Alyssa Cole

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Maine

A Thriller

From the critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling author of When No One Is Watching comes a riveting thriller about the new caretaker of a historic estate who finds herself trapped on an island with a murderer--and the ghosts of her past. Years after a breakdown and a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder derailed her historical preservationist career, Kenetria Nash and her alters have been given a second chance they can't refuse: a position as resident caretaker of a historic home. Having been dormant for years, Ken has no idea what led them to this isolated Hudson River island, but she's determined not to ruin their opportunity. Then a surprise visit from the home's conservation trust just as a Nor'easter bears down on the island disrupts her newfound life, leaving Ken trapped with a group of possibly dangerous strangers--including the man who brought her life tumbling down years earlier. When he turns up dead, Ken is the prime suspect. Caught in a web of secrets and in a race against time, Ken and her alters must band together to prove their innocence and discover the truth of Kavanaugh Island--and their own past--or they risk losing not only their future, but their life.

One of Us Knows

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Rebecca Ross

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Novel

When two young rival journalists find love through a magical connection, they must face the depths of hell, in a war among gods, to seal their fate forever.

After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family together. Her mother is suffering from addiction and her brother is missing from the front lines. Her best bet is to win the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.

To combat her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slips them beneath her wardrobe door, where they vanish--into the hands of Roman Kitt, her cold and handsome rival at the paper. When he anonymously writes Iris back, the two of them forge a connection that will follow Iris all the way to the front lines of battle: for her brother, the fate of mankind, and love.

Shadow and Bone meets Lore in Rebecca Ross's Divine Rivals, an epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel filled with hope and heartbreak, and the unparalleled power of love.

Divine Rivals

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Eleanor Brown

The New York Times bestselling author of The Weird Sisters returns with a striking new novel about three very different adoptive mothers who face the impossible question: What makes a family?

Though they look like any other family, they aren't one--not quite. They are three sets of parents who find themselves intertwined after adopting four biological siblings, having committed to keeping the children as connected as possible.

At the heart of the family, the adoptive mothers grapple to define themselves and their new roles. Tabitha, who adopted the twins, crowns herself planner of the group, responsible for endless playdates and holidays, determined to create a perfect happy family. Quiet and steady Ginger, single mother to the eldest daughter, is wary of the way these complicated not-fully-family relationships test her long held boundaries. And Elizabeth, still reeling from rounds of failed IVF, is terrified that her unhappiness after adopting a newborn means she was not meant to be a mother at all.

As they set out on their first family vacation, all three women are pushed into uncomfortably close quarters. And when they receive a call from their children's birth mother announcing she is pregnant again, the delicate bonds the women are struggling to form threaten to collapse as they each must consider how a family is found and formed.

Any Other Family

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Janika Oza

An epic, sweeping historical debut novel "about what it means to be part of a family and lineage, in all its heartbreaking and wondrous complexity" spanning continents and a century, and how one act of survival can reverberate through generations (Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin).



At the turn of the twentieth century, Pirbhai, a teenage boy looking for work, is taken from his village in India to labor on the East African Railway for the British. One day Pirbhai commits an act to ensure his survival that will haunt him forever and reverberate across his family's future for years to come.

  

 Pirbhai's children are born and raised under the jacaranda trees and searing sun of Kampala during the waning days of British colonial rule. As Uganda moves towards independence and military dictatorship, Pirbhai's granddaughters, Latika, Mayuri, and Kiya, are three sisters coming of age in a divided nation. As they each forge their own path for a future, they must carry the silence of the history they've inherited. In 1972, under Idi Amin's brutal regime and the South Asian expulsion, the family has no choice but to flee, and in the chaos, they leave something devastating behind.

  

As Pirbhai's grandchildren, scattered across the world, find their way back to each other in exile in Toronto, a letter arrives that stokes the flames of the fire that haunts the family. It makes each generation question how far they are willing to go, and who they are willing to defy to secure their own place in the world.



A History of Burning is an unforgettable tour de force, an intimate family saga of complicity and resistance, about the stories we share, the ones that remain unspoken, and the eternal search for home.

