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The Accidental Bestseller
Wendy Wax

Once upon a time four aspiring authors met at their very first writers' conference. Ten years later they're still friends, survivors of the ultra-competitive New York publishing world. Mallory St. James is a workaholic whose bestsellers support a lavish lifestyle. Tanya Mason is a single mother juggling two jobs, two kids, and too many deadlines. Faye Truett is the wife of a famous televangelist and the author of inspirational romances: no one would ever guess her explosive secret. Kendall Aims's once-promising career is on the skids-and so is her marriage. Her sales are dismal, her new editor detests her work-and her husband is cheating. Barely able to think, let alone meet her final deadline, Kendall holes up in a mountain cabin to confront a blank page and a blanker future. But her friends won't let her face this trial alone. Together they collaborate on a novel using their own lives as fodder, assuming no one will ever discover the truth behind their words.

No one is more surprised than they are when the book becomes a runaway bestseller. But with success comes scrutiny and scandal...as these four best friends suddenly realize how little they've truly known each other.

The Terminal Experiment
Robert J. Sawyer

To test his theories of immortality and life after death, Dr. Peter Hobson has created three electronic simulations of his own personality. The first has all knowledge of physical existence edited out, to simulate life after death. The second is without knowledge of aging or death, to simulate immortality. The third is unmodified, a control. Now they are free. One is a killer.

Child 44
Tom Rob Smith

MGB officer Leo is a man who never questions the Party Line. He arrests whomever he is told to arrest. He dismisses the horrific death of a young boy because he is told to, because he believes the Party stance that there can be no murder in Communist Russia. Leo is the perfect soldier of the regime. But suddenly his confidence that everything he does serves a great good is shaken. He is forced to watch a man he knows to be innocent be brutally tortured. And then he is told to arrest his own wife. Leo understands how the State works: Trust and check, but check particularly on those we trust. He faces a stark choice: his wife or his life. And still the killings of children continue...

True crime

War (fiction or non)

The Sun Down Motel
Simone St. James

The secrets lurking in a rundown roadside motel ensnare a young woman, just as they did her aunt thirty-five years before, in this new atmospheric suspense novel from the national bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.

Upstate NY, 1982. Every small town like Fell, New York, has a place like the Sun Down Motel. Some customers are from out of town, passing through on their way to someplace better. Some are locals, trying to hide their secrets. Viv Delaney works as the night clerk to pay for her move to New York City. But something isn't right at the Sun Down, and before long she's determined to uncover all of the secrets hidden…

The Queen
Nick Cutter

“It’s impossible to know another person, isn’t it? To step past that locked door of their secretive inner self. . . . But honestly, do you even want to know?”

One sunny morning in June, Margaret Carpenter wakes up to find a new iPhone on her doorstep. She switches it on and is greeted by a text from her best friend, Charity Atwater. The problem is, Charity’s been missing for over a month. Most people in town – even the police – think she’s dead.

Margaret and Charity have been lifelong friends. They share everything, know the most intimate details about each other . . . except for the destructive secret hidden from them both. A secret that will trigger a chain of events ending in tragedy, bloodshed, and death. And now Charity wants Margaret to know her story – the real story.

In a narrative that takes place over one feverish day, Margaret follows a series of increasingly disquieting breadcrumbs as she forges deeper into the mystery of her best friend – a person she never truly knew at all. . . .

Summer of Night
Dan Simmons

It's the summer of 1960 in Elm Haven, Illinois, and five 12-year old boys are forming the bonds that a lifetime of changes will never erase. But then a dark cloud threatens the bright promise of summer vacation: on the last day of school, their classmate Tubby Cooke vanishes. Soon, the group discovers stories of other children who once disappeared from Elm Haven. And there are other strange things happening in town: unexplained holes in the ground, a stranger dressed as a World War I soldier, and a rendering-plant truck that seems to be following the five boys. The friends realize that there is a terrible evil lurking in Elm Haven...and they must be the ones to stop it.

Paranormal

Fantasy

Classics

Spy story

Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero
Michael Hingson

Faith. Trust. Triumph.

I trust Roselle with my life, every day. She trusts me to direct her. And today is no different, except the stakes are higher. Michael Hingson

First came the boom the loud, deep, unapologetic bellow that seemed to erupt from the very core of the earth. Eerily, the majestic high-rise slowly leaned to the south. On the seventy-eighth floor of the World Trade Center's north tower, no alarms sounded, and no one had information about what had happened at 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001. What should have been a normal workday for thousands of people. All that was known to the people inside was what they could see out the windows: smoke and fire and millions of pieces of burning paper and other debris falling through the air.

Blind since birth, Michael couldn't see a thing, but he could hear the sounds of shattering glass, falling debris, and terrified people flooding around him and his guide dog, Roselle. However, Roselle sat calmly beside him. In that moment, Michael chose to trust Roselle's judgment and not to panic. They are a team.

Thunder Dog allows you entry into the isolated, fume-filled chamber of stairwell B to experience survival through the eyes of a blind man and his beloved guide dog. Live each moment from the second a Boeing 767 hits the north tower, to the harrowing stairwell escape, to dodging death a second time as both towers fold into the earth.

It's the 9/11 story that will forever change your spirit and your perspective. Thunder Dog illuminates Hingson's lifelong determination to achieve parity in a sighted world, and how the rare trust between a man and his guide dog can inspire an unshakable faith in each one of us.

Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill
Sonia Purnell

A long-overdue tribute to the extraordinary woman behind Winston Churchill

By Winston Churchill’s own admission, victory in the Second World War would have been “impossible without her.” Until now, however, the only existing biography of Churchill’s wife, Clementine, was written by her daughter. Sonia Purnell finally gives Clementine her due with a deeply researched account that tells her life story, revealing how she was instrumental in softening FDR’s initial dislike of her husband and paving the way for Britain’s close relationship with America. It also provides a surprising account of her relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt and their differing approaches to the war effort.

