Alastair Reynolds

Purchased new and read once. Slight lifting of front cover. 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Kansas

From the king of modern space opera comes a new adventure in the Prefect Dreyfus series--Machine Vendetta is a thrilling tale of deadly conspiracies and old enemies that refuse to die. Panoply is a small, efficient police force, dedicated to maintaining the rule of democracy among the ten thousand disparate city-states orbiting the planet Yellowstone. Ingvar Tench was one of Panoply's most experienced operatives. So why did she walk alone and unarmed into a habitat with a vicious grudge against her organization? As his colleagues pick up the pieces following her death, Prefect Tom Dreyfus must face his conscience. Four years ago, when an investigation linked to one of his most dangerous adversaries got a little too personal, Dreyfus arranged for Tench to continue the inquiry by proxy. In using her, did Dreyfus also put her in the line of fire? And what does Tench's attack tell him about an enemy he had hoped was dormant? The Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies Aurora Rising Elysium Fire Machine Vendetta

Machine Vendetta

ebf8165d-755c-46dd-ad91-e5b0a108afb6-0

Avery Cunningham

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

For fans of the Vanishing Half, for its riveting, emotional story against a brilliant exploration of the Black experience in American history. Debut author Avery Cunningham's epic love story explores the American Dream between the monolith of Jim Crow, the inflexible world of the original Black upper class, and the violence of 1920s Chicago. The year is 1921, and America is burning. A fire of vice and virtue rages on every shore with Chicago at its beating heart. Twenty-year-old Nelly Sawyer is the daughter of the alleged "wealthiest Negro in America," a Kentucky horse breeder whose wealth and prestige catapults his family to the heights of the exclusive, elite Black society. After the unexpected death of her brother--the family's presumed heir--Nelly goes from being virtually unknown to a premier debutante overnight. But Nelly has aspirations beyond society influence and marriage. For the past year, she has worked undercover as an investigative journalist for the Chicago Defender, sharing the achievements and tribulations of everyday Black people living in the shadow of Jim Crow. Now, her latest assignment thrusts her into the den of a dangerous vice lord: the so-called Mayor of Maxwell Street. Charming and mysterious, Jay Shorey strives to balance his connection to the Chicago underworld with his desperate yearning for the refinement and protection of high society. Born to a murdered bi-racial couple in rural Alabama, he knows firsthand what it means to be denied a chance at the American dream. When a tragic turn of fate gave Jay a rare path out, he took it without question. He washed up on Chicago's storied shores and never looked back, until now. When Nelly's and Jay's paths cross, she recruits him to help expose the Mayor and bring about a lasting change in a corrupted city. Trapped between the monolith of Jim Crow, the inflexible world of the Black upper class, and the violence of Prohibition-era Chicago, Jay and Nelly work together and stoke the flames of a love worth fighting for. And yet, as with all things in America, there is a price to be paid. What risk is Nelly willing to take for a young man willing to risk it all? Debut author Avery Cunningham's stunning novel is at once an epic love story, a riveting historical drama, and a brilliant exploration of Black society and perseverance when the '20s first began to roar.

The Mayor of Maxwell Street

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Caroline O'Donoghue

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

A Novel

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A USA TODAY BESTSELLER • A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three • “O'Donoghue deepens the familiar coming-of-age premise with riveting moral complications." —People "If you’ve ever been unsure what to do with your degree in English; if you’ve ever wondered when the rug-buying part of your life will start...if you’ve ever loved the wrong person, or the right person at the wrong time…In short, if you’ve ever been young, you will love The Rachel Incident like I did.” —Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times best-selling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them. When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.

The Rachel Incident

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Faith Hunter

Hired by the Vampire Council of New Orleans to hunt and kill one of their own who has broken sacred ancient rules, Jane, a vampire hunter and skinwalker, becomes caught in the middle of bitter rivalries and old loyalties in a city of dark magic and old grudges where she must protect both sides. Original.

