Boyd Halverson --- star journalist turned notorious online disinformation troll turned JCPenney manager --- robs a bank and takes the teller, Angie Bing, as a hostage and for a ride. Haunted by his past and weary of his present, Boyd has one goal before the authorities catch up with him: settle a score with the man who destroyed his life. By Monday, Boyd and Angie reach Mexico; by winter, they are in a lakefront mansion in Minnesota. On their trail are hitmen, jealous lovers, ex-cons, an heiress, a billionaire shipping tycoon, a three-tour veteran of Iraq, and the ghosts of Boyd’s past. Everyone, it seems, except the police.

Freya Lockwood is shocked when she learns that Arthur Crockleford, an antiques dealer and her estranged mentor, has died under mysterious circumstances. She has spent the last 20 years avoiding her quaint English hometown, but when she receives a letter from Arthur asking her to investigate --- sent just days before his death --- Freya has no choice but to return to a life she had sworn to leave behind. Joining forces with her eccentric Aunt Carole, Freya follows clues and her instincts to an old manor house for an advertised antiques enthusiast’s weekend. But it’s clear to Freya that the antiques are all just poor reproductions and her fellow guests are secretive and menacing. What is going on at this estate, and how was Arthur involved? Can Freya and Carole discover the truth before the killer strikes again?

Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction and almost 40 years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive and singular view of American life as lived. Unconstrained, astute, provocative and often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is once more our guide to the great American midway. Now in the twilight of life, a man who has occupied many colorful lives --- sportswriter, father, husband, ex-husband, friend, real estate agent --- Bascombe finds himself in the most sorrowing role of all: caregiver to his son, Paul, diagnosed with ALS. On a shared winter odyssey to Mount Rushmore, Frank, in typical Bascombe fashion, faces down the mortality that is assured each of us. In doing so, he confronts what happiness might signify at the end of days.

As an archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Syd Walker spends her days in Rhode Island trying to protect the land's indigenous past. While Syd is dedicated to her job, she’s haunted by a night of violence she barely escaped in her Oklahoma hometown 15 years ago. Though she swore she’d never go back, the past comes calling. When a skull is found near the crime scene of her youth, just as her sister, Emma Lou, vanishes, Syd knows she must return home. She refuses to let her sister's disappearance, or the remains, go ignored --- as so often happens in cases of missing Native women. But not everyone is glad to have Syd home, and she can feel the crosshairs on her. Still, the deeper Syd digs, the more she uncovers about a string of missing indigenous women cases going back decades.

Sydney Shaw has terrible luck with dating. She's seen it all: men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot. Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming and handsome, and he works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet. Then the brutal murder of a young woman --- the latest in a string of deaths across the coast --- confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them. Sydney should feel safe. After all, she is dating the guy of her dreams. But she can't shake her own suspicions that the perfect man may not be as perfect as he seems. Because someone is watching her every move, and if she doesn't get to the truth, she'll be the killer's next victim.

When fall rolls around, it’s time for Kerry Tolliver to leave her family’s Christmas tree farm in the mountains of North Carolina for the wilds of New York City to help her gruff older brother and his dog, Queenie, sell the trees at the family stand on a corner in Greenwich Village. In the weeks leading into Christmas, Kerry quickly becomes close with the charming neighbors who live near their stand. When an elderly neighbor goes missing, Kerry will need to combine her country know-how with her newly acquired New York knowledge to protect the new friends she’s come to think of as family. And complicating everything is Patrick, a single dad raising his son, Austin, on this quirky block. Kerry and Patrick’s chemistry is undeniable, but what chance does this holiday romance really have?

