The latest work from the celebrated author of the historical novels WOLF HALL and BRING UP THE BODIES is a collection of 10 stories, Hilary Mantel’s first collection since 2003’s LEARNING TO TALK. Many of these contemporary tales play with the conventions of genre; there’s even a vampire tale. But the title story, about an imagined attempt on the former Prime Minister’s life, will, not surprisingly, get the most attention.

When American journalist Pamela Druckerman had a baby in Paris, she didn't aspire to become a "French parent." But she noticed that French children slept through the night by two or three months old. They played by themselves while their parents sipped coffee. And yet French kids were still boisterous, curious and creative. Why? How? Druckerman set out to investigate --- and wound up sparking a national debate on parenting.

Two days after her husband of 30 years tells her he plans to have an affair, Fiona Maye, a High Court judge who regrets her childlessness, must decide whether or not to grant a hospital’s emergency request to give a blood transfusion to a 17-year-old boy dying of leukemia. He and his parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses who have refused the treatment on religious grounds. McEwan’s latest novel is a powerful reminder that one’s actions often have unforeseen repercussions.
 

Matt Richtel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, examines the impact of technology on our lives through the story of Utah college student Reggie Shaw, who killed two scientists while texting and driving. Richtel follows Reggie through the tragedy, the police investigation, his prosecution and, ultimately, his redemption. In the wake of his experience, Reggie has become a leading advocate against “distracted driving.”

Despite their rowdy hookups, Harlow and Finn don’t even like each other...which would explain why their marriage lasted only 12 hours. He needs to be in charge and takes whatever he wants. She lives by the Want-something-done? Do-it-yourself mantra. Maybe she’s too similar to the rugged fisherman --- or just what he needs.

The lives of two people will forever change in five days. Minutes, hours and days tick by with ominous urgency. Mara Nichols is determined to control her future after a devastating medical diagnosis, but she faces an impossible decision. Meanwhile, her online friend, Scott Coffman, is helplessly suffering the impending loss of a young foster child he loves.

Samantha Kofer’s career at a huge Wall Street law firm is on the fast track --- until the recession hits and she gets downsized. However, she is offered an opportunity to work at a legal aid clinic in Virginia for one year without pay, after which there would be a slim chance that she’d get her old job back. Samantha’s new job takes her into the murky and dangerous world of coal mining, and within weeks she finds herself engulfed in litigation that turns deadly.

In 1886, Gretta Pope wakes one morning to discover that her husband, Ulysses, is gone. All he left behind was a brief note with no explanation for why he left or where he’s headed. Gretta’s sons set off after him, jumping trains to get where they need to go and ending up in the rugged badlands of Montana. Gretta has no choice but to search for her sons and her husband, leading her to the doorstep of a woman who seems intent on making Ulysses her own.

In I STAND CORRECTED, Eden Collinsworth tells the entertaining and insightful story of the year she spent living among the Chinese while writing a book featuring advice on such topics as the non-negotiable issue of personal hygiene, the rules of the handshake, and making sense of foreigners. Scrutinizing the kind of etiquette that has guided her own business career, Collinsworth creates a counterpart that explains Chinese practices and reveals much about our own Western culture.

Spanning decades and continents, from a crowded living room in Madison, Wisconsin, to the windswept beach on the Barents Sea where a young Rachela had her first mathematical breakthrough, THE MATHEMATICIAN'S SHIVA is an unexpectedly moving and uproariously funny novel that captures humanity’s drive not just to survive, but to achieve the impossible.

Former college football star Ruddy McCann has experienced a seismic drop in popularity; he is now living a simple life as Kalkaska, Michigan’s full-time repo man and part-time bar bouncer. That is, until Ruddy starts hearing a voice in his head. The voice introduces himself as Alan Lottner, a dead realtor. When Alan demands Ruddy find his murderers, Ruddy decides a voice in your head seeking vengeance is best ignored. When Alan also demands he clean up his act, and apartment, Ruddy tells him to back off. But where can a voice in your head go?

Set in rural Grace County, North Carolina, in a time of state-mandated sterilizations and racial tension, NECESSARY LIES tells the story of two young women, seemingly worlds apart, but both haunted by tragedy. A social worker and a 15-year-old are thrown together and must ask themselves: how can you know what you believe is right, when everyone is telling you it’s wrong?

In this revolutionary, Joycean experiment in light celebrity narrative, Neil Patrick Harris lets you, the reader, live his life. And at each critical juncture of your life, you will choose how to proceed. You will decide whether to try out for “Doogie Howser, M.D.” and whether to spend years struggling with your sexuality. Choose correctly and you’ll find fame, fortune and true love. Choose incorrectly and you’ll find misery, heartbreak and a hideous death by piranhas.

She calls herself Ash, but that's not her real name. She is a farmer's faithful wife, but has left her husband to don the uniform of a Union soldier in the Civil War. NEVERHOME is a novel that tells the harrowing story of Ash Thompson during the battle for the South. Through bloodshed, hysteria and heartbreak, she becomes a hero, a folk legend, a madwoman and a traitor to the American cause.

Danielle doesn’t really have a home. She’s squatting in a cabin deep in the woods, with no electricity or heat --- nothing but the nearby river to sustain her. She’ll need food, water and firewood --- and that’s just to get her through the storm. Eric gets her set up and departs with relief, but his car has been towed with his phone inside. There’s no choice but to return to the cabin. Danielle is terrified, then merely hostile. Who is this guy with this big idea that it’s she who needs rescuing?

Wealthy Richard Walker has just died, leaving behind his country house full of rooms packed with the detritus of a lifetime. His estranged family has arrived for their inheritance, but they are not alone. Alice and Sandra, long-dead former residents, linger within the house. The living and dead are each haunted by painful truths. When a new ghost appears, and Richard’s troubled son, Trenton, communicates with her, the spirit and human worlds collide.

In digging up the facts on a heartbreaking story about a middle-class family evicted from their suburban home, reporter Jane Ryland soon learns the truth behind a big-bucks scheme and the surprising players who will stop at nothing, including murder, to keep their goal a secret. Meanwhile, Boston police detective Jake Brogan has a liar on his hands. A man has just confessed to the famous 20-year-old Lilac Sunday killing, and while Jake’s colleagues take him at his word, Jake is not so sure.