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The debris from the night before is scattered underneath the village tree and across the cobbles. Red wine stains the…
ground like blood. And Joni has vanished.Joni Blackwood is my best friend. She was there for my first crush, stood beside me at my wedding, watched my daughter grow up. She's been there through the painful mess of the divorce, too. So when she suddenly goes missing on All Gallows' Eve, I'm first to raise the alarm.People outside the village say she must have been sacrificed in some pagan ritual. But All Gallows' Eve isn't like that. We're just simple folk enjoying an annual bonfire to keep an old tradition alive. It's mulled cider and local mums running charity bake sales to be in with a chance of winning Gallows Queen. Joni wins every year.My mum used to say this village was built on the roots of The Gallows Tree, that they're underneath the ground, under all of our houses. It used to scare me as a kid. Thick, snaking roots squirming under me. No matter how far you ran, they could tunnel after you. And when the bones of a small child are unearthed in the church graveyard, I have to wonder how many secrets are running through our village, like the roots of the tree. And I wonder if Joni can really outrun hers. And I wonder if I can really outrun mine.The Vanishing of Joni Blackwood is an utterly compelling mystery with a twist you won't see coming. Perfect for fans of C J Tudor, Caroline Mitchell and Erin Kelly.'This is an absolute page-turner, I'm actually on pins waiting for the story to unfold and my anxiety is through…
the roof. And what a jaw-swinging, heart-palpitating ending this book has, too! This was an easy 5 star for me.' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐The debris from the party the night before is scattered underneath the village tree and across the cobbles. Red wine stains the ground like blood. And Joni has vanished.My mother used to say our village was built on the roots of The Gallows Tree, that they're underneath the ground, under all of our houses. It used to scare me as a kid. Thick, snaking roots squirming under me. No matter how far you ran, they could tunnel after you. And when the bones of a small child are unearthed in the church graveyard, I have to wonder how many secrets are running through our village, like the roots of the tree.And I wonder if Joni can really outrun hers.And I wonder if I can really outrun mine.The Vanishing of Joni Blackwood is an utterly compelling mystery with a twist you won't see coming. Perfect for fans of C J Tudor, Caroline Mitchell and Erin Kelly.Read what everyone is saying about Joni Blackwood:'I meannnnn I am currently jaw to the floor. I was not expecting that very end twist!!! This was such a wild ride and I honestly don't feel a review can do the twists and turns justice, you just need to go and read it... Small town... drama... it's got it all.' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐'Creepy, dark, and twisted!' Sharon Bolton, author of The Craftsman'A brilliantly chilling mystery novel. Super creepy! Lisa's got a really great voice... Strange in the best way. Loved it.' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'This one is for all the gothic thriller fans... A gripping, pacy read with bold characters, gasp-out-loud twists, and an ending you'll never see coming.' Carly Reagon, author of The Toll House'The plot drew me in instantly and I knew I couldn't put it down until I knew the truth of Joni Blackwood, a very tense and suspenseful read.' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐'This is an absolute page-turner, I'm actually on pins waiting for the story to unfold and my anxiety is through…
the roof. And what a jaw-swinging, heart-palpitating ending this book has, too! This was an easy 5 star for me.' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐The debris from the party the night before is scattered underneath the village tree and across the cobbles. Red wine stains the ground like blood. And Joni has vanished.My mother used to say our village was built on the roots of The Gallows Tree, that they're underneath the ground, under all of our houses. It used to scare me as a kid. Thick, snaking roots squirming under me. No matter how far you ran, they could tunnel after you. And when the bones of a small child are unearthed in the church graveyard, I have to wonder how many secrets are running through our village, like the roots of the tree.And I wonder if Joni can really outrun hers.And I wonder if I can really outrun mine.The Vanishing of Joni Blackwood is an utterly compelling mystery with a twist you won't see coming. Perfect for fans of C J Tudor, Caroline Mitchell and Erin Kelly.Read what everyone is saying about Joni Blackwood:'I meannnnn I am currently jaw to the floor. I was not expecting that very end twist!!! This was such a wild ride and I honestly don't feel a review can do the twists and turns justice, you just need to go and read it... Small town... drama... it's got it all.' