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Gretchen Falk, a Park Avenue sophisticate born into great wealth and blessed with a storybook marriage, tried to convince her devoted husband, Richard, not to join his old college friends on an expedition to the imposing peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. Frankie Callahan’s dream of artistic success is within reach, with her career-making exhibition at a celebrated New York gallery only weeks away. To mark this new beginning, she is going to climb Kilimanjaro, but she certainly didn’t count on meeting anyone like Richard Falk. By the time they descend, they have lost more than they ever could have imagined. Now, less than two weeks after their return to New York, Frankie’s East Village loft is a blood-soaked crime scene, and Richard has been charged with her murder.

When Jack Solomon, a struggling musician who works in London’s West End, is killed, he awakens to a new reality in which light and music are used to create magic and where living eras of the past sprawl beneath modern London, layer upon layer, all the way back to recorded history. Jack also soon discovers that many of those who reside in the stratums of London’s past have grown angry with the present world, and that their anger is being channeled by a powerful society of light-and-music-based magic wielders who can cross the realms between life and death, between the present and the past. A past where the dead are sowing revolution against the living, and all of history is at stake. Welcome to the Strata Wars.

Eve is at a breaking point. Alone with her two children in Massachusetts while her husband pursues his music career in New York City, she’s frustrated, bored and, above all, lonely when she runs into Demeter, a childhood friend with whom she shared one transformative summer. Demeter’s daughter, like a growing number of others, cannot go outside during the day. No one knows why, and doctors are skeptical that these people --- soon dubbed Emilys, after the famously reclusive local poet --- are telling the truth. But Eve believes Demeter and will help him --- if she can just figure out how. When Eve unites with an unlikely band of fellow detectives, she feels a clear sense of purpose for the first time in years. But what is she willing to risk to find a cure?

In THE FRENZY, Joyce Carol Oates plunges us into the lives of her characters at moments of crisis and confusion, when much of what they understand about themselves and those they love comes undone. A young woman on a supposedly romantic weekend trip to Cape May, New Jersey, turns the tables on her older, married lover. A freak bicycle accident on a bridge haunts one family for decades. A girl jealous of her popular cousin discovers she is the lucky one. A widow waits at her riverside house for her dead husband's return. A young man hiking in the woods comes upon a couple in a heated, possibly violent argument. Should he intervene?

Valencia receives troubling news that her brother has gone missing. Her fellow Assassins Anonymous members --- Mark, Astrid and Booker --- offer to watch her baby girl, Lucia, while she's gone. Shortly after Valencia leaves, Mark is summoned to the lair of Zmeya, a Russian mob boss calling in a deadly favor. She wants him to kill Astrid. Mark refuses, but Zmeya reveals that she knows the identity of Mark’s ex-girlfriend…and his son. Either Astrid goes, or they do. Meanwhile, Lucia spikes a dangerously high fever, and when Booker and Astrid take her to urgent care, they realize too late that their fabricated identities are a real liability. Suddenly the splintered group is on the run from both the Russian mob and the police as they try to find refuge in a city full of surveillance cameras --- all without killing anyone.

By the age of 30, the young woman who was born Aurore Dupin in 1804 in a Paris garret had become the internationally renowned George Sand. Her enormous and radical corpus would grow to include 70 novels, travel writing, plays, autobiography and political writing. But despite this prodigious talent, Sand was simultaneously a figure of scandal. Cigar-smoking, cross-dressing and promiscuous, she seemed to break all the rules society set for women. Was her iconoclasm simply an act of courage, a declaration of absolute autonomy? Or did her sexual and emotional relationships with the leading figures of her day form part of her dialogue with the world around her? Award-winning poet and biographer Fiona Sampson rehabilitates an artistic and intellectual giant who still speaks to us today.

