Coming Soon

Fifteen years ago, Maia Gold attended a writers retreat hosted by billionaire Argos Alexander on the Greek island of Eris. It’s where she wrote her first book. But something dark happened on that island. Now, Maia finds a familiar envelope in the mail. It’s an invitation to return to Eris, and according to social media, she’s not the only one from that first retreat who’s been invited back. Soon, the guests learn that their host is absent, though he has left instructions for them: whoever can write the most suspenseful mystery while on the island will win a fortune and literary acclaim. When the guests gather in the morning to share their first chapters, they find Argos Alexander, dead. Tensions simmer as the guests try to determine who’s capable of murder, not just on the page, but in real life.

Orla O’Connor hasn’t been to Hadley Island since she graduated from high school a decade ago. As a teenager, her best friend Alice disappeared from its shores without a trace. Now, Orla returns to her family’s beachfront home to clean it out before her parents sell it. Worst of all, David, Orla’s childhood crush, is back for the summer with his new girlfriend, Faith. Faith suspects that David is going to propose but as soon as she settles into his family’s sprawling Hadley Island estate, she feels out of place. With nothing else to do, Faith begins to investigate the island’s dark past. Local Henry hasn’t left his house since the young girl went missing, in an attempt to let the accusations against him die down. Except they never have. When there’s another disappearance on the island, all three find themselves pulled into a mystery that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Paris, a winter’s night in 1983. She is 16 years old, lost in unfamiliar streets. On a scrap of paper in her pocket is the address of a photographer, K, 30 years her senior. Almost four decades later, as her life and the world around her begin to unravel, the grown woman seeks to comprehend the young girl of before. Set in Oslo, New York and Paris, GIRL, 1983 is a genre-defying and bravura quest through layers of memory and oblivion. As in her landmark previous work, UNQUIET, Linn Ullmann’s narrator continues to probe the elegiac sway of memory as she looks for ways to disclose a long-guarded secret. A delineation of time and place over the course of a life, this remarkable novel insistently crisscrosses the path of a wayward 16-year-old girl lost in Paris.

Summer, 1999. Rachel Fiske is almost eighteen when she arrives at her aunt and uncle’s mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her glamorous aunt is struggling to heal from an injury and Rachel wants to help. But her aunt is oddly spacey and her uncle is consumed with business and Rachel feels lonely and adrift, excluded from the world of adults and their secrets. The only bright spot is Claudia, a recent college graduate and the live-in babysitter for Rachel’s cousin. As summer deepens, Rachel hopes their friendship might grow into more. But when a tragic accident occurs, Rachel must make a pivotal choice. Caught between her desire to do the right thing and to protect her future, she’s the only one who knows what really happened and her decision has consequences far beyond what she could have predicted.

Anatol invites five of his oldest friends to his family home in the Wiltshire countryside to celebrate his 30th birthday. At his request, they play a game of his invention called Motive Method Death. The rules are simple: Everyone chooses two players at random, then writes a short story in which one kills the other. Points are awarded for making the murders feel real. Of course, it’s only natural for each friend to use what they know. Secrets. Grudges. Affairs. But once they’ve put it in a story, each secret is out. It’s not long before the game reawakens old resentments and brings private matters into the light of day. With each fictional crime, someone new gets a very real motive. Can all six friends survive the weekend, or will truth turn out to be deadlier than fiction?

It's January 2020, and Miriam is already getting a sense that the world might be ending. First, she learns that her best friend, Esther, has died. Then her faith in God --- in everything, really --- follows suit. Her job teaching Scripture at a private Christian school suddenly seems untenable, so she quits. Thankfully, the postal service is hiring. While Miriam finds comfort in her route, the mail truck can hardly outpace the memory of her lost friend and eroded faith. She finds herself composing letters to Esther that she will never deliver, reflecting on their shared childhoods and deep understanding of each other's difficult families.

Hal Knight, a comedian and movie star-turned politician, is no stranger to controversy. But after an embarrassing and humiliating encounter on set, Knight resigns from Congress, quits social media, and disappears to the tiny Caribbean island of Vieques to drink dirty martinis and nurse his wounds. Shortly after his arrival, he is approached by a trio of CIA operatives hoping to recruit him to infiltrate the power structure of Bolrovia --- a hostile, Eastern European country whose despotic president, Nikolai Horvatz, happens to be a longtime fan of Knight’s adolescent male humor. Knowing that Horvatz plans to invite the disgraced star for an official visit, the CIA coaxes Knight to accept, which he does. What begins as an assignment to keep his eyes and ears open quickly turns into a life-or-death battle.

As a child, Phoebe Manigault developed the gift of premonition after she was struck by lightning in the creek near her Charleston home. Plagued throughout her life by mysterious dreams, Phoebe eventually moves to the West Coast. Now, years later, she is summoned back to South Carolina to help her sister, Addie, care for their ailing mother. As Phoebe’s return lures her back into deep-rooted tensions and conflicts, she is drawn to Celeste, whose granddaughter went missing years ago. Their connection brings comfort to Phoebe, while Celeste’s adult grandson, Liam, resurrects complicated emotions tied to Phoebe’s past. But the longer Phoebe spends in her childhood home, the more her recurring nightmares intensify --- bringing her closer to the shocking truth that will irrevocably change everything.