Blood Cross

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Dervla McTiernan

“Compelling, unexpected twists and a hold-your breath standoff . . . Hand this one to readers of Tana French and to police-procedural fans.” —Booklist It's been twenty years since Detective Cormac Reilly discovered the body of Hilaria Blake in her crumbling home. But he's never forgotten the two children she left behind... When Aisling Conroy's boyfriend Jack is found in the freezing black waters of the river Corrib in Ireland, the police tell her it was suicide. She throws herself into work, trying to forget—but Jack's sister Maude reappears in Ireland after years abroad, determined to prove Jack was murdered. Meanwhile, Detective Cormac Reilly, who was recently transferred to Galway from his squad in Dublin, is assigned to dig into a cold case from twenty years ago—the seeming overdose of Jack and Maude's drug and alcohol addled mother. Other detectives are connecting Jack’s death to his mother’s, and pushing Reilly to arrest Maude, and fast. But instinct tells him something isn’t quite what it seems… This unsettling small-town noir draws us deep into the dark heart of Ireland, where corruption, desperation, and crime run rife. A gritty look at trust and betrayal where the written law isn't the only one, The Ruin asks who will protect you when the authorities can't—or won't.

The Ruin

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Charlotte Stein

When Grumpy Met Sunshine

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Nicholas Sparks

In this New York Times bestseller, a single mother sets out to find the North Carolina man who sent a message meant for someone else . . . and the journey may change her life forever. Divorced and disillusioned about relationships, Theresa Osborne is jogging when she finds a bottle on the beach. Inside is a letter of love and longing to "Catherine," signed simply "Garrett." Challenged by the mystery and pulled by emotions she doesn't fully understand, Theresa begins a search for this man that will change her life. What happens to her is unexpected, perhaps miraculous-an encounter that embraces all our hopes for finding someone special, for having a love that is timeless and everlasting.... Nicholas Sparks exquisitely chronicles the human heart. In his first bestselling novel, The Notebook, he created a testament to romantic love that touched readers around the world. Now in this New York Times bestseller, he renews our faith in destiny, in the ability of lovers to find each other no matter where, no matter when...

Message in a Bottle

bce73048-587b-4f7f-81ae-8420f3bcefca-1

Lauren Willig

Eloise Kelly, a smart but slightly fumbling Jimmy Choo-clad American, uncovers the secret history of the Pink Carnation--a tale of espionage, adventure, and romance. And she just might find a hero of her own along the way.

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

4f73c954-c257-44fd-8938-583cfb30fc82-1

Elaine U. Cho

Becky Chambers meets Firefly in this big-hearted Korean space opera debut about a disgraced space pilot struggling to find her place while fighting to protect the people she loves. "A thrilling, transportive ride from a powerful and evocative new voice." --Lena Waithe, Rishi Rajani, and Naomi Funabashi, Hillman Grad Books Ocean Yoon has never felt very Korean, even if she is descended from a long line of haenyeo, Jeju Island's beloved female divers. She doesn't like soju, constantly misses cultural references, and despite her love of the game, people still say that she doesn't play Hwatu like a Korean. Ocean's also persona non grata at the Alliance, Korea's solar system-dominating space agency, since a mission went awry and she earned a reputation for being a little too quick with her gun. When her best friend, Teo, second son of the Anand Tech empire, is framed for murdering his family, Ocean and her misfit crewmates are pushed to the forefront of a high-stakes ideological conflict. But dodging bullets and winning space chases may be the easiest part of what comes next. A thrilling adventure across the solar that delivers hyperkinetic action sequences and irresistible will-they-won't-they romance alongside its nuanced exploration of colonialism and capitalism, Ocean's Godori ultimately asks: What do we owe our past? How do we navigate our present while honoring the complicated facets of our identity? What can our future hold?

