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After Anna
by Lisa Scottoline
Marrying a wonderful woman after years of loneliness and single fatherhood, John finds his newfound happiness turned upside-down by the arrival of his beautiful sociopath teen daughter, whose campaign to destroy their family and untimely murder force John to prove his innocence in the face of malevolent discoveries.
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All the ever afters : the untold story of Cinderella's stepmother
by Danielle Teller
"In the vein of Wicked, The Woodcutter, and Boy, Snow, Bird, a luminous reimagining of a classic tale, told from the perspective of Agnes, Cinderella's "evil" stepmother. We all know the story of Cinderella. Or do we? As rumors about the cruel upbringingof beautiful newlywed Princess Cinderella roil the kingdom, her stepmother, Agnes, who knows all too well about hardship, privately records the true story. A peasant born into serfdom, Agnes is separated from her family and forced into servitude as a laundress's apprentice when she is only ten years old. Using her wits and ingenuity, she escapes her tyrannical matron and makes her way toward a hopeful future. When teenaged Agnes is seduced by an older man and becomes pregnant, she is transformed by love for her child. Once again left penniless, Agnes has no choice but to return to servitude at the manor she thought she had left behind. Her new position is nursemaid to Ella, an otherworldly infant. She struggles to love the child who in time becomes her stepdaughter and, eventually, the celebrated princess who embodies everyone's unattainable fantasies. The story of their relationship reveals that nothing is what it seems, that beauty is not always desirable, and that love can take on many guises. Lyrically told, emotionally evocative, and brilliantly perceptive, All the Ever Afters explores the hidden complexities that lie beneath classic tales of good and evil, all the while showing us that how we confront adversity reveals a more profound, and ultimately more important, truth than the ideal of "happily ever after.""
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The cast : a novel
by Danielle Steel
"#1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel follows a talented and creative woman as she launches her first television series, helping to recruit an unforgettable cast that will bring a dramatic family saga to the screen. Kait Whittier has built her magazine column into a hugely respected read followed by fans across the country. She loves her work and adores her grown children, treasuring the time they spend together. But after two marriages, she prefers to avoid the complications and uncertainties of a new love. Then, after a chance meeting with Zack Winter, a television producer visiting Manhattan from Los Angeles, everything changes. Inspired by the true story of her own indomitable grandmother, Kait creates the storyline for a TV series. And when she shares her work with Zack, he is impressed and decides to make this his next big-budget project. Within weeks, Kait is plunged into a colorful world of actors and industry pros who will bring her vision to life. A cool, competent director. An eccentric young screenwriter. A world-famous actress coping with private tragedy. A reclusive grande dame from Hollywood's Golden Age. A sizzling starlet whose ego outstrips her abilities. L.A.'s latest "bad boy" actor, whose affairs are setting the city on fire. An unknown ingenue with outsized talent. And a rugged, legendary leading man. As secrets are shared, the cast becomes a second family for Kait. But in the midst of this charmed year, she is suddenly forced to confront the greatest challenge a mother could ever know. The strength of women--across generations and among friends, colleagues, and family--takes center stage in this irresistible novel, as all-too-real people find the courage to persevere in life's drama of heartbreak and joy"
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Covert game
by Christine Feehan
When one of the world's leading experts on artificial intelligence is captured by a criminal mastermind, a GhostWalker assassin desperate to escape from the demons of his past embarks on what could prove to be a suicide mission. By the best-selling author of the Shadow Riders series.
