On prom night, Caroline Winterfield walked away from the ruins of an abandoned mansion called Haven Cliff and into the woods...never to be seen again. Only her three best friends know what really happened. But a secret is a secret, and a promise is a promise--even when it shatters lifelong friendships. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of that night, Midge, Kelly, and Talia reunite at Haven Cliff, now a gleaming architectural jewel. But they aren't alone. Someone is watching. Someone who knows what really happened to Caroline--and to the man who now lies dead a stone's throw from where she was last seen. Police detective Midge knows she's dealing with a murder the moment she sees the item clutched in his lifeless hand. Only three other people in the world would grasp its significance. That means Kelly and Talia are either involved or in danger, because Caroline is long gone...or is she?

Post-university life doesn't suit Phyl. Time passes slowly living back home with her parents, working a zero-hour contract serving Japanese food to holidaymakers at Heathrow's Terminal 5. As for her budding plans of becoming a writer, those are going nowhere. That is, until family friend Chris comes to stay. He's been on the path to uncover a sinister think-tank, founded at Cambridge University in the 1980s, that's been scheming to push the British government in a more extreme direction. One that's finally poised to put their plans into action. But speaking truth to power can be dangerous - and power will stop at nothing to stay on top. As Britain finds itself under the leadership of a new Prime Minister whose tenure will only last for seven weeks, Chris pursues his story to a conference being held deep in the Cotswolds, where events take a sinister turn and a murder enquiry is soon in progress. But will the solution to the mystery lie in contemporary politics, or in a literary enigma that is almost forty years old?

Award-winning novelist Mary Morris weaves together an unsolved family mystery, a poignant coming-of-age story, and a little-known corner of World War II history in this lyrical novel of family, loss and, ultimately, love. Thirty years ago, Laura’s mother, Viola, went missing. She left behind her purse, her keys and her mysterious paintings of a red house. Viola was never found, and her family never recovered. Laura, an artist herself, held on to the paintings. On the back of each work, her mother scrawled in Italian, “I will not be here forever.” The family never understood what Viola meant.  Decades later, at a crossroads in her marriage and her life, Laura returns to Italy, where her parents met after World War II.  Laura spent the earliest years of her childhood there before the family moved to New Jersey and settled into an American dream that eventually became a nightmare. Viola, who claimed to be an orphan, staunchly refused to speak of her life before marriage.  In Italy, Laura finds herself on a strange scavenger hunt to solve the puzzle of her mother’s lost years. She is certain that the paintings of the red house hold the answer to her mother’s past and her search takes her from her hometown of Brindisi, deep into Puglia where she encounters a man who knew her mother and who illuminates little-known secrets of Italy’s Second World War.   Blending elements of true crime with settings that evoke Elena Ferrante, Laura follows her mother’s trajectory as she ventures north to Naples, Turin and finally home. Along the way, she confronts the dark truth of her mother's story and at last makes sense of her own.

The lives of three women dramatically collide during the French Revolution: Sofi, a wallpaper factory worker; her sister Lara, a lady's maid; and a young aristocrat, Hortense. At the factory, the sisters notice something eerie about the intricately illustrated wallpaper: the same mysterious woman appears again and again. But what does it portend? After the death of their beloved father, sisters Sofi and Lara are forced to leave their family home in Marseilles and move to a small village on the outskirts of Paris, where they have been offered work at a factory renowned for its intricately illustrated wallpaper known as Toile de Jouy. But when Sofi and Lara arrive at the factory, owned by a wealthy businessman named Wilhelm Oberst, they notice something unsettling about the wallpaper's pattern. At the heart of its seemingly idyllic vignettes, the same woman appears again and again: Madame Justine, Oberst's former wife-who, they discover, met an untimely and mysterious death years before, and who bears more than a passing resemblance to Lara. At the factory, Lara attracts the attention of the factory owner's son, Josef. But there is something uncannily familiar about their interactions, and Lara soon realizes that her life is mirroring the scenes illustrated on the wallpaper that lines her bedchamber. As the strange occurrences surrounding the wallpaper become ever more unnerving, Lara is gripped by paranoia. Is history is repeating itself and, if so, will she share the same tragic fate as the woman in the wallpaper?

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Reese's Book Club Pick The Other Woman and The Guilt Trip comes an electrifying new novel. Now: Nicole Forbes lives a quiet life in a small seaside Californian town with her husband and daughter. She is not expecting a writer to knock on her door asking for her personal insight into the downfall of the biggest British band of the 1980s--unveiling the threads of a life she put behind her years ago. The same day, her daughter goes missing and the school claims her aunt picked her up . . . but she doesn't have an aunt. Convinced of a link between the two, Nicole is forced to revisit long-abandoned memories from her past to protect everything she now holds dear. 1986: Sixteen-year-old Cassie is obsessed with the hottest band in London, Secret Oktober. Harboring an intense crush on the leading man, Ben Edwards, she will do anything she can to capture his attention among the throngs of groupies at the band's scandalous backstage parties. But when Ben discovers her older sister Nicole singing at a local bar one night, he can't help but feel drawn to her, setting in motion a collision course that could tear their family apart. Infused with the sounds of the 80s, this thrilling new novel from the inimitable Sandie Jones will captivate her readers, as she explores what the frenzy of fandom can lead to in this shocking blockbuster.

A heartwarming novel centered on Francine Stevenson's accidental encounter with a peculiar 10-year-old boy who shows up at her doorstep after her mother's sudden death.

From New York Times bestseller and Edgar-Award nominee Elle Cosimano, comes Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave-the hugely anticipated next installment in the fan-favorite Finlay Donovan series. Finlay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet . . . but at least there's not a body in her backyard. Finlay Donovan and her nanny/partner-in-crime, Vero, have not always gotten along with Finlay's elderly neighbor, Mrs. Haggerty, the community busybody and president of the neighborhood watch. But when a dead body is discovered in her backyard, Mrs. Haggerty needs their help. At first a suspect, Mrs. Haggerty is cleared by the police, but her house remains an active crime scene. She has nowhere to go . . . except Finlay's house, right across the street. Finlay and Vero have no interest in getting involved in another murder case-or sacrificing either of their bedrooms. After all, they've dealt with enough murders over the last four months to last a lifetime and they both would much rather share their beds with someone else. When the focus of the investigation widens to include Finlay's ex-husband, Steven, though, Finlay and Vero are left with little choice but to get closer to Mrs. Haggerty and uncover her secrets . . . before the police start digging up theirs. But who will solve the mystery first?

Sam Carlson is a projectionist in small-town Minnesota, where fantasies unspool in glorious black and white--for him and for his sweetheart, college-bound math whiz Sarah Haber. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Sam is sent to the Philippines and captured as a POW. Brutalized but unbroken by the Bataan Death March and POW camps, Sam is one of eighteen hundred starved and weakened prisoners herded into the cargo hold of a barbaric hell ship called the Arisan Maru, his survival doubtful. Determined to use her math skills on the home front, Sarah is recruited to Washington, DC, into the covert field of code breaking. When Sarah intercepts a message about a Japanese convoy, the US Navy's mission is clear: sink the Arisan Maru and send it to the bottom of the South China Sea. Now, the lives of the two young lovers are about to inadvertently collide in one of the most shocking acts of World War II.

The Names is startlingly joyful and paced like a thriller…Knapp tirelessly and beautifully replicates not just loss and grief but endless rebirth and delight.” — The Washington Post “Elegant. . . this is a wholly original work.” — People Magazine "Book of the Week" “A magnificent novel, thrumming with life in all its pain and precariousness, yet suffused with the glorious possibilities of love and redemption.” —Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Horse The extraordinary novel that asks: Can a name change the course of a life? In the wake of a catastrophic storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son's birth. Her husband, Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to name the infant after him. But when the registrar asks what she'd like to call the child, Cora hesitates... Spanning thirty-five years, what follows are three alternate and alternating versions of Cora's and her young son's lives, shaped by her choice of name. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing. With exceptional sensitivity and depth, Knapp draws us into the story of one family, told through a prism of what-ifs, causing us to consider the "one . . . precious life" we are given. The book’s brilliantly imaginative structure, propulsive storytelling, and emotional, gut-wrenching power are certain to make The Names a modern classic.

