Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Pennsylvania

SIGNED Never Name The Dead

Nigar Alam

A compellingly heartbreaking debut novel about the echoes of Partition and four friends whose dark secrets lead to a life-changing night that comes back to haunt them decades later. One night. Four friends. Countless secrets. 1964. Karachi, Pakistan. Rozeena is running out of time. She'll lose her home—her parents' safe haven since fleeing India and the terrors of Partition—if her medical career doesn't take off soon. But success may come with an unexpected price. Meanwhile the interwoven lives of her childhood best friends—Haaris, Aalya, and Zohair—seem to be unraveling with each passing day. The once small and inconsequential differences between their families' social standing now threaten to divide them. Then one fateful night someone ends up dead and the life they once took for granted shatters. 2019. Rozeena receives a call from a voice she never thought she’d hear again. What begins as an ask to look after a friend’s teenaged granddaughter struggling with her own demons grows into an unconventional friendship—one that unearths buried secrets and just might ruin everything Rozeena has worked so hard to protect. Captivating and atmospheric, Under the Tamarind Tree shows us the high-stakes ripple effects of generational trauma, and the lengths people will go to protect the ones they love.

SIGNED Under the Tamarind Tree

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Krystal Marquis

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

The Davenports delivers a totally escapist, swoon-worthy romance while offering a glimpse into a period of African American history often overlooked.

"A fresh, utterly enchanting read." --Ayana Gray, New York Times bestselling author of the Beasts of Prey trilogy

The Davenports are one of the few Black families of immense wealth and status in a changing United States, their fortune made through the entrepreneurship of William Davenport, a formerly enslaved man who founded the Davenport Carriage Company years ago. Now it's 1910, and the Davenports live surrounded by servants, crystal chandeliers, and endless parties, finding their way and finding love--even where they're not supposed to.

There is Olivia, the beautiful elder Davenport daughter, ready to do her duty by getting married . . . until she meets the charismatic civil rights leader Washington DeWight and sparks fly. The younger daughter, Helen, is more interested in fixing cars than falling in love--unless it's with her sister's suitor. Amy-Rose, the childhood friend turned maid to the Davenport sisters, dreams of opening her own business--and marrying the one man she could never be with, Olivia and Helen's brother, John. But Olivia's best friend, Ruby, also has her sights set on John Davenport, though she can't seem to keep his interest . . . until family pressure has her scheming to win his heart, just as someone else wins hers.

Inspired by the real-life story of the Patterson family, The Davenports is the tale of four determined and passionate young Black women discovering the courage to steer their own path in life--and love.

"Deftly written . . . A dazzling debut." --Kirkus (starred review)
"Stunningly wrought . . . Presents a cast of take-charge women." --PW (starred review)
"Compelling . . . distinct and satisfying." --BCCB
"Skilled . . . Well-written . . . Sure to please." --SLJ
"If this whole series existed right now, I'd tear through it to the exclusion of everything else in my life." --

The Davenports

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Wendy Walker

With special dust jacket, sprayed edges, and signed by the author! 

Detective Elise Sutton thought her days of living in fear were behind her. She has survived her husband's infidelity and an early case that almost broke her, forcing her to leave active duty for work solving cold cases alongside her loyal partner, Rowan--an ex-marine with his own demons. But all of that changes the day she enters her local mini-mart and stumbles upon a robbery in progress. What Remains has the meticulous plotting of The Silent Patient, the urgency of The Girl on the Train, and the complex characters and emotional punch of Long Bright River.

SIGNED SPECIAL EDITION What Remains

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Goldy Moldavsky

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Rafi Francisco needs a splashy case to put her true-crime podcast on the map. Her plan? Land an interview with Fly Fest headliner River Stone, who rocketed to stardom after his girlfriend's mysterious disappearance--and expose him as the killer she's sure he is.

But when Rafi--and the hordes of influencers--arrive at Fly Fest, the dreamy Caribbean getaway they were promised turns out to be a nightmare. Soon, Rafi is fighting for her life against power-hungry beauty gurus and spotty WiFi. And, as she gets closer to River, she discovers that his secrets might have even bigger consequences than she suspected.

