Recommended Reads
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Karla's Choice
The instant international bestseller set in the world of John le Carré's most iconic spy, George Smiley, written by acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway
It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West’s spy war against the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only for a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumor that George Smiley might almost be happy.
But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected in the most unusual of circumstances, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple task: interview Szusanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead.
But in his absence, the shadows of Moscow have lengthened. Smiley soon finds himself entangled in a perilous mystery that will define the battles to come and set him on a collision course with the greatest enemy he will ever make.
Set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in John le Carré's George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Karla’s Choice marks a momentous return to the world of spy fiction's greatest writer. -
Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right
In the latest from "mystery master" Walter Mosley, a family member's terminal illness leads P.I. Joe King Oliver to the investigation of his life: tracking down his long-lost father, and meanwhile, a new case pits King's professional responsibility against his own moral code. (TheWashington Post)
Joe King Oliver's beloved Grandma B has found a tumor, and at her age, treatment is high-risk. She's lived life fully and without regrets, and now has only a single, dying wish: to see her long-lost son. King has been estranged from his father, Chief Odin Oliver, since he was a young boy. He swore to never speak to the man again when he was taken away in handcuffs. But now, Grandma B's pure ask has opened King's heart, and through his hunt, he gains a deeper understanding of his father as a complicated, righteous man--a man defined by women, a man protected by women, a man he wants to know. Although Chief was released from prison years ago, he's been living underground ever since. Now, King must not only find his father, but prove his innocence, and protect the future of his entire family.
Simultaneously, King finds himself in a moral bind. Marigold Hart, the wife of a powerful Californian billionaire, has gone missing, along with their seven-year-old daughter. Orr is brutish and dangerous, and King realizes after locating her that it's in her best interest to stay hidden. But are his motives pure? There is something magnetic about Marigold; he can't help but want her near.
In the latest installment in the Joe King Oliver series, no good deed goes unpunished. Emotionally stirring, pulse-pounding, and undeniably sexy, Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right shows Walter Mosley at his best. -
The Vanishing Point
From the bestselling novelist, travel writer, and "master of the short story" (NPR) comes a brilliant new collection.
The stories in Paul Theroux's fascinating new collection are both exotic and domestic, their settings ranging from Hawaii to Africa and New England. Each focuses on life's vanishing points--a moment when seemingly all lines running through one's life converge, and one can see no farther, yet must deal with the implications. With the insight, subtlety, and empathy that has long characterized his work, Theroux has written deeply moving stories about memory, longing, and the passing of time, reclaiming his status, once again, as a master of the form.
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I Think They Love You
With his funny, big-hearted adult rom com debut, bestselling, award-winning YA author Julian Winters shows sometimes fake dating your ex can turn into a second chance.
When Denzel “Denz” Carter’s workaholic father and CEO of 24 Carter Gold unexpectedly announces his retirement, the competition is on for who will become his successor. To convince his family members that he’s capable of commitment, Denz impulsively lies about being in a serious relationship.
Now Denz needs to find a fake boyfriend to seal the deal on the CEO position. Denz is forced to turn to the last person he wants to be in a pretend (or any) relationship with: Braylon, the man who broke his heart.
Braylon’s sudden reappearance in Denz’s life turns everything upside down. But, apparently, he needs Denz’s connections to the mayor to win his own promotion. So, they strike a deal. It’s all business until the funny texts and the confusing kisses leave Denz struggling to separate this temporary arrangement from the affairs of his heart.
I Think They Love You is a celebration of love, queer communities, big families—in all their beautiful complications— healing, and, most importantly, falling in love with the person you’re becoming. -
After the Ocean
How do you find your way back when you’ve left yourself behind?
A painful unsolved mystery resurfaces after decades of confusion, sending one woman and her daughters on a journey of redemption in this emotional story about intergenerational trauma, family, and the beauty of Puerto Rico for fans of Nina LaCour, Xochitl Gonzalez, Elizabeth Acevedo, Jodi Picoult, Celeste Ng, and Julia Alvarez.