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐'Creepy, dark, and twisted!' Sharon Bolton, author of The Craftsman'A brilliantly chilling mystery novel. Super creepy! Lisa's got a really great voice... Strange in the best way. Loved it.' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'This one is for all the gothic thriller fans... A gripping, pacy read with bold characters, gasp-out-loud twists, and an ending you'll never see coming.' Carly Reagon, author of The Toll House'The plot drew me in instantly and I knew I couldn't put it down until I knew the truth of Joni Blackwood, a very tense and suspenseful read.' Reader Review, ⭐⭐⭐⭐The Story of the Cannibal Woman: A Novel
By Maryse Condé. 2005
One dark night in Cape Town, Rosélie's husband goes out for a pack of cigarettes and never comes back. Not…
only is she left with unanswered questions about his violent death but she is also left without any means of support. At the urging of her housekeeper and best friend, the new widow decides to take advantage of the strange gifts she has always possessed and embarks on a career as a clairvoyant. As Rosélie builds a new life for herself and seeks the truth about her husband's murder, acclaimed Caribbean author Maryse Condé crafts a deft exploration of post-apartheid South Africa and a smart, gripping thriller. The Story of the Cannibal Woman is both contemporary and international, following the lives of an interracial, intercultural couple in New York City, Tokyo, and Capetown. Maryse Condé is known for vibrantly lyrical language and fearless, inventive storytelling -- she uses both to stunning effect in this magnificently original novel.Mrs Queen Takes the Train: A Novel (P. S. Series)
By William Kuhn. 2012
“A witty, contemporary story of the Downton Abbey-esque tensions between servants and employers, the young and the old, and tradition…
and modernity.” — GlamourAn absolute delight of a debut novel by William Kuhn—author of Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books—Mrs Queen Takes the Train wittily imagines the kerfuffle that transpires when a bored Queen Elizabeth strolls out of the palace in search of a little fun, leaving behind a desperate team of courtiers who must find the missing Windsor before a national scandal erupts. After decades of service and years of watching her family's troubles splashed across the tabloids, Britain's Queen is beginning to feel her age. An unexpected opportunity offers her relief: an impromptu visit to a place that holds happy memories—the former royal yacht, Britannia, now moored near Edinburgh. Hidden beneath a skull-emblazoned hoodie, the limber Elizabeth (thank goodness for yoga) walks out of Buckingham Palace and heads for King's Cross to catch a train to Scotland. But a colorful cast of royal attendants has discovered her missing. In uneasy alliance a lady-in-waiting, a butler, an equerry, a girl from the stables, a dresser, and a clerk from the shop that supplies Her Majesty's cheese set out to bring her back before her absence becomes a national scandal.Comic and poignant, fast-paced and clever, Mrs Queen Takes the Train tweaks the pomp of the monarchy, going beneath its rigid formality to reveal the human heart of the woman at its center.Black Violin: A Novel
By Maxence Fermine. 2003
There were many musical souls adrift on that raft of silence that is Venice. There was the music of Johannes…
Karelsky.There was the music of Erasmus, the violin maker. And there was the music of war. But of that, the two men never spoke.From the internationally acclaimed author of Snow comes a timeless tale of love and music set against the romantic backdrop of eighteenth-century Venice.In 1797, the violin prodigy Johannes Karelsky arrives in Venice after fighting with Napoleon's army in the Italian campaign. After the war, he boards with an aged violin maker named Erasmus who created the legendary "Black Violin," which he forbids Johannes to touch because, as he says, "Once you have tasted it, you will never be the same again." Johannes becomes obsessed with the idea of playing this violin as well as finding the woman who saved his life when he was injured in battle.Beautifully written and highly evocative, The Black Violin interweaves Johannes's quest for love and the history of this mysterious instrument in a narrative that is sure to resonate long after the last page is turned.Pin
