When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror --- and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.

When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror --- and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.

From the critically acclaimed author of BUNNY comes a “Grimm Brothers fairy tale for the modern age” (Good Housekeeping) and “darkly funny horror novel” (NYLON) about a lonely young woman who’s drawn to a cult-like spa in the wake of her mother’s mysterious death. “Surreal, scary and deeply moving --- like all the best fairy tales” (People).

For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror --- and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.

Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, ROUGE explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry --- as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, ROUGE holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.

Audiobook available, read by Sophie Amoss

Vesper Wright left home at 18 and never looked back --- mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep. Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin, Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper has been given special treatment. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen. When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith.

Vesper Wright left home at 18 and never looked back --- mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep. Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin, Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper has been given special treatment. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen. When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith.

A cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of SUCH SHARP TEETH and CACKLE.

Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly...something else. Vesper left home at 18 and never looked back --- mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep. 

Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin, Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper has been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.

When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.

Audiobook available, read by Jeremy Carlisle Parker

The author of the New York Times bestseller THE BOOK OF DELIGHTS is back with a new record of small wonders --- and it is exactly the book we need right now. In this second intimate collection of short, lyrical, genre-defying essays, again written daily over a year, one of America’s most original and observant voices celebrates the ordinary, helping us see our extraordinary world anew. For Ross Gay, practicing delight is an act of defiance in an often unjust world, as necessary as breathing. Even as he acknowledges racism, consumerism, ecological devastation and our individual sorrows, he shows us that the un-delights make the delights even more so. As always, Gay revels in the natural world and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us.

The author of the New York Times bestseller THE BOOK OF DELIGHTS is back with a new record of small wonders --- and it is exactly the book we need right now. In this second intimate collection of short, lyrical, genre-defying essays, again written daily over a year, one of America’s most original and observant voices celebrates the ordinary, helping us see our extraordinary world anew. For Ross Gay, practicing delight is an act of defiance in an often unjust world, as necessary as breathing. Even as he acknowledges racism, consumerism, ecological devastation and our individual sorrows, he shows us that the un-delights make the delights even more so. As always, Gay revels in the natural world and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us.

From the bestselling author of THE BOOK OF DELIGHTS and an award-winning poet, a book of lyrical mini-essays celebrating the everyday that will inspire readers to rediscover the joys in the world around us.

The author of the New York Times bestseller THE BOOK OF DELIGHTS is back with a new record of small wonders --- and it is exactly the book we need right now.

In this second intimate collection of short, lyrical, genre-defying essays, again written daily over a year, one of America’s most original and observant voices celebrates the ordinary, helping us see our extraordinary world anew. Among Ross Gay’s funny, poetic, philosophical delights: bonding with a pipsqueak of a puppy, observing how his mother bakes 18  kinds of cookies before her grandchildren arrive, noticing the tenderness he feels when he sees an adult wearing braces, and the recognition that for him the preamble is often more delightful than the thing itself: “Putting on your socks and tying up your shoes, and, if you’re the type, filling up your water bottle and doing some light stretching, but skipping the walk entirely.”

For Gay, practicing delight is an act of defiance in an often unjust world, as necessary as breathing. Even as he acknowledges racism, consumerism, ecological devastation and our individual sorrows, he shows us that the un-delights make the delights even more so. As always, Gay revels in the natural world --- a hummingbird carousing in the beebalm, the garlic that grows abundantly in his garden (along with collards and kale leaves and purple osaka mustards, pineapple sage, sweet potatoes, etc.), a field of sunflowers turning toward the sun, the shared bounty from a neighbor’s fig tree --- and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us.

Audiobook available, read by Ross Gay

Few, if any, historians have brought such insight, wisdom and empathy to public discourse as Jill Lepore. Arriving at The New Yorker in 2005, Lepore brought a transporting freshness and a literary vivacity to everything from profiles of long-dead writers to urgent constitutional analysis to an unsparing scrutiny of the woeful affairs of the nation itself. The astonishing essays collected in THE DEADLINE offer a prismatic portrait of Americans’ techno-utopianism, frantic fractiousness and unprecedented --- but armed --- aimlessness. From lockdowns and race commissions to Bratz dolls and bicycles, to the losses that haunt Lepore’s life, these essays again and again cross what she calls the deadline, the “river of time that divides the quick from the dead.”

