What could drive a girl on the cusp of womanhood to lock herself away from the world forever?

What could drive a girl on the cusp of womanhood to lock herself away from the world forever?

Set in England in 1255, Robyn Cadwallader’s THE ANCHORESS is a startling and strange debut novel about a young girl’s desperate choice to isolate herself from the world.

Sarah is only 17 when she chooses to become an anchoress, a holy woman much like the one who taught Saint Hildegard of Bingen, shut away in a small cell, measuring seven by nