Recommended Reads Books (List)

For Mike Muñoz, life has been a whole lot of waiting for something to happen. Not too many years out of high school and still doing menial work--and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew--he’s smart enough to know that he’s got to be the one to shake things up if he’s ever going to change his life. But how? He’s not qualified for much of anything. He has no particular talents, although he is stellar at handling a lawn mower and wielding clipping shears. But now that career seems to be behind him. So what’s next for Mike Muñoz?

In this funny, biting, touching, and ultimately inspiring novel, bestselling author Jonathan Evison takes the reader into the heart and mind of a young man determined to achieve the American dream of happiness and prosperity--who just so happens to find himself along the way.

Here is an anthology of poems, chosen by Garrison Keillor for their wit, their frankness, their passion, their "utter clarity in the face of everything else a person has to deal with at 7 a.m." 

Good Poems includes verse organized by theme about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendance. It features the work of classic poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost, as well as the work of contemporary greats such as Howard Nemerov, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Sharon Olds. It's a book of poems for anybody who loves poetry whether they know it or not.

This is a far cry from your grandma's Christmas cross-stitch book. Cooler than the North Pole and fresher than Frosty the Snowman in an ice bar, Emma Congdon brings you 24 bright, joyful, and contemporary festive patterns in her signature style, to stitch and enjoy for years to come.

Inside this book, you'll find:

* Festive Patterns: 24 unique designs to celebrate the holiday season.

* Easy-to-Follow Charts: Color and symbol charts for effortless stitching.

* Step-by-Step Instructions: Clear guidance for every project.

* Stunning Photography: Beautiful visuals to inspire your creativity.

* Quick Gift Ideas: Last-minute crafting solutions for the perfect present.

The world has fallen. Without warning, a mysterious and omnipotent force has claimed the planet for their own. There are no negotiations, no demands, no reasons given for their actions. All they have is a message: humanity has thirty days to reach the one place on Earth where they will be allowed to exist…Antarctica.

Cold People follows the perilous journeys of a handful of those who endure the frantic exodus to the most extreme environment on the planet. But their goal is not merely to survive the present. Because as they cling to life on the ice, the remnants of their past swept away, they must also confront the urgent challenge: can they change and evolve rapidly enough to ensure humanity’s future? Can they build a new society in the sub-zero cold?

On a frigid February day, Anchorage Detective Cara Kennedy stands by the graves of her husband and son, watching as their caskets are raised from the earth. It feels sacrilegious, but she has no choice. Aaron and Dylan disappeared on a hike a year ago, their bones eventually found and buried. But shocking clues have emerged that foul play was involved, potentially connecting them to a string of other deaths and disappearances. 

Somehow tied to the mystery is Mia Upash, who grew up in an isolated village called Unity, a community of women and children in hiding from abusive men. Mia never imagined the trouble she would find herself in when she left home to live in Man’s World. Although she remains haunted by the tragedy of what happened to the man and the boy in the woods, she has her own reasons for keeping quiet.

Aided by police officer Joe Barkowski and other residents of Point Mettier, Cara’s investigation will lead them on a dangerous path that puts their lives and the lives of everyone around them in mortal jeopardy.

Marian Engström has found her true calling: working with rescue dogs to help protect endangered wildlife. Her first assignment takes her to northern Alberta, where she falls in love with her mentor, the daring and brilliant Tate. After they’re separated from each other on another assignment, Marian is shattered to learn of Tate’s tragic death. Worse still is the aftermath in which Marian discovers disturbing inconsistencies about Tate’s life, and begins to wonder if the man she loved could have been responsible for the unsolved murders of at least four women.

Hoping to clear Tate’s name, Marian reaches out to a retired forensic profiler who’s haunted by the open cases. But as Marian relives her relationship with Tate and circles ever closer to the truth, evil stalks her every move.…

Half-hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.

An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.

Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge - there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.

Elin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in. . .

West Hall has always been a town of strange disappearances and legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who was found murdered in the field behind her house in 1908, a few short months after the tragic death of her daughter, Gertie, drove her mad. People say that Sara's ghost still walks after dark, and some leave offerings on their doorstep to keep her from entering their homes uninvited.

Now, in present day, Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. Alice has always insisted that they remain on the fringes, living off the land without internet or outside interference. But one morning Ruthie wakes up to find that Alice has disappeared without a trace. When she searches the house for clues, she is startled to find a secret compartment beneath the floorboards that contains two objects. One, a gun. And two, a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary.

The story the diary tells is one of a mother skating on the edge of sanity, willing to do whatever she can to bring her daughter back even if it means dabbling in dark and dangerous territory. As Ruthie gets sucked deeper into the mystery of Sara's death, she discovers that she's not the only one looking for someone that they've lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.

Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old, they're frozen—or so their inside joke goes. Nobody knows that her team has a secret: they can travel back in time to look for evidence.

The latest assignment sees Ali venture back farther than they have dared before: to 1850s London to clear the name of Cain Templeton, an eccentric patron of the arts. Rumor has it that Cain is part of a sinister group called The Collectors. Ali arrives in the Victorian era to another dead woman at her feet and far too many unanswered questions.

As the clock counts down, Ali becomes more entangled in the mystery, yet danger lurks around every corner. She soon finds herself trapped, unable to make her way back to her beloved son, Finn, who is battling his own accusations in the present day.

Could the two cases be connected? In a race through and against time, Ali must find out before it’s too late.

No nine-to-five cubicle career will suit Stacie Calder—the naturalist much prefers working in the great outdoors. Specifically, the spacious and spectacular Alaskan wilderness, whose rugged charms she shares with sightseers on the top deck of the tour boat where she works. But one May afternoon, Stacie’s passengers see more than glittering glaciers, frolicking harbor seals, climbing bears and soaring seabirds…they also witness a man lying dead in the frigid Alaskan waters. And it seems likely that someone gave him a fatal push.

Stacie didn’t know the unfortunate victim, but he sure wanted to know a lot about her. He spent most of his final afternoon bombarding her with questions quite awkward to answer. And when he wasn’t in her hair, he was arguing incessantly with the boat’s beleaguered crew. Which makes for a suspect list about as long as the passenger manifest. Furthermore, as police helicopters relentlessly circle her boat in search of any clues, Stacie is shaken to find herself on that suspect list.

Before the tour boat reaches shore Stacie—accompanied by her beautiful blue-eyed husky, Sasha—must deduce just who sent the testy tourist tumbling into the turgid waters and have the authorities take custody. Because if she can’t, then the killer might aim a fatal ice-cold stare at Stacie.

Beth Rivers, known to the world by her pen name Elizabeth Fairchild, has just escaped after being kidnapped by a crazed super-fan. Having thrown herself from his speeding van, Beth suffered a severe head injury and memory loss. Now, scarred and still healing, she disappears to the remote town of Benedict, Alaska—the only place Beth can be sure that no one will find her. But when she arrives, she learns that a woman named Linda Rafferty has been found dead in what looks like a suicide. Yet no one in the close-knit community quite believes that Linda killed herself, including the sheriff.

While Beth waits for her own attacker to be apprehended in the lower forty-eight, she takes it upon herself to investigate Linda’s death and write about it in the Benedict town newspaper. As rumors of murder spread, suspicion falls upon the felons staying at a local halfway house—and on Beth herself. As she fights to clear her name, and bring Linda’s killer to justice, Beth is left with more questions than answers. . .and finds that the investigation is stirring up old memories that are better left forgotten.

It's a bitter winter in Minnesota - too cold to kill. There hasn't been a murder for a month, but the lull quickly comes to an end for Detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth, when they're called to the gruesome homicide of Kelly Ramage. Found in a friend's vacant house, this was no random attack, and clues reveal that she was living a very dangerous secret life.

Magozzi and Gino trace her steps back to an art gallery where she was last seen alive. The gallery seems like a dead end, but the art is disturbing and exploitative. It may very well be inspiring a sadistic killer, because in this instance, art doesn't imitate life, it imitates death.

As coincidences emerge, Magozzi, Gino, and the team have to work around the clock at breakneck pace to unravel a series of clues that form the framework of a larger, more sweeping, and insidious conspiracy than any of them could have imagined. Is Kelly the last person to die or just the most recent? And is there any way to stop it?

He was suspect number one - the man who tried to kill Deputy Mattie Cobb and may have killed her father thirty years earlier. But when Mattie and cold case detective Jim Hauck reach the Colorado state prison where they will finally get to interview him, he's found dead in his cell. There's only one clue: a map leading to Timber Creek and rugged Redstone Ridge.

Though she usually works with veterinarian Cole Walker, Mattie's K-9 partner Robo has just sired a litter of pups, who require special, time-consuming care at Cole's clinic. Left to explore the map's clue without him, Mattie and Robo journey into the burned forest surrounding Redstone Ridge. But before they can finish their search they're called to help investigate the death of a young woman found in a campground filled with elk hunters. Identification of the deceased points to her having recently given birth, but the infant is nowhere to be found.

As a deadly storm descends upon the mountains, covering everything with a layer of ice and snow, Mattie and her team search for the missing newborn. When new evidence surfaces, they decide that finding the woman's killer will lead them to her baby, making them even more desperate to solve the case.