Ocean's Godori

53f8ea5a-e30d-4d78-98d5-36f31e33eeab-0

Carys Davies

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Sunday Times (UK) * The Guardian (UK) * The Washington Independent Review of Books * Sydney Morning Herald * The Los Angeles Public Library * The Irish Independent * Real Simple *

Finalist for the Rathbones Folio Prize

"Carys Davies is a deft, audacious visionary." --Téa Obreht

When widowed mule breeder Cy Bellman reads in the newspaper that colossal ancient bones have been discovered in the salty Kentucky mud, he sets out from his small Pennsylvania farm to see for himself if the rumors are true: that the giant monsters are still alive and roam the uncharted wilderness beyond the Mississippi River. Promising to write and to return in two years, he leaves behind his only daughter, Bess, to the tender mercies of his taciturn sister and heads west.

With only a barnyard full of miserable animals and her dead mother's gold ring to call her own, Bess, unprotected and approaching womanhood, fills lonely days tracing her father's route on maps at the subscription library and waiting for his letters to arrive. Bellman, meanwhile, wanders farther and farther from home, across harsh and alien landscapes, in reckless pursuit of the unknown.

From Frank O'Connor Award winner Carys Davies, West is a spellbinding and timeless epic-in-miniature, an eerie parable of the American frontier and an electric monument to possibility.

West

20094637-133a-4fc1-ad55-d29aa7260a67-1

Georges Simenon

David Bellos

'What he sought, what he waited and watched out for was the crack in the wall. In other words, the instant when the human being comes out from behind the opponent . . .'

Who is Pietr the Latvian? Is he a gentleman thief? A Russian drinking absinthe in a grimy bar? A married Norwegian sea captain? A twisted corpse in a train toilet? Or is he all of these men? In Simenon's first novel featuring Maigret, the laconic detective is taken from grimy dive bars to luxury hotels as he solves this strange enigma.

Pietr the Latvian

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Shaina Steinberg

Mr. and Mrs. Smith meets The Thin Man's Nick and Nora Charles in this intrigue-filled debut from film and television writer Shaina Steinberg, as two former spies who shared more than just missions during WWII reunite in 1948 Los Angeles. Can they let go of heartbreak long enough to team up for one last operation? A tightly-plotted, emotionally rich postwar mystery for fans of The Rose Code by Kate Quinn and The Lost Letter by Jillian Cantor, as well as readers of mysteries by Ashley Weaver, Allison Montclair, and Jacqueline Winspear. It's 1942, and as far as her father knows, Evelyn Bishop, heiress to an aeronautics fortune, is working as a translator in London. In truth, Evelyn--daring, beautiful, and as adept with a rifle as she is in five languages--has joined the Office of Strategic Services as a spy. Her goal is personal: to find her brother, who is being held as a POW in a Nazi labor camp. Through one high-risk mission after another she is paired with the reckless and rebellious Nick Gallagher, growing ever close to him until the war's end brings with it an act of deep betrayal. Six years later, Evelyn is back home in Los Angeles, working as a private investigator. The war was supposed to change everything, yet Evelyn, contemplating marriage to her childhood sweetheart, feels stifled by convention. Then the suspected cheating husband she's tailing is murdered, and suddenly Evelyn is back in Nick's orbit again. Teaming up for a final mission, Evelyn and Nick begin to uncover the true nature of her case-- and realize that the war has followed them home. For beyond the public horrors waged by nations there are countless secret, desperate acts that still reverberate on both continents, and threaten everything Evelyn holds dear...

Under the Paper Moon

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John Buchan

Annotated Edition (Alma Classics Evergreens)

When Richard Hannay finds the corpse of freelance spy Franklin P. Scudder in his London flat, he goes on the run, fearing that his life is in danger. Scudder had previously revealed that he was investigating a ring of German spies, who were conspiring to sabotage Britain's war capability. Hannay becomes both hunter and hunted as he struggles to unravel the tangled threads of this plot while staying one step ahead of his pursuers, who will stop at nothing to keep their nefarious secrets. First published in 1915, John Buchan's definitive spy novel was the first in a long line of espionage thrillers to delve into the underbelly of the British establishment. Over a hundred years later, The Thirty-Nine Steps remains resonant, and the various film, television and theatre adaptations of this classic – most notably Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 version – are a testament to its capacity to thrill.

