Kim Coleman Foote

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

New York

A Novel

"Once in a while, a writer comes along with a brilliance that stops the breath. Kim Coleman Foote is that writer." --Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-winning author of Red at the Bone "A masterpiece. Brilliant, vivid, heartbreaking, epic, beautiful, raw and true . . . This is the American story." ―Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less Is Lost "Kim Coleman Foote has the rare talent of completely immersing you in time and place . . . A sweeping yet intimate family saga." --Sarah Jessica Parker Coleman Hill is the exhilarating story of two American families whose fates become intertwined in the wake of the Great Migration. Braiding fact and fiction, it is a remarkable, character-rich tour de force exploring the ties that bind three generations. In 1916, Celia Coleman and Lucy Grimes flee the racism and poverty of their homes in the post-Civil War South for the "Promised Land" of the North. But soon they learn that even in Vauxhall, New Jersey, black women are mainly hired for domestic work, money is scarce, children don't progress in school, and black men die young. Within a few short years, both women's husbands are dead. Left to navigate this unwelcoming place alone, Celia and Lucy turn to one another for support in raising their children far from home. They become one another's closest confidantes and, encouraged by their mothers' friendship, their children's lives become enmeshed as well. However, with this closeness comes complication. As the children grow into adolescence, two are caught in an impulsive act of impropriety, and Celia and Lucy find themselves at irreconcilable odds over who's to blame. The ensuing fallout has dire consequences that reverberate through the next two generations of their families. A stunning biomythography--a word coined by the late great writer Audre Lorde--Coleman Hill draws from the author's own family legend, historical record, and fervent imagination to create an unforgettable new history.

Coleman Hill

393a5851-6ee8-4520-81ba-f8c9c62dcfc1-1

Mary Louise Kelly

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

The Year of No Do-Overs

Operating Instructions meets Glennon Doyle in this new book by famed NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly that is destined to become a classic--about the year before her son goes to college--and the joys, losses and surprises that happen along the way.

The time for do-overs is over.

Ever since she became a parent, Mary Louise Kelly has said "next year." Next year will be the year she makes it to her son James's soccer games (which are on weekdays at 4 p.m., right when she is on the air on NPR's All Things Considered, talking to millions of listeners). Drive carpool for her son Alexander? Not if she wants to do that story about Ukraine and interview the secretary of state. Like millions of parents who wrestle with raising children while pursuing a career, she has never been cavalier about these decisions. The bargain she has always made with herself is this: this time I'll get on the plane, and next year I'll find a way to be there for the mom stuff.

Well, James and Alexander are now seventeen and fifteen, and a realization has overtaken Mary Louise: her older son will be leaving soon for college. There used to be years to make good on her promises; now, there are months, weeks, minutes. And with the devastating death of her beloved father, Mary Louise is facing act three of her life head-on.

Mary Louise is coming to grips with the reality every parent faces. Childhood has a definite expiration date. You have only so many years with your kids before they leave your house to build their own lives. It's what every parent is supposed to want, what they raise their children to do. But it is bittersweet. Mary Louise is also dealing with the realities of having aging parents. This pivotal time brings with it the enormous questions of what you did right and what you did wrong.

This chronicle of her eldest child's final year at home, of losing her father, as well as other curve balls thrown at her, is not a definitive answer―not for herself and certainly not for any other parent. But her questions, her issues, will resonate with every parent. And, yes, especially with mothers, who are judged more harshly by society and, more important, judge themselves more harshly. What would she do if she had to decide all over again?

Mary Louise's thoughts as she faces the coming year will speak to anyone who has ever cared about a child or a parent. It. Goes. So. Fast. is honest, funny, poignant, revelatory, and immensely relatable.