One night, after the first snowfall of the year, a boy named Jonas wakes up and discovers that his mother has disappeared. Only one trace of her remains: a pink scarf, his Christmas gift to her, now worn by the snowman that inexplicably appeared in their yard earlier that day. Inspector Harry Hole suspects a link between the missing woman and a suspicious letter he’s received. The case deepens when a pattern emerges: over the past decade, eleven women have vanished—all on the day of the first snow. But this is a killer who makes his own rules ... and he’ll break his pattern just to keep the game interesting, as he draws Harry ever closer into his twisted web. 

Returning to her hometown of Fjallbacka after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems that she has taken her own life. Erica conceives a book about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will answer questions about their own shared past. While her interest grows into an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case. But it is only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about a small town with a deeply disturbing past.

What can go wrong on a run on in Central Park on your last day of vacation? Even if it is brutally cold? Everyone told Detective Kristen Conner to stay inside, which guaranteed she would go outside - and stumble onto a gang murder that puts her in the cross-hairs of a Russian "Red Mafyia" hit man.

Back in Chicago, murder strikes closer to home. Just down the street from where her mom lives, a popular schoolteacher, solid citizen, and great guy is found dead. It was supposed to look like an accident, but crime scene investigators discover more than one killing blow to the back of his head. When Conner lands the case, she knows from day one who the key suspect is. That's simple. The person most likely to kill you is someone close . . . someone you know and love. But his wife? The nice lady down the street? How could that be possible? Kristen is about to discover there is more violence beneath the surface of the working-class neighborhood she grew up than she ever dreamed possible. 

Meet Kate Shugak. She's five foot one, carries an angry scar that runs across her throat from ear to ear, and owns a half-wolf, half-husky dog named Mutt. Resourceful, strong-willed, and defiant, Aleut private investigator Kate is tougher than your average heroine – and she needs to be to survive the worst the Alaskan wilds can throw at her.

Kate's latest case has stumped politicians and federal investigators alike. Somewhere in twenty million acres of forest and glaciers, a ranger has disappeared. The National Park Service assume he froze to death in a snowstorm: a typical fate of those lost in this vast and desolate terrain. But as a favour to Miller's congressman father, the FBI sent in an investigator. He was last heard from sixteen days ago.

Now it's time to send in a professional: Alaska Native Kate Shugak: Last heard from yesterday...

Moving from Boston to remote Bearkill, Maine, isn't homicide cop Lizzie Snow's idea of a step up. But breaking away from tragedy and personal betrayal is at least a step in the right direction. Her dead sister's fate still torments her, as does her long-missing niece's disappearance. Lizzie hopes to find the mysteriously vanished child here, amid the coming ice and snow. But in the Great North Woods, something darker and more dangerous than punishing winter is also bound for Bearkill.

Beyond Mars, beyond physical form, beyond human understanding...what's left is the absolute Martian Manhunter! Brought into the Absolute Universe by Deniz Camp and Javier Rodríguez, Absolute Martian Manhunter reinvents the Justice League's resident Martian from top to bottom, taking him on a mind-bending, psychedelic journey that transcends dimensions.

An astonishing new version of DC's iconic characters is here! In the Absolute Universe, familiar heroes have been reinvented from the ground up with origin stories that completely reshape both their abilities and their circumstances but maintain the core characteristics than fans have known and loved for decades! 

FBI Agent John Jones has a problem. His brain has been infected by an alien consciousness calling itself "the Martian," and its perception of reality is utterly incomprehensible to the human psyche. Now he must navigate this new status quo, all while balancing the deeply grounded and important duties of his day job! Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez take the Martian Manhunter into the Absolute Universe on a mind-bending, psychedelic trip!
Collects Absolute Martian Manhunter #1-6.

The stand alone adaptation of the popular webcomic by the same name about the down-to-earth courtship between two gay teenagers as they fumble with high school, parental expectations, their dreams, and each other.

Carter is an impulsive, fun-loving, extremely gay teen on a mission to finally hook up with any cute, single guy who will have him. Unfortunately, his options are slim. Enter recently-single Adrian, Carter's very cute, hardworking, and stressed-out target who rebuffs all of his clumsy seduction techniques. Adrian initially plays along but slams on the brakes when he realizes he is still in love with his ex.

After a messy, uninhibited night at a house party that results in Carter helping both Adrian and his best friend Maria—the two boys form a tentative friendship. As their friendship progresses through countless hangouts and a few too many pizza slices, the two become integral to one another. But can their vague relationship survive their first official hookup, Adrian’s self-destructiveness, and a big fight that threatens any chance of either confessing?

Star Wars: The Path of the Lightsaber is an action-packed adventure that takes the reader along on the relatable journey to learn what it takes to actually be able to use lightsaber.

All Jedi Knights are bestowed an important item that only those in tune with the Force could wield—the lightsaber. These powerful objects disappeared with the Jedi when the Empire took over, but even if you find one, you may not be able to master it.

The First Order rules the galaxy, but some still remember the Jedi Knights who once bravely defended the Republic. Nioka, a resourceful young tinkerer, dreams of becoming a Jedi like the legendary Luke Skywalker. For now, though, she keeps a low profile aboard salvage ship the Random Luck with her crewmate Barun, an enthusiastic supporter of the Resistance. 

During an expedition to a mysterious asteroid, Nioka stumbles upon an incredible find—a lightsaber, the weapon of the Jedi. As she tries to figure out how to use it, she realizes others are after the artifact as well, seeking to use it for sinister purposes. With danger closing in, Nioka must protect the lightsaber and herself while learning what it truly means to wield such power. But if she’s going to stand a chance, she’ll need someone to teach her the ways of the Jedi.

In this YA urban fantasy graphic novel, Alex must return to the town where she was born to unravel the magical mysteries her late grandmother left behind



Alex Wilson hasn't been back to Indigo Harbor, the seaside village where she grew up, in years. In fact, she can barely remember anything about it. But when her grandmother dies unexpectedly, Alex will have to return to her childhood home to say goodbye.



Accompanied by her best friend, Grim, Alex travels back to her hometown and begins cleaning out her grandmother's house, but the longer they stay, the stranger things get. Indigo Harbor isn't your average town--there are falling stars, witches running tea shops, and a name that comes up again and again: Elizabeth. Who was this woman, and how did she know Alex's grandmother?



As she explores the town and sorts through her grandmother's belongings, Alex reconnects with her past and tries with increasing desperation to uncover the greatest secret of all, the identity of the mysterious Elizabeth. Tackling grief, acceptance, and how to honor a loved one's life, Bex Glendining has crafted a beautiful and moving graphic novel perfect for readers who loved The Dark Matter of Mona Starr, Girl From the Sea, and the Magic Fish.

The journey of young orphan Xin’s rise to glory as a great general in the Qin Kingdom’s quest to do what has never been done before—unify China.

Xin is a war orphan in a poor village in the kingdom of Qin. He has big dreams of becoming a great general, and when his best friend’s life is cut short by political machinations, Xin sets off to find a deposed ruler and help restore his place on the throne, while working his way up through the ranks of the Qin kingdom’s army to do what no one has ever done before—unify China.

Xin’s journey begins when his friend Piao, another war orphan who imparts to Xin the same dream of becoming the Greatest Generals Under the Heavens, is offered a position in court in the capital. He leaves Xin behind to train on his own, and to meet him there one day. One fateful night, Piao returns bloodied and on the brink of death, with his dying words being for Xin to go meet a boy who turns out to look exactly like Piao. But this is no ordinary boy—it’s the king of Qin, Ying Zheng! And assassins are hot on his tail!

A Good Morning America Book Club Pick!

From the instant New York Times bestselling author of Firekeeper’s Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed comes a daring new mystery about a foster teen claiming her heritage on her own terms.

Ever since Lucy Smith’s father died five years ago, “home” has been more of an idea than a place. She knows being on the run is better than anything waiting for her as a “ward of the state”. But when the sharp-eyed and kind Mr. Jameson with an interest in her case comes looking for her, Lucy wonders if hiding from her past will ever truly keep her safe.

Five years in the foster system has taught her to be cautious and smart. But she wants to believe Mr. Jameson and his “friend-not-friend”, a tall and fierce-looking woman who say they want to look after her. They also tell Lucy the truth her father hid from her: She is Ojibwe; she has – had – a sister, and more siblings, a grandmother who’d look after her and a home where she would be loved.

But Lucy is being followed. The past has destroyed any chance at safety she had. Will the secrets she's hiding swallow her whole and take away any hope for the future she always dreamed of?

When the past comes for revenge, it’s fight or flight.

Angeline Boulley's award-winning canon of books puts compelling characters and fast-paced action at the center of narratives rich in historical context. Read Firekeeper's Daughter; Warrior Girl Unearthed; and the soon-to-be-released Sisters of the Wind in any order; but like the world itself, there are echoes within each for the other stories.

Pick this up if you love:
- quiet girls with dark pasts
- explosive opening scenes
- wolves in sheeps’ clothing

#1 New York Times bestselling author E. Lockhart returns to the world of her TikTok sensation We Were Liars with all her signature beachy gothic atmosphere, family intrigue, and high-stakes romance.

“Compulsively readable to the very last page.” —Jennifer Lynn Barnes, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Inheritance Games

The invitation arrives out of the blue. 

In it, Matilda discovers a father she’s never met. Kingsley Cello is a visionary, a reclusive artist. And when he asks her to spend the summer at his seaside home, Hidden Beach, Matilda expects to find a part of herself she’s never fully understood. 