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The crooked staircase : a Jane Hawk novel
by Dean R. Koontz
"Jane Hawk--who dazzled readers in The Silent Corner and The Whispering Room--faces the fight of her life, against the threat of a lifetime in this electrifying new thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling suspense master Dean Koontz. "I could be dead tomorrow. Or something worse than dead." Jane Hawk knows she may be living on borrowed time. But as long as she's breathing, she'll never cease her one-woman war against the terrifying conspiracy that threatens the freedom--and free will--of millions. Battling the strange epidemic of murder-suicides that claimed Jane's husband, and is escalating across the country, has made the rogue FBI agent a wanted fugitive, relentlessly hunted not only by the government but by the secret cabal behind the plot. Deploying every resource their malign nexus of power and technology commands, Jane's enemies are determined to see her dead. or make her wish she was. Jane's ruthless pursuers can't stop her from drawing a bead on her prey: a cunning man with connections inhigh places, a twisted soul of unspeakable depths with an army of professional killers on call. Propelled by her righteous fury and implacable insistence on justice, Jane will make her way from southern California to the snow-swept slopes of Lake Tahoe to confront head-on the lethal forces arrayed against her. But nothing can prepare her for the chilling truth that awaits when she descends the crooked staircase to the dark and dreadful place where her long nightmare was born. PRAISE FOR DEAN KOONTZ'S JANE HAWK NOVELS "Gripping. The paranoia and mystery increase as the story unfolds. Koontz has created such a wonderful character in Jane Hawk that. readers will clamor for more. Koontz rocks it again."--Associated Press "Vintage Dean Koontz: paranoia-fueled suspense. sleek and highly realized action, developed characters, and more twists and turns than any two ordinary novels combined. as relevant to current events as it is audacious. amongst Dean Koontz's finest contemporary work."--Mystery Scene"Perhaps Koontz's leanest, meanest thriller, [The Silent Corner] introduces a smart, appealing heroine who can outthink as well as outshoot the baddest of bad dudes."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"
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Feast days
by Ian Mackenzie
A young wife relocates with her financier husband to SĂ´ Paulo, where she encounters crime, protests, refugees, gentrification and the collision of art and commerce while confronting the crisis slowly building inside her own marriage.
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The ghost notebooks : a novel
by Ben Dolnick
After accepting a job as the live-in director of a museum dedicated to an obscure 19th-century philosopher in a remote, upstate New York town, Hannah and her husband begin experiencing strange events, culminating in her disappearance.
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The girl who never read Noam Chomsky : a novel
by Jana Casale
A college student's procrastination over reading a Noam Chomsky novel becomes a metaphor throughout subsequent decades of milestones that reflect the disparity between the carefully planned life she wants and the person she is really meant to be. A first novel.
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The glitch : a novel
by Elisabeth Cohen
"A fast, funny, deeply hilarious debut--The Glitch is the story of a high-profile, TED-talking, power-posing Silicon Valley CEO and mother of two who has it all under control, until a woman claiming to be a younger version of herself appears, causing a major glitch in her over-scheduled, over-staffed, over-worked life. Shelley Stone might be a little overwhelmed. She runs the company Conch, the manufacturer of a small wearable device that attaches to the user's ear and whispers helpful advice and prompts. She's married with two small children, Nova and Blazer, both of whom are learning Mandarin. She employs a cook, a nanny, a driver, and an assistant, she sets an alarm for 2AM conference calls, and occasionally takes a standing nap while waiting in linewhen she's really exhausted. Shelley takes Dramamine so she can work in the car; allows herself ten almonds when hungry; swallows Ativan to stave off the panic attacks; and makes notes in her day planner to "practice being happy and relatable." But when Shelley meets a young woman named Shelley Stone who has the exact same scar on her shoulder, Shelley has to wonder: Is some sort of corporate espionage afoot? Has she discovered a hole in the space-time continuum? Or is she finally buckling under all the pressure? Introducing one of the most memorable and singular characters in recent fiction, The Glitch is a completely original, brainy, laugh-out-loud story of work, marriage, and motherhood for our times"
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The Gunners : a novel
by Rebecca Kauffman
Reconnecting with a group of childhood friends after one of them committed suicide, Mikey needs to confront dark secrets from his past involving his father to assess how much of this is impacting his current emotional stupor.
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The high season : a novel
by Judy Blundell
"The ultimate summer read--featuring indelible characters, crackling wit, and sophisticated storytelling--about one season when everything in a woman's life goes wrong On Memorial Day weekend in a seaside town on Long Island, Ruthie, her still-adored ex-husband, Mike, and the couple's sullen fifteen-year-old daughter, Jem, are packing up the last bits of their household in preparation for the yearly arrival of a wealthy renter from Manhattan. It is what Jem calls "the summer bummer"; her parents own a beautiful house that they have renovated by hand from top to bottom, but which they can only afford to keep by leasing it out during the best part of the year.Soon Ruthie's relationship with Mike seems about to disappear for good. The job she loves, as theunderpaid and undervalued director of the local arts museum, is under siege from a coterie of rich women from the city, who want to use it as an opportunity for social climbing. An old flame who once broke her heart and betrayed her is back on the scene,causing Ruthie to re-evaluate their romance. And in the midst of it all, her teenage daughter Jem could be involved in a dangerous and destructive relationship of her own.This is a novel about the dreams and ambitions of youth coming to terms with the realities of middle-age; about the way desperation can make us astonish ourselves; and about how the most disruptive events in our lives can sometimes twist endings into new beginnings"
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How hard can it be?
