Andrew Morton tells the story of the feckless Edward VIII, later Duke of Windsor; his American wife, Wallis Simpson; and the bizarre wartime Nazi plot to make him a puppet king after the invasion of Britain and the attempted cover-up by Churchill, General Eisenhower and King George VI of the duke's relations with Hitler. From the alleged affair between Simpson and the German foreign minister to the discovery of top secret correspondence about the man dubbed "the traitor king" and the Nazi high command, 17 CARNATIONS is a saga of intrigue, betrayal and deception.

Shortly after 12-year-old Flavia de Luce arrives at Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy boarding school, a charred and mummified body tumbles out of a bedroom chimney. Now, while attending classes, making friends (and enemies), and assessing the school’s stern headmistress and faculty (one of whom is an acquitted murderess), Flavia is on the hunt for the victim’s identity and time of death, as well as suspects, motives and means.

Everyone in the quiet Jersey Shore town of Silver Bay knows the story: on a Sunday evening in September 1991, Ramsey Miller threw a blowout block party, then murdered his beautiful wife and three-year-old daughter. But everyone is wrong. The daughter got away, has lived 15 years in the Witness Protection Program, and is coming back to reconcile her past. In the quest to find her father before he finds her, Melanie’s story becomes one about love, faith and fear --- and how the most important things can become terribly distorted when we cling to them too fiercely.

The first career-spanning collection of short fiction by Sir Terry Pratchett --- one of the most beloved and bestselling writers of our time --- A BLINK OF THE SCREEN charts the development of Pratchett’s creative vision throughout his prolific career, from his early writings in school to the dizzy mastery of the phenomenally successful Discworld series. Along the way, we are introduced to the first published pieces from Pratchett’s stint as a young journalist, the experimental stories that originated his later works, and the lyrics to the national anthem of Ankh-Morpork, among other treats.

Between his own violent tendencies, the shadow cast by his father's death, and a self-destructive revenge quest, Ash McKenna made a mess of his life in NYC. He is now in Portland, where he has taken a job as a bouncer in a vegan strip club. When one of the club's dancers asks Ash for help finding her daughter, he declines. But soon he is held at gunpoint by a man in a chicken mask and told to keep away from the girls. As Ash navigates an unfamiliar city, he finds himself embroiled in a labyrinthine plot involving a ruthless drug cartel and a scandal that could reach one of the most powerful men in Portland.

Despite surviving a fire that claimed the life of his twin sister, Ashleigh, Danny Orchard has never been able to enjoy his second chance at life. Ash had been a budding psychopath who privately terrorized her family --- and death hasn’t changed her wicked ways. She has haunted her brother for 20 years, and now, just when he’s met the love of his life, she wants more than ever to punish him for being alive. So she sets her sights on Danny’s new wife and stepson.

Kelly Link’s new story collection presents nine tales of the fantastic and the bizarre. The protagonists, most of them young women, include a teenager who hears voices in her head, an actress from a ghost-hunting reality show, a 15-year-old gamer who travels from Iowa to New York to meet an older man she met online, and a woman who departs from a bar in the company of a man who claims to be a wolfman.

London, 1386: A mass murder has taken place within the city walls. Sixteen corpses have been dumped where they are sure to be found, bearing wounds like none seen before. John Gower, middling poet and expert trader in secrets, is summoned to investigate the killings even as the ruthless mayor of London seeks to thwart an open inquiry for reasons unknown. Gower learns that the men have fallen victim to handgonnes, new and terrifying weapons that threaten to change the future of war.

Maria lives in a remote village in Burgundy, where she learns that she has a gift for communicating with nature. Hundreds of miles away in Italy, Clara discovers that she possesses a stunning musical genius and is sent from the countryside to Rome to develop her preternatural abilities. THE LIVES OF THE ELVES tells the story of two children whose extraordinary talents will bring them into contact with magical worlds and malevolent forces. If, against all odds, they can be brought together, their meeting may shape the course of history.