Instead, she finds Meer, her long-lost, openhearted brother; Brock, a former child star battling demons; and brooding, wild Tatum, who just wants her to leave their crumbling sanctuary. 

With Kingsley nowhere to be seen, Matilda must delve into the twisted heart of Hidden Beach to uncover the answers she’s desperately craving. But secrets run thicker than blood, and blood runs like seawater. 

And everyone here is lying.

Don’t miss any of the We Were Liars novels
WE WERE LIARS • FAMILY OF LIARS • WE FELL APART

A powerful, joyful novel in verse about a Black teen with ADHD who finds self-expression and first love during one epic summer school season, perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds and On the Come Up.

For the third summer in a row, Pernell is back in the classroom, facing the same struggles that have always made school seem more like a battlefield than a place of learning. This summer is different, though: he’s battling to become the Cypher King, leader of the lunchroom’s impromptu rap circles. Here, the rhythm flows and the words fly, creating a space where the wittiest and most rhythmically inclined reign supreme. Here, Pernell’s ADHD gives him an edge.

But life outside the cypher isn’t as forgiving. Pernell’s English teacher has it out for him. His parents are pressuring him to see a doctor for his lack of focus. And Electra, his friend-slash-crush and the only one who truly gets him, is too busy chasing her dream internship to give him the time of day.

If Pernell doesn’t pull himself together, he won’t just lose the title of Cypher King—he’ll lose his chance to graduate high school. In a world where the systems are turned against kids like him, Pernell needs to find a way to succeed with his ADHD, rather than in spite of it.

New York Times bestselling author Tiffany D. Jackson delivers another stunning, ripped-from-the-headlines thriller, following a freshman girl whose college life is turned upside down when her roommate's ex-convict brother moves into their dorm and starts controlling their every move.

Out from under her overprotective parents, Jordyn is ready to kill it in prelaw at a prestigious, historically Black university in Washington DC. When her new roommate's brother is released from prison, the last thing Jordyn expects is to come home and find the ex-convict on their dorm room sofa. But Devonte needs a place to stay while he gets back on his feet--and how could she say no to one of her new best friends

Devonte is older, as charming as he is intelligent, pushing every student he meets to make better choices about their young lives. But Jordyn senses something sinister beneath his friendly advice and growing group of followers. When one of Jordyn's roommates goes missing, she must enlist the help of the university's lone white student to uncover the mystery--or become trapped at the center of a web of lies more tangled than she can imagine.

From the author of The Bone Witch and The Girl from the Well comes a chilling horror told primarily through video transcripts, message boards, and radio shows, that will shake you to your core.

Wispy Falls is safe. The town motto is even "You'll be safe here!" But you aren't safe in the woods that surround the town. In the woods there are monsters. People go missing in the woods. And sometimes the monsters don't stay in the woods...maybe you aren't that safe in Wispy Falls.

A seventeen-year-old vlogger known as Storymancer is determined to get to the bottom of what's wrong in his town. A few years ago, his little brother went missing in the woods and no one, not even his parents, seemed to care enough to try and find him.

But for the first time, an actual body has been found in the woods, and Storymancer is using the opportunity to uncover the rotten core at the heart of Wispy Falls. To investigate the monsters that lurk in the shadows, and the people in town who might just want the monsters there after all.

In 2018, novelist Jami Attenberg, faced with a looming deadline, needed writing inspiration. Using a bootcamp model, she and a friend set out to write one thousand words daily for two weeks straight. They opened this practice to Attenberg’s online community and soon hundreds then thousands of people started using the #1000WordsofSummer hashtag to track their work and support one another. What began as a simple challenge between two friends has become a literary movement—write 1,000 words per day without judgement, or bias, or concerns about writer’s block, and see what comes of it.

1000 Words is the book-length extension of this movement. It is about becoming—and staying—motivated, discovering yourself and your creative desires, and approaching your craft from a new direction. It features advice from more than fifty well-known writers, including New York Times bestsellers, Pulitzer Prize winners, and stars of the literary world. Framing these letters are words of wisdom and encouragement, plus specific strategies, from Attenberg on how to carve out a creative path for yourself all year round.

Open your notebook, take out your pen, and welcome a bold new approach to teaching the art of great storytelling. In 27 lessons, drawn from 27 critical moments at the heart of 27 diverse narratives—from plays, novels, movies, television, and even songs and video games—Daniel Joshua Rubin unlocks the secrets of what makes a story work and then teaches us how to understand and use each principle in our own storytelling.

For centuries, Black creators have utilized oral and written storytelling traditions in crafting their art. But how does one begin the process of constructing a poem or story or character? How do Black writers, when faced with questions of "authenticity," dive deep into the essence of their lives and work to find the inherent truth? How We Do It addresses these profound questions. Not a traditional "how to" writing handbook, it seeks to guide rather than dictate and to validate the complexity and range of styles - and even how one thinks about craft itself.

An outstanding list of contributors offer their insights on a range of important topics. Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown explores the lives personified in poetry, while Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey explores decolonizing enduring metaphors. National Book Award finalist Angela Flournoy illuminates the pain of grief in all forms and how it can be revealed in the act of creation, and iconoclast Nikki Giovanni offers an elegiac declaration on language.

Aspiring writers and readers who have long wondered where the mysterious novelist gets his ideas and what inspires his strangely surreal worlds will be fascinated by this engaging book from the internationally best-selling author. Haruki Murakami now shares with readers his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians.

Here are the personal details of a life devoted to craft: the initial moment at a Yakult Swallows baseball game, when he suddenly knew he could write a novel; the importance of memory, what he calls a writer’s “mental chest of drawers”; the necessity of loneliness, patience, and his daily running routine; the seminal role a carrier pigeon played in his career and more. 

From lauded writer and teacher Matt Bell, Refuse to Be Done is encouraging and intensely practical, focusing always on specific rewriting tasks, techniques, and activities for every stage of the process. You won’t find bromides here about the “the writing Muse.” Instead, Bell breaks down the writing process in three sections. In the first, Bell shares a bounty of tactics, all meant to push you through the initial conception and get words on the page. The second focuses on reworking the narrative through outlining, modeling, and rewriting. The third and final section offers a layered approach to polishing through a checklist of operations, breaking the daunting project of final revisions into many small, achievable tasks.

Whether you are a first time novelist or a veteran writer, you will find an abundance of strategies here to help motivate you and shake up your revision process, allowing you to approach your work, day after day and month after month, with fresh eyes and sharp new tools.

There are countless books on the market about how to write better but very few books on how to break into the marketplace with your first book. Cutting through the noise (and very mixed advice) online, while both dispelling rumors and remaining positive, Courtney Maum's Before and After the Book Deal is a one–of–a–kind resource that can help you get your book published.

This volume has over 150 contributors from all walks of the industry, including international bestselling authors Anthony Doerr, Roxane Gay, Garth Greenwell, Lisa Ko, R. O. Kwon, Rebecca Makkai, and Ottessa Moshfegh, alongside cult favorites Sarah Gerard, Melissa Febos, Mitchell S. Jackson, and Mira Jacob. Agents, film scouts, film producers, translators, disability and minority activists, and power agents and editors also weigh in, offering advice and sharing intimate anecdotes about even the most taboo topics in the industry. Their wisdom will help aspiring authors find a foothold in the publishing world and navigate the challenges of life before and after publication with sanity and grace.

For many writers, the biggest challenge is figuring out how to take that earliest glimmer of inspiration and shape it into a full-length novel. How do you even begin to transform a single idea into a complete book? 

In these pages, award-winning, number one New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George takes us behind the scenes through each step of her writing process, revealing exactly what it takes to craft a novel.

Drawing from her personal photos, early notes, character analyses, and rough drafts, George shows us every stage of how she wrote her novel Careless in Red, from researching location to imagining plot to creating characters to the actual writing and revision processes themselves. George offers us an intimate look at the procedures she follows, while also providing invaluable advice for writers about what has worked for her--and what hasn't. Mastering the Process gives writers practical, prescriptive, and achievable tools for creating a novel, editing a novel, and problem solving when in the midst of a novel, from a master storyteller writing at the top of her game.

Have you always wanted to write a book, but don't know where to start? Or maybe you're really great at writing the first few chapters . . . but you never quite make it to the end? Or do you finally have a finished manuscript, but you're not sure what to do next? Fear not -- if you have writing-related questions, this book has answers! Whether you're writing for fun or to build a career, bestselling author Ally Carter is ready to help you make your work shine. 

With honesty, encouragement, and humor, Ally's ready here to answer the questions that writers struggle with the most. Filled with practical tips and helpful advice, Dear Ally is a treasure for aspiring writers at any stage of their careers. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at how books get made, from idea to publication, and gives you insight into the writing processes of some of the biggest and most talented YA authors writing today.

Novel & Short Story Writer's Market is the go-to resource you need to get your short stories, novellas, and novels published. The 40th edition of NSSWM features hundreds of updated listings for book publishers, literary agents, fiction publications, contests, and more. Each listing includes contact information, submission guidelines, and other essential tips.