Thirty years ago, musicians Emilia Oliveras and Paul Winstead were married in Puerto Rico. Forty-eight hours later, Paul vanished from their honeymoon cruise, leaving Emilia devastated—and the prime suspect in his disappearance. So, she ran for her life, leaving behind her love, her dreams, and her identity.
Today “Emily Oliver” is a divorced music teacher and mother of two daughters who know nothing about her past: Gracie, a talented attorney who excels in the courtroom but grapples with personal relationships, and Meg, a gifted concert pianist who wrestles with her ambition and purpose.
When a cryptic caller claims the unthinkable—that Paul is alive, Emily returns to Puerto Rico in search of the truth. What she doesn’t know is that her daughters aren’t far behind. Shocked to find their mother isn’t the woman they thought she was, Gracie and Meg wonder how much of their lives have been a lie.
As the paths of the three women intertwine, they are compelled to confront their pasts, reevaluate their relationships, and seek forgiveness. Together they embark on a quest to unravel the mystery of Paul’s disappearance and redefine their futures on their own terms, navigating a maze of family ties, secrets, and redemption. -
Home and Away
Spanning more than eighty years, from Memphis in the 1930s and 1940s to present-day Chicago, this sweeping novel draws on the turbulent history of the Negro Baseball Leagues, as the great-granddaughter of a former player sets out to tell her family’s story—and redefine her own.
Harper Fleming is done with being passed over. As a journalist for a Chicago newspaper, she’s been refused a shot at the sportswriter position she longs for. And her on again/off again relationship is going nowhere. Leaving both behind, she heads to Nashville, Tennessee, where she plans to interview her widowed grandfather, Bernard Fleming, for a book about his father Kelton Fleming’s time in the Negro Baseball Leagues.
When Bernard reveals health issues within days of her arrival, Harper assumes responsibility for taking care of him. And when she mentions his father playing baseball in the Negro Leagues, Bernard gives her a trove of letters, journals, and clippings encompassing Kelton’s career. But some stories are too personal to print without dishonoring the memory of her great-grandmother. Instead, with Bernard’s approval, Harper begins weaving them into a novel, telling her great-grandfather’s story through the eyes of the fictional Moses Gillian.
Chapters flow effortlessly as Harper breathes life into each memory. Particularly intense are Kelton’s recollections of the Green Book, an annual guidebook that helped African Americans navigate the segregated South. Negro League teams relied on it as they traveled between games, hurrying out of unwelcoming towns before sundown to avoid the Klan.
As Harper delves into Kelton’s past, a piece of her own resurfaces in the form of Cheney, the childhood friend of her brothers’. And as Harper honors her great-grandfather’s life, she finds the inspiration to take her own in a bold new direction . . . -
Irish Soda Bread Murder
It’s almost time for the delicious warmth of Irish soda bread, but be careful where you bite–some of these recipes call for murder in this delicious collection of cozy mystery novellas featuring the popular St. Paddy’s Day treat.
IRISH SODA BREAD MURDER by CARLENE O’CONNOR
There’s very little time left before her wedding, but nonetheless Tara Meehan is helping out at her Uncle Johnny’s salvage yard for the day. Aunt Rose set up a convention for local psychics, including a bake sale to raise money for charity, but now she’s sick and available only via an iPad Johnny is carrying. The event promises to deliver a real pot of gold until Rose’s biggest rival shows up. Before Tara can utter a simple “top o’ the morning” to the man, he drops dead—with Johnny’s soda bread in his hands. It’s up to Tara to identify the deadly baker before another victim ends up chasing the rainbow straight into a grave . . .
AN IRISH RECIPE FOR MURDER by PEGGY EHRHART
To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this year, the Arborville, New Jersey, Advocate is sponsoring a soda bread–baking competition. Bettina Fraser is excited—her bake-off idea was the one to get the green light! But when a town councilman acting as a judge keels over after sampling an entry, the party atmosphere dies just as quickly. Now it’s up to Bettina and her Knit and Nibble knitting club bestie, Pamela Paterson, to find the killer responsible for the murderous morsel.