The New York Times bestselling master of suspense returns to his beloved series, adapted for TV (CBS's Tracker , starring Justin Hartley) as reward seeker Colter Shaw races against the clock to save a flooding town from a full-fledged disaster, where the culprit lurks in the plain sight. When a levee collapses in Hinowah, a small town in Northern California, Colter Shaw is brought on by his sister, Dorion, a disaster response specialist, to help locate a family swept away by the raging water, with mere hours to survive.  But after a surprise attack along the river obstructs Colter's urgent search, the siblings are forced to consider a new reality: Is the levee at risk of failing from natural causes, or is someone sabotaging it? Colter and Dorion must race against a ticking clock to uncover the truth and save the citizens before the village washes out completely, destroying everything and everyone in its path.

Head Cases follows an enigmatic group of FBI agents as they hunt down a murderer seeking his own justice in this electrifying—and commercial—series debut. FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles. He also has a blind spot on the human side of investigations, a blindness that sometimes even includes people in his own life, like his beloved seven-year-old daughter Camila. Gardner and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit, the FBI's hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve. When DNA links a murder victim to a serial killer long presumed dead, the team springs into action. A second victim establishes a pattern, and the murderer begins leaving a trail of clues and riddles especially for Gardner. And while the PAR team is usually relegated to working cold cases from behind a desk, the investigation puts them on the road and into the public eye, following in the footsteps of a killer. Along with Gardner, PAR consists of a mathematician, a weapons expert, a computer analyst, and their leader, a career agent. Each of them must use every skill they have to solve the riddle of the killer's identity. But with the perpetrator somehow learning more and more about the team at PAR, can they protect themselves and their families...before it's too late? With an enigmatic case that will keep readers on the edge of their seats and a thoroughly engaging ensemble cast, John McMahon's Head Cases is a triumph.

This intoxicating story blends old-world magic and modern-day mystery with a delicious dash of amore." —People Powerful witchcraft. A hunt for sunken treasure. Forbidden love on the high seas. Beware the Amalfi Curse... Haven Ambrose, a trailblazing nautical archaeologist, has come to the sun-soaked village of Positano to investigate the mysterious shipwrecks along the Amalfi Coast. But Haven is hoping to find more than old artifacts beneath the azure waters; she is secretly on a quest to locate a trove of priceless gemstones her late father spotted on his final dive. Upon Haven's arrival, strange maelstroms and misfortunes start plaguing the town. Is it nature or something more sinister at work? As Haven searches for her father's sunken treasure, she begins to unearth a centuries-old tale of ancient sorcery and one woman's quest to save her lover and her village by using the legendary art of stregheria, a magical ability to harness the ocean. Could this magic be behind Positano's latest calamities? Haven must unravel the Amalfi Curse before the region is destroyed forever... Against the dazzling backdrop of the Amalfi Coast, this bewitching novel shimmers with mystery, romance and the untamed magic of the sea.

The "consistently high-quality" ( Booklist ) Charlie Parker series continues with a white-knuckled new thriller from New York Times bestselling author John Connolly. Wyatt Riggins, the boyfriend of rising Maine artist Zetta Nadeau, has gone missing, leaving behind a cell phone containing a single-word message: RUN. Private investigator Charlie Parker is hired to find out why Riggins has fled, and from whom. Parker discovers that Riggins, an ex-soldier, has been involved in the abduction of four children from Mexico: three girls and a boy, all belonging to the cartel boss Blas Urrea—except Urrea's family is safe and well in Mexico, which means the abductees cannot be his children. Yet whoever they are, Urrea wants them back, and has dispatched his agents to secure them, even if it means butchering everyone who stands in their way. One of those agents is Eugene Seeley, a clever, ruthless solver of other men's problems. The other is an unknown woman. Every child has a mother. Now Charlie Parker will face one unlike any other, and learn the terrifying truth about the Children of Eve.

Author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger's life twenty-five years later. Most people don't even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it's just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa's care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting's birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she'll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don't always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.

A year in the life of a wayward young man in New England who, by chance, becomes the caretaker for an eighty-two-year-old widow living with dementia, powering a story of friendship, loss, and how much we're willing to risk to claim one of life's most treasured mercies: a second chance.

Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it's just been Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. Then one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she's his half sister. Reuben has hired a detective to track down their father and a string of other half siblings. He wants Mad to leave her home and join him for the craziest kind of road trip imaginable to find them all.

Every summer, Vivian Levy and Lucy Webster spend a month with their father at his lake house -- separately. Raised in New York City, Vivian is an ambitious sommelier with a secret that could derail her future. Lucy grew up in a tiny Maine town, where she now teaches high school English while watching her marriage unravel. They've never met. While Lucy envied her half-sister from afar, their father kept Vivian in the dark. When Vivian arrives at the lake to spread his ashes and sell his cabin, she's shocked to find Lucy there, awaiting his return. In an ideal world, they'd help each other through their grief. Instead, forced to spend the summer together, they fight through a storm of suspicion and hostility to untangle the messy truth about their parents' pasts. While Lucy is desperate to hold onto the house, Vivian is scrambling after a betrayal. After thirty years apart, is it too late for them to be a family.

From master storyteller Stephen King comes an extraordinary new novel with intertwining storylines-one about a killer on a diabolical revenge mission, and another about a vigilante targeting a feminist celebrity speaker-featuring the beloved Holly Gibney and a dynamic new cast of characters. When the Buckeye City Police Department receives a disturbing letter from a person threatening to "kill thirteen innocents and one guilty" in "an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man," Detective Izzy Jaynes has no idea what to think. Are fourteen citizens about to be slaughtered in an unhinged act of retribution? As the investigation unfolds, Izzy realizes that the letter writer is deadly serious, and she turns to her friend Holly Gibney for help. Meanwhile, controversial and outspoken women's rights activist Kate McKay is embarking on a multi-state lecture tour, drawing packed venues of both fans and detractors. Someone who vehemently opposes Kate's message of female empowerment is targeting her and disrupting her events. At first, no one is hurt, but the stalker is growing bolder, and Holly is hired to be Kate's bodyguard-a challenging task with a headstrong employer and a determined adversary driven by wrath and his belief in his own righteousness. Featuring a riveting cast of characters both old and new, including world-famous gospel singer Sista Bessie and an unforgettable villain addicted to murder, these twinned narratives converge in a chilling and spectacular conclusion-a feat of storytelling only Stephen King could pull off. Thrilling, wildly fun, and outrageously engrossing, Never Flinch is one of King's richest and most propulsive novels.

The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he'd take him there after finishing an errand." Thus begins Fever Beach, with an errand that leads-in pure Hiaasen-style-into the depths of Florida at its most Floridian: a sun-soaked bastion of right-wing extremism, white power, greed, and corruption. Figgo, it turns out, is the only hate-monger ever to be kicked out of the Proud Boys for being too dumb and incompetent. On January 6, 2021 he thought he was defacing a statue of Ulysses S. Grant, but he wound up spreading feces all over a statue of James Zacharia George, a Civil War Confederate war leader. Figgo's already messy life is about to get more complicated, thanks to two formidable adversaries. Viva Morales is a newly transplanted Floridian, a clever woman recently taken to the cleaners by her ex-husband, now working at the Mink Foundation, a supposedly philanthropical organization, and renting a room in Figgo's apartment because there's no place else she can afford. Twilly Spree has an anger management problem, especially when it comes to those who deface the environment, and way too many inherited millions of dollars. He's living alone a year after his dog died, two years after he sank a city councilman's party barge, and three years after his divorce. Viva and Twilly are plunged into a mystery-involving dark money and darker motives-they are determined to solve, and become entangled in a world populated by some of Hiaasen's most outrageous characters: Claude and Eletra Mink-billionaire philanthropists with way too much plastic surgery and a secret right-wing agenda-and Congressman Clure Boyette-who dreams of being Florida's (and maybe America's) most important politician. The only things standing in his way are his love for hookers and young girls, and his total lack of intelligence. We meet Noel Kristianson-a Scandinavian agnostic injured when Figgo thinks he's aJewish threat to humanity and runs him over with his car; Jonus Onus-Figgo's partner in white power idiocy; and many, many more. Hiaasen ties them all together and delivers them to their appropriate fates, in his wildest and most entertaining novel to date.

