New in April26

It’s 1977 and an air of restlessness has settled on the residents of Cambridge Road in Rochester, New York. When Nina Larkin is given a copy of The Joy of Sex by her newly divorced friend, she can no longer dismiss the nearly non-existent intimacy of her marriage. Just as her oldest child, Clara, is falling in love for the first time, Nina finds herself longing for a midlife awakening. An intoxicating fling with a neighbour brings Nina a freedom she never thought possible—but also risks the reputations of both families and unravels Clara’s world, just as she stands on the threshold of adulthood.Years later, Clara, now a successful food stylist in New York City, has never been able to move past the long-ago scandal. Drawn back home by the pull of a family wedding and wrestling with her own demons, she makes a pivotal decision that turns her life upside down.Written with Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s signature humor and insight, Lake Effect is a wise and probing look at love and desire, mothers and daughters, loss and grief, and what we owe the people we love most.A stunning new novel about adultery, first love, and other family secrets.EndorsementsFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nest.'I could not put it down!' — Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures

Eriko’s life looks perfect—from her prestigious job at a Japanese trading firm to her spotless apartment and devoted parents. Her newest project, to reintroduce the controversial Nile Perch into the Japanese market, is as ambitious as she is. But beneath her flawless surface lies a consuming loneliness. Eriko has never been able to hold on to a real friend.Enter a popular lifestyle blogger whose work Eriko follows obsessively. Shoko lives a life of controlled chaos—messy apartment, take-out dinners, a kind, easygoing husband. She writes about daily contentment, though her fractured relationship with her father gnaws at the edges of her happiness.When Eriko orchestrates a "chance" meeting with Shoko, the two women strike up an unlikely connection. For a fleeting moment, Eriko believes she’s finally found what she’s always longed for. But as her fascination turns to fixation and Shoko’s carefully balanced life begins to dissolve, both women are pushed to breaking points neither of them saw coming.Deftly translated by Polly Barton, Hooked is a taut, provocative novel about modern womanhood, the hunger for connection, and the quiet, ordinary ways our lives can spiral out of control. With razor-sharp insight and disarming empathy, Asako Yuzuki explores how far we’ll go to be seen and what happens when the ones who see us don’t like what they find.

Upward Bound is not a place anyone dreams of spending their days. The dreary adult daycare center for Los Angeles’s disabled community is, for many of its clients and staff, a place of last resort. This includes Carlos, a young aide who lost his mother as a boy and now works there alongside his beloved sister, Mariana; Jorge, the gentle nonspeaking giant whom Carlos seeks to befriend (and prevent from escaping); Tom, a beautiful young man with cerebral palsy who pines for Ann, the summer lifeguard at the center’s pool who feels out of her depth. Then there’s Dave, Upward Bound’s director, who came to L.A. to pursue an acting career but now channels his passion into staging an overly ambitious holiday show starring the center’s irrepressible clients. Framing these intertwined narratives—and connecting them in surprising, shattering ways—is the riveting and sometimes ironic testimony of Walter, a recent community college graduate who, after a family tragedy, must return to the company of his disabled peers.In Upward Bound, Woody Brown has created an indelible, authentic, and profoundly moving group portrait of autism and other disabilities, all illuminated by his empathy, sly sense of humor, and enormous gifts as a novelist. With remarkable sophistication, insight, and creativity, Brown depicts a community too-often invisible in literature and society. Filled with characters you won’t soon forget, Upward Bound will inspire and touch you, teaching you as much about yourself as the tender, miraculous world behind the center’s doors.EndorsementsA wondrous, deeply affecting portrait of the interlocking lives at an adult day care center in Southern California, depicting an often overlooked community with extraordinary wit and grace — Publishers Weekly“Implosive and wonderfully inspirational.” — Paul Beatty“Great characters, great pace, great story—reading Upward Bound is a complicated joy.” — Roddy Doyle“It will change the way you look at the world.” — Angie Kim“Woody Brown accomplishes the seemingly impossible.” — Mona Simpson