It. Goes. So. Fast

10bf38da-174b-4eb8-b9b0-34a25a86b2ce-1

Lisa Jewell

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Other authors are at a ten out of ten, for me, and Lisa is a solid hundred.” —Gillian McAllister, The Sunday Times (London) bestselling author of Wrong Place Wrong Time The #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell weaves a “simply masterful” (Samantha Downing, internationally bestselling author) thriller about twisted marriages, fractured families, and deadly obsessions in this standalone sequel to The Family Upstairs. Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago. Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock—her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer. After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present. As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they’re connected in ways they could have never imagined. In this masterful standalone sequel to her haunting New York Times bestseller The Family Upstairs, “Lisa Jewell is a superb writer at the top of her game” (Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author) with another jaw-dropping, intricate, and affecting novel about the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love and uncover the truth.

The Family Remains

95b332ea-255d-4444-92ea-e52e9f814fe9-1

Marcy Dermansky

"The story of a woman on the run from catastrophe, searching for love, home, healing, a swimming pool, and perhaps someone who can stop the bleeding from her head"--

Hurricane Girl

3266eb7b-d8b9-4ab9-928f-677ab95b9b42-1

Colson Whitehead

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE NOMINEE * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR * NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

"Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked..." To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. 

Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. 

Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn't ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn't ask questions, either. 

Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa--the "Waldorf of Harlem"--and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. 

Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs? 

Harlem Shuffle's ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It's a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. 

But mostly, it's a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.

Harlem Shuffle

09437ae7-53fa-401a-adec-30109168126f-1

Sister Souljah

Sister Souljah returns to her beloved character Winter Santiaga in the captivating and heart-pounding sequel to instant #1 New York Times bestseller Life After Death. After suffering a horrifying, yet soul stirring death experience, worldwide top bitch Winter Santiaga, of The Coldest Winter Ever, is alive and facing a dilemma that every living person faces: how to respond to the Fear of God, awareness of heaven and hell, while pursuing and satisfying deep desires for sex, fun, love, money, revenge, and fame. In her new novel, Love After Midnight, Sister Souljah delivers a powerful hip-hop hood style, global romantic comedy.

Love after Midnight

723a9635-997d-42d2-ad0b-2fd72c039b2a-0

Janet Evanovich

Stephanie Plum, New Jersey's hardest working, most under-appreciated bounty hunter, returns with a bang in her latest adventure. While Stephanie's personal life is hanging by a thread, a killer case lands on her doorstep that changes everything. Full of humor and suspense, Now or Never proves that a new book from #1 bestselling writer Janet Evanovich is always right on time.

Now or Never

9124ba71-45a5-4611-a868-5fd90a9adb51-0

Thursday murder club series) 

The Man who died Twice 

Emily St. John Mandel

A National Book Award Finalist A PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end. Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band's existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.

Station Eleven

90a48bd7-e841-4b8b-8805-e44609155ae5-1

Leigh McMullan Abramson

"Growing up in the nineties in New York City as the only child of famous parents was both a blessing and a curse for Isabelle Manning. Her beautiful society hostess mother, Claire, and New York Times bestselling author father, Ward, were the city's intellectual It couple. Ward's glamorous obligations often took him away from Isabelle, but Claire made sure her childhood was always filled with magic and love. Now an adult, all Isabelle wants is to be a successful writer like her father but after many false starts and the unexpected death of her mother, she faces her upcoming thirty-fifth birthday alone and on the verge of a breakdown. Her anxiety only skyrockets when she uncovers some shocking truths about her parents and begins wondering if everything she knew about her family was all based on an elaborate lie."--