Sybil is seventy-three years old, in the winter of her life. Sybil has always made sense of the world through writing letters and through this epistolary novel we see how she comes to terms with her past and present and learns forgiveness.

From the author of The Violin Conspiracy and Symphony of Secrets comes a mesmerizing page-turner about a young Black musical virtuoso at the peak of his career who's forced into hiding when his family runs afoul of a ruthless international cartel-and uses his music to fight back. Curtis Wilson is a classical music prodigy. Playing since the age of five, he is that rare performer who, through sheer force of will and phenomenal talent, has clawed his way out of inner-city DC and risen to the heights of the classical music world-soloing with the New York Philharmonic. Zippy, his father, is a midlevel drug dealer, and Larissa, his father's girlfriend, is a loving mother figure to Curtis and the heart of the family. Then, Zippy runs afoul of the kingpin who has provided his livelihood and nurtured his son's talents, and the family finds their lives in danger. With no choice but to run, they enter the witness protection program and abandon their former lives, including Curtis's extraordinary career. When law enforcement seems unable to bring the cartel down, Curtis, Zippy, and Larissa realize that their only chance of returning to the way things were is to take on the cartel themselves-their own way. A propulsive and moving story about sacrifice, loyalty, and the indomitable human spirit, Dark Maestro is Slocumb at the height of his powers.

Two women haunted by their sisters’ unsolved disappearances band together in this captivating mystery from the author of All Good People Here and host of the #1 true crime podcast Crime Junkie . “Sharp, slick, and chilling, with a whiplash ending you’ll never see coming.”—Jeneva Rose, author of Home Is Where the Bodies Are Nicole “Nic” Monroe is in a rut. At twenty-four, she lives alone in a dinky apartment in her hometown of Mishawaka, Indiana, she’s just gotten a DWI, and she works the same dead-end job she’s been working since high school, a job she only has because her boss is a family friend and feels sorry for her. Everyone has felt sorry for her for the last seven years—since the day her older sister, Kasey, vanished without a trace. On the night Kasey went missing, her car was found over a hundred miles from home. The driver’s door was open and her purse was untouched in the seat next to it. The only real clue in her disappearance was Jules Connor, another young woman from the same area who disappeared in the same way, two weeks earlier. But with so little for the police to go on, both cases eventually went cold. Nic wants nothing more than to move on from her sister’s disappearance and the state it’s left her in. But then one day, Jules’s sister, Jenna Connor, walks into Nic’s life and offers her something she hasn’t felt in a long time: hope. What follows is a gripping tale of two sisters who will do anything to find their missing halves, even if it means destroying everything they’ve ever known.

In Israel and Civilization, acclaimed journalist, legal expert, and pundit Josh Hammer makes a righteous case that the key to the prosperity of the West is the flourishing of the Jewish people and the Jewish State of Israel. Hammer's uplifting offense is our best defense against the enemies of the Jewish people's right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. And as Hammer makes clear, manifesting the promise of Israel requires action by the United States and its allies. There can be no overstating the impact of the trauma of October 7, 2023, on the Jewish people. Yet the anti-Israel reactions the world over have been equally devastating. Rallies of hundreds of thousands explicitly or implicitly promoting Hamas violence; demonstrations of Ivy League professors celebrating the pogrom as awesome and exhilarating; so-called human rights organizations that refuse to unequivocally condemn the use of rape as a weapon of war; and a hydra of multiculturalism, postmodern relativism, and tolerance--it all threatens the physical and metaphysical survival of the West and our essential Jewish heritage. Preserving the best of what's been thought and said throughout history and ensuring that there will be centuries more requires a West that is proud of its Jewish heritage. In other words, the continued existence of the Jewish people is inextricably tied to the endurance of Western civilization. Israel is the center of the battle, and Israel and Civilization explains why and how the Jewish state must win.

Two women in Nazi-occupied Paris created a daring escape line that rescued dozens of Allied servicemen. With one in a German prison camp, the other wrote a book about it--a memoir that was built on lies. Now the bestselling author of Eighty Days shares their incredible, never-before-told full story.

Sarah Bilston follows the colorful characters and fateful dramas of orchid mania, the nineteenth-century craze among European and North American collectors vying to own the world's most coveted flowers. Focusing on the hunt for the so-called lost orchid, Bilston reveals the enormous human and environmental cost of a colonial obsession.

Unforgettable Sacrifice offers a groundbreaking exploration into the heart of African American memory of the Civil War, challenging conventional narratives and revealing a rich history preserved through oral traditions and communal efforts. Through extensive archival research and stories shared on the porches of African American families, Hilary Green provides a detailed examination of how diverse Black communities across the United States have actively preserved and contested the memory of the Civil War, from the nineteenth century to the present.

Epidemic diseases enter the world by chance, but they become catastrophic by human design. With clear-eyed research and lush prose, A History of the World in Six Plagues shows that throughout history, outbreaks of disease have been exacerbated by and gone on to further expand the racial, economic, and sociopolitical divides we allow to fester in times of good health. Princeton-trained historian Edna Bonhomme's examination of humanity's disastrous treatment of pandemic disease takes us across place and time from Port-au-Prince to Tanzania, and from plantation-era America to our modern COVID-19-scarred world to unravel shocking truths about the patterns of discrimination in the face of disease. Based on in-depth research and cultural analysis, Bonhomme explores Cholera, HIV/AIDS, the Spanish Flu, Sleeping Sickness, Ebola, and COVID-19 amidst the backdrop of unequal public policy. But much more than a remarkable history, A History of the World in Six Plagues is also a rising call for change.

Looks at how Apple helped build China's dominance in electronics assembly and manufacturing, only to find itself trapped in a relationship with an authoritarian state making ever-increasing demands.

The Washington Post Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, Mark Twain Before he was Mark Twain, he was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Born in 1835, the man who would become America’s first, and most influential, literary celebrity spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi. But when the Civil War interrupted his career on the river, the young Twain went west to the Nevada Territory and accepted a job at a local newspaper, writing dispatches that attracted attention for their brashness and humor. It wasn’t long before the former steamboat pilot from Missouri was recognized across the country for his literary brilliance, writing under a pen name that he would immortalize. In this richly nuanced portrait of Mark Twain, acclaimed biographer Ron Chernow brings his considerable powers to bear on a man who shamelessly sought fame and fortune, and crafted his persona with meticulous care. After establishing himself as a journalist, satirist, and lecturer, he eventually settled in Hartford with his wife and three daughters, where he went on to write The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . He threw himself into the hurly-burly of American culture, and emerged as the nation’s most notable political pundit. At the same time, his madcap business ventures eventually bankrupted him; to economize, Twain and his family spent nine eventful years in exile in Europe. He suffered the death of his wife and two daughters, and the last stage of his life was marked by heartache, political crusades, and eccentric behavior that sometimes obscured darker forces at play. Drawing on Twain’s bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country’s westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the most important white author of his generation to grapple so fully with the legacy of slavery. Today, more than one hundred years after his death, Twain’s writing continues to be read, debated, and quoted. In this brilliant work of scholarship, a moving tribute to the writer’s talent and humanity, Chernow reveals the magnificent and often maddening life of one of the most original characters in American history.