From Alex Aster, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Lightlark series, comes her first adult romantasy. Enter the world of Starside , where swords wield magic and power is not inherited...but claimed.Hundreds of years ago, a brutal war split a land in two. Starside is the realm of magic and immortals—the descendants of the gods, living in a power-rich paradise. Stormside is where mortals fight for scraps of that magic.Every fifty years, the gates between them open, and fifty challengers are allowed to journey across Starside on a deadly quest to access a pool of magic that can heal, grant wealth, or extend life. Everyone has their reasons for entering, but Aris has only vengeance. As a child, a goddess set fire to her village, killing her family. Aris isn’t after the gods’ magic—she’s going to kill them.First, she must survive the Culling, the king’s deadly competition to choose his fifty challengers. An orphaned blacksmith’s apprentice, Aris doesn’t have the superior weapons of the heirs from the Great Houses. But the greatest swords—ones that contain power—are not inherited or bought, they are claimed, by both sides. And when Aris claims a great sword, it makes her not just a real competitor—but a target.Getting past the gates is only the beginning. Starside is deadlier than it seems. If the ancient creatures, magic-wielding beasts, and bloodthirsty immortals weren’t dangerous enough, a new peril has even immortals fearing what rises from the ground at night. With a blade most would kill to claim, Aris can’t trust anyone. Especially not Harlan Raker, the merciless and mysterious king’s guard who betrayed her years ago—and who may now be the key to her survival.But Aris is hiding a secret tied to her family’s death. And when it’s revealed, not even the gods will be able to stop what’s coming…

In The Meaning of Your Life, social scientist and happiness expert Arthur Brooks reveals how modern society and technology have rewired our brains, making it harder to find purpose. This growing sense of emptiness, especially among young people, is real and can be devastating. But there is hope.With compassion and practical advice, Brooks provides a roadmap to rediscovering meaning. You'll take a test to understand your current place on the journey, learn evidence-based strategies to rewire your brain, and develop a new vocabulary for your desires.Most importantly, Brooks will show you where to search for the transcendence, vocation and significance that are your birthright as a human being. ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ is not an unanswerable question, but the road to an answer is a long one. The Meaning of Your Life is your essential guide for the journey.A powerful guide to finding meaning in a rapidly changing world. Your life does have meaning — and you can find it.

We all know what happened to Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn. But what if she woke up the day after her execution and took it upon herself to seek justice?“Nobody was surprised at Anne’s conviction. The world loves to put a woman in her place.”The Beheading Game begins in the hours after Anne Boleyn’s beheading, when she wakes to find herself unceremoniously in an arrow chest, her head wrapped in linen at her knees. Discarded by King Henry VIII for not giving him a male heir, reviled by Cromwell for being too smart for her own good, and executed based on trumped-up charges, Anne escapes the tower, sews her head back on, and sets out on a quest for vengeance.Traveling in the guise of a commoner, with the help of a prostitute, Anne navigates the London streets she never before walked and soon realizes how little she knew about life in the real world. An epic journey through the wilds of British royal history and a prescient reminder that “mouthy” women have always been punished, The Beheading Game finally allows one of history’s most maligned women a chance to tell her side of the story.Disgraced. Beheaded. And out for revenge... If Kelly Link had teamed up with Hilary Mantel, the result might be The Beheading Game.

Rites of the Starling is the epic, heart-pounding sequel to Devney Perry’s Shield of Sparrows. A princess journeys across a cursed realm to find the truth about her family, only to discover her quest intertwines with the fate of a lost warrior. Love, danger and magic collide in a captivating romantasy.Calandra’s five kingdoms are on the verge of destruction. The crux migration is coming. And in the wake of a devastating attack, I’ve been separated from the man who owns my heart.I’m lost. Terrified. Homesick. Hunted by monsters, driven to exhaustion, and kidnapped by a powerful priest, the only thing keeping me going is the little girl counting on me to keep her safe. It’s my turn to become the Guardian.Our lives change one fateful night. A night of death. A night of monsters. A night of truths. That night, I learn the real meaning of fear—and the depth of my own strength.Everyone wants me to be something I’m not—a queen, a spy, a sacrifice. But what if I embrace my crown? What if the secrets I uncover save our realm?What if my sacrifice means salvation for the man I love?For too long, I’ve feared the monsters we make.It’s time to discover the monster within.Perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros.EndorsementsDevney Perry’s #1 New York Times–bestselling Shield of Sparrows.

A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1805—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the Republican equivalent of a Kennedy? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a brutal reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.