The very roughness of Lincoln's appearance made him seem all the more common, one of us ---- as did his sense of humor about his own awkward physical nature. Nineteenth-century African Americans felt deep affection for their "liberator" as a "homely" man who did not hold himself apart. During Reconstruction, Southerners felt a nostalgia for the humility of Lincoln, whom they envisioned as a "conciliator." Later, teachers glorified Lincoln as a symbol of nationhood that would appeal to poor immigrants.

Our hero Alby flails wildly against the world around him --- he punches his sister (she deserved it), "unprotectos" broads (they deserved it and liked it), gets drunk and picks fights (all deserved), defends defenseless creatures both large and small, and spews insults at children, slow drivers, old ladies, and every single surviving member of his family. In each of these stories, Alby distills the anguish, terror, humor and strange grace --- or lack of --- he experiences in the aftermath of his mother’s death.

When Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown, realizes that her artistic talents may be able to help save the lives of slaves fleeing north, she becomes one of the Underground Railroad’s leading mapmakers, taking her cues from the slave code quilts and hiding her maps within her paintings. She boldly embraces this calling after being told the shocking news that she can’t bear children. But as the country steers toward bloody civil war, Sarah faces difficult sacrifices that could put all she loves in peril.

Former housecat turned war hero, Mort(e) is famous for taking on the most dangerous missions and fighting the dreaded human bio-weapon EMSAH. But the true motivation behind his recklessness is his ongoing search for a pre-transformation friend --- a dog named Sheba. When he receives a mysterious message from the dwindling human resistance claiming Sheba is alive, he begins a journey that will take him from the remaining human strongholds to the heart of the Colony, where he will discover the source of EMSAH and the ultimate fate of all of earth's creatures.

It’s just another day at the office for London book editor Samantha “Sam” Clair. Checking jacket copy for howlers, wondering how to break it to her star novelist that her latest effort is utterly unpublishable, lunch scheduled with gossipy author Kit Lowell, whose new book will dish the juicy dirt on a recent fashion industry scandal. Little does she know the trouble Kit’s book will cause before it even goes to print. Someone doesn't want Kit's manuscript published, and unless Sam can put the pieces together in time, they'll do anything to stop it.

OUTLINE is a novel in 10 conversations that follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing during one oppressively hot summer in Athens. She leads her students in storytelling exercises, meets other visiting writers for dinner and discourse, and goes swimming in the Ionian Sea with her neighbor from the plane. The people she encounters speak volubly about themselves. And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast --- a portrait of a woman learning to face a great loss.

On a sweltering day in August 1942, Frankie Washburn returns to his family’s rustic Minnesota resort for one last visit before he joins the war as a bombardier. But before the homecoming can be celebrated, the search for a German soldier, escaped from the POW camp across the river, explodes in a shocking act of violence, with consequences that will reverberate years into the future for all of them and that will shape how each of them makes sense of their lives.

Things are looking up for seven-year-old Bertie Pollock. The arrival of his spirited grandmother and the absence of his meddlesome mother bring unforeseen blessings: no psychotherapy, no Italian lessons and no yoga classes. Meanwhile, surprises await Scotland Street’s grown-ups. Matthew makes a discovery that could be a major windfall for his family, but also presents a worrisome dilemma. Pat learns a secret about her father’s fiancée that may shake up her family, unless she can convince the perpetually narcissistic Bruce to help her out. And the Duke of Johannesburg finds himself in sudden need of an explanation --- and an escape route --- when accosted by a determined guest at a soirée.

Madeline King and Grace Pancik are best friends and the envy of Nantucket for their perfect marriages, their beautiful kids, and their Sunday night double dates with their devoted husbands. But this summer, something's changed, and if there's anything Nantucket likes better than cocktails on the beach at sunset, it's a good rumor. As the gossip escalates, and they face the possible loss of the happy lives they've worked so hard to create, Grace and Madeline try mightily to set the record straight --- but the truth might be even worse than rumor has it.