In a rare window into some of her life's pivotal moments, Melinda French Gates draws from previously untold stories to offer a new perspective on encountering transitions. "You don't get to be my age without navigating all kinds of transitions. Some you embraced and some you never expected. Some you hoped for and some you fought as hard as you could." - Melinda French Gates Transitions are moments in which we step out of our familiar surroundings and into a new landscape-a space that, for many people, is shadowed by confusion, fear, and indecision. The Next Day accompanies readers as they cross that space, offering guidance on how to make the most of the time between an ending and a new beginning and how to move forward into the next day when the ground beneath you is shifting. In this book, Melinda will reflect, for the first time in print, on some of the most significant transitions in her own life, including becoming a parent, the death of a dear friend, and her departure from the Gates Foundation. The stories she tells illuminate universal lessons about loosening the bonds of perfectionism, helping friends navigate times of crisis, embracing uncertainty, and more. Each one of us, no matter who we are or where we are in life, is headed toward transitions of our own. With her signature warmth and grace, Melinda candidly shares stories of times when she was in need of wisdom and shines a path through the open space stretching out before us all.

Vincent Van Gogh arrived in the French capital on the last day of February 1886, a month short of his thirty-third birthday. He was a man beaten down by life, half-starved, and nearly broken psychologically. He was saved by his brother Theo, who provided him with room, board, and, most crucially, emotional support while he attempted to master the difficult craft of painting. Thus far, Vincent's crude scenes of peasant life rendered in murky shades of brown and gray were both hackneyed and amateurish. Theo, a successful art dealer at a prestigious Parisian firm, dismissed them as gloomy, unappealing, and, worst of all, unmarketable. By the time Vincent left Paris, almost exactly two years later, he'd transformed himself into one of the most original artists of the age, turning out works of hallucinatory intensity in vivid hues and stamped with his own distinctive personality. A Fire in His Soul chronicles this remarkable transformation. It's a tale filled with tragedy and triumph, personal anguish and creative fulfillment, as Vincent, through sheer force of will, reinvents himself as a painter of unparalleled expressive power. Along the way, the reader will discover an unfamiliar Van Gogh: not the solitary genius of the popular imagination, shunned by an uncomprehending world and conjuring masterpieces from the depths of his lonely soul. In Paris, he was at the center of a community of like-minded seekers. Here, Van Gogh was able to engage in a lively dialogue with fellow artists almost as daring as he was, expanding his notion of what art could and should be. It was in the cafes and studios of Montmartre and in the grand galleries of the Louvre and Luxembourg, that Van Gogh received his artistic education--a crash course that at first disoriented him but ultimately sparked his creative breakthrough. Working alongside such legendary figures as Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Seurat, and Signac, Vincent perfected his technique and launched an artistic revolution.

A thrilling investigation into the mysterious identity of Bitcoin’s creator and a deep dive into crypto’s utopian origin story—from The New York Times bestselling author of The Billionaire’s Vinegar “Could be the best mystery story of the past twenty years.”—James Patterson “ The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto will leave you amazed, enlightened, and utterly breathless.”—Robert Kolker, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road In October 2008, someone going by the name Satoshi Nakamoto posted a white paper outlining “a peer-to-peer electronic cash system” called Bitcoin to an arcane listserv populated by Cypherpunks. No one in the community had heard of Nakamoto, and just as people were starting to wonder who he was, he vanished. As the years passed, and the scope of Nakamoto’s achievement became clear, the truth of his identity grew into the greatest unsolved mystery of our time. The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto traces Benjamin Wallace’s attempt to unmask the figure behind the currency and the world it wrought. Nakamoto’s Bitcoin at first seemed destined to fulfill the dreams of fringe 1990s utopians for a currency set free from governments and big banks. Yet after he disappeared, his creation took on a strange new life in the financial markets, where rampant speculation fueled a vision of crypto as a potential windfall, inviting charlatans and scammers and opening a vast gulf between Bitcoin’s idealistic origins and its troubled reputation. But who was Nakamoto? Whoever he was could rightly claim to have invented one of the most important technologies of the new century. And Nakamoto was a billionaire—his Bitcoin wallet held an untouched eleven-figure fortune waiting to be claimed. With the same propulsive-narrative flair that made his New York Times bestseller The Billionaire’s Vinegar an instant success, Benjamin Wallace presents a page-turning work of investigative journalism. Tracking leads from London to Oslo to Los Angeles, from coastal Australia to the Arizona desert, he takes readers through a rogues’ gallery tour of Nakamoto suspects—from benevolent geniuses like cryptographer Hal Finney to difficult ones like a reclusive polymath known to his followers only as Jim; from the mercurial Australian Craig Wright, who claims to be Nakamoto, to a secret team at the National Security Agency. With the forensic skill of Sherlock Holmes and the storytelling verve of Arthur Conan Doyle, Wallace follows the trail of computer code and personal writings to the heart of the Nakamoto mystery while interrogating the very nature of mystery itself.

An explosive, deeply reported exposé of Johnson & Johnson, one of America’s oldest and most trusted pharmaceutical companies—from an award-winning investigative journalist “A page-turning drama that raises life-or-death questions about the world’s largest healthcare conglomerate.”—Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of King: A Life One day in 2004, Gardiner Harris, a pharmaceutical reporter for The New York Times, was early for a flight and sat down at an airport bar. He struck up a conversation with the woman on the barstool next to him, who happened to be a drug sales rep for Johnson & Johnson. Her horrific story about unethical sales practices and the devastating impact they’d had on her family fundamentally changed the nature of how Harris would cover the company—and the entire pharmaceutical industry—for the Times . His subsequent investigations and ongoing research since that very first conversation led to this book—a blistering exposé of a trusted American institution and the largest healthcare conglomerate in the world. Harris takes us light-years away from the company’s image as the child-friendly “baby company” as he uncovers reams of evidence showing decades of deceitful and dangerous corporate practices that have threatened the lives of millions. He covers multiple disasters: lies and cover-ups regarding the link of Johnson’s Baby Powder to cancer, the surprising dangers of Tylenol, a criminal campaign to sell antipsychotics that have cost countless lives, a popular drug used to support cancer patients that actually increases the risk that cancer tumors will grow, and deceptive marketing that accelerated opioid addictions through their product Duragesic (fentanyl) that rival even those of the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma. Filled with shocking and infuriating but utterly necessary revelations, No More Tears is a landmark work of investigative journalism that lays bare the deeply rooted corruption behind the image of babies bathing with a smile.

From communication expert Jefferson Fisher, the definitive book on making your next conversation the one that changes everything. No matter who you're talking to, The Next Conversation gives you immediately actionable strategies and phrases that will forever change how you communicate. Jefferson Fisher, trial lawyer and one of the leading voices on real-world communication, offers a tried-and-true framework that will show you how to transform your life and your relationships by improving your next conversation.

Now, for the first time, Christie shares what life has been like, both in front of and behind the cameras, considering the girl she was alongside the woman she has become. Her stories are as heartening as they are eye-opening, as she recounts her most formative chapters, including the betrayal by her biological father as a child, her lifelong passion for art, her whirlwind career, her four tumultuous marriages--including her heartbreaking divorce from Billy Joel--and the harrowing experiences that almost cut her life short. Through it all, Christie's unwavering belief in the magic and mystery of life has been her guiding light, even during her darkest times. It is with this grace and gratitude that she tenderly chronicles the unexpected, unexplainable ways her life has unfolded, embracing every adventure and twist of fate along the way: traveling the world as a supermodel at the height of the model wars, living life on the road with her rock-star husband and their baby, starring in blockbuster movies and hit sitcoms, riding horses with cowboys, training with world-champion boxers, and even stepping into the spotlight on Broadway.