This edition of Novel & Short Story Writer's Market also offers:

• Hundreds of updated listings for fiction-related book publishers, magazines, contests, literary agents, and more
• Interviews with bestselling authors Celeste Ng, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Beverly Jenkins, and Chris Bohjalian
• A detailed look at how to choose the best title for your fiction writing
• Articles on tips for manuscript revision, using out-of-character behavior to add layers of intrigue to your story, and writing satisfying, compelling endings
• Advice on working with your editor, keeping track of your submissions, and diversity in fiction

Hundreds of thousands of books come out every year worldwide. So why not yours? In The Book Bible, New York Times bestseller and wildly popular Manhattan writing professor Susan Shapiro reveals the best and fastest ways to break into a mainstream publishing house. Unlike most writing manuals that stick to only one genre, Shapiro maps out the rules of all the sought-after, sellable categories: novels, memoirs, biography, how-to, essay collections, anthologies, humor, mystery, crime, poetry, picture books, young adult and middle grade, fiction and nonfiction. Shapiro once worried that selling 16 books in varied sub-sections made her a literary dabbler. Yet after helping her students publish many award-winning bestsellers on all shelves of the bookstore, she realized that her versatility had a huge upside. She could explain, from personal experience, the differences in making each kind of book, as well as ways to find the right genre for every project and how to craft a winning proposal or great cover letter to get a top agent and book editor to say yes.  

This valuable guide will teach both new and experienced scribes how to attain their dream of becoming a successful author.  

Here is an entirely new side of Kurt Vonnegut, Vonnegut as a teacher of writing. Of course he's given us glimpses before, with aphorisms and short essays and articles and in his speeches. But never before has an entire book been devoted to Kurt Vonnegut the teacher. Here is pretty much everything Vonnegut ever said or wrote having to do with the writing art and craft, altogether a healing, a nourishing expedition. McConnell has outfitted us for the journey, and in these 37 chapters covers the waterfront of how one American writer brought himself to the pinnacle of the writing art, and we can all benefit as a result.

Kurt Vonnegut was one of the few grandmasters of American literature, whose novels continue to influence new generations about the ways in which our imaginations can help us to live. Few aspects of his contribution have not been plumbed--fourteen novels, collections of his speeches, his essays, his letters, his plays--so this fresh view of him, written by a former student, is a bonanza for writers and readers and Vonnegut fans everywhere.

When Agatha Christie died in 1976, at age eighty-five, she had become the world's most popular author. At the end of 2004, following the death of Christie's daughter, Rosalind, a remarkable legacy was revealed: seventy-three handwritten volumes of notes, lists, and drafts outlining all her plans for her many books, plays, and stories. Buried in this treasure trove, all in the beloved author's unmistakable handwriting, are revelations about her famous books that will fascinate anyone who has ever read or watched an Agatha Christie story.

Full of details she was too modest to reveal in her own autobiography, this remarkable book includes a wealth of excerpts and pages reproduced directly from the notebooks and her letters—plus, two complete, recently discovered Hercule Poirot short stories never before published.

Behind every acclaimed work of literature is a trove of heartfelt decisions. The best authors put painstaking--sometimes obsessive--effort into each element of their stories, from plot and character development to dialogue and point of view.

What made Nabokov choose the name Lolita? Why did Fitzgerald use first-person narration in The Great Gatsby? How did Kerouac, who raged against revision, finally come to revise On the Road? Veteran editor and teacher Richard Cohen draws on his vast reservoir of a lifetime's reading and his insight into what makes good prose soar. Here are Gabriel García Márquez's thoughts on how to start a novel ("In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book"); Virginia Woolf offering her definition of style ("It is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can't use the wrong words"); and Vladimir Nabokov on the nature of fiction ("All great novels are great fairy tales").

Cohen has researched the published works and private utterances of our greatest authors to discover the elements that made their prose memorable. The result is a unique exploration of the act and art of writing that enriches our experience of reading both the classics and the best modern fiction. Evoking the marvelous, the famous, and the irreverent, he reveals the challenges that even the greatest writers faced--and shows us how they surmounted them.

Have you ever wanted to captivate readers with a great opening, create spectacular and fantastical creatures, make up an entire country, realize a dastardly villain, write an epic love story, or make your characters leap off the page? If you answered yes to any of these questions, Gail Carson Levine can help you achieve your goals.

Newbery Honor author Gail Carson Levine offers a behind-the-scenes take on writing and teaches you how to become a world-class author. Drawing from her popular blog, Gail answers readers' fiction- and poetry-writing questions and dives into how to make a story come alive. If you're interested in writing prose and poetry or just want to be a better and more rounded writer, this book will help you on your creative journey.

Francesca Lia Block is the bestselling author of more than twenty-five books, including the award-winning Weetzie Bat series. Her writing has been called "transcendent" by The New York Times, and her books have been included in "best of" lists compiled by Time magazine and NPR. 

In this long-anticipated guide to the craft of writing, Block offers an intimate glimpse of an artist at work and a detailed guide to help readers channel their own experiences and creative energy. Sharing visceral insights and powerful exercises, she gently guides us down the write-to-heal path, revealing at each turn the intrinsic value of channeling our experiences onto the page. 

Named for the painting by Frida Kahlo, who famously transformed her own personal suffering into art, The Thorn Necklace offers lessons on life, love, and the creative process. 

Growing up, Rebecca Clarren only knew the major plot points of her tenacious immigrant family’s origins. Her great-great-grandparents, the Sinykins, and their six children fled antisemitism in Russia and arrived in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, ultimately settling on a 160-acre homestead in South Dakota. Over the next few decades, despite tough years on a merciless prairie and multiple setbacks, the Sinykins became an American immigrant success story.

What none of Clarren’s ancestors ever mentioned was that their land, the foundation for much of their wealth, had been cruelly taken from the Lakota by the United States government. By the time the Sinykins moved to South Dakota, America had broken hundreds of treaties with hundreds of Indigenous nations across the continent, and the land that had once been reserved for the seven bands of the Lakota had been diminished, splintered, and handed for free, or practically free, to white settlers. In The Cost of Free Land, Clarren melds investigative reporting with personal family history to reveal the intertwined stories of her family and the Lakota, and the devastating cycle of loss of Indigenous land, culture, and resources that continues today.

From the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Native children were pulled from their tribal communities to attend boarding schools whose stated aim was to "save the Indian" by way of assimilation. In reality, these boarding schools—sponsored by the U.S. government, but often run by various religious orders with little to no regulation—were a calculated attempt to dismantle tribes by pulling apart Native families. Children were beaten for speaking their Native languages; denied food, clothing, and comfort; and forced to work menial jobs in terrible conditions, all while utterly deprived of love and affection.

Amongst those thousands of children was Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember's mother, who was was sent to a boarding school in northern Wisconsin at age five. The trauma of her experience cast a pall over Pember'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 but hopeful portrait of communities still reckoning with the trauma of acculturation, religion, and abuse caused by the state. Through searing interviews and careful reporting, Pember traces the evolution and continued rebirth of Native cultures and nations in relation to the country that has been intent on eradicating them.

Steph Harper is on the run. She has been all her life, ever since her mother drove five-year-old Steph and her younger sister through the night to Cherokee Nation, a place they had never been, but where she hoped they might finally belong. In response to the turmoil, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon.

Spanning three decades and several continents, To the Moon and Back encompasses Steph’s turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her: her sister Kayla, an artist who goes on to become an Indigenous social media influencer, and whose determination to appear good takes her life to unexpected places; Steph’s college girlfriend Della Owens, who strives to reclaim her identity as an adult after being removed from her Cherokee family through a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act; and Hannah, Steph and Kayla’s mother, who has held up her family’s tribal history as a beacon of inspiration to her children, all the while keeping her own past a secret.

For the past twelve years, a community of Anishinaabe people have made the Northern Ontario bush their home in the wake of the power failure that brought about societal collapse. Since then they have survived and thrived the way their ancestors once did, but their natural food resources are dwindling, and the time has come to find a new home.

Evan Whitesky volunteers to lead a mission south to explore the possibility of moving back to their original homeland, the "land where the birch trees grow by the big water" in the Great Lakes region. Accompanied by five others, including his daughter Nangohns, an expert archer, Evan begins a journey that will take him to where the Anishinaabe were once settled, near the devastated city of Gibson, a land now being reclaimed by nature.

But it isn't just the wilderness that poses a threat: they encounter other survivors. Those who, like the Anishinaabe, live in harmony with the land, and those who use violence.

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. 

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret. 

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.

From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine's Penobscot Reservation. He caught brief moments of his neighbor Elizabeth's life - from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there's something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from her and the rest of the tribal community. It's the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep.

Now, it's been weeks since he's seen Elizabeth, and Charles is worried. As he attempts to hold on to and care for what he can - his home and property; his alcoholic and bighearted friend Bobby; and his mother, Louise, who is slipping deeper into dementia - he becomes increasingly haunted by his past. Forced to confront a lost childhood on the reservation, a love affair cut short, and the death of his beloved stepfather, Fredrick, Charles contends with questions he's long been afraid to ask. Is his secret about Elizabeth his to share? And would his daughter want to know the truth, even if it could cost her everything she's ever known?

Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside Tribal President Mack Beck, his childhood friend, Mitch runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe’s Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack’s reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack’s estranged sister and Mitch’s former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go—and what they will sacrifice—to win it all.

But when an accident claims the life of Mitch’s mentor, a power broker in the reservation’s political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation’s descent into violence.