A History of Burning

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Diane Chamberlain

New York Times bestselling author Diane Chamberlain delivers a thrilling, mind-bending novel about one mother's journey to save her child. When Carly Sears, a young woman widowed by the Vietnam war, receives the news that her unborn baby girl has a heart defect, she is devastated. It is 1970, and she is told that nothing can be done to help her child. But her brother-in-law, a physicist with a mysterious past, tells her that perhaps there is a way to save her baby. What he suggests is something that will shatter every preconceived notion that Carly has. Something that will require a kind of strength and courage she never knew existed. Something that will mean an unimaginable leap of faith on Carly's part. And all for the love of her unborn child. The Dream Daughter is a rich, genre-spanning, breathtaking novel about one mother's quest to save her child, unite her family, and believe in the unbelievable. Diane Chamberlain pushes the boundaries of faith and science to deliver a novel that you will never forget. Praise for The Dream Daughter: "Chamberlain writes with supernatural gifts...fate, destiny, chance and hope combine for a heady and breathless wonder of a read." —Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan's Tale "Can a story be both mind-bending and heartfelt? In Diane Chamberlain’s hands, it can. The Dream Daughter will hold readers in anxious suspense until the last satisfying page." —Therese Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of Z

The Dream Daughter

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Sadeqa Johnson

REESE'S FEBRUARY 2023 BOOK CLUB PICK

"Amazing...These two women's lives interest in the most wonderful and unlikely of ways. I was completely surprised by the ending of this beautifully told and written book." --Reese Witherspoon

"A triumph of historical fiction" (The Washington Post) set in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, that explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal.

1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising a daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright.

Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC's elite wealthy Black families, and his par­ents don't let just anyone into their fold. Eleanor hopes that a baby will make her finally feel at home in William's family and grant her the life she's been searching for. But having a baby--and fitting in--is easier said than done.

With their stories colliding in the most unexpected of ways, Ruby and Eleanor will both make decisions that shape the trajectory of their lives.

The House of Eve

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Amy Jo Burns

A roofing family’s bonds of loyalty are tested when they uncover a long-hidden secret at the heart of their blue-collar town—from Amy Jo Burns, author of the critically acclaimed novel Shiner It’s 1990 and 17-year-old Marley West is blazing into the river valley town of Mercury, Pennsylvania. A perpetual loner, she seeks a place at someone’s table and a family of her own. The first thing she sees when she arrives in town are three men standing on a rooftop. Their silhouettes blot out the sun. The Joseph brothers become Marley’s whole world before she can blink. Soon, she is young wife to one, The One Who Got Away to another, and adopted mother to them all. As their own mother fades away and their roofing business crumbles under the weight of their unwieldy father’s inflated ego, Marley steps in to shepherd these unruly men. Years later, an eerie discovery in the church attic causes old wounds to resurface and suddenly the family’s survival hangs in the balance. With Marley as their light, the Joseph brothers must decide whether they can save the family they’ve always known—or whether together they can build something stronger in its place.

Mercury

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J. Courtney Sullivan

A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the best-selling author of Friends and Strangers On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother. Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself. Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.

The Cliffs

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Joanne Tompkins

Named a top beach read of summer by Oprah Daily, Good Housekeeping, The Wall Street Journal, and more “Nail-biting wallop of a debut . . . a thoughtful, unexpectedly optimistic tale.” —The New York Times “If you enjoyed The Searcher by Tana French, read What Comes After by JoAnne Tompkins. . . . a mystery—and a gritty meditation on loss and redemption, drenched in stillness and grief.” —The Washington Post After the shocking death of two teenage boys tears apart a community in the Pacific Northwest, a mysterious pregnant girl emerges out of the woods and into the lives of those same boys’ families—a moving and hopeful novel about forgiveness and human connection. In misty, coastal Washington State, Isaac lives alone with his dog, grieving the recent death of his teenage son, Daniel. Next door, Lorrie, a working single mother, struggles with a heinous act committed by her own teenage son. Separated by only a silvery stretch of trees, the two parents are emotionally stranded, isolated by their great losses—until an unfamiliar sixteen-year-old girl shows up, bridges the gap, and changes everything. Evangeline’s arrival at first feels like a blessing, but she is also clearly hiding something. When Isaac, who has retreated into his Quaker faith, isn’t equipped to handle her alone, Lorrie forges her own relationship with the girl. Soon all three characters are forced to examine what really happened in their overlapping pasts, and what it all possibly means for a shared future. With a propulsive mystery at its core, What Comes After offers an unforgettable story of loss and anger, but also of kindness and hope, courage and forgiveness. It is a deeply moving account of strangers and friends not only helping each other forward after tragedy but inspiring a new kind of family.