Born into impecunious aristocracy, the young Clementine was the target of cruel snobbery. Many wondered why Winston married her, but their marriage proved to be an exceptional partnership. Beautiful and intelligent, but driven by her own insecurities, she made his career her mission. Any real consideration of Winston Churchill is incomplete without an understanding of their relationship, and Clementine is both the first real biography of this remarkable woman and a fascinating look inside their private world.

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Omar El Akkad

From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in the heart of an Empire which doesn’t consider you fully human.

On Oct 25th, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet was viewed over 10 million times.

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This chronicles the deep fracture which has occurred for Black, brown, indigenous Americans, as well as the upcoming generation, many of whom had clung to a thread of faith in western ideals, in the idea that their countries, or the countries of their adoption, actually attempted to live up to the values they espouse.

This book is a reckoning with what it means to live in the west, and what it means to live in a world run by a small group of countries—America, the UK, France and Germany.  It will be The Fire Next Time for a generation that understands we’re undergoing a shift in the so-called ‘rules-based order,’ a generation that understands the west can no longer be trusted to police and guide the world, or its own cities and campuses. It draws on intimate details of Omar’s own story as an emigrant who grew up believing in the western project, who was catapulted into journalism by the rupture of 9/11.

This book is his heartsick breakup letter with the west. It is a breakup we are watching all over the U.S., on college campuses, on city streets, and the consequences of this rupture will be felt by all of us. His book is for all the people who want something better than what the west has served up. This is the book for our time.

Dark Squares: How Chess Saved My Life
Danny Rensch

Educated meets The Queen's Gambit in this extraordinary memoir by International Master and Chess.com co-founder Danny Rensch, who describes his upbringing in an abusive cult – and how chess ended up saving his life

Born into the Church of Immortal Consciousness, Danny Rensch spent his childhood navigating the isolated confines of a cult. Despite psychological manipulation, physical abuse, and neglect, he persevered. An international chess master and world-class commentator, Rensch’s remarkable journey led him to being the face of Chess.com, one of the largest online gaming platforms in the world.

With unflinching honesty, Rensch recounts his life, starting from the moment he discovered chess in the summer of 1995, all the way up to being at the center of the most explosive cheating scandal in chess history.

He chronicles the traumas of being “special” in a cult that forced separation from his mother. Mentored by an alcoholic, Russian chess master, he found solace alongside suffering in his obsession for an ancient game, and chess became his only escape. Rensch rose through the chess ranks until a medical emergency nearly took him out of the game forever. And it almost did, until Chess.com came along.

Deeply heartfelt, keenly reflective, and haunting, Dark Squares is the never-before-told story of Danny Rensch’s resilience, survival, and his enduring love for the game that saved him.

Debs At War: How Wartime Changed their Lives, 1939-1945
Anne de Courcy

An extraordinary account - from firsthand sources - of upper class women and the active part they took in the War

Pre-war debutantes were members of the most protected, not to say isolated, stratum of 20th-century society: the young (17-20) unmarried daughters of the British upper classes. For most of them, the war changed all that for ever. It meant independence and the shock of the new, and daily exposure to customs and attitudes that must have seemed completely alien to them. For many, the almost military regime of an upper class childhood meant they were well suited for the no-nonsense approach needed in wartime.

This book records the extraordinary diversity of challenges, shocks and responsibilities they faced - as chauffeurs, couriers, ambulance-drivers, nurses, pilots, spies, decoders, factory workers, farmers, land girls, as well as in the Women's Services. How much did class barriers really come down? Did they stick with their own sort? And what about fun and love in wartime - did love cross the class barriers?

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery
Henry Marsh

What is it like to be a brain surgeon? How does it feel to hold someone's life in your hands, to cut into the stuff that creates thought, feeling, and reason? How do you live with the consequences of performing a potentially lifesaving operation when it all goes wrong?

In neurosurgery, more than in any other branch of medicine, the doctor's oath to "do no harm" holds a bitter irony. Operations on the brain carry grave risks. Every day, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh must make agonizing decisions, often in the face of great urgency and uncertainty.

If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached doctors, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again. With astonishing compassion and candor, Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life.

Do No Harm provides unforgettable insight into the countless human dramas that take place in a busy modern hospital. Above all, it is a lesson in the need for hope when faced with life's most difficult decisions.

The Brilliant Abyss
Helen Scales

A journey into the alien depths of the sea, and into our possible future, from a marine biologist known for "nature writing at its most engaging" (Sunday Express).

A golden era of deep-sea discovery is underway as revolutionary studies rewrite the very notion of life on Earth and the rules of what is possible. In the process, the abyss is being revealed as perhaps the most amazing part of our planet, its topography even more varied and extreme than its landmass counterpart.

Teeming with unsuspected life, an extraordinary, interconnected ecosystem deep below the waves has a huge effect on our daily lives, influencing climate and weather systems, with the potential for much more--good or bad, depending on how it is exploited. Currently, the fantastic creatures that live in the deep--many of them incandescent in a world without light--and its formations capture and trap vast quantities of carbon that would otherwise poison our atmosphere, and novel bacteria as yet undiscovered hold the promise of potent new medicines. Yet the deep also holds huge mineral riches lusted after by nations and corporations; mining them could ultimately devastate the planet, compounded by the deepening impacts of ubiquitous pollutants and rampant overfishing.

Eloquently and passionately, the author of Spirals in Time and Eye of the Shoal brings to life the majesty and mystery of an alien realm that nonetheless sustains us, while urgently making clear the price we could pay if it is further disrupted. The Brilliant Abyss is at once a revelation and a clarion call to preserve this vast unseen world.