by Allison Pearson
"Allison Pearson's brilliant debut novel, I Don't Know How She Does It, was a New York Times bestseller with four million copies sold around the world. Called "the definitive social comedy of working motherhood" (The Washington Post) and "a hysterical look--in both the laughing and crying senses of the world--at the life of Supermom" (The New York Times), I Don't Know How She Does It introduced Kate Reddy, a woman as sharp as she was funny. As Oprah Winfrey put it, Kate's story became "the national anthem for working mothers." Seven years later, Kate Reddy is facing her 50th birthday. Her children have turned into impossible teenagers; her mother and in-laws are in precarious health; and her husband is having a midlife crisis that leaves her desperate torestart her career after years away from the workplace. Once again, Kate is scrambling to keep all the balls in the air in a juggling act that an early review from the U.K. Express hailed as "sparkling, funny, and poignant...a triumphant return for Pearson." Will Kate reclaim her rightful place at the very hedge fund she founded, or will she strangle in her new "shaping" underwear? Will she rekindle an old flame, or will her house burn to the ground when a rowdy mob shows up for her daughter's surprise (to her parents) Christmas party? Surely it will all work out in the end. After all, how hard can it be?"
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Limelight : a novel
by Amy Poeppel
"In a smart and funny new novel by the author of the critically acclaimed, "big-hearted, charming" (The Washington Post) Small Admissions, a family's move to New York City brings surprises and humor as their lives merge with the captivating world of Broadway. Allison Brinkley--wife, mother, and former unflappable optimist--discovers that a carefully weighed decision to pack up and move her family from suburban Dallas to the glittery chaos of Manhattan may have been more complicated than she and her husband initially thought. Allison learns that New York is unruly and bewildering, defying the notions she developed from romantic movies and a memorable childhood visit. After a humiliating call from the principal's office and the loss of the job she was counting on, Allison begins to accept that New York may not suit her after all. When Allison has a fender-bender, witnessed by a flock of mothers at her son's new school, she is led to the penthouse apartment of a luxurious Central Park West building and encounters a spoiled, hungover, unsupervised teenager who looks familiar. It doesn't take long to recognize him as Carter Reid--a famous pop star who has been cast in a new Broadway musical. Through this brush with stardom, Allison embraces a unique and unexpected opportunity that helps her find her way in the heart of Manhattan. In a book that delivers laughs, warmth, and delightful wish fulfillment, Poeppel dives into celebrity culture and modern motherhood with her trademark "quick-witted and razor-sharp" (Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Maybe in Another Life) style"
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London rules
by Mick Herron
"London Rules might not be written down, but everyone knows rule one: Cover your arse. At MI5 headquarters Regent's Park, First Desk Claude Whelan is learning this the hard way. Tasked with protecting a beleaguered prime minister, he's facing attack fromall directions himself: from the showboating MP who orchestrated the Brexit vote, and now has his sights set on Number Ten; from the showboat's wife, a tabloid columnist, who's crucifying Whelan in print; from the PM's favorite Muslim, who's about to be elected mayor of the West Midlands, despite the dark secret he's hiding; and especially from his own deputy, Lady Di Taverner, who's alert for Claude's every stumble. Meanwhile, the country's being rocked by an apparently random string of terror attacks. Over at Slough House, the MI5 satellite office for outcast and demoted spies, the agents are struggling with personal problems: repressed grief, various addictions, retail paralysis, and the nagging suspicion that their newest colleague is a psychopath. Plus someone is trying to kill Roddy Ho. But collectively, they're about to rediscover their greatest strength - that of making a bad situation much, much worse"
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Our little secret : a novel
by Roz Nay
The interrogation-weary, longtime ex of a man whose wife has gone missing imparts the story of their relationship a decade earlier to a criminologist who appears to be the first person who believes her, an account that raises troubling possibilities about a group of retribution-seeking suspects.
