Contemporary Fiction

A suspenseful drama about an immigrant family caught in a criminal investigation, perfect for readers of Everything I Never Told You. “Our Best Intentions is a thoughtful, gripping suspense that shakes up definitions of family and identity in a beautiful and refreshing way!” —Kal Penn, actor and national bestselling author of You Can't Be Serious “With subtlety, humor and piercing insight, Vibhuti Jain creates a propulsive page-turner that will touch your heart. A must-read!” —Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee Babur “Bobby” Singh, single parent and owner of fledging Uber business “Move with Bobby,” remains ever hopeful about ascending the ladder of American success. He lives in an affluent suburb of New York with his daughter Angie, an introverted teenager who is uncomfortable in her own skin unless she’s swimming. During summer break, Angie is walking home after training at the high school pool when she finds Henry McCleary, a classmate from a wealthy, prominent family, stabbed and bleeding on the football field. The police immediately focus their investigation on Chiara Thompkins, a runaway Black girl who disappears after the stabbing and—it’s later discovered—wasn’t properly enrolled in the public high school. The incident sends shock waves through the community and reveals jarring truths about the lengths to which families will go to protect themselves. As the town fractures, Angie must navigate conflicting narratives and wrestle with her own moral culpability. Meanwhile, Babur’s painstaking efforts to shield Angie and protect his hard-earned efforts to assimilate overshadow his ability to see right from wrong. Alternating between multiple perspectives, Our Best Intentions is a pulsating story about a father and daughter re-examining their familial bonds and place in the community. Both a gripping page-turner and an intimate portrait of an immigrant family, Vibhuti Jain’s provocative debut explores how easily friendships, careers, communities, and individual lives can unravel when the toxicity of privilege and racial bias are exposed.

The Virgin Suicides meets The Florida Project in this wildly original debut—a coming-of-age story about the crucible of girlhood, from a writer of rare and startling talent We would not be born out of sweetness, we were born out of rage, we felt it in our bones. In Falls Landing, Florida—a place built of theme parks, swampy lakes, and scorched bougainvillea flowers—something sinister lurks in the deep. A gang of thirteen-year-old girls obsessively orbit around the local preacher's daughter, Sammy. She is mesmerizing, older, and in love with Eddie. But suddenly, Sammy goes missing. Where is she? Watching from a distance, they edge ever closer to discovering a dark secret about their fame-hungry town and the cruel cost of a ticket out. What they see will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives. Through a darkly beautiful and brutally compelling lens, Dizz Tate captures the violence, horrors, and manic joys of girlhood. Brutes is a novel about the seemingly unbreakable bonds in the "we" of young friendship, and the moment it is broken forever.

CBS New York Book Club with Mary Calvi Pick “A thoroughly modern story of family mistakes and redemption that I couldn’t put down.” —KJ Dell’Antonia, New York Times bestselling author The only child of an iconic American novelist discovers a shocking tangle of family secrets that upends everything she thought she knew about her parents, her gilded childhood, and her own stalled writing career in this brilliantly observed standout debut. Growing up in the nineties in New York City as the only child of famous parents was both a blessing and a curse for Isabelle Manning. Her beautiful society hostess mother, Claire, and New York Times bestselling author father, Ward, were the city’s intellectual It couple. Ward’s glamorous obligations often took him away from Isabelle, but Claire made sure her childhood was always filled with magic and love. Now an adult, all Isabelle wants is to be a successful writer like her father but after many false starts and the unexpected death of her mother, she faces her upcoming thirty-fifth birthday alone and on the verge of a breakdown. Her anxiety only skyrockets when she uncovers some shocking truths about her parents and begins wondering if everything she knew about her family was all based on an elaborate lie. Wry, wise, and propulsive, A Likely Story is punctuated with fragments of a compulsively readable book-within-a-book about a woman determined to steal back the spotlight from a man who has cheated his way to the top. The characters seem eerily familiar but is the plot based on fact? And more importantly, who is the author?

A fast-paced, twisty psychological debut about the complexities of marriage and new motherhood, told through the frenetic lens of a wife seeking the truth about her husband, at all costs, as the validity of the life she once knew unravels page by page. Liz Bennett knows that she is one of the lucky ones. Wealthy and charming, Arno is a supportive husband to Liz and a doting father to their daughter, Emma. A rising banker at a top firm in the Boston area, he is the picture of perfection, rounding off their idyllic New England life. But when Liz sees a text on Arno's phone with a kissy-face emoji, her anxiety kicks into overdrive and she begins to worry that her luck has run out. Plagued by persistent skepticism and countless sleepless nights, Liz decides she must uncover the truth about her husband—as any wife would. So she takes a deep breath and dives down the rabbit hole. As Liz peels back layers of deceit and tracks down every lead, a frenzy begins to take over her life. Could Arno really be unfaithful? Or is Liz's imagination getting the best of her? When everyone around her is convinced she's become unhinged, she must prove, if only to herself, that a woman's intuition expands beyond a single cryptic text. A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.