Handsome, talented, and beloved by (almost) everyone, Sebastian Laurent is used to being on top. The heir to a culinary empire, his sharp instincts and effortless charm have made him a legend.What people don't see are the demons lurking beneath his golden-boy facade. There's only one person who's come close to knowing the real him—Maya Singh, his childhood rival and secret obsession.She's also the only one who's ever successfully challenged him. He can't stand her, but if that's true…why can't he stop thinking about her?Smart, witty, and competitive to a fault, top marketing executive Maya Singh is used to winning—unless her opponent is Sebastian. It's something that's infuriated and motivated her entire life.So when a series of unfortunate events forces her to work with her sworn enemy, she's determined to one-up him and show the world who's the best once and for all.What she didn't count on? Not hating their time together. To her horror, she might even…like it.She's his greatest rival…and his greatest weakness. There may be a thin line between love and hate, but that's one line she'll never cross. Not with him. Not ever.

There are two kinds of people no one ever expects to be: little girls and old ladies.Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She's lived on her idyllic street for sixty years—longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past she's worked exceedingly hard at concealing—because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.

On the barren plains of the Kazakh Steppe, Alyssa Wright stands on the brink of the most ambitious space flight in a one-way mission to Mars. But when disaster strikes, she begins to uncover a conspiracy that threatens her life — and the lives of everyone on board.In Hong Kong, a coder vanishes from his home, leaving nothing behind but a cryptic warning and his cat. Pursued by violent forces, his sister finds herself on the run, in possession of the one thing capable of saving him.Amidst a dark vacuum of nothingness, as the Argo spaceship hurtles toward Mars, the crew realise that someone is sabotaging the mission from the inside. Every second brings them closer to catastrophe, and time is running out.One small step. One fatal mistake. Across Earth and space, three stories collide in a breathless thriller that asks: What is the price of progress, and who must pay it?

Ride along with historian Beverly Gage as she travels the country to see the museums, historic sites, roadside attractions, reenactments, and souvenir shops where Americans learn—and fight—about our history. From the birth of the nation in Philadelphia to Disneyland and the California dream, This Land Is Your Land offers a guided tour of thirteen places and thirteen key moments that define America’s greatest successes and challenges.The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a document that proclaimed the liberty and equality of all human beings, but produced a country that often failed to agree upon—or live up to—those ideals. This Land Is Your Land is for everyone who wants to find that history—to experience it and confront it, to celebrate it and condemn it—in the places where it happened.In our fraught moment for American patriotism, Gage shows that Americans can face their past and still love their country.Toss the book in the back seat—or listen on audio with the windows down—and join the journey.EndorsementsPulitzer Prize–winning author of G-Man and acclaimed historian Beverly Gage

Ada lives a solitary life. She spends her days in her London apartment building's swimming pool, occasionally visiting with her cousin Francesca and meeting her friends, each of them chatting, drinking, posing invitations that Ada ignores. Ada's parents are recently divorced after her father became a regular; he spends his days at the gym, which is crowded and bright, warm with human proximity, infrequently calling to express minor concerns around his daughter's well-being.When she meets a man named Atticus by the pool, Ada immediately feels an intimate connection with him, as if they share a life in a way she can't explain. Little by little, Ada's estrangement from her familiar surroundings and from reality widens, as though seeing her reflection through a mirror, pieces of it falling away. After her mother entreats Ada to join her on a remote Greek holiday, Ada is jolted out of the physical world and into a new, artificial environment, one that a mysterious and potentially otherworldly force has created and designed for her. As this brilliant first novel pivots with masterful effect into the surreal and speculative, we move through Ada's experiences of life like spokes on a wheel, profoundly surprised by the enduring mystery of our existence, and of our relationships with ourselves and others. When a person's life, in the odd space between mind and body, is inherently one of isolation, are our connections with those around us merely projections of ourselves? And if not, where do they come from?For readers of Megan Nolan and Sheila Heti, a mesmerizing Borgesian literary debut about the frayed borders between our bodies and minds.

In a near future, where even the smallest of appliances are sentient, a young Roomba vacuum sets out to save the humans of her house from a rising technological power in this compelling, original novel.In a self-running, smart house, a young and sentient Roomba listens as her owner, Harold, reads aloud to his dying wife, Edie. Mesmerized by To Kill a Mockingbird and craving the human connection she witnesses in Harold’s stories, the little vacuum renames herself Scout and embarks on a journey of self-discovery.But when Edie passes away, Scout and her fellow sentient appliances discover that there are sinister forces in their midst. The omnipresent Grid, which monitors every household in the City, seeks to remove Harold from his home, a place he’s lived in for fifty years.With the help of Adrian, a neighborhood boy who grows close to Scout and Harold, as well as Kate, Harold and Edie’s formerly estranged daughter, the humans and the appliances must come together to outwit the all-controlling Grid lest they risk losing everything they hold dear.

