Saïd Sayrafiezadeh has been hailed by Philip Gourevitch as "a masterful storyteller working from deep in the American grain." His new collection of stories --- some of which have appeared in The New Yorker, the Paris Review and The Best American Short Stories --- is set in a contemporary America full of the kind of emotionally bruised characters familiar to readers of Denis Johnson and George Saunders. These are people contending with internal struggles --- a son’s fractured relationship with his father, the death of a mother, the loss of a job, drug addiction --- even as they are battered by larger, often invisible, economic, political and racial forces of American society.

Joshua Duffy is a Close Protection Agent --- a professional bodyguard --- and he's one of the world's elite operatives. That is, he was until his last mission in Lebanon. Against all odds, Josh got his primary out alive, but the cost was high. Josh lost his lower left leg. There's not much call for an elite bodyguard with such an injury. So Josh has to support his family working as a mall cop in New Jersey. But a lucky run-in with an old comrade promises to get him back in the field for one last job. The UN is sending a peace mission into the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico. Only a fool would think they could broker peace between the homicidal drug cartels in the region, and only a madman would sign on to keep those fools alive.

Nineve Blackmoore, a powerful witch, goes on a date with Morty Gutierrez, the nonbinary co-owner of the Shamrock Cauldron. It’s awkward and terrible. To make matters worse, once Morty discovers Nina’s last name, he’s far from a fan. It turns out that the Blackmoores have been bullishly trying to buy the Shamrock out from under Morty and his family. But when Morty begins developing magical powers at the same time that Nina’s own magic surges beyond her control, Nina must manage Morty’s rude awakening to the hidden magical world, uncover its cause, and face the intensity of their own burgeoning connection. But what happens when that connection is tied to Nina’s power surge, a power she’s finding nearly as addictive as Morty’s presence in her life?

Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying with them the scars of their families' tumultuous pasts. When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California and grieves her estranged father's sudden death, in the process alienating an overzealous girlfriend. Strained by distance and unintended betrayals, the women float in and out of each other's lives, their friendship both a beacon of home and a reminder of all they've lost.

Wealthy Washington suburbanites Marissa and Matthew Bishop seem to have it all --- until Marissa is unfaithful. Beneath their veneer of perfection is a relationship riven by work and a lack of intimacy. She wants to repair things for the sake of their eight-year-old son and because she loves her husband. Enter Avery Chambers. Avery is a therapist who lost her professional license. Still, it doesn’t stop her from counseling those in crisis, though they have to adhere to her unorthodox methods. And the Bishops are desperate. When they glide through Avery’s door and Marissa reveals her infidelity, all three are set on a collision course. Because the biggest secrets in the room are still hidden, and it’s no longer simply a marriage that’s in danger.

As the daughter of a traveling salesman in the Midwest, Jami Attenberg was drawn to a life on the road. Frustrated by quotidian jobs and hungry for inspiration and fresh experiences, her wanderlust led her across the country and eventually on travels around the globe. Through it all, she grapples with questions of mortality, otherworldliness and what we leave behind. It is during these adventures that she begins to reflect on the experiences of her youth. Driving across America on self-funded book tours, sometimes crashing on couches when she was broke, she keeps writing. In researching articles for magazines, jotting down ideas for novels and refining her craft, she grows as an artist and increasingly learns to trust her gut and, ultimately, herself.

Veronica Speedwell and her natural historian beau, Stoker, are summoned by Sir Hugo Montgomerie, head of Special Branch. He has a personal request on behalf of his goddaughter, Euphemia Hathaway. After years of traveling the world, her eldest brother, Jonathan, heir to Hathaway Hall, was believed to have been killed in the catastrophic eruption of Krakatoa a few years before. But now a man matching Jonathan’s description and carrying his possessions has arrived at Hathaway Hall with no memory of his identity or where he has been. Could this man truly be Jonathan, back from the dead? Or is he a devious impostor, determined to gain ownership over the family's most valuable possessions --- a legendary parure of priceless Rajasthani jewels?

Twelve months after her younger sister Anahita’s death, Mitra Jahani reluctantly returns to her parents’ home in suburban New Jersey to observe the Iranian custom of “The One Year.” While Ana bowed to their domineering father’s demands and married, Mitra rebelled and was banished. Caught in the middle is their mother, Shireen, torn between her fierce love for her surviving daughter and her loyalty to her husband. Yet his callousness even amid shattering loss has compelled her to rethink her own decades of submission. And when Mitra is suddenly forced to confront hard truths about her sister’s life, and the secrets each of them hid to protect others, mother and daughter reach a new understanding --- and forge an unexpected path forward.

