A hilarious and heartfelt novel about how loves and lives are never truly lost, for fans of Rebecca Serle and Taylor Jenkins Reid. With a leading role on a hit TV show and a relationship with Hollywood's latest heartthrob, Meg Bryan appears to have everything she ever wanted. But underneath, her happiness is as fake as her stage name, Lana Lord. Following a tiny nervous breakdown at her thirtieth birthday party, she books an impromptu trip to Ireland. Specifically, to the village where she and her best friend Aimee always dreamt of moving. When Meg arrives, the people in town don't just recognize her, they seem to know her. She quickly--reluctantly--realizes she has somehow slipped into an alternate reality. One where she did move to Ireland as a teenager, one where she never got famous, and--most shocking of all--one where Aimee is alive and well. She just wants nothing to do with Meg. Despite her bewilderment, Meg is clear-eyed about one thing: this is a once-in-two-lifetimes chance to reconnect with her friend and repair what she broke . . . or else risk losing Aimee all over again.

"Essex, 1887. Clementine's ability to read hieroglyphs makes her invaluable at her father's Egyptian relic parties, which have become the talk of the town. But at one such party, the words she interprets from an unusual amulet strike fear into her heart. As her childhood games about Isis and Nephthys--sister goddesses who protect the dead--take on a devastating resonance in her life, and tragedy slowly consumes her loved ones, she wonders what she and her father may have unleashed. Five years later, Clemmie arrives in Cairo desperate to save what remains of her family back home. There, she meets a motley crew of unwitting English travelers about to set sail down the Nile--including an adventurer with secrets of his own--and joins them on a mission to reach Denderah, a revered religious site, where she hopes to return the amulet and atone for her sins. With each passing day, she is further engulfed in a life she's yearned for all along. But as long-buried secrets and betrayals rise to the surface, Clemmie must reconcile the impossibility of living in the light while her past keeps her anchored to the darkness." --

"From a dive bar in Big Rapids, Michigan, to nowhere Ohio, and back, the characters in Close to a Flame are broken in the ways all people are. On a cross-country road trip, Robin can't stop thinking about her ex-boyfriend. Carol has grown increasingly unhappy in her long marriage to Gerald. On a summer Saturday, Christine comes through for Dalia in an important way. Pat takes his girlfriend, Katie, to San Francisco for what he hopes will be a romantic proposal. Beth's son, Jonah, gets called to the principal's office; and Jamie gets a scare from her elderly mother. With her radiant stories, Colleen Alles wants to tell you it's often the case that deep connections to other people--sometimes friends, sometimes sweethearts, sometimes spouses--help restore what's broken"--

"Detective Louise Rick uncovers dark secrets swirling around an inn in a seemingly idyllic tourist town in this propulsive new crime novel from #1 Danish bestselling sensation Sara Blaedel. When innkeeper Dorthe Hyllested is found murdered, the police are surprised and puzzled to discover a concealed nursery in her upstairs apartment. As far as her friends and family knew, the recently widowed Dorthe was childless-so who lived in this secret toy-strewn room? And more importantly, where is the child now? Detective Louise Rick has just taken on a challenging new job as head of the freshly created Mobile Task Unit, which is charged with solving the most difficult cases all over Denmark. With Dorthe's murder as her first investigation and the clock ticking to find the missing child, Louise is dismayed to learn that none of her handpicked group of seasoned investigators have been approved for transfer to her new unit. Instead, she must cobble together a brand-new, unproven team from a group of officers she's never met. Worst of all, the case will necessitate collaborating with the Missing Persons Department-which will mean working closely with Louise's former fiancé, Eik, who abruptly broke things off last year, leaving her devastated. Could the mystery of Dorthe's murder and the hidden child have something to do with the cabin in the woods behind the inn where men are often seen coming and going at all hours? With no witnesses to Dorthe's murder and no real leads, and an unproven and potentially untrustworthy team behind her, Louise finds herself grasping at unlikely connections-but the twisted story she begins to uncover turns out to be darker and more dangerous than she ever imagined..."--

