, fast-paced international thriller from an exciting new voice in fiction.EndorsementsThe breakneck thriller that inspired TV sensation Killing Eve, starring Sandra Oh.

Unorthodox

Unorthodox

Deborah Feldman

3.992012Religion
Add

As a member of the strictly religious Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman grew up under a code of relentlessly enforced customs governing everything from what she could wear and to whom she could speak, to what she was allowed to read. It was stolen moments spent with the empowered literary characters of Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott that helped her to imagine an alternative way of life. Trapped as a teenager in a sexually and emotionally dysfunctional marriage to a man she barely knew, the tension between Deborah’s desires and her responsibilities as a good Satmar girl grew more explosive until she gave birth at nineteen and realized that, for the sake of herself and her son, she had to escape.In the tradition of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel and Carolyn Jessop’s Escape.EndorsementsInstant New York Times bestseller.

You Don't Know Me

You Don't Know Me

Imran Mahmood

3.782017Thriller
Add

An unnamed defendant stands accused of murder. Just before the Closing Speeches, the young man sacks his lawyer, and decides to give his own defence speech.He tells us that his barrister told him to leave some things out. Sometimes, the truth can be too difficult to explain or believe. But he thinks that if he's going to go down for life, he might as well go down telling the truth.There are eight pieces of evidence against him. As he talks us through them one by one, his life is in our hands. We, the reader — member of the jury — must keep an open mind until we hear the end of his story. His defence raises many questions... but at the end of the speeches, only one matters:Did he do it?

The Duke and I

The Duke and I

Julia Quinn

3.732000Romance
Add

This is the story of Daphne Bridgerton and the Duke: welcome to the ballrooms of Regency London...Can there be any greater challenge to London’s Ambitious Mamas than an unmarried duke? Lady Whistledown’s Society Papers, April 1813By all accounts, Simon Basset is on the verge of proposing to his best friend’s sister, the lovely – and almost-on-the-shelf – Daphne Bridgerton. But the two of them know the truth – it’s all an elaborate plan to keep Simon free from marriage-minded society mothers. And as for Daphne, surely she will attract some worthy suitors now that it seems a duke has declared her desirable...Their ruse works like a charm – at first. But as Daphne waltzes across ballroom after ballroom with Simon, it’s hard to remember that their courtship is a complete sham. Maybe it’s his devilish smile, certainly it’s the way his eyes seem to burn every time he looks at her. It wasn’t the plan, but it seems she’s falling for the duke, for real. And amidst the glittering, gossipy, cut-throat world of London’s elite, there is only one certainty: love ignores every rule...Find out why readers love Julia Quinn...

Blood of Elves

Blood of Elves

Andrzej Sapkowski

4.101994Adventure
Add

Geralt, the witcher of Rivia, is back — and this time he holds the fate of the whole land in his hands ...For more than a hundred years, humans, dwarves, gnomes and elves lived together in relative peace. But times have changed, the uneasy peace is over and now the races once again fight each other — and themselves: dwarves are killing their kinsmen, and elves are murdering humans and elves, at least those elves who are friendly to humans...Into this tumultuous time is born a child for whom the witchers of the world have been waiting. Ciri, the granddaughter of Queen Calanthe, the Lioness of Cintra, has strange powers and a stranger destiny, for prophecy names her the Flame, one with the power to change the world — for good, or for evil ...Geralt, the witcher of Rivia, has taken Ciri to the relative safety of the Witchers' Settlement, but it soon becomes clear that Ciri isn't like the other witchers. As the political situation grows ever dimmer and the threat of war hangs almost palpably over the land, Geralt searches for someone to train Ciri's unique powers. But someone else has an eye on the young girl, someone who understands exactly what the prophecy means — and exactly what Ciri's power can do.This time Geralt may have met his match.

The Haunting of Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House

Shirley Jackson

4.151959Horror
Add

Four seekers have arrived at the rambling old pile known as Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of psychic phenomena; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Luke, the adventurous future inheritor of the estate; and Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman with a dark past. As they begin to cope with chilling, even horrifying occurrences beyond their control or understanding, they cannot possibly know what lies ahead. For Hill House is gathering its powers - and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

Killing Floor

Killing Floor

Lee Child

4.231997Thriller
Add

Killing Floor by Lee Child introduces Reacher for the first time: a tough ex-military cop of no fixed abode, trained to think fast and act faster.Margrave is a no-account little town in Georgia. Jack Reacher steps off a bus and walks fourteen miles in the rain to reach it, in search of a dead guitar player.But Margrave has just had its first homicide in thirty years, and Reacher is the only stranger in town. He seems the obvious fall guy. As the body count mounts, only one thing is for sure: they picked the wrong guy to frame for murder.He is the perfect action hero for when times get tough.