“Propulsive, cheeky, eat-the-rich page-turner” —Casey McQuiston, The Washington Post “Theranos but make it gay.” —Electric Literature A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 from Vulture, Elle, LitHub, Electric Literature, BuzzFeed, Our Culture, and Crimereads Best friends (and occasional lovers) Ezra and Orson are teetering on top of the world after founding a company that promises instant enlightenment in this thrilling caper about scams, schemes, and the absurdity of the American Dream. At seventeen, Ezra Green doesn’t have a lot going for him: he’s shorter than average, snaggle-toothed, internet-addicted, and halfway to being legally blind. He’s also on his way to Last Chance Camp, the final stop before juvie. But Ezra’s summer at Last Chance turns life-changing when he meets Orson, brilliant and Adonis-like with a mind for hustling. Together, the two embark upon what promises to be a fruitful career of scam artistry. But when they try to pull off their biggest scam yet—Nulife, a corporation that promises its consumers a lifetime of bliss—things start to spin wildly out of control. Searing and charming, with the suspense of The Talented Mr. Ripley, the decadence of The Great Gatsby, and the wit of Succession, Confidence is a story for anyone who knows that the American Dream is just another pyramid scheme.

It’s hard to remember now that I was once that girl, lying in the sand in myred swimsuit and swimming late into the day. Sharkbait, he called me. It’s in the water where she first sees him: a local man almost twenty years her senior. Adrift in the summer after finishing college, a young woman is on holiday with her mother in an isolated Australian coastal town. Finding herself pulled to Jude, the man in the water, she begins losing herself in the simple, seductive rhythms of his everyday life. As their relationship deepens, life at Sailors Beach offers her the stability she has been craving as the daughter of two drifters—a loving but impulsive mother and an itinerant father. But the arrival of Maeve, a friend from Jude’s past, threatens to rock their fragile, newfound intimacy. And when she witnesses something she doesn’t fully understand, she finds herself questioning everything—about Jude, about herself, about the life she has and the one she wants. A magnetic and unforgettable story of desire and its complexities, and a powerful reckoning with memory, loss, and longing, Madelaine Lucas’s debut novel, Thirst for Salt, reveals with stunning, sensual immediacy the way the past can hold us in its thrall, shaping who we are and what we love.

"An atmospheric and evocative whodunnit steeped in suspense, mystery, and illusion." —Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestseller of The Maid From the author of the sensational bestseller The Lost Apothecary comes a spellbinding tale about two daring women who hunt for truth and justice in the perilous art of conjuring the dead. 1873. At an abandoned château on the outskirts of Paris, a dark séance is about to take place, led by acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D’Allaire. Known worldwide for her talent in conjuring the spirits of murder victims to ascertain the identities of the people who killed them, she is highly sought after by widows and investigators alike. Lenna Wickes has come to Paris to find answers about her sister’s death, but to do so, she must embrace the unknown and overcome her own logic-driven bias against the occult. When Vaudeline is beckoned to England to solve a high-profile murder, Lenna accompanies her as an understudy. But as the women team up with the powerful men of London’s exclusive Séance Society to solve the mystery, they begin to suspect that they are not merely out to solve a crime, but perhaps entangled in one themselves… Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook. "An explosive, immersive, time-bomb of a novel. Vengeance is never sweeter than in Sarah Penner’s hands.” —Laurie Lico Albanese, award-winning author of Hester

Crazy Rich Asians meets The Help! From Reese’s Book Club veteran Balli Kaur Jaswal comes a wildly entertaining and sharply observed story of three women who work in the homes of Singapore’s elite, and band together to solve a murder mystery involving one of their own. “Tender and heartfelt, Now You See us also manages to be laugh-out-loud funny. An uplifting story of courage and hope that will keep you enthralled until the very last page.”—Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee "A truly irresistible read. Intricately plotted, propulsive, and provocative, NOW YOU SEE US showcases an author at the peak of her talents."--Kirstin Chen, New York Times bestselling author of Counterfeit Corazon, Donita, and Angel are Filipina domestic workers—part of the wave of women sent to Singapore to be cleaners, maids, and caregivers. Corazon: A veteran domestic worker, Cora had retired back to the Philippines for good, but she has returned to Singapore under mysterious circumstances. Now she’s keeping a secret from her wealthy employer, who is planning an extravagant wedding for her socialite daughter. Donita: Barely out of her teens, this is Donita’s first time in Singapore, and she’s had the bad luck to be hired by the notoriously fussy Mrs. Fann. Brazen and exuberant, Donita’s thrown herself into a love affair with an Indian migrant worker. Angel: Working as an in-home caregiver for an elderly employer, Angel is feeling blue after a recent breakup with the woman she loves. She’s alarmed when her employer’s son suddenly brings in a new nurse who may be a valuable ally...or meant to replace her. Then an explosive news story shatters Singapore’s famous tranquility—and sends a chill down the spine of every domestic worker. Flordeliza Martinez, a Filipina maid, has been arrested for murdering her female employer. The three women don’t know the accused well, but she could be any of them; every worker knows stories of women who were scapegoated or even executed for crimes they didn’t commit. Shocked into action, Donita, Corazon, and Angel will use their considerable moxie and insight to piece together the mystery of what really happened on the day Flordeliza’s employer was murdered. After all, no one knows the secrets of Singapore’s families like the women who work in their homes…ered. After all, no one knows the secrets of Singapore’s elite like the women who work in their homes…