What Comes After

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Ruth Ware

“The Agatha Christie of our generation.” —David Baldacci, #1 New York Times bestselling author “Diabolically clever.” —Riley Sager, author of Final Girls The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Turn of the Key and In a Dark Dark Wood returns with another suspenseful thriller set on a snow-covered mountain. Getting snowed in at a luxurious, rustic ski chalet high in the French Alps doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world. Especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a full-service chef and housekeeper, a cozy fire to keep you warm, and others to keep you company. Unless that company happens to be eight coworkers…each with something to gain, something to lose, and something to hide. When the cofounder of Snoop, a trendy London-based tech startup, organizes a weeklong trip for the team in the French Alps, it starts out as a corporate retreat like any other: PowerPoint presentations and strategy sessions broken up by mandatory bonding on the slopes. But as soon as one shareholder upends the agenda by pushing a lucrative but contentious buyout offer, tensions simmer and loyalties are tested. The storm brewing inside the chalet is no match for the one outside, however, and a devastating avalanche leaves the group cut off from all access to the outside world. Even worse, one Snooper hadn’t made it back from the slopes when the avalanche hit. As each hour passes without any sign of rescue, panic mounts, the chalet grows colder, and the group dwindles further…one by one.

One by One

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Sheila Sundar

A young academic moves from India to the United States, where she navigates first love, a green card marriage, single motherhood, and more in this “delightful novel, written with immediacy, warmth, and wry humor” (Ha Jin, National Book Award-winning author of Waiting). Vega Gopalan is adrift. Still reeling from the death of her sister years earlier, she leaves South India to attend graduate school at Columbia University. In New York, Vega straddles many different worlds, eventually moving in and out of a series of relationships that take her through the striving world of academia, the intellectual isolation of the immigrant suburbs, and, ultimately, the loneliness of single motherhood. But it is the birth of Vega’s daughter that forces the novel’s central question: What does it mean to make a home? Written with dry humor and searing insight, Habitations is an intimate story of identity, immigration, expectation and desire, and of love lost and found. But it is also a universal story of womanhood, and the ways in which women are forced to navigate multiple loyalties: to family, to community, and to themselves. A profound meditation on the many meanings of home and on the ways love and kinship can be found, even in the most unfamiliar of places, Habitations introduces Sheila Sundar as an electrifying new voice in literary fiction.

Habitations

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Nathan Hill

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • The New York Times best-selling author of The Nix is back with a poignant and witty novel about a modern marriage and the bonds that keep people together. Mining the absurdities of contemporary society, Wellness reimagines the love story with a healthy dose of insight, irony, and heart. "A stunning novel about the stories that we tell about our lives and our loves, and how we sustain relationships throughout time—it's beyond remarkable, both funny and heartbreaking, sometimes on the same page.” —NPR When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the gritty '90s Chicago art scene, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in the thriving underground scene with an appreciative kindred spirit. Fast-forward twenty years to suburban married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter the often-baffling pursuits of health and happiness from polyamorous would-be suitors to home-renovation hysteria. For the first time, Jack and Elizabeth struggle to recognize each other, and the no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons, from unfulfilled career ambitions to childhood memories of their own dysfunctional families. In the process, Jack and Elizabeth must undertake separate, personal excavations, or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other.

Wellness

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Sophie Hannah

The New York Times bestselling author of The Monogram Murders and Woman with a Secret returns with a sharp, captivating, and expertly plotted tale of psychological suspense. All Beth has to do is drive her son to his soccer game, watch him play, and then return home. Just because she knows her ex-best friend lives near the field, that doesn't mean she has to drive past her house and try to catch a glimpse of her. Why would Beth do that and risk dredging up painful memories? She hasn't seen Flora for twelve years. She doesn't want to see her today--or ever again. But she can't resist. She parks outside the open gates of Newnham House, watches from across the road as Flora arrives and calls to her children Thomas and Emily to get out of the car. Except . . . There's something terribly wrong. Flora looks the same, only older. Twelve years ago, Thomas and Emily were five and three years old. Today, they look precisely as they did then. They are Thomas and Emily without a doubt, but they haven't changed at all. They are no taller, no older. Why haven't they grown? How is it possible that they haven't grown up?