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables

L.M. Montgomery

4.431908Young Adult
Add

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.

The Summer I Turned Pretty

The Summer I Turned Pretty

Jenny Han

3.872009Romance
Add

Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer—they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one terrible and wonderful summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.

Heartstopper 2

Heartstopper 2

Alice Oseman

4.422019Romance
Add

Nick and Charlie are best friends. Nick knows Charlie's gay, and Charlie is sure that Nick isn't.But love works in surprising ways, and Nick is discovering all kinds of things about his friends, his family ... and himself.Heartstopper, by Alice Oseman, is about friendship, loyalty and mental illness. It encompasses all the small moments of Nick and Charlie's lives that together make up something larger, which speaks to all of us.Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. An LGBTQ+ graphic novel about life, love, and everything that happens in between. This is the second volume of the Heartstopper series.Endorsements'Absolutely delightful. Sweet, romantic, kind. Beautifully paced. I loved this book.' — Rainbow Rowell, author of Carry On'The queer graphic novel we wished we had at high school.' — Gay TimesAlice Oseman — winner of the YA Book Prize.Heartstopper was Children's #1 bestseller in the TCM chart on 23 April 2022.

The Bad Beginning

The Bad Beginning

Lemony Snicket

4.221999Adventure
Add

Dear Reader,I'm sorry to say that the book you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe. From the very first page of this book when the children are at the beach and receive terrible news, continuing on through the entire story, disaster lurks at their heels. One might say they are magnets for misfortune.In this short book alone, the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, and cold porridge for breakfast.It is my sad duty to write down these unpleasant tales, but there is nothing stopping you from putting this book down at once and reading something happy, if you prefer that sort of thing.With all due respect,Lemony Snicket

Kristy's Great Idea

Kristy's Great Idea

Raina Telgemeier

4.152006Young Adult
Add

Witness Kristy's eureka moment, when she gets the idea for a "baby-sitters club" and enlists her best friends, shy Mary Anne and artistic Claudia, in an exciting new venture. But the baby-sitting business isn't the only thing absorbing their attention: Kristy is having a hard time accepting her stepdad-to-be, and the newest member of the gang, Stacey, seems to be hiding a secret.

The Magicians

The Magicians

Lev Grossman

4.132009Urban Fantasy
Add

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.A thrilling and original coming-of-age novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world.

Shadow and Bone

Shadow and Bone

Leigh Bardugo

3.912012Romance
Add

Soldier. Summoner. Saint.Orphaned and expendable, Alina Starkov is a soldier who knows she may not survive her first trek across the Shadow Fold — a swath of unnatural darkness crawling with monsters. But when her regiment is attacked, Alina unleashes dormant magic not even she knew she possessed.Now Alina will enter a lavish world of royalty and intrigue as she trains with the Grisha, her country's magical military elite — and falls under the spell of their notorious leader, the Darkling. He believes Alina can summon a force capable of destroying the Shadow Fold and reuniting their war-ravaged country, but only if she can master her untamed gift.As the threat to the kingdom mounts and Alina unlocks the secrets of her past, she will make a dangerous discovery that could threaten all she loves and the very future of a nation.Welcome to Ravka... a world of science and superstition where nothing is what it seems.Enter the Grishaverse with book one of the Shadow and Bone Trilogy. Perfect for fans of Laini Taylor and Sarah J. Maas.EndorsementsNumber-one New York Times-bestselling author Leigh Bardugo.

Watchmen #1

Watchmen #1

Alan Moore

4.461986Fantasy
Add

Featuring the first appearance of Rorschach, Ozymandias, Dr. Manhattan, Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, and the Comedian! When the Comedian dies, a series of events are set into motion that bring the world ever closer to a deadly threat no one saw coming.

You

You

Caroline Kepnes

3.582014Thriller
Add

When a beautiful, aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder.A terrifying exploration of how vulnerable we all are to stalking and manipulation.

