Adele Buck

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Arizona

In this fun, fast-paced romantic comedy, a bookish firefighter who knows his Jane Austen suggests a little fake dating to fend off an ex. What's a feminist English professor to do--except say yes... You can't fake heat like this... To an observer, hauling a baby grand piano onto a college quad to publicly serenade an ex might seem like a romantic gesture. To literature professor Eva Campbell, it's the latest manipulative move by a cheating jerk who won't take a hint. Plus, she never liked that song anyway. Setting the piano on fire might be an overreaction, but Eva's at the end of her rope, at least until hot young firefighter Sean Hannigan talks her down. And that's not all Sean does. Soon he's offering to be Eva's fake boyfriend to get her creepy ex off her back. Unexpected, maybe, but there's something about Sean--beyond the angelic face and take-me-now body--that makes Eva say yes. Sean battles infernos for a living, reads romance on the side and is a straight-up, family-loving good guy. Eva's not sure she's ready for the danger he poses to her jaded heart. Given their differences, a relationship can't last, right? But the line between fake and real keeps blurring, daring her to take the biggest risk of all... From showing up to glowing up, these characters are on the path to leading their best lives and finding sizzling romance along the way. Don't miss these other fun titles from Afterglow Books: The (Fake) Dating Game by Timothy Janovsky The Bookbinder's Guide to Love by Katherine Garbera The Devil in Blue Jeans by Stacey Kennedy Frenemy Fix-Up by Yahrah St. John The Boyfriend Subscription by Steven Salvatore Manila Takes Manhattan by Carla de Guzman Out of Office by A.H. Cunningham

Fake Flame

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Steven Salvatore

Equal parts sizzling, sweet and irresistibly fresh, Steven Salvatore's The Boyfriend Subscription is the LGBTQIA+ Pretty Woman rom-com fans have been waiting for. What happens when a simple deal gets...complicated? After losing his marriage and his beloved retail plant business, Teddy Hughes is ready to drown his sorrows--or would be, if he could afford another beer in his favorite dive bar. He has no choice but to uproot his dreams and leave New York for good. And then a gorgeous stranger walks in with cheekbones that could cut glass and a confidence that leaves Teddy panting. Like the leather harness he wears under his designer suit, Cole Vivien is a mass of contradictions. He's a successful entrepreneur whose app, VERSTL, allows consumers and sex workers to form real--if temporary--connections. But now Cole is in the unfamiliar position of needing something from someone else. A fake boyfriend can help Cole project a more traditional image for a potential investor. And Teddy--shy, smart and so much hotter than he knows--is perfect for the part. Maybe too perfect. Cole just has two conditions: no kissing and no falling in love. In exchange for one week together, Teddy will get enough money to get back on his feet, and no messy feelings will be in the mix. But some rules are made to be broken... From showing up to glowing up, these characters are on the path to leading their best lives and finding sizzling romance along the way. Don't miss these other fun titles from Afterglow Books: The (Fake) Dating Game by Timothy Janovsky The Bookbinder's Guide to Love by Katherine Garbera The Devil in Blue Jeans by Stacey Kennedy Frenemy Fix-Up by Yahrah St. John Manila Takes Manhattan by Carla de Guzman Fake Flame by Adele Buck Out of Office by A.H. Cunningham

The Boyfriend Subscription

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John Scalzi

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

The Kaiju Preservation Society is John Scalzi's first standalone adventure since the conclusion of his New York Times bestselling Interdependency trilogy. When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls “an animal rights organization.” Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on. What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm, human-free world. They're the universe's largest and most dangerous panda and they're in trouble. It's not just the Kaiju Preservation Society who have found their way to the alternate world. Others have, too. And their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.

The Kaiju Preservation Society

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Clive Barker

You hold in your hands not a book at all, but a terrifying embodiment of purest evil. Can you feel the electric tingle in your fingers as you are absorbed by the demon Jakabok's tale of his unintentional ascent from the depths of the Inferno? Do you sense the cold dread worming its way into your bloodstream, your sinews, the marrow of your bones as you read more deeply into his earthly education and unspeakable acts? The filth you now grasp has been waiting patiently for you for nearly six hundred years. And now, before you are completely in its thrall, you would do well to follow the foul creature's admonition and destroy this abomination of ink and paper before you turn a single leaf and are lost forever. You have been warned.

Mister B. Gone

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Darcy Coates

When a guard discovers an unusual lifeform on her remote moon outpost, she disregards protocol to investigate, with catastrophic consequences. The parasitic alien wears its victims' skins and adopts their personalities. It's a perfect disguise, and allows the creature to spread without being detected. By the time humanity realizes it's facing extinction, a third of its space stations have already gone dark.As the alien's ruthless progress collapses communication networks, wipes out defenses, and leaves hundreds of stations to fend for themselves, a handful of remarkable individuals must find a way to battle the greatest threat the universe has ever encountered...or die trying.