In 2019, a London teenager, Zac Brettler, mysteriously fell to his death from a luxury apartment building on the banks of the Thames. When his grieving parents began their desperate quest to understand how their son had died, they made a terrible discovery: Zac had been leading a fantasy life, posing as the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch.In his inimitably gripping and forensic prose, Patrick Radden Keefe follows Zac's parents on a dark journey to find out what brought Zac to the balcony that night — and how a teenager's world of make-believe drew him into the city's terrifying underworld.London Falling is at once a devastating family tragedy, a riveting story of greed, power and deception, and an indictment of the culture that has transformed London into a haven for the malignant forces that have come to influence us all.A stunning story of corruption and tragedy in one of the world's great cities, London.EndorsementsFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing.Baillie Gifford Prize winner and New Yorker writer — Patrick Radden Keefe"A new book by Keefe means drop everything and close the blinds; you'll be turning pages for hours" — Los Angeles Times"Patrick Radden Keefe [is] one of the top narrative nonfiction authors of his generation" — TIME

Adora Hazzard has it all figured out. A Stoic philosopher and divorcée, she lives a contented life on New York City’s Upper West Side. Having discovered that the secret to happiness is to desire only what you have, she’s applied this insight to blissful effect: relishing her teenage daughter, the freedom of being solo, and her job as a moral tutor for the twin boys of an old-money family. She’s even assembled a “coven”—like-minded women who live on the same floor in the legendary Ansonia—and is making active efforts to grow its membership. Adora’s carefully curated life is humming along brilliantly until a chance meeting with a handsome stranger.Soon, her ordered world is upended by black-market art deals, secret rendezvous, and international intrigue... and her past—which she has worked so hard to bury—lands like a bomb in her present. Inflamed by unquenchable desire, Adora finds herself a woman wanting more: and she’ll risk everything to get it.The New York Times bestselling author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette returns to form in her most exuberant and life-affirming novel yet with the story of one woman’s cheerful determination to live a life of the mind only to have the heart force its way in. Adora Hazzard’s journey of self-discovery will grip you from the start. Romantic, hilarious, intelligent, and bursting with the stuff of life, Go Gentle is a thrilling story of one woman’s mid-life transformation, cementing Maria Semple in the pantheon of our most exciting and important contemporary writers.Endorsements“Maria Semple is a treasure.” — Los Angeles Times

Thirteen years ago, Otta escaped the small town of Steels, intent upon becoming a marine biologist. Now she's returned, having failed to achieve her dream, and carrying the guilt of a friend's death during a deep-sea dive. She thinks she may never dive again, but then a stranger appears at her door.This stranger, May, says that her daughter has run away, and insists that she's under a nearby lake—alive.Because it turns out the small-town legend of "the underlake" is true: three decades ago, an entire valley and the town in it was flooded to make way for a dam, but the people in that town refused to leave.Now they're still living beneath the lake, self-proclaimed "refugees of a world obsessed with change," connected—and held apart—by an intricate, airtight system of tubes and sealed buildings. To find May's missing daughter, Otta and May must travel deeper and deeper under the water. Along the way, they'll discover communities that have lived in isolation for decades, fomenting extremes of delusion and nostalgia. As the two women bond in the thrall of their search, they are each forced to confront the layers of fear, control, and uncertainty that drive their quest. Together and alone, they must challenge the laws of love and society—and push their bodies to the mortal limit.A richly glittering debut about the interlocked fates of two women, raised worlds apart, who must join forces on an extraordinary journey, diving leagues beneath the water's surface—and straight into the fathomless heart of fear, forgiveness, and love. Hypnotic and arresting, Underlake asks: How do we claim our place on the great timeline of history, and who do we erase in the process? It brings a poet's attention to language, gesturing at the evocative and ethereal work of Preeta Samarasan and Marilynne Robinson, while also shrewdly exploring the American obsession with inheritance, property, and race. Finally, Underlake is a powerful meditation on what is possible when women reach through time, space, and memory to relate to one another.