Welcome to Toluma Farms, a 160-acre goat and sheep dairy and educational farm in Marin County, California, just a few miles from the Pacific Coast, stewarded since 2003 by Tamara Jo Hicks, her husband, David Jablons, and their two daughters. In partnership with writer and illustrator Jessica MacLeod, Feasts on the Farm is a gorgeous cookbook organized by the seasons that captures the nourishing, creative, and positive approach taken by the entire Toluma team.

Through 60+ tantalizing recipes ranging from starters to mains to sweets, this book shares practical guidance on how to:

• Take advantage of your local farmer's market's springtime bounty with a Farmers Panzanella Salad.
• Graze on the Perfect Summer Cheese Board on a lazy summer evening.
• Whip up some Pumpkin Muffins with Maple Goat Butter to kick off an early Autumn morning.
• Create a winter feast with a platter of Roasted Dungeness Crab with Herb Butter.
• And much more.

Filled with full-color photographs, charming illustrations, and short informative essays on topics such as slow living, agritourism, and raising happy goats and sheep, this sumptuous volume will instantly transport you to beautiful Toluma Farms and inspire you to embrace a year of seasonal, sustainable, cheese-filled eating and living!

This practical cookbook flips the script on recipe books organized by season. Instead of dedicated recipes to Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter - which would mean three quarters of the book goes unused for three quarters of the year - this book features 26 go-to recipes, each with four variations. Every dish includes a base recipe - such as a simple frittata, Panzanella salad, sheet pan dinner, or loaf cake - plus four adaptations based on the season. 

Readers will also find simple instructions and formulas for creating original dishes, giving them the tools they need to improvise based on the ingredients they have on hand. With a photograph to accompany all 100 dishes, this is a versatile, repertoire-building cookbook will be a go-to resource for home cooks looking to create delicious, healthy food all year long.

This fun, spirited, and visually rich cookbook from the beloved Zingerman's Bakehouse contains a full gamut of recipes to mark life events, seasonal holidays, and celebrations, from birthdays and weddings to tailgating, Passover, Mardi Gras, Pi Day, and more! The first Zingerman's Bakehouse cookbook was lauded by bakers of all levels for its carefully selected recipes that yield delicious results. Zingerman's Celebrate Every Day brings that same depth of knowledge, clear instructions, fun spirit, and range of favorite recipes. Within these pages are 80 meticulously tested, delicious, and fun recipes, with more than 100 photographs and spunky sidebars.

Perfect for fans of UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: DRACULA and THE SILVER COIN – UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: FRANKENSTEIN breathes new life into the tale of one of pop culture’s most beloved monsters. 

A MODERN-DAY HORROR VISIONARY RESURRECTS ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC MONSTERS! 

Award-winning creator Michael Walsh (The Silver Coin) presents a jaw-dropping new vision of the seminal horror classic. This deluxe hardcover tells the shocking creation story of the unforgettable monster in the original film—one body part at a time. 

Dr. Henry Frankenstein begins his unholy quest to create life by robbing the grave of a decorated police officer to find necessary parts. But little does he know that the corpse has a son who is mourning a father – and that this young boy will forever change Frankenstein’s life. 

Collects UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: FRANKENSTEIN #1-4.

Obsession and persistence warp reality in this collection of macabre stories set in Junji Ito’s bloodcurdling world. 

A dark evil lurks in the unreachable depths of a pipe, groaning out moans that echo through the house of a germophobe mother and her daughters. In another tale, flowers blooming in the shape of eyeballs are only the beginning of the strange phenomena surrounding a mysterious transfer student. Could he have supernatural abilities? Also, a man in a village deep in the mountains shares memories of his wife. What happened to her after she said she would give freely of her blood? 

Legendary horror author Junji Ito presents six stories that will make your blood run cold!

From Spanish cartoonist Anabel Colazo (No Mires Atrás, Encuentros Cercanos) comes Espada, a tale of a young princess and her quest to carve out her own destiny amid a lineage of power. 

There was a time when everyone had access to magic, until a dispute for power attracted a demon from another world who destroyed everything . . . or so legend has it. However, there is another, very different apocryphal version, according to which a hero, carrying a sword, came to the Kingdom to guide and protect its people. But who was that hero, and what became of him? Why is the queen now the only person capable of using magic? Attracted by all these enigmas of the past, Ania, princess of the Kingdom and heir to the throne by imposition, will try to find out the truth behind these magical fables—now that she has just found a mysterious sword.

Broke young man + chainsaw demon = Chainsaw Man!

Denji was a small-time devil hunter just trying to survive in a harsh world. After being killed on a job, he is revived by his pet devil Pochita and becomes something new and dangerous—Chainsaw Man!

Chainsaw Man has escaped Makima’s attempts to control him so far, but she now reveals the full extent of her plans. Denji will need the help of his remaining friends if he is to have any chance of defeating Makima in their final confrontation!

New York Times bestselling and Eisner Award-winning comics creator Faith Erin Hicks resurrects one of the most iconic monsters in her bold new take on THE MUMMY! 

Forever haunted by a cursed encounter as a child, Helen Grosvenor is a woman born to two worlds and belonging in neither. When unknown voices bring her to an Egyptian dig site, Helen will play an unexpected role in the rise of a monster known only as...THE MUMMY. 

Superstar creator Faith Erin Hicks (Ride On, Pumpkinheads, The Nameless City Trilogy) teams up with colorist Lee Loughridge (I Hate This Place) to present a bold new vision of the seminal horror classic, bringing The Mummy to life like never before. 

Collects UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: THE MUMMY #1-4.

Featuring colored endpapers and a designed case!

New York Times bestselling author Kalynn Bayron is back with a Frankenstein-tinged horror romance.

Meka is used to death. After all, it's the family business.

As a newly certified mortician's assistant at her parents' funeral home, her days are not for the faint of heart. Luckily her boyfriend Noah isn't squeamish, and Meka is finally feeling ready to say the three little words that will change everything.

But then tragedy strikes, and Meka's world is torn apart. Nothing makes sense, especially the strange things start happening. Ravens are circling her home. Strangers are following her. Someone is leaving mysterious items at her door. And worst of all . . .

The dead don't seem to be staying dead.

Meka thought she understood death better than anyone. Turns out, the family business is a bit more complicated than it seems. And Meka isn't the only one desperate to unearth their secrets . . . because the truth may be worth dying for.

Pageant winner and horror fanatic Corie Nielson dreams of putting the “QUEEN” in “SCREAM QUEEN”

Born into a family of beauty queens, seventeen-year-old Corie Nielson has the looks and charm befitting of Miss Teen Indiana. Her sights are set on the Miss Teen America crown next—and the college scholarship that comes with it—in hopes that she can finally break into her secret dream career: horror movie scream queen.

With pageant appearances, caring for her great-grandma, school, and shifts at the family boutique . . . there’s more than enough for one person to juggle, let alone Corie with her undiagnosed ADHD. But when the local horror show announces a monster costume contest that promises to make all her dreams come true, Corie can’t help but think: What’s one more thing? Surely, she can manage her family’s high expectations while also using her pageant skills to launch her into horror stardom. All she has to do is convince grumpy special effects makeup artist Everett Robbins to partner up and turn her into a pageant-worthy monster.

But old habits die hard; when the contest and a budding relationship with Everett distract her from her obligations even more, Corie must decide if a shot at her wildest dreams is worth risking the family bonds and pageant traditions that have brought her this far.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST!

"A must-read."
"Achingly tender."
"Intimate and astonishing."

For fans of You've Reached Sam and If I Stay, a hauntingly beautiful, ultimately hopeful novel-in-verse about a girl in between life and death, by National Book Award Finalist Amber McBride.

Gospel is the Keeper of the Leaving Room—a place all young people must phase through when they die. The young are never ready to leave; they need a moment to remember and a Keeper to help their wispy souls along.

When a random door opens and a Keeper named Melodee arrives, their souls become entangled. Gospel's seriousness melts and Melodee’s fear of connection fades, but still—are Keepers allowed to fall in love? Now they must find a way out of the Leaving Room and be unafraid of their love. In a novel that takes place over four minutes, National Book Award finalist Amber McBride explores connection, memory, and hope in ways that are unforgettable and poignant.

A young Victorian woman unwittingly unleashes a monster into being in this gothic tale of medical mystery and sinister suspense, perfect for fans of DON'T LET THE FOREST IN and BELLADONNA.

Death is just the beginning.

When seventeen-year-old Dilly Rothbart finds her recently deceased father's hidden journal, her entire world is upended—for what she finds within are the steps to bring a dead soul back to life. 

Intent on finishing her father's work and establishing herself as the greatest scientist in history, Dilly plunges into a medical underworld of corpse-stealing, grave-robbing, and even murder. And when her twin sister steps in the way of her studies, she'll do whatever is necessary to secure the recognition she deserves.

This twisty, atmospheric, Frankensteinian tale is about a group of ambitious young scientists who descend into corruption when a breakthrough discovery grants them the power of gods.

Final Fantasy meets Shadow and Bone in The Demon and the Light, the hotly anticipated follow-up to Axie Oh's The Floating World.

The battle is over, but the war is just beginning...

With the help of her friends and allies, Ren managed to topple the General's insurrection, but the Floating World and its territories are still under threat of attack from the rival Volmaran Empire. And far worse, she was powerless to save Sunho from being overcome by the monstrous power in his blood. Now he's gone, transformed into a feral, deadly creature that doesn't even recognize her anymore, and her heart aches for the sweet boy she's grown to love.