Young adult

Literary Fiction

True Crime

Plays/Drama

A Murder of Magpies
Judith Flanders

A whip-smart, impeccably crafted debut mystery, A Murder of Magpies takes readers on a whirlwind tour of London and Paris with an unforgettably original new heroine

It's just another day at the office for London book editor Samantha "Sam" Clair. Checking jacket copy for howlers, wondering how to break it to her star novelist that her latest effort is utterly unpublishable, lunch scheduled with gossipy author Kit Lowell, whose new book will dish the juicy dirt on a recent fashion industry scandal. Little does she know the trouble Kit's book will cause-before it even goes to print. When police Inspector Field turns up at the venerable offices of Timmins & Ross, asking questions about a package addressed to Sam, she knows something is wrong. Now Sam's nine-to-five life is turned upside down as she finds herself propelled into a criminal investigation. Someone doesn't want Kit's manuscript published and unless Sam can put the pieces together in time, they'll do anything to stop it.

With this deliciously funny debut novel, acclaimed author Judith Flanders introduces readers to an enormously enjoyable, too-clever-for-her-own-good new amateur sleuth, as well Sam's Goth assistant, her effortlessly glamorous mother, and the handsome Inspector Field. A tremendously entertaining read, this page-turning novel from a bright new crime fiction talent is impossible to put down.

Angelfall
Susan Ee

It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back. Anything, including making a deal with Raffe, an injured enemy angel. Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco, where Penryn will risk everything to rescue her sister and Raffe will put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

Heidi
Johanna Spyri

Little orphan Heidi goes to live high in the Alps with her gruff grandfather and brings happiness to all who know her on the mountain. When Heidi goes to Frankfurt to work in a wealthy household, she dreams of returning to the mountains and meadows, her friend Peter, and her beloved grandfather.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune
Nghi Vo

A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully.

Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.

Razorblade Tears
S.A. Cosby

A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.

Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid.

The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss.

Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.

Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.

Death at Charity's Point
William G. Tapply

A Boston lawyer investigates a prep school teacher’s suspicious suicide in this debut for “one of the most likeable sleuths to appear on the crime scene” (The Washington Post Book World). Brady Coyne never meant to become the private lawyer to New England’s upper crust, but after more than a decade working for Florence Gresham and her friends, he has developed a reputation for discretion that the rich cannot resist. He is fond of Mrs. Gresham—unflappable, uncouth, and never tardy with a check—and he has seen her through her husband’s suicide and her first son’s death in Vietnam. But he has never seen her crack until the day her second son, George, leaps into the sea at jagged Charity’s Point. The authorities call it a suicide, but Mrs. Gresham cannot believe her son, like his father, would take his own life. As Brady digs into the apparently blemish-free past of this upper-class prep school history teacher, he finds dark secrets. George Gresham may not have been suicidal, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t in trouble.

Red Mass
Rosemary Aubert

The fifth and final episode in Aubert's prize-winning series finds once-disgraced Toronto attorney Ellis Portal readmitted to the practice of law. Within moments, a superior court justice is charged with murder, and Ellis is tricked into defending him. Then Ellis faces his own daughter who's prosecuting the case.

Knots and Crosses
Ian Rankin

Detective John Rebus: His city is being terrorized by a baffling series of murders...and he's tied to a maniac by an invisible knot of blood. Once John Rebus served in Britain's elite SAS. Now he's an Edinburgh cop who hides from his memories, misses promotions and ignores a series of crank letters. But as the ghoulish killings mount and the tabloid headlines scream, Rebus cannot stop the feverish shrieks from within his own mind. Because he isn't just one cop trying to catch a killer, he's the man who's got all the pieces to the puzzle...

Knots and Crosses introduces a gifted mystery novelist, a fascinating locale and the most compellingly complex detective hero at work today.

Mystery

True Crime

Classics

Dystopia

Science Fiction

Dark Academia

Summer Reads

Epic Fantasy

Microhistory

Memoirs

Grimdark

The Queen's Secret
Karen Harper

If you love Jennifer Robson or The Crown you will love New York Times bestselling author Karen Harper’s novel about Elizabeth, The Queen Mother.

1939. As the wife of the King George VI and the mother of the future queen, Elizabeth—“the queen mother”—shows a warm, smiling face to the world. But it’s no surprise that Hitler himself calls her the “Most Dangerous Woman in Europe.” For behind that soft voice and kindly demeanor is a will of steel.

Two years earlier, George was thrust onto the throne when his brother Edward abdicated, determined to marry his divorced, American mistress Mrs. Simpson. Vowing to do whatever it takes to make her husband’s reign a success, Elizabeth endears herself to the British people, and prevents the former king and his brazen bride from ever again setting foot in Buckingham Palace.

Elizabeth holds many powerful cards, she’s also hiding damaging secrets about her past and her provenance that could prove to be her undoing.

In this riveting novel of royal secrets and intrigue, Karen Harper lifts the veil on one of the world’s most fascinating families, and how its “secret weapon” of a matriarch maneuvered her way through one of the most dangerous chapters of the century.

The Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals from its war wounds, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer's son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julian Carax. But when he sets out to find the author's other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax's books in existence. Soon Daniel's seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

Twenty
James Grippando

Works fine as a standalone.

Jack Swyteck and his family are caught in the crossfire after a deadly school shooting claims twenty casualties—Florida’s fifth mass shooting in as many years—in this provocative and timely thriller from Harper Lee Prize–winner James Grippando that touches on some of the most contentious issues roiling America today.