This is a multicast program. "A spellbinding story about what may transpire when the natural world collides with a legacy of witchcraft." —Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Apothecary I am a Weyward, and wild inside. 2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century. 1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom. 1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom. Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

Julie Carrick Dalton's The Last Beekeeper is a celebration of found family, an exploration of truth versus power, and the triumph of hope in the face of despair. "Fans of Delia Owens will swoon to find their new favorite author.” (Hank Phillippi Ryan) It’s been more than a decade since the world has come undone, and Sasha Severn has returned to her childhood home with one goal in mind—find the mythic research her father, the infamous Last Beekeeper, hid before he was incarcerated. There, Sasha is confronted with a group of squatters who have claimed the quiet, idyllic farm as a way to escape the horrific conditions of state housing. While she feels threatened by their presence at first, the friends soon become her newfound family, offering what she hasn't felt since her father was imprisoned: security and hope. Maybe it's time to forget the family secrets buried on the farm and focus on her future. But just as she settles into her new life, Sasha witnesses the impossible. She sees a honeybee, presumed extinct. People who claim to see bees are ridiculed and silenced for reasons Sasha doesn't understand, but she can't shake the feeling that this impossible bee is connected to her father's missing research. Fighting to uncover the truth could shatter Sasha's fragile security and threaten the lives of her new-found family—or it could save them all. Sasha's journey is a meditation on forgiveness and redemption and a reminder to cherish the beauty that still exists in this fragile world. Also by Julie Carrick Dalton: Waiting for the Night Song A Macmillan Audio production from Forge Books.

“Moving and immersive...truly compelling.” —Marjan Kamali, nationally bestselling author of The Stationery Shop What happens when the man you love most in the world—who may be lying about everything—unexpectedly disappears and takes your small child with him? Emma Fedor’s riveting and powerful debut explores the fierceness of first love and how far one woman will go to learn the painful truth about her family. When Cara and Brendan first meet, she’s fresh out of college, recovering from the recent death of her mother, and spending time on Martha’s Vineyard while trying to figure out her next steps. She’s swept away by Brendan’s humor and charm, and intoxicated by his thrilling, dangerous secret: he can breathe underwater. Able to stay beneath the waves for longer than should be possible, Brendan reveals that he is part of a secret experimental unit of the US Special Forces. And Cara, struck by the power of his conviction, by his unstoppable charisma, and by the evidence before her, believes him. Their summer romance turns serious. Then Cara gets pregnant. When their son, Micah, is born, she’s sure their happy ending is underway. Still, she’s thrown by Brendan’s dramatic moods, his unexplained disappearances, and the weight of his secrets. Cara is determined to stay strong for her young family, to heal Brendan’s psychic wounds, to keep him safe. Until he and baby Micah vanish, leaving her desolate and alone and questioning everything she once thought was true. Five years later, Cara is still struggling to move forward, married to another man and trying to rebuild her life, when a local fisherman announces he’s spotted two people—one of them a small child—treading water in Nantucket Sound, far from any vessels and miles from shore. The news rekindles Cara’s never-abandoned hope that her little boy may still be alive. As she fights to untangle delusion from reality, and revisits a past she’s worked hard to reconcile, Cara is determined to learn the truth about her lost love and finally find her son.

"Vivid, visceral, and sexy—I loved it." —JEN DEVON, author of Bend Toward the Sun The headlines dubbed it the art heist of the decade… Twenty years ago, Johanna Porter was a rising star in the art world. Now she’s an unknown soccer mom. When an invitation arrives for an elite gallery opening for her former lover, the great Nestor Pinedo, Johanna wants to throw it in the trash where it belongs. But with some styling help from her daughter, she makes an appearance and comes face-to-face with the woman she was before the powerful and jealous Nestor ruined her. La Rosa Blanca is a portrait of Johanna herself, young and fierce and fearless—a masterwork with a price tag to match. When she cuts it out of its frame, rolls it up and walks out, Johanna is only taking back what was stolen from her. Hiding out with La Rosa Blanca in a shack on the Chesapeake Bay, Johanna digs into the raw work of reviving her own skills while battling novice-thief paranoia, impostor syndrome and mom guilt. But Johanna doesn’t just want the painting—she wants to paint again. To harness her powerful talent, she must defy everyone’s expectations—most of all her own—for what a woman like her should be.

A Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Seen on the Today Show “If you like Practical Magic… you will love Black Candle Women.” —Jenna Bush Hager Named a Best Book of the Month by: Shondaland, MS. Magazine, TODAY.com, Reader’s Digest, Katie Couric Media, AARP Sisters, Goodreads, BookRiot A warm and wry family drama with a magical twist about four generations of Black women, a family love curse, and the secrets they keep for and from each other over one very complicated year Generations of Montrose women—Augusta, Victoria, Willow—have always lived together in their quaint California bungalow. They keep to themselves, never venture far from home, and their collection of tinctures and spells is an unspoken bond between them. But when young Nickie Montrose brings home a boy for the first time, their quiet lives are thrown into disarray. For the family has withheld a crucial secret from Nickie all these years: any person a Montrose woman falls in love with will die. Their surprise guest forces each woman to reckon with her own past choices and mistakes. And as new truths about the curse emerge, they're set on a collision course dating back to 1950s New Orleans’s French Quarter—where a hidden story in a mysterious book may just hold the answers they seek in life and in love… “Richly imagined and elegantly told, with plenty of satisfying secrets, heartaches, and twists.” —Sadeqa Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of The House of Eve, a Reese's Book Club Pick “Propulsive and poignant, Black Candle Women concocts an intoxicating potion of warmth, wisdom, and wonder.” —Ava DuVernay

With the offbeat charm of The Rosie Project and generous warmth of The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, a wry, moving debut novel about a pair of unforgettable siblings and a love triangle of sorts—one with math as its beating heart. One of Cosmopolitan's Best Books of 2023 Meet Art and Mimi Brotherton. Devoted siblings and housemates, they’re bound together by the tragic death of their parents. Mathematical genius Art relies on logic, while Mimi prefers to follow her heart. When Mimi decides she needs more from life than dutifully tending to her brilliant brother, she asks for his help to find love. Art agrees, but on one condition: that she find her soulmate using a strict mathematical principle. Things seem promising, until Mimi meets Frank: a romantic, spontaneous stargazer who’s also a mathematician. Despite Mimi’s obvious affection for the quirky Frank, Art is wary of him from their very first encounter. As Art's mistrust of Frank grows, so do Mimi's feelings, and the siblings' relationship is brought to a breaking point. Something about Frank doesn't quite add up, and only Art can see it . . . The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything is a tender, intelligent and uplifting novel about brothers and sisters, true love in all its forms, and how the answers to life’s biggest questions follow a logic of their own.

Set amid Colorado’s wild beauty, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story of a resilient young woman whose life is changed forever by one chance encounter. A tragic and uplifting novel of love and loss, family and survival—and hope—for readers of Great Circle, The Four Winds, and Where the Crawdads Sing “Shelley Read’s lyrical voice is a force of nature…. Completely unforgettable.” —Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry Seventeen-year-old Victoria Nash runs the household on her family’s peach farm in the small ranch town of Iola, Colorado—the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land and determined to live as he chooses. Victoria encounters Wil by chance on a street corner, a meeting that profoundly alters both of their young lives, unknowingly igniting as much passion as danger. When tragedy strikes, Victoria leaves the only life she has ever known. She flees into the surrounding mountains where she struggles to survive in the wilderness with no clear notion of what her future will bring. As the seasons change, she also charts the changes in herself, finding in the beautiful but harsh landscape the meaning and strength to move forward and rebuild all that she has lost, even as the Gunnison River threatens to submerge her homeland—its ranches, farms, and the beloved peach orchard that has been in her family for generations. Inspired by true events surrounding the destruction of the town of Iola in the 1960s, Go as a River is a story of deeply held love in the face of hardship and loss, but also of finding courage, resilience, friendship, and, finally, home—where least expected. This stunning debut explores what it means to lead your life as if it were a river—gathering and flowing, finding a way forward even when a river is dammed.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Sex, suspense, and the supernatural fuel this propulsive debut.” —People “Darkly satirical and action-packed....An absolutely splendid debut!” —Wendy Walker, nationally bestselling author of Don’t Look for Me The Plot meets Please Join Us in this psychological suspense debut about a young author at an exclusive writer’s retreat that descends into a nightmare. Alex has all but given up on her dreams of becoming a published author when she receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: attend an exclusive, month-long writing retreat at the estate of feminist horror writer Roza Vallo. Even the knowledge that Wren, her former best friend and current rival, is attending doesn’t dampen her excitement. But when the attendees arrive, Roza drops a bombshell—they must all complete an entire novel from scratch during the next month, and the author of the best one will receive a life-changing seven-figure publishing deal. Determined to win this seemingly impossible contest, Alex buckles down and tries to ignore the strange happenings at the estate, including Roza’s erratic behavior, Wren’s cruel mind games, and the alleged haunting of the mansion itself. But when one of the writers vanishes during a snowstorm, Alex realizes that something very sinister is afoot. With the clock running out, she must discover the truth—or suffer the same fate. A claustrophobic and propulsive thriller exploring the dark side of female relationships and fame, The Writing Retreat is the unputdownable debut novel from a compelling new talent.