A Likely Story

2b698cd8-32bb-4b4f-8c79-02a395fad6b5-0

Oisín McKenna

For fans of Sally Rooney and Torrey Peters, a taut and profoundly moving debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters during a heatwave in London as simmering tensions and secrets come to a head over one life-changing weekend. London, 2019. It's the hottest June on record, and a whale is stuck in the Thames River. In the streets of the city, four old acquaintances want more from life than they've been given. On the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, their paths will intersect at a party that will change their lives forever... Maggie, a once-hopeful artist turned waitress, is pregnant and preparing to move back to her hometown with her boyfriend and father-to-be Ed, leaving the city she loves and the life she imagined for herself. Ed, coasting through life as a barely competent bike courier, is ready for a new start with Maggie and their baby, if only to finally leave behind his secret past of hooking up with strange men in train station bathrooms--and his secret past with Maggie's best friend, Phil. Phil, who sleepwalks through his office job and lives for the weekends, is on the brink of achieving his first real relationship with his roommate Keith. The two live in an illegal warehouse commune with other quirky creatives and idealists--the site of the party to end all parties. As the temperature continues to climb, Maggie, Ed, and Phil will have to confront their shared pasts, current desires, and limits of their future lives together before the weekend is over. Strikingly heartfelt, sexually charged, and disarmingly comic, Oisín McKenna's addictive, page-turning debut is a mesmerizing dive into the soul of a city and a critical look at the political, emotional, and financial hurdles facing young adults trying to build lives there and often living for their evenings and weekends.

Evenings and Weekends

40e67d1a-6eda-4434-a696-8bf6cc6419c2-0

Janice Hallett

Small tear on the bottom of the cover at seen in the picture but in perfect condition otherwise 

The mysterious connection between a teacher's disappearance and an unsolved code in a children's book is explored in this fresh novel from the author of the "clever and often wryly funny" (PopSugar) novel The Appeal.

Forty years ago, Steven "Smithy" Smith found a copy of a famous children's book by disgraced author Edith Twyford, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. When he showed it to his remedial English teacher Miss Iles, she believed that it was part of a secret code that ran through all of Twyford's novels. And when she disappeared on a class field trip, Smithy became convinced that she had been right.

Now, out of prison after a long stretch, Smithy decides to investigate the mystery that has haunted him for decades. In a series of voice recordings on an old iPhone from his estranged son, Smithy alternates between visiting the people of his childhood and looking back on the events that later landed him in prison.

But it soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn't just a writer of forgotten children's stories. The Twyford Code holds a great secret, and Smithy may just have the key.

"A modern Agatha Christie" (The Sunday Times, London), Janice Hallett has constructed a fiendishly clever, maddeningly original crime novel for lovers of word games, puzzles, and stories of redemption.

The Twyford Code

45f0c943-7f6a-4ea5-8499-0d31a4d94f00-1

Jaclyn Goldis

A bestselling thriller author arranges a luxury train trip that is not what it appears to be in this electrifying modern homage to Agatha Christie from the author of the “tense and twisty” (Julie Clark, New York Times bestselling author) The Chateau. Reclusive, mysterious author Ginevra Ex is famous for her unusual approach to crafting her big bestselling thrillers: she hires real people and conducts intensive interviews, then fictionalizes them. Her latest main character, Rory, is thrilled when Ginevra presents her with an extravagant bonus—a lavish trip along Italy’s Mediterranean coast on the famed, newly renovated Orient Express. But when Rory boards the train, she’s stunned to discover that her brother, her best friend, and even her ex-fiancé are passengers, as well. All invited by Ginevra, all hiding secrets. With each stop, from Cinque Terre to Rome to Positano, it becomes increasingly clear that Ginevra has masterminded the ultimate real life twisty plot with Rory as her main character. And as Ginevra’s deceptions mount, and the lies and machinations of Rory’s travel companions pile up, Rory begins to fear that her trip will culminate like one of Ginevra’s books: with a murder or two. In the opulent compartments of the iconic train, Rory must untangle the shocking reasons why Ginevra wanted them all aboard—and to what deadly end. Another stylish and compulsively readable mystery from Jaclyn Goldis, this is the perfect read for fans of Ruth Ware, Lucy Foley, and Paula Hawkins.