It is the message every parent of a school-age child fears: “Active Shooter on Campus.” Jack Swyteck is at his office when he receives the emergency text from Riverside Day School. Both his daughter, Righley, and his wife, FBI agent Andie Henning, are in danger. Andie is in the school’s rec center when she hears the fire alarms, then loud popping noises and screams coming from the hallway. A trained law-enforcement officer, Andie knows she’s supposed to stay locked down inside the room. But Righley is in her kindergarten classroom and Andie must get her to safety. The tragedy prompts mass hysteria—and dangerous speculation. The police haven’t identified the shooter, but they find a handgun on the school grounds registered to a parent, a Muslim man named Amir Khoury. News of the gun and its owner leaks and quickly goes viral. Within minutes Al Qaeda claims responsibility. Andie is shocked—Amir is married to her friend, Lilly, a WASP whose bloodline goes back to the American Revolution. When Xavier, Amir and Lilly’s oldest child and an eighteen-year-old senior at Riverside confesses to the crime, the local community’s anti-Muslim fervor explodes to levels unseen since 9/11. Terrified for her son’s life, Lilly asks Jack to step in. A seasoned defense attorney with a passion to see justice done, he’s taken on plenty of complicated cases. Xavier’s, however, is not one he’s inclined to take—until an old friend who lost his daughter in the shooting tells him that he must. With the public calling for blood and prosecutors confident their case is air tight, Jack must unearth the Khourys’ family secrets in order to expose the shocking truth and save his client from certain death. But he may not be able to save everyone—including himself.

The Message
Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set off to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic Politics and the English Language, but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.

The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk” city of “old traditions and new machinery,” but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.

He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning” of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.

And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.

Booze, Babe, and the Little Black Dress: How Innovators of the Roaring 20s Created the Consumer Revolution
Jason Voiovich

The birth of America's shopping addiction.Why do you have to have the latest iPhone? Is it really that much better than the last model? How did we end up with 57 kinds of peanut butter? Who buys reduced-fat, super-chunk, peanut butter balls? What makes celebrities irresistible? Even when we want to look away, we just can't. How come "just say no" never works? Not with booze, not with drugs, and not with sex. How did we end up with so many subscriptions? Do you even know how many you have? When was the first "girl's night out"? And why can't guys dream up anything better than a sports bar? And worst of Why is there so much click-bait?!

What if I told you that the answer isn't greedy corporations or deceitful advertisers? It's not big tech, artificial intelligence, social media, or hidden algorithms either. The answers have been hiding in plain site for over 100 years.

The desire to make our own choices is hardwired into our brains, but it was not until the Roaring 20s that the combination of mass production, mass finance, and mass marketing made choice-making the American drug of choice.

Booze, Babe, and the Little Black Dress retells the epic stories of the decade that addicted all of us to the shopping experience.

Is that a good thing? A bad thing? Or something in between?

Read on...and choose for yourself.

Off the Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard the Space Station Mir
Jerry M. Linenger


“An engrossing report.”—Booklist “Vividly captures the challenges and privations [Dr. Linenger] endured both before and during his flight.”—Library Journal One of the most gripping space survival stories of the 20th century is now available in paperback. Few episodes in man’s exploration of space can compare to Off the Planet—Dr. Jerry Linenger’s dramatic account of space exploration turned survival mission during his 132 days aboard the decaying and unstable Russian space station Mir. Not since Apollo 13 has an American astronaut faced so many catastrophic malfunctions and life-threatening emergencies in one mission. In his remarkable narrative, Linenger chronicles power outages that left the crew in complete darkness, tumbling out of control; chemical leaks and near collisions that threatened to rupture Mir’s hull; and most terrifying of all—a raging fire that almost destroyed the space station and the lives of its entire crew.

Dmestic Suspense

LGBTQ+

The Girl Behind the Wall
Mandy Robotham

A city divided.

When the Berlin Wall goes up, Karin is on the wrong side of the city. Overnight, she’s trapped under Soviet rule in unforgiving East Berlin and separated from her twin sister, Jutta.

Two sisters torn apart.

Karin and Jutta lead parallel lives for years, cut off by the Wall. But Karin finds one reason to keep going: Otto, the man who gives her hope, even amidst the brutal East German regime.

One impossible choice…

When Jutta finds a hidden way through the wall, the twins are reunited. But the Stasi have eyes everywhere, and soon Karin is faced with a terrible decision: to flee to the West and be with her sister, or sacrifice it all to follow her heart?

Bone Rattler
Eliot Pattison

Aboard a British convict ship bound for the New World, Duncan McCallum witnesses a series of murders and seeming suicides among his fellow Scottish prisoners that thrusts him into the bloody maw of the French and Indian War.

As the only man aboard with any medical training, Duncan is ordered to assemble evidence to hold another prisoner accountable for the deaths - or face punishment that will mean his own death. His conclusions suggest that the wave of violence is somehow linked to the "savages" of the American wilderness. Duncan's suspicions that the prison company is to be sacrificed in the war seem to be confirmed when he learns that they are all indentured to Lord Ramsey's estate in the uncharted New York woodlands, a Heart of Darkness where multiple warring factions are engaged in physical, psychological, and spiritual battle.

Following a strange trail of clues that seem half Iroquois and half Highland Scot, mesmerized by the Lord Ramsey's beautiful daughter, and frequently defying death in a dangerous wilderness populated by grizzled European settlers, mysterious scalping parties, and Indian sorcerers, Duncan McCallum, exiled chief of his near-extinct clan, finds the source of all evil at the site of an Indian massacre.

The Hangman's Daughter
Oliver Pötzsch

Magdalena, the clever and headstrong daughter of Bavarian hangman Jakob Kuisl, lives with her father outside the village walls and is destined to be married off to another hangman’s son—except that the town physician’s son is hopelessly in love with her. And her father’s wisdom and empathy are as unusual as his despised profession. It is 1659, the Thirty Years’ War has finally ended, and there hasn’t been a witchcraft mania in decades. But now, a drowning and gruesomely injured boy, tattooed with the mark of a witch, is pulled from a river and the villagers suspect the local midwife, Martha Stechlin.

Jakob Kuisl is charged with extracting a confession from her and torturing her until he gets one. Convinced she is innocent, he, Magdalena, and her would-be suitor race against the clock to find the true killer. Approaching Walpurgisnacht, when witches are believed to dance in the forest and mate with the devil, another tattooed orphan is found dead and the town becomes frenzied. More than one person has spotted what looks like the devil—a man with a hand made only of bones. The hangman, his daughter, and the doctor’s son face a terrifying and very real enemy.

Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper
Harriet Scott Chessman

This richly imagined fiction entices us into the world of Mary Cassatt’s early Impressionist paintings. The story is told by Mary’s sister Lydia, as she poses for five of her sister’s most unusual paintings, which are reproduced in, and form the focal point of each chapter. Ill with Bright’s disease and conscious of her approaching death, Lydia contemplates her world with courageous openness, and asks important questions about love and art’s capacity to remember.

Banned Books

Adventure

Epic Fantasy

Poetry

Parable of the Sower
Octavia E. Butler

In 2024, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.

Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.

When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.

Behind Every Good Man

Sara Goodman Confino

A wronged wife goes toe to toe with her cheating husband at the polls in this hilarious and heart-lifting novel by the bestselling author of Don’t Forget to Write.

It’s a doozy of a bad day for Beverly Diamond when she catches her husband, Larry, in a compromising position with his secretary. What’s a DC suburban wife to do with a soon-to-be ex, two young kids, and no degree or financial support in 1962? Beat the louse at his own game, that’s what.

Larry runs the Maryland senatorial campaign for the incumbent candidate projected to win against his younger underdog opponent, Michael Landau. But Beverly has the pluck, political savvy, and sheer drive to push Landau’s campaign in a successful new direction, even if he already has a campaign manager who is less than pleased she has inserted herself into the race.

Now it’s rival against rival. She and Michael do make a great team…maybe in more ways than one. But with the election heating up, she needs to focus on one thing at a time. If Bev can convince Michael to go modern, pay attention to women’s issues, and learn how to dress himself properly, maybe she can show Larry exactly how much he has underestimated her their entire marriage—and make her own dreams come true in the process.

Powerless
Lauren Roberts

She is the very thing he’s spent his whole life hunting.
He is the very thing she’s spent her whole life pretending to be.

Only the extraordinary belong in the kingdom of Ilya—the exceptional, the empowered, the Elites.

The powers these Elites have possessed for decades were graciously gifted to them by the Plague, though not all were fortunate enough to both survive the sickness and reap the reward. Those born Ordinary are just that—ordinary. And when the king decreed that all Ordinaries be banished in order to preserve his Elite society, lacking an ability suddenly became a crime—making Paedyn Gray a felon by fate and a thief by necessity.

Surviving in the slums as an Ordinary is no simple task, and Paedyn knows this better than most. Having been trained by her father to be overly observant since she was a child, Paedyn poses as a Psychic in the crowded city, blending in with the Elites as best she can in order to stay alive and out of trouble. Easier said than done.

When Paeydn unsuspectingly saves one of Ilyas princes, she finds herself thrown into the Purging Trials. The brutal competition exists to showcase the Elites’ powers—the very thing Paedyn lacks. If the Trials and the opponents within them don’t kill her, the prince she’s fighting feelings for certainly will if he discovers what she is—completely Ordinary.

The Terminal Experiment
Robert J. Sawyer

To test his theories of immortality and life after death, Dr. Peter Hobson has created three electronic simulations of his own personality. The first has all knowledge of physical existence edited out, to simulate life after death. The second is without knowledge of aging or death, to simulate immortality. The third is unmodified, a control. Now they are free. One is a killer.

Wool
Hugh Howey

This Omnibus Edition collects the five Wool books into a single volume. It is for those who arrived late to the party and who wish to save a dollar or two while picking up the same stories in a single package.

The first Wool story was released as a standalone short in July of 2011. Due to reviewer demand, the rest of the story was released over the next six months. My thanks go out to those reviewers who clamored for more. Without you, none of this would exist. Your demand created this as much as I did.

This is the story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to want: They are allowed outside.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune
Nghi Vo

A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully.

Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.

Dune
Frank Herbert

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for...

When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.

Cozy Mystery

Fantasy

Dystopian

Travel

Sports

That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America
Amanda Jones

Part memoir, part manifesto, the inspiring story of a Louisiana librarian advocating for inclusivity on the front lines of our vicious culture wars. One of the things small town librarian Amanda Jones values most about books is how they can affirm a young person's sense of self. So in 2022, when she caught wind of a local public hearing that would discuss “book content,” she knew what was at stake. Schools and libraries nationwide have been bombarded by demands for books with LGTBQ+ references, discussions of racism, and more to be purged from the shelves. Amanda would be damned if her community were to ban stories representing minority groups. She spoke out that night at the meeting. Days later, she woke up to a nightmare that is still ongoing. Amanda Jones has been called a groomer, a pedo, and a porn-pusher; she has faced death threats and attacks from strangers and friends alike. Her decision to support a collection of books with diverse perspectives made her a target for extremists using book banning campaigns-funded by dark money organizations and advanced by hard right politicians-in a crusade to make America more white, straight, and Christian. But Amanda Jones wouldn't give up without a she sued her harassers for defamation and urged others to join her in the resistance. Mapping the book banning crisis occurring all across the nation, That Librarian draws the battle lines in the war against equity and inclusion, calling book lovers everywhere to rise in defense of our readers.

The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt's Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back
Shannon McKenna Schmidt

The first book to tell the full story of Eleanor Roosevelt's unprecedented and courageous trip to the Pacific Theater during World War II. On August 27, 1943, news broke in the United States that First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was on the other side of the world. A closely guarded secret, she had left San Francisco aboard a military transport plane headed for the South Pacific to support and report the troops on WW2's front lines. Americans had believed she was secluded at home. As Allied forces battled the Japanese for control of the region, Eleanor was there on the frontlines, spending five weeks traveling, on a mission as First Lady of the United States to experience what our servicemen were experiencing... and report back home. "The most remarkable journey any president's wife has ever made." ― Washington Times-Herald , September 28, 1943 "Mrs. Roosevelt's sudden appearance in New Zealand well deserves the attention it is receiving. This is the farthest and most unexpected junket of a First Lady whose love of getting about is legendary." ― Detroit Free Press , August 28, 1943 "By a happy chance for Australia, this famous lady's taste for getting about, her habit of seeing for herself what is going on in the world, and, most of all, her deep concern for the welfare of the fighting men of her beloved country, have brought her on the longest journey of them all―across the wide, war-clouded Pacific." ― Sydney Morning Herald , September 4, 1943 "No other U.S. mother had seen so much of the panorama of the war, had been closer to the sweat and boredom, the suffering." ― Time , October 4, 1943

The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago
Douglas Perry

The true story of the murderesses who became media sensations and inspired the musical Chicago

Chicago, 1924.

