March 31 book releases brings a whole new stack, most anticipated book this week is Game On by Navessa Allen. Book #3 in the Into Darkness series, topping 81,000 want-to-reads on Goodreads.
Alongside this weekโs new releases, we published a few more posts that are worth checking out:
- Love Song by Elle Kennedy: The Next Generation of Manchildren
- Best Contemporary Romance Books: The Ultimate Reading List
Game On
I hate that woman.
Tyler Neumann has spent years looking for his father, and not because he wants to meet the man. No, he wants to destroy him. And he'll manipulate whoever he can to exact his revenge.
Including Stella McCormick. She's everything Tyler hates. Her wealth and privilege have protected her for her entire life, and Tyler thinks it's time she finally paid the price. Whether she's ready to or not.
I hate that man.
Stella might not believe in love at first sight, but loathing at first sight - no question. From the moment she sets eyes on Tyler in her tattoo parlor, she knows he's the devil planning to make her life hell.
Forced to play the part of his girlfriend and invite him into her family's glittering circles, Stella quickly clocks Tyler's ulterior motives. But love and hate are two sides of the same coin, and soon she doesn't know which is being blackmailed by a man who wants to ruin her, or that they can't seem to keep their hands off each other.
Game On is an enemies-to-lovers dark romance with morally grey characters. Some themes and scenes may be disturbing to readers. Please check the content warning at the beginning of the book.
Enemies-to-lovers
Forced proximity
Fake dating
Rom-com
Morally gray MMC
Black cat FMC
Blackmail
Kidnapping
Power imbalance
Age gap
Betrayal and redemption
Dark past
Revenge
What We Did to Survive
Hannah is having an incredible spring break. A week at a resort in Mexico with her best friend Emmy and her family is perfect for de-stressing from senior year, even if itโs awkward being around Emmy's older brother, Jackson, who sheโs had a crush on for as long as she can remember.
Still, the beach is gorgeous. So is the guy they meet in the surf. Except Hannah is now the third wheel in Emmyโs vacation romance.
Eager to impress Emmy, her wealthy new boyfriend charters a private sailboat to make the most of their last day in paradise, and Hannah and Jackson are invited along. As the clouds roll in and the skies darken, their boat is the only one leaving the marina. And the further they get into open water, the more unsettled Hannah becomes. A storm is brewing onboard thatโs as deadly as the one racing toward them. Forget surviving graduation. Who will make it back to land alive?
The Keeper
On a cold night in the remote Irish village of Arknakelty, a girl goes missing. Sweet, loving Rachel Holohan was about to be engaged to the son of the local big shot. Instead, sheโs dead in the river.
In a close-knit small town, a death like this isnโt simple. It comes wrapped in generations-old grudges and power struggles, and it splits the townland in two. Retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper has friends here now, and he owes them loyalty, but his fiancรฉe Lena wants nothing to do with Ardnakeltyโs tangles. As the feud becomes more vicious, their settled peace starts to crack apart. And when they uncover a scheme that casts a new light on Rachelโs death and threatens the whole village, they find themselves in the firing line.
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me
A heart-pounding epic from No. 1 New York Times bestselling author duo Ilona Andrews.
When Maggie wakes up cold, filthy and naked in a gutter, it doesnโt take her long to recognize Kair Toren. Itโs a city she knows intimately from the pages of a famously unfinished dark fantasy series โ one sheโs been obsessively reading and re-reading, while waiting years for the final novel.
Her only tools for navigating this gritty world of rival warlords, magic and mayhem? Her encyclopaedic knowledge of the plot, the setting and the charactersโ ambitions and fates. But while she quickly discovers she cannot be killed (though many will try!), the same cannot be said for the living, breathing characters sheโs coming to love โ a motley band that includes a former ladyโs maid, a deadly assassin, various outrageous magical creatures and a dangerously appealing soldier. Soon, instead of trying to return home, she finds herself enmeshed in the schemes โ and attentions โ of duelling princes, dukes and villains. This all while trying to save them and the kingdom of Rellas from the ending sheโs seen on the a cataclysmic war.
This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me is the beginning of the most epic adventure yet from genre powerhouse writing duo Ilona Andrews. For fans of Samantha Shannon, Sarah J. Maas, Danielle L. Jensen and isekai portal fantasy.
The Dinner Party
Choose from over 20 possible endings in this Pick Your Poison Adventure story!
You're broke. You have no way to pay your rent and you're about to be evicted.
Fortunately, your friend has offered you a job working as a waitress at a dinner partyโฆ at an isolated mansion way out on Peyton's Peak. The money will be enough to cover two months' rent and get you back on your feet. It's a golden opportunity that will solve all your problems.
But the whole thing sounds really sketchy. The money is great, but there's got to be some sort of awful catch. You should probably turn it down.
Right???
As it turns out, the choice is yours. YOU get to decide if you want to go to the creepy dinner party or stay home and read a book. YOU can decide if you want to pick up the disheveled hitchhiker on the side of the highway. YOU can choose to go left or right at the fork in the road. For once, the decision is entirely in your hands.
So what are you going to do?????
Nothing Tastes as Good
Retail worker Emmett Truesdale has never fit the Southern California mold of six-pack, suntanned masculinity. Over three hundred pounds, he carries the weight of his childhood trauma and millennial ennui around his waist and in his soul. After trying every diet under the sun, he remains stuckโin his dead-end job, in love, and in his body.