A funny, flirty, and heartwarming novel about bad breakups, found families, and embracing life. A moving love story sure to appeal to fans of Casey McQuiston and Meryl Wilsner. Since a crushing breakup three years ago, Nina Rice has written romance, friends, her dreams of scriptwriting for TV, and even LA proper out of her life. Instead, she’s safely out in the suburbs in her aunt’s condo working her talent agency job from home, managing celebrity email accounts, and certain that’s plenty of writing—and plot—for her life. But a surprise meeting called by Ari Fox, a young actress on everyone’s radar, stirs up all kinds of feelings Nina thought she’d deleted for good … Ari is sexy, out and proud, and a serious control freak, according to Nina’s boss. She has her own ideas about how Nina should handle her emails—and about getting to know her ghostwriter. When she tells Nina she should be writing again, Nina suddenly finds it less scary to revisit her abandoned life than seriously consider that Ari is flirting with her. Between reconnecting with her old crew and working on a new script, a relationship with a movie star seems like something she’ll definitely mess up—but what could be more worth the risk? Amy Spalding’s For Her Consideration is full of heat and heart as Nina learns that her story just might include the kind of love that lasts.

“Varina Palladino’s Jersey Italian Love Story is fun and funny, wonderfully exuberant, and incredibly wise. These endearing characters—their voices and stories— will be with me for a long time to come. I didn’t want to say good-bye.” –Jill McCorkle, New York Times bestselling author of Hieroglyphics An utterly delightful and surprising family drama—think Moonstruck and My Big Fat Greek Wedding set in New Jersey—about a boisterous, complicated Italian family determined to help their widowed mother find a new boyfriend.  Lively widow Varina Paladino has lived in the same house in Wyldale, New Jersey, her entire life. The town might be slightly stuck in the 1960s, when small businesses thrived and most residents were Italian, but its population is getting younger and the Paladinos are embracing the change. What Varina’s not embracing, much to her ninety-two-year-old mother’s dismay, is dating. Running Paladino’s Italian Specialties grocery, caring for her mother, and keeping her large, loud Jersey Italian family from killing one another takes up all of Varina’s energy anyway. Sylvia Spini worries about her daughter Varina being left all alone when she dies. Sylvia knows what it is to be old and alone, so when her granddaughter, Donatella, comes to her with an ill-conceived plan to find Varina a man, Sylvia dives in. The three men of the family—Dante, Tommy, and Paulie—are each secretly plotting their own big life changes, which will throw everyone for a loop. Three generations of Paladinos butt heads and break one another’s hearts as they wrestle with their own Jersey Italian love stories in this hilarious and life-affirming ode to love and family. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

National Bestseller A brilliantly original and funny novel about a sex therapist’s transcriptionist who falls in love with a client while listening to her sessions. When they accidentally meet in real life, an explosive affair ensues. Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house, built in 1737, is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss, since she’s tall, stoic, and originally from Switzerland. Greta is fascinated by Big Swiss’s refreshing attitude toward trauma. They both have dark histories, but Big Swiss chooses to remain unattached to her suffering while Greta continues to be tortured by her past. One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss’s voice at the dog park. In a panic, she introduces herself with a fake name and they quickly become enmeshed. Although Big Swiss is unaware of Greta’s true identity, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she’ll do anything to sustain the relationship… Bold, outlandish, and filled with irresistible characters, Big Swiss is both a love story and also a deft examination of infidelity, mental health, sexual stereotypes, and more—from an amazingly talented, one-of-a-kind voice in contemporary fiction.

Soap opera star by day, harried, single mom by night, Calliope Hart’s life is a delicate balancing act. When the network cancels her show, Callie’s world crumbles and she must decide whether it’s more important to fight to save the show or take a risk and start over from scratch. By day, for 25 years, soap opera fans have known actress Calliope Hart as Napa Valley’s resident diva, Jessica Sinclair. By night, Callie is a flustered breadwinner, scrambling to provide for her 12-year-old son and her mother. So when the network announces that her show will be canceled, Callie is beyond shocked—she doesn’t know who she is anymore. At first, driven by financial concerns for her family that include blackmail payments to her son’s biological father, she rallies fans to save the show. But is that what she really wants? When she learns that her mother has been driving her son to auditions she’s strictly forbidden—and worse, that he’s been offered opportunities—Callie sees her own child’s youth and drive in competition with her age and experience. Set in modern-day Hollywood, Daytime Drama is a story about having the guts to reach for the sky. Callie must decide whether to play it safe or summon the courage her son displays to risk her lucky meal ticket and reinvent her career—and, for the first time, test her mettle as an actress and a mom.