Ever since the untimely death of their parents, Anne, Beatrix and Violet Quigley have made a business of threading together the stories that rest in the swirls of ginger, cloves and cardamon that lie at the bottom of their customers’ cups. Their days at the teashop are filled with talk of butterflies and good fortune. That is, until the Council of Witches comes calling with news that the city Diviner has lost her powers, and the sisters suddenly find themselves being pulled in different directions. As Anne’s magic begins to develop beyond that of her sisters’, Beatrix’s writing attracts the attention of a publisher, and Violet is enchanted by the song of the circus --- and perhaps a mischievous trapeze artist threatening to sweep her off her feet --- it seems a family curse that threatens to separate the sisters is taking effect.

Haiti, 1991. When a violent coup d’état leads to the fall of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, American expat Matt Amaker is forced to abandon his idyllic, beachfront scuba business. With the rise of a brutal military dictatorship and an international embargo threatening to destroy even the country’s most powerful players, some are looking to gain an advantage in the chaos --- and others are just looking to make it through another day. Desperate for money --- and survival --- Matt teams up with his best friend and business partner, Alix Variel. They set their sights on legendary shipwrecks that have been rumored to contain priceless treasures off a remote section of Haiti’s southern coast. However, their ambition and exploration of these disastrous wrecks come with a cascade of ill-fated incidents.

1980s Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone --- from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples --- could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and where he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family and to himself.

Powerful marketing executive Kemi Adeyemi has finally found the man she needs, but Tobias Wikström thinks she's the most selfish woman he has ever met for asking him to give up his life in Sweden and move to the US for her own comfort. Former model-turned-flight attendant Brittany-Rae von Lundin gave up her career and came with nothing into Jonny’s kingdom. Having had a child with him, her greatest fear for Maya includes being cut off from the resources to which she has become accustomed. After fleeing her home through a client to seek a new life in Sweden, Yasmiin finds love in the arms of Yagiz Çelik. But someone from her past forces her to become a caretaker before she’s ready. EVERYTHING IS NOT ENOUGH follows the loosely intertwined and messy lives of Kemi, Brittany and Yasmiin as they interrogate themes of place, prejudice and patriarchy in Europe.

With his dying father unable to leave the house and follow the butterfly cycle for the first time since he was a child, Ben Masters endeavors to become his connection to the outdoors and his treasured butterflies, reporting back with stories of beloved species and with stories of the woods and meadows that are their habitats and once were his. Structured around a series of exchanges and remembrances, butterflies become a way of talking about masculinity, memory, generational differences, and ultimately loss and continuation. Masters takes readers on an unlikely journey where Luther Vandross and The Sopranos rub shoulders with the likes of Angela Carter and Virginia Woolf on butterflies and gender; the metamorphoses of Prince; Zadie Smith on Joni Mitchell and how sensibilities evolve; and the lives and works of Vladimir Nabokov and other literary lepidopterists.

1923 was a “year of lunacy” in Germany, defined by hyperinflation, violence, a political system on the verge of collapse, the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, and separatist movements threatening to rip apart the German nation. Most observers found it miraculous that the Weimar Republic --- the first German democracy --- was able to survive, though some of the more astute realized that the feral undercurrents unleashed that year could lead to much worse. Now, a century later, Volker Ullrich draws on letters, memoirs, newspaper articles and other sources to present a riveting chronicle of one of the most difficult years any modern democracy has ever faced --- one with haunting parallels to our own political moment.

Holly Sherwin has been a struggling playwright for years, but now, after receiving a grant to develop her play Witching Night, she finally may be close to her big break. All she needs is time and space to bring her vision to life. When she stumbles across Hill House on a weekend getaway upstate, she is immediately taken in by the mansion, nearly hidden outside a remote village. It’s the perfect place to develop and rehearse her play. Despite her own hesitations, Holly’s girlfriend, Nisa, agrees to join Holly in renting the house for a month, and soon a troupe of actors, each with ghosts of their own, arrive. Yet as they settle in, the house’s peculiarities are made known. All too soon, Holly and her friends find themselves at odds not just with one another, but with the house itself.

Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, are living at Cassowary House on the Straits Settlement of Penang. When “Willie” Somerset Maugham, a famed writer and old friend of Robert's, arrives for an extended visit with his secretary Gerald, the pair threatens a rift that could alter more lives than one. Having long hidden his homosexuality, Maugham’s unhappy and expensive marriage of convenience becomes unbearable after he loses his savings --- and the freedom to travel with Gerald. He arrives at Cassowary House in desperate need of a subject for his next book. Lesley, too, is enduring a marriage more duplicitous than it first appears. Maugham suspects an affair and, learning of Lesley's past connection to the Chinese revolutionary, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, decides to probe deeper.

Three members of a wealthy family, along with their live-in nanny, are pulled from their burning mansion, already dead from gunshot wounds. The only survivor is a young boy whose memory of the event raises more questions than answers. The police seem happy to settle on a simple explanation and arrest the most obvious suspect, but Cameron Winter knows that obvious solutions are seldom the correct ones, and all too often they hide a darker truth. While Winter’s investigation is welcomed by many who knew the victims, the lead detective makes it clear he wants Winter not only to stop looking for answers, but to stay out of his town altogether. Winter begins to understand why as he slowly uncovers crimes and unsavory behavior that had been ignored long before the killings.

When Cassandra Camberwell returns to her hometown of Hollow Brook to clear out her late grandmother’s ramshackle old house, the last thing she expects is Seth Brubaker on her doorstep. Her former best friend was responsible for the worst moment of her high school life, and she can’t imagine he wants to do anything but torment her all over again. Until she unearths the real reason this annoyingly gorgeous beast of a man keeps hanging around: he’s an actual werewolf who’s certain she’s the witch that will ease his suffering. But Cassie just isn’t sure if she can trust him again. So Seth offers a pact: he’ll teach her all about her undiscovered magic, and she will brew the potions he needs. No feelings, no funny business, just a witch and a werewolf striking a deal. Totally doable. Until they get hit with a do-or-die mating bond.

On October 1, 1993, 12-year-old Polly Klaas was kidnapped at knifepoint from her bedroom in Petaluma, California, during a sleepover with two friends, while her mother slept soundly in the room next door. This rarest of all kidnappings --- a stranger abduction from the home --- triggered one of the largest manhunts in FBI history. New York Times bestselling author Kim Cross has written the first comprehensive account of what happened on that fateful night in October, as well as how the case forever transformed the Bureau’s approach to solving crimes. With unprecedented access to case files, crime scene photos, a videotaped murder confession and inside sources, IN LIGHT OF ALL DARKNESS follows the investigators who pieced together the evidence that led to the arrest and conviction of the kidnapper.

1995: In the wake of the Rwandan genocide, 24-year-old spy Lachlan Kite and his girlfriend, Martha Raine, are sent to Senegal on the trail of a hunted war criminal. The mission threatens to spiral out of control, forcing Kite to make choices that will have devastating consequences not only for his career at top-secret intelligence agency BOX 88, but also for his relationship with Martha. 2023: Eric Appiah, an old friend from Kite’s days at school and an off-the-record BOX 88 asset, makes contact with explosive information about what happened all those years ago in West Africa. When tragedy strikes, Kite must use all the resources at his disposal to protect Martha from a criminal network with links to international terror.

Dallas private investigator Dylan Fisher hasn’t seen his ex-wife, Rose, in three years --- which is why he’s surprised when she asks him to meet her at a hotel. Rose Doucette is a homicide detective, and she wants Dylan’s help with a murder investigation that she’s been asked to step back from but can’t seem to let go. They review the details of the case and part ways --- but as Rose is leaving the parking lot, Dylan sees a suspicious car begin to follow her. He tails the car and tries to warn Rose, but he’s too late --- the driver of the car shoots her, killing her instantly. The police are determined to pin the murder on Dylan, so he’s left with no choice but to find the killer himself. Teaming up with Rose’s widower, the pair dive into Rose’s past to figure out who could’ve wanted to kill the woman they both loved --- and what they were trying to hide.