Desperate for help, he enrolls in a clinical trial for a new weight loss product called Obexity. The treatment is as horrifying as the results are miraculous and as Emmett sheds pounds at superhuman speed, every part of his life improves overnight.
Unfortunately, Obexity comes with some killer side effects, including lost stretches of time and overwhelming cravings. Worse, people who were cruel to him have started disappearing and when the police warn of a cannibalistic killer on the loose, he fears that Obexity is turning him into a monster. But how can he give it up now that people are finally starting to treat him like heโs human?
Nerve-racking, sinister, and at times surreal, Nothing Tastes as Good is an unputdownable thriller that combines The Substance with the best of Stephen King and keeps you guessing until the final page.
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Jenny Lawson is full of contradictions. Sheโs a celebrated author but battles self-doubt, paralysis, and anxiety. Sheโs an award-winning humorist but struggles with treatment-resistant depression. The question sheโs most often asked by people is โHow do you do it? How do you keep going even when it feels impossible? How do you keep creating?โ This book is her answer.
In How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay, Jenny shares one hundred humorous, heartfelt, and genuine tools and tricks that she relies on to keep her going even when her brain isnโt working properly due to depression, anxiety, and ADHD. She also offers tips to stay passionate and focused on creative endeavors, especially when everything around you is saying to give up.
With chapters like โWash Your Brain More Than You Wash Your Braโ (sleep, you beautiful human), โWork on Easy Modeโ (asking for accommodations is okay!), โCelebrate Good Times, Come On!โ (make it a habit to celebrate the good things), and many more, How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay is a balm and companion, reminding us all that we are not alone. Itโs for anyone who struggles with self-doubt, guilt, motivation, and mental blocks and wants to rekindle their passion for creating. Funny, simple, empathetic, and inspirational, it will encourage you not to just survive but to find and curate joy in the face of difficult times.
Starside
Hundreds of years ago, a brutal war split a land in two. Starside is the realm of magic and immortalsโthe 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 isnโt after the godsโ magicโsheโs going to kill them.
First, she must survive the Culling, the kingโs deadly competition to choose his fifty challengers. An orphaned blacksmithโs apprentice, Aris doesnโt have the superior weapons of the heirs from the Great Houses. But the greatest swordsโones that contain powerโare not inherited or bought, they are claimed, by both sides. And when Aris claims a great sword, it makes her not just a real competitorโbut 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 werenโt 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 canโt trust anyone. Especially not Harlan Raker, the merciless and mysterious kingโs guard who betrayed her years agoโand who may now be the key to her survival.
But Aris is hiding a secret tied to her familyโs death. And when itโs revealed, not even the gods will be able to stop whatโs comingโฆ
Killing Me Softly
Charlie and Freya used to be the picture-perfect couple everyone in their idyllic village in the Cotswolds enviedโand if you couldnโt be them, you wanted to be with them. Happy, healthy, forging successful careers, and with a beautiful son in tow, they had it all . . . until one night a tragedy tears their lives apart.
Unable to live with themselves, let alone each other, theyโre looking for someone to blame and who they land on is each other.
Told from both Freya and Charlieโs perspectives, a cat and mouse game ensues, as each of them become determined to win-out against the other, both battling to emerge victorious and guilty-conscience-free. But can Freya stay one step ahead of the man who knows her best? Or will Charlieโs stoic conviction to get what he wants, be the death of her?
Sandie Jonesโs latest addictive novel is a wickedly twisty tale of obsession and the deadly consequences of loving someone too much.
The Faraway Inn
Sixteen-year-old Calisa is desperate for a change of scenery after her lying ex ruins her perfect Brooklyn summer. When her parents suggest she head to rural Vermont to help her great-aunt run her cozy bed and breakfast for a few months, she jumps at the chance.
But when Calisa arrives at the B&B, she's shocked to find a rundown inn with only a handful of guests. And to make matters worse, upon meeting with her great-aunt it quickly becomes clear that Calisa was not invited. Auntie Zee is determined to keep anyone from messing with her beloved innโฆeven if it is clear she needs the help.
To earn her keep, Calisa sets to work fixing up the inn, enlisting extra help from the groundskeeper's (handsome) son. But the longer she stays, the more it becomes evident that there is something strange about the B&Bโand its residents. Something almostโฆotherworldly.
The inn is keeping a magical secretโbut to protect the place she's come to love, Calisa must unravel the truth of it, and her aunt, before it's too late.
The Fourth Wife
Hazel Russonโs life in 1879 Utah territory is defined by three the Mormon church, polygamy, and the men who control both. She knows sheโs supposed to suppress her sinful dreams of a monogamous life with her sweetheart, and her desire for the freedom to play her beloved piano. Every Mormon womanโs duty is to live obediently and meekly, devoted to her husband and her calling as a sister wife. Her eternal salvation depends upon it.
Commanded to become the fourth wife of a man sheโs never met, Hazel is relieved that Jacob Manwaring is attentive and handsome. However, she is shocked to discover that instead of living separately as is custom, all of Jacobโs wives and children live in the same houseโa large, dilapidated manor that inexplicably fills Hazel with dread.
Despite Jacobโs tenderness, Hazel senses dark secrets and resentments among her sister wives. She hears strange music, sees blood oozing from the very walls, and glimpses apparitions that grow more terrifying every day. And as her nightmares worsen, Hazel canโt be sure if she has more to fear from the livingโincluding her mysterious husbandโor from a sinister presence that seems to animate the house itself . . .