From the legendary musical figure and former vocalist of the J. Geils Band, whose career spans more than six decades, a treasure trove of revealing vignettes, all told with gentle humor and heartrending poignancy. ... Told as a series of encounters with remarkable people over the course of a long and equally remarkable musical career, Waiting on the Moon provides a revealing glimpse of both iconic and lesser-known creative giants as they work--the forces that drive them to achievement, the demons they battle, the patterns of their human relationships.

This biography redefines Yoko Ono's life, shedding light on her often misunderstood and misrepresented journey. Once dismissed as a villain in the Beatles saga, Yoko's story is revealed beyond her association with John Lennon. Born into a wealthy family in pre-war Tokyo, she endured the horrors of war before becoming a pioneering figure in avant-garde art, music, feminism, and activism in London, Tokyo, and New York. The book explores how she faced intense public scrutiny, wrongly blamed for breaking up the Beatles, and yet continued to create groundbreaking work and advocate for peace. Drawing from David Sheff's interviews with Yoko, her family, and close friends, this biography offers a harrowing, moving, and ultimately redemptive portrait of Yoko Ono, elevating her legacy to iconic status.

This memoir explores the experiences of children who escaped the Holocaust through advertisements placed in the *Manchester Guardian* by Jewish families in Vienna in 1938. The book follows journalist Julian Borger as he investigates the story of his father, Robert, who was one of the children saved by such an ad. Decades later, Borger uncovers the hidden histories of his father and other children who were displaced during World War II. Drawing on historical records and personal accounts, the narrative spans various locations, including Vienna, Shanghai, Britain, Nazi Germany, Holland, France, and New York, highlighting the children's journeys, the impact of war, and the individuals who helped them survive.

Based on an NYU course, this guidebook by Professor Suzy Welch presents a step-by-step method for readers to identify their desired direction and purpose in a changing world. Drawing on research and testing, the book guides readers through a process of understanding their values, aptitudes, and economically viable interests. It aims to help individuals discover fulfilling and financially sustainable paths.

The heart-pounding true story of the daring American women who piloted the most dangerous aircraft of World War II through the treacherous skies of Britain.

When Tyler Merritt was diagnosed with cancer, everything he thought he knew about what mattered in life changed. Though he made it through a highly invasive surgery and thought he was in the clear, Tyler soon realized that the cancer had other plans. It wasn't a question of if the tumor would come back for an encore, his doctors told him. It was a question of when. The clock was ticking. This Changes Everything is a humorous and optimistic love letter to this beautiful life. As Tyler counts down the days until his next scan, he begins to understand that none of us have time for anger, for being unforgiving, for foolishness, for letting relationships drift, or for letting friendships to be lost. It's a clear-eyed reckoning with the reality that our time on this earth is limited and a hopeful vision of how each of us can make the most of the time we have left. Laced with Tyler's trademark humor, love of pop culture, and arguably too many musical theater references, This Changes Everything is a story about how wrestling with the idea of death can birth a whole new outlook on life, how we live it, and the urgency that comes when you grasp that time is a precious commodity.

When RMS Titanic sank on a cold night in 1912, barely seven hundred people escaped with their lives. Among them were six Chinese men. Arriving in New York, these six were met with suspicion and slander. Fewer than twenty-four hours later, they were expelled from the country and vanished. When historian Steven Schwankert first stumbledacross the fact that eight Chinese nationals were onboard, of whom all but two survived, he couldn't believe that there could still be untold personal histories from the Titanic. Now, at last, their story can be told. The result of meticulous research, a dogged investigation, and interviews with family members, The Six is an epic journey across continents that reveals the full story of these six forgotten survivors. Who were Ah Lam, Chang Chip, Cheong Foo, Fang Lang (or Fong Wing Sun), Lee Bing, and Ling Hee?

A sweeping and trenchant exploration of the history of Native American boarding schools in the U.S., and the legacy of abuse wrought by systemic attempts to use education as a tool through which to destroy Native culture. From the mid-19th century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their families to attend boarding schools that claimed to help create opportunity for these children to pursue professions outside their communities and otherwise "assimilate" into American life. In reality, these boarding schools-sponsored by the US Government but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation-were an insidious attempt to destroy tribes, break up families, and stamp out the traditions of generations of Native people. Children were beaten for speaking their native languages, forced to complete menial tasks in terrible conditions, and utterly deprived of love and affection. Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother was forced to attend one of these institutions-a seminary in Wisconsin, and the impacts of her experience have cast a pall over Mary's own childhood, and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark portrait of communities still reckoning with the legacy of acculturation that has affected generations of Native communities. Through searing interviews and assiduous historical reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of a culture whose country has been seemingly intent upon destroying it.

An intimate and masterful biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski -- President Carter's national security advisor and one of America's leading geopolitical thinkers -- from one of the finest columnists and political writers at work today. Zbigniew Brzezinski was a key architect of the Soviet Union's demise, which ended the Cold War. A child of Warsaw -- the heart of central Europe's bloodlands -- Brzezinski turned his fierce resentment at his homeland's razing by Nazi Germany and the Red Army into a lifelong quest for liberty. Born the year that Joseph Stalin consolidated power, and dying a few months into Donald Trump's first presidency, Brzezinski was shaped by and in turn shaped the global power struggles of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As counsel to US presidents from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama, and chief foreign policy figure of the late 1970s under Jimmy Carter, Brzezinski converted his acclaim as a Sovietologist into Washington power. With Henry Kissinger, his lifelong rival with whom he had a fraught on-off relationship, he personified the new breed of foreign-born scholar who thrived in America's "Cold War University" -- and who ousted Washington's gentlemanly class of WASPs who had run U.S. foreign policy for so long. Brzezinski's impact, aided by his unusual friendship with the Polish-born John Paul II, sprang from his knowledge of Moscow's "Achilles heel" -- the fact that its nationalities, such as the Ukrainians, and satellite states, including Poland, yearned to shake off Moscow's grip. Neither a hawk nor a dove, Brzezinski was a biting critic of George W. Bush's Iraq War and an early endorser of Obama. Because he went against the DC grain of joining factions, and was on occasion willing to drop Democrats for Republicans, Brzezinski is something of history's orphan. His historic role has been greatly underweighted. In the almost cinematic arc of his life can be found the grand narrative of the American century and great power struggle that followed.

Captain William Kidd stands as one of the most notorious "pirate" outlaws ever, but his legend is tainted by a bed of lies. Having captivated imaginations for more than three hundred years and inspired many stories about pirates, troubling questions remain. Was he really a criminal or is the truth more inconvenient: that he was a buccaneer's worst nightmare, a revered pirate hunter turned fall guy for scheming politicians? In Captain Kidd, his ninth-great-grandson, bestselling author Samuel Marquis, reveals the real story. Kidd was an English American privateer and leading New York husband and father. The King of England himself dubbed Kidd "trusty and well-beloved," and some historians describe him as a "worthy, honest-hearted, steadfast, much -enduring sailor" who was the "victim of a deliberate travesty of justice." With honors far more esteemed than the menacing Blackbeard, or any other sea rover at the turn of the seventeenth century, how can Kidd be considered both gentleman and pirate, both hero and villain?

A lottery ticket + donuts = love in this steamy new fake dating romance from beloved author Denise Williams. Sybil Sweet has always been lucky, but lately she can't catch a break. After years of bouncing from job to job in search of something that feels right and from man to man in search of something special, Sybil is worried that she's the directionless, floundering daughter her family thinks she is. All she really wants now is a little financial stability and carb comfort. Lucky for her, she's got just enough in the bank to buy a lottery ticket, and the late-night donut store is open. Kiran Anderson put his dreams of becoming a doctor on hold to take over running his family's bakery, and after fighting a losing battle to save the place, he's exhausted, broke, and no closer to getting back to school. But when a whirlwind of a woman sweeps in late one night, flirty energy gives way to more...until she runs out the next morning, leaving behind her winning lottery ticket. Lucky for Kiran, his attempt to return the ticket looks like a grand romantic gesture and goes viral, sending sales through the roof. In an effort to keep the store afloat and to convince Sybil's family she can make good relationship choices, they agree to fake a relationship for three months. Even with hundreds of millions of dollars, finding each other might end up being the sweetest bit of luck for both of them.