Jane Trevally is walking her dogs on her country estate when a small white terrier appears, alone and with no sign of the teenage girl he’d been staying with nearby. When the teenager is reported missing, Jane offers to return the dog to his registered owner, hours away in London. Arriving at a run-down house called Thornwood in the deepest backwaters of Hampstead, she is immediately on alert --- because Jane has a dark history with this house. The man who answers the door is not the man Jane remembers from her past. Then, through the window of the house, Jane catches a glimpse of a haunted-looking woman. Conjuring her memories from 25 years ago, Jane knows this unsettling house holds the key --- to the missing teenager, to her own traumatic story, and to the dark secrets of the past.

It's 2005, and Susan is barreling down the Long Island Expressway driving a car full of friends to an indie rock show. Eliza is a surprise addition in the backseat. Their connection is immediate, electric and complicated from the start, shadowed by the kind of small-town rumors that have a way of sticking. As quickly as they come together, they part. As Susan moves from Long Island to Brooklyn, from college to the insular world of indie labels, she begins to carve out a life in music. Yet the scene that once felt like home reveals its limits, forcing her to confront who gets to belong, who gets to create, and what it costs to stay. When Susan and Eliza reconnect years later, the pull between them hasn’t faded --- but neither have the unresolved histories that first drove them apart. 

Reeling from a very recent divorce, Frankie has moved into a glamorous London neighborhood. This is a new chapter in her life. She’s decided to put down roots with her beautiful Persian cat, Blue. But little doubts about her perfect new life start to grow, and when Blue returns one night from slipping into places he shouldn’t, Frankie’s concerns solidify. Two words are roughly scratched into his collar: help me. Unsettled and unwilling to ignore the incident, Frankie roots out an old unused “cat cam” collar. What slowly begins as a voyeuristic fascination with her neighbors and the secrets they’re hiding soon turns into a perilous quest for the truth that threatens to bring untold terrors to her doorstep.

Thirty years old and reeling from her mother’s recent death, Frances feels as if she’s lost her sense of purpose and her joy. When she suggests to her husband, Ben, that they open their marriage, he’s willing --- and maybe even a little intrigued. They invite a young woman into their bedroom, create a joint dating profile, and go on dates with other exploring couples. Over the next five years, they explore their sexualities, navigating through jealousy, betrayal, desire and obsession. The friends and lovers in their circle find themselves asking new questions about their own lives and relationships. When Ben finds himself falling in love with another woman, just as Frances realizes she’s ready to settle down and have a baby, they’re forced to confront the consequences of their experiment. 

When Agnes hears from the local police that her Aunt Colette has died, she can’t believe her ears.  Her father’s sister Colette, her Tata, died three years ago and has been resting in peace in the cemetery of Gueugnon. Agnes is called to identify the body: there is no doubt that it’s Aunt Colette. So who rests under the stone engraved with Colette’s name? And why did she fake her own death? So begins an investigation back in time, as Agnes pieces together the multitude of stories that lie behind her aunt's second death.

In the winter of 1967, the official account of the Kennedy assassination was beginning to unravel. A scattered group of Americans had pointed to major problems with the report prepared by President Johnson’s handpicked Warren Commission. Many of the most serious criticisms of the government’s work came from a source that surprised some: women who, within the community of critics, outnumbered the men two to one. Politicians and reporters dismissed these women, referring to them as “scavengers” and suggesting they were eccentrics with murder-mystery fixations or crushes on the deceased President Kennedy. But Kaitlyn Tiffany resurrects the story of Maggie Field, Shirley Martin and Sylvia Meagher, whose collaboration and friendship reshaped both their own lives and our national memory.

Deep into space soars The Sickness, a ship woven from biomatter and capable of reacting to every need of its human crew. Sisilla, a nine-year-old cultist with a brain enhanced by arcane tech known as “niks,” has boarded to investigate the enigma of Fém --- a plague-riddled planet that has abruptly gone rogue. The mysterious crew includes a faceless assassin, a beautiful engineer jigsawed by plastic surgery, a peyote-addicted medic, and --- most lethal of all --- a rugged, NonModded captain with a score to settle with Sisilla. Other dangers abound. A hacked robot begins to believe Sisilla is its daughter. The Sickness itself is mutating, possibly even pregnant. And the secret of Fém is more horrific than anyone could have imagined. To survive, Sisilla will need to forsake her predetermined fate and embrace the unknown.