By Andrew Neiderman. 1981
Young Leon and Ursula had little except each other. Mother was driven by a psychotic need to clean—constantly—everything in sight.…
Father was consumed by his medical practice and an analytical approach to life. But he understood the sensual hunger growing inside his children’s young bodies. He knew they could help each other answer, “The Need.” Father had Science. Father had Reason. And he had Pin. Pin who answered all the children’s questions in a voice not unlike the doctor’s. Father’s clever trick. Father’s brilliant illusion. But then there was the accident and Mother and the doctor were dead. Still there was Pin—who had so much to tell then even yet…whose enigmatic stare held such wisdom. There would just be the three of them now. Quiet Leon, beautiful and frightened Ursula, and wise, implacable Pin. They were all each of them would need. Ever.Tender Loving Care
By Andrew Neiderman. 1984
Michael loves his wife, but after the tragic accident to their daughter Lillian, Miriam was untouchable, like a dream. Desperate,…
hoping that his living nightmare will finally end, and yearning to lie once again in the arms of his beautiful wife, Michael hires a nurse to care for his beloved. But though Nurse Randolph’s powerful presence has done wonders for Miriam, the nurse’s ominous yet erotic dominance over Michael fills him with a strange, shuddering sense of doom. And nothing can make the terror disappear, especially not Tender Loving Care….Girlfriend on Mars: A Novel
By Deborah Willis. 2023
*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE**LONGLISTED FOR THE FOREST OF READING EVERGREEN AWARD*&“A sharp, funny take on capitalism, climate…
change, and our lifelong mission to be loved.&” —PeopleA funny, poignant, and page-turning debut novel that skewers billionaire-funded space travel in a love story of interplanetary proportions.Amber Kivinen is moving to Mars. Or at least, she will be if she wins a chance to join MarsNow. She and twenty-three reality TV contestants from around the world—including a handsome Israeli, an endearing fellow Canadian, and an assortment of science nerds and wannabe influencers—are competing for two seats on the first human-led mission to Mars, sponsored by billionaire Geoff Task. Meanwhile Kevin, Amber&’s boyfriend of fourteen years, was content going nowhere until Amber left him—and their hydroponic weed business—behind. As he tends to the plants growing in their absurdly overpriced Vancouver basement apartment, Kevin tunes in to find out why the love of his life is so determined to leave the planet with somebody else.An audaciously original debut from an &“immensely talented writer&” (Emily St. John Mandel), Girlfriend on Mars is at once a satirical indictment of our pursuit of fame and wealth amidst environmental crisis, and an exploration of humanity&’s deepest longing, greatest quest, and most enduring cliché: love.At the End of Every Day: A Novel
By Arianna Reiche. 2023
This haunting debut novel—perfect for fans of Mona Awad, Karin Tidbeck, and Julia Armfield—is a &“wild genre-and-mind-bending ride&” (Laura Sims,…
author of Looker) about a loyal employee at a collapsing theme park questioning the recent death of a celebrity visitor, the arrival of strange new guests, her boyfriend&’s erratic behavior, and ultimately her own sanity.Delphi has spent years working at a vast and iconic theme park in California after fleeing a trauma in her rural hometown. But following the disturbing death of a beloved Hollywood starlet on the park grounds, Delphi is tasked with shuttering it for good. Meanwhile, two siblings with ties to the park exchange letters, trying to understand why people who work there have been disappearing. Before long, they learn that there&’s a reason no one is meant to see behind its carefully guarded curtain… What happens when the park empties out? And what happens when Delphi, who seems remarkably at one with it, is finally forced to leave? Simultaneously &“a smart and surprising escape room of a novel&” (Matt Bell, author of Appleseed) about the uncanny valley, death cults, optical illusions, and the enduring power of fantasy, Reiche&’s debut is a mind-bending teacup ride through an eerily familiar landscape, where the key to it all is what happens at the end of every day.The Long Flight Home
By Alan Hlad. 2019
A USA Today Bestseller Inspired by fascinating, true, yet little-known events during World War II, The Long Flight Home is…