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Overkill : an Alex Hawke novel
by Ted Bell
"Putting it all on the line to rescue his kidnapped son pits counterspy Alex Hawke against Russian President Vladimir Putin in this action-packed thriller from New York Times bestselling author Ted Bell. On a ski vacation in the Swiss Alps high above St.Moritz, Alex Hawke and his young son, Alexei, are thrust into danger when the tram carrying them to the top of the mountain bursts into flame, separating the two. Before he can reach Alexei, the boy is snatched from the burning cable car by unknown assailants in a helicopter. Meanwhile, high above the skies of France, Vladimir Putin is aboard his presidential jet after escaping a bloodless coup in the Kremlin. When two flight attendants collapse and slip into unconsciousness, the Russian leader realizes the danger isn't over. Killing the pilots, he grabs a parachute, steps out of the plane. and disappears. Hawke has led his share of dangerous assignments, but none with stakes this high. To save his son, he summons his trusted colleagues, Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard Ambrose Congreve, former U.S. Navy SEAL Stokley Jones, Jr., and recruits a crack Hostage Rescue Team--a group of elite soldiers of fortune known as "Thunder & Lighting." Before they can devise a rescue plan, Hawke must figure out who took his boy--and why. An operative who has fought antagonists around the globe, Hawke has made many enemies; one in particular may hold the key to finding Alexei before it's too late. But an unexpected threat complicates their mission. Making his way to "Falcon's Lair," the former Nazi complex created for Hitler, Putin is amassing an impressive armory that he intends to use for his triumphant return to Moscow. Only one man can smash the Russian president's plan for domination--a master counterspy who will cross every line to save his son. and maybe save the world itself in the bargain"
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Paper ghosts : a novel of suspense
by Julia Heaberlin
"A gripping thriller about a man who may or may not have dementia--and who may or may not be a serial killer--from a master of twists and turns, in the tradition of Laura Lippman and Gillian Flynn An obsessive young woman has been waiting half her life--since she was twelve years old--for this moment. She has planned. Researched. Trained. Imagined every scenario. Now she is almost certain the man who kidnapped and murdered her sister sits in the passenger seat beside her. Carl Louis Feldman is a documentary photographer. The young woman claims to be his long-lost daughter.He doesn't believe her. He claims no memory of murdering girls across Texas, in a string of places where he shot eerie pictures. She doesn't believe him. Determined to find the truth, she lures him out of a halfway house and proposes a dangerous idea: a ten-day road trip, just the two of them, to examine cold cases linked to his haunting photographs. Is he a liar or a broken old man? Is he a pathological con artist? Or is she? Julia Heaberlin once again swerves the serial killer genre in a new direction. With taut, captivating prose, Heaberlin deftly explores the ghosts that live in our minds--and the ones that stare back from photographs. You won't see the final, terrifying twist spinning your way until the very last mile. Praise for Black-Eyed Susans "A masterful thriller. brilliantly conceived, beautifully executed. [Julia] Heaberlin's work calls to mind that of Gillian Flynn. Both writers published impressive early novels that were largely overlooked, and then one that couldn't be: Flynn's Gone Girl and now Heaberlin's Black-Eyed Susans. Don't miss it."--The Washington Post "[A] gem of a novel. richly textured, beautifully written. The plot twists feel earned as well as genuinely surprising."--The Boston Globe "A tense, slow-burning, beautifully written novel of survival and hope."--William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob "Deliciously twisty and eerie, Heaberlin's third psychological suspense novel is intricately layered and instantly compelling."--Library Journal (starred review) "A breakout book."--Fort Worth Star-Telegram "Breathtakingly, heart-stoppingly brilliant."--Sophie Hannah, New York Times bestselling author of The Monogram Murders "A terrific plot, matched by the quality of the writing and superbly paced tension."--The Times (U.K.)"