“Thank you for your interest in our school, but we regret to inform you that…” You’re not special. You’re too average. You’re too boring.Well, in that case, she’ll have to show them just how interesting she can be.Elizabeth Zhang is well aware of her place in the world. She’s in the tenth percentile for likability, the seventieth percentile for attractiveness, and the ninety-ninth percentile for academics. While she’s never been the most beautiful or the most liked, she knows she has the intelligence and ambition to achieve her greatest dream: Harvard Law School.But when Harvard rejects Elizabeth for not standing out enough—which she knows means she's just another boring Asian female—her carefully constructed life falls apart. What shocks her even more is that Laura Kim, a classmate at Columbia, got in. Elizabeth can’t figure out how this could have happened. Why was Laura accepted? What makes her so interesting?At first, she follows her because she’s just curious. What Laura orders for lunch. Where Laura shops. What Laura’s hobbies are. All of these things must contribute to her overall package: what makes her an acceptable person to Harvard. But still, Elizabeth just can’t see it. The only thing she sees is that Laura has taken her spot.A spot that she knows she deserves after working so hard. A spot that she’ll simply have to take back.Layered and subversive, this novel brings to light how, in the face of societal expectations and self-inflicted pressures, a person can unlock the darkest parts of themselves and show how far they’re willing to go to achieve their vision of success.

In 1978, two tenements on Livonia Avenue in Brownsville burn to the ground, killing one resident and displacing dozens of others. It remains unclear who set the buildings ablaze, but the survivors are convinced the culprit is Mr. Wong.Who exactly is Mr. Wong, and what allegedly drove him to this extraordinary act of violence, is the question that consumes this novel as it plunges into four generations of Wong family history. First is Koon Lai, an immigrant who runs a Chinese restaurant on Livonia Avenue; second, his son Richard, a man desperate for his own chance at the American Dream; and third, Jason, a poet who seeks his escape in the bohemian counterculture of the 1970s, but finds himself an unwitting participant in Brooklyn’s gentrification. In the 21st century, Jason’s daughter Sadie returns to Brownsville as a journalist, determined to unravel the mystery of what happened decades earlier on the night the buildings blazed.Joining together the present and the past is the community organizer Lina Rodriguez Armstrong, who was also displaced by that fire and who has spent the intervening years fighting for the rights of Brownsville’s residents and organizing a Livonia Avenue community land trust.In the vein of Happiness Falls and Family Lore, a gripping story of family history and political upheaval centered around a Chinese family-owned restaurant in Brownsville, Brooklyn and its impact on the neighborhood’s Jewish and Black residents over the course of a century. A stunning debut from a new talent, Livonia Chow Mein contemplates how the American pursuit of freedom relies on a collective amnesia and challenges us to consider what it would take for us to truly live in harmony.

A son returning home. A dangerous debt. Secrets about to ignite... and a family consumed by flames.Roman Carruthers left the smoke and fire of his family's crematory business behind in his hometown of Jefferson Run, Virginia. He is enjoying a life of shallow excess as a financial adviser in Atlanta until he gets a call from his sister, Neveah, telling him their father is in a coma after a hit-and-run accident. When Roman goes home, he learns the accident may not be what it seems. His brother, Dante, is deeply in debt to dangerous, ruthless criminals.And Roman is willing to do anything to protect his family. Anything.A financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, Roman must use all his skills to try to save his family while dealing with a shadow that has haunted them all for twenty years: the disappearance of their mother when Roman and his siblings were teenagers. It's a mystery that Neveah, who has sacrificed so much of her life to hold her family together, is determined to solve once and for all.As fate and chance and heartache ignite their lives, the Carruthers family must pull together to survive or see their lives turn to ash. Because, as their father counseled them from birth, nothing lasts forever.Everything burns.

A deeply moving account of walking the Grand Canyon—a highly dangerous, life-changing 750-mile trek.The Grand Canyon is an American treasure, visited by more than 6 million people a year, many of whom are rendered speechless by its vast beauty, mystery, and complexity. In A Walk in the Park, Kevin Fedarko chronicles his year-long effort to find a 750-mile path along the length of the Grand Canyon, through a vertical wilderness suspended between the caprock of the rims and the Colorado River at its bottom.The canyon consists of countless cliffs and steep drops, immense stretches with almost no access to water, and not a single trail linking its eastern doorway to its western terminus. It is so challenging that when Fedarko departed fewer people had completed the journey in a single hike than had walked on the moon. The intensity of the effort required him to break his trip into several legs, each of which held staggering dangers and unexpected discoveries.Accompanying Fedarko through this sublime yet perilous terrain is the award-winning photographer Peter McBride, who captures the landscape in striking photographs. Together they encounter long-lost Native American ruins, the remains of Old West prospectors’ camps, present-day tribal activists, and signs that commercial tourism is impinging on the park’s remote wildness.An epic adventure, an action-packed survival tale, and a deep spiritual journey, A Walk in the Park gives an unprecedented glimpse of the crown jewel of America’s national parks—an iconic landscape framed by ancient rock whose contours are recognized by all, but whose secrets and treasures are known to almost no one, and whose topography encompasses some of the harshest, least explored, most awe-inspiring terrain in the world.

