Val Face is a charismatic self-help guru who captivates multitudes with his uncanny ability to heal adherents using only the power of his words, the mysterious touch of his hands, and the transcendent beauty of his face. Assigned to write a profile of Face during his much-hyped New England tour, 30-year-old impoverished journalist Seger Jovi pens a brutal hatchet job. But Seger, at once curious and incredulous, is soon sucked into the mystic’s vortex of fame, becoming a devotee himself as he contends with the machinations and absurdities of Face’s many protectors. Just as the exalted guru appears to be reaching the apex of his powers, danger threatens from the periphery in the form of an obsessive stalker who wants Face dead.

Two people meet in the Art Institute by chance. Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist, undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. By the end of the story, these things will still be true. But this is not a story about endings. For Regan and Aldo, life has been a matter of resigning themselves to the blueprints of inevitability --- until the two meet. Could six conversations with a stranger be the variable that shakes up the entire simulation?

Breen Siobhan Kelly grew up in the world of Man and was once unaware of her true nature. Now she is in Talamh, trying to heal after a terrible battle and heartbreaking losses. Her grandfather, the dark god Odran, has been defeated in his attempt to rule over Talamh, and over Breen --- for now. With the enemy cast out and the portal sealed, this is a time to rest and to prepare. Breen spreads her wings and realizes a power she’s never experienced before. Keegan, who has trained her as a warrior and whom she has grown to love, is at her side when the enemy’s witches --- traitorous and power-mad --- appear to her in her sleep, practicing black magick, sacrificing the innocent, and plotting a brutal destruction for Breen.

After spending 20 years behind bars, Frank Muñoz, a disgraced former cop, is out on parole and focused on just one thing: revenge. For Ali Reynolds, the first Christmas without her father is riddled with grief and uncertainty. And with her husband and founding partner of High Noon Enterprises, B. Simpson, preoccupied by an upcoming New Year’s trip to London, she is ready for a break. But when Stu Ramey barges into her home with grave news about a suspicious accident on the highway to Phoenix involving B.’s car, things reach a breaking point. At the hospital, a groggy, post-op B. insists that Ali take his place at a ransomware conference in London as troubles brimming around High Noon come to light. Who would go to such lengths to cut the tech company from the picture?

In a case deciding the future of clean energy, everything hinges on how the chief justice of the Supreme Court will lean. DANGEROUS WOMEN stirs up the perfect cocktail of ingenious spy-craft and the political intrigue of Thomas Perry's THE OLD MAN brightened with the charming, uncanny energy of KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE. This urgent, cleverly plotted high-stakes thriller is set in motion by a botched attack on two law clerks that leaves one dead and the other in a coma. The ensuing cover-up leaves a string of bodies and too many players at cross-purposes. It also leaves Chief Justice Clarissa Baxter with a target on her back.

It’s February 2019. Philip Notman, an acclaimed historian with a German wife and a troubled 19-year-old son, is on his way back from a conference in Norway when he has an unexpected and disturbing experience that completely alters his view of the life that he has been living and the world that surrounds him. Believing that Inés, an attractive Spanish sociologist whom he met at the conference, can shed light on what he is feeling, he travels to Cádiz to see her. But his journey doesn’t end there. Is he thinking of leaving his wife, whom he still loves, or is he trying to change a reality that he appears to find unbearable? Is he on a quest for a simpler and more authentic existence, or is he utterly self-deluded? And if he is in denial about what he is doing, how far will he go to avoid facing the truth?

After the trauma of his last case, and after three months spent recovering in Ireland, life is looking up for newly retired homicide detective Brian (Brick) Kavanagh. Back home in Washington, D.C., a new job shows promise when he’s asked to train criminology students in cold case techniques. Then he’s off to a whirlwind weekend in Chicago with Nora, an Aer Lingus flight attendant he’d met in Ireland. There he receives shocking news that his former partner’s wife and twin infants have been kidnapped. Brick rushes to D.C. to support Ron, the man who’s always had his back. But as days pass, Brick questions how well he really knows this man.

Rabia Chaudry was raised with a lot of love. And that love looked like food. Delicious Pakistani dishes --- fresh roti, chaat, pakoras and shorba --- and also Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen and an abundance of American processed foods, as her family discovered its adopted country through its (fast) food. In FATTY FATTY BOOM BOOM, Chaudry chronicles the dozens of times she tried and failed to achieve what she was told was her ideal weight. The truth is, she always loved food too much to hold a grudge against it. This memoir is at once an ode to Pakistani cuisine, including Chaudry’s favorite recipes; a love letter to her Muslim family, both here and in Lahore; and a courageously honest portrait of a woman making peace with a body that gets the job done but refuses to meet the expectations of others.