Drawing on little-known Mormon folklore and the authorโs own polygamous ancestors, this fascinating, suspense-filled historical novel debut is by turns darkly romantic, spine-tingling, and wholly unforgettable.
The Moonshine Women
Every batch of Strong moonshine has its own special flavor, thanks to the secret ingredients that matriarch Lidy Strong adds to the barrels of fermenting corn mash. Whether a bucketful of golden peaches, a ripe melon or juicy, jewel-toned berries, that extra โsomething somethingโ is what makes the Strong โshineโ so prizedโand allows the family to survive after crop prices plummeted in the wake of the Great War.
Each of the Strong sisters, too, is distinct. Stoic, steadfast Rebecca would rather be with her beloved farm animals or off hunting in the woods than socializing. Middle sister Elsie is kindhearted, beautifulโand itching for a life more thrilling than the farm can offer. Jace, the youngest, is known far and wide as โShine,โ a name that suits her fiery personality and flaming red hair as much as her innate skill with a still.
Their father, Hiram, has been drowning himself in grief and liquor ever since his wife died. But the moonshine business is unforgiving, especially with Prohibition agents turning up in every creek and holler. When tragedy strikes, it falls to the Strong women to keep the still running, the family together, and hope burning on the horizon.
From the Ozark mountains edged in oak and pine, to the outlaw paradise of Hot Springs, Arkansasโwhere gangsters like Al Capone line the bar at the Southern Clubโthe sistersโ quests for vengeance, healing, and love will drive them forward, in search of a future as transformative and powerful as the purest Strong moonshine.
The Dreadfuls
London, 1888. Committed to the Whitechapel Hall Reform School for โincurable delinquencyโ 15-year-old Adelaide โDellโ Morton is a precocious, defiant misfit. Sheโs also a voracious reader of true crime and detective fiction, including the sordid, sensationally popular Penny dreadful stories. In an unlikely stroke of luck, sheโs found a kindred spirit in her poised, perfectionist roommate, Pippa. Their obsession is only further fueled by the Jack the Ripper murders blazing a trail of terror throughout Londonโs seediest streets . . . right outside Whitechapel Hallโs front door.
Desperate for adventure, they embark on their own investigationโand discover an ally in Noah, son of the local butcher. But Noahโs motives are not mere fascination: His father is the prime suspect. Noah is desperate to clear his name, and Dell and Pippa are only too eager to help.
Their budding spywork soon yields shocking results: they witness straightlaced Whitechapel teacher Miss Kaye escaping the school the night of the latest crime. Could Jack the Ripper be a she? Delving into Miss Kayeโs background, Dell is both horrified and thrilled to find that within Miss Kayeโs past lies a chapter dark enough to rival any Penny dreadful . . .
Dellโs fixation with Miss Kaye reaches dangerous heights while a series of suspicious events leave Miss Kaye in sole command of Whitechapel Hall. Trapped in their teacherโs ever-tightening web of control, the three devious detectives devise a risky plan to track her. But what ensues may only propel them ever deeper into secrets, lies, ruthless acts, and betrayals that go back decadesโand a confrontation that will irrevocably change the fates of all involved . . . if they survive.
Ruins
Professor Ember Agni is a rising star in archeology, trying to balance an unfulfilling career in academia and a crumbling marriage, all while pursuing her true unearthing a lost empire that no one else believes existed. Just as sheโs about to give up on the ambitious expedition she spent a decade trying to fund, a message arrives from overseas. A former student claims to have found something extraordinaryโan artifact that hints at the forgotten world lying beneath historyโs tidy surface.
With vindication finally within reach, Ember risks everything for the sake of discovery and undertakes an odyssey that will either make her name or ruin her. Driven by unwavering faith in her vision of the past, she challenges the limits of her nation, her colleagues, and herself in order to exhume the missing pieces of how humanity began. But as she journeys deep into an untouched wilderness, in dogged pursuit of a dead civilization, she collides with the wreckage of her own life. On the brink of either discovery or destruction, Ember must choose who she wants to be, and to what kind of world she wants to belong.
We're a Bad Idea, Right?
The business of love gets messy when two best friends decide to fake a romantic relationship in this uproarious and swoony novel by the bestselling author of The Summer of Broken Rules.
Audrey Barbour has had enough of following the rules. Eighteen years of being the perfect daughterโexceptional grades, enviable college acceptances, tame dating historyโand still, her parents donโt 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 Audreyโs parents go out of town, sparking a high-risk, high-reward solution to pay for her fellowshipโrenting out her familyโs Connecticut mansion online. With the help of her new fake-boyfriend, it shouldnโt be hard to pull offโฆ 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 rulesโall with her heart on the line.
The Geomagician
Mary Anning wants to be a geomagicianโa paleontologist who uses fossils to wield magicโbut since the Geomagical Society of London refuses to admit women, sheโs stuck selling her discoveries to tourists instead. When an ancient egg hatches in her hands, revealing a loveable baby pterodactyl Mary names Ajax, she knows this is the kind of scientific find that could make her careerโif sheโs strategic.
Mary contacts the Society about her discovery, and they demand to take possession of Ajax. Their emissary is none other than Henry Stanton, a distinguished (and infuriatingly handsome) scholar... and the man who once broke Mary's heart.
