Hollywood powerhouse Jo is photographed making her assistant Emma laugh on the red carpet, and just like that, the tabloids declare them a couple. The so-called scandal couldn't come at a worse time --- threatening Emma's promotion and Jo's new movie. As the gossip spreads, it starts to affect all areas of their lives. Paparazzi are following them outside the office, coworkers are treating them differently, and a “source” is feeding information to the media. But their only comment is “no comment.” With the launch of Jo’s film project fast approaching, the two women begin to spend even more time together, getting along famously. They begin to realize the rumor might not be so off base after all. But is acting on the spark between them worth fanning the gossip flames?
At age 36, while serving on a jury, author Molly Wizenberg found herself drawn to a female attorney she hardly knew. Married to a man for nearly a decade and mother to a toddler, Wizenberg tried to return to her life as she knew it, but something inside her had changed irrevocably. Instead, she would discover that the trajectory of our lives is rarely as smooth or as logical as we’d like to believe. Like many of us, Wizenberg had long understood sexual orientation as a stable part of ourselves: we’re “born this way.” Suddenly she realized that her story was more complicated. Who was she, she wondered, if something at her very core could change so radically? THE FIXED STARS explores timely and timeless questions about desire, identity, and the limits and possibilities of family.
As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier’s eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined...until now. The journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing --- and too earth-shattering in its implications --- to be forgotten. In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the legendary beasts behind it. If what Kate saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us --- and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.
While on her daily walk with her dog in a secluded woods, a woman comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground by stones. "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body." But there is no dead body. With very little to go on, our narrator invents a list of murder suspects and possible motives for the crime. Oddly, her suppositions begin to find correspondences in the real world, and the fog of mystery starts to fade into menacing certainty. As her investigation widens, strange dissonances accrue, perhaps associated with the darkness in her own past. We must face the prospect that there is either an innocent explanation for all this or a much more sinister one.
It’s 1942. The Japanese have invaded Burma and are closing in on India. After five years in the remote Andaman Islands, aspiring anthropologist Claire Durant and her husband Shep, a civil surgeon, must evacuate with their beloved but mysteriously mute four-year-old, Ty. However, they cannot take Naila, the local girl whose ability to communicate with Ty has made them dangerously dependent on her. The morning of the evacuation, both children disappear. With time running out, Shep forces Claire onto the ship while he stays behind to find their son. But just days after landing in Calcutta, Claire learns that the Japanese have taken the Andamans --- and cut off all access to her missing family. In the desperate odyssey that follows, Claire, Shep and Naila will take unimaginable risks while drawing deeply from their knowledge of these unique islands to save their beloved “glorious boy.”
THE CHIFFON TRENCHES offers a candid look at the who’s who of the last 50 years of fashion. At once ruthless and empathetic, this engaging memoir tells with raw honesty the story of how André Leon Talley not only survived the brutal style landscape but thrived --- despite racism, illicit rumors, and all the other challenges of this notoriously cutthroat industry --- to become one of the most renowned voices and faces in fashion. Also woven throughout the book are André’s own personal struggles that have impacted him over the decades, along with intimate stories of those he has turned to for inspiration (Diana Vreeland, Diane von Fürstenberg and Lee Radziwill, to name a few) and, of course, his Southern roots and ongoing faith, which have guided him since childhood.
Whether it was his frank talk about player salaries and mistreatment by management, his passionate advocacy of progressive politics, or his efforts to convince the United States to boycott the 1968 Olympics, Jim Bouton confronted the conservative sports world and compelled it to catch up with a rapidly changing American society. He defied tremendous odds to make the majors, won two games for the Yankees in the 1964 World Series, and staged an improbable comeback with the Braves as a 39-year-old. But it was his fateful 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and his resulting insider’s account, BALL FOUR, that did nothing less than reintroduce America to its national pastime in a lasting, profound way. In BOUTON: The Life of a Baseball Original, Mitchell Nathanson gives readers a look at Bouton’s remarkable life.
The Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going --- one of the most famous of all law enforcement agencies. In CULT OF GLORY, Doug J. Swanson has written a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles their epic, daring escapades while showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors and officially sanctioned killers.
Low Morrison is not your average teen. She just doesn’t fit in --- and neither does Freya, a once-famous social media influencer who now owns the local pottery studio. After signing up for a class, Low quickly falls under Freya’s spell. And Freya is compelled to share her darkest secrets and deepest desires. Finally, both feel a sense of belonging...that is, until Jamie walks through the studio door. Desperate for a baby, she and her husband have moved to the island hoping that the healthy environment will result in a pregnancy. Freya and Jamie become fast friends, as do their husbands, leaving Low alone once again. Then one night, after a boozy dinner party, Freya suggests swapping partners. It should have been a harmless fling between consenting adults, but instead it upends their lives.
After their mother died and their father was lost in grief, Willa had no choice but to raise her sister, Harper, and their brother, Lucas. Then, as an adult, she put her own life on hold to nurse Harper through a terrifying illness. Now that Harper is better and the sisters are living as roommates, Willa has realized her dream of running her own bakery and coffee shop. Harper, on the other hand, is always on the go. Overcoming a terrible illness has given her a new lease on life, and she does not intend to waste it. When Harper announces her plan to summit Mount Rainier, Willa fears she may be pushing herself too far. Harper, for her part, urges Willa to stop worrying and do something outside of her comfort zone --- like taking a chance on love with a handsome new customer.
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Coming Soon
Curious about what books will be released in the months ahead so you can pre-order or reserve them? Then click on the months below.
December's Books on Screen roundup includes the films The Housemaid, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw, 100 Nights of Hero,The Chronology of Water and Not Without Hope; the series premiere of Paramount+'s "Little Disasters"; the season premiere of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" on Disney+ and Hulu; the season finales of HBO's "IT: Welcome to Derry" and Apple TV+'s "Down Cemetery Road"; the midseason finales of "Tracker" and "Watson" on CBS; and the DVD/Blu-ray releases of Karen Kingsbury's The Christmas Ring and Black Phone 2.