MRS. CLAUS AND THE SINISTER SODA BREAD MAN by LIZ IRELAND
When April Claus arrives in Cloudberry Bay, Oregon, to check on her flooded inn, her biggest worry is to keep everyone from realizing her three companions—Jingles, Juniper, and Butterbean—are elves. But soon enough she has more serious worries—it looks like her hapless caretaker Ernie has been storing stolen goods at the inn! Then one of Ernie’s shady pals is found dead, and the murder weapon turns up in a decorative loaf of soda bread at April’s craft fair booth. It’s up to April to uncover the killer before she spends St. Patrick’s Day in the county jail! -
Knife Skills for Beginners
The Maid meets Knives Out with a dash of Top Chef in the debut locked room culinary mystery set in a London cooking school by MasterChef semi-finalist and cookbook writer Orlando Murrin.
“Some people are natural dancers, others marvelous in bed, but—not wishing to boast—I’m good with a knife. Most chefs are.”
The Chester Square Cookery School in the heart of London offers students a refined setting in which to master the fine art of choux pastry and hone their hollandaise. True, the ornate mansion doesn’t quite sparkle the way it used to—a feeling chef Paul Delamare is familiar with these days. Worn out and newly broke, he’d be tempted to turn down the request to fill in as teacher for a week-long residential course, if anyone other than Christian Wagner were asking.
Christian is one of Paul’s oldest friends, as well as the former recipient of two Michelin stars and host of Pass the Gravy! Thanks to a broken arm, he’s unable to teach the upcoming session himself, and recruits Paul as stand-in. The students are a motley crew, most of whom seem more interested in ogling the surroundings (including handsome Christian) than learning the best ways to temper chocolate.
Yet despite his misgivings, Paul starts to enjoy imparting his extensive knowledge to the recruits—until someone turns up dead, murdered with a cleaver Paul used earlier that day to prep a pair of squabs. Did one of his students take the lesson on knife techniques too much to heart, or was this the result of a long-simmering grudge? In between clearing his own name and teaching his class how to perfectly poach a chicken, he’ll have to figure out who’s the killer, and avoid being the next one to get butchered . . . -
Watch Your Back
"Menacing...A deliciously twisty adventure." — Robin Micheli, PEOPLE Magazine, Best Books of December
Amid the depths of a bleak Boston winter, a recently married couple find their lives and their relationship unraveling after a series of deadly accidents, in this brilliantly twisting domestic thriller perfect for fans of Stacy Willingham, Greer Hendricks, and Megan Miranda.
Accidents happen, no matter how careful or well-intentioned you are. Psychiatrist Eve Thayer frequently reassures her patients of that fact. There are even times when accidents have good consequences—like when Eve met her now-husband, Nathan, at his collision shop after another car ran her off the road.
After a whirlwind courtship, Nathan and Eve have settled into domestic life. They have a lovely home on a quiet street, a beautiful baby girl, and even the perfect babysitter to care for her. And yet, something isn’t quite right.
The stress in Eva’s life is mounting, both professionally and personally. Though the clinic where she works has been remodeled since its notorious days as an institution for the criminally insane, she feels increasingly uneasy there. And in her own neighborhood, a break-in at a nearby empty house hasn't helped, either.
Detective Rita Myers hasn’t yet figured out whether Eve is a target or a suspect, but every disturbing discovery in this usually peaceful neighborhood seems to revolve around her. Only as a deadly ice storm crashes through does it become clear just how far from perfect Eve and Nathan’s lives really are. And as the cracks in the surface come to light, so do the sinister secrets that lie beneath . . . -
Definitely Better Now
A touching and deeply funny debut about starting over sober only to discover life's biggest messes are still waiting right where you left them.