A Today Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick "The patchwork elements cooperate with one another both on the page and in the audiobook, thanks to Heather Agyepong’s elegant narration."- New York Times "'Maame' is a deeply funny yet emotional novel that comes alive with narration. A great pick for the twenty-something trying to make their way in the world, this audiobook will have you laughing on your commute to work."- USA Today "An utterly charming and deeply moving portrait of the joys—and the guilt—of trying to find your own way in life." —Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Our Missing Hearts "Lively, funny, poignant . . . Prepare to fall in love with Maddie. I did!" —Bonnie Garmus, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry "Sardonic, authentic, and a little bit sad, it moves along at a brisk pace. Compulsively listenable."- Vulture "Agyepong is a soft voiced, melodious narrator who brings across the intersectionality of identity that children of immigrants confront....Her gently delivered, nuanced performance will make listeners feel as though they are listening to a friend describe her latest problems."- AudioFile "The story is delivered beautifully by narrator Agyepong whose voice brings Maddie to life. Also notable are Agyepong's smooth readings of phrases and idioms in Twi, the dialect of Akan spoken in Ghana by Maddie's family."- Booklist starred review "In the audiobook, George’s delightfully delicate command of language is enlivened by visual artist and actor Heather Agyepong’s brilliant narration, which reveals not only variations in Ghanaian and British accents but also emotional worlds."- Bookpage starred review Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means woman. It’s fair to say that Maddie’s life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still somehow manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced stage Parkinson’s. At work, her boss is a nightmare and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting. When her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie leaps at the chance to get out of the family home and finally start living. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she’s ready to experience some important “firsts”: She finds a flat share, says yes to after-work drinks, pushes for more recognition in her career, and throws herself into the bewildering world of internet dating. But it's not long before tragedy strikes, forcing Maddie to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils—and rewards—of putting her life on the line. Smart, funny, and deeply affecting, Jessica George's Maame deals with the themes of our time with humor and poignancy: from familial duty and racism, to female pleasure, the complexity of love, and the life-saving power of friendship. Most important, it explores what it feels like to be torn between two homes and cultures―and it celebrates finally being able to find where you belong. "Meeting Maame feels like falling in love for the first time: warm, awkward, joyous, a little bit heartbreaking and, most of all, unforgettable." —Xochi

From the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Brotherhood “A love letter to the power of music, this thoughtful, humorous exploration of what constitutes living versus mere survival sees Chen (Light Years from Home) at the top of his game.” —Publishers Weekly starred review "A strong emotional core carries Chen’s (Light Years from Home, 2022) latest, which is ultimately about healing from old wounds and learning how to embrace life again after loss—even if you’re dead." —Booklist Being a vampire is far from glamorous…but it can be pretty punk rock. Everything you’ve heard about vampires is a lie. They can’t fly. No murders allowed (the community hates that). And turning into a bat? Completely ridiculous. In fact, vampire life is really just a lot of blood bags and night jobs. For Louise Chao, it’s also lonely, since she swore off family ages ago. At least she’s gone to decades of punk rock shows. And if she can join a band of her own (while keeping her…situation under wraps), maybe she’ll finally feel like she belongs, too. Then a long-lost teenage relative shows up at her door. Whether it’s Ian’s love of music or his bad attitude, for the first time in ages, Louise feels a connection. But as Ian uncovers Louise’s true identity, things get dangerous—especially when he asks her for the ultimate favor. One that goes beyond just family…one that might just change everything vampires know about life and death forever.

WINNER OF THE 2022 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE A playful, feminist, and utterly original epic set in contemporary northern India, about a family and the inimitable octogenarian matriarch at its heart. “A tale tells itself. It can be complete, but also incomplete, the way all tales are. This particular tale has a border and women who come and go as they please. Once you’ve got women and a border, a story can write itself . . .” Eighty-year-old Ma slips into a deep depression after the death of her husband. Despite her family’s cajoling, she refuses to leave her bed. Her responsible eldest son, Bade, and dutiful, Reebok-sporting daughter-in-law, Bahu, attend to Ma’s every need, while her favorite grandson, the cheerful and gregarious Sid, tries to lift her spirits with his guitar. But it is only after Sid’s younger brother—Serious Son, a young man pathologically incapable of laughing—brings his grandmother a sparkling golden cane covered with butterflies that things begin to change. With a new lease on life thanks to the cane’s seemingly magical powers, Ma gets out of bed and embarks on a series of adventures that baffle even her unconventional feminist daughter, Beti. She ditches her cumbersome saris, develops a close friendship with a hijra, and sets off on a fateful journey that will turn the family’s understanding of themselves upside down. Rich with fantastical elements, folklore, and exuberant wordplay, Geetanjali Shree’s magnificent novel explores timely and timeless topics, including Buddhism, global warming, feminism, Partition, gender binary, transcending borders, and the profound joys of life. Elegant, heartbreaking, and funny, it is a literary masterpiece that marks the American debut of an extraordinary writer. Translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell Author’s name pronounced: Ghee-TAHN-juh-lee Shree