SIGNED Lord of the Fly Fest

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Eric Nguyen

A Novel

A captivating novel about an immigrant Vietnamese family who settles in New Orleans and struggles to remain connected to one another as their lives are inextricably reshaped. This stunning debut is "vast in scale and ambition, while luscious and inviting ... in its intimacy" (The New York Times Book Review).

When Huong arrives in New Orleans with her two young sons, she is jobless, homeless, and worried about her husband, Cong, who remains in Vietnam. As she and her boys begin to settle in to life in America, she continues to send letters and tapes back to Cong, hopeful that they will be reunited and her children will grow up with a father.

But with time, Huong realizes she will never see her husband again. While she attempts to come to terms with this loss, her sons, Tuan and Binh, grow up in their absent father's shadow, haunted by a man and a country trapped in their memories and imaginations. As they push forward, the three adapt to life in America in different ways: Huong gets involved with a Vietnamese car salesman who is also new in town; Tuan tries to connect with his heritage by joining a local Vietnamese gang; and Binh, now going by Ben, embraces his adopted homeland and his burgeoning sexuality. Their search for identity--as individuals and as a family--threatens to tear them apart, un­til disaster strikes the city they now call home and they are suddenly forced to find a new way to come together and honor the ties that bind them.

Things We Lost to the Water

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Jim Crace

"In The Pesthouse Jim Crace imagines an America of the future where a man and a woman trek across a devastated and dangerous landscape, finding strength in each other and an unexpected love." "Once the safest, most prosperous place on earth, the United States is now a lawless, scantly populated wasteland. The machines have stopped. The government has collapsed. Farmlands lie fallow and the soil is contaminated by toxins. Across the country, families have packed up their belongings to travel eastward toward the one hope left: passage on a ship to Europe." "Franklin Lopez and his brother, Jackson, are only days away from the ocean when Franklin, nearly crippled by an inflamed knee, is forced to stop. In the woods near his temporary refuge, Franklin comes upon an isolated stone building. Inside he finds Margaret, a woman with a deadly infection and confined to the Pesthouse to sweat out her fever. Tentatively, the two join forces and make their way through the ruins of old America. Confronted by bandits rounding up men for slavery, finding refuge in the Ark, a religious community that makes bizarre demands on those they shelter, Franklin and Margaret find their wariness of each other replaced by deep trust and an intimacy neither one has ever experienced before."--BOOK JACKET.

The Pesthouse

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C. Cambridge

A charming and inventive new historical series introduces an unforgettable heroine in Phyllida Bright, fictional housekeeper for Agatha Christie. When a dead body is found during a house party at the home of Agatha Christie and her husband Max Mallowan, it's up to famous author's head of household, Phyllida Bright, to investigate. With help from the village's handsome physician, Dr. Bhatt, Mr. Dobble, the butler, along with other household staff, Phyllida assembles the clues. Yet, she is all too aware that the killer must still be close at hand and poised to strike again. Author has written under C.M. Gleason. Print run 15,000.

Murder at Mallowan Hall

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Margaret Stohl

Melissa de la Cruz

A surprising and romantic YA retelling-mashup of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by bestselling authors Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz.

Best friends Mary Lennox, Sara Crewe, and Cedric Erroll are best friends. And thank goodness, since their boarding school is basically insufferable. When one of the friends suffers a personal tragedy, a plan--and a secret--change everything for the trio . . . for good.  
 
Filled with charm and romance, and inspired by some of classic literature's most beloved characters, The Secret Princess is the perfect blend of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden--and the perfect companion to Jo & Laurie.

A Secret Princess

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Lorena Hughes

A Gripping Historical Novel Perfect for Book Clubs

Set against the lush backdrop of early twentieth century Ecuador and inspired by the real-life history of the coastal town known as the birthplace of cacao, this captivating #OwnVoices novel from the award-winning author of The Sisters of Alameda Street tells the story of a resourceful young chocolatier who must impersonate a man in order to claim her birthright... "An atmospheric and captivating mystery set against the backdrop of 1920s Ecuador, The Spanish Daughter is an engrossing, suspenseful family saga filled with unpredictable twists and turns."--Chanel Cleeton, New York Times bestselling author of Next Year in Havana As a child in Spain, Puri always knew her passion for chocolate was inherited from her father. But it's not until his death that she learns of something else she's inherited--a cocoa estate in Vinces, Ecuador, a town nicknamed "París Chiquito." Eager to claim her birthright and filled with hope for a new life after the devastation of World War I, she and her husband Cristóbal set out across the Atlantic Ocean. But it soon becomes clear someone is angered by Puri's claim to the estate . . . When a mercenary sent to murder her aboard the ship accidentally kills Cristóbal instead, Puri dons her husband's clothes and assumes his identity, hoping to stay safe while she searches for the truth of her father's legacy in Ecuador. Though freed from the rules that women are expected to follow, Puri confronts other challenges at the estate--newfound siblings, hidden affairs, and her father's dark secrets. Then there are the dangers awakened by her attraction to an enigmatic man as she tries to learn the identity of an enemy who is still at large, threatening the future she is determined to claim. Praise for The Spanish Daughter: A Publishers Marketplace Buzz Books: Fall/Winter 2021 selection "A lushly written story of bittersweet family secrets and betrayals that ultimately celebrates the healing power of hope, resilience, love--and chocolate!" --Andrea Penrose, author of Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens "A lyrical and nuanced study of family and belonging. Readers will fall in love with The Spanish Daughter's unique setting amidst the cacao plantations of Ecuador in 1920, its lush and vivid prose, and compelling and audacious heroine." --Anna Lee Huber, USA Today bestselling author of Murder Most Fair "A deftly written story entangling family, identity, chocolate and murder, set in the lush golden days of Ecuador's cacao boom in the early twentieth century. Hughes gradually weaves the separate tales of her narrators into a single strong thread, drawing you into the world of three very different sisters united by deception and loss."--Shana Abé, New York Times bestselling author of The Second Mrs. Astor

SIGNED The Spanish Daughter

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Justin Cronin

A luminous work of fiction that celebrates the uncommon in common lives, and the redemptive power of love. Mary and O'Neil frequently marveled at how, of all the lives they might have led, they had somehow found this one together. When they met at the Philadelphia high school where they'd come to teach, each had suffered a profound loss that had not healed. How likely was it that they could learn to trust, much less love, again? In Justin Cronin's tender, heartwise debut, eight stories trace the lives of these two vulnerable young people as they rediscover in each other a world alive with promise and hope. From the formative experiences of their early adulthood to marriage, parenthood, and beyond, each chapter illuminates the moments of grace that enable Mary and O'Neil to make peace with the deep emotional legacies that haunt them: the sudden, mysterious death of O'Neil's parents, Mary's long-ago decision to end a pregnancy, O'Neil's sister's battle with illness and a troubled marriage. Like the work of Alice Hoffman, Cronin's fiction resonates with magical nuance and unexpected encounters -- a beautiful young girl who appears to Mary one night, draped in a cloud of stars; an autistic child who reveals a life-changing secret; a woman O'Neil mistakenly dials the night their first child is born -- that edify this young couple's intimate bond and affirm their faith in the future.