But the escalating war will not pause for her grief. Seen by some as a heavenly savior and others merely a figurehead to be manipulated, Ren must use all her courage and cunning to survive the royal court's game long enough to find Sunho and bring him home before he loses himself to the Demon forever.

Also by Axie Oh
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea
The Floating World

It's great being a hero! Super powers, loved by every-- wait, what? Brought over by mistake? These stats are awful, and the kingdom sure seems sketchy... 

And so begins Mukouda Tsuyoshi's life in another world. And if he thought his strength was bad, his special skill is... accessing his old online supermarket?! It's useless for combat, but if he plays his cards right, there's gold in rare goods. At least, that's what Mukouda thinks, but it turns out his modern food might be more special than it appears - and in this world, Japanese food isn't an everyday sight! Quiet days lead to silent storms, especially once a gluttonous fenrir starts causing trouble and asking for seconds!

SENIOR YEAR BUCKET LIST? SWITCH BODIES WITH YOUR CRUSH.

Chi-Chi Ekeh has one huge problem: She keeps having crushes on rich white boys who have no idea she exists. Enter Flip Henderson, the most popular boy at school, who receives Chi-Chi’s private video proposal to go to senior prom.

But when Flip rejects Chi-Chi in front of their entire class, what happens next is completely unexpected: Chi-Chi—shy nerd and scholarship student—switches bodies with Flip. Suddenly Chi-Chi is 6’1” and cool, while Flip gets a crash course on Chi-Chi’s life—that is, k-pop, hair-braiding, and being a poor kid of color at a rich white private school.

With graduation looming and their body swaps lasting longer and longer, Chi-Chi and Flip must form the most unlikely friendship their school has ever seen. But will they survive senior year? And, most importantly, can they find a way back to themselves?

From bestselling author of Check, Please! comes Flip, a thrilling and fantastical tale about self-acceptance, black girlhood, and how walking a mile in someone else’s shoes can teach you how to finally see yourself.

A stunning coming-of-age graphic novel from cartoonist Barbara Mazzi, exploring the dystopian divide of class difference, the strength of human connection, and what truly makes the heart tick.

The Hourglass is called many things: the perfect machine, the source of all life, the fountain of youth. It promises immortal comfort to the privileged, but it also looms over its creators, trapping them in its cycle. 

Martel knows that there are other, inexplicable things that give life meaning, way more valuable than her own immortality. She only feels alive in the stolen moments with Twenty, an assembly worker in the dangerous gears of the machine. Will the differences between their lives tear their relationship apart, or will the Hourglass shatter first? After all, a society built on rejecting these feelings is beyond fragile... it's a ticking time bomb.

This sequel to Adam Ellis's New York Times bestselling Bad Dreams in the Night is packed with terrifying twists, haunted houses, urban legends, and delightfully horrifying stories--like your own personal campfire ghost stories packed into a graphic novel. Each story will make you scream for more!

This brand-new collection of delightful horror comics includes nine new thrilling and terrifying stories that will keep readers on the edge of their seats and peering out their windows in fright. Adam Ellis, one of the biggest stars in webcomics, brings his unique blend of humor and horror to life with stunning illustrations and gripping narratives. Stories include Sleepwalker, about a terrifying and unexplained incident at a youth hostel, Old Machines, about receiving instant messages from a friend who has been dead for years, and Sunken Express, which chronicles a paranormal journey on a phantom subway car. Whether it's a ghostly encounter, a creepy urban legend, or a supernatural mystery, Let Me In Your Window is guaranteed to give you the creeps.

Join Cat, Rabbit, Penguin, and the rest of the team in this delightful new comic collection for middle grade readers! All are Welcome offers young readers delightful comics full of friendship and fun. 

According to the School Library Journal, Cat Cafe "makes you feel good because it's a place where you are accepted, no matter who you are or how you feel."

The comic book equivalent of a cozy blanket, Cat's Café takes you by the hand and carefully guides you away from all the darkness in life. Freeing the warm and floofies within, Cat's Café offers a world that understands you. In this new comic collection for middle grade readers, fans will find new levels cuteness, heartwarming moments, and learn more about their favorite characters. Along with the familiar stories of mental health and friendship that Cat's Café is known for, author Gwen Tarpley also uses characters like Rabbit to share her most authentic self with the world. So, grab your favorite mug and brew, and sip, laugh, and cheer as you curl up with the newest installment of Cat's Café.

In this haunting story about family, legacy, and sacrifice, a young Black girl living in a Texas sundown town must find the courage to stand up for what's right even when it means facing impossible choices--perfect for fans of Dear Martin and The Hate U Give.



Fifteen-year-old Lala Russell is doing a bad job at being a Black girl. She has social justice fatigue, and she doesn't want to join the Black Alliance Club at her school (even though she agrees with them). A gifted cellist, she's focused on leaving her small town and accomplishing her goals and dreams. But Lala has also inherited another gift, her grandmother Sadie's gift of foresight. She has visions of the future--and they always come true. 



In Davey, the Texas sundown town she lives in, there is growing tension, as a Black organization attempts to diversify the nearly all-white part of town. Amidst violent protests, Lala has a vision. In it, a Black teenage boy is shot in the chest by a white homeowner. Now Lala has a mission: find the boy and save him.



But Grandma Sadie has a vision too. After the boy's murder, a wave of protests breaks out. And the outrage over the casual and frequent slaying of unarmed Black children will result in unprecedented change. Change that won't happen if the vision is altered. Lala is faced with an existential question--can she allow herself to sacrifice one life to, in turn, save many? And if so, whose life will she choose?

A captivating, heartrending novel about a Korean American teen navigating grief and first love who agrees to accept money from her estranged father in exchange for letting him get to know her—for fans of Nina LaCour, Kathleen Glasgow, and All My Rage.

Each night, Winter Moon counts her earnings dreaming of escape. Once she’s saved enough, she and her grandmother can finally take flight and disappear. But when her spiteful mother steals her money and blows through it all in one day, Winter is forced to turn to her estranged father, who recently reappeared in her life after being absent for more than a decade. They agree upon a simple contract: she spends time with him in exchange for payment.

It’s not easy reconciling the past and the present, though, and when she’s struck with a sudden loss, Winter flounders in grief and rage. The only person offering a hand is Joon, the new boy at school who sees Winter when no one else does.

When Winter discovers a secret her father has been keeping from her, things get even more complicated. As she navigates grief, first love, and forgiveness, Winter begins to forge connections, new and old, that make her question everything: her future, her conviction to disappear, and what it really means to be family. Winter knows that broken things can never be fixed, but can they come back together in a different way?

From Printz Honor–winning and New York Times bestselling author Julie Berry, a true-crime-nail-biter-turned-mythic-odyssey pitting Jack the Ripper against Medusa. A defiant love song to sisterhood, a survivors’ battle cry, and a romantic literary tour de force laced with humor.

It’s autumn 1888, and Jack the Ripper is on the run. As London police close in, he flees England for New York City seeking new victims. But a primal force of female vengeance has had enough. With serpents for hair and a fearsome gaze, an awakened Medusa is hunting for one thing: Jack.

And other dangers lurk in Manhattan’s Bowery. Salvation Army volunteers Tabitha and Pearl discover that a girl they once helped has been forced to work in a local brothel. Tabitha’s an upstate city girl with a wry humor and a thirst for adventure, while farmgirl Pearl takes everything with stone-cold seriousness. Their brittle partnership is tested as they team up with an aspiring girl reporter and a handsome Irish bartender to mount a rescue effort, only to find their fates entwine with Medusa’s and Jack’s.

Told in dual POV, this gripping companion piece to My Father, the Panda Killer, follows a teenage son who defies his sister's wishes by searching for more information about their absent mother. Meanwhile, his mother's poignant backstory reveals her struggle with grief and longing, culminating in her heart-wrenching decision to leave her children.

“A cleverly narrated and perfectlypaced powerful dive into healinggenerational trauma.” —Angeline Boulley, author of Firekeeper’s Daughter

San Jose, 2008: Paul yearns to know more about the mother who abandoned his family, but she is the only topic no one discusses. Now’s he’s in Vietnam, feeling displaced and considered an outsider. Plus, a ghost is haunting him even though he doesn’t believe in ghosts. His cousin and the grandmother he’s never met before now keep telling him that he’ll get answers only if he’s willing to open his ears. 

Vũng Tâu, 1975: Ngọc Lan is eleven when her family breaks apart: her brother is drafted into the army; her father leaves on the last helicopter to the US. She and her sister are sent from Vietnam on a harrowing journey by boat. Only Ngọc Lan will survive. But what is the American dream when you are haunted by the death of your sister, missing your homeland; seeing ghostly mermaid sightings; lost in an abusive marriage; struggling as a parent?

Told in the alternating perspectives of Paul and Ngọc Lan, My Mother, the Mermaid Chaser is a haunting story about the intergenerational effects of war, estranged family bonds, and how a teenager discovers a new connection to a lost part of himself.

From the acclaimed author of Beating Heart Baby, an immersive novel following three estranged high schoolers who are pulled into a video game to pursue the disappearance of their friend

Three years ago, Elle (the “E” in the self-proclaimed L.O.V.E. Club) disappeared from Calendula, an affluent Chinese American suburb in inland California. Soon afterward, Liberty and Vera (“L” and “V”) moved away, leaving O alone with her grief, abandonment, and confusion. . . until Liberty and Vera return for their senior year of high school.