The Thirty-Nine Steps

5b0e12a8-ddc8-4bae-a864-1251a9ebe10d-1

Craig Johnson

Some mild cover wear. Remainder dot on bottom page edge. 

A Longmire Mystery

In the twelfth Longmire novel, Walt, Henry, and Vic discover much more than they bargained for when they are called in to investigate a hit-and-run accident involving a young motorcyclist near Devils Tower—from the New York Times bestselling author of Land of Wolves In the midst of the largest motorcycle rally in the world, a young biker is run off the road and ends up in critical condition. When Sheriff Walt Longmire and his good friend Henry Standing Bear are called to Hulett, Wyoming—the nearest town to America's first national monument, Devils Tower—to investigate, things start getting complicated. As competing biker gangs; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; a military-grade vehicle donated to the tiny local police force by a wealthy entrepreneur; and Lola, the real-life femme fatale and namesake for Henry's '59 Thunderbird (and, by extension, Walt's granddaughter) come into play, it rapidly becomes clear that there is more to get to the bottom of at this year's Sturgis Motorcycle Rally than a bike accident. After all, in the words of Arthur Conan Doyle, whose Adventures of Sherlock Holmes the Bear won't stop quoting, "There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."

An Obvious Fact

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Waubgeshig Rice

A daring post-apocalyptic thriller from a powerful rising literary voice. With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision. Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn.

Moon of the Crusted Snow

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Alexis Hall

In this charming, witty, and weird fantasy novel, Alexis Hall pays homage to Sherlock Holmes with a new twist on those renowned characters. Upon returning to the city of Khelathra-Ven after five years fighting a war in another universe, Captain John Wyndham finds himself looking for somewhere to live, and expediency forces him to take lodgings at 221b Martyrs Walk. His new housemate is Ms. Shaharazad Haas, a consulting sorceress of mercurial temperament and dark reputation. When Ms. Haas is enlisted to solve a case of blackmail against one of her former lovers, Miss Eirene Viola, Captain Wyndham is drawn into a mystery that leads him from the salons of the literary set to the drowned back-alleys of Ven and even to a prison cell in lost Carcosa. Along the way he is beset by criminals, menaced by pirates, molested by vampires, almost devoured by mad gods, and called upon to punch a shark. But the further the companions go in pursuit of the elusive blackmailer, the more impossible the case appears. Then again, in Khelathra-Ven reality is flexible, and the impossible is Ms. Haas' stock-in-trade.

The Affair of the Mysterious Letter

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Things Fall Apart 

Neal Asher

A Novel of the Polity

It’s first contact… Polity style! The Polity Collective is the pinnacle of space-faring civilization. Academic and insightful, its dominion stretches from Earth Central into the unfathomable reaches of the galactic void. But when the Polity finally encounters alien life in the form of massive, hostile, crablike carnivores known as the Prador, there can be only one outcome… total warfare. Chaos reigns as the Polity, caught unawares, struggles to regain its foothold and transition itself into a military society. Starships clash, planets fall, and space stations are overrun, but for Jebel Krong and Moria Salem, two unlikely heroes trapped at the center of the action, this war is far more than a mere clash of cultures, far more than technology versus brute force… this war is personal. Epic in scope, unrelenting in action, Prador Moon delivers the blistering battles and astounding literary pyrotechnics that fans of Neal Asher, author of Gridlinked, The Line of Polity, and The Skinner, have come to expect. Prador Moon is Asher’s latest and most shocking excursion into the Polity’s universe of over-the-top violence and explosive action. Asher delivers a vivid, visceral, brilliantly intense space opera that you won’t soon forget.