Mary and O'Neil

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Glendy Vanderah

A heartfelt novel of shedding secrets, facing the past, and embracing the magic of love and family by the Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Where the Forest Meets the Stars. After the untimely deaths of her aunt and mother, young Riley Mays moved from Chicago to her cousins' Wisconsin farm. Here she found solace in caring for her extraordinary adoptive brother, exploring the surrounding wild nature, and gazing at the mystical moon--a private refuge in which she hides from her most painful memories. But ten years later, now twenty-one, Riley feels too confined by the protective walls she's erected around herself. When a stranger enters her family's remote world, Riley senses something he's hiding, a desire to escape that she understands well. Suffering from writer's block, bestselling novelist Vaughn Orr has taken to the country roads when he happens upon the accommodating, if somewhat unusual, Mays family. He's soon captivated by their eccentricities--and especially by Riley and her quiet tenacity. In her, he recognizes a shared need to keep heartbreaking secrets buried. As the worst moments of their lives threaten to surface, Riley and Vaughn must find the courage to confront them if they're to have any hope of a happy future. With the help of Riley's supportive family, a dash of everyday magic, and the healing power of nature, can the pair let go of the troubled pasts they've clung to so tightly for so long?

SIGNED The Oceanography of the Moon

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I. W. Gregorio

Told in dual narrative, This Is My Brain in Love is a stunning YA contemporary romance, exploring mental health, race and, ultimately, self-acceptance, for fans of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter and Emergency Contact. Jocelyn Wu has just three wishes for her junior year: To make it through without dying of boredom, to direct a short film with her BFF Priya Venkatram, and to get at least two months into the year without being compared to or confused with Peggy Chang, the only other Chinese girl in her grade. Will Domenici has two goals: to find a paying summer internship, and to prove he has what it takes to become an editor on his school paper. Then Jocelyn's father tells her their family restaurant may be going under, and all wishes are off. Because her dad has the marketing skills of a dumpling, it's up to Jocelyn and her unlikely new employee, Will, to bring A-Plus Chinese Garden into the 21st century (or, at least, to Facebook). What starts off as a rocky partnership soon grows into something more. But family prejudices and the uncertain future of A-Plus threaten to keep Will and Jocelyn apart. It will take everything they have and more, to save the family restaurant and their budding romance.

This Is My Brain in Love

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Kate Collins

In a tourist town on Lake Michigan, Athena Spencer keeps busy raising a son (and a pet raccoon named Oscar) while working at her family's garden center. But sometimes, she also has to get the dirt on a murderer, in the new series by the New York Times bestselling author of the Flower Shop Mysteries... Athena has invited Case Donnelly, recently relocated from Pittsburgh and awaiting his PI license, to accompany her to a Save Our Dunes fundraiser and art festival. And her date proves helpful when the body of a disgraced photographer turns up during a nature walk. The crime--and the photos taken by the dead man--raise a lot of questions about local politics, environmental battles, and the victim's womanizing ways. As Athena's endearing Greek-American family strives to solve a mystery of their own (uncovering the identity of Athena's anonymous blog), she and Case try to find the tangled roots of this murder and make sure there's no sanctuary for a killer...

Big Trouble in Little Greektown

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Charles A. Bush

After Philly teenager Alexis Duncan is injured in a gang shooting, her dreams of a college scholarship and pro basketball career vanish in an instant. To avoid becoming another Black teen trapped in her poverty-stricken neighborhood, she shifts her focus to the school's STEM team, a group of nerds seeking their own college scholarships. Academics have never been her thing, but Alexis is freshly motivated by Aamani Chakrabarti, the new Indian student who becomes her mentor (and crush?). Alexis begins to see herself as so much more than an athlete. But just as her future starts to reform, Alexis's own doubts and old loyalties pull her back into harm's way.

SIGNED Every Variable of Us

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Miranda Popkey

For readers of Rachel Cusk, Lydia Davis, and Jenny Offill--a compact tour de force about sex, violence, and self-loathing from a ferociously talented new voice in fiction Miranda Popkey's first novel is about desire, disgust, motherhood, loneliness, art, pain, feminism, anger, envy, guilt--written in language that sizzles with intelligence and eroticism. The novel is composed almost exclusively of conversations between women--the stories they tell each other, and the stories they tell themselves, about shame and love, infidelity and self-sabotage--and careens through twenty years in the life of an unnamed narrator hungry for experience and bent on upending her life. Edgy, wry, shot through with rage and despair, Topics of Conversation introduces an audacious and immensely gifted new novelist.