“Vintage Contemporaries is about being young and becoming less young, exploring friendship (sometimes magical, sometimes messy), parenthood (ditto), and how to reconcile youthful ambition and ideals with real life. It’s a warm and big-hearted coming of age story that made me wistful for my own twenties, set in a vividly rendered and long-vanished New York City.”—Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind Slate editor Dan Kois makes his fiction debut with this stunning coming-of-age novel set in New York City, about the joys of unexpected life-altering friendships, the power of finding ourselves in the moment, and the importance of forgiving ourselves when we inevitably mess everything up. It’s 1991. Em moved to New York City for excitement and possibility, but the big city isn’t quite what she thought it would be. Working as a literary agent’s assistant, she’s down to her last nineteen dollars but has made two close friends: Emily, a firebrand theater director living in a Lower East Side squat, and Lucy, a middle-aged novelist and single mom. Em’s life revolves around these two wildly different women and their vividly disparate yet equally assured views of art and the world. But who is Em, and what does she want to become? It's 2004. Em is now Emily, a successful book editor, happily married and barely coping with the challenges of a new baby. And suddenly Lucy and Emily return to her life: Her old friend Lucy's posthumous book needs a publisher, and her ex-friend Emily wants to rekindle their relationship. As they did once before, these two women—one dead, one very alive—force Emily to reckon with her decisions, her failures, and what kind of creative life she wants to lead. A sharp, reflective, and funny story of a young woman coming into herself and struggling to find her place, Vintage Contemporaries is a novel about art, parenthood, loyalty, and fighting for a cause—the times we do the right thing, and the times we fail—set in New York City on both sides of the millennium.

Amy Poeppel brings her signature “big-hearted, charming” (The Washington Post) style to this wise and joyful novel that celebrates love, hate, and all of the glorious absurdity in between. In the heart of Greenwich Village, three women form an accidental sorority when a baby—belonging to exactly none of them—lands on their collective doorstep. Lauren and her family—lucky bastards—have been granted the use of a spectacular brownstone, teeming with history and dizzyingly unattractive 70s wallpaper. Adding to the home’s bohemian, grungy splendor is the bar occupying the basement, a (mostly) beloved dive called The Sweet Spot. Within days of moving in, Lauren discovers that she has already made an enemy in the neighborhood by inadvertently sparking the divorce of a couple she has never actually met. Melinda’s husband of thirty years has dumped her for a young celebrity entrepreneur named Felicity, and, to Melinda’s horror, the lovebirds are soon to become parents. In her incandescent rage, Melinda wreaks havoc wherever she can, including in Felicity’s Soho boutique, where she has a fit of epic proportions, which happens to be caught on film.​ Olivia—the industrious twenty-something behind the counter, who has big dreams and bigger debt—gets caught in the crossfire. In an effort to diffuse Melinda’s temper, Olivia has a tantrum of her own and gets unceremoniously canned, thanks to TikTok. When Melinda’s ex follows his lover across the country, leaving their squalling baby behind, the three women rise to the occasion in order to forgive, to forget, to Ferberize, and to track down the wayward parents. But can their little village find a way toward the happily ever afters they all desire? Welcome to The Sweet Spot.

The acclaimed author of The Teller of Secrets returns with a gut-wrenching, yet heartwarming, story about a young Ghanaian woman’s struggle to make a life in the US, and the challenges she must overcome. Lola is twenty-one, and her life in Senegal couldn’t be better. An aspiring writer and university graduate, she has a great job, a nice apartment, a vibrant social life, and a future filled with possibility. But fate disrupts her world when she falls for Armand, an American Marine stationed at the U.S. Embassy. Her mother, a high court judge in Ghana, disapproves of her choice, but nothing will stop Lola from boarding a plane for Armand and America. That fateful flight is only the beginning of an extraordinary journey; she has traded her carefree existence in Senegal for the perilous position of an undocumented immigrant in 1990s America. Lola encounters adversity that would crush a less-determined woman. Her fate hangs on whether or not she’ll grow in courage to forge a different life from one she’d imagined, whether she’ll succeed in putting herself and family together again. Daughter in Exile is a hope-filled story about mother love, resilience, and unyielding strength.