It's been five years since Charlotte Donovan was ditched at the altar by her ex-fiancée. She now has her strings ensemble, the Rosalind Quartet, and her life in New York is a dream come true. As the holidays draw near, her ensemble mate Sloane persuades Charlotte and the rest of the quartet to spend Christmas with her family in Colorado. But when Charlotte arrives, she discovers that Sloane’s sister, Adele, also brought a friend home --- and that friend is none other than her ex, Brighton. Brighton just wanted to try to forget that her band kicked her out. But instead, she’s stuck pretending like she and her ex are strangers --- which proves to be difficult when Sloane and Adele’s mom signs them all up for a series of Christmas dating events. After a few days, however, things start to slip through. Memories. Music. The way they used to play together. And it all feels painfully familiar.

A prodigy whose gifts terrified the people around him, John von Neumann transformed every field he touched, inventing game theory and the first programmable computer, and pioneering AI, digital life and cellular automata. Through a chorus of family members, friends, colleagues and rivals, Benjamín Labatut shows us the evolution of a mind unmatched and of a body of work that has unmoored the world in its wake. THE MANIAC places von Neumann at the center of a literary triptych that begins with Paul Ehrenfest, an Austrian physicist and friend of Einstein, who fell into despair when he saw science and technology become tyrannical forces. It ends a hundred years later, in the showdown between the South Korean Go Master Lee Sedol and the AI program AlphaGo.

Making a much-anticipated return to the world of HILD, MENEWOOD transports readers back to seventh-century Britain, a land of rival kings and religions poised for epochal change. Hild is no longer the bright child who made a place in Edwin Overking’s court with her seemingly supernatural insight. She is 18, honed and tested, the formidable lady of Elmet, now building her personal stronghold in the valley of Menewood. But old alliances are fraying. Younger rivals are snapping at Edwin’s heels. And war is brewing. Not knowing whom to trust, Edwin becomes volatile and recalls his young advisor to court. There Hild begins to understand the true extent of the chaos ahead --- and realizes she must find a way to navigate the turbulence and fight to protect both the kingdom and her own people.

Frankie Lane knows what’s best for just about everyone but herself. She’s confident she could help all the people in her life if they’d just let her --- and if all of her help didn’t end in utter disaster. Mitch Howard is the owner of the local hardware store. They’ve been friends ever since Frankie opened her shop, Holiday Happiness, nine years earlier. He got her through the nightmare when she lost her husband in a freak accident, and he’s her favorite shoulder to cry on. He’s been divorced for years, and it’s such a waste of man! Mitch is the fittest, finest man Frankie knows. He’s easygoing, wise and kindhearted. Mitch needs someone. And she’s determined to help him find that someone --- whether he likes it or not.

CIA officers Sia and Max enter Russia under commercial cover to recruit Vladimir Putin’s moneyman. Sia works for a London law firm that conceals the wealth of the superrich. Max’s family business in Mexico, a CIA front since the 1960s, is a farm that breeds high-end racehorses. They pose as a couple to target Vadim, Putin’s private banker, and his wife, Anna, who --- unbeknownst to the CIA --- is a Russian intelligence officer under deep cover at the bank. As they descend further into a Russian world dripping with luxury and rife with gangland violence, Sia and Max’s only hope may be Anna, who is playing a game of her own.

September 29, 1913. The steamship Dresden is halfway between Belgium and England. On board is one of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, whose new internal combustion engine is on the verge of revolutionizing global industry forever. But Diesel never arrives at his destination. He vanishes during the night, and headlines around the world wonder if it was an accident, suicide or murder. In THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF RUDOLF DIESEL, New York Times bestselling author Douglas Brunt reopens the case and provides an astonishing new conclusion about Diesel’s fate.