American Gods

American Gods

Neil Gaiman

4.342001Science Fiction Fantasy
Add

Released from prison, Shadow finds his world turned upside down. His wife has been killed; a mysterious stranger offers him a job. But Mr. Wednesday, who knows more about Shadow than is possible, warns that a storm is coming — a battle for the very soul of America... and they are in its direct path.One of the most talked-about books of the new millennium, American Gods is a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth and across an American landscape at once eerily familiar and utterly alien. It is, quite simply, a contemporary masterpiece.

The Mirror & the Light

The Mirror & the Light

Hilary Mantel

4.462020Historical Fiction
Add

‘If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?’England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, before Jane dies giving birth to the male heir he most craves.Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him?With The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Helen Fielding

3.382013Romance
Add

Is it morally wrong to have a blow-dry when one of your children has head lice?Is technology now the fifth element? Or is that wood?Is sleeping with someone after 2 dates and 6 weeks of texting the same as getting married after 2 meetings and 6 months of letter writing in Jane Austen's day?Pondering these, and other modern dilemmas, Bridget Jones stumbles through the challenges of single-motherhood, tweeting, texting and rediscovering her sexuality in what some people rudely and outdatedly call 'middle age'.Bridget's back. Britain's favourite singleton returns in another laugh-out-loud number one bestseller. Mad About the Boy is timely, tender, touching, witty, wise and bloody hilarious.Endorsements'I laughed, I cried and most of all loved' — Daily Mail

The Night Agent

The Night Agent

Matthew Quirk

4.002019Espionage
Add

To save America from a catastrophic betrayal, an idealistic young FBI agent must stop a Russian mole in the White House.No one was more surprised than FBI Agent Peter Sutherland when he's tapped to work in the White House Situation Room. From his earliest days as a surveillance specialist, Peter had scrupulously done everything by the book, hoping his record would help him escape the taint of his past. When Peter was a boy, his father, a section chief in FBI counterintelligence, was suspected of selling secrets to the Russians—a catastrophic breach that cost him his career, his reputation, and eventually his life.Peter knows intimately how one broken rule can cost lives. Nowhere is he more vigilant than in this room, the sanctum of America’s secrets. Staffing the night action desk, his job is monitoring an emergency line for a call that has not—and might never—come.Until tonight.At 1:05 a.m. the phone rings. A terrified young woman named Rose tells Peter that her aunt and uncle have just been murdered and that the killer is still in the house with her. Before their deaths, they gave her this phone number with urgent instructions: "Tell them OSPREY was right. It's happening..."The call thrusts Peter into the heart of a conspiracy years in the making, involving a Russian mole at the highest levels of the government. Anyone in the White House could be the traitor. Anyone could be corrupted. To save the nation, Peter must take the rules into his own hands and do the right thing, no matter the cost. He plunges into a desperate hunt for the traitor—a treacherous odyssey that pits him and Rose against some of Russia’s most skilled and ruthless operatives and the full force of the FBI itself.Peter knows that the wider a secret is broadcast, the more dangerous it gets for the people at the center. With the fate of the country on the line, he and Rose must evade seasoned assassins and maneuver past jolting betrayals to find the shocking truth—and stop the threat from inside before it's too late.To find a Russian mole in the White House, an FBI agent must question everything... and trust no one. An exhilarating political thriller reminiscent of the early novels of John Grisham and David Baldacci.

Long Bright River

Long Bright River

Liz Moore

4.042020Thriller
Add

Two sisters travel the same streets, though their lives couldn't be more different. Then, one of them goes missing.In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don't speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling.Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey's district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit—and her sister—before it's too late.Alternating its present-day mystery with the story of the sisters' childhood and adolescence, Long Bright River is at once heart-pounding and heart-wrenching: a gripping suspense novel that is also a moving story of sisters, addiction, and the formidable ties that persist between place, family, and fate.