Few, if any, historians have brought such insight, wisdom and empathy to public discourse as Jill Lepore. Arriving at The New Yorker in 2005, Lepore brought a transporting freshness and a literary vivacity to everything from profiles of long-dead writers to urgent constitutional analysis to an unsparing scrutiny of the woeful affairs of the nation itself. The astonishing essays collected in THE DEADLINE offer a prismatic portrait of Americans’ techno-utopianism, frantic fractiousness and unprecedented --- but armed --- aimlessness. From lockdowns and race commissions to Bratz dolls and bicycles, to the losses that haunt Lepore’s life, these essays again and again cross what she calls the deadline, the “river of time that divides the quick from the dead.”

A book to be read and kept for posterity, THE DEADLINE is the art of the essay at its best.

Few, if any, historians have brought such insight, wisdom, and empathy to public discourse as Jill Lepore. Arriving at The New Yorker in 2005, Lepore, with her panoptical range and razor-sharp style, brought a transporting freshness and a literary vivacity to everything from profiles of long-dead writers to urgent constitutional analysis to an unsparing scrutiny of the woeful affairs of the nation itself.

The astonishing essays collected in THE DEADLINE offer a prismatic portrait of Americans’ techno-utopianism, frantic fractiousness and unprecedented --- but armed --- aimlessness. From lockdowns and race commissions to Bratz dolls and bicycles, to the losses that haunt Lepore’s life, these essays again and again cross what she calls the deadline, the “river of time that divides the quick from the dead.”

Echoing Gore Vidal’s UNITED STATES in its massive intellectual erudition, THE DEADLINE, with its remarkable juxtaposition of the political and the personal, challenges the very nature of the essay --- and of history --- itself.

Audiobook available, read by Jill Lepore

Summer 1980: Despite the local superstition that the Bendy Man haunts the woods, three girls go into a Minnesota forest. Only one comes out, dead silent, her memory gone. The mystery of the Taken Ones captures the nation. Summer 2022: Cold case detective Van Reed and forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck are assigned a disturbing homicide --- a woman buried alive, clutching a heart charm necklace belonging to one of the vanished girls. Each has ties to the original case in ways they’re reluctant to share. As Van and Harry connect the crimes of the past and the present, Van struggles with memories of her own nightmarish childhood --- and the fear that uncovering the truth of the Taken Ones will lead her down a path from which she, too, may never return.

Summer 1980: Despite the local superstition that the Bendy Man haunts the woods, three girls go into a Minnesota forest. Only one comes out, dead silent, her memory gone. The mystery of the Taken Ones captures the nation. Summer 2022: Cold case detective Van Reed and forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck are assigned a disturbing homicide --- a woman buried alive, clutching a heart charm necklace belonging to one of the vanished girls. Each has ties to the original case in ways they’re reluctant to share. As Van and Harry connect the crimes of the past and the present, Van struggles with memories of her own nightmarish childhood --- and the fear that uncovering the truth of the Taken Ones will lead her down a path from which she, too, may never return.

Two girls vanished. A woman buried alive. Between two crimes lie decades of secrets yet to be unearthed in a pulse-pounding novel by the Edgar Award–nominated author of UNSPEAKABLE THINGS.

Summer 1980: Despite the local superstition that the Bendy Man haunts the woods, three girls go into a Minnesota forest. Only one comes out, dead silent, her memory gone. The mystery of the Taken Ones captures the nation.

Summer 2022: Cold case detective Van Reed and forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck are assigned a disturbing homicide --- a woman buried alive, clutching a heart charm necklace belonging to one of the vanished girls. Van follows her gut. Harry trusts in facts. They’re both desperate to catch a killer before he kills again. They have something else in common: each has ties to the original case in ways they’re reluctant to share.

As Van and Harry connect the crimes of the past and the present, Van struggles with memories of her own nightmarish childhood --- and the fear that uncovering the truth of the Taken Ones will lead her down a path from which she, too, may never return.

Audiobook available, read by Carly Robins

After Sheriff Bree Taggert’s takedown of cold-blooded murderer Travis Ekin, his family vows revenge. Travis’ mother and brothers are every bit as violent, and Bree is in their crosshairs. To complicate matters, Bree’s best friend, Dana Romano, walks into her date’s home and finds him shot in the chest. Dana tangles with an unidentified intruder, but he escapes through the back door. The crime scene is in another police department’s jurisdiction, and the lead investigator focuses on Dana as the prime suspect. While Bree and investigator Matt Flynn work off the books to clear Dana, Bree’s family receives deadly threats. A second dead body and a shocking piece of evidence link the two cases. Bree and Matt must find the killer fast --- before either case takes another deadly turn.