Henry claims he believes in the brilliant Mary, and that he only wants to help her obtain the respect she deserves. She knows she can't trust her fellow scholars, who want to discredit her and claim Ajax for their ownโbut can she even trust Henry, who seems intent on winning Mary back?
Now Mary has a new mystery to solve that's buried deeper than any dinosaur She must uncover the secrets behind the Society and the truth about Henry. As her conscience begins to chafe against her ambition, Mary must decide what lengths sheโs willing to go to finally belongโand what her heart really wants.
Son of Nobody
Homerโs Iliad and Odyssey were not the only ancient tales of the Trojan War. In Son of Nobody, Yann Martel composes a new the Psoad, an epic in free verse that follows a goatherdโs son, Psoas of Midea, who leaves his wife and family to fight at Troy. Psoas meets his doom and the poem of his life is lostโuntil a Canadian academic studying at Oxford, Harlow Donne, discovers its relics thirty centuries later. As Harlow assembles and comments on the fragments in footnotes, he retrieves memories of his wife and daughter and grapples with questions of ambition, family, and responsibility in both the ancient and modern worlds. Son of Nobody upends the regal perspective of traditional epics and shows that โthe past is never done with, that always there are parallels and returns and repetitions, always the song continues.โ Readers of Madeline Millerโs The Song of Achilles and Emily Wilsonโs The Iliad will revel in this breathtaking feat of the imagination.
The Bridge Back to You
Olivia owes everything to Celia's Place. Itโs where she learned how to be a great chef. Itโs also where she first fell in love. But at nineteen, Olivia had a wanderlust she couldnโt deny. And Carmello, whose mother owned the restaurant, couldnโt leave Celia's Place behind any more than he could force Olivia to stay.
Now, ten years later, Olivia is a successful personal chef. Her job allows her to travel the world, and she has never stayed in the same place for too long. When Carmello learns that his mother left shares of her beloved restaurant to both him and Olivia, he plans to buy her portion of the shares back quickly and painlessly.
That is until Olivia shows up at the restaurant, ready to help run it. Carmello sees an drive Olivia away from his restaurant so that she will want to sign over her shares. But Olivia sees things a bit differently. She finally has the chance to stay in one place and build a home after years on the move, and perhaps now is the right time to explore whether that home can be with the one who got away.
Soon enough, sparks begin to fly, but can Olivia and Carmello avoid the mistakes of the past?
Cinder Vale
Secrets lay hidden in the earth.
Fate whispers of it upon the wind.
The ash stirs across the battlefields.
And the ocean rises to watch the cards fall.
**Full blurb coming soon**
***This is an enemies to lovers romantasy series set in the same world as Zodiac Academy, but it's a dark and villainous tale of its own. You haven't met tainted souls like these before or enemies that hate each other as deeply as these characters do. Book 2 in the series will leave you cursing the stars and perhaps the authors too. You'll be left hoarse from screaming profanities and desperate for more of the morally grey Fae who lurk between the pages despite all theyโve done to your poor heart...***
A Widow's Charm
A Good Person
Lillian and Henry have been enjoying each otherโs company, especially in bed. Even though Lillianโs best friend calls it โsituationship,โ Lillian is determined to lock Henry downโand she has a plan. Sheโll be the best, most accommodating version of herself until he falls in love with her. But when Henry blindsides Lillian with a breakup, Lillian exacts revenge by performing a drunken hex on him.
Lillian expects Henry to come crawling back to her. What she doesnโt quite anticipate is becoming a prime suspect in his murder case when heโs found dead. As Lillian grapples with the loss of her sort-of-boyfriend, sheโs hit with another That Henry had a long-term girlfriend he also left behind.
Desperate to control the narrative, clear her name, and assume her rightful place as Henryโs mourning girlfriend, Lillianโs pursuit of the truth will throw her into a dangerous tailspin. A deliciously addictive novel that explores our darkest, most human impulses, A Good Person heralds Kirsten King as a striking new voice in the canon of celebrated fiction.
Mothers and Other Strangers: A Novel
When Sydney and Mae meet on the playground as toddlers, it seems like kismet. Even their very different mothersโthe type-A Beth Ann and the free-spirited Joniโagree 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 anotherโs 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 outsidersโmommy groups, marketing schemes, artistic pressures, and ex-boyfriends. But the two women will soon discover that itโs not destiny that has drawn them together this time, but a devastating secret at the center of their orbitsโa 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.
The Curse of Hester Gardens
Nona McKinley raised three boys in the Hester Gardens section of Medford, Michigan, an impoverished community divided by those who follow their faith in God and those who turn to crime to survive. With her drug dealer husband behind bars and her eldest son shot to death at eighteen, Nona has devoted herself to ensuring her other children escape their brotherโs fate.
Her second son Marcus is on the right path. He's a valedictorian heading to an Ivy League school. He can get out.
But then, strange things start happening to Nona and other mysterious footsteps are heard when sheโs alone, people have phantom encounters in the streets, unattended appliances go off at all hours. Even more concerning is the state of Nonaโs living sons. Her youngest, Lance, is hanging around with a bad crowd, and Marcus becomes moody and secretive. Sometimes he even seems to act like a different person entirely.
Nona has her secrets too. Her affair with the married church pastor has been weighing on her conscience, but thatโs not the only guilt haunting her. She fears that someoneโor somethingโ is seeking revenge for an act she made in a moment of weakness to protect her family. And now everyone in Hester Gardens must pay the price...