Jane Whitefield helps people disappear. Fearing for their lives, fleeing dangerous situations, her clients come to her when they need to vanish completely. And when people are desperate enough to need her services, they come to the old house in rural western New York where Jane was raised to begin their escape. It’s there that, one spring night, Jane finds a young woman fresh from LA. After she cheated on her boyfriend, he dragged her to the home of the offending man and made her watch as he killed him. She testified against the boyfriend, but a bribed jury acquitted him, and now he’s free and trying to find and kill her. Jane agrees to help, but the boyfriend has some new friends: members of a Russian organized crime brotherhood.

From the New York Times bestselling author of THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS comes a collection of steamy, STEMinist novellas featuring a trio of engineers and their loves in loathing --- with a special bonus chapter! An environmental engineer discovers that scientists should never cohabitate when she finds herself stuck with the roommate from hell --- a detestable big-oil lawyer who won’t leave the thermostat alone. A civil engineer and her nemesis take their rivalry --- and love --- to the next level when they get stuck in a New York elevator. A NASA aerospace engineer's frozen heart melts as she lies injured and stranded at a remote Arctic research station, and the only person willing to undertake the dangerous rescue mission is her longtime rival.

Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by. Since Gran died a few months ago, 25-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter --- she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. But her orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle.

It’s 1959, and a new killer haunts the streets of London, having baffled Scotland Yard. The newspapers call him The Florist because of the rose he brands on his victims. The police have turned yet again to the Inquirers at Miss Brickett’s for assistance, and second-year Marion Lane is assigned the case. But she’s already dealing with a mystery of her own, having received an unsigned letter warning her that one of the three new recruits should not be trusted. She dismisses the letter at first, focusing on The Florist case, but her informer seems to be one step ahead, predicting what will happen before it does. But when a fellow second-year Inquirer is murdered, Marion takes matters into her own hands.

A fixture in the American sports landscape for almost 20 years, Lindsey Vonn is a legend. With a career that spanned a transformation in how America recognizes and celebrates female athletes, Vonn --- who retired in 2019 as the most decorated American skier of all time --- was in the vanguard of that change, helping blaze a trail for other world-class female athletes and reimagining what it meant to pursue speed at all costs. In RISE, Vonn shares her incredible journey for the first time, going behind the scenes of a badass life built around resilience and risk-taking. She also opens up about her decades-long depression and struggles with self-confidence, discussing candidly how her mental health challenges influenced her career without defining her.

When a U.S. airdrop of billions of dollars disap­pears in the desert sands of Syria, only a small group of military operatives knows its ultimate destination or why it has been stolen. Their goal is no less than the restoration of America’s geopolitical dominance on the global stage. Essential to this scheme are Greta Webb, a sophisticated CIA operative who is an expert on dark money, and Elias Vicker, the damaged, dangerous soul who runs the world’s largest hedge fund. To achieve its goals, the group must form dangerous alliances. One is with the hidden family that manages the largest private pool of capital that has ever existed. Another is with Fyodor Volk, the ruthless founder of Russia’s most successful private military company, a mercenary with ties to Vladimir Putin.

For Ruthie, the frozen town of Waitsfield, Massachusetts, is all she has ever known. Once home to the country’s oldest and most illustrious families by the tail end of the 20th century, it is an unforgiving place awash with secrets. Forged in this frigid landscape, Ruthie has been dogged by feelings of inadequacy her whole life. As she grows older, she slowly learns how the town’s prim facade conceals a deeper, darker history, and how silence often masks a legacy of harm --- from the violence that runs down the family line to the horrors endured by her high school friends, each suffering a fate worse than the last. For Ruthie, Waitsfield is a place to be survived, and a girl like her would be lucky to get out alive.

Philomena McCarthy is an ambitious police officer with the elite Metropolitan Police in London, responding to a domestic violence call. Tempe Brown is a bloodied young woman and the mistress of a decorated and intimidating London detective, Darren Goodall. Philomena and Tempe strike up a tentative friendship, determined to protect each other from Goodall, but something isn’t quite right about the stories Tempe tells and the secrets she keeps. Yet the young officer is drawn into Tempe’s world, unsure of what is real or invented. After a bungled break-in and an unsolved murder, Philomena finds herself trapped --- with her career, her impending wedding and her very survival in doubt.