There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in the Second City. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special - worthy of celebration. So believed Maurine Watkins, a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper." Newspaperwomen were supposed to write about clubs, cooking and clothes, but the intrepid Miss Watkins, a minister's daughter from a small town, zeroed in on murderers instead. Looking for subjects to turn into a play, she would make "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan - both of whom had brazenly shot down their lovers - the talk of the town. Love-struck men sent flowers to the jail and newly emancipated women sent impassioned letters to the newspapers. Soon more than a dozen women preened and strutted on "Murderesses' Row" as they awaited trial, desperate for the same attention that was being lavished on Maurine Watkins's favorites.

In the tradition of Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City and Karen Abbott's Sin in the Second City, Douglas Perry vividly captures Jazz Age Chicago and the sensationalized circus atmosphere that gave rise to the concept of the celebrity criminal. Fueled by rich period detail and enlivened by a cast of characters who seemed destined for the stage, The Girls of Murder City is crackling social history that simultaneously presents the freewheeling spirit of the age and its sober repercussions.

The Long Walk
Richard Bachman
(Stephen King)

Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, tells the tale of the contestants of a grueling walking competition where there can only be one winner—the one that survives.

In the near future, when America has become a police state, one hundred boys are selected to enter an annual contest where the winner will be awarded whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Among them is sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty, and he knows the rules—keep a steady walking pace of four miles per hour without stopping. Three warnings and you’re out—permanently.

A “psychologically dark tale with commentary on society, teenage life, and cultural entertainment, The Long Walk is still poignant decades after its original publication” (Publishers Weekly). This edition features an introduction by Stephen King on “The Importance of Being Bachman.”

The Devil in the Junior League
Linda Francis Lee

The Junior League of Willow Creek, Texas, is tres exclusive. Undesirables need not apply. Fredericka Mercedes Hildebrand Ware (Frede to her friends) is a member beyond reproach...until her life begins to unravel. When her husband betrays her, steals her money, and runs off to places unknown, it's something Frede would rather keep under wraps. The last thing she needs is to become fodder for the JLWC gossip mill. And to make matters worse, there's only one person in town who stands a chance at helping her get revenge: Howard Grout, a tasteless, gold-chain-wearing lawyer who has bought his way into Frede's tony neighborhood. But here's a price: She has to get his tacky, four-inch-stiletto-and-pink-spandex-wearing wife Nikki into the Junior League.
Linda Francis Lee has written an hysterical novel about the creme de la creme of Texas society, the lengths to which one woman goes to bring her cheating husband to justice, and how taking on what seems like a Mission Impossible can change you in ways you could never have imagined.

Children of Chicago
Cynthia Pelayo

This horrifying retelling of the Pied Piper fairytale set in present-day Chicago is an edge of your seat, chills up the spine, thrill ride. ‪ When Detective Lauren Medina sees the calling card at a murder scene in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, she knows the Pied Piper has returned. When another teenager is brutally murdered at the same lagoon where her sister’s body was found floating years before, she is certain that the Pied Piper is not just back, he’s looking for payment he’s owed from her. Lauren’s torn between protecting the city she has sworn to keep safe, and keeping a promise she made long ago with her sister’s murderer. She may have to ruin her life by exposing her secrets and lies to stop the Pied Piper before he collects.

Short Story

Music

Poetry

Microhistory

Bring Me Back
B.A. Paris

Finn and Layla: young and in love, their whole lives ahead of them. Driving back from a holiday in France one night, Finn pulls in to a service station, leaving Layla alone in the car. When he returns, minutes later, Layla has vanished, never to be seen again. That’s the story Finn tells the police. It’s the truth – but not the whole truth.

Twelve years later, Finn has built a new life with Ellen, Layla’s sister, when he receives a phone call. Someone has seen Layla. But is it her – or someone pretending to be her? If it is her, what does she want? And what does she know about the night she disappeared?

Very Far Away from Anywhere Else
Ursula K. Le Guin

A slender, realistic story of a young man's coming of age, Very Far Away from Anywhere Else is one of the most inspiring novels Ursula K. Le Guin ever published. Owen is seventeen and smart. He knows what he wants to do with his life. But then he meets Natalie and he realizes he doesn't know anything much at all. “Like all Le Guin’s work, Very Far Away from Anywhere Else is about the invisible structures of society and about the challenge to live honestly. On a Sunday years ago I was lucky to encounter a book that could show me the breadth our lives have—that the discovery of what leads us on is better than the goal of perfection.” —Emily Schultz, Bustle “An engaging, well written novel.” — New York Times

Comfort Me with Apples
Catherynne M. Valente

Sophia was made for him. Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.

It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.

But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze...

But everything is perfect. Isn't it?

Police procedural mysteries

Romantic comedy (romcom)

Plain ol' romance

The Blackhouse
Peter May

The Isle of Lewis is the most remote, harshly beautiful place in Scotland, where the difficulty of existence seems outweighed only by people's fear of God. But older, pagan values lurk beneath the veneer of faith, the primal yearning for blood and revenge.

When a brutal murder on the island bears the hallmarks of a similar slaying in Edinburgh, police detective Fin Macleod is dispatched north to investigate. But since he himself was raised on Lewis, the investigation also represents a journey home and into his past.

Each year the island's men perform the hunting of the gugas, a savage custom no longer necessary for survival, but which they cling to even more fiercely in the face of the demands of modern morality. For Fin the hunt recalls a horrific tragedy, which after all this time may have begun to demand another sacrifice.