Perfect Little Children

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A. J. Finn

The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Woman in the Window returns with a mesmerizing thriller - part Knives Out, part Agatha Christie . . . yet utterly unlike anything you've ever read. "I'll be dead in three months. Come tell my story." So writes Sebastian Trapp, reclusive mystery novelist, to his longtime correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. With mere months to live, Trapp invites Nicky to his spectacular San Francisco mansion to help draft his life story . . . living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his wayward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible case of real-life "detective fever." "You and I might even solve an old mystery or two." Twenty years earlier--on New Year's Eve 1999--Sebastian's first wife and teenaged son vanished from different locations, never to be seen again. Did the perfect crime writer commit the perfect crime? And why has he emerged from seclusion, two decades later, to allow a stranger to dig into his past? "Life is hard. After all, it kills you." As Nicky attempts to weave together the strands of Sebastian's life, she becomes obsessed with discovering the truth . . . while Madeleine begins to question what her beloved father might actually know about that long-ago night. And when a corpse appears in the family's koi pond, both women are shocked to find that the past isn't gone--it's just waiting.

End of Story

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Tia Williams

From the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Days in June, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is an epic love story one hundred years in the making... Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing. Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn't one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she's the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they're long-stemmed roses, she's a dandelion: an adorable bloom that's actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her. When regal nonagenarian, Ms. Della, invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers. One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way. Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked.

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

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Yulin Kuang

The brilliant contemporary romance novel debut from Yulin Kuang, the acclaimed screenwriter of Emily Henry's People We Meet on Vacation and director of the forthcoming Beach Read feature film. Helen Zhang hasn't seen Grant Shepard once in the thirteen years since the car wreck that killed her sister tied their lives together forever. Now a bestselling author, Helen pours everything into her career. She's even scored a coveted spot in the writers' room of the TV adaptation of her popular young adult novels, and if she can hide her imposter syndrome and overcome her writer's block, surely the rest of her life will fall into place too. LA is the fresh start she needs. After all, no one knows her there. Except... Grant has done everything in his power to move on from the past, including building a life across the country. And while the panic attacks have never quite gone away, he's well liked around town as a screenwriter. He knows he shouldn't have taken the job on Helen's show, but it will open doors to developing his own projects that he just can't pass up. Grant's exactly as Helen remembers him--charming, funny, popular, and lovable in ways that she's never been. And Helen's exactly as Grant remembers too--brilliant, beautiful, closed off. But working together is messy, and electrifying, and Helen's parents, who have never forgiven Grant, have no idea he's in the picture at all. When secrets come to light, they must reckon with the fact that theirs was never meant to be any kind of love story. And yet... the key to making peace with their past--and themselves--might just lie in holding on to each other in the present.

How to End a Love Story

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Nadia Hashimi

"Suspenseful...emotionally compelling. I found myself eagerly following in a way I hadn't remembered for a long time, impatient for the next twist and turn of the story.--NPR An Afghan American woman returns to Kabul to learn the truth about her family and the tragedy that destroyed their lives in this brilliant and compelling novel from the bestselling author of The Pearl That Broke Its Shell, The House Without Windows, and When the Moon Is Low. Kabul, 1978: The daughter of a prominent family, Sitara Zamani lives a privileged life in Afghanistan's thriving cosmopolitan capital. The 1970s are a time of remarkable promise under the leadership of people like Sardar Daoud, Afghanistan's progressive president, and Sitara's beloved father, his right-hand man. But the ten-year-old Sitara's world is shattered when communists stage a coup, assassinating the president and Sitara's entire family. Only she survives. Smuggled out of the palace by a guard named Shair, Sitara finds her way to the home of a female American diplomat, who adopts her and raises her in America. In her new country, Sitara takes on a new name--Aryana Shepherd--and throws herself into her studies, eventually becoming a renowned surgeon. A survivor, Aryana has refused to look back, choosing instead to bury the trauma and devastating loss she endured. New York, 2008: Thirty years after that fatal night in Kabul, Aryana's world is rocked again when an elderly patient appears in her examination room--a man she never expected to see again. It is Shair, the soldier who saved her, yet may have murdered her entire family. Seeing him awakens Aryana's fury and desire for answers--and, perhaps, revenge. Realizing that she cannot go on without finding the truth, Aryana embarks on a quest that takes her back to Kabul--a battleground between the corrupt government and the fundamentalist Taliban--and through shadowy memories of the world she loved and lost. Bold, illuminating, heartbreaking, yet hopeful, Sparks Like Stars is a story of home--of America and Afghanistan, tragedy and survival, reinvention and remembrance, told in Nadia Hashimi's singular voice.