The Main Character

09021923-56e8-4484-b031-1f1f5e471e6f-0

Leila Mottley

A dazzling novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system--the debut of a blazingly original voice that "bursts at the seams of every page and swallows you whole" (Tommy Orange, best-selling author of There There)

Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent--which has more than doubled--and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed.
 
One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.
 
Rich with raw beauty, electrifying intensity, and piercing vulnerability, Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before. 

Nightcrawling

69847f3f-5372-4a59-93ee-0a842ba2918d-1

Gothataone Moeng

Stories

Richly drawn stories about the lives of ordinary families in contemporary Botswana as they navigate relationships, tradition and caretaking in a rapidly changing world.

A young widow adheres to the expectations of wearing mourning clothes for nearly a year, though she's unsure what the traditions mean or whether she is ready to meet the world without their protection. An older sister returns home from a confusing time in America, only to explain at every turn why she's left the land of opportunity. A younger sister hides her sexual exploits from her family, while her older brother openly flaunts his infidelity.

The stories collected in Call and Response are strongly anchored in place - in the village of Serowe, where the author is from, and in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana - charting the emotional journeys of women seeking love and opportunity beyond the barriers of custom and circumstance.
 
Gothataone Moeng is part of a new generation of writers coming out of Africa whose voices are ready to explode onto the literary scene. In the tradition of writers like Chimamanda Adiche and Jhumpa Lahiri, she offers us insight into communities, experiences and landscapes through stories that are cinematic in their sweep, with unforgettable female protagonists.
 

Call and Response

98294eb0-e741-428d-bf8b-fe98eb0cb9e5-1

Eliza Clark

She's Always Hungry

7c974f12-22bf-4683-b8b7-7cf1e68a3763-0

Roxane Gay

A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business

From beloved and bestselling author Roxane Gay, "a strikingly fresh cultural critic" (Washington Post) comes an exhilarating collection of her essays on culture, politics, and everything in between. Since the publication of the groundbreaking Bad Feminist and Hunger, Roxane Gay has continued to tackle big issues embroiling society--state-sponsored violence and mass shootings, women's rights post-Dobbs, online disinformation, and the limits of empathy--alongside more individually personalized matters: can I tell my co-worker her perfume makes me sneeze? Is it acceptable to schedule a daily 8 am meeting? In her role as a New York Times opinion section contributor and the publication's "Work Friend" columnist, she reaches millions of readers with her wise voice and sharp insights. Opinions is a collection of Roxane Gay's best nonfiction pieces from the past ten years. Covering a wide range of topics--politics, feminism, the culture wars, civil rights, and much more--with an all-new introduction in which she reflects on the past decade in America, this sharp, thought-provoking anthology will delight Roxane Gay's devotees and draw new readers to this inimitable talent.

Opinions

c84f0966-4fac-40ce-a131-808712e22402-0

Alexander McCall Smith

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

A Detective Varg Novel (4)

In the hilarious new novel in the best-selling Detective Varg series, Ulf Varg will need to resolve both a sensitive crime and his own delicate dilemma in the hopes of preserving the peace. The Department of Sensitive Crimes is downsizing in light of a recent downturn of sensitive crime, and staff members are wondering who among them will be transferred elsewhere. As the bickering between colleagues intensifies, Ulf tries his best to stay above the fray. But when Anna, a longtime friend and coworker, appears to blame him for an old case that went sideways, it seems she may be putting her own job prospects above their friendship. In the midst of all this, Ulf embarks on an important inquiry: a man's cabin has mysteriously disappeared and Ulf is tasked with finding out what happened. How exactly does one steal a house? And, more to the point, how does one track down a stolen house? Meanwhile, a promising veterinary treatment for deafness in dogs has been announced, and Ulf’s dog, Martin, might be the perfect patient. This latest novel is another masterful, farcical installment in the series that defines the genre that Alexander McCall Smith is singlehandedly championing: Scandi blanc.