Topics of Conversation

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Rebecca Carvalho

The grandchildren of two rival Brazilian bakeries fall in love despite their families' feud in this delicious debut rom-com perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon and Gloria Chao.

 

Trust neither thin-bottomed frying pans nor Molinas.

 

Lari Ramires has always known this to be true. In Olinda, Brazil, her family's bakery, Salt, has been at war with the Molinas' bakery across the street, Sugar, for generations. But Lari's world turns upside down when her beloved grandmother passes away. On top of that, a big supermarket chain has moved to town, forcing many of the small businesses to close.

 

Determined to protect her home, Lari does the unthinkable--she works together with Pedro Molina to save both of their bakeries. Lari realizes she might not know Pedro as well as she thought--and she maybe even likes what she learns--but the question remains: Can a Ramires and a Molina truly trust one another?

SIGNED Salt and Sugar

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Annalee Newitz

“A revolution is happening in speculative fiction, and Annalee Newitz is leading the vanguard."--Wil Wheaton From Annalee Newitz, founding editor of io9, comes a story of time travel, murder, and the lengths we'll go to protect the ones we love. 1992: After a confrontation at a riot grrl concert, seventeen-year-old Beth finds herself in a car with her friend's abusive boyfriend dead in the backseat, agreeing to help her friends hide the body. This murder sets Beth and her friends on a path of escalating violence and vengeance as they realize many other young women in the world need protecting too. 2022: Determined to use time travel to create a safer future, Tess has dedicated her life to visiting key moments in history and fighting for change. But rewriting the timeline isn’t as simple as editing one person or event. And just when Tess believes she's found a way to make an edit that actually sticks, she encounters a group of dangerous travelers bent on stopping her at any cost. Tess and Beth’s lives intertwine as war breaks out across the timeline--a war that threatens to destroy time travel and leave only a small group of elites with the power to shape the past, present, and future. Against the vast and intricate forces of history and humanity, is it possible for a single person’s actions to echo throughout the timeline? Praise for The Future of Another Timeline: "An intelligent, gut-wrenching glimpse of how tiny actions, both courageous and venal, can have large consequences. Smart and profound on every level.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) "You close the book reeling with questions about your own life and your part in changing the future."—Amy Acker, actress (Angel and Person of Interest)

The Future of Another Timeline

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Allyson Dahlin

"With a love story for the ages, this vivid tale takes the history we know and recasts it into an exciting, technicolor, future world that challenges what we know here in the present, and how we know it. I loved it! I couldn't put it down!" --Beth Revis, New York Times bestselling author of the Across the Universe trilogy

Decadent, thrilling, and romantic, this Black Mirror-esque retelling of the reign of one Marie Antoinette is perfect for fans of The Belles and American Royals.

The year is 3070, and Marie Antoinette has just arrived at the glittering, thrilling palace of Versailles to marry the shy, soft-spoken Louis-Auguste.

But beneath the luxurious world lies a sinister underbelly and an uncompromising elite who want to keep Marie and Louis pawns in a deadly game.

Will history repeat itself? Or will these doomed lovers outwit their enemies and escape their grisly fate?

Cake Eater will take readers to a dazzling world full of breathless luxuries, deadly secrets, and a thrilling romance that attempts to rewrite history itself. 

SIGNED Cake Eater

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Bryan Washington

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, O, the Oprah Magazine, Esquire, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, Refinery29, Real Simple, Kirkus Reviews, Electric Literature, and Lit Hub

"A masterpiece." --NPR

"No other novel this year captures so gracefully the full palette of America." --The Washington Post

"Wryly funny, gently devastating." --Entertainment Weekly

A funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you're supposed to be, and the limits of love.
 
Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson's a Black day care teacher, and they've been together for a few years--good years--but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. There's the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other.

But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted. Without Mike's immediate pull, Benson begins to push outwards, realizing he might just know what he wants out of life and have the goods to get it.

Both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together, or fracture everything they've ever known. And just maybe they'll all be okay in the end.

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D.M. Rowell