The very last person anyone should worry about is Emma. Yes, hi, she's an alcoholic. But she's officially been sober for one entire year. That's twelve months of better health. Fifty-two whole weeks of focusing on nothing but her nine-to-five office job, group meetings, and avoiding the kind of bad decisions that previously left her awash in shame and regret. It's also been 365 days of not dating. And with her new dating profile, Emma, 26, of New York is ready to put herself back out there.
Except--was dating always this complicated? And did Emma's mother really have to choose now to move in with her new boyfriend? Being assigned to plan her office's holiday party feels like icing on the suddenly very overwhelming cake until her estranged father reappears with devastating news. Icing, meet cherry on top. But then there's Ben, the charming IT guy who, despite Emma's awkwardness and shortcomings, seems to maybe actually get her? Sobriety is turning out to be far from the flawless future Emma had once envisioned for herself, but as she allows herself to open up to Ben and confront difficult past relationships, she's beginning to realize that taking things one day at a time might just be the perfectly imperfect path she's meant to be on.
Bittersweet and darkly hilarious, Ava Robinson's debut novel about navigating sobriety and complicated family dynamics is witty, heartbreaking, and profoundly relatable.
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Imposter Syndrome
From the #1 international bestselling author of True Crime Story comes a gripping new novel of a con-artist who is dragged into the lavish London underbelly and must use his lifetime of unique skills to make it out.
On the run from his shady past, Lynch has just arrived in London, still looking over his shoulder to make sure he isn't being followed. His phone is dead, he has no money, no contacts, no one at all. Until he runs into a young woman named Bobbie who mistakes him for her brother, Heydon Pierce, who disappeared five years ago without a trace.
At Bobbie's suggestion, Lynch goes to the Pierce family home, posing as Heydon to try and con some money out of them. But far from tricking them, his subterfuge is instantly discovered. He strikes the devil's bargain with them - their silence for his cooperation in finding out what really happened to Heydon.
But Lynch's investigation goes too deep and uncovers the fact that Heydon Pierce was tangled up with some dangerous and powerful people in London. Everyone has their own motives to keep Heydon well buried in the past. In such a conspiracy of mirrors, there's only one thing Lynch know for certain: the only person he can trust is himself.
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No Place to Bury the Dead
"[A] rich and lyrical tale of desperation and redemption . . . Throughout, Sainz Borgo applies stark poetry to the terrifying setting, where 'moans and cries attributed to ghosts sometimes masked executions and beatings.' It's a stunner." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[A] deeply felt meditation on migration, mourning and the simultaneous entanglement and estrangement of the living and the dead" --Los Angeles Times
Winner of the 2023 Jan Michalski Prize, a searing novel of loss and resilience that illuminates the often-overlooked human dimension of the migrant crisis, re-imagining the border as a dreamlike purgatory bridging life and death.
In an unnamed Latin American country, a mysterious plague quickly spreads, erasing the memory of anyone infected. Angustias Romero flees with her family, but their flight is tragically cut short when she loses both her children. Consumed by grief, she finds herself within the hallucinatory expanse of Mezquite--a town corrupted by greed and populated by storytellers, refugees, and violent, predatory gangs.
Here, Angustias is finally able to lay her children to rest at the Third Country, a cemetery run by the larger-than-life Visitación Salazar and a refuge beyond suffering and fear. While Visitación remains defiant in her mission to care for the dead, the cemetery she oversees is the focal point of a bitter land dispute with Alcides Abundio, the most feared landowner of the border. Caught in this power struggle, Angustias and Visitación-friends and sometimes rivals- stand their ground on a frontier where the law is dictated by violence; a surreal territory whose very nature blurs the boundaries between life and death.
Exploring what we are capable of and how far we will go when we have nothing to lose, No Place to Bury the Dead confirms Karina Sainz Borgo's importance amongst the voices of modern Latin American literature, merging thriller, western, and classic tragedy in an unforgettable and urgent novel that won the 2023 Jan Michalski Prize.
Translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bryer
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I Made It Out of Clay
AN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER!
In this darkly funny and surprisingly sweet novel, a woman creates a golem in a desperate attempt to pretend her life is a rom-com rather than a disaster.