The Leopard

The Leopard

Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

4.011958Historical Fiction
Add

In the spring of 1860, Fabrizio, the charismatic Prince of Salina, still rules over thousands of acres and hundreds of people, including his own numerous family, in mingled splendour and squalor. Then comes Garibaldi's landing in Sicily and the Prince must decide whether to resist the forces of change or come to terms with them.The Leopard is a modern classic which tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution.Endorsements'There is a great feeling of opulence, decay, love and death about it.' — Rick Stein'Every once in a while, like certain golden moments of happiness, infinitely memorable, one stumbles on a book or a writer, and the impact is like an indelible mark. Lampedusa's The Leopard, his only novel, and a masterpiece, is such a work.' — Independent'Perhaps the greatest novel of the century.' — L. P. Hartley'The poetry of Lampedusa's novel flows into the Sicilian countryside... a work of great artistry.' — Peter Ackroyd

The Better Sister

The Better Sister

Alafair Burke

3.782019Thriller
Add

When a prominent Manhattan lawyer is murdered, two estranged sisters—one the dead man’s widow, the other his ex—must set aside mistrust and old resentments . . . but can they escape their past?Though Chloe was the younger of the two Taylor sisters, she always seemed to be in charge. She was the honor roll student with big dreams and an even bigger work ethic. Nicky was always restless . . . and more than a little reckless—the opposite of her ambitious little sister. She floated from job to job and man to man, and stayed close to home in Cleveland.For a while, it seemed like both sisters had found happiness. Chloe earned a scholarship to an Ivy League school and moved to New York City, where she landed a coveted publishing job. Nicky married promising young attorney Adam Macintosh, and gave birth to a baby boy they named Ethan. The Taylor sisters became virtual strangers.Now, more than fifteen years later, their lives are drastically different—and Chloe is married to Adam. When he’s murdered by an intruder at the couple’s East Hampton beach house, Chloe reluctantly allows her teenaged stepson’s biological mother—her estranged sister, Nicky—back into her life. But when the police begin to treat Ethan as a suspect in his father’s death, the two sisters are forced to unite . . . and to confront the truth behind family secrets they have tried to bury in the past.A twisty tale of domestic noir.EndorsementsNew York Times bestselling author — Alafair Burke

All Systems Red

All Systems Red

Martha Wells

4.502017Science Fiction Fantasy
Add

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."In a corporate-dominated, space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.

We Were Liars

We Were Liars

E. Lockhart

4.022014Romance
Add

A beautiful and distinguished family. A private island. A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy. A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive. A revolution. An accident. A secret. Lies upon lies. True love. The truth.We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel. Read it. And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.EndorsementsNational Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Washington Black

Washington Black

Esi Edugyan

3.962018Race
Add

Washington Black is an eleven-year-old field slave who knows no other life than the Barbados sugar plantation where he was born.When his master's eccentric brother chooses him to be his manservant, Wash is terrified of the cruelties he is certain await him. But Christopher Wilde, or "Titch," is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor, and abolitionist.He initiates Wash into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky; where two people, separated by an impossible divide, might begin to see each other as human; and where a boy born in chains can embrace a life of dignity and meaning. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Titch abandons everything to save him.What follows is their flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic, where Wash, left on his own, must invent another new life, one which will propel him further across the globe.From the sultry cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, Washington Black tells a story of friendship and betrayal, love and redemption, of a world destroyed and made whole again — and asks the question, what is true freedom?

We'll Always Have Summer

We'll Always Have Summer

Jenny Han

3.772011Romance
Add

Just when Isabel thinks she had everything mapped out, life proves that when it comes to love, you can never have all the answers...Isabel has only ever loved two boys, Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher. She's grown up with them, and can't imagine life without them.One broke her heart, the other made her happier than she ever thought she'd be.But each brother is keeping a secret from Isabel, and this summer she must choose between the Fisher boys, once and for all. Which brother will it be?Book 3 in the The Summer I Turned Pretty series, now a major TV show on Amazon Prime! The heart-wrenching final part in the bestselling The Summer I Turned Pretty series, perfect for fans of the Netflix smash-hit movies To All The Boys I've Loved Before and The Kissing Booth. One girl. Two boys. The biggest decision of her life. This funny, romantic book is the breathtaking conclusion to the love triangle that kept tens of thousands of fans guessing, and is the perfect story to lose yourself in!Endorsements"This book has what every girl wants in a summer." — Sarah Dessen

Down Cemetery Road

Down Cemetery Road

Mick Herron

3.902003Espionage
Add

CWA Gold Dagger winner Mick Herron's debut novel introduces Sarah Tucker, whose search for a missing child unravels a murderous conspiracy. When a house explodes in a quiet Oxford suburb and a young girl disappears in the aftermath, Sarah Tucker—a young married woman, bored and unhappy with domestic life—becomes obsessed with finding her. Accustomed to dull chores in a childless household and hosting her husband’s wearisome business clients for dinner, Sarah suddenly finds herself questioning everything she thought she knew, as her investigation reveals that people long believed dead are still among the living, while the living are fast joining the dead. What begins in a peaceful neighborhood reaches its climax on a remote, unwelcoming Scottish island as the search puts Sarah in league with a man who finds himself being hunted down by murderous official forces.