One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. A mesmerizing Mobius strip of a novel that asks who we are to the people we love. Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She's an elegant and accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He's attractive, troubling, and young-young enough to be her son. Who is he to her - and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day - partner, parent, creator, muse - and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us best. Taut, hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.

The Navajo Nation police are on high alert when a U.S. Cabinet Secretary schedules an unprecedented trip to the little Navajo town of Shiprock, New Mexico. The visit coincides with a plan to resume uranium mining along the Navajo Nation border. Tensions around the official's arrival escalate when the body of a stranger is found in an area restricted for the disposal of radioactive uranium waste. Is it coincidence that a cult with a propensity for violence arrives at a private camp group outside Shiprock the same week to celebrate the summer solstice? When the outsiders' erratic behavior makes their Navajo hosts uneasy, Officer Bernadette Manuelito is assigned to monitor the situation. She finds a young boy at grave risk, abused women, and other shocking discoveries that plunge her and Lt. Jim Chee into a volatile and deadly situation. Meanwhile, Darleen Manuelito, Bernie's high spirited younger sister, learns one of her home health clients is gone--and the woman's daughter doesn't seem to care. Darleen's curiosity and sense of duty combine to lead her to discover that the client's grandson is also missing and that the two have become ensnared in a wickedly complex scheme exploiting indigenous people. Darleen's information meshes with a case Chee has begun to solve that deals with the evil underside of human nature.

Sometimes called Wind Walkers for their ability to command the wind, unlike their human rulers, the Feng people have bark faces, carved limbs, arms of braided branches, and hair of needle threads. Bound by duty and tradition, Liu Lufeng, the eldest princess of the Feng royalty, is the next bride to the human king. The negotiation of bridewealth is the only way to stop the expansion of the humans so that the Feng can keep their lands, people, and culture intact. As the eldest, Lufeng should be the next in line to lead the people of Feng, and in the past, that made her sisters disposable. Thankful that her youngest sister, Chuiliu, is too young for a sacrificial marriage, she steps in with plans to kill the king to finally stop the marriages. But when she starts to uncover the truth about her peoples' origins and realizes Chuiliu will never be safe from the humans, she must learn to let go of duty and tradition, choose her allies carefully, and risk the unknown in order to free her family and shape her own fate.

It's 1900 and Skerry, a small Scottish fishing village, is destined for an unyielding winter. During a storm, a young boy washes up on the shore. He bears an uncanny resemblance to teacher Dorothy's son, lost to the sea at the same age many years before, his body never found. The village is soon snowed in, and Dorothy agrees to look after the child until they can uncover the mystery of his origins. But over time, the lines between reality and desperate hope start to blur as the boy reminds Dorothy more and more of her own lost child. The boy's arrival also finally forces Dorothy to face the truth about her brief but passionate love affair with Joseph, the fisherman who found the boy on the shore and who has been the subject of whispers connecting him to the drowning of Dorothy's son years earlier. As the past rises to meet the present, long-buried secrets are unearthed within this tight-knit community, and the child's arrival becomes a catalyst for something far greater than any of them could imagine.

Last night, you and I were safe. Last night, in another universe, your father and I stood fighting in the kitchen. Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, there’s nothing to do but walk. Making her way across the wreckage of Portland, Annie experiences human desperation and kindness: strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unlikely friendship with a young mother. As she walks, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career, and her anxiety about having a baby. If she can just make it home, she’s determined to change her life.

Liz Dawson weaves through a crowd with the ease of a tropical breeze, moving seamlessly through elite circles, sparking instant connections and making every new acquaintance feel like an intimate friend. She's clever, smooth, and confident--qualities that make her a brilliant serial con artist. Isabelle Beresford is strikingly beautiful, obscenely wealthy, and the new owner of Casa Esmerelda, a fabulous villa on the Mexican coast--attributes that make her the perfect mark. When she offers Liz a job handling the installation of a piece of art in her otherwise vacant home, Liz can't resist the allure of a beach retreat. She longs for a reset, a chance to finally shed the grip of her addiction to the conning game. But when Liz, with her lush dark hair and intense green eyes, is mistaken for Isabelle herself, Liz can't help effortlessly slipping into the socialite's identity. The transition is so easeful, it almost feels like fate. But just who is Isabelle Beresford really, and why does she seem to have abandoned this stunning life of hers? As Liz insinuates herself deeper into the dazzling--and deceptive--world of the Punta Mita resort community, she draws closer to the dangers surrounding the real Isabelle. Dangers that may have already ensnared Liz, too. This might not be the con of her life--but the con that ends it.

Widow Mimi lives on idyllic Mackinac Island where cars are not allowed and a Gibson with three onions at the witching hour is compulsory. Her granddaughter, Addie, is getting over the heartbreak of her fiancé, Brian, dumping her and cutting her out of the deal for the brilliantly successful video game, Murderscape, they invented together (with Addie doing most of the heavy lifting). When Mimi gets an invitation from local socialite Jane Ireland--a seventysomething narcissist who is having an affair with her son-in-law--to a charity auction, it is the perfect excuse to get Addie to join her for the weekend. What Mimi isn’t telling Addie is that a blackmail threat from Jane looms over the party’s invitation. In case the scene wasn’t already set for a turbulent weekend, a big storm rolls in, trapping everyone in the mansion. And then, Jane’s body is found. Soon Mimi and Addie are caught in a dangerous game, relying on their skills (Mimi loves a crossword puzzle, and Addie is a brilliant game designer, after all) to narrow down the suspects. When another body turns up, the sleuthing pair realize someone else is playing a deadly game, and they might not survive the night.

Kasey Nottingham returns to her grandmother's small-town dessert business to secure a corporate deal, but as mysterious deaths of abusive men coincide with their pie deliveries, she teams up with her crush, Jackson, to uncover secrets while navigating love, danger and family loyalty.

A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice. A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.

On their Martha's Vineyard estate, the Carter family prepares to celebrate. But when the billionaire patriarch dies right before his seventieth birthday, the media is quick to question the future of the multi-industry conglomerate that makes the Carters living legends. Amid the succession crisis, his daughter, Kennedy, is questioning her father's past. Kennedy is an aspiring filmmaker, and the documentary she'd planned to present at her father's party begins an inquest into the life of a man she never really knew. A thoughtful outlier in an elite and fiercely guarded dynasty, she's not interested in keeping up the appearances that define her impeccably poised mother or in the capitalist games her ruthless brother plays. Kennedy wants only to understand the origins of their empire, and the lethally ambitious man behind it. That understanding comes at a cost. As a twisted history emerges, the fault lines in the family grow. Torn between morality and the promise of maintaining wealth, Kennedy must decide what's most important--the Carter legacy or exposing the shocking truth of how it was built.

During World War II, a girl makes an unbreakable connection with a boy sheltering in her family's Tuscan villa, where the treasures of the Uffizi Galleries are hidden. A moving coming-of-age story about the power of art in wartime, based on true events.

In 1480 John Collan's greatest anxiety is how to circumvent the village's devil goat on his way to collect water. But the arrival of a well-dressed stranger from London upends his life forever: John is not John Collan, not the son of Will Collan but the son of the long-deceased Duke of Clarence, and has been hidden in the countryside after a brotherly rift over the crown--and because Richard III has a habit of disappearing his nephews. Removed from his humble origins,sent to Oxford to be educated in a manner befitting the throne's rightful heir, John is put into play by his masters, learning the rules of etiquette in Burgundy and the machinations of the court in Ireland, where he encounters the intractable Joan, the delightfully strong-willed and manipulative daughter of his Irish patrons, a girl imbued with both extraordinary political savvy and occasional murderoustendencies. Joan has two paths available her--marry or become a nun. Lambert's choices are similarly stark: he will either become kingor die in battle. Together they form an alliance that will change the fate of the English monarchy.