When Kendra Michaels receives a cryptic message from her sometimes-paramour, Adam Lynch, she concludes that he must be in extreme danger. Lynch has saved Kendra’s life during past investigations, so she’s immediately willing to put everything on the line for him. With her heightened senses, honed in the dark before she regained her eyesight in a cutting-edge surgical procedure, Kendra knows she can do what the federal agents cannot. So along with private investigator Jessie Mercado, Kendra is soon following the first intriguing clue to London. What they find there will lead to a chase with deadly stakes because Lynch is willing to risk it all to protect something that he believes is bigger than himself.

Dominque Dupont is one of the world’s most sought-after designers of wedding dresses. Her adult daughters, Felicity and Violet, have unconventional views on marriage. Felicity, an artist, is in no hurry to get married. Unfortunately, her beau, Taylor, is. When she expresses ambivalence, Taylor reveals a dark side that frightens her. Too ashamed to confide in her mother or sister, she agrees to an elaborate wedding with deep misgivings. Fun-loving Violet is dating a sports reporter, but she firmly believes one should never spoil a good thing with matrimony. When he slips an MVP ring on her finger, they decide to celebrate their love in a way that is true to themselves. Dominique’s own long-term relationship with a married man is no longer giving her what she wants. As she struggles with making a change, her Parisian mother considers rekindling an old flame.

When young widow Lucy Cooper returns to her family’s crumbling Winthrop Island estate, she’s forced to confront both her estranged father’s mysterious death and the man she’s never truly forgotten. Thirteen summers ago, Lucy fell hard for Ben Ressler, a golden-boy athlete whose presence shattered her closest friendship and changed her life forever. Now Ben is back, his own career derailed by tragedy. As Lucy investigates her father’s obsession with a rumored pirate treasure, long-buried secrets and emotions resurface. WHEN YOU LOVED ME is a sweeping, emotionally charged story of first love, forgiveness, and the risk of opening your heart to a second chance.

After the sudden death of her husband, Ellen McKenna is doing everything she can to keep her Texas farm afloat. She and her family hope to expand their operation, but making ends meet is more expensive than she imagined. On top of the usual hardships, a series of recent storms has left the region partly flooded. As the heavy rain begins again one morning, all the members of the McKenna family jump into action to protect their land and animals. Ellen’s oldest son discovers an injured dog --- and the dog leads him to a man barely clinging to life, the apparent victim of a brutal home invasion. Then Ellen’s younger kids go to check on a nearby neighbor and walk into a threat none of them saw coming. As the storm picks up again in intensity, the McKenna children find themselves in over their heads with no way to call for help.

Meet Julia Flang, a twenty-something former semi-professional gamer. Out of the blue, her estranged mother, offers her a temp job with a payday Julia can’t refuse: to chaperone a man in a vegetative state --- one with proprietary AI implanted in his head --- from California to the East Coast. Meet a middle-aged man who wakes within a disorienting hellscape filled with monstrous grotesqueries. Worse than the fluid, morphing reality in which he’s trapped, he has no memory of who he is. He only knows that he must find a certain person. Who? He can’t remember. Using a cell phone modeled after a video game controller, Julia fumblingly navigates the man she calls “Bernie” from the company campus and onto planes and through one of the largest airports in America. And as their two lives intertwine, Julia and Bernie become unlikely allies and fugitives on a collision course with reality.

In these seven powerful stories, Aamina Ahmad finds a world of pathos in the narrowest circumstances, from the fugitive intimacies of villages where nothing escapes notice to the crevices where city dwellers seek refuge from urban striving and indifference. JULY SUN captures  the plight of ordinary people caught between love and duty, freedom and social constraint --- a man who witnesses an illicit moment of tenderness, a police officer who must choose whether to follow the laws of God or of man, a woman who takes matters into her own hands in the face of an unexpected pregnancy.