a testament to the power of courage in our darkest hours—a moving, masterfully written story of love and sacrifice. It is September 1940—a year into the war—and as German bombs fall on Britain, fears grow of an impending invasion. Enemy fighter planes blacken the sky around the Epping Forest home of Susan Shepherd and her grandfather, Bertie. After losing her parents to influenza as a child, Susan found comfort in raising homing pigeons with Bertie. All her birds are extraordinary to Susan—loyal, intelligent, beautiful—but none more so than Duchess. Hatched from an egg that Susan incubated in a bowl under her grandfather&’s desk lamp, Duchess shares a special bond with Susan and an unusual curiosity about the human world. Thousands of miles away in Buxton, Maine, young crop-duster pilot Ollie Evans decides to join Britain&’s Royal Air Force. His quest brings him to Epping and the National Pigeon Service, where Susan is involved in a new, covert mission to air-drop hundreds of homing pigeons in German-occupied France. Many will not survive. Those that do will bring home crucial information. Soon a friendship between Ollie and Susan deepens, but when his plane is downed behind enemy lines, both know how remote the chances of reunion must be. Yet Duchess will become an unexpected lifeline, relaying messages between Susan and Ollie as war rages on—and proving, at last, that hope is never truly lost.&“Hlad adeptly drives home the devastating civilian cost of the war.&”—BooklistWhat Feasts at Night (Sworn Soldier #2)
By T. Kingfisher. 2024
An Instant New York Times, USA Today, and Indie BestsellerEnter a cold, silent forest and find out what feasts at…
night in this new gothic tale from bestselling and award-winning author T. Kingfisher, set in the world of What Moves the Dead.*A very special hardcover edition, featuring a foil stamp on the casing and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.*After their terrifying ordeal at the Usher manor, Alex Easton feels as if they just survived another war. All they crave is rest, routine, and sunshine, but instead, as a favor to Angus and Miss Potter, they find themself heading to their family hunting lodge, deep in the cold, damp forests of their home country, Gallacia. In theory, one can find relaxation in even the coldest and dampest of Gallacian autumns, but when Easton arrives, they find the caretaker dead, the lodge in disarray, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence. The villagers whisper that a breath-stealing monster from folklore has taken up residence in Easton’s home. Easton knows better than to put too much stock in local superstitions, but they can tell that something is not quite right in their home. . . or in their dreams.Also by T. KingfisherA House with Good BonesNettle & BoneThornhedgeA Sorceress Comes to CallAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.The Weeds: A Novel
By Katy Simpson Smith. 2023
A Best Book of the Year at The New YorkerA Must Read at The Boston Globe, Literary Hub, The Millions,…
and Garden & Gun“[A] lyrical incisive novel . . . [about] a changing climate, the invisibility of women’s work, and the perseverance of unofficial histories.” —The New YorkerIn Katy Simpson Smith’s The Weeds, two women, connected across time, edge toward transgression in pursuit of their desires.A Mississippi woman pushes through the ruin of the Roman Colosseum, searching for plants. She has escaped her life, signed up to catalog all the species growing in this place. Crawling along the stones, she wonders how she has landed here, a reluctant botanist amid a snarl of tourists in comfortable sandals. She hunts for a scientific agenda and a direction of her own. In 1854, a woman pushes through the jungle of the Roman Colosseum, searching for plants. As punishment for her misbehavior, she has been indentured to the English botanist Richard Deakin, for whom she will compile a flora. She is a thief, and she must find new ways to use her hands. If only the woman she loves weren’t on a boat, with a husband. But love isn’t always possible. She logs 420 species. Through a list of seemingly minor plants and their uses—medical, agricultural, culinary—these women calculate intangible threats: a changing climate, the cost of knowledge, and the ways repeated violence can upend women’s lives. They must forge their own small acts of defiance and slip through whatever cracks they find. How can anyone survive? Lush, intoxicating, and teeming with mischief, Katy Simpson Smith’s The Weeds is a tense, mesmerizing page-turner about science and survival, the roles women are given and have taken from them, and the lives they make for themselves.Hestia Strikes a Match: A Novel