While Beth is proud of her Malibu beach shop, Surf Sandwiches, she's even prouder of her charismatic brother Rick, who rose from foster care through surgical residency. She makes subs, he saves lives. Life takes a turn for the happy after she finds out Rick is dating her new best friend, Jana. Then Jana's handsome brother adds even more sparkle to Beth's days...and nights. But when she catches Rick with another woman--like, with-with--her visions of an idyllic family future disappear in one awful instant. Either she betrays her brother, or she keeps his secret and risks losing the man she loves and her best friend.

Hannah is a fusion scientist working alone at a remote cottage off the coast of Scotland when she sees a figure making his way from the sea. It is a visitor from the future, a young man from a human settlement on Mars, traveling backwards through time to try to make a crucial intervention in the fate of our dying planet, and he needs Hannah's help. Laboring in the warmth of a Scottish summer, Hannah and the stranger are on the path towards a breakthrough-and then things go terribly wrong. Joe Mungo Reed's intricately crafted novel expands from this extraordinary event, drawing together the stories of four lives reckoning with what it means to take fate into their own hands, moving from the last days of civilization on Earth through the birth of another on Mars. Roban lives in the Colony, one of the first generation born to this sterile new outpost, where he is consumed by longing for the lost wonders of a home planet he never knew. Between Hannah and Roban, two generations, a father and a daughter, face an uncertain future in a world that is falling apart. Andrew is a politician running to be Scotland's First Minister. Andrew believes there is still time for the human spirit to triumph, if only he can persuade people to band together. For his starkly rationalist daughter Kenzie, this idealism doesn't offer the hard tools needed to keep the rising floods at bay. And so, she signs on to work for a company that would abandon Earth for the promise of a world beyond-in contravention of all Andrew stands for.In considering which concerns should guide us in a time of crisis-social, technological, or familial-and reckoning with the question of whether there is meaning to be found in the pursuit of salvation beyond success itself, Joe Mungo Reed has written a novel of elegiac wonder and beauty.

Nicole Monroe, still haunted by her sister Kasey's unexplained disappearance seven years ago, teams up with Jenna Connor, whose sister vanished under similar circumstances, as they unravel buried secrets and risk everything to uncover the truth about their missing loved ones.

A middle-aged couple struggles with the husband's descent into early-onset Lewy Body dementia in this profound and deeply moving novel shot through with Kirshenbaum's lacerating humor. It begins with hallucinations. From their living room window, Leo sees a man on stilts, an acting troupe, a pair of swans paddling on the street. Initially, Leo believes the visions are related to visual impairment-they are something he and his wife, Addie, can joke about. Then, he starts to experience occasional, but fleeting, oddities that mimic myriad brain disorders: aphasia, the inability to perform simple tasks, Capgras Syndrome, audial hallucinations he believes to be real. The doctors have no answers. Leo, a scientist, and Addie, a collage artist, had a loving and happy marriage. But as his periods of lucidity become rarer, Addie finds herself less and less able to cope. Eventually, Leo is diagnosed with Lewy Body disease. Life expectancy ranges from 3 to 20 years. A decidedly uncharacteristic act of violence makes it clear that he cannot come home. He moves first to an assisted living facility and then to a small apartment with a caretaker where, over time, he descends into full cognitive decline. Addie's agony, anger, and guilt result in self-imposed isolation, which mirrors Leo's diminished life. And so for years, all she can do is watch him die-too soon, and yet not soon enough. Kirshenbaum captures the couple's final years, months, and days in short scenes that burn with despair, humor, and rage, tracking the brutal destruction of the disease, as well the moments of love and beauty that still exist for them amid the larger tides of loss.

Everyone loves Alison, the new remote employee at a major energy company. She's a rising star in the virtual workspace, displaying incredible intelligence and efficiency with digital technology. But Linda, her manager, has growing suspicions that Alison is not the person she claims to be. As Linda probes Alison's background, Alison fights back through cyber-attacks, ravaging Linda's work, her family and her safety. Linda must uncover the truth to save herself and discovers Alison's past history is a lie - in fact, she has none. Is it possible Alison isn't human at all?

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.

Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he’s old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there’s no telling when a falling bomb might end his life. Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of children to have been evacuated to the countryside Molly has been away from her home for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she’d hoped for as she’s confronted by a devastating reality: neither of her parents are there. Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his bookshop, The Book Keep. Mourning the recent loss of his wife, Ignatius forms a kinship with both children, and in each other they rediscover the spirit of family each has lost. But Charlie’s escapades in the city have not gone unnoticed, and someone’s been following Molly since she returned to London. And Ignatius is harboring his own secrets, which could have terrible consequences for all of them. As bombs continue to bear down on the city, Charlie, Molly, and Ignatius learn that while the perils of war rage on, their coming together and trusting one another may be the only way for them to survive. 

When renowned painter Mira Novak arrives at Wadia hospital in Bombay after a miscarriage, she's expected to make a quick recovery, and her nurse, Sona, is excited to learn more about the vivacious artist who shares her half-Indian identity. Sona, yearning for a larger life, finds herself carried away by Mira's stories of her travels and exploits and is shocked by accounts of the many lovers the painter has left scattered throughout Europe. When Mira dies quite suddenly and mysteriously, Sona falls under suspicion, and her quiet life is upended. The key to proving Sona's innocence may lie in a cryptic note and four paintings Mira left in her care, sending the young woman on a mission to visit the painter's former friends and lovers across a tumultuous Europe teetering toward war. On the precipice of discovering her own identity, Sona learns that the painter's charming facade hid a far more complicated, troubled soul. In her first stand-alone novel since her bestselling debut, The Henna Artist, Alka Joshi uses the life of painter Amrita Sher-Gil, the "Frida Kahlo of India," as inspiration for the story's beginning to explore how far we'll travel to determine where we truly belong.

Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There's a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He doesn'tknow what happened. His screams drown out his thoughts--and then heruns. Twenty-two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who's working off his debts by doing low-level surveillance jobs and teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City. One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna. It's unmistakably her. As soon as Kierce makeseye contact with her, she bolts. For Kierce there is no choice. He knows he must find this woman and solve the impossible mystery that has haunted his every waking moment since that terrible day.

A woman learns the astonishing truth of her family's ties to a real-life American kingdom in this transporting and riveting new novel from the New York Times bestselling, NAACP Award-winning author of Take My Hand. In the hills of Appalachia, there once existed a land ruled by a king and a queen. Inspired by distant memories of African kingdoms, a community of formerly enslaved men and women grasped freedom and started lives on mountain land that they owned. They worked hard, lived well, and loved there. For a time the kingdom thrived...and then it disappeared. Present Day. Nikki hasn't seen her grandmother in years, due to a mysterious estrangement inherited from her mother. So when the elder calls out of the blue with an urgent request for Nikki to visit her in the hills of western North Carolina, Nikki hesitates only for a moment. After years of silence in her family, she's determined to get answers while she still can. But instead of answers about the recent past, Mother Rita tells Nikki a shocking story about her great-great-great-grandmother Queen Luella and the very land they are standing on. Land that Mother Rita says must be protected. The more Nikki learns about the Kingdom of the Happy Land and the lives of those who dwelled in the ruins she finds in the woods-who are buried beneath stone grave markers-the more she understands that sometimes, atonement for the previous generations' mistakes falls squarely on the shoulders of the descendants. And it's up to her to make things right.

Pike Logan uncovers a geopolitical scheme that has spiraled out of control in India in this latest pulse-pounding thriller from New York Times bestselling author and former special forces officer Brad Taylor.