Save Me

Save Me

Mona Kasten

4.002018Romance
Add

Money, glamour, luxury, power—Ruby Bell couldn’t be less interested in these things if she tried. After being awarded a scholarship to one of England’s most prestigious and expensive private schools, Maxton Hall, all she wants is to keep her head down, work hard, and get accepted to Oxford. She keeps her distance from everyone, especially the arrogant, rich, and extremely handsome James Beaufort, ringleader of the school’s party boys.When Ruby discovers a scandalous secret about the Beauforts, she is suddenly on James’s radar. It only gets worse when James is forced to work with her to plan the school's annual gala. Yet the more time they spend together, the more they realize they share much more than they thought.Falling for James Beaufort was never part of her plan, yet Ruby can’t help but let her feelings sweep her away. But James must make a decision: will he choose what’s expected of him, or what he feels for her?They come from different worlds, and yet they are meant for each other.

The Sea of Monsters

The Sea of Monsters

Rick Riordan

4.312006Adventure
Add

I've almost made it a year without one of my teachers turning into a monster. Just one more day to go. Surely even I can get through that?Percy Jackson's life has been surprisingly quiet since he stopped all-out war on Mount Olympus. That is, until an innocent game of dodgeball turns monstrously ugly...Now Camp Half-Blood — the only safe place on earth for demigods like Percy — is under attack, and unless he can find the magical Golden Fleece, everything he's come to love will be destroyed.Percy and his friends must journey into the Sea of Monsters to save their camp. But as the son of the sea god — how hard can this quest be?Half boy — half god — all hero.

Forever . . .

Forever . . .

Judy Blume

3.621975Romance
Add

There's a first for everything.When you build up something in your mind—really imagine it, wish for it—sometimes, when it actually happens, it doesn't live up to your expectations.True love is nothing like that.Especially not for Katherine and Michael, who can't get enough of each other. Their relationship is unique: sincere, intense, and fun all at the same time. Although they haven't been together all that long, they know it's serious. A whole world opens up as young passion and sexuality bloom.But it's senior year of high school, and there are big changes ahead. Michael and Katherine are destined for another big "first": a decision. Is this the love of a lifetime, or the very beginning of a lifetime of love?

The Hunting Wives

The Hunting Wives

May Cobb

3.482021Thriller
Add

Obsession: Sophie O'Neill left behind the stressful, competitive life of big-city Chicago to settle down with her husband and young son in a small Texas town. It seems like the perfect life, but Sophie soon becomes bored and restless.Seduction: Then she meets Margot Banks, an alluring socialite who is part of an elite clique secretly known as the Hunting Wives. Sophie finds herself completely drawn to Margot and swept into her mysterious world of late-night target practice and dangerous partying. As Sophie's curiosity gives way to full-blown obsession, she slips farther away from the safety of her family and deeper into this nest of vipers.Murder: When the body of a teenage girl is discovered in the woods where the Hunting Wives meet, Sophie finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation and her life spiralling out of control.Endorsements'Intelligent and clever' — A.J. Finn'Impossible to put down' — Samantha Downing'Sultry, salacious and utterly unpredictable' — Riley Sager'Sultry, salacious and utterly unpredictable. The Hunting Wives is the kind of book your mother warned you about.' — Riley Sager, author of Home Before Dark'Blend Big Little Lies and Lucy Foley's The Guest List, instant classics both. Add a jigger of The Stepford Wives, a shot of Texas whiskey, shake it like you mean it, and pour to serve.' — A.J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window'It's such a perfect book — clever, sexy and so gripping.' — Clare Empson'A seething nest of betrayal, lust and violence in an uber privileged world where nothing is as it seems.' — Araminta Hall