The Blackhouse is a crime novel of rare power and vision. Peter May has crafted a page-turning murder mystery that explores the darkness in our souls, and just how difficult it is to escape the past.

A Queen's Game
Katharine McGee

The New York Times bestselling author of the American Royals series invites you to visit 19th-century Europe amid the glamour and intrigue of the Victorian era. In this historical romance inspired by true events, three princesses struggle to find love—and end up vying for the hearts of two future kings.

In the last glittering decade of European empires, courts, and kings, three young women are on a collision course with history—and with each other.

Alix of Hesse is Queen Victoria’s favorite granddaughter, so she can expect to end up with a prince . . . except that the prince she’s falling for is not the one she’s supposed to marry.

Hélène d’Orléans, daughter of the exiled King of France, doesn’t mind being a former princess; it gives her more opportunity to break the rules. Like running around with the handsome, charming, and very much off-limits heir to the British throne, Prince Eddy.

Then there’s May of Teck. After spending her entire life on the fringes of the royal world, May is determined to marry a prince—and not just any prince, but the future king.

In a story that sweeps from the glittering ballrooms of Saint Petersburg to the wilds of Scotland, A Queen’s Game recounts a pivotal moment in real history as only Katharine McGee can tell it: through the eyes of the young women whose lives, and loves, changed it forever.

Historical fiction

Thriller

Psychological Thriller

Chick Lit

Gay and Lesbian

Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions
John Grisham

In his first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man, #1 bestselling author John Grisham and Centurion Ministries Founder Jim McCloskey share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions. Impeccably researched and grippingly told, Framed offers an inside look at the injustice faced by the victims of the United States criminal justice system.

A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty there is very little room to prove doubt. Framed shares ten true stories of men who were innocent but found guilty and forced to sacrifice friends, families, wives, and decades of their lives to prison while the guilty parties remained free. In each of the stories, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey recount the dramatic hard-fought battles for exoneration. They take a close look at what leads to wrongful convictions in the first place, and the racism, misconduct, flawed testimony, and the corrupt court system that can make them so hard to reverse.

Told with page-turning suspense as only John Grisham can deliver, Framed is the story of overcoming adversity when the battle already seems lost, and the deck is stacked against you.

Coffee First, Then the World: One Woman's Record-Breaking Pedal Around the Planet
Jenny Graham

16 countries, 124 days and 18,000 miles. This is the story of one woman's solo lap of the planet by bike.

'The relief was immense: no longer was I talking, thinking or worrying about this. I was just actually doing it. I, Jenny Graham, was riding around the actual world!'

In 2018, amateur cyclist Jenny Graham left family and friends behind in Scotland to become the fastest woman to cycle around the world. Alone and unsupported, she crossed the finish line at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin four months later, smashing the female record by nearly three weeks.

With infectious wit and honesty, Jenny brings readers into her remarkable Round the World adventure, as she takes on four continents, 16 countries – and countless cups of coffee. Her journey swerves from terrifying near road collisions in Russia and weather extremes in Australia to breathtaking landscapes in Mongolia and exhilarating wildlife encounters in North America. Tight on time and money, she resorts to fixing her bike on the fly, sleeping on roadsides and often riding through the night to stay on track and complete her mission.

As she battles physical and mental challenges to race against the clock, Jenny gradually opens up to the joy of the adventure and all its daily discoveries. She gives in to her impulse to connect with people, making friends with strangers across the globe and embracing new cultures.

Coffee First, Then the World is her account of a record-breaking ride, and how one woman and a humble bike conquered the world.

Glucose Revolution: The Life-Changing Power of Balancing Your Blood Sugar
Jessie Inchauspé

mprove all areas of your health—your sleep, cravings, mood, energy, skin, weight—and even slow down aging with easy, science-based hacks to manage your blood sugar while still eating the foods you love.

Glucose, or blood sugar, is a tiny molecule in our body that has a huge impact on our health. It enters our bloodstream through the starchy or sweet foods we eat. Ninety percent of us suffer from too much glucose in our system—and most of us don't know it.

The symptoms? Cravings, fatigue, infertility, hormonal issues, acne, wrinkles… And over time, the development of conditions like type 2 diabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome, cancer, dementia, and heart disease.

Drawing on cutting-edge science and her own pioneering research, biochemist Jessie Inchauspé offers ten simple, surprising hacks to help you balance your glucose levels and reverse your symptoms—without going on a diet or giving up the foods you love. For example:
* How eating foods in the right order will make you lose weight effortlessly
* What secret ingredient will allow you to eat dessert and still go into fat-burning mode
* What small change to your breakfast will unlock energy and cut your cravings

Both entertaining, informative, and packed with the latest scientific data, this book presents a new way to think about better health. Glucose Revolution is chock-full of tips that can drastically and immediately improve your life, whatever your dietary preferences.

The History of Sketch Comedy: A Journey through the Art and Craft of Humor
Keegan-Michael Key

Authors Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key build on the popularity of their 2022 Webby Award – winning podcast and delve deeper into the world of sketch, helped along with new essays created expressly for the book by comedy greats.

The History of Sketch Comedy will appeal to all kinds of comedy fans as well as fans of Keegan-Michael Key, whether they know him from his Emmy and Peabody-winning work on Key & Peele; his roles in Fargo , The Prom , Schmigadoon! , The Bubble , and the upcoming Wonka ; voiceover work in The Lion King ; or as President Barack Obama's anger translator, Luther.

With epic personal tangents and hilarious asides, the Keys take you on an illuminating journey through all facets of comedy from the stock characters of commedia del arte in the 16th century, to the rise of vaudeville and burlesque, the golden age of television comedy, the influence of the most well-known comedy schools, and the ascension of comedy films and TV specials—all the way through to a look at the future of sketch on social media platforms. Along the way, we hear tales of Keegan's childhood, his comedy influences, and the vicissitudes of his career path. As the New York Times said in its review of their podcast, "this comedy nerd history is filtered through memoir, with Key relating stories of his budding fandom, training and rise from improv comic to television sketch artist."