For Larissa, it came when choosing which guy to ride home with after a concert. That night, she had no idea she’d met the perfect man. She and Chris are great together, co-parenting a slightly unhinged rescue Yorkie, sharing their favorite books, and judging bread (pumpernickel for the win!). For the first time amid all her side hustles to scrape by, things finally feel easy.But Chris isn't the one who drove Larissa home all those months ago—Chris is her boyfriend's best friend. All Chris wants is for Larissa to be happy. Standing by on the sidelines is slowly killing him, but making a move would destroy someone else. And he’s just not that guy.In everyone’s life, there’s a split-second decision that can change everything...EndorsementsFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling author

A charming story about romance, friendship, and a love of books, in which two women—a lonely remote worker and a widowed single mom—and a handsome local bookstore clerk find themselves in an unusual love triangle when an anonymous note left in a book finds the wrong recipient.April, a smart and lonely tech worker, worries that working from home has gotten out of hand: she's left an anonymous note in a book for Westley, the clerk at her Seattle neighborhood bookstore who has a gentle smile and looks great in flannel. But thanks to fate, Laura—a busy single mom who had given up on love—buys the book, finds the note, and thinks Westley has left it for her. A handsome man who loves books seems like just the plot twist she has been looking for.Meanwhile, Westley—not the most perceptive—is too distracted by the movie filming at the store and the ambition it’s unlocked in him to notice either of the two women. But as April and Laura’s anonymous correspondence continues back and forth, their mundane routines are challenged, sparking a glimmer of hope. Is a happy ending in the cards for them?A hilarious and intricate web of mistaken identities and serendipitous encounters, Storybook Ending is a playful tribute to romance, friendship, and bookstores, and to the objects—from a forgotten slip of paper to someone’s heart—left between the pages of books we loved.

Oyster McLellen has spent his life causing mischief, running with a small-time gang and fleecing money from tourists in Hyde Park to support his struggling family in the absence of his father, who abandoned them years ago.When a simple money drop for his boss, Big Mickey, goes wrong, Oyster's future looks bleak. His only chance to redeem himself in the eyes of Mickey is to get the money back, but as he pursues the thieves across South London he suddenly finds himself washed up on a beach, surrounded by broken phones and shattered office furniture.His new world: Greater London. A city built on the detritus of our own, where leviathans crafted from broken skyscrapers roam the seas, where ink beetles nestle beneath the skin of its residents and where Oyster's father, Lucas, may well have gone all those years ago.But there are bigger things at stake. Oyster's allegiances are torn between the enigmatic Nonesuch, the eccentric escapist Marya Petrovna, and the terrifying Mr Primrose — and he will have to choose who to align himself with quickly. Because plans are afoot: something ancient is brewing, and a choice needs to be made, the consequences of which will determine the fate of Londons, and life, everywhere.Enter a London like no other in this fast-paced, captivating fantasy novel, perfect for fans of V.E. Schwab and Genevieve Cogman.

Audrey Barbour has had enough of following the rules. Eighteen years of being the perfect daughter—exceptional grades, enviable college acceptances, tame dating history—and still, her parents don’t trust her enough to let her study her passion, glassblowing, on a prestigious fellowship.So when her best friend Henry proposes an outrageous fake-dating scheme to win back his ex-girlfriend, it feels like the first step to shaking up her perfect life. And the second? That comes when Audrey’s parents go out of town, sparking a high-risk, high-reward solution to pay for her fellowship—renting out her family’s Connecticut mansion online. With the help of her new fake-boyfriend, it shouldn’t be hard to pull off… right?But when her best intentions start to unravel, Audrey will have to reckon with who she is, what she wants, and what it really means to play life by her rules—all with her heart on the line.The business of love gets messy when two best friends decide to fake a romantic relationship in this uproarious and gorgeously romantic novel, inspired by the 80s classic movie, Risky Business.