Parasite

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Joe Hill

Stories

Joe Hill's award-winning story collection, originally published as 20th Century Ghosts, featuring "The Black Phone," soon to be a major motion picture from Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions Jack Finney is thirteen, alone, and in desperate trouble. For two years now, someone has been stalking the boys of Galesberg, stealing them away, never to be seen again. And now, Finney finds himself in danger of joining them: locked in a psychopath's basement, a place stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children. With him in his subterranean cell is an antique phone, long since disconnected . . . but it rings at night anyway, with calls from the killer's previous victims. And they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn't happen to Finney. "The Black Phone" is one of fifteen stories in Joe Hill's first story collection, originally published as 20th Century Ghosts--the inventive and chilling compendium that established this award-winning, critically acclaimed, and bestselling author as "a major player in 21st-century fantastic fiction" (Washington Post).

The Black Phone [Movie Tie-In]

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Shirley Jackson

A Novel

Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by Academy Award-winning director of The Shape of Water Guillermo del Toro Filmmaker and longtime horror literature fan Guillermo del Toro serves as the curator for the Penguin Horror series, a new collection of classic tales and poems by masters of the genre. Included here are some of del Toro’s favorites, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Ray Russell’s short story “Sardonicus,” considered by Stephen King to be “perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written,” to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, Ted Klein, and Robert E. Howard. Featuring original cover art by Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, these stunningly creepy deluxe hardcovers will be perfect additions to the shelves of horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal aficionados everywhere. The Haunting of Hill House The classic supernatural thriller by an author who helped define the genre. First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting;' Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

The Haunting of Hill House

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Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic comes a riveting noir about a daydreaming secretary, a lonesome thug, and the mystery of the missing woman that brings them together. 1970s Mexico City. Maite is a secretary who lives for one thing: the latest issue of Secret Romance. While student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite escapes into stories of passion and danger. Her next-door neighbor, Leonora, a beautiful art student, seems to live a life of intrigue and romance that Maite envies. When Leonora disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman--and journeying deeper into Leonora's secret life of student radicals and dissidents. Meanwhile, someone else is also looking for Leonora at the behest of his boss, a shadowy figure who commands goon squads dedicated to squashing political activists. Elvis is an eccentric thug who longs to escape his own life: He loathes violence and loves old movies and rock 'n' roll. But as Elvis searches for the missing woman, he comes to observe Maite from a distance--and grows more and more obsessed with this woman who shares his love of music, and the unspoken loneliness of his heart. Now as Maite and Elvis come closer to discovering the secrets behind Leonora's disappearance, they can no longer escape the danger that threatens to consume their lives, with hitmen, government agents, and Russian spies aiming to protect Leonora's secrets--at gunpoint. Their lives become more colorful than comics, more passionate than a pop song, and stranger than pulp fiction.

Velvet Was the Night

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"The acclaimed author of Gods of Jade and Shadow returns with a darkly enchanting reimagining of Gothic fantasy, in which a spirited young woman discovers the haunting secrets of a beautiful old mansion in 1950s Mexico"--

Mexican Gothic

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Sara Cate

She's a good girl, but she's falling for the wrong man.

Broken down by her emotionally neglectful ex, all Charlie Underwood wants is someone to tell her she's good enough. Then she stumbles into a new job with a boss who brings her to her knees--literally.

As an owner of the Salacious Players' Club, Emerson Grant knows exactly what he wants and isn't shy about his particular tastes. But when he mistakes Charlie for a candidate to be his new submissive instead of his son's ex-girlfriend, he immediately tries to correct the situation. He offers Charlie a job as his secretary and nothing more...

Yet now that Charlie has seen a glimpse of what can happen when she's honest about what she wants, she makes it clear that all she wants is Emerson. He might be twice her age and her ex-boyfriend's dad, but he's also the only man who can give her everything she desires.

How far will she go to hear his approval?

Praise

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They call him a scoundrel. A playboy. Drake Nielson gets around, and he's not afraid to admit it. So when his best friend, Hunter, opens the Salacious Players' Club and asks him to head the construction, he jumps at the opportunity. Now he's traveling the country with Hunter and his wife, Isabel, touring other clubs to network and get inspiration. But when a demonstration at a new club involves Isabel and Drake, it comes with something Drake never saw coming--an invitation. Hunter wants Drake to sleep with his wife...while he watches. Drake would do anything for Hunter and Isabel, but this is one request he should turn down. Isabel is the woman of his dreams, but she belongs to someone else. And the exact reason he should say no is the one reason he says yes. Because it's not only Isabel he wants... Maybe it's time Drake shows his best friend exactly how much he's willing to do for him--and why.