When a World War II widow inherits a dilapidated English estate, she uncovers a diary written by an adolescent girl named Maude Gower. Looking for answers, she begins reading, only to unravel more questions about the mysterious past and many secrets hidden deep within the walls of Orchard House. In 1876, orphaned Maude is forced to leave London, and her adored brother, Frank, to live with a stranger. Everyone tells her not to trust Miss Greenaway, the enigmatic owner of Orchard House, but Maude can’t help warming to her new guardian. She finds herself discovering who she is for the first time and learning to love her new home. But when Frank comes for an unexpected visit, the delicate balance of Maude’s life is thrown into disarray.

Everyone wants Iris Kelly to settle down, but she holds firmly to her no dating rule. There’s only one problem: Iris is a romance author facing an imminent deadline for her second book, and she’s completely out of ideas. Perfectly happy to ignore her problems, Iris goes to a bar and meets a sexy stranger, Stefania. A night of dancing and making out turns into the worst one-night stand Iris has ever had. To get her mind off everything, Iris tries out for the lead role in a local play, a queer retelling of “Much Ado About Nothing,” but comes face-to-face with Stefania, whose real name turns out to be Stevie. Desperate to save face in front of her friends, Stevie asks Iris to play along as her girlfriend. As the two women play the part of a happy couple, lines start to blur, and they’re left wondering who will make the real first move.

Twenty years after her iconic memoir SHUTTERBABE, Deborah Copaken is at her darkly comedic nadir: battered, broke, divorcing, dissected and dying --- literally --- on sexism’s battlefield as she scoops up what she believes to be her internal organs into a glass container before heading off to the hospital…in an UberPool. LADYPARTS is her irreverent inventory of both the female body and the body politic of womanhood in America, the story of one woman brought to her knees by the 1-2-12 punch of divorce, solo motherhood, healthcare Frogger, unaffordable childcare, shady landlords, her father’s death, college tuitions, sexual harassment, corporate indifference, ageism, sexism and plain old bad luck.

It's another blistering summer in New York City, and a sweltering heat wave stifles the area. Hostility between the Hasidic and Black communities has been steadily increasing since a tragic incident left a Black teenager dead. When two rabbis are killed in a gruesome attack on their synagogue, it has all the signs of retaliation. The entire city is on edge. Through it all, Agent Janet Maclin's dreams of becoming the FBI's first female director come crashing down when she receives some devastating news. In spite of it all, she's determined to help NYPD detectives Quincy Cavanaugh and Phee Freeman find the rabbis' killer as more hate crimes put the city on the brink of all-out war. As the body count climbs with the temperature and the tensions, time is running out for Maclin in more ways than one.

In 1861, war is raging in the South, but in Concord, Massachusetts, Margaret March has her own battles to fight. With her husband serving as an army chaplain, the comfort and security of Margaret’s four daughters --- Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy --- now rest on her shoulders alone. Yet even with all that weighs upon her, Margaret longs to do more, so she fills her days with humdrum charity work. All of that is interrupted when she receives a telegram from the War Department, summoning her to her husband’s bedside in Washington, D.C. While she is away, Beth falls dangerously ill, forcing Margaret to confront the possibility that the price of her own generosity toward others may be her daughter’s life.

Defense Attorney Robin Lockwood is summoned by retired District Attorney Francis Melville to meet with him at Black Oaks, the manor he owns up in the Oregon mountains. Originally built in 1628 in England, there's a murderous legend and curse attached to the mansion. Melville wants Lockwood's help in righting a wrongful conviction from his days as a DA. Successful in their efforts, Melville invites Lockwood up to Black Oaks for a celebration. She finds herself among an odd group of invitees --- including the bitter, newly released Jose Alvarez. When Melville is found murdered, with a knife connected to the original curse, Lockwood finds herself faced with a conundrum: Who is the murderer among them, and how can she stop that person before there's another victim?

Best friends Anita and Rainie find refuge by an old sycamore tree with its neighboring lot of stray dogs who have a mysterious ability to communicate with humans. The girls learn that they are preceded by generations of dog-headed women and woman-headed dogs whose bloodlines bind them together. Anita convinces Rainie to become a dog with her, tying a collar of red string around each of their necks to preserve their kinship forever. But when the two girls are separated, Anita sinks into a dreamworld that only Rainie knows how to rescue her from. As Anita’s body begins to rot, it is up to Rainie to rebuild Anita’s body and keep her friend from being lost forever.

Dimple Pennington knows of her half-siblings, but she doesn’t really know them. Five people who don’t have anything in common except for faint memories of being driven through Brixton in their dad’s gold jeep, and some pretty complex abandonment issues. Dimple has bigger things to think about. She’s 30, and her life isn’t really going anywhere. An aspiring lifestyle influencer with a terrible and wayward boyfriend, Dimple’s life has shrunk to the size of a phone screen. And despite a small but loyal following, she’s never felt more alone in her life. That is, until a dramatic event brings her half-siblings crashing back into her life. And when they’re all forced to reconnect with Cyril Pennington, the absent father they never really knew, things get even more complicated.

Thomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” John Adams thought his cousin was “the most sagacious politician” of all. With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history. Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Stacy Schiff returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd, eloquent and intensely disciplined man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution.