The Hired Man
1937. Itโs been seven years since the dust storms started in Colorado. Folks can barely remember a time when the clouds were filled with rain instead of dirt, and when the fields were green instead of brown. High school student Martha Helen Kessler and her family are luckier than most; they still eke out a living from the land. Even so, evidence of the Dust Bowlโs grim impact on families, especially on the women who bear the brunt of their husbandsโ frustration and their childrenโs hunger, is everywhere.
When Martha Helenโs compassionate mother insists they take in Otis Hobbs, a handsome drifter who saves a local boy from a vicious storm, she quickly discovers a darker side to their rural community. Suspicion, jealousy, and prejudice grip their neighborsโand emotions reach a frenzy after Martha Helenโs best friend, Frankie, disappears and is then found murdered. Ultimately, Martha Helen is forced to make sense of her conflicting feelings and loyalties in order to help find retribution and to reconcile the difference between the law and justice.
Full of period detail and Sandra Dallasโs trademark focus on the lives of women, The Hired Man entertains and ultimately surprises.
The Adjunct
Meet Sam, an adjunct professor at a public university in Baltimore who takes a last-minute gig at the private liberal arts college down the road. Overworked and underpaid, her life is a blur of back-to-back classes, side hustles, and job applications as she attempts to claw her way toward a full-time position. But her already precarious existence is thrown into disarray when she runs into her former grad school adviser, Dr. Tom Sternberg, on campus.
Tom and Sam have a complicated history, the lasting impact of which has haunted her academic career, and itโs the last thing she wants to think about as she navigates academic politics, institutional hurdles, and romantic entanglements with men and women that further complicate a sexuality not even she can define. Then she learns that Tom left his old job for undisclosed reasonsโand his long-awaited second novel is about a professorโs reckoning with his checkered past. As whispers spread that Sam is the inspiration behind a central character, she fights to regain control of the story while questioning everything she thought she knew about her futureโand herself.
With biting humor and a keen eye for detail, Maria Adelmann offers a fresh twist on a tangled #MeToo story and turns Samโs downward spiral into a searing critique of class and the hollow promises of the American dream. A hilarious yet sobering look at how hustle culture has come to define modern academia, The Adjunct Who really controls the narratives of success, identity, and power?
In her award-winning wildlife photographs, Charlotte Gray captures all the beauty and wonder of the natural world. Far better to focus on breathtaking landscapes than to turn the lens on her own painful childhood and the uncaring mother she left behind in Florida. Piece by piece, Charlotte has built a new, independent life, one sheโs eager to protect.
A chance encounter on assignment in Las Vegas sparks an intriguing relationship, and for the first time, Charlotte impulsively follows her heart. But along with love and fresh beginnings comes a trove of secrets about her new husband. And someone in his past is determined to upend Charlotteโs happiness by threatening what she cares about most.
After everything sheโs weathered, Charlotte is about to face the task of rebuilding her life yet again. But this time sheโs doing it with hard-won strength, experience, and the wisdom to know when to forgive, when to let go, and how to walk into the sunshine and claim the support and love she deserves . . .
Upward Bound
"An unparalleled achievement, and a treasure. " โRivka Galchen
"Woody Brown accomplishes the seemingly impossible."โMona Simpson
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 Boundโs 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 narrativesโand connecting them in surprising, shattering waysโis 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.
The Governess's Guide to Spells and Managing Misfit Marquesses
For readers of India Holton, Heather Fawcett, Allison Saft, Katherine Arden, Freya Marske, and Olivia Atwaterโs Regency Faerie Tales series.
Hermina Davenport can hardly believe the audacious exploit she is about to attempt. To protect an orphaned young viscount, the prim and proper governess feels she has no choice but to break the rules of the Parasol Academy Handbook! When the ladโs guardian, a ruthlessly ambitious explorer, ensorcelled by the evil Fae Queen, spirits him away on a dangerous North Pole expedition, Mina employs an invisibility spell to snatch him from the ship. But a magical misfire whisks Mina and her charge onto a different vessel, that of a ruggedly handsome Irishmanโa strapping prizefighter from Dublinโs backstreetsโand Mina finds sheโs at sea in more ways than one . . .
Phineas OโConnell, Lord Kinsale, can no more explain the arrival of this English Rose than he can adapt to his newly-inherited titleโthough his disgruntled pet pug clearly has โthoughtsโ about the fair stowaway. But their enchanted encounter sparks an irresistible offer: Phinn enlists the polished Miss Davenport to transform this misfit marquess into a mannered gentleman ready for his seat in Parliament. No magic required, just enticingly intimate lessons in etiquette and elocution to smooth all his rough edges including a stammer. . .
But when enemiesโboth earthly and supernatural, past and presentโthreaten, a confrontation begins, where Minaโs nondescript umbrella is just one of her powerful weapons . . .
Sorry for Your Loss
The question is, Who is the predator and who is the prey?
Meet Iris: a dark soul with a propensity for obsession, still reeling from a recent loss, who relies on a local grief group to keep her grounded and out of trouble. And now meet Jack: a cagey widower who shows up at a meeting one night and jolts both of them back to life.
From the moment Jack first takes a shabby plastic chair in the circle, he is positively dashing. And Iris canโt help but feel that fate has brought them together.