By Christine Grillo. 2023
A Best Book of the Year at NPRA Must-Read at The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, and The Orange County Register“Steamy,…
smart, and hilarious.” —Oprah Daily“Effervescent . . . Acerbically funny and tender . . . [A] supremely layered, emotionally and intellectually resonant novel for our time.” —Lauren LeBlanc, The Boston GlobeChristine Grillo’s Hestia Strikes a Match is the slyly funny story of a woman looking for love and friendship in the midst of a new American civil war.The year is 2023, and things are bad—bad, but still not as bad as they could be. Hestia Harris is forty-two, abandoned by her husband (he left to fight for the Union cause), and estranged from her parents (they’re leaving for the Confederacy). Yes, the United States has collapsed into a second civil war and again it’s Unionists against Confederates, children against parents, friends against friends.Hestia has left journalism (too much war reporting) for a job at a Baltimore retirement village on the Inner Harbor (lots of security). She’s single and adrift, save for her coworkers and Mildred, an eighty-four-year-old, thrice-happily-married resident who gleefully supports Hestia’s half-hearted but hopeful attempts to find love again in a time of chaos and disunion. She reckons with the big questions (How do we live in the midst of political collapse? How do we love people who believe terrible things?) and the little ones (How do I decorate a nonworking fireplace? Can I hook up with a mime?), all while wrestling with that simmering, roiling, occasionally boiling feeling that things are decidedly not okay, but we have to keep going, one foot in front of the other, because maybe, just maybe, we can still find the kinds of relationships that sustain a person through anything.Christine Grillo’s Hestia Strikes a Match is an irreverent, incisive, laugh-out-loud interrogation of modern love of all kinds, in all its messy beauty. Equal parts wise and hilarious, it fills the heart, fortifies the spirit, and will surely help to fend off despair. In the face of the everyday wildness of our times, it asks and answers that newly constant question: How do we make a full, wonderfully ordinary life when the whole mad world is clattering down around us?Kantika: A Novel
By Elizabeth Graver. 2023
A dazzling Sephardic multigenerational saga that moves from Istanbul to Barcelona, Havana, and New York, exploring displacement, endurance, and family…
as home.A kaleidoscopic portrait of one family’s displacement across four countries, Kantika—“song” in Ladino—follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of the Sephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose their wealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions a life and self from what comes her way—a failed marriage, the need to earn a living, but also passion, pleasure and motherhood. Moving from Spain to Cuba to New York for an arranged second marriage, she faces her greatest challenge—her disabled stepdaughter, Luna, whose feistiness equals her own and whose challenges pit new family against old.Exploring identity, place and exile, Kantika also reveals how the female body—in work, art and love—serves as a site of both suffering and joy. A haunting, inspiring meditation on the tenacity of women, this lush, lyrical novel from Elizabeth Graver celebrates the insistence on seizing beauty and grabbing hold of one’s one and only life.What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier #1)
By T. Kingfisher. 2022
An Instant USA Today & Indie BestsellerA Barnes & Noble Book of the Year FinalistA Goodreads Best Horror Choice Award…
NomineeA gripping and atmospheric reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” from Hugo, Locus, & Nebula award-winning author T. Kingfisher*A very special hardcover edition, featuring foil stamp on the casing and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.*When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.Also by T. KingfisherWhat Feasts at NightA House with Good BonesNettle & BoneThornhedgeA Sorceress Comes to CallAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.Triangles: A Novel
By Ellen Hopkins. 2011
From the New York Times bestselling author of the sizzling romantic suspense Love Lies Beneath, three female friends face midlife…
