With Lucy about to leave home for university, she and her mother, Simone, depart the UK for a vacation to Texas to spend some quality time together. But when Simone awakens on their first morning in the desert, Lucy is gone. In her place is a cell phone, and a voice on the other line issues a shocking ransom demand. Don’t tell the police. Come to this location. And be prepared to do a deal. Though Simone’s husband urges her to bring in the authorities for help, she knows she can’t take any chances. So that night, she drives to the isolated meet-up. What she finds there changes everything. The mysterious kidnapper doesn’t want money. They want Simone to do something. The unthinkable. A catastrophic chain of events is set in motion, with chilling consequences that extend beyond Simone and her family. 

With Lucy about to leave home for university, she and her mother, Simone, depart the UK for a vacation to Texas to spend some quality time together. But when Simone awakens on their first morning in the desert, Lucy is gone. In her place is a cell phone, and a voice on the other line issues a shocking ransom demand. Don’t tell the police. Come to this location. And be prepared to do a deal. Though Simone’s husband urges her to bring in the authorities for help, she knows she can’t take any chances. So that night, she drives to the isolated meet-up. What she finds there changes everything. The mysterious kidnapper doesn’t want money. They want Simone to do something. The unthinkable. A catastrophic chain of events is set in motion, with chilling consequences that extend beyond Simone and her family. 

How far would you go to rescue your child? A mother races against the clock --- and finds herself on the wrong side of the law --- in a desperate fight to save her teenage daughter in this pulse-pounding thriller from the author of Reese’s Book Club pick and New York Times bestseller WRONG PLACE WRONG TIME.

There is nothing that Simone won’t do for her daughter, Lucy. The two have always been close, and with Lucy about to leave home for university, they depart the UK for a vacation to Texas to spend some quality time together. But when Simone awakens on their first morning in the desert, Lucy is gone, missing from their rental cabin. In her place is a cell phone, and a voice on the other line issues a shocking ransom demand. Don’t tell the police. Come to this location. And be prepared to do a deal.

Though Simone’s husband urges her to bring in the authorities for help, she knows she can’t take any chances. The kidnappers might kill Lucy if she tells anyone. No mother would take that risk. Instead, that night, she drives to the isolated meet-up.

What she finds there changes everything. The mysterious kidnapper doesn’t want money. They want Simone to do something. The unthinkable.

A catastrophic chain of events is set in motion, with chilling consequences that extend beyond Simone and her family. What follows is a heart-pounding journey through the small towns and punishing deserts of remote Texas, in which Simone’s courage --- and morality --- is pushed to the brink as she discovers what it truly means to be a mother.

Unbearably tense, compassionately told, and full of well-crafted moral dilemmas, CALLER UNKNOWN proves once again why Gillian McAllister’s thrillers are “the best of the best” (Lisa Jewell). 

Audiobook available, read by Juliet Rylance

Have you ever tried to pass the time by imagining the lives of the strangers standing next to you? Ilona Bannister’s FIVE introduces readers to five seemingly random people waiting for a train. But these are not just any five people. From the beginning, we know that one of them is going to die soon. The next train to London will arrive in five minutes, killing one of them. But before this happens, you will learn their stories. Readers might fall in love with the beautiful young man who is on the verge of gambling his life away. They may pity the cantankerous old woman who has fallen to the ground yet is refusing help. Perhaps readers will look away from the child throwing a tantrum. Or judge his mother, who surely must be to blame. And some will be curiously compelled by the successful and damaged businessman orbiting them all.

Have you ever tried to pass the time by imagining the lives of the strangers standing next to you? Ilona Bannister’s FIVE introduces readers to five seemingly random people waiting for a train. But these are not just any five people. From the beginning, we know that one of them is going to die soon. The next train to London will arrive in five minutes, killing one of them. But before this happens, you will learn their stories. Readers might fall in love with the beautiful young man who is on the verge of gambling his life away. They may pity the cantankerous old woman who has fallen to the ground yet is refusing help. Perhaps readers will look away from the child throwing a tantrum. Or judge his mother, who surely must be to blame. And some will be curiously compelled by the successful and damaged businessman orbiting them all.

Five lives. Five stories. Four will live, one will die. Who it will be? In this slow-burn masterpiece of psychological fiction, the choice is all yours.