Lizbeth Rose’s sister Felicia attends the Grand Wizards’ Ball, and as one of the most powerful --- and beautiful --- death wizards in a generation, she is highly sought after as one of the belles of the ball. However, war and violence are on the rise in Europe as German and Japanese wizards are also courting Felicia...and some are refusing to take no for an answer. As the façade of genteel wizard society turns deadly, Lizbeth must learn to not only protect her sister, but also navigate the arcane world that is pulling her sister and husband into a dangerous dance with death that could change the world as they know it.

The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers. Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told after she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled. But the Institute is more than just a haven for monsters. On graduation day, the faculty embark on a ravenous rampage, feasting on their students. Trapped in the school’s cavernous library, Alessa and her surviving classmates must do something they were never taught: work together. If they don't, this school will eat them alive.

After a 10-year self-imposed exile, Brent Walker is returning home to Concord, a quaint town in central Georgia. Two years ago, his father died, and now Brent, hired by Southern Republic Pulp and Paper Company as its assistant general counsel, is returning to care for his ailing mother. For decades, Southern Republic has invested heavily in Concord, creating a thriving community. But when a list of cryptic code surfaces, Brent starts to see the cracks. Southern Republic’s success is based largely on a highly unorthodox and deadly system to control costs, known only to the three owners of the company. Now, one of them, Christopher Bozin, has had a change of heart. So a plan is set into motion, one that will not only criminally implicate Bozin’s two partners, but also place Brent Walker square in the crosshairs of men who want him dead --- with only one course left available.

In “Machine City,” a college student’s chance role in a friend’s movie blurs the line between his character and his true self. (Is he a robot?) In “Slide to Unlock,” a man comes to terms with his life via the passwords he struggles to remember in extremis. (What’s his mom’s name backward?) And in “Weird Menace,” a director and faded movie star gab about science fiction, bad costume choices and lost loves on a commentary track for a B-film from the ’80s that neither remembers all that well. In Ed Park’s utterly original collection, AN ORAL HISTORY OF ATLANTIS, characters bemoan their fleeting youth, focus on their breathing, meet cute, break up, write book reviews, translate ancient glyphs, bid on stuff online, whale watch, and once in a while find solace in the sublime.

Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade. What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.

Frankie is a good daughter, a loyal best friend and a model student, coasting through her final semester at an elite Catholic prep school. When a classmate takes his life after posting a cryptic message about Woolf Whiting --- a former student hockey player who died in a presumed suicide years earlier --- Frankie and her best friend, Shiv, decide to investigate Woolf’s death. As the community mourns, a muffled conversation between Frankie's mom and a priest draws the girls further into unraveling the mysterious life and death of Woolf. Frankie speaks to his sister, now a high-powered lawyer in New York; his former girlfriend, who Woolf's mother is convinced knows more about his death than she has revealed; and his best friend. As she does, she discovers much more than she expected about the history of her supposed elite education --- and the truth about her own past.

Meet Frost, Morgan and Belle --- a wealthy, gorgeous group of New York City moms, the queen bees of downtown Manhattan. Their children attend Atherton Academy, the top private school in the city, and their social lives revolve around elaborate themed parties. On the first day of school, the arrival of a new mom and mysterious beauty from Miami, Sofia shakes up their world. When Sofia quickly integrates herself into their clique, inexplicably bad things start to happen to the women. Is someone at school out to get them?

Jason Bourne is on a boat in the Mediterranean moonlight with his lover, Johanna. He’s happy for the first time in years. Then in the next instant, he finds himself floating on wreckage as fire and smoke choke the sky. And Bourne finds the darkness of lost memory closing around his mind again. He teams up with his spy chief, Shadow, who reveals that Bourne’s surrogate father --- David Abbott, the founder of Treadstone --- is alive and missing. Together they must find Abbott before his enemies do. With his memory returning in bits and pieces, Jason discovers that the explosion that stole away his identity is part of a deadly game being played among powerful adversaries from Moscow to Washington. Even if he finds David Abbott, Bourne may still find himself with no way out and everything to lose.

Bryden and Sam have it all: thriving careers, a smart apartment in a luxury condominium, supportive friends and a cherished daughter. The perfect life for the perfect couple. Then Sam receives a call at his office. Bryden has failed to collect their daughter from daycare. Arriving home with their little girl, he finds his wife’s car in the underground garage. Upstairs in their apartment her laptop is open on the table, her cell phone nearby, her keys in their usual place in the hall. Except Bryden is nowhere to be seen. It’s as if she just walked out. How can she have disappeared from her own home? And did she even leave the building at all? With every minute that passes --- and as questions swirl around their community --- Bryden and Sam’s past seems a little less perfect, their condominium less safe, their friends, neighbors and relatives no longer quite so reliable.