Give Me More

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Kim Gordon

Essays on Music

Edited by iconic musician Kim Gordon and esteemed writer Sinéad Gleeson, a powerful collection by award-winning female creators, writing about the female artists that matter to them and their own personal experiences. This book is for and about the women who kicked in doors, as pioneers of their craft or making politics central to their sound: those who offer a new way of thinking about the vast spectrum of women in music. This Woman's Work: Essays on Music is edited by iconic musician Kim Gordon and esteemed writer Sinéad Gleeson and features an array of talented contributors, including: Anne Enright, Fatima Bhutto, Jenn Pelly, Rachel Kushner, Juliana Huxtable, Leslie Jamison, Liz Pelly, Maggie Nelson, Margo Jefferson, Megan Jasper, Ottessa Moshfegh, Simone White, Yiyun Li, and Zakia Sewell. In this radical departure from the historic narrative of music and music writing being written by men, for men, This Woman's Work challenges the male dominance and sexism that have been hard-coded in the canons of music, literature, and film and has forced women to fight pigeon-holing or being side-lined by carving out their own space. Women have to speak up, to shout louder to tell their story - like the auteurs and ground-breakers featured in this collection, including: Anne Enright on Laurie Anderson; Megan Jasper on her ground-breaking work with Sub Pop; Margo Jefferson on Bud Powell and Ella Fitzgerald; and Fatima Bhutto on music and dictatorship. This Woman's Work also features writing on the experimentalists, women who blended music and activism, the genre-breakers, the vocal auteurs; stories of lost homelands and friends; of propaganda and dictatorships, the women of folk and country, the racialized tropes of jazz, the music of Trap and Carriacou; of mixtapes and violin lessons.

This Woman's Work

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Katy Otto

40 Years of Musicians Who Built Punk Rock

Punk Women

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Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

The Power of the Actor

Jenna Fischer

A Survival Guide

Jenna Fischer's Hollywood journey began at the age of 22 when she moved to Los Angeles from her hometown of St. Louis. With a theater degree in hand, she was determined, she was confident, she was ready to work hard. So, what could go wrong? Uh, basically everything. The path to being a professional actor was so much more vast and competitive than she'd imagined. It would be eight long years before she landed her iconic role on The Office, nearly a decade of frustration, struggle, rejection and doubt. If only she'd had a handbook for the aspiring actor. Or, better yet, someone to show her the way—an established actor who could educate her about the business, manage her expectations, and reassure her in those moments of despair. Jenna wants to be that person for you. With amusing candor and wit, Fischer spells out the nuts and bolts of getting established in the profession, based on her own memorable and hilarious experiences. She tells you how to get the right headshot, what to look for in representation, and the importance of joining forces with other like-minded artists and creating your own work—invaluable advice personally acquired from her many years of struggle. She provides helpful hints on how to be gutsy and take risks, the tricks to good auditioning and callbacks, and how not to fall for certain scams (auditions in a guy's apartment are probably not legit—or at least not for the kind of part you're looking for!). Her inspiring, helpful guidance feels like a trusted friend who's made the journey, and has now returned to walk beside you, pointing out the pitfalls as you blaze your own path towards the life of a professional actor.

The Actor's Life

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Joanna Ruth Meyer

PERSONALIZED

The forest is a dangerous place, where siren song lures men and women to their deaths. For centuries, a witch has harvested souls to feed the heartless tree, using its power to grow her domain. When Owen Merrick is lured into the witch's wood, one of her tree-siren daughters, Seren, saves his life instead of ending it. Every night, he climbs over the garden wall to see her, and every night her longing to become human deepens. But a shift in the stars foretells a dangerous curse, and Seren's quest to become human will lead them into an ancient war raging between the witch and the king who is trying to stop her.