"Long before Oliver Twist stumbled onto the scene, Jacob Fagin was scratching out a life for himself in the dark alleys of nineteenth-century London. Born in the Jewish enclave of Stepney shortly after his father was executed as a thief, Jacob and his open-minded mother, Leah, are each other's whole world. But Jacob's prospects are forever altered when a light-fingered pickpocket takes Jacob under his wing and teaches him a trade that pays far better than the neighborhood boys could possibly dream. Striking out on his own, Jacob familiarizes himself with London's highest value neighborhoods while forging his own path in the shadows. But everything changes when he adopts an aspiring teenage thief named Bill Sikes, whose mercurial temper poses a danger to himself and anyone foolish enough to cross him. Along the way, Jacob's found family expands to include his closest friend, Nancy, and his greatest protege, the Artful Dodger. But as Bill's ambition soars and a major robbery goes awry, Jacob is forced to decide what he really stands for--and what a life is worth"--

"Raised by her literary icon father Carson Wells, Alison Wells always felt loved, even though her mother died when she was a teen. But when she takes a DNA test on a whim and discovers she has a sister she never knew about, it's clear there are things her father didn't tell her before he died. Determined to meet Juniper--her half sister--and unravel the truth of what happened all those years ago, Ali finds herself taking a job as Juniper's intern. She'll eventually figure out a way to tell Juniper the truth of their relationships. But she never could have imagined what would happen next..."--

"When Abigail agreed to move to Soap Lake, Washington, for her husband's research, she expected old-growth forests and craft beer, folksy neighbors, and the world's largest lava lamp. Instead, after her husband jets off to Poland for a research trip, she finds herself alone in a town haunted by its own urban legends. When a young boy runs through the desert into Abigail's arms, her life becomes entwined with his and the questions surrounding the death of his mother Esme. In Abigail's search for answers, she enlists the help of a quirky cast of friends to unearth Esme's tragic past, the town's violent history, and the secret magic locked in the lake her husband was sent there to study. But as she gets closer to the truth, her own life may be in danger, too."--

The year is 2035, and Los Angeles County is awash in a tangelo haze of wildfire smoke. Xandria Anastasia Brown spends her days deep in the archives of the Huntington Library as the curator of African American Ephemera and associate curator of American Historical Manuscripts, supported by an array of AI personal assistants and health bots. Descended from a family of obsessive collectors who took part in the Great Migration, Xandria grew up immersed in African American ephemera and realia: boots worn by Negro Troopers during the Civil War, Black ATA tennis rackets, bandanas worn by the Crips.... Although Xandria's work may preserve collective memory, she is losing a grasp on her own. Evren, her new health bot, won't stop reminding her that her symptoms of long COVID are worsening; not to mention that severe asthma, chronic fatigue, grief, and worrying lapses in reality keep disrupting progress on a new Octavia E. Butler exhibition, cataloging the new Diwata Collection, and organizing the Huntington against a stealth corporate takeover. Then, one morning a colleague Xandria can't place calls to wish her a happy birthday--and the library goes into an emergency lockdown. Sequestered in the archive with only her adaptive technology and flickering intuition, Xandria fears that her life's work is in danger--the Diwata Collection, a radical blueprint for humanity's survival. Up against a faceless enemy and unsure of who her human or AI allies truly are, she must make a choice.

"It's been fifteen years since Lucy Sinclair saw her father. Fifteen long years since she sat in a courtroom and watched him sentenced to life in prison. He murdered three victims--all people she knew--which ruined her life at just seventeen. But now she's back in Virginia to talk to him, wondering if there's more to the story of what happened that fateful night. An old flame, Ford Wagner, makes his own return to North Hampton Beach, fleeing a marriage that seems destined for divorce. He's wary of Lucy and her digging into the past, but the more time they spend together, the closer they get and the more he finds himself reconsidering the truth behind the death of their mutual friend that summer. Problem is, there are plenty of those in this small coastal town who would prefer things stay quiet . . ."--