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The recipe box : a novel
by Viola Shipman
When her efforts to pursue a professional culinary life away from her family's northern Michigan orchard end in disappointment, Sam spends a summer working for the family pie shop and begins to learn about and understand the women in her life, her family's history and her passion for food as she prepares beloved ancestral recipes. By the best-selling author of The Charm Bracelet.
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Shadow child
by Rahna R Rizzuto
"A haunting and suspenseful literary tale set in 1970s New York City and World War II-era Japan, about three strong women, the dangerous ties of family and identity, and the long shadow our histories can cast"
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Sociable : a novel
by Rebecca Harrington
Discovering her talent for writing viral fluff pieces, a young reporter sets aside her former ambition to become a serious journalist and becomes an overnight sensation before the realities of fame and low income compel her to reevaluate her perspectives about creativity and happiness.
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Social creature : a novel
by Tara Isabella Burton
"A sharp, biting, and irresistible debut about parties and ambition in New York City--introducing a talented Mr. Ripley for the digital age, with all the glitz and grit of Bright Lights, Big City. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Louise Wilson is an expert at just barely making it. She's mastered the tricks and shortcuts that a penniless small-town girl needs to survive in New York City. When she meets the beautiful, wealthy, eccentric, and aimless Lavinia Williams, she thinks her dreams of a cosmopolitan existence may be coming true. Lavinia introduces her to a rarified life of beauty and indulgence: private opera boxes, secret bookstores in brownstones, Shakespearean masked balls, underground cabarets, closets full of hundreds of dresses, and the finest champagne money can buy. The more Louise tastes, the more she wants. Could she ever truly be a part of this world? She can speak with the right affectation, wear the best makeup, drop the appropriate references, but she is always afraid people can see her true nature, which is darker than anyone can imagine. She finds herself haunted by the disparity between them. Lavinia has so much, and Louise so little, despite her yearning. Nightlife--the music, the buzz, the dim lights--is the great equalizer. But morning always comes, and Louise will do whatever it takes to keep the party going. This delicious debut takes a classic tale of obsession and makes it undeniably modern"
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Summer hours at the Robbers Library : a novel
by Sue Halpern
A head librarian who would leave behind the painful realities of her suburbia past unexpectedly bonds with a teenager performing community service, a disgruntled former Wall Street high flyer and other offbeat regulars who encourage her out of her self-imposed isolation. By the author of A Dog Walked Into a Nursing Home. 20,000 first printing.
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There there : a novel
by Tommy Orange
"Not since Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine has such a powerful and urgent Native American voice exploded onto the landscape of contemporary fiction. Tommy Orange's There There introduces abrilliant new author at the start of a major career. "We all came to the powwow for different reasons. The messy, dangling threads of our lives got pulled into a braid--tied to the back of everything we'd been doing all along to get us here. There will be death and playing dead, there will be screams and unbearable silences, forever-silences, and a kind of time-travel, at the moment the gunshots start, when we look around and see ourselves as we are, in our regalia, and something in our blood will recoil then boil hot enough to burn through time and place and memory. We'll go back to where we came from, when we were people running from bullets at the end of that old world. The tragedy of it all will be unspeakable, that we've been fighting for decades to be recognized as a present-tense people, modern and relevant, only to die in the grass wearing feathers." Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame in Oakland. Dene Oxedrene is pulling his life together after his uncle's death and has come to work the powwow and to honor his uncle's memory. Edwin Frank has come to find his true father. Bobby Big Medicine has come to drum the Grand Entry. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather; Orvil has taught himself Indian dance through YouTube videos, and he has come to the Big Oakland Powwow to dance in public for the very first time. Tony Loneman is a young Native American boy whose future seems destined to be as bleak as his past, and he has come to the Powwow with darker intentions--intentions that will destroy the lives of everyone in his path. Fierce, angry, funny, groundbreaking--Tommy Orange's first novel is a wondrous and shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen. There There is a multi-generational, relentlessly paced story about violence and recovery, hope and loss, identity and power, dislocation and communion, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people. A glorious, unforgettable debut"
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Charmed bones : A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery
by Carolyn Haines