But their chance encounter sends them racing through a series of hairpin twists where nothing is as it seems and no one plays by the rules. As Iris is drawn deeper into Jackโs world, she begins to realize that her own deceptions may be no matchโor maybe they're the perfect match?โfor all the dirty secrets Jack has been hiding.
Edgy, intricately plotted, and totally chilling, Sorry for Your Loss is a blistering psychological thriller for fans of Ashley Elston, Ana Reyes, and Ashley Audrain.
The News from Dublin
From Colm Tรณibรญn, โone of the worldโs best living literary writersโ (The Boston Globe), comes a brilliant collection of nine short stories, many never-before-published, set across Ireland, Spain, and Americaโabout the complexities of family, longing, loss, and love.
Celebrated as โhis generationโs most gifted writer of loveโs complicated, contradictory powerโ (Los Angeles Times), Colm Tรณibรญn is a master of short fiction as well as the novel, able to summon an extraordinary intensity of emotion in a brief tale. The eleven stories transport readers across continents and eras.
In โThe Journey to Galway,โ a mother who has learned of the death of her son, a fighter pilot in World War I, travels to Galway to inform his wife and their three now fatherless children. โSleep,โ originally published inย The New Yorker, explores the rift between two lovers as one of them cannot reckon with his grief and fear after the death of his brother. Death, again, is a central character in the title story, โThe News from Dublin,โ as Maurice Webster travels to Dublin to try to save his younger brother who is dying of tuberculosis. Maurice must petition the health minister for access to a new experimental drug, and this is the only hope.
Tรณibรญnโs stories are rich with the complexities of family dynamics, the haunting pull of the past, and the quiet revelations that define our lives. His characters, whether navigating the aftermath of war, or forbidden love, or the desires of a girl in Catalan, or the quiet struggles mundane life, are rendered with illuminating, unforgettable empathy and insight.
Theย News from Dublinย is an exquisite introduction to Tรณibรญnโs short fiction for new readers who may have discovered Tรณibรญn with the publication ofย Long Island, and a glorious new collection for longtime fans of this โachingly beautiful writerโฆwith infinite compassionโ (The Miami Herald).
A Spell for Saints and Sinners
Like a gender-flippedย Saltburnย set amidst the moss-draped, haunted beauty of Savannah, this intoxicating blend of Southern suspense and modern witchcraft from bestselling author Emily Carpenter casts a spell of class, power, and possession.
In a city where ghosts linger in the moss and money buys salvation, a struggling psychic is drawn into Savannahโs glittering elite, as obsession and need curdle the lines between magic and madness, seduction and salvation, pirates and protectorsโฆ
In front of an elegantly shabby townhouse on a Savannah side street sits a hand-painted sign:ย Miss Edie, Psychic. Ingrid White inherited the house and business from her beloved grandmother, a local celebrity in town. But unless Ingrid can find a way to pay for crushing property taxes and mounting repairs, sheโs going to lose them both.
Ingrid has faith in the homespun witchcraft Edie passed down to her, yet hope and clients are dwindling. . . . Until Sailor Loefflerโs bachelorette party changes everything. Sailor is local royaltyโpart of the vast โSavannah Sauceโ empire, beautiful and wealthy beyond imaginingโand Ingridโs reading is so accurate that she becomes the bride-to-beโs confidante. To keep that access and all the privileges it brings, Ingrid relies more and more on hexes and dark spellsโusing the baneful magic Edie always warned her against.
As Ingrid works even riskier spells, she is drawn further into the Loefflersโ inner circle and the obstacles in her path melt away. But is it witchcraft or other, more earthbound forces? Ingrid can feel the lines blurring even as her powers seem to grow, until she must confront the truth about just how far some people, including herself, will go to keep the life theyโve always wanted . . .
The Price of Honey
In the car on the way to her husbandโs funeral, Honey Beckett still can hardly believe that Barney is actually dead. Granted, he was more than twice her age. But he was Barney Beckett, visionary tech genius, full of surprisesโby turns romantic, inspirational, and controlling. Always in control. At the service, she impulsively goes to sit with the three ex-wives: practical Rita, fiery Svetlana, ambitious Meredith. Each broke up the otherโs marriage in turnโand now, one final betrayal awaits.
Liane Moriartyโs The Price of Honey is part of the Deadly Ambition collection, stories about greed, control, and the sinister side of making dreams come true. They can be read or listened to in one bingeable sitting.
In the Great Quiet: A Novel
A cannon booms at high noon, and the race begins in the Oklahoma land rush of 1893.
Amid the crowd is Minnie Hoopes. Tenacious and fiercely independent, she is determined to endure the brutal frontier and create a life of her own. Guarding her solitude, she distances herself from bordering homesteaders and finds peace under the starry nights of the vast frontier. But this is outlaw country, and Minnie soon has the blood of two gunfighters on her hands. After a renegade outlaw named Stot discovers her secrets, she forms an unlikely friendship with him. With each passing season, Minnieโs past grows more haunting and threatens the future she has risked everything to build. Minnie raced into the Wild West alone, but her grandest journey in the frontier wilderness is one she never saw coming.
Based on the true story of the authorโs great-great-grandparents, this sweeping and transportive survival story explores a womanโs connection with the land, her reconciliation with the past, and her elemental search for home against all odds.
Settle in, Iโve stories to tell.