Three years after the Revolution, Tehran looks like a boneyard. Shahed has returned from California to his homeland to face the ghost of his father, to find out who betrayed him as a child, to recover something that might make him feel alive. Witnessing the brutalities of militant fundamentalists, he wishes his exuberant hustler of a father were alive again to kick the mullahs and their vicious crusade out of Iran. Shahed conjures up his life as a twelve-year-old, superimposing on the grim streets the bizarre exploits of his lusty father and his crazy cohorts in the days of the Shah. He sees again his long-suffering mother, Uncle E the opium addict, the massive butcher, Taj the idiot . . . and most vividly of all the seductress Houri, tantalizing nymph of his childhood fantasies. Now he must weigh the past, its dreams and crimes, excitement and betrayal, against the desolation of the present. Mehrdad Balali combines a gripping father-son rivalry with a stark contrast of Iran under the Shah, and in the troubled years following the Revolution. Islamic culture unfolds through details of family relations, feasts and rites, circumcision, women' s roles and the vibrancy of everyday life for the poor in a country with thousands of years of history. Houri brings alive an alien milieu few Americans understand the subjection of an entire country to the horrors of religious fundamentalist rule. Yet it portrays a universal story older than nations: that of the bitter struggle and harsh love between father and son.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Very funny—think Bridget Jones meets ‘Broad City’. . . . Heisey is making a career out of guiding characters through the kinds of crises we can laugh at and sympathize with all at once, while upending enough rom-com tropes to keep things interesting.” – Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times “One of the most hilarious and barbed accounts of unexpectedly starting over I’ve ever read. . . . If you’ve ever felt lost and hoped that it was leading towards wisdom, Really Good, Actually is your novel.” — Stephanie Danler, New York Times bestselling author of Sweetbitter Recommended by Los Angeles Times • Washington Post • GQ • Elle • Good Morning America • People • Guardian • The Times • E! News Online • The Globe and Mail • Toronto Star • The Week • New York Post • Shondaland • and many more! A hilarious and painfully relatable debut novel about one woman’s messy search for joy and meaning in the wake of an unexpected breakup, from comedian, essayist, and award-winning screenwriter Monica Heisey Maggie is fine. She’s doing really good, actually. Sure, she’s broke, her graduate thesis on something obscure is going nowhere, and her marriage only lasted 608 days, but at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new life as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée™. Now she has time to take up nine hobbies, eat hamburgers at 4 am, and “get back out there” sex-wise. With the support of her tough-loving academic advisor, Merris; her newly divorced friend, Amy; and her group chat (naturally), Maggie barrels through her first year of single life, intermittently dating, occasionally waking up on the floor and asking herself tough questions along the way. Laugh-out-loud funny and filled with sharp observations, Really Good, Actually is a tender and bittersweet comedy that lays bare the uncertainties of modern love, friendship, and our search for that thing we like to call “happiness”. This is a remarkable debut from an unforgettable new voice in fiction. “A prime example of how a storyteller's voice can pull you right in and keep you clinging to every sentence. . . . This is a book I will give to my closest girlfriends and say, ‘You have to read this.’” — Zibby Owens, GoodMorningAmerica.com “Tremendously funny and thoughtful.” –GQ 

From bestselling author Laura Zigman comes a heartfelt novel about two offbeat and newly divorced sisters who move in together as adults—and finally reckon with their childhood A year after her divorce, Joyce is settling into being single again. She likes her job archiving family photos and videos, and she’s developed a secret comforting hobby: trolling the neighborhood social networking site, Small World, for posts that help solve life’s easiest problems. When her older sister, Lydia, also divorced, calls to tell her she’s moving back east from Los Angeles after almost thirty years away, Joyce invites Lydia to move into her Cambridge apartment. Temporarily. Just until she finds a place of her own. But their unlikely cohabitation—not helped by annoying new neighbors upstairs—turns out to be the post-divorce rebound relationship Joyce hadn’t planned on. Instead of forging the bond she always dreamed of having with Lydia, their relationship frays. And they rarely discuss the loss of their sister, Eleanor, who was significantly disabled and died when she was only ten years old. When new revelations from their family’s history come to light, will those secrets further split them apart, or course correct their connection for the future? Written with wry humor and keen sensitivity, Small World is a powerful novel of sisterhood and hope—a reminder that sometimes you have to look back in order to move ahead. 

Inspired by her own family's experiences following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Susanne Pari explores the entangled lives within an Iranian American family grappling with generational culture clashes, the roles imposed on women, and a tragic accident that forces them to reconcile their guilt or forfeit their already tenuous bonds. Set between San Francisco and New Jersey in the late-1990s, In the Time of Our History is a story about the universal longing to create a home in this world—and what happens when we let go of how we've always been told it should look. Twelve months after her younger sister Anahita's death, Mitra Jahani reluctantly returns to her parents' home in suburban New Jersey to observe the Iranian custom of "The One Year." Ana is always in Mitra's heart, though they chose very different paths. While Ana, sweet and dutiful, bowed to their domineering father's demands and married, Mitra rebelled, and was banished. Caught in the middle is their mother, Shireen, torn between her fierce love for her surviving daughter and her loyalty to her husband. Yet his callousness even amid shattering loss has compelled her to rethink her own decades of submission. And when Mitra is suddenly forced to confront hard truths about her sister's life, mother and daughter reach a new understanding—and forge an unexpected path forward.