Sparks Like Stars

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Abi Morgan

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

What happens when your partner of twenty years suddenly believes you're nothing but a stranger? 

What do you do when your history together is gone?

How do you prove you're not an imposter in your own life? 

When the partner of Emmy Award-winning screenwriter Abi Morgan abruptly collapsed from a mysterious illness, doctors were concerned that he would not survive. Then, six months later, Jacob woke from his coma, to the delight and relief of his family and friends--except this proved to be anything but a Hollywood ending. Because to Jacob, the woman standing at his bedside, who had cared for him all these months, was not his partner. Not his children's mother. Not the woman he loved. Sure, she looked like his Abi, but this was an imposter, living someone else's life.

Finding herself dropped into a real-life night-mare seemingly ripped from the pages of a thriller, Abi must find a way to hang on to not only their past but also their future together, before it slips away from them both. With grace, an irresistible sense of humor and refreshingly raw honesty, This Is Not a Pity Memoir grapples with a journey through fear and redemption few should have to face.

What do you do when you are losing your love? 

You don't write a pity memoir. 

You write a love story. 

This Is Not a Pity Memoir

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Sabaa Tahir

A family extending from Pakistan to California, deals with generations of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness.

All My Rage

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Amy Pease

The dark underbelly of an idyllic Midwestern resort town is revealed in the aftermath of a murder with ties to America’s opioid epidemic in this unputdownable and thrilling debut that is perfect for fans of James Lee Burke, William Kent Krueger, and Mindy Mejia. Eli North is not okay. His drinking is getting worse by the day, his emotional wounds after a deployment to Afghanistan are as raw as ever, his marriage and career are over, and the only job he can hold down is with the local sheriff’s department. And that’s only because the sheriff is his mother—and she’s overwhelmed with small town Shaky Lake’s dwindling budget and the fallout from the opioid epidemic. The Northwoods of Wisconsin may be a vacationer’s paradise, but amidst the fishing trips and campfires and Paul Bunyan festivals, something sinister is taking shape. When the body of a teenage boy is found in the lake, it sets in motion an investigation that leads Eli to a wealthy enclave with a violent past, a pharmaceutical salesman, and a missing teenage girl. Soon, Eli and his mother, along with a young FBI agent, are on the hunt for more than just a killer. If Eli solves the case, could he finally get the shot at redemption he so desperately needs? Or will answers to this dark case elude him and continue to bring destruction to the Northwoods?

Northwoods

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Etaf Rum

The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of A Woman Is No Man returns with a striking exploration of the expectations of Palestinian-American women, the meaning of a fulfilling life, and the ways our unresolved pasts affect our presents. Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. She's gotten to follow her dreams, completing an undergraduate degree in Art and landing a good job at the local college. As a traditional wife, she also raises their two school-aged daughters, takes care of the house, and has dinner ready when her husband gets home. With her family balanced with her professional ambitions, Yara knows that her life is infinitely more rewarding than her own mother's. So why doesn't it feel like enough? After her dream of chaperoning a student trip to Europe evaporates and she responds to a colleague's racist provocation, Yara is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counseling to keep her position. Her mother blames a family curse for the trouble she's facing, and while Yara doesn't really believe in old superstitions, she still finds herself growing increasingly uneasy with her mother's warning and the possibility of falling victim to the same mistakes. Shaken to the core by these indictments of her life, Yara finds her carefully constructed world beginning to implode. To save herself, Yara must reckon with the reality that the difficulties of the childhood she thought she left behind have very real--and damaging--implications not just on her own future but that of her daughters.