When a daring art heist takes place at the Regency Grand, Molly’s life is threatened. The question is who’s out to get her, and why? Long-buried secrets will be revealed in this intriguing and heartwarming novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest.

Hope is the first autobiography in history ever to be published by a Pope. Written over six years, this complete autobiography starts in the early years of the twentieth century, with Pope Francis’s Italian roots and his ancestors’ courageous migration to Latin America, continuing through his childhood, the enthusiasms and preoccupations of his youth, his vocation, adult life, and the whole of his papacy up to the present day. In recounting his memories with intimate narrative force (not forgetting his own personal passions), Pope Francis deals unsparingly with some of the crucial moments of his papacy and writes candidly, fearlessly, and prophetically about some of the most important and controversial questions of our present times: war and peace (including the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East), migration, environmental crisis, social policy, the position of women, sexuality, technological developments, the future of the Church and of religion in general.

For decades, Amy ran. Through the dirt roads of Amarillo, Texas, where she grew up; to the campus of the University of Virginia, as a student athlete; on the streets of New York, where she built her adult life; through marriage, motherhood, and a thriving career. To outsiders, it all looked, in many ways, perfect. But Amy was running from something-a secret she was keeping not only from her family and friends, but unconsciously from herself. "You're here, but you're not here," her daughter said to her one night. "Where are you, Mom?" So began Amy's quest to solve a mystery trapped in the deep recesses of her own memory-a journey that would take her into the burgeoning field of psychedelic therapy, to the limits of the judicial system, and ultimately, home to the Texas panhandle, where her story began. In her relentless search for the truth, Griffin probes the pursuit of perfectionism, control, and maintaining appearances that drives so many women, asking the question: When, in our path from girlhood to womanhood, did we learn to look outside ourselves for validation? And what kind of freedom is possible if we accept who we really are? With hope, heart, and honesty, Griffin points a way forward for all of us, revealing the transcendent power of radical truth-telling to deepen our connection to our families-and ourselves.

An intimate and expertly-researched biography of Frank Wisner, the father of CIA Black Ops, telling the story of his exciting intelligence escapades as well as his lifelong struggle with bipolar disorder.

Reading Silent Spring as an outgrowth of Rachel Carson's love with Dorothy Freeman, Maxwell argues for the power of queer love now in the fight against climate change. There is something major missing from most accounts of Silent Spring and its impact: namely, Dorothy Freeman, with whom Rachel Carson had a love relationship for over a decade. Freeman had a summer house with her husband, Stan, on the island of Southport, Maine, where Carson settled after the success of her first bestseller, The Sea Around Us . Correspondence shows the women developing strong feelings as they connect over their shared pleasure in the rocky coast. In this moving new book, political theorist Lida Maxwell offers close readings that suggest Carson's relationship with Freeman was central to her writing of Silent Spring -a work whose defense of vibrant nonhuman nature allowed Carson and Freeman's love to flourish and for the pair to become their most authentic selves. What Maxwell calls Carson and Freeman's "queer love" unsettled their heteronormative ideas of the good life as based in bourgeois private life, and led Carson to an increasingly critical view of capitalism and its effects on nonhuman nature and human lives alike. From these women's experience Maxwell compellingly makes the case for an alternative democratic climate politics based on learning how to tune into authentic desire. Read through this lens, Carson's work begins to look different and shows us not that the human incursion into nature is dangerous, but that a particular relationship is: the loveless using up of nature for capitalism. When Carson and Freeman correspond in excited detail about the algae, anemones, and veery thrushes of the Maine coast, they give us a glimpse of a different, more loving use of nature. Inspired by Carson and Freeman's deep care for one another, Maxwell reveals how a form of loving available to all of us can help reshape political desire amidst contemporary environmental crises.

A sweeping and trenchant exploration of the history of Native American boarding schools in the U.S., and the legacy of abuse wrought by systemic attempts to use education as a tool through which to destroy Native culture. From the mid-19th century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their families to attend boarding schools that claimed to help create opportunity for these children to pursue professions outside their communities and otherwise "assimilate" into American life. In reality, these boarding schools-sponsored by the US Government but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation-were an insidious attempt to destroy tribes, break up families, and stamp out the traditions of generations of Native people. Children were beaten for speaking their native languages, forced to complete menial tasks in terrible conditions, and utterly deprived of love and affection. Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother was forced to attend one of these institutions-a seminary in Wisconsin, and the impacts of her experience have cast a pall over Mary's own childhood, and her relationship with her mother. Highlighting both her mother's experience and the experiences of countless other students at such schools, their families, and their children, Medicine River paints a stark portrait of communities still reckoning with the legacy of acculturation that has affected generations of Native communities. Through searing interviews and assiduous historical reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of a culture whose country has been seemingly intent upon destroying it.

When they married Emperors Franz Joseph and Napoleon III, respectively, Elisabeth of Austria and Eugénie of France became two of the most famous women on the planet. Young and beautiful--becoming cultural and fashion icons of their time--they also played a pivotal role in ruling their realms during a tempestuous era characterized by unprecedented political and technological change. Fearless, adventurous, and independent, Elisabeth and Eugénie represented a new kind of empress--one who rebelled against tradition and anticipated and embraced modern values. Yet both women endured hardship in their private and public lives. Elisabeth was plagued by a mother-in-law who snatched her infant children away and undermined her authority at court. Eugénie's husband was an infamous philanderer who could not match the military prowess of his namesake. Between them, Elisabeth and Eugénie were personally involved in every major international confrontation in their turbulent century, which witnessed thrilling technological advances as well as revolutions, assassinations, and wars. With her characteristic jump-off-the-page writing and in-depth research, Nancy Goldstone brings to life these two remarkable women, as Europe goes through the convulsions that led up to the international landscape we recognize today.

An insider account charting one woman's career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them.

In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had had 'a rough few years.' She described the sessions in a journal she created for her husband, John Gregory Dunne. For several months, Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work, which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods. There were discussions about her own childhood--misunderstandings and lack of communication with her mother and father, her early tendency to anticipate catastrophe--and the question of legacy, or, as she put it, 'what it's been worth.' The analysis would continue for more than a decade. ... [This is] an ... intimate account that reveals sides of her that were unknown, but the voice is unmistakably hers--questioning, courageous, and clear in the face of a wrenchingly painful journey.

In its final decades, the Roman Republic was engulfed by a crime wave. An epidemic of extortions, murders, and acts of insurrection tested the court system's capacity to maintain order. As case after case filled the docket, an ambitious young lawyer named Cicero seized every opportunity to litigate, forging a reputation as a master debater with a bright future in politics. In Lawless Republic, historian Josiah Osgood recounts the legendary orator's ascent and fall, and his pivotal role in the republic's lurch toward autocracy. Cicero's first appearance in the courts came shortly after the end of a brutal civil war. After leveraging his fame as a lawyer to become a consul, he ruthlessly crushed a coup by suppressing the liberties of Roman citizens. The premiere legal mind of Rome came to argue that the pursuit of a higher justice could sometimes justify sweeping the law aside, laying the groundwork for Roman history's most famous act of political violence-the assassination of Julius Caesar. Lawless Republic vividly resurrects the spectacle of the courts in the time of Cicero and Caesar, showing how politics trumped the rule of law and sealed the fate of Rome.

When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter's vibrant memoir, sharing his journey to becoming one of the most influential editors in the media world. From his early days in Canada to working at notable publications like Time, Life, The New York Observer, and Spy, Carter's career flourished when he was brought in to run Vanity Fair by Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse. With Newhouse's support, Carter had the freedom to shape the magazine, introducing iconic elements like Annie Leibovitz's photography and the "New Establishment" and Hollywood issues. He also cemented Vanity Fair's presence in Los Angeles with its famous Oscar party. The book is filled with colorful memories and personal insights into Carter's rise in the editorial world.