crises in a no-holds-barred exploration of sex, marriage, and the fragility of life.Holly, filled with regret for being a stay-at-home mom, sheds sixty pounds and loses herself in the world of extramarital sex. But will it truly bring the fulfillment she is searching for? Andrea, a single mom and avowed celibate, watches her friend Holly&’s meltdown with a mixture of concern and contempt. Holly is throwing away what Andrea has spent her whole life searching for—a committed relationship with a decent guy. So would it be such a bad thing if Andrea picks up Holly&’s castaway husband? Marissa has more than her fair share of challenges—a rebellious teenage son, a terminally ill daughter, and a husband who buries himself in his work rather than face the facts. As one woman&’s marriage unravels, another&’s rekindles. As one woman&’s family comes apart at the seams, another&’s reconfigures into something bigger and better. In this story of connections and disconnections, one woman&’s up is another one&’s down, and all of them will learn the meaning of friendship, betrayal, and forgiveness. Unflinchingly honest, emotionally powerful, surprisingly erotic, Triangles is the ultimate page-turner. Hopkins&’s gorgeous, expertly honed poetic verse perfectly captures the inner lives of her characters: Sometimes it happens like that. Sometimes you just get lost. Get lost in the world of Triangles, where the lives of three unforgettable women intersect, and where there are no easy answers.The Fuck Up
By Arthur Nersesian. 1997
Arthur Nersesian's underground literary treasure is an unforgettable slice of gritty New York City life.This is the darkly hilarious odyssey…
of an anonymous slacker. He's a perennial couch-surfer, an aspiring writer searching for himself in spite of himself, and he's just trying to survive. But life has other things in store for the fuck-up. From being dumped by his girlfriend to getting fired for asking for a raise, from falling into a robbery to posing as a gay man to keep his job at a porno theater, the fuck-up's tragi-comedy is perfectly realized by Arthur Nersesian, who manages to create humor and suspense out of urban desperation. "Read it and howl," says Bruce Benderson (author of User), "and be glad it didn't happen to you."Katerina: A Novel
By James Frey. 2018
From the New York Times bestselling author of A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning comes Katerina, James Frey&’s…
highly anticipated new novel set in 1992 Paris and contemporary Los Angeles.A kiss, a touch. A smile and a beating heart. Love and sex and dreams, art and drugs and the madness of youth. Betrayal and heartbreak, regret and pain, the melancholy of age. Katerina, the explosive new novel by America&’s most controversial writer, is a sweeping love story alternating between 1992 Paris and Los Angeles in 2018.At its center are a young writer and a young model on the verge of fame, both reckless, impulsive, addicted, and deeply in love. Twenty-five years later, the writer is rich, famous, and numb, and he wants to drive his car into a tree, when he receives an anonymous message that draws him back to the life, and possibly the love, he abandoned years prior. Written in the same percussive, propulsive, dazzling, breathtaking style as A Million Little Pieces, Katerina echoes and complements that most controversial of memoirs, and plays with the same issues of fiction and reality that created, nearly destroyed, and then recreated James Frey in the American imagination.The Sun and Other Stars: A Novel
By Brigid Pasulka. 2013
From Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award-winning writer Brigid Pasulka comes a charming and compulsively readable modern day fable of one misanthrope’s journey…
from darkness into the light—told by one of the most radiantly talented new voices in fiction.In the seaside town of San Benedetto, soccer (or calcio) is more than just a sport: it’s an obsession. Twenty-two-year-old Etto, however, couldn’t care less about soccer. His beloved twin brother Luca, a rising soccer star, died tragically in a motorcycle accident, and their Californian mother, unable to cope with her grief, drowned herself on the anniversary of Luca’s death. This has left Etto alone to tend the butcher shop—where his father barely seems to take in his presence and entrusts him with only the most basic tasks. But then Yuri Fil, a Ukrainian soccer star who Etto’s father idolizes, takes refuge from the paparazzi in a nearby villa, and Etto accidentally falls into Yuri's orbit—and that of Yuri’s beautiful and tough sister, Zhuki. Under their influence, he begins to learn a few life lessons: that the game of soccer might not be a total waste of time, that he might not in fact be a total loser—and that San Benedetto, his father, love, and life itself might have more to offer him than he would have ever believed possible.