In this delightfully chilling collection, the iconic Jeanette Winterson turns her fearless gaze to the realm of ghosts, interspersing her own encounters with the supernatural alongside hair-raising fictions. Lifting the veil between the living and the dead, Winterson spirits us away to a haunted estate that ensnares a nomadic young couple in its own dark past, a staged immersive ghost tour gone awry, a West Village séance that threatens the bounds between AI and reality, and a vacation home in the metaverse where a widow visits an improved version of her deceased husband. Gloriously gothic and unnervingly contemporary, Winterson examines grief, revenge, and the myriad ways in which technology can disrupt the boundary between life and death.

Julia and Christopher Hygate have the picture-perfect life: gobs of money thanks to their lucrative shipping enterprise and an estate on a secluded island. When they meet Eve Sylvester, they know she is the exact person they should hire to be their child's nanny. Eve doesn’t have any living relatives, she’s lost touch with her friends, and her partner is out of the picture. Best of all, she’s expecting a baby. Eve thinks she’s landed the greatest gig. But the job seems too good to be true. Why would the Hygates hire Eve if she has no prior nannying experience? Why must Eve stay out of sight? And what’s with the mysterious yachts coming in and out of the Hygates' private marina? It's too late to ask questions, though. Eve is already in far too deep.

When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave --- only to discover that the earth refuses to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

The Cinder Spires have safeguarded humanity for centuries. Within their halls, aristocratic houses rule, developing scientific marvels and building fleets of airships for defense and trade. Now, the Spires hover on the brink of open war. The guns of the great airship fleets that control the skies between the last bastions of humanity will soon speak in anger, and Spire Albion stands alone against the overwhelming might of Spire Aurora's Armada and its new secret weapon --- one capable of destroying the populations of entire Spires. A trading summit at Spire Olympia provides an opportunity for the Spirearch, Lord Albion, to secure alliances that will shape the outcomes of the war. It will take daring, skill and no small amount of showmanship to convince the world to stand with Spire Albion --- assuming that it is not already too late.

Julie Parker’s kids are her greatest gift. Still, she’s not exactly heartbroken when they ask to skip a big Christmas. Her son, Nick, is taking a belated honeymoon with his bride, Blair, while her daughter, Dana, will purge every reminder of the guy who dumped her. Again. Julie feels practically giddy for one-on-one holiday time with Heath, the (much) younger man she’s secretly dating. But her plans go from cozy to chaotic when Nick and Dana plead for Christmas at the family cabin in memory of their late father, Julie’s ex. She can’t refuse, even though she dreads their reactions to her new man when they realize she’s been hiding him for months. As the guest list grows in surprising ways, from Blair’s estranged mom to Heath’s precocious children, Julie’s secret is one of many to be unwrapped.

After the death of his twin sister, Jack Alston, Lord Hawthorn, thought he was done with magic for good. But with the threat of a dangerous ritual hanging over every magician in Britain, he’s drawn reluctantly back into that world. Now Jack is living in a bizarre puzzle-box of a magical London townhouse, helping an unlikely group of friends track down the final piece of the Last Contract before their enemies can do the same. And to make matters worse, they need the help of writer and thief Alan Ross, who is only in this for the money. When a plot to seize unimaginable power comes to a head at Cheetham Hall --- Jack’s ancestral family estate --- Jack, Alan and their allies will become entangled in a night of champagne, secrets and bloody sacrifice.

Yayoi, a 19-year-old woman from a seemingly loving middle-class family, lately has been haunted by the feeling that she has forgotten something important from her childhood. Her premonition grows stronger day by day. As if led by it, she decides to move in with her mysterious aunt, Yukino. For as long as Yayoi can remember, Yukino has lived alone in an old gloomy single-family home. When she is not working, she spends all day in her pajamas, clipping her nails and trimming her split ends. She sometimes wakes Yayoi at 2am to be her drinking companion and watches Friday the 13th over and over to comfort herself. A child study desk, old stuffed animals --- things Yukino wants to forget --- are piled up in her backyard like a graveyard of her memories.