Evil Eye

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Leila Mottley

Poems

A poignant and rousing debut book of poetry from the former Youth Poet Laureate of Oakland, CA—the acclaimed, best-selling author of the novel Nightcrawling Leila Mottley follows her trailblazing first novel with a perfectly pitched first collection of poems that demonstrate her spark and scope. woke up no light reckons with themes of reparations, restitution, and desire. Moving in sections from “girlhood” to “neighborhood” to “falsehood” to, finally, “womanhood,” these poems are the breathing life of a Black girl as she grows into adulthood, simultaneously youthful and profound. Each poem is a searing vignette, capturing the dissonance of Black girlhood through visceral language. The collection is sharp and raw, wise and rhythmic, a combination that lights up each page. From unearthing histories to searching for ways to dream of a future in a world constantly on the brink of disaster, Mottley sets forth personal and political revelation with piercing detail. woke up no light confirms Leila Mottley’s arrival and demonstrates the enduring power of her voice—brave and distinctive and thoroughly her own.

Woke up No Light

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Kimberly King Parsons

A young mother, in denial after the death of her sister, navigates the dizzying landscapes of desire, guilt, and grief in this darkly comic, highly anticipated debut novel from Kimberly King Parsons, author of the story collection, Black Light (longlisted for the National Book Award). The trip was supposed to be fun. When Kit’s best friend gets dumped by his boyfriend, he begs her to ditch her family responsibilities for an idyllic weekend in the Montana mountains. They’ll soak in hot springs, then sneak a vape into a dive bar and drink too much, like old times. Instead, their getaway only reminds Kit of everything she’s lost lately: her wildness, her independence, and—most heartbreaking of all—her sister, Julie, who died a few years ago. When she returns to the Dallas suburbs, Kit tries to settle into her routine—long afternoons spent caring for her irrepressible daughter, going on therapist-advised dates with her concerned husband, and reluctantly taking her mother’s phone calls. But in the secret recesses of Kit’s mind, she’s reminiscing about the band she used to be in—and how they’d go out to the desert after shows and drop acid. She’s imagining an impossible threesome with her kid’s pretty gymnastics teacher and the cool playground mom. Keyed into everything that might distract from her surfacing pain, Kit spirals. As her already thin boundaries between reality and fantasy blur, she begins to wonder: Is Julie really gone? Neon bright in its insight, both devastating and laugh-out-loud funny, We Were the Universe is an ambitious, inventive novel from a revelatory new voice in American fiction—a fearless exploration of sisterhood, motherhood, friendship, marriage, psychedelics, and the many strange, transcendent shapes love can take.

We Were the Universe

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Alice Elliott Dark

NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Engrossing...studded with wisdom about long-held bonds.” —People, Book of the Week “Enthralling, masterfully written...rich with social and psychological insights.” —The New York Times Book Review “A magnificent storytelling feat.” —The Boston Globe The “utterly engrossing, sweeping” (Time) story of a lifelong friendship between two very different “superbly depicted” (The Wall Street Journal) women with shared histories, divisive loyalties, hidden sorrows, and eighty years of summers on a pristine point of land on the coast of Maine, set across the arc of the 20th century. Celebrated children’s book author Agnes Lee is determined to secure her legacy—to complete what she knows will be the final volume of her pseudonymously written Franklin Square novels; and even more consuming, to permanently protect the peninsula of majestic coast in Maine known as Fellowship Point. To donate the land to a trust, Agnes must convince shareholders to dissolve a generations-old partnership. And one of those shareholders is her best friend, Polly. Polly Wister has led a different kind of life than Agnes: that of a well-off married woman with children, defined by her devotion to her husband, a philosophy professor with an inflated sense of stature. She strives to create beauty and harmony in her home, in her friendships, and in her family. Polly soon finds her loyalties torn between the wishes of her best friend and the wishes of her three sons—but what is it that Polly wants herself? Agnes’s designs are further muddied when an enterprising young book editor named Maud Silver sets out to convince Agnes to write her memoirs. Agnes’s resistance cannot prevent long-buried memories and secrets from coming to light with far-reaching repercussions for all. “An ambitious and satisfying tale” (The Washington Post), Fellowship Point reads like a 19th-century epic, but it is entirely contemporary in its “reflections on aging, writing, stewardship, legacies, independence, and responsibility. At its heart, Fellowship Point is about caring for the places and people we love...This magnificent novel affirms that change and growth are possible at any age” (The Christian Science Monitor).

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