"A taut, lyrical, and life-affirming debut, All That Life Can Afford is a tale of aspirations, high society, and the bittersweet journey of turning over a new leaf while staying true to one's roots. I would arrive, blank like a sheet of notebook paper, and write myself new. As a child, Eva devoured London through library books-savoring its soft, dreamlike edges of castles and dances, a far cry from her life of co-pays and Craigslist and caring for her diabetic mother. She wanted to climb through the pages and live there. But when she arrives after college to a mildewed flat full of mousetraps, the real London, that free, intoxicating life of plenty, feels just as inaccessible as it did from America. Then she meets the Wilders-her stubborn, brilliant tutee Pippa, who whisks her off to Saint Tropez for winter lessons, and sphinxlike Faye, who dolls Eva up in her clothing and makeup, toting her around like a shiny new bauble. From Lisbon to Highgate, Eva is thrown into a heady whirlpool of luxury and excess, uncovering a hidden side of Europe, one where confidence is a birthright and blue blood runs through bulletproof veins. This life feels like a play upon a high, distant stage, but when Eva starts to take the role a little too seriously, she risks forgetting who she is underneath her borrowed clothes"--

When music idol Ai is embroiled in scandal, her sisters, ambitious Rei and single mother Kiki, pause their lives and spend the summer with Ai in their childhood home on the Japanese coast so they can rescue their baby sister.

"Bird Nichols has just inherited her grandmother's estate in a quiet, quirky Californian town. But when a body is found on her property, her life begins to get rather loud...Bird Nichols is ready to make a fresh start in a familiar place. Last year, her parents died together in a car crash and her beloved grandmother is presumed dead from an ocean drowning. Bird is now moving onto her grandmother's California coastal property, and finally living out her dream. Bird loves cheese like nothing else. It's her autistic special interest, and she designs her boards along her sensory needs, and other people love them, too. But just when everything seems to be going right, the local troublemaker ends up dead on her rural road. Grizz, the closest thing Bird has to family, is the sheriff department's favourite suspect, but she is determined to prove Grizz's innocence. So now, Bird needs to unpack her possessions, assemble her pretty cheese boards, and find the true murderer before they strike again."--

A few weeks after the 2016 election, at Thanksgiving with his daughter and her belligerent new husband, Rhys Kinnick finally snapped. After an escalating fight about politics, he hauled off and punched the jerk. Immediately horrified by what he'd done, by the state of the world around him, and by his own spiraling mental health, Rhys chucked his smartphone out the car window and fled for a remote cabin in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. Seven years later, when his grandchildren show up on his doorstep, Rhys barely recognizes them. Their mother has disappeared, and they need a safer place to stay than with their father, who has taken up with a Christian Nationalist militia. So what if Rhys’s cabin has no electricity or indoor plumbing, and the raccoons help themselves to the monthly grocery haul? He'll do whatever he needs to for these sweet kids. But when the militia members show up and kidnap the children, Rhys realizes he'll have to re-enter the broken world. With the help of a bipolar retired detective and his caustic ex-girlfriend, Rhys reluctantly heads off on a madcap journey through the rubble of the life he left behind.

"Monica Tsai spends most days on her computer, journaling the details of her ordinary life and coding for a program that seeks to connect strangers online. A self-proclaimed recluse, she's always struggled to make friends and, as a college freshman, finds herself escaping into a digital world, counting the days until she can return home to her beloved grandparents. They are now in their nineties, and Monica worries about them constantly--especially her grandmother, Yun, who survived two wars in China before coming to the States, and whose memory has begun to fade. Though Yun rarely speaks of her past, Monica is determined to find the long-lost cousin she was separated from years ago. One day, the very program Monica is helping to build connects her to a young woman, whose gift of a single pencil holds a surprising clue. Monica's discovery of a hidden family history is exquisitely braided with Yun's own memories as she writes of her years in Shanghai, working at the Phoenix Pencil Company. As WWII rages outside their door, Yun and her cousin, Meng, learn of a special power the women in their family possess: the ability to Reforge a pencil's words. But when the government uncovers their secret, they are forced into a life of espionage, betraying other people's stories to survive. Combining the cross-generational family saga and epistolary form of A Tale for the Time Being with the uplifting, emotional magic of The Midnight Library, Allison King's stunning debut novel asks: who owns and inherits our stories? The answers and secrets that surface on the page may have the unerasable power to reconnect a family and restore a legacy."--

