Kel Saren, body double to Conor, crown prince of the dazzling city of Castellane, is caught between two worlds. In order to protect his beloved prince, Kel must find the culprits responsible for a massacre at the royal palace --- and the only clues are held by the Ragpicker King, the notorious criminal who rules Castellane’s underworld. The trail Kel follows leads back to the Hill, where a dark conspiracy to destroy the royal family has taken hold --- a conspiracy headed up by the monstrous Artal Gremont, the man engaged to marry the woman Kel adores. Meanwhile, to save the life of a dying friend, Lin Caster has falsely claimed to be the Goddess Reborn. Now the terrifying leader of her people has arrived to test her powers. The price of failure is exile, and only through her alliance with the Ragpicker King can she continue to access the magic that may save her.
Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar. An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic newspaper columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers.
Naema, an elderly princess dedicated to her pet causes, is in a bind. Struck by a malady that maroons her in Montreux, she’s unable to host an exclusive gala dinner in Berlin to honor author Masud al-Huzeil for his lifetime achievement in Arabic literature. Not only is she unable to attend, RSVPs have been slow to materialize. Masud invites his old friend Demian, a native Berliner, who in turn invites his two best friends: the troubled, innocent Livia and an American publisher, Toto. But Toto doesn’t come alone. In tow are his younger internet date and Demian’s 15-year-old daughter, Nicole. Not to mention the cop who’s been trailing Nicole since she left the red-light district. Presiding over the affair is Naema’s infinitely rich, endlessly disaffected grandson, Prince Radi, whose pass at Nicole culminates in an epic midnight food run that changes all their lives.
Tony Malik, a half-Irish, half-Arab FBI agent based in New York, specializes in tracking money from drug and arms deals. His life takes a dramatic turn when a long-term relationship ends and his job hangs in the balance. Amid personal turmoil, Malik becomes intrigued by his Palestinian father's past. He decides to visit his ancestral homeland for his niece's wedding, accepting a seemingly simple FBI assignment along the way. Upon arrival in Gaza, Malik's world is upended when the Israeli police chief is murdered. Initially a suspect, Malik's investigative prowess soon earns him a place in the Israeli investigation. At the heart of the story is Malik's complex relationship with Yossi, the hardline anti-Arab Israeli police officer leading the case.
Noah has been losing his polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years. So when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening” is here, he assumes it’s related to one of her many conspiracy theories. But when his phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles and his parents locked in a terrifying trancelike state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it. Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him. But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart --- literally --- as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend glued to a screen.
THE ANTIDOTE opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing --- not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought but beneath its own violent histories. Karen Russell’s novel follows a "Prairie Witch,” whose body serves as a bank vault for people's memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.
Virginia, 1864. Libby Steadman’s husband has been away for so long that she can barely conjure his voice in her dreams. While she longs for him in the night, fearing him dead in a Union prison camp, her days are spent running a gristmill with her teenage niece, a hired hand and his wife. It’s an uneasy life in the Shenandoah Valley, and Libby awakens every morning expecting to see her land a battlefield. And then she finds a gravely injured Union officer left for dead in a neighbor’s house. Captain Jonathan Weybridge of the Vermont Brigade is her enemy --- but he’s also a human being, and Libby must make a terrible decision: Does she leave him to die alone? Or does she risk treason and try to nurse him back to health? And if she succeeds, does she try to secretly bring him across Union lines, where she might negotiate a trade for news of her own husband?
Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it, slept in your house for hours on end, and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality. RAISING HARE chronicles their journey together, while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature and folklore.
Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until --- betrayed and brokenhearted --- she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America --- but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.
Sara has just landed at LAX when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for 21 days. The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass, and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.
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Coming Soon
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May's Books on Screen roundup includes the series premieres of "The Better Sister" on Prime Video, "Dept. Q" and "Forever" on Netflix, and "Miss Austen" on PBS "Masterpiece"; the season premieres of Hulu's "Nine Perfect Strangers," Max's "And Just Like That..." and AMC's "The Walking Dead: Dead City"; the series finales of "The Handmaid's Tale" on Hulu and "The Last Anniversary" on Sundance Now and AMC+; the season finales of CBS's "Tracker" and "Watson," as well as ABC's "Will Trent"; the films Juliet & Romeo and Fear Street: Prom Queen; and the DVD/Blu-ray releases of Captain America: Brave New World, Mickey 17 and Being Maria.