The Discreet Charm of the Big Bad Wolf

8d05405b-c7c1-4e79-b414-c85382784891-1

Hannah McKinnon

On a secluded stretch of Cape Cod, a wedding is being planned at a beloved beach house--only for a long kept secret to emerge that hurtles both the wedding and the family off course, in this fresh, lyrical new novel from the acclaimed author of the "charming and warmhearted" (PopSugar) The Summer House.

At age ninety-two, Tish Darling is the matriarch and protector of what's left of the Darling family fortune, including the decades-old beach house, Riptide. Located on the crook of Cape Cod, it's a place she once loved but has not returned to in decades, since a tragic family accident one perfect summer day. Still, she is determined to keep Riptide in the family. Even if that means going back there on the cusp of her granddaughter's wedding. Even if it means revealing someone else's truth.

Her daughter-in-law Cora has her own complicated feelings surrounding Tish's return as well as doubts about her place within the Darling family. After all, Cora came into the family carrying a secret that her husband promised to keep for her forever. Tish's sudden return to Riptide may force everything they've worked so hard to protect out into the light.

Meanwhile, Cora's eldest daughter, Andi isn't exactly looking forward to her little sister's wedding so soon after her own divorce. To make matters worse, her ex has arrived on the Cape with his insufferable new girlfriend. Andi has no idea how she'll be able to survive this family reunion...until she bumps into an old friend from the past. A friend who may just offer her a second chance.

As the three distinct generations of Darling women arrive at Riptide, they have no idea that this summer will forever change them. One old secret, kept with the best of intentions, threatens to not only divide the family, but shatter each member's sense of who they really are. Can the ties that bind survive, when the history you've always been told turns out to be untrue?

The Darlings

66625ffb-befb-40c5-be5c-2bee4b3666da-1

Julia Fox

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The hotly anticipated book from “one of the all-time pop-culture greats” (New York magazine) that chronicles her shocking life and unyielding determination to not only survive but achieve her dreams. Julia Fox is famous for many things: her captivating acting, such as her breakout role in the film Uncut Gems; her trendsetting style, including bleached eyebrows, exaggerated eyeshadow, and cutout dresses; her mastery of social media, where she entertains and educates her millions of followers. But all these share the trait for which she is most famous: unabashedly and unapologetically being herself. This commitment to authenticity has never been more on display than in Down the Drain. With writing that is both eloquent and accessible, Fox recounts her turbulent path to cultural supremacy: her parents’ volatile relationship that divided her childhood between Italy and New York City and left her largely raising herself; a possessive and abusive drug-dealing boyfriend whose torment continued even from within Rikers Island; her own trips to jail as well as to a psychiatric hospital; her work as a dominatrix that led to a complicated entanglement with a sugar daddy; a heroin habit that led to New Orleans trap houses and that she would kick only after the fatal overdose of her best friend; her own near-lethal overdoses and the deaths of still more friends from drugs and suicide; an emotionally explosive, tabloid-dominating romance with a figure she dubs “The Artist”; a whirlwind, short-lived marriage and her trials as a single parent striving to support her young son. Yet as extraordinary as her story is, its universality is what makes it so powerful. Fox doesn’t just capture her improbable evolution from grade-school outcast to fashion-world icon, she captures her transition from girlhood to womanhood to motherhood. Family and friendship, sex and death, violence and love, money and power, innocence and experience—it’s all here, in raw, remarkable, and riveting detail. More than a year before the book’s publication, Fox’s description of it as “a masterpiece” in a red carpet interview went viral. As always, she was just being honest. Down the Drain is a true literary achievement, as one-of-a-kind as its author.