Senka lives between the realm of the Living and the realm of the Dead. As ward to Charon, the Ferryer of the Underworld, Senka assists in ferrying recently departed souls across the river and into their afterlife. Although Charon has taught her many Rules about life in the Underworld, there is much he avoids telling her. Though she doesn’t understand why the Rules are so important, she listens—she must heed them in order to become an official Ferryer, just like Charon.Then a Living girl, Poppy, enters the Underworld to plead for help in finding the ghost of her brother. Poppy’s grief tugs at Senka’s heart—but helping Poppy goes against the very Rules Senka is so desperate to follow. When Poppy is yanked away by the river’s current, Senka leaps to save her, and she and Poppy are swept downriver, far from everything Senka has ever known.Lost in the Underwild, Senka and Poppy encounter malevolent spirits of lore and eccentric ghosts—and not all are willing to let souls slip through their grasp. Senka knows the Living can’t stay in the realm of the Dead for long, and if Poppy isn’t returned home soon, she will risk becoming lost to the Underworld forever. But as Senka travels deeper into the Underwild, she discovers there are secrets her guardian has kept from her, including the mystery surrounding her own existence. As Poppy and Senka dodge angry demigods, hungry wraiths, and terrifying dragon chimera, Senka gets closer to learning the truth of her own past. Soon, Senka won’t just need to save Poppy’s life—she’ll also need to save her own.A stunning debut middle grade fantasy about a girl caught between the realms of the living and the dead who gets lost in the Underworld—perfect for fans of Greenwild and Rick Riordan.

Arthur Fletch, one of the world’s bestselling novelists, is a reclusive genius known for his iconic protagonists and fiendish twists. When six struggling authors are invited to spend a weekend on his private Scottish island, they arrive to discover a shocking secret: Arthur Fletch is dead . . . and his last book is unfinished.Desperate to publish the novel, Fletch’s agent and editor have summoned these writers in the hope that one of them will imagine a worthy ending for this final book. To sweeten the deal, they are offering an irresistible prize: in addition to ghost-writing the last chapter—for a mind-boggling sum—they will also help the lucky writer successfully re-launch their own career, guaranteeing future bestsellers. The catch: the writers have just seventy-two hours to finish Fletch’s magnum opus.A propulsive debut mystery from Evelyn Clarke, the brilliant and diabolical creation of Cat Clarke and V.E. Schwab. Six authors. One private island. Seventy-two hours to write the ending that will change their lives. Starting is often the hardest part. But getting to the end could be murder.Endorsements“Smart, original and completely addictive. . . . The Ending Writes Itself is both a great locked-room thriller and a brilliant satire on the publishing industry. An absolute must-read.” — Karin Slaughter

When Sydney and Mae meet on the playground as toddlers, it seems like kismet. Even their very different mothers — the type-A Beth Ann and the free-spirited Joni — agree the girls are made for each other, and it's not long before even the mothers become inseparable.Then a falling out draws them apart, and decades later, the loneliness still lingers for the newly pregnant Sydney. Adrift in the absence of her closest friend, Sydney has been drawn into a Multi-Level Marketing scheme, exacerbated by the demands of her inflexible mother, Beth Ann, whose constant scrutiny seems reserved only for her daughter.Across the city, Mae is stunned to find herself single, pregnant, and still haunted by the loss of her mercurial late mother, Joni, whose mysterious death holds as many unanswered questions as Mae does herself. Mae is an artist who has lived under the shadow of the one painting (of two girls) that made her famous years ago, the success of which confines as much as it defines her.When Sydney and Mae find themselves back in one another’s lives, each with a baby girl on the horizon, it once again seems like destiny. Each begins to pull the other away from the coercive influence of outsiders—mommy groups, marketing schemes, artistic pressures, and ex-boyfriends. But the two women will soon discover that it’s not destiny that has drawn them together this time, but a devastating secret at the center of their orbits—a truth that finally will bind them or shatter them, for good.An intimate and searing novel about mothers and daughters, and destiny and desire, Mothers and Other Strangers takes a full-hearted look at those relationships in life that are as impossible as they are utterly essential.For readers of Claire Lombardo and J. Courtney Sullivan, a moving and surprising story about two women, best friends since childhood, who reunite as expectant mothers after a mysterious falling out between their mothers (also best friends) keeps them apart for years—and who must finally contend with the secrets between them.