As Far as She Knew
For twenty-three years, Amira Abadi believed she had a strong, loving marriage. But when her husband, Ali, dies suddenly, that certainty shatters with the discovery of a house she never knew existed. As whispers of betrayal spread through their tight-knit Arab American community, Amira refuses to let others define her husbandโs legacyโor her path forward.
Diving into an investigation of Aliโs final days, Amira uncovers decades-old secrets that challenge everything she thought she knew. With her children struggling to process their fatherโs death, Amira must balance protecting her family with pursuing the truth, even as each revelation brings her closer to danger.
As Amira peels back layers of lies, she discovers that the greatest mystery isnโt what her husband was hidingโitโs how far sheโll go to uncover the truth.
What Happened Next
โPublishers Weekly (*starred review*)
โTaut and intense, this novel is sure to set every reader who picks it up on edgeโฆWhat Happened Next is certainly one of Hillโs best works.โ
โFirstCLUE
A young man investigating his fatherโs crimes is determined to uncover the truth in a gripping novel of suspense about family secrets, betrayal, and the weight of the past.
What do I remember about the murder on the lake?
Charlie Kilgore was too young to remember anything, really, about how events on the lake unfolded twenty-five years ago. He just knows what heโs been told: that his father stabbed a man to death, left Charlieโs mother critically wounded, and then disappeared, never to be seen again. Now Charlie believes there must be more to what happened.
Using the shards of the story heโs uncovered so far as the heart of a true crime podcast, Charlie returns to his hometown in the foothills of New Hampshireโs White Mountains. Old friends, family, authorities, and even collateral victims have moved on, and no one wants to dredge up whatโs long forgotten. Except Charlie. He wants to know what could have transformed a quiet man into a monster. And what happened next.
But when Charlie starts asking questions of people with so much to hide, getting to the truth becomes dangerous. Because on this lakeโin this familyโthe past isnโt dead and buried at all. In fact, itโs back with a vengeance.
The Lacemaker's Fortune
In the 1870s, the fate of an immigrant desperate to escape the factories of New York City collides with the ambitions and passion of two men in an enthralling and darkly sensual novel by the author of The First Witch of Boston.
New York City, 1879. Eileen Maguire is a factory lacemaker limited by her humble circumstances and dreaming of a better life. Lawrence Barnard is the sole heir of one of Manhattanโs wealthiest families, but his means keep him confined by the expectations of society. When their paths cross one fateful winter night, Eileen and Lawrence become caught under the spell of the charismatic and enterprising Stanley Jones, who extolls the boundless opportunities awaiting in the West. The millinery shop Eileen dreams of owning with her sister is possible, as is the freedom to make his own choices that Lawrence so craves.
What begins as an idealistic journey westward quickly becomes something unexpected and sinister once the group lands in Leadville, Colorado, a wild silver mining boomtown high in the Rocky Mountains. A love triangle emerges, pitting promises and passion against betrayals and lies. With their starry-eyed intentions gone terribly awry and forbidden desires threatening to undo them, it will take heartbreak and a shocking secret to shake Eileen and Lawrence out of their blinded stupors and remind them that their fortunes are entirely in their own hands. Set against the backdrop of the Gilded Age, this is a dark tale of dangerous, suspenseful seduction.
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR
โMysterious and mesmerizing.โโโClaire Stanford, Author of Happy for You
Yellow is a luminous, genre-defying debut that fuses cosmic mystery, trauma, and transformation. It will take you on a journey through time, space, and the inner wilderness of one girlโs mind.
Itโs 1973: summer of the Watergate hearings and Skylabโs launch into space when 12-year-old Z discovers an unclassified slime mold growing in her Louisiana backyard. Something compels her deep coherence with this magical creatureโuntil an incident with a serial killer at the lake disrupts their connection. Both mystifying and metaphorical, Yellow becomes a guiding force for her brother Clem, a New Orleans seeker. As years pass, Z tries to recover what life has taught her to forget. A multi-threaded novel, Yellow weaves fact, physics, space exploration, and philosophy to create a transcendent reading experience.
The Last Fairy Witch
Hannah Heronstone appears to have everythingโa devoted husband, a beloved child, and a thriving business built on ancient herbal knowledge. Yet beneath the calm surface of her life, something old and malevolent stirs. A disturbing encounter with a friend from her husbandโs past awakens Hannahโs suspicion that a coven of dark witches is gathering near Wentworth Manor. When Hannah, Peter, and Johannah journey to Ireland, her fears take terrifying form as she comes face to face with an unspeakable monster. A fairy offers her aidโbut in a land where truth is slippery and magic demands a price, can such a creature be trusted? And where, across legend and time, can she find the Last Fairy Witch?
Centuries earlier, Eithne is a young Irish slave whose gift for healing marks her as something more. Trained by a druid, her growing power cannot be hidden for long. Sent to the sacred stronghold of Rathcroghan to become a Bandrui, Eithne finds herself caught between two suitorsโa gifted bard and a handsome princeโwhile a darker force watches from the shadows. A ruthless witch who will stop at nothing to destroy her.
Separated by centuries but bound by magic and fate, Hannah and Eithne must each risk everything to confront the darkness rising in their worlds. To save those they love, they must cross through time itselfโor lose all they hold dear.
The Night We Met (Deluxe Edition)
In everyone's life, there's a split-second decision that can change everything...