Though the L.O.V.E. Club’s three remaining members once bonded as outcasts and gamers, they can’t pick up the pieces of their friendship. But the girls are drawn back to their old clubhouse, where they discover, loaded for them to play, a new game created by none other than the missing Elle.

One click, and Liberty, Vera, and O are ported into Morning Glory, an ever-evolving botanical fantasy coded with their lived experiences, complicated history, and repressed insecurities. Unbeknownst to the others, O can’t remember the events surrounding Elle’s disappearance—but within the game, Elle has sent O a cryptic hint about Morning Glory’s real nature.

While Liberty and Vera defeat increasingly sinister bosses, O grapples with the secret knowledge that her deepest wish, to reunite with Elle, might just come true. But as the girls progress through Morning Glory, O begins to wonder how well she actually knew any of her former best friends and if she’s ready to confront the hard truths—and dangerous revelations—about Elle in her returning memories.

Sometimes, there's no one you can crust...

It's Thanksgiving in Sugar Ridge, Vermont, and Leila Khoury, manager of Sappy Endings Farm, is ready to usher in the holiday season by hosting a pie-baking contest. The day is meticulously planned, from the judging panel to the maple lattes, and Leila can't wait for the entire town to enjoy some sweet treats.

But when a neighbor drops dead from sampling a poisoned pumpkin pie, it's not just Leila's perfect day that's in jeopardy - her livelihood is now at stake. And after yet another near-fatal incident, she realizes an even more terrifying truth: the killer wasn't targeting her neighbor, but someone even closer to home!

Can Leila figure out who's behind the murder, before the dough hits the fan?

Former Air Force special investigator Annie Gore joined the military right after high school to escape the fraught homelife of her childhood. Now, she’s getting by as a private investigator, and her latest case takes her to an Appalachian holler not unlike the one where she grew up.

Ten years ago, three little girls went missing from their tiny mountain town. While one was returned, the others were never seen again. After all this time without answers, the brother of one of the girls wants to hire an outsider, and he wants Annie. While she may not be from his town, she gets mountain towns. Mountain people. Driving back into the hills for a case this old—it might be a fool’s errand. But Annie needs to put money in the bank and she can’t turn down a case. Not even one that dredges up her own painful past.

In the shadow of the Blue Ridge, Annie begins to track down the truth, navigating a decade’s worth of secrets, folklore of witches and crows, and a whole town that prefers to forget. But while the case may have been forgotten, echoes of the past linger. And Annie’s arrival stirs someone into action.

Fall is a big deal in Briar Glen, a quaint and charming village in New England. That's when tourists from all over the country descend upon this picturesque town to see the babbling brooks and colorful leaves while sipping hot chocolate or pumpkin spice lattes.

But sixteen-year-old Lucy Kane hates the uber-popular PSL. She finds it overrated - especially when you consider the fact that there isn't even pumpkin in it! - which is bad because she works at Cup o' Jo, the local coffee shop her mom owns. Business at Cup o' Jo hasn't been great in the off-season, but that's okay because it always picks up during the fall...

Until Java Junction, a multinational coffee chain, opens across the street and makes things harder for the small shop. And to make matters worse, it turns out Jack Harper, the new kid in school and Lucy's secret crush, is the son of the owner. Suddenly, fall doesn't seem like it'll be all it's cracked up to be. Will Lucy find a way to save her mom's coffee shop?

Decorations of cobwebs and creatures are just being taken down across Eastport’s picturesque houses as the community says farewell to Halloween and ushers in winter with the unique confectionaries found only at the Chocolate Moose. Revelers have gathered on the waterfront for a party at local celebrity Hank Rafferty’s ramshackle mansion, known as Stone House. The home repair TV show star and his guests await a devilish dessert delivery from Jake and Ellie—who arrive just after Hank’s body falls to his death from the house’s turret’s balcony.

Despite his show’s popularity, Hank was not exactly beloved in Eastport, prompting the police to conduct a homicide investigation. Their number one suspect is the temperamental boyfriend of police chief Lizzie Snow, whom Hank openly hit on during the party. Although he may be hotheaded, Lizzie doesn’t believe her boyfriend is capable of killing anyone.

And neither do Jake and Ellie. Plenty of people had motive to want Hank dead—a disillusioned admirer, a school bully, and a discontented wife among them. Did any of them take the murderous plunge, or is there another ghost in Hank’s shady past yet to be revealed?

When Jeanie's aunt gifts her the beloved Pumpkin Spice Café in the small town of Dream Harbor, Jeanie jumps at the chance for a fresh start away from her very dull desk job.

Logan is a local farmer who avoids Dream Harbor's gossip at all costs. But Jeanie's arrival disrupts Logan's routine and he wants nothing to do with the irritatingly upbeat new girl, except that he finds himself inexplicably drawn to her.

Will Jeanie's happy-go-lucky attitude win over the grumpy-but-gorgeous Logan, or has this city girl found the one person in town who won't fall for her charm, or her pumpkin spice lattes...

She's a little edgy. He's a lot of sunshine. Love's about to catch them completely off gourd...

Textile artist Sadie Fox did not sign up for this. When she agreed to come home to Pea Blossom, Indiana, it was to care for her father's beloved pumpkin patch. The deal was that - just for the summer - she would grow a ginormous pumpkin, win the Indiana State Fair's pumpkin contest and finally win back her father's (grudging) respect.

Instead, a horde of wild hogs destroyed the. entire. patch. Which is precisely when the annoyingly sexy, sunshiny next-door neighbor shows up.

Josh Thatcher is a tech millionaire who traded in the office for growing gourds, including experimental squash hybrids. And for the life of her, Sadie can't understand what he sees in her sweary, tattooed, prickly self - or why he's offering to help his biggest competitor. But a storm-fueled kiss proves there's definitely something growing between them.

Maybe it's just attraction. Maybe it's more. Whatever it is, it's already bigger than Sadie's fast-growing pumpkin...or the secret that Josh has been hiding.

On the eve of their college graduation, best friends Javier Báez and Marisol Campos swore never to date someone the other doesn’t approve of. Now, almost a decade later, Javi has a problem. Mari, the woman he’s secretly pined for since sophomore year, is engaged—and Javi didn’t even get the chance to vet the Pedro Pascal knockoff she plans to marry.

A successful entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles, Mari is no longer seeking Javi’s dating advice or waiting for him to declare his love. Instead, she’s made a different pact—with herself. And to succeed, Mari’s vowing to build a future with someone who wants to commit to her.

With his life and career finally on track, Javi’s ready to confess his feelings. Except Mari’s changed the script and moved on without him. Javi has just six weeks to convince Mari this marriage is a flop. If that means he needs to ruffle some feathers to help her avert disaster, well, he’s up for the challenge. After all, isn’t that what best friends are for?

In this groundbreaking novel, Santiago Jose Sanchez plunges us into the heart of one boy’s life. His mother takes him and his brother from Colombia to America, leaving their absent father behind but essentially disappearing herself once they get to Miami.

In America, his mother works as a waitress when she was once a doctor. The boy embraces his queer identity as wholeheartedly as he embraces his new home, but not without a sense of loss. As he grows, his relationship with his mother becomes fraught, tangled, a love so intense that it borders on vivid pain but is also the axis around which his every decision revolves. She may have once forgotten him, disappeared, but she is always on his mind.

He moves to New York, ducking in and out of bed with different men as he seeks out something, someone, to make him whole again. When his mother invites him to visit family in Colombia with her, he returns to the country as a young man, trying to find peace with his father, with his homeland, with who he’s become since he left, and with who his mother is: finally we come to know her and her secrets, her complex ambivalence and fierce love.

Love enters our lives in many forms: friends, family, intimate partners. But all of these relationships are deeply influenced by the love we have for ourselves. If we see our relationships as opportunities to be fully present in our healing and growth, then, Yung Pueblo assures us, we can transform and meet one another with compassion instead of judgment.

In How to Love Better, Yung Pueblo examines all aspects of relationships, from the rose-colored early days when you may be hesitant to show your full self, to the challenges that can arise without clear communication, to dealing with heartbreak and healing as you close a chapter of your life. The power of looking inward remains at the core of Yung Pueblo’s teachings. Ego and attachment can become barriers in a relationship, so the more self-aware you become, the more you can support both your partner and yourself.

Yung Pueblo’s insights on embracing change, building a foundation of honesty, and learning to listen selflessly will resonate regardless of where you are in your healing journey. And his unique combination of poetry, personal experience, and thoughtful advice will help you grow and strengthen all of your relationships.

In San Francisco in 1866, an Irish nun, abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman.

To pursue her passion for writing, she is willing to defy societal norms. At the age of seventeen, she begins to publish pulp fiction using a man’s pen name. When these fictional worlds can no longer satisfy her sense of adventure, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at The Daily Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan.

As she proves herself, her restlessness returns, until an opportunity arises to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. She seizes it, as does Eric, and while there, she meets her estranged father and delves into the violent confrontation in the country where her roots lie. As she and Eric discover love, the war escalates and Emilia finds herself in extreme danger, fearing for her life and questioning her identity and her destiny.

“Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches”: That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva—stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.

In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.

Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.