"The next charming mystery from Carolyn Haines featuring spunky southern private investigator Sarah Booth Delaney. Private detective Sarah Booth Delaney doesn't quite know what to expect when she's urgently called to a school board meeting for Sunflower County, Mississippi. But she certainly wasn't expecting this: three Wiccan sisters are in the midst of a showdown with the Board of Education. They want to open a Wiccan school in Zinnia, Mississippi, and the conservative town vows to do anything necessary to stop them from opening their school. Sarah Booth and her partner in the detective agency, Tinkie Bellcase, are quickly enlisted to investigate the Wiccan sisters' real reasons for coming to town. Sarah Booth learns the sisters have rented a manor house and land from a reclusive local artist, Trevor Musgrove. But the case takes on a far more serious tone when Trevor Musgrove is found dead, and all evidence seems to point directly at the witch sisters"
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A death of no importance : A Mystery
by Mariah Fredericks
A highly skilled ladies' maid working among in the upper echelons of 1910 New York society uses her insider knowledge of her entitled employer's family to investigate the class-driven case of her mistress' brutally murdered playboy fiancé. A first adult novel by the author of The Girl in the Park
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The Fleur de Sel murders : a Brittany mystery
by Jean-Luc Bannalec
Commissaire Dupin is attacked while on vacation in the “white country” during harvest time on the salt marshes and investigates after a journalist friend goes missing, in the third novel of the series, following Murder on Brittany Shores
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Murder on Union Square
by Victoria Thompson
"When a murder hits close to home, Frank finds himself in an unusual position--the prime suspect in the latest installment of the national bestselling Gaslight Mystery series... Frank and Sarah Malloy are enjoying married life and looking to make their family official by adopting Catherine, the child Sarah rescued and has been raising as her daughter. The newlyweds soon discover, Parnell Vaughn, an actor and Catherine's legal father, is looking to fatten his pockets by insisting on a financial settlement to relinquish his parental rights. Even though exchanging money for a child is illegal, Frank and Sarah's love for Catherine drives them to take a chance. When Frank returns with the money and finds Vaughn beaten to death, all evidence points to Frank as the culprit. A relatively unsuccessful actor with no money and little promise, Vaughn seems at first to be an unlikely candidate for murder--particularly such a violent crime of passion--but Frank soon uncovers backstage intrigue as dramatic as any that appears on stage. Sarah and Frank must use all of their resources to investigate Vaughn's death as Frank's own life hangs in the balance"
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Robert B. Parker's old black magic : a Spencer novel
by Ace Atkins
"Iconic, tough-but-tender Boston PI Spenser delves into the black market art scene to investigate a decades-long unsolved crime of dangerous proportions. The heist was legendary, still talked about twenty years after the priceless paintings disappeared from one of Boston's premier art museums. Most thought the art was lost forever, buried deep, sold off overseas, or, worse, destroyed as incriminating evidence. But when paint chips from the most valuable piece stolen, Gentlemen in Black by a Spanish master, arrives at the desk of a Boston journalist, the museum finds hope and enlists Spenser's help. Soon the cold art case thrusts Spenser into the shady world of black market art dealers, aged Mafia bosses, and old vendettas. A five-million-dollar-reward bythe museum's top benefactor, an aged, unlikable Boston socialite, sets Spenser and pals Vinnie Morris and Hawk onto a trail of hidden secrets, jailhouse confessions, and decades-old murders. Set against the high-society art scene and the low-life back alleys of Boston, this is classic Spenser doing what he does best"
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What you want to see : A Roxane Weary Novel
by Kristen Lepionka
"The thrilling follow up to The Last Place You Look, starring troubled and determined private investigator, Roxane Weary Marin Strasser has a secret. Her fiancé thinks her secret is that she's having an affair, and he hires P.I. Roxane Weary to prove it.Then, just days into the case, Marin is shot to death on a side street in an apparent mugging. But soon enough the police begin to focus on Roxane's client for Marin's death, so she starts to dig deeper into Marin's life--discovering that the elegant woman she's been following has a past and a half, including two previous marriages, an adult son fresh out of prison, and a criminal record of her own. The trail leads to a crew of con artists, an ugly real estate scam that defrauds unsuspecting elderly homeowners out of their property, and the suspicious accident of a wealthy older woman who lives just down the street from where Marin was killed. With Roxane's client facing a murder indictment, the scammers hit close to home to force Roxane to drop the case, and it becomes clear that the stakes are as high as the secrets run deep"
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King of ashes
by Raymond E Feist
Drawing from events in medieval history and the legend of King Arthur, the author describes the events leading up to the war between five kings. By the best-selling author of The Riftwar Cycle series.