Part memoir, part masterclass, and hilariously embellished with priceless commentary, The History of Sketch Comedy highlights the essential building blocks of sketch comedy while interweaving Keegan's personal career journey and the influence of his comedy heroes. The text is complemented by original art by Elle Key and exclusive essays compiled from conversations with influential performers, sketch writers, and uber comedy fans including Mel Brooks, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, John Oliver, Tracy Morgan, Carol Burnett, Jim Carrey, Jordan Peele, and many more. This book is as entertaining as it is enlightening—a must-read for fans of comedy and all who aspire to comic greatness.

Holidays

Childrens/Middle Grade

Sports

Short Stories

A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens

'If I had my way, every idiot who goes around with Merry Christmas on his lips, would be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. Merry Christmas? Bah humbug!'

Introduction and Afterword by Joe Wheeler
To bitter, miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, Christmas is just another day. But all that changes when the ghost of his long-dead business partner appears, warning Scrooge to change his ways before it's too late.

Part of the Focus on the Family Great Stories collection, this abridged edition features an in-depth introduction and discussion questions by Joe Wheeler to provide greater understanding for today's reader. "A Christmas Carol" captures the heart of the holidays like no other novel.

Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen
Vicki Delany

As the owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, Merry Wilkinson knows how to decorate homes for the holidays. That’s why she thinks her float in the semi-annual Santa Claus parade is a shoo-in for best in show. But when the tractor pulling Merry’s float is sabotaged, she has to face facts: there’s a Scrooge in Christmas Town.

Merry isn’t ready to point fingers, especially with a journalist in town writing a puff piece about Rudolph’s Christmas spirit. But when she stumbles upon the reporter’s body on a late night dog walk—and police suspect he was poisoned by a gingerbread cookie crafted by her best friend, Vicky—Merry will have to put down the jingle bells and figure out who’s really been grinching about town, before Vicky ends up on Santa’s naughty list…

Not a Creature was Stirring
Jane Haddam

The Hannaford who made the family fortune called himself a tycoon. The newspapers called him a robber baron. Since the days of Robert Hannaford I, the family has infested Philadelphia society like a disease. The current Hannafords are a clan of embezzlers, gamblers, and fantasy novelists. This Christmas, they have money in their bank accounts, crime in their blood, and murder on their minds. Gregor Demarkian is their reluctant guest. A former FBI agent who quit the agency after his wife’s death, he is invited by the Hannaford patriarch to come for dinner at the family mansion. Demarkain arrives just in time to find his host bludgeoned to death in his study and his investigation will lead him to the Hannafords, a family of cold-blooded killers.

Mr. Dickens and His Carol
Samantha Silva

Charles Dickens should be looking forward to Christmas. But when his latest book, 'Martin Chuzzlewit', is a flop, his publishers give him an ultimatum. Either he writes a Christmas book in a month or they will call in his debts and he could lose everything. Dickens has no choice but to grudgingly accept ...

Death at the Sanatorium
Ragnar Jónasson

Once a hospital dedicated to treating tuberculosis, The Akureyri Sanatorium now sits haunted by the ghosts of its past. But a single wing remains open, housing six employees. When one of the hospital's nurses, Yrsa, is found brutally murdered, it sets in motion a series of terrifying events. Despite just six suspects, the case remains unsolved two decades later. Until young criminologist, Helgi Reykdal, attempts to put the mysteries of the hospital’s past to rest . . .

Assassin's Apprentice
Robin Hobb

n a faraway land where members of the royal family are named for the virtues they embody, one young boy will become a walking enigma.

Born on the wrong side of the sheets, Fitz, son of Chivalry Farseer, is a royal bastard, cast out into the world, friendless and lonely. Only his magical link with animals - the old art known as the Wit - gives him solace and companionship. But the Wit, if used too often, is a perilous magic, and one abhorred by the nobility.

So when Fitz is finally adopted into the royal household, he must give up his old ways and embrace a new life of weaponry, scribing, courtly manners; and how to kill a man secretly, as he trains to become a royal assassin.

Mortuary Confidential: Undertakers Spill the Dirt
Todd Harra

"When the casket reached the front of the sanctuary, there was a loud cracking sound as the bottom fell out. And with a thump, down came Father Iggy."

From shoot-outs at funerals to dead men screaming and runaway corpses, undertakers have plenty of unusual stories to tell--and a special way of telling them.

In this macabre and moving compilation, funeral directors across the country share their most embarrassing, jaw-dropping, irreverent, and deeply poignant stories about life at death's door. Discover what scares them and what moves them to tears. Learn about rookie mistakes and why death sometimes calls for duct tape.

Enjoy tales of the dearly departed spending eternity naked from the waist down and getting bottled and corked--in a wine bottle. And then meet their families--the weepers, the punchers, the stolidly dignified, and the ones who deliver their dead mother in a pickup truck.

If there's one thing undertakers know, it's that death drives people crazy. These are the best "bodies of work" from America's darkest profession.

A Free Man of Color
Barbara Hambly

A lush and haunting novel of a city steeped in decadent pleasures...and of a man, proud and defiant, caught in a web of murder and betrayal.

It is 1833. In the midst of Mardi Gras, Benjamin January, a Creole physician and music teacher, is playing piano at the Salle d'Orleans when the evenings festivities are interrupted--by murder.

Ravishing Angelique Crozat, a notorious octoroon who travels in the city's finest company, has been strangled to death. With the authorities reluctant to become involved, Ben begins his own inquiry, which will take him through the seamy haunts of riverboatmen and into the huts of voodoo-worshipping slaves.

But soon the eyes of suspicion turn toward Ben—for, black as the slave who fathered him, this free man of color is still the perfect scapegoat....

Domestic Suspense

Graphic Novel

War

Western