Have you ever tried to pass the time by imagining the lives of the strangers standing next to you? Ilona Bannister’s FIVE introduces readers to five seemingly random people waiting for a train. But these are not just any five people. From the beginning we know that one of them is going to die soon. Very soon. In five minutes, the next train to London will arrive, killing one of them. But before this happens you will learn their stories.

None of these people are saints. Readers might fall in love with the beautiful young man who is on the verge of gambling his life away. They may pity the cantankerous old woman who has fallen to the ground yet is refusing help. Perhaps readers will look away from the child throwing a tantrum. Or judge his mother, who must surely be to blame. And some will be curiously compelled by the successful and damaged businessman orbiting them all.

These are the candidates for this morning’s misfortune. But they don’t know it. Only you know. And you, our complicit reader, will not be able to resist deciding who deserves to walk away, and who deserves only five more minutes to live.

An incredibly original novel that breaks the fourth wall and asks the reader to be judge, jury and executioner, FIVE looks at some of the most complicated issues of contemporary life: motherhood, disability, addiction. Every stranger has a story. And in Ilona Bannister’s skillful hands, five people’s stories come together to create an unforgettable novel. 

Audiobook available; read by Clare Corbett, George Naylor, Juliet Stevenson, Kristin Atherton, Marlowe Chan Reeves and Theo Solomon 

It’s 1983, and Becks can’t wait to get the hell out of Cincinnati. She’s 19, blasting her Walkman, and hiding from the fact that her beloved uncle, the only person who understood her, is dead. But she has work to do: he left her a half-finished game to complete --- one last collaboration to find her way out of loneliness. Little does she know, what Becks is making will echo far into the future and shape the lives of a scientist, a sentient automaton, and a flinty sea captain in ways she cannot imagine. All are bound together by their search for connection --- and by a futuristic traveler on a mysterious mission through space.

It’s 1983, and Becks can’t wait to get the hell out of Cincinnati. She’s 19, blasting her Walkman, and hiding from the fact that her beloved uncle, the only person who understood her, is dead. But she has work to do: he left her a half-finished game to complete --- one last collaboration to find her way out of loneliness. Little does she know, what Becks is making will echo far into the future and shape the lives of a scientist, a sentient automaton, and a flinty sea captain in ways she cannot imagine. All are bound together by their search for connection --- and by a futuristic traveler on a mysterious mission through space.

Five interlocking lives. One beloved story. A dazzling adventure across centuries and continents in search of the things that hold us together.

It’s 1983, and Becks can’t wait to get the hell out of Cincinnati. She’s 19, blasting her Walkman, and hiding from the fact that her beloved uncle, the only person who understood her, is dead. But she has work to do: he left her a half-finished game to complete --- one last collaboration to find her way out of loneliness.

Little does she know, what Becks is making will echo far into the future and shape the lives of a scientist, a sentient automaton, and a flinty sea captain in ways she cannot imagine. All are bound together by their search for connection --- and by a futuristic traveler on a mysterious mission through space.

A novel about our deep interconnectedness, HOMEBOUND is a clear-eyed, hopeful adventure into humanity’s future and capacity for love.

Audiobook available; read by Lisa Flanagan, Helen Laser, Yu-Li Alice Shen and Nancy Wu

Jayne Anne Phillips grew up in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. The distinctly American landscape of Appalachia has been the great setting for her fiction, even as she and her boundless imagination have traveled to other times and places. In these pieces, Phillips brings us into her childhood and family, most movingly her mother. She recreates the place she calls home, its foundational truths and the densely woven ties between the women of the town. She traces her journeys across the country and her discovery of writing and reading as tools for both survival and revelation, offering insights into the fellow writers and touchstones that moved and influenced her. From the local beauty salon to the legendary Hatfield–McCoy feud, Phillips ponders her relationship with inspiration, spirituality, culture, and the troubled annals of the last American centuries.

Jayne Anne Phillips grew up in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. The distinctly American landscape of Appalachia has been the great setting for her fiction, even as she and her boundless imagination have traveled to other times and places. In these pieces, Phillips brings us into her childhood and family, most movingly her mother. She recreates the place she calls home, its foundational truths and the densely woven ties between the women of the town. She traces her journeys across the country and her discovery of writing and reading as tools for both survival and revelation, offering insights into the fellow writers and touchstones that moved and influenced her. From the local beauty salon to the legendary Hatfield–McCoy feud, Phillips ponders her relationship with inspiration, spirituality, culture, and the troubled annals of the last American centuries.