Nothing's going well for Eve: she's single, turning forty, stressed at work and anxious about a recent series of increasingly creepy incidents. Most devastatingly, her beloved father died last year, and her family still won't acknowledge their sorrow.
With her younger sister's wedding rapidly approaching, Eve is on the verge of panic. She can't bear to attend the event alone. That's when she recalls a strange story her Yiddish grandmother once told her, about a protector forged of desperation...and Eve, to her own shock, manages to create a golem.
At first, everything seems great. The golem is indeed protective--and also attractive. But when they head out to a rural summer camp for the family wedding, Eve's lighthearted rom-com fantasy swiftly mudslides into something much darker.
With moments of moodiness, fierce love and unexpected laughter, I Made It Out of Clay will make you see monsters everywhere.
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The Rest Is Memory
First glimpsed riding on the back of a boy's motorcycle, fourteen-year-old Czeslawa comes to life in this mesmerizing novel by Lily Tuck, who imagines her upbringing in a small Polish village before her world imploded in late 1942. Stripped of her modest belongings, shorn, and tattooed number 26947 on arriving at Auschwitz, Czeslawa is then photographed. Three months later, she is dead.
How did this happen to an ordinary Polish citizen? This is the question that Tuck grapples with in this haunting novel, which frames Czeslawa's story within the epic tragedy of six million Poles who perished during the German occupation. A decade prior to writing The Rest Is Memory, Tuck read an obituary of the photographer Wilhelm Brasse, who took more than 40,000 pictures of the Auschwitz prisoners. Included were three of Czeslawa Kwoka, a Catholic girl from rural southeastern Poland. Tuck cut out the photos and kept them, determined to learn more about Czeslawa, but she was only able to glean the barest facts: the village she came from, the transport she was on, that she was accompanied by her mother and her neighbors, her tattoo number, and the date of her death. From this scant evidence, Tuck's novel becomes a remarkable kaleidoscopic feat of imagination, something only our greatest novelists can do.
"Beautifully written, all the while instilling a sense of horror" (Susanna Moore), Tuck's language swirls about, yet not a word is out of place. The subtly rotating images tumble out at us, accelerating as we learn about Czeslawa's tragic stay in Auschwitz, the lives of real people such as the barbaric Commandant Rudolf Höss; his unconscionable wife, Hedwig; the psychiatrist and child rescuer Janusz Korczak; and the mordant Polish short story writer Tadeusz Borowski. Although we are certain of Czeslawa's fate, we have no choice but to keep turning the pages, thoroughly mesmerized by Tuck's near otherworldly prose.
In Lily Tuck's hands, The Rest Is Memory becomes an unforgettable work of historical reclamation that rescues an innocent life, one previously only recalled by a stark triptych of photographs. -
What the Wife Knew
Darby Kane, author of the #1 international bestseller Pretty Little Wife, returns with another twisty domestic thriller about a wife wondering who tried to kill her husband twice before finally succeeding... because that was supposed to be her job.
Dr. Richmond Dougherty is a renowned pediatric surgeon, an infamous tragedy survivor, and a national hero. He's also very dead--thanks to a fall down the stairs. His neighbors angrily point a finger at the newest Ms. Dougherty, Addison. The sudden marriage to the mysterious young woman only lasted ninety-seven days, and he'd had two suspicious "accidents" during that time. Now Addison is a very rich widow.
As law enforcement starts to circle in on Addison and people in town become increasingly hostile, sides are chosen with Kathryn, Richmond's high school sweetheart, wife number one, and the mother of his children, leading the fray. Despite rising tensions, Addison is even more driven to forge ahead on the path she charted years ago...
Determined at all costs to unravel Richmond's legacy, she soon becomes a target--with a shocking note left on her bedroom wall: You will pay. But it will take a lot more than faceless threats to stop Addison. Her plan to marry Richmond then ruin him may have been derailed by his unexpected death, but she's not done with him yet.