In 2020, Marissa, Jeannie, Samira and Nicole struggle to find purpose as their children become more independent. But when they meet at a bowling night fundraiser for their kids’ school, they discover a shared interest in true crime that crystalizes around a mysterious double homicide that took place in their hometown a decade earlier: A couple in their 60s vanished overnight from their home and mysteriously shuttered their family business, leaving millions of dollars unaccounted for. Initially believed to have absconded with the money, they went from suspects to victims when their bodies were discovered in their car at the bottom of a steep ravine. And then the case turned cold. But what if the moms could solve it? What if they could bring a killer to justice and give closure to a grieving family?

A year ago, a father and his fiancée were brutally murdered in their opulent London townhouse, sparking the most high-profile murder investigation in recent history. Blood spatter expert Doctor Claudia O’Sheil’s evidence put the killer behind bars --- or so everyone believes. But since the trial, Claudia’s learned a horrific truth: her evidence and her testimony were wrong. And someone she knows made sure of it. Now, as she takes the stage to give a career-defining speech before London’s elite, Claudia faces a devastating choice. Protect her children and her career with her continued complicity, or blow the whole conspiracy apart and reveal the truth: not only is the real murderer still out there, but they’re in the audience. As Claudia steps toward the microphone, she revisits that fateful night. What really happened? And what will Claudia say?

Audrey Fisher has struggled all her life to emerge from the shadow of her famous mother by forging a career as a world-class chef. Meredith Fisher’s glamorous screen persona disguises the trauma of the tragic accident that haunts her dreams. Neither woman wants to return to the New England island they left behind and its complicated emotional ties, but Meredith has one last chance to sober up and salvage her big comeback. And where else but discreet, moneyed Winthrop Island can a famous actress spend the summer without the intrusion of other people? Until Audrey discovers an old wooden chest among the belongings of her estranged bartender father, Mike Kennedy, and the astonishing contents draw the women deep into Winthrop’s past and its many secrets…attracting the interest of their handsome neighbor, Sedge Peabody.

Beckett Bowery never thought she’d return to Wyatt Valley, a picturesque college town in the Virginia mountains steeped in tradition. Her roots there were strong: Beckett’s parents taught at the college, and she never even imagined studying anywhere else --- until a tragedy her senior year ended with two local men dead, and her roommate on the run, never to be seen again. For the last two decades, Beckett has done her best to keep her distance. Then her daughter, Delilah, secretly applies to Wyatt College and earns a full scholarship, and Beckett can only hope that her lingering fears are unfounded. But deep down, she knows that Wyatt Valley has a long memory, and the past isn’t the only dangerous thing in town.

Stella O'Neill is just your average millennial, working at a public library and worrying about making rent. No one would suspect she's been living under an assumed name or that she was raised in a Vermont commune of "diviners" where she witnessed her mother’s brutal murder. But her quiet, anonymous existence is upended when a true-crime obsessive posts her current name and location on the internet. Now, Stella has to get out of Boston before her mother’s killer can find her. She heads to the off-the-grid retreat of her childhood to confront her mother’s unhinged guru who controlled their lives for so long. Stella has two powerful assets: determination and a supernatural gift. Relying on her mother’s beloved rose quartz pendulum, Stella will have to outwit the charismatic leader who’s ruined so many lives and discover once and for all the true identity of her mother's killer --- before becoming his next victim.

Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime. To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she's done. But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night. Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn't the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick's ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching. In the morning, Quinn must leave the motel. She'll pack up her belongings and get back on the road to freedom.

These new, recent and reformulated stories by Joyce Carol Oates, collected here for the first time, showcase a wide range of crime fiction and psychological suspense. A young, insecure woman finds her relationship changing as she grows more and more dependent on a man who likes to take her on long walks beside a dangerously roaring creek. Another woman, nervous around men, not quite knowing how to act when paid a compliment, becomes flustered when a doctor suggests they go out for coffee, or possibly a drink. She finally decides that she will join him when he suggests they meet at his home. A man is so forgetful that his wife panics and yells into his phone, asking where their daughter has gone. A woman resents that a colleague has achieved greater success and thinks she ought to do something about it.

After 10 years on the force, LAPD cop Sonny Rush relocates with her elderly mother to peaceful Haven, California, to join her godfather’s burgeoning PI business. What crimes could possibly happen in a town nicknamed “Mayberry by the Sea”? Sonny’s first case: find Figgy, a missing goldendoodle last seen sporting a Versace collar. At least scouting out a dognapper gives Sonny a chance to get to know her new neighbors. Forty-eight hours in town and Figgy’s disappearance entangles Sonny in an unwelcome reunion with her ex, one of Haven’s wealthiest citizens. And when the body of a teenage boy is found along a popular hiking trail, Sonny is drawn into a web of strange beyond anything she ever saw in LA.