After Sheriff Bree Taggert’s takedown of cold-blooded murderer Travis Ekin, his family vows revenge. Travis’ mother and brothers are every bit as violent, and Bree is in their crosshairs. To complicate matters, Bree’s best friend, Dana Romano, walks into her date’s home and finds him shot in the chest. Dana tangles with an unidentified intruder, but he escapes through the back door. The crime scene is in another police department’s jurisdiction, and the lead investigator focuses on Dana as the prime suspect. While Bree and investigator Matt Flynn work off the books to clear Dana, Bree’s family receives deadly threats. A second dead body and a shocking piece of evidence link the two cases. Bree and Matt must find the killer fast --- before either case takes another deadly turn.

Sheriff Bree Taggert and those she loves become the target of a family’s deadly revenge in a chilling novel of suspense by #1 Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Melinda Leigh.

After Sheriff Bree Taggert’s takedown of cold-blooded murderer Travis Ekin, his family vows revenge. Travis’ mother and brothers are every bit as violent, and Bree is in their crosshairs.

To complicate matters, Bree’s best friend, Dana Romano, walks into her date’s home and finds him shot in the chest. Dana tangles with an unidentified intruder, but he escapes through the back door. The crime scene is in another police department’s jurisdiction, and the lead investigator focuses on Dana as the prime suspect.

While Bree and investigator Matt Flynn work off the books to clear Dana, Bree’s family receives deadly threats. A second dead body and a shocking piece of evidence link the two cases. Bree and Matt must find the killer fast --- before either case takes another deadly turn.

Audiobook available, read by Christina Traister

Carol is a divorced teacher living in a small town in Ireland. A second chance at love brings her unexpected connection and belonging --- and sparks a flurry of speculation. What does a woman like her see in a man like that? What happened to his wife who abandoned him and his children all those years ago? Carol and Declan know their relationship is the talk of the town, but the gossip only serves to bring the couple closer. When Declan becomes ill, their relationship falters. His children are untrusting and cruel, and Carol is forced to leave their beloved home and move back with her parents. It seems there are secrets in Declan's past, strange rumors that were never confronted, and suddenly the house they shared takes on a more sinister significance that affects them all.

Carol is a divorced teacher living in a small town in Ireland. A second chance at love brings her unexpected connection and belonging --- and sparks a flurry of speculation. What does a woman like her see in a man like that? What happened to his wife who abandoned him and his children all those years ago? Carol and Declan know their relationship is the talk of the town, but the gossip only serves to bring the couple closer. When Declan becomes ill, their relationship falters. His children are untrusting and cruel, and Carol is forced to leave their beloved home and move back with her parents. It seems there are secrets in Declan's past, strange rumors that were never confronted, and suddenly the house they shared takes on a more sinister significance that affects them all.

The internationally bestselling author and host of "The Graham Norton Show" returns with a tense and darky comic novel that casts a caustic light on the relationship between mothers and daughters and truth and self-preservation.

Where do secrets live?

Carol is a divorced teacher living in a small town in Ireland, her only son now grown. A second chance at love brings her unexpected connection and belonging --- and sparks a flurry of speculation. What does a woman like her see in a man like that? What happened to his wife who abandoned him and his children all those years ago? Carol and Declan know their relationship is the talk of the town, but the gossip only serves to bring the couple closer.

When Declan becomes ill, their relationship falters. His children are untrusting and cruel, and Carol is forced to leave their beloved home, with its worn oak floors and elegant features, and move back with her parents.

Carol’s mother is determined to get to the bottom of things --- she won't see her daughter suffer this way. It seems there are secrets in Declan's past, strange rumors that were never confronted, and suddenly the house they shared takes on a more sinister significance that affects them all.

Audiobook available, read by Graham Norton

After striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her 17-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market. It’s there that she connects with old high school flame Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry’s palm, she’s haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise. As she follows the thread of these visions, Madi discovers a terrifying nightmare waiting at the center of the labyrinth --- and it’s coming for everyone she holds dear.

After striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her 17-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market. It’s there that she connects with old high school flame Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry’s palm, she’s haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise. As she follows the thread of these visions, Madi discovers a terrifying nightmare waiting at the center of the labyrinth --- and it’s coming for everyone she holds dear.

After striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her 17-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market.