"From the instant New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight and The Lies I Tell comes a dazzling new thriller. June, 1975. The Taylor family shatters in a single night when two teenage siblings are found dead in their own home. The only surviving sibling, Vincent, never shakes the whispers and accusations that he was the one who killed them. Decades later, the legend only grows as his career as a horror writer skyrockets. Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has spent her entire professional life hiding the fact that she is the only child of Vincent Taylor. Now on the brink of financial ruin, she's offered a job to ghostwrite her father's last book. What she doesn't know, though, is that this project is another one of his lies. Because it's not another horror novel he wants her to write. After fifty years of silence, Vincent Taylor is finally ready to talk about what really happened that night in 1975"--

"College professor Savannah Webster is ready to give her ex-husband, Hez, another chance, and she believes he's finally ready for them to face their many past trials as a team. But when Savannah finds evidence that points to Hez's old demons resurfacing, the fragile trust they've built begins to crumble. And it's not just their relationship that hanging in the balance--the survival of the university Savannah's family poured their lives into is also under threat. Hez is determined to put his past mistakes behind him with his new role mentoring law students at Tupelo Grove University's legal clinic. His primary focus with the clinic is to help Savannah pull the university out of a pit of debt and bad decisions made by the previous leadership, including her father. But their quest for stability takes a dark turn as they try to root out the dangerous smuggling ring the university is entangled in, and their investigation puts them in the crosshairs of criminals who will stop at nothing to eliminate any obstacle in their path"--

"When Mary Russell was a child, she adored her black sheep Uncle Jake. But she hasn't heard from him in many years, and she assumed that his ne'er-do-well ways had brought him to a bad end somewhere--until he presents himself at her Sussex door. Yes, Jake is back, and with a load of problems for his clever niece. Not the least of which is the reason the family rejected him in the first place: He was involved--somehow--in the infamous disappearance of the Irish Crown Jewels from an impregnable safe in Dublin Castle. It was a theft that shook a government, enraged a king, threatened the English establishment--and baffled not only the Dublin police and Scotland Yard, but Sherlock Holmes himself. And, now, Jake expects Russell to step into the middle of it all? To slip away with him, not telling Holmes what she's up to? Knowing that the theft--unsolved, hushed-up, scandalous--must have involved Mycroft Holmes as well? Naturally, she can do nothing of the sort. Siding with her uncle, even briefly, could only place her in opposition to both her husband-partner and his secretive and powerful brother. She has to tell Jake no. On the other hand, this is Jake--her father's kid brother, her childhood hero, the beloved and long-lost survivor of a much-diminished family. Conflicting loyalties and international secrets, blatant lies and blithe deceptions: sounds like another case for Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes." --

"Marking a dramatic new direction for Jones, a riveting tale set in the Post WWII South, narrated by a Black soldier who returns to Jim Crow and searches for a mythical ideal. Set in the early 1950s, this latest novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not in glory, but into their Jim Crow communities. A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he's a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he is a true self-educated intellectual and a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love. As he moves around the south, from his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, primarily, to his second home of Memphis, Tennessee, he recalls his love affairs in post-war France and encounters with a variety of colorful characters and mythical prototypes: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists, and bigots. The lead among these characters is, of course, The Unicorn Woman, who exists, but mostly lives in Bud's private mythology. Jones offers a rich, intriguing exploration of Black (and Indigenous) people in a time and place of frustration, disappointment, and spiritual hope"--

"Growing up in an isolated cabin in Montana in the mid-1990s, Jane knows only the world that she and her father live in: the woodstove that heats their home, the vegetable garden where they try to eke out a subsistence existence, the books of nineteenth-century philosophy that her father gives her to read in lieu of going to school. Her father is elusive about their pasts, giving Jane little beyond the facts that they once lived in the Bay Area and that her mother died in a car accident, the crash propelling him to move Jane off the grid to raise her in a Waldenesque utopia. As Jane becomes a teenager she starts pushing against the boundaries of her restricted world. She begs to accompany her father on his occasional trips away from the cabin. But when Jane realizes that her devotion to her father has made her an accomplice to a horrific crime, she flees Montana to the only place she knows to look for answers about her mysterious past, and her mother's death: San Francisco. It is a city in the midst of a seismic change, where her quest to understand herself will force her to reckon with both the possibilities and the perils of the fledgling Internet, and where she will come to question everything she values"--