Down the Drain

d8c2e0fd-4bbd-411f-9911-51daa62f4f52-1

Gotham Chopra

Joe Levin

Navigating the Trials of Life Through the Games We Love

"A memoir-meets-manifesto about the role of sports as its own religion that gives readers an inside look into the athletes, teams, and fans that inspire worldwide devotion"--

Religion of Sports

ac862cc4-9db0-4f27-935e-d8f46ea2b082-1

Kate Greathead

From the author of the critically acclaimed Laura & Emma comes a The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. for our times: Kate Greathead's razor-sharp but big-hearted excavation of millennial masculinity, The Book of George. If you haven’t had the misfortune of dating a George, you know someone who has. He’s a young man brimming with potential but incapable of following through; noncommittal to his long-suffering girlfriend, Jenny; distant from but still reliant on his mother; funny one minute, sullenly brooding the next. Here, Kate Greathead paints one particular, unforgettable George in a series of droll and surprisingly poignant snapshots of his life over two decades. And yet, it’s hard not to root for George at least a little. Beneath his cynicism is a reservoir of fondness for Jenny’s valiant willingness to put up with him. Each demonstration of his flaws is paired with a self-eviscerating comment. No one is more disappointed in him than himself (except maybe Jenny and his mother). As hilarious as it is astute and singular as it is universal, The Book of George is a deft, unexpectedly moving portrait of millennial masculinity.

The Book of George

397231a3-b6dc-4df4-a790-c07d6fddc35e-0

Caro De Robertis

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Perfect for fans of Circe and Black Sun, this bold and subversive feminist retelling of the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros explores the power of queer joy and freedom. Young, headstrong Psyche has captured the eyes of every suitor in town and far beyond with her tempestuous beauty, which has made her irresistible as a woman yet undesirable as a wife. Secretly, she longs for a life away from the expectations and demands of men. When her father realizes that the future of his family and town will be forever cursed unless he appeases an enraged Aphrodite, he follows the orders of the Oracle, tying Psyche to a rock to be ravaged by a monstrous husband. And yet a monster never arrives. When Eros, nonbinary deity of desire, sees Psyche, she cannot fulfill her promise to her mother Aphrodite to destroy the mortal young woman. Instead, Eros devises a plan to sweep Psyche away to an idyllic palace, hidden from the prying eyes of Aphrodite, Zeus, and the outside world. There, against the dire dictates of Olympus, Eros and Psyche fall in love. Each night, Eros visits Psyche under the cover of impenetrable darkness, where they both experience untold passion and love. But each morning, Eros flies away before light comes to break the spell of the palace that keeps them safe. Before long, Psyche’s nights spent in pleasure turn to days filled with doubts, as she grapples with the cost of secrecy and the complexities of freedom and desire. Restless and spurred by her sisters to reveal Eros’s true nature, she breaks her trust and forces a reckoning that tests them both—and transforms the very heavens. Told in bold and sparkling prose from “a brilliant and luminous writer” (Madeline Miller, New York Times bestselling author), The Palace of Eros transports us to a magical world imbued by divine forces as well as everyday realities, where palaces glitter with magic even as ordinary people fight for freedom in a society that fears the unknown.

The Palace of Eros

7beca9d3-a70f-4f5e-9eca-1f4eb68994d8-0

Jessica Waite

A widow’s life is turned upside down when she uncovers the truth about her late husband in this lyrical, witty, and deeply moving memoir of tragedy and betrayal. In the midst of mourning her husband’s sudden death, writer Jessica Waite discovered shocking secrets that undermined everything she thought she knew about the man she’d loved and trusted. From uncovered affairs to drug use and a pornography addiction, Waite was overwhelmed reconciling this devastating information with her new reality as a widowed single mom. Then, to further complicate matters, strange, inexplicable coincidences forced her to consider whether her husband was reaching back from beyond the grave. With her signature candor and unflinching honesty, Waite details her tumultuous love story and the pain of adjusting to the new normal she built for herself and her son. A riveting, difficult, and surprisingly beautiful story, The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards is also a lyrical exploration of grief, mental health, single parenthood, and betrayal that demonstrates that the most moving love stories aren’t perfect—they’re flawed and poignantly real.

Browse by categories