As a fierce tropical storm swirls toward the Florida coast, the state's powerful political circles are experiencing turbulence of their own. The leading candidate for governor, Diane Fairmont, has received a death threat that promises to repeat a massacre from 10 years before. Bad weather and bad blood await Detective Cab Bolton, who must withstand the malevolent cyclone in order to stop this murderous cycle.

At 19, Annie Black trades a bleak future in her washed-out hometown for a London winter of drinking and abandon. Some two decades later, in San Francisco, she is a successful lighting designer married to a good man and the mother of three children. Then, one June morning, a photograph arrives in her mailbox, igniting an old longing and setting off a chain of events that threaten to overturn her family’s hard-won happiness.

Ten years after the loss of Bobby --- the Amendola family’s youngest son --- everyone is still struggling to recover from the firefighter’s unexpected death. Bobby’s mother Gail; his widow Tina; his older brothers Peter, the corporate lawyer, and Franky, the misfit; and his father Michael have all dealt with their grief in different ways. But as the family gathers together for Bobby Jr.’s birthday party, they each must find a way to accept a new man in Tina’s life while reconciling their feelings for their lost loved one.

The Stranger appears out of nowhere. His identity is unknown, and his motives are unclear. But his information is undeniable. He whispers a few words in your ear and disappears, leaving you picking up the pieces of your shattered world. Adam Price has a lot to lose: a comfortable marriage to a beautiful woman, two wonderful sons, and all the trappings of the American Dream. Then he runs into the Stranger. When he learns a devastating secret about his wife, he confronts her, and the mirage of perfection disappears as if it never existed at all.

In 1789, as George Washington became the first president of the United States, the world was all but certain that the American experiment in liberty and representative government would founder. More than a few Americans feared that the world was right. In WASHINGTON’S CIRCLE, we see how Washington and his trusted advisers, close friends and devoted family defied the doomsayers to lay the foundation for an enduring constitutional republic.

George Washington was famously unknowable, a man of deep passions hidden behind a facade of rigid self-control. Yet before he was a great general and president, Washington was a young man prone to peevishness and a volcanic temper. His greatness as a leader evolved over time, the product of experience and maturity but also a willed effort to restrain his wilder impulses. Focusing on Washington’s early years, Robert Middlekauff penetrates his mystique, revealing his all-too-human fears, values and passions.

Tillings Island witnessed the biggest event of Izabella Rae Haywood's life. For it was there, on Iz's sixth birthday, that her father left...and took her voice with him. Eight years later in the summer of 1974, Iz’s mother is through with social workers, psychiatrists and her daughter's silence. In one last attempt to return Iz’s voice, the motley pair board the ferry to Tillings in hopes that the journey will help Izabella heal herself by piecing together splintered memories of the day her words fled. But heartbreak is a difficult puzzle to solve, and everyone in Tillings seems to know something Iz does not.

American expat Paul Leibovitz was once an ambitious advisor, dedicated father and loving husband. But after living for nearly 30 years in Hong Kong, personal tragedy strikes and Paul’s marriage unravels in the fallout. Now Paul is living as a recluse on an outlying island of Hong Kong. When he makes a fleeting connection with Elizabeth, a distressed American woman on the verge of collapse, his life is thrown into turmoil. Less than 24 hours later, Elizabeth’s son is found dead, and Paul sets out to investigate the murder on his own.

When Sergeant Billy Graves is called to a 4:00 a.m. fatal slashing of a man in Penn Station, his investigation of the crime moves beyond the usual handoff. And when he discovers that the victim was once a suspect in the unsolved murder of a 12-year-old boy, the bad old days are back in Billy's life with a vengeance, tearing apart enduring friendships forged in the urban trenches and even threatening the safety of his family.

A man strikes an under-the-table deal with a surgeon to spend a few quiet seconds closer to his wife than he's ever been; a young soon-to-be mother looks on in paralyzing astonishment as her husband walks away from a 20-year career in advertising at the urging of his spirit animal; an elderly artist risks more than he knows when he's commissioned by his newly arrived neighbors to produce the work of a lifetime. In her debut collection, Lauren Acampora brings to the page the myriad lives of a suburban town and lays them bare.