Talent agent Charlie Francisco has three problems: a divorce that ended his screenwriting career, a business he never planned to inherit, and a take-your-breath-away romance novel whose author wants nothing to do with its publication. The book is a surefire hit, if only his agency can find someone to "play" author on its summer book tour. Enter Kate Elliott, a former soap actress who's miraculously right for the part at the very moment her life seems to be going all wrong. Kate is still recovering from her own divorce and Charlie's job offer is a lifeline. She agrees to the pretense for all interviews, signings, and appearances surrounding the novel's publication. But she can't know who really wrote the remarkable story -- -the one so beautiful it's made her believe in love again. When Kate and Charlie meet they're all friction and sparks -- the one thing they have in common is they're determined to play their respective parts. But as the summer heat ups and the lies get bigger and bigger, can they stick to their lines... or will they go off-script?

1982. Dawn is a young mother, still adjusting to life with her husband, when Hazel lights up her world like a torch in the dark. Theirs is the kind of connection that's impossible to resist, and suddenly life is more complicated, and more joyful, than Dawn ever expected. But she has responsibilities and commitments. She has a daughter. 2022. Heron has just received news from his doctor that turns everything upside down. He's an older man, stuck in the habits of a quiet existence. Telling Maggie, his only child--the person around whom his life has revolved--seems impossible. Heron can't tell her about his diagnosis, just as he can't reveal all the other secrets he's been keeping from her for so many years.

"In 1945, Charlie Trammell steps off a cross-country train into the vibrant tapestry of Los Angeles. Lured by his cousin Marguerite's invitation to the esteemed West Adams Heights, Charlie is immediately captivated by the Black opulence of L.A.'s newly rechristened "Sugar Hill." Settling in at a local actress's energetic boarding house, Charlie discovers a different way of life--one brimming with opportunity--from a promising career at a Black-owned insurance firm, the absence of Jim Crow, to the potential of an unforgettable romance. But nothing dazzles quite like James "Reaper" Mann. Reaper's extravagant parties, attended by luminaries like Lena Horne and Hattie McDaniel, draw Charlie in, bringing the milieu of wealth and excess within his reach. But as Charlie's unusual bond with Reaper deepens, so does the tension in the neighborhood as white neighbors, frustrated by their own dwindling fortunes, ignite a landmark court case that threatens the community's well-being with promises of retribution. Told from the unique perspective of a young man who has just returned from a grueling, segregated war, The Great Mann weaves a compelling narrative of wealth and class, illuminating the complexities of Black identity and education in post-war America." --

"Ivy Westcott fled LA as her acting career imploded. In a flash, she lost her first love and chosen family--her Hello, Juliet castmates. But she never discovered who turned her closest friends against her. Now the whole world knows her as #PoisonIvy. A decade later, Ivy is horrified when a celebrity exposé thrusts the Hello, Juliet cast back into the limelight, dredging up the old scandals she hoped to escape. Desperate for a fresh start and some financial stability for her mother and manager, Ivy agrees to participate in a top-secret reunion episode. Ivy's poised for a comeback, but past betrayals become a present danger when she and the man who once broke her heart find their costar dead. Determined to find justice and clear her name, Ivy must tear down the facades of cast and crew to uncover chilling secrets that have plagued the Hollywood set from day one. Or she could be the next to die."--page [4] of cover.

"The heartwarming and hilarious story of Jane Jackson, who spent her adolescence as the funny girl, the barbecue-sauce-in-her-braces punchline on a B-list TV show, and learning that true love doesn't exist. Now a grown woman, she is determined to be the executive calling the shots, and never to be laughed at again"--