Back home at her estate in Eynsleigh, Lady Georgiana Rannoch impatiently awaits the birth of her baby. But she has plenty to occupy her: her new chef, Pierre, has arrived from Paris, and Sir Hubert, who owns Eynsleigh, is back from his latest expedition. It's time for Georgie to throw her first house party to celebrate his return and show off her new chef. One of the guests is Sir Mortimer Mordred, the author of creepy Gothic horror novels who recently purchased a nearby Elizabethan manor because it has a famous poison garden. He asks Georgie to borrow her new chef for his upcoming party. Shockingly, just after the banquet, several guests become sick. And one dies, apparently poisoned by berries from the garden. But how could this be when they all ate the same meal and the same delectable dessert?

Dogs have been considered people’s best friend for thousands of years, but never has the relationship between humans and their canine companions been as vitally important as it is today. With all of the seismic shifts in today’s world, rates of anxiety and depression have been skyrocketing, and people have been turning to their dogs for solace and stability. In the United States alone, dog adoptions doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic. As people have brought furry friends into their lives for the first time or seized this opportunity to deepen the connections they already have, they are looking to understand how owning a dog can change their lives. Now, THE PUREST BOND explores the benefits our dogs can have on our physical, emotional, cognitive and social well-being, often without our realizing it.

Opal is determined to find a better life for her younger brother, Jasper. One that gets them out of Eden, Kentucky, a town remarkable for only two things: bad luck and E. Starling, the reclusive 19th-century author of The Underland, who disappeared over a hundred years ago. Everyone agrees that it’s best to ignore the uncanny mansion and its misanthropic heir, Arthur. Almost everyone, anyway. Opal has been obsessed with The Underland since she was a child. When she gets the chance to step inside Starling House, she can't resist. But sinister forces are digging deeper into the buried secrets of Starling House, and Arthur’s own nightmares have become far too real. As Eden itself seems to be drowning in its own ghosts, Opal realizes that she finally might have found a reason to stick around.

Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital. It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains.

Psychologist Arles Shepherd treats troubled children, struggling with each case to recover from her own traumatic past. Having just set up a new kind of treatment center in the remote Adirondack wilderness, Arles longs to heal one patient in particular: a 10-year-old boy who has never spoken a word --- or so his mother, Louise, believes. Hundreds of miles away, Cass Monroe is living a parent’s worst nightmare. His 12-year-old daughter has vanished on her way home from school. With no clues, no witnesses and no trail, the police are at a dead end. Fighting a heart that was already ailing, and struggling to keep both his marriage and himself alive, Cass turns to a pair of true-crime podcasters for help. Arles, Louise and Cass will soon find their lives entangled in ways none of them could have anticipated.

A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her. THE VASTER WILDS is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how --- and if --- we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.

WITCHCRAFT travels through 13 witch trials across history, some famous --- like the Salem witch trials --- and some lesser-known: on Vardø island, Norway, in the 1620s, where an indigenous Sami woman was accused of murder; in France in 1731, during the country’s last witch trial, where a young woman was pitted against her confessor and cult leader; in Lesotho in 1948, where British colonial authorities executed local leaders. Exploring how witchcraft was feared, then decriminalized and then reimagined as gendered persecution, WITCHCRAFT takes on the intersections between gender and power, indigenous spirituality and colonial rule, political conspiracy and individual resistance.

Yumi has spent her entire life in strict obedience, granting her the power to summon the spirits that bestow vital aid upon her society. But she longs for even a single day as a normal person. Painter patrols the dark streets dreaming of being a hero --- a goal that has led to nothing but heartache and isolation, leaving him always on the outside looking in. In their own ways, both of them face the world alone. Suddenly flung together, Yumi and Painter must strive to right the wrongs in both their lives, reconciling their past and present while maintaining the precarious balance of each of their worlds. If they cannot unravel the mystery of what brought them together before it’s too late, they risk forever losing not only the bond growing between them, but the very worlds they’ve always struggled to protect.