Into the Heartless Wood 

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Malinda Lo

Winner of the National Book Award "Proof of Malinda Lo's skill at creating darkly romantic tales of love in the face of danger."--O: The Oprah Magazine "The queer romance we've been waiting for."--Ms. Magazine "Restrained yet luscious."--Sarah Waters, bestselling author of Tipping the Velvet A National Bestseller Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the feeling took root--that desire to look, to move closer, to touch. Whenever it started growing, it definitely bloomed the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. Suddenly everything seemed possible. But America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father--despite his hard-won citizenship--Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club

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The First Bright Thing arc

Mark Dawidziak

The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe

A Mystery of Mysteries is a brilliant biography of Edgar Allan Poe that examines the renowned author’s life through the prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes. It is a moment shrouded in horror and mystery. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. What was the cause of his untimely death, and what happened to him during the three missing days before he was found, delirious and “in great distress” on the streets of Baltimore, wearing ill-fitting clothes that were not his own? Mystery and horror. Poe, who remains one of the most iconic of American writers, died under haunting circumstances that reflect the two literary genres he took to new heights. Over the years, there has been a staggering amount of speculation about the cause of death, from rabies and syphilis to suicide, alcoholism, and even murder. But many of these theories are formed on the basis of the caricature we have come to associate with Poe: the gloomy-eyed grandfather of Goth, hunched over a writing desk with a raven perched on one shoulder, drunkenly scribbling his chilling masterpieces. By debunking the myths of how he lived, we come closer to understanding the real Poe—and uncovering the truth behind his mysterious death, as a new theory emerges that could prove the cause of Poe’s death was haunting him all his life. In a compelling dual-timeline narrative alternating between Poe’s increasingly desperate last months and his brief but impactful life, Mark Dawidziak sheds new light on the enigmatic master of macabre.

A Mystery of Mysteries

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Seressia Glass

He's cosplaying as her boyfriend but their feelings for each other are real in this romantic comedy from Seressia Glass. Sometimes Kenya Davenport believes she was switched at the hospital--how else could a lover of anime, gaming, and cosplay come from STEM parents? Still, Kenya dreams of being able to turn her creative hobby into a career. She finally has a chance to make it big when she joins the reality show competition Cosplay or No Way. There's just one catch: the challenge for the final round is all about iconic pairs, and the judges want the contestants' significant others to participate. Unfortunately, Kenya is as single as can be at the moment. Luckily her best friend, Cameron Lassiter, agrees to be her fake boyfriend for the show. Roleplaying a couple in love will force them to explore what they're hiding under the mask of friendship. Can Kenya and Cam fake it until she makes it, or will she be real about her feelings, knowing it could cost her the best friend she's ever had?

The Love Con

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When an unexpected Player Two enters her life, a gamer must decide if their relationship is worth leveling up in this new romance from the author of The Love Con. Samara Reynolds has built a large following as a gamer under an anonymous screen name, and uses her skills as a DEIA consultant to advocate for equal representation in video games. When she posted a video critiquing the popular game Legendsfall, she knew she’d get a reaction from her fans, but the video leads to hundreds of female gamers critiquing the game and its company, Artemis Games. The only thing more unexpected than starting an online movement is getting a job offer from the handsome CEO of Artemis. Aron Galanis has been on a mission to get his company certified to create gaming content for people with disabilities. When he sees Artemis trending online for all the wrong reasons, he’s determined to right his wrongs and offers the originator a mea culpa, as well as a job offer to overhaul the character options in Legendsfall. Working together turns Aron and Samara from adversaries into allies, allies into friends, and after that—something more. But once their relationship goes public, will Aron and Samara be able to weather the storm and fight for their happy ending, or is it game over?

Game On

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Ashley Herring Blake

A clever and steamy queer romantic comedy about taking chances and accepting love--with all its complications--by debut author Ashley Herring Blake. Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Falls--nothing is there for her but memories of a lonely childhood where she was little more than a burden to her cold and distant stepfamily. Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, it's a different woman every night, but that's just fine with her. When Delilah's estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid's stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe there's some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all. Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise...at first. Though they've known each other for years, they don't really know each other--so Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When they're forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations--including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé--Claire isn't sure she has the strength to resist Delilah's charms. Even worse, she's starting to think she doesn't want to...

Browse by categories

Adele Buck

Fake Flame

Steven Salvatore

The Boyfriend Subscription

John Scalzi

The Kaiju Preservation Society

Clive Barker

Mister B. Gone

Darcy Coates

Parasite

Joe Hill

The Black Phone [Movie Tie-In]

Shirley Jackson

The Haunting of Hill House

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Velvet Was the Night

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mexican Gothic

Sara Cate

Praise

Sara Cate

Give Me More

Kim Gordon

This Woman's Work

Katy Otto

Punk Women

Ivana Chubbuck

The Power of the Actor

Jenna Fischer

The Actor's Life

Joanna Ruth Meyer

Into the Heartless Wood

Malinda Lo

Last Night at the Telegraph Club

J.R. Dawson

The First Bright Thing arc

Mark Dawidziak

A Mystery of Mysteries

Seressia Glass

The Love Con

Seressia Glass

Game On

Ashley Herring Blake

Delilah Green Doesn't Care

Freydis Moon

Heart Haunt Havoc

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