For Larissa, it came when choosing who to ride home with after a concert. That night, she had no idea she'd met the perfect man. She and Chris are great friends, 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 she didn't choose Chris to drive her home all those months ago--she went with his best friend, and he became her boyfriend. 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. How can something that feels so right be absolutely impossible?
Meaning in life is getting harder to findโand thereโs a reason for that. In The Meaning of Your Life, social scientist and happiness expert Arthur Brooks explains how rapid societal and technological changes have rewired our brains, making them ill-equipped to handle questions of existential reckoning. The resulting emptiness is not imaginary, and it is life-destroying for some, especially for young people.
Fortunately, there's hope. With compassion, clarity, and practicality, Brooks tells you exactly what you need to do to move toward meaning. You'll take a test to determine where you are on your meaning journey, learn evidence-based tactics for rewiring your brain for complex and abstract concepts, and discover a 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.
โWhat is the meaning of my life?โ is not an unanswerable question, but the road to an answerโor answersโis a long one. The Meaning of Your Life is your guide for the journey.
With her bestselling book Finding the Mother Tree, forest ecologist Suzanne Simard introduced the world to the profound intelligence and interconnectedness of trees. Now, with When the Forest Breathes, she uncovers the ways that natureโs deep-rooted cycles of renewal can ensure the longevity of threatened ecosystems.
Raised in a family of loggers committed to sensible forest stewardship, Simard has watched as timber companies leave forests at higher risk for wildfires, water crises, and plant and animal extinction. But her research has the potential to chart a new course. The forest, she reveals, is a symphony of finely honed cycles of regenerationโfrom mushrooms breaking down logs to dying elder trees passing their genetic knowledge to younger onesโthat hold the key to protecting our forests. Working closely with local Indigenous communities, whose models of responsible forestry have been largely dismissed, Simard examines how human interventionsโparticularly destruction of the overstory's mother treesโendanger new growth and longevity. If we can honor the tools that trees have honed for sharing intergenerational wisdom, she argues, we can protect these sacred places for many years to come.
As she considers how older living things facilitate the conditions for new growth to flourish, Simard faces parallel rhythms of loss and regeneration in her own life, watching her two daughters grow into adults and savoring her final days with her ailing mother. Animated by wonder for our forests and the intricate practices of caretaking that have long sustained them, When the Forest Breathes is a vital reminder of all the natural world has to teach us about adaptability, resilience, and community.
โA triumph. Fedarko doesnโt describe awe; he induces it.โ โThe New York Times Book Review * โPassionateโฆmemorableโฆlife-affirming.โ โThe Wall Street Journal
This New York Times bestseller from the author of The Emerald Mile is a rollicking and poignant account of an epic 750-mile odyssey, on foot, through the heart of the Grand Canyon.
Two friends, zero preparation, one dream. A few years after quitting his job to pursue an ill-advised dream of becoming a whitewater guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his best friend, National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyonโa journey that, McBride promised, would be โa walk in the park.โ Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed, unaware that the small cluster of experts who had actually completed the crossing billed it as โthe toughest hike in the world.โ
The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was deeper, richer, and far more complex than anything the two men had imaginedโand came within a hairโs breadth of killing them both. They struggled to make their way through the all-but impenetrable reaches of the canyonโs truest wilderness, a vertical labyrinth of thousand-foot cliffs and crumbling ledges where water is measured out by the teaspoon and every step is fraught with perilโand where, even today, there is still no trail spanning the length of the countryโs best-known and most iconic landmark.
Along the way, veteran long-distance hikers ushered them into secret pockets of enchantment, invisible to the millions of tourists gathered on the rim, that only a handful of humans have ever seen. Members of the canyonโs eleven Native American tribes brought them face-to-face with layers of history that forced them to reconsider myths at the very center of our national parksโand exposed them to the threats of commercial tourism. Even Fedarkoโs dying father, who had first pointed him toward the chasm more than forty years earlier but had never set foot there himself, opened him to a new way of seeing the landscape.
And always, there was the great gorge itself: austere and unforgiving, yet suffused with magic, drenched in wonder, and redeemed by its own transcendent beauty. A singular portrait of a sublime place, A Walk in the Park is a deeply moving plea for the preservation of Americaโs greatest natural treasure.
Thank You, Mom! from Baby Bear and Friends (World of Eric Carle)
A heartwarming celebration of all the love, joy, and tender care that mothers bring into our lives.
Adorable rhymes dance across the pages, perfectly paired with the iconic and beloved art of Eric Carle in Thank You, Mom. Each delightful page beautifully captures the heartfelt gratitude that children feel for their wonderful moms. It's the perfect gift to celebrate Mom on Mother's Day and a cherished expression of love to share all year-long.
Look for other World of Eric Carle books to celebrate milestones with your little one:
-Baby Bear's Busy Day
-Bear Hugs! From Brown Bear and Friends
-Brown Bear's Little Book of Thanks
-Baby Bear's Time to Grow
-Brown Bear and Friends ABC
-Brown Bear and Friends 123
-Brown Bear and Friends Colors
-Brown Bear and Friends Shapes
Grumpy Monkey Father's Day Fuss
Itโs Fatherโs Day and Jimโs dad is all about it. He LOVES having a day where he is the center of attention. But when Jim asks his father what he does for his father on Fatherโs Day, he learns that Grandpanzee thinks the holiday is โa bunch of malarkey!โ
This new offering from the Langs is sure to be another seasonal hit!
Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments down below.

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