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Space opera
by Catherynne M. Valente
"Mankind will not get to fight for its destiny. They must sing. A century ago, the Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart and nearly ended the entire concept of intelligent space-faring life. In the aftermath, a curious tradition was invented by the remnants of civilization. Something to cheer up everyone who was left. Something to celebrate having escaped total annihilation by the skin of one's teeth, if indeed one has skin. Or teeth. Something to bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity, understanding, and the most powerful of all social bonds: excluding others. Once every cycle, the great galactic civilizations gather for Galactivision--part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part, a very large, but very subtle part, continuation of the wars of the past. Thus, a fragile peace has held. This year, a bizarre and unsightly species has looked up from its muddy planet-bound cradle and noticed the enormous universe blaring on around it: humanity.Where they expected to one day reach out into space and discover a grand drama of diplomacy, gunships, wormholes, and stoic councils of grave aliens, they have found glitter. And lipstick. And pyrotechnics. And electric guitars. A band of human musicians, dancers, and roadies have been chosen to represent their planet on the greatest stage in the galaxy. And the fate of Earth lies in their ability to rock"
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Compulsory games : and other stories
by Robert Aickman
"The best and most interesting stories by Robert Aickman, a master of the supernatural tale, the uncanny, and the truly weird. Cross Henry James with M.R. James and you might end up with a writer like Robert Aickman, though his self-described "strange stories" remain confoundingly and uniquely his own. Aickman's superbly written tales terrify not with standard thrills and gore but through a radical overturning of the laws of nature and everyday life. His territory of the strange, of the "void behind the face of order," is a surreal region that grotesquely mimics the quotidian: Is that river the Thames, or is it even a river? What does it mean when a prospective lover removes one dress, and then another--and then another? Do a herd of cows in a peaceful churchyard contain the souls of jilted women preparing to trample a cruel lover to death? Published for the first time under one cover, this collection offers a generous introduction to a sophisticated, psychologically acute modernist whose achievements have too long been hidden under the cloak of genre"
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Night-gaunts and other tales of suspense
by Joyce Carol Oates
"The book opens with a woman, naked except for her high-heeled shoes, seated in front of the window in an apartment she cannot, on her own, afford. In this exquisitely tense narrative reimagining of Edward Hopper's Eleven A.M., 1926, the reader enters the minds of both the woman and her married lover, each consumed by alternating thoughts of disgust and arousal, as he rushes, amorously, murderously, to her door. In "The Long-Legged Girl," an aging, jealous wife crafts an unusual game of Russian roulette involving a pair of Wedgewood teacups, a strong Bengal brew, and a lethal concoction of medicine. Who will drink from the wrong cup, the wife or the dance student she believes to be her husband's latest conquest? In "The Sign of the Beast," when a former Sunday school teacher's corpse turns up, the blighted adolescent she had by turns petted and ridiculed confesses to her murder--but is he really responsible? Another young outsider, Horace Phineas Love, Jr., is haunted by apparitions at the very edge of the spectrum of visibility after the death of his tortured father in "Night-Gaunts," a fantastic ode to H.P. Lovecraft. Reveling in the uncanny and richly in conversation with other creative minds, Night-Gaunts and Other Tales of Suspense stands at the crossroads of sex, violence, and longing--and asks us to interrogate the intersection of these impulses within ourselves"
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Property : Stories Between Two Novellas
by Lionel Shriver
A collection of 10 short stories and two novellas by the author of the National Book Award finalist, So Much for That, is set in America and Britain and explores the dynamics of real estate and personal possessions and how they act as both revelatory proxies and the catalysts of power dynamics in relationships. 40,000 first printing
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You think it, I'll say it : stories
by Curtis Sittenfeld
The best-selling author of Eligible presents a collection of 10 short stories that features both original pieces and two previously published in the New Yorker, including "The World Has Many Butterflies," in which married acquaintances play a strangely intimate game, with devastating consequences
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