Prador Moon

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Pat Barker

From the Booker Prize-winning Pat Barker, author of The Silence of the Girls ("An important, powerful, memorable book" --Emily Wilson, translator of The Odyssey), a retelling of the Trojan War from the perspective of the women who endured it Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war--including the women of Troy themselves. They await a fair wind for the Aegean. It does not come, because the gods are offended. The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. Old feuds resurface and new suspicions and rivalries begin to fester. Largely unnoticed by her captors, the one-time Trojan queen Briseis, formerly Achilles' mistress, now belonging to his companion Alcimus, quietly takes in these developments. She forges alliances when she can, with Priam's aged wife the defiant Hecuba and with the disgraced soothsayer Calchas, all the while shrewdly seeking her path to revenge.

The Women of Troy

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Lev Ac Rosen

The Bell in the Fog, a dazzling historical mystery by Lev AC Rosen, asks—once you have finally found a family, how far would you go to prove yourself to them? San Francisco, 1952. Detective Evander “Andy” Mills has started a new life for himself as a private detective—but his business hasn’t exactly taken off. It turns out that word spreads fast when you have a bad reputation, and no one in the queer community trusts him enough to ask an ex-cop for help. When James, an old flame from the war who had mysteriously disappeared, arrives in his offices above the Ruby, Andy wants to kick him out. But the job seems to be a simple case of blackmail, and Andy’s debts are piling up. He agrees to investigate, despite everything it stirs up. The case will take him back to the shadowy, closeted world of the Navy, and then out into the gay bars of the city, where the past rises up to meet him, like the swell of the ocean under a warship. Missing people, violent strangers, and scandalous photos that could destroy lives are a whirlpool around him, and Andy better make sense of it all before someone pulls him under for good.

The Bell in the Fog

c0c0cba6-312c-4426-af41-0b3ddaa3c2eb-0

John Grisham

Moderate cover wear. Some creasing of spine. 

After seventeen-year-old Samuel "Sooley" Sooleymon receives a college scholarship to play basketball for North Carolina Central, he moves to Durham from his native, war-torn South Sudan, enrolls in classes, joins the team, and prepares to sit out his freshman season, but Sooley has a fierce determination to succeed so he can bring his family to America, working tirelessly on his game until he dominates everyone in practice, and when Sooley is called off the bench, the legend begins.

Sooley

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Olivia Dade

A Harlot's Bay Novel

Bestselling author Olivia Dade welcomes you to Harlot's Bay in this delightfully sexy rom-com about a woman who buys the town's famous Spite House, only to realize the infuriating man she can't stand lives right next door--and their unwilling proximity might spark something neither can ignore. When Athena Greydon's fiancé ends their engagement, she has no choice but to move into the Spite House she recklessly bought him as a wedding gift. Which is a problem, for several reasons: The house, originally built as a brick middle finger to the neighbors, is only ten feet wide. Her ex's home is literally attached to hers. And Dr. Matthew Vine the Freaking Third--AKA the uptight, judgy jerk who convinced his younger brother to leave her--is living on her other side, only a four-foot alley away. If she has to see Matthew every time she looks out her windows, she might as well have some fun with the situation. By, say, playing erotic audiobooks at top volume with those windows open. A woman living in a Spite House is basically obligated to get petty payback however she can, right? Unfortunately, loathing Matthew proves more difficult than anticipated. He helps her move. He listens. And he's kind of...hot? Dammit. Matthew may not regret ending his brother's engagement, but he does regret what the breakup has done to Athena. He'll help her however he can. If that means finding her work, fine. If that means enduring nightly Steamy Story Hours, so be it. And if that means watching Athena through their windows a bit too often and caring about her a bit too much...well, nothing can come of it. She'll never forgive him. Even if she did, how could he ever tell his beloved younger brother the truth--that Matthew wants the very same woman he encouraged Johnny to leave?

At First Spite

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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

Kevin J. Anderson

Sprayed edges—done by previous owner??  Mild cover wear. Previous owner’s name written on first page. 

While the earth is overrun by swarms of ancient robots built by the not-so-extinct Klikiss race, King Peter breaks away from the resistance-crushing forces of the Hansa's brutal Chairman in order to forge independent colonies. 50,000 first printing.

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