In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family’s isolated mine for refuge. But safety proves fleeting as other dangers soon bare their teeth: Alba begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking, and violent convulsions. She senses something cold lurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong. 

Elías, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family’s legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin’s betrothed, is none of his business. Which is of course why he can’t help but notice the growing tension between them every time she enters the room…and why he notices her deteriorate when the demon’s thirst for blood gets stronger. 

In the fight for her life, Alba and Elías become entangled with the occult, the Church, long-kept secrets, and each other… not knowing that one of these things will spell their doom.

Deep in the forgotten hills of Massachusetts stands Saint Perpetua's College. Isolated and ancient, it is not a place for timid girls. Here, secrets are currency, ambition is lifeblood, and strange ceremonies welcome students into the fold. On her first day of class, Laura Sheridan is thrust into an intense academic rivalry with the beautiful and enigmatic Carmilla. Together, they are drawn into the confidence of their demanding poetry professor, De Lafontaine, who holds her own dark obsession with Carmilla. But as their rivalry blossoms into something far more delicious, Laura must confront her own strange hungers. 

Tangled in a sinister game of politics, bloodthirsty professors and dark magic, Laura and Carmilla must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice in their ruthless pursuit of knowledge.

Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek: The story of a hero's descent to the underworld

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world.

That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she's going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams....

Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the very same conclusion.

With nothing but the tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, enough chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they don't even like.

But Hell is not like the storybooks say, Magick isn't always the answer, and there's something in Alice and Peter's past that could forge them into the perfect allies...or lead to their doom.

Clara Graysword has survived the underworld of Eclipse City through thievery, luck, and a whole lot of illegal magic. After a job gone awry, Clara is sentenced to a lifetime in prison for inking tarot cards—a rare power reserved for practitioners at the elite Arcana Academy.

Just when it seems her luck has run dry, the academy’s enigmatic headmaster, Prince Kaelis, offers her an escape—for a price. Kaelis believes that Clara is the perfect tool to help him steal a tarot card from the king and use it to re-create an all-powerful card long lost to time.

In order to conceal her identity and keep her close, Kaelis brings Clara to Arcana Academy, introducing her as the newest first-year student and his bride-to-be.

Thrust into a world of arcane magic and royal intrigue, where one misstep will send her back to prison or worse, Clara finds that the prince she swore to hate may not be what he seems. But can she risk giving him power over the world—and her heart? Or will she take it for herself?

The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers. 

Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told after she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled. 

But the Institute is more than just a haven for monsters. On graduation day, the faculty embark on a ravenous rampage, feasting on their students. Trapped in the school’s cavernous library, Alessa and her surviving classmates must do something they were never taught: work together.

If they don't, this school will eat them alive...

"Look at you, eating magic like you're one of us."

Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood School and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school's boundaries from demonic incursions.

Walden is good at her job—no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from—is herself.

Ivy Gordon is living on borrowed time. For the past eighteen years, she has been the most famous star at the Dollhouse Academy, the elite boarding school and talent incubator that every aspiring performer dreams of attending. But now, at age thirty-four, she is tired of pretending everything is fine. In secret diary entries, Ivy begins to reveal the truth of her life at the Dollhouse: strange medical exams, mysterious supplements, and something unspeakable that’s left Ivy terrified and feeling like a prisoner. 

Ramona Halloway and her best friend, Grace Ludlow, grew up idolizing Ivy. Now both twenty-two, neither has made much headway in showbiz until a lucky break grants them entry to the Dollhouse. They’re enchanted by the picturesque campus and the chance to perform alongside their idols. When Ramona begins to receive threatening anonymous messages, it’s easy to dismiss them as a prank from a rival. Her bigger concern is Grace’s skyrocketing success, while Ramona struggles to keep up with the fierce competition. As the messages grow more unsettling, so does life at the Dollhouse. Can Ramona overcome her jealousy and resentment to figure out what’s really going on? Will Ivy finally find her voice, before another young performer follows her catastrophic path?

When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination.

Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers’ more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs.

Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world's best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years--summers included--completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises a future of sublime power and prestige, and that its graduates can become anything or anyone they desire.

Among this year's incoming class is Ines Murillo, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline--only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. Even the school's enigmatic director, Viktória, encourages the students to explore, to expand their minds, to find themselves within the formidable iron gates of Catherine. For Ines, it is the closest thing to a home she's ever had. But the House's strange protocols soon make this refuge, with its worn velvet and weathered leather, feel increasingly like a gilded prison. And when tragedy strikes, Ines begins to suspect that the school--in all its shabby splendor, hallowed history, advanced theories, and controlled decadence--might be hiding a dangerous agenda within the secretive, tightly knit group of students selected to study its most promising and mysterious curriculum.

Perched atop a hill in the tiny town of Marchburg, Virginia, The Goode School is a prestigious prep school known as a Silent Ivy. The boarding school of choice for daughters of the rich and influential, it accepts only the best and the brightest. Its elite status, long-held traditions and honor code are ideal for preparing exceptional young women for brilliant futures at Ivy League universities and beyond.

But a stranger has come to Goode, and this ivy has turned poisonous.

In a world where appearances are everything, as long as students pretend to follow the rules, no one questions the cruelties of the secret societies or the dubious behavior of the privileged young women who expect to get away with murder.

When a popular student is found dead, the truth cannot be ignored. Rumors suggest she was struggling with a secret that drove her to suicide.

But look closely...because there are truths and there are lies, and then there is everything that really happened.

It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas, and Millie Cousins—a super-senior resident assistant at Belgrade Dormitory—just wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a writer and visiting professor itching for her next big topic, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity for them to help each other further their own interests, Millie naturally jumps at the chance.

But Millie's starry-eyed hustle quickly becomes jeopardized by a lonely transfer student, unruly residents, and illicit intrigue. Both Millie and Agatha are forced to question just how much of themselves they are willing to trade to get what they want.

Cadence Archer arrives on Harvard’s campus desperate to understand why her brother, Eric, a genius who developed paranoid schizophrenia took his own life there the year before. Losing Eric has left a black hole in Cady’s life, and while her decision to follow in her brother’s footsteps threatens to break her family apart, she is haunted by questions of what she might have missed. And there’s only one place to find answers.

As Cady struggles under the enormous pressure at Harvard, she investigates her brother’s final year, armed only with a blue notebook of Eric’s cryptic scribblings. She knew he had been struggling with paranoia, delusions, and illusory enemies—but what tipped him over the edge? Voices fill her head, seemingly belonging to three ghosts who passed through the university in life, or death, and whose voices, dreams, and terrors still echo the halls. Among them is a person whose name has been buried for centuries, and another whose name mankind will never forget.

Does she share Eric’s illness, or is she tapping into something else? Cady doesn’t know how or why these ghosts are contacting her, but as she is drawn deeper into their worlds, she believes they’re moving her closer to the truth about Eric, even as keeping them secret isolates her further. Will listening to these voices lead her to the one voice she craves—her brother’s—or will she follow them down a path to her own destruction?

Fleeing a disastrous affair with a colleague in Boston, Isabel Henley moves to Scotland to begin a PhD with a renowned feminist professor—only to learn, upon arrival, that her advisor has suffered a deadly fall. Soon after, Isabel is informed that another scholar at the university is about to publish a book on her dissertation topic, leaving her disconcerted and in search of a new subject, all while struggling to acclimate to her new home abroad.

Isabel needs a good friend during such a rocky start, and finds one when she reconnects with Rose Brewster, her charismatic classmate from undergrad. But when Rose confides to Isabel that she is in trouble, and then goes missing, Isabel’s already-unsteady life is sent into a tailspin. A suicide note surfaces, followed by a coded message: Rose is alive but, unless Isabel can complete the research begun before her friend’s disappearance, both women will be killed by her captors. 

As Isabel follows the Rose’s paper trail from Genoa to Florence and, finally, to Paris, she uncovers family secrets, the legend of an enormous cursed emerald, and a chain of betrayal and treason which parallels her own perilous present. If she can put the pieces together soon, she could solve a 400-year-old mystery—and save her and her friend’s lives in the process.

This story follows nine young women as they navigate their ambitions and fears at a prestigious New England prep school, all pitched against the backdrop of a scandal the administration wants silenced.

But as the months unfold, and the school's efforts to control the ensuing crisis fall short, these extraordinary girls are forced to discover their voices, and their power. 

Louise Manson is the newest student at Highfield Manor, Dublin’s most exclusive private school. It seems nearly perfect: the high arched window alcoves and tall granite pillars, the overspill of lilac at the front gate and the immaculate playing fields, the giggling students, the dusty, oak-lined library, and the dark, festering secret she has come to expose.

At first, Lou’s working-class status makes her the consummate outsider, though all that changes when she is befriended by the beautiful and wealthy Shauna Power. But Lou finds out that even Shauna is caught up in Highfield’s web, and her time there ends with a lifeless body sprawled at her feet.

Thirty years later, Lou has rebuilt her life after the harrowing events of the so-called “Highfield Affair,” when she gets a shocking phone call. Ronan Power, Shauna’s brother, is a high-profile lawyer bringing a lawsuit against the school. And he needs Lou to testify.

Now with a daughter and career to protect, the last thing Lou wants is for Highfield Manor to be back in her life. But to finally free herself and others, she has to confront her past, go to battle once more, and discover, for once and for all, what really happened at Highfield.