Seventeen-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is shielding a secret from Bret and his friends even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret’s obsession with Mallory is equaled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with the Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends. The coincidences are uncanny, but they are also filtered through the imagination of a teenager whose gifts for constructing narrative from the filaments of his own life are about to make him one of the most explosive literary sensations of his generation. Can he trust his friends --- or his own mind --- to make sense of the danger they appear to be in?

An ancient majestic oak stands beneath the stars on Division Street. And under the tree sits Ben Wilf, a retired doctor, and 10-year-old Waldo Shenkman, a brilliant, lonely boy who is pointing out his favorite constellations. Waldo doesn’t realize it, but he and Ben have met before. And they will again, and again. Across time and space, and shared destiny. Division Street is full of secrets. An impulsive lie begets a secret --- one that will forever haunt the Wilf family. And the Shenkmans, who move into the neighborhood many years later, bring secrets of their own. Spanning 50 kaleidoscopic years, on a street --- and in a galaxy --- where stars collapse and stories collide, these two families become bound in ways they never could have imagined.

An earthquake and a fire partially destroyed the Lucent Springs Hotel, but Pallas, Talia and Amelia have no memory of their time there. Now close friends, they co-host a podcast where they investigate cold cases and hope to connect with others who may have had a similar experience to theirs. Ambrose Drake is certain he’s a witness to a murder, but without a body, everyone thinks he’s having delusions caused by extreme sleep deprivation. But Ambrose is positive something terrible happened at the Carnelian Sleep Institute the night he was there. Unable to find proof on his own, he approaches Pallas for help, only for her to realize that Ambrose also has a lost night that he can’t remember --- one that may be connected to Pallas.

1985. A top-secret F117 aircraft crashes into the Nevada desert. The Nighthawk is the most advanced fighting machine in the world, and the Soviets will do anything to get their hands on its secrets. In East Berlin, a mysterious figure contacts the CIA with an incredible offer --- invaluable details of his government’s espionage plans in return for asylum. It’s an offer they can’t pass up...if it’s genuine. But the risks are too great to blindly stumble into a deal. With the East German secret police closing in, someone will have to go behind the Berlin Wall to investigate the potential defector. It’s a job Deputy Director James Greer can only trust to one man --- Jack Ryan. Can Ryan get the right answers before the Cold War turns into a Red Winter?

Finding seeds of inspiration in the Brothers Grimm, 17th-century French lore and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers --- characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge or their own sense of purpose. In “The White Cat’s Divorce,” an aging billionaire sends his three sons on a series of absurd goose chases to decide which child will become his heir. In “Skinder’s Veil,” a young man agrees to take over a remote house-sitting gig for a friend. But what should be a chance to focus on his long-avoided dissertation instead becomes a wildly unexpected journey, as the house seems to be a portal for otherworldly travelers --- or perhaps a door into his own mysterious psyche.

Ever since business mogul Clive Reynolds disappeared 20 years ago, the name "Reynolds" has become synonymous with "murder" and "mystery." And now, lured by a cryptic note, down-on-her-luck photographer Morgan Mori returns home to Black Harbor and into the web of their family secrets and double lives. The same night she photographs the Reynolds holiday get-together, Morgan becomes witness to a homicide of a cop that triggers the discovery of a long-buried clue. This finally could be the thing to crack open the chilling cold case, and Investigator Ryan Hudson has a chance to prove himself as lead detective. But as Morgan exposes her own dark demons, could her sordid history be the key to unlocking more than one mystery?

Charles Vincent is trapped in a loveless marriage, and his job is simply a paycheck. But his life changes forever one night when he falls asleep at the wheel and veers off the road. Miraculously, he survives and happens upon a cabin where he meets the kind and beautiful Aude Saint-Martin. They have an instant connection, and as she nurses him back to health, Charles begins to discover the passion he’s been missing for so many years. In the aftermath of the crash, Charles has a startling realization: He doesn’t have to go back. He could simply choose to disappear, to walk away from his old life. But Aude has secrets of her own, and before long their pasts catch up to them, threatening everything they have fought to build.

Even though the avatars of New York City have temporarily managed to stop the Woman in White from invading --- and destroying the entire universe in the process --- the mysterious capital "E" Enemy has more subtle powers at her disposal. A new candidate for mayor wielding the populist rhetoric of gentrification, xenophobia and "law and order" may have what it takes to change the very nature of New York itself and take it down from the inside. In order to defeat him, and the Enemy who holds his purse strings, the avatars will have to join together with the other Great Cities of the world in order to bring her down for good and protect their world from complete destruction.

From paranormal plots to stories of the supernatural, tales of the unfamiliar have always fascinated us humans. To keep the tradition alive, fantasy aficionado Paula Guran has gathered the most delightfully disturbing work from some of today’s finest writers of the fantastique. No two mysterious shadows are alike, and the same can be said for the books in this series. Volume 4 contains more than 300 pages of mystical fiction. Reader beware and indulge if you dare, because these chilling tales are sure to spook and surprise!