A luminous memoir in essays from the Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist, who reflects on her origins and the mysteries of memory.

“The painful thing about adolescence is that everything seems absolute, and the painful thing about adulthood is that nothing does.”

Jayne Anne Phillips grew up in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. The distinctly American landscape of Appalachia --- dense with forests and small churches, rich in history and misunderstandings --- has been the great setting for her fiction, even as she and her boundless imagination have traveled to other times and places.

In these pieces, and in her inimitable first-person voice, at once intimate and wide-ranging, Phillips brings us into her childhood and family, most movingly her mother. She recreates the place she calls home, its foundational truths and the densely woven ties between the women of the town. She traces her journey across the country in search of love and work and belonging --- her discovery of writing and reading as tools for both survival and revelation --- and offers insights into the fellow writers and touchstones that moved and influenced her.

From the local beauty salon to the legendary Hatfield–McCoy feud, from Jean Shrimpton and Barbara Stanwyck to Stephen Crane and Breece D'J Pancake, Phillips ponders her relationship with inspiration, spirituality, culture, and the troubled annals of the last American centuries.

Tender, inviting, sparkling with wisdom and open-heartedness, SMALL TOWN GIRLS is part coming-of-age story, part social history, Jayne Anne Phillips’ most personal, most accessible book yet --- a love letter to the place and the people who have shaped her perceptions and her writing.

Audiobook available, read by Jayne Anne Phillips

Sara Nović’s early years were steeped in music, Bible study, and a strong desire to fit in. But when she failed her school’s mandated hearing test, her worldview was thrown into chaos. Desperate not to be marked as different, she told no one, staying in the hearing world for as long as she could by brute force. Eventually unable to ignore the fact that she was deaf, Nović sought out other deaf people and was welcomed into a tight-knit community rooted in the beauty and joy of American Sign Language. Now the mother of two young sons --- one, biological and hearing; the other, adopted and deaf --- Nović reflects on her life both before and after parenthood. Interwoven with Nović's personal story is a remarkable portrait of America through reflections on some of its most complex histories.

Sara Nović’s early years were steeped in music, Bible study, and a strong desire to fit in. But when she failed her school’s mandated hearing test, her worldview was thrown into chaos. Desperate not to be marked as different, she told no one, staying in the hearing world for as long as she could by brute force. Eventually unable to ignore the fact that she was deaf, Nović sought out other deaf people and was welcomed into a tight-knit community rooted in the beauty and joy of American Sign Language. Now the mother of two young sons --- one, biological and hearing; the other, adopted and deaf --- Nović reflects on her life both before and after parenthood. Interwoven with Nović's personal story is a remarkable portrait of America through reflections on some of its most complex histories.

The New York Times bestselling author of TRUE BIZ retraces her path out of the hearing world and into the deaf community --- and seeks to understand what it means to raise children who are different from her --- in this emotionally rich memoir.

Sara Nović’s early years were steeped in music, Bible study, and a strong desire to fit in. But when she failed her school’s mandated hearing test, her worldview was thrown into chaos. Desperate not to be marked as different, she told no one, staying in the hearing world for as long as she could by brute force.

Eventually unable to ignore the fact that she was deaf, Nović sought out other deaf people and was welcomed into a tight-knit community rooted in the beauty and joy of American Sign Language. Nović realized that rather than maintaining the facade of her old life or trying to straddle two worlds, she would need to cultivate an existence in the space between.

Now the mother of two young sons --- one, biological and hearing; the other, adopted and deaf --- Nović reflects on her life both before and after parenthood. She’s raising her children within the deaf world, offering them things her younger self needed, all the while knowing that as her children grow, their own paths will branch off from hers in ways she cannot fully predict or plan for.

Interwoven with Nović's personal story is a remarkable portrait of America through reflections on some of its most complex histories: the rise of the Christian right, the thorny world of international adoption, and, above all, the deaf and disabled communities’ stubborn survival in the face of persistent oppression.

Nović’s clear, bold voice is one readers will hold onto, learn from, argue with, and be inspired by, as she asks us to recognize difference as a source of opportunity rather than fear, as a chance to draw families and communities together, and to build something new.

Audiobook available, read by Lisa Flanagan