It’s there that she connects with old high school flame Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry’s palm, she’s haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise. As she follows the thread of these visions, Madi discovers a terrifying nightmare waiting at the center of the labyrinth --- and it’s coming for everyone she holds dear.

Combining supernatural horror with domestic suspense into a visceral exploration of parental grief, WHAT KIND OF MOTHER cements Clay McLeod Chapman's reputation as a “star” (Vulture) and “the twenty-first century’s Richard Matheson” (Richard Chizmar, CHASING THE BOOGEYMAN).

Audiobook available, read by Megan Tusing and Joe Hempel

Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (1905–1961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywood’s most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photos --- with a touch of defiance --- “Orientally yours.” Now, more than a century after her birth, Yunte Huang narrates Wong’s tragic life story, retracing her journey from Chinatown to silent-era Hollywood, and from Weimar Berlin to decadent, prewar Shanghai, and capturing American television in its infancy. As Huang shows, Wong’s rendezvous with history features a remarkable parade of characters, including a smitten Walter Benjamin and (an equally smitten) Marlene Dietrich.

Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (1905–1961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywood’s most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photos --- with a touch of defiance --- “Orientally yours.” Now, more than a century after her birth, Yunte Huang narrates Wong’s tragic life story, retracing her journey from Chinatown to silent-era Hollywood, and from Weimar Berlin to decadent, prewar Shanghai, and capturing American television in its infancy. As Huang shows, Wong’s rendezvous with history features a remarkable parade of characters, including a smitten Walter Benjamin and (an equally smitten) Marlene Dietrich.

A trenchant reclamation of the Chinese American movie star, whose battles against cinematic exploitation and endemic racism are set against the currents of 20th-century history.

Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (1905–1961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywood’s most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photos --- with a touch of defiance --- “Orientally yours.” Now, more than a century after her birth, Yunte Huang narrates Wong’s tragic life story, retracing her journey from Chinatown to silent-era Hollywood, and from Weimar Berlin to decadent, prewar Shanghai, and capturing American television in its infancy. As Huang shows, Wong’s rendezvous with history features a remarkable parade of characters, including a smitten Walter Benjamin and (an equally smitten) Marlene Dietrich.

Challenging the parodically racist perceptions of Wong as a “Dragon Lady,” “Madame Butterfly” or “China Doll,” Huang’s biography becomes a truly resonant work of history that reflects the raging anti-Chinese xenophobia, unabashed sexism and ageism toward women that defined both Hollywood and America in Wong’s all-too-brief 56 years on earth.

Salma Khatun is hopeful about Blenheim, the suburban development into which she, her husband and their son have just moved. The Bangladeshi family needs a fresh start, and Blenheim feels like just the place. Soon after they move in, Salma spots her white neighbor, Tom Hutton, ripping out the anti-racist banner her son put in the front garden. Avoiding confrontation, Salma takes the banner inside and puts it in her window. But the next morning, she wakes up to find her window smeared with paint. When she does speak to Tom, battle lines are drawn between the two families. As racial and social tensions escalate and the stakes rise, it’s clear that a reckoning is coming…and someone is going to get hurt.

Salma Khatun is hopeful about Blenheim, the suburban development into which she, her husband and their son have just moved. The Bangladeshi family needs a fresh start, and Blenheim feels like just the place. Soon after they move in, Salma spots her white neighbor, Tom Hutton, ripping out the anti-racist banner her son put in the front garden. Avoiding confrontation, Salma takes the banner inside and puts it in her window. But the next morning, she wakes up to find her window smeared with paint. When she does speak to Tom, battle lines are drawn between the two families. As racial and social tensions escalate and the stakes rise, it’s clear that a reckoning is coming…and someone is going to get hurt.

A twisty and consuming thriller, PERFECTLY NICE NEIGHBORS asks: When your dream home comes with nightmare neighbors, how far will you go to keep your family safe?

Salma Khatun is hopeful about Blenheim, the suburban development into which she, her husband and their son have just moved. The Bangladeshi family needs a fresh start, and Blenheim feels like just the place.

Soon after they move in, Salma spots her white neighbor, Tom Hutton, ripping out the anti-racist banner her son put in the front garden. Avoiding confrontation, Salma takes the banner inside and puts it in her window. But the next morning, she wakes up to find her window smeared with paint.

When she does speak to Tom, battle lines are drawn between the two families. As racial and social tensions escalate and the stakes rise, it’s clear that a reckoning is coming.

And someone is going to get hurt.

Audiobook available, read by Tania Rodrigues