Siblings Allison and Luke have been through a lot together. They’ve always stood by each other. They’d do anything for each other. Or so it seems. When Allison’s husband, Finley, is murdered, the investigation threatens to expose the siblings’ darkest secrets. An illicit affair. A decades-old accident. A stunning deception. How do these events explain Finley’s death? How far will Allison and Luke go to keep their secrets buried? And can the siblings even trust one another anymore? As the investigation winds tighter and past and present collide, the most shocking betrayal might lie a little too close to home.

If I, Rosie --- blushing bride, noted cynic and sleuth --- were asked to identify when the pre-wedding events spiraled out of control, I’d point to that moment when elderly Princess Ursula observed the display of gleaming swords and bared teeth and announced that she would hold a public séance to determine the future of the marriage. With the aid of Yorick’s skull and her own considerable dramatic nature, Princess Ursula prophesied three things: the marriage would be joyous and fertile, a long-lost treasure would be found…and a foul and most unnatural murder would disrupt the fragile peace of Verona. As one death follows another, and it’s clear a skilled poisoner lurks among us, I use all my wit and skill to discern the reason for the vendetta and uncover the killer’s identity.

Steven Hammer was once a literary star. Now, his career is floundering, his marriage to a high-powered woman is crumbling, and the only bright spot in his life is Astrid, the Norwegian au pair who cares for their children --- and reveres his neglected novels. But what begins as a secret infatuation soon spirals into a scandal that makes them both infamous. As a headline-grabbing trial captivates the world with a salacious story of sex, power and betrayal, Steven must confront the wreckage he’s created --- and the deeper insecurities that fueled it. Is Astrid an innocent young woman caught up in a case beyond her control, or a calculating femme fatale? And how far will he go, driven by desperation and obsession, for her professed love?

When Caroline Lash arrives in Greenhead, Massachusetts, she falls head-over-heels for Van Whittaker. Born and raised in this picturesque coastal village, Van runs with the same crowd he did as a kid: his ex-girlfriend, Bailey; Augusta, who is old money, horsey and snobbish; and Fran, who is too fed up with boys to ever consider marrying one. Together, the group runs wild through the marshes, beaches and bars of Greenhead, drinking on houseboats and spending long afternoons sunbathing with their children. But when Bailey discovers that she is pregnant with Van’s baby, the delicate balance of the group’s friendship is thrown off. Soon Caroline is cast out of the circle. What she does next exposes long-held secrets and works the entire town of Greenhead into a lather. 

Guadalajara, Mexico, 1977. In a quiet residential neighborhood, children witness things they can never forget: a serpent girl weeping in a carnival glass box, a neighbor who dangles his dog from a tree and a ghost who returns night after night, desperate to tell its story. Meanwhile, the grown-ups drift through the season half oblivious, their spirits eroding as the relentless summer wears on. Told in colliding voices --- children and adults, ghosts and the haunted, the living and the almost-invisible --- THE SUMMER OF THE SERPENT is a prismatic portrait of the past, where memory is shot through with myth. Each narrator offers a fragment of the truth, until the stories twist together into a shape as elusive and mesmerizing as the boa constrictor that winds its way through the neighborhood.

June 1975. Maggie Bishop has just graduated high school, the future hers to embrace --- but she’s still reeling from the death of her older brother, Chip. A devastating diagnosis the summer before prompted Chip to leave home for a few months, never revealing where he went. Maggie’s search for clues leads her to The Red Maple Inn, a mountaintop resort in the Poconos. At the Red Maple, Maggie is welcomed into a tight-knit community. As she unravels secrets about her brother’s final days, she begins to connect with the people he loved, and whose lives he touched. Through the warmth of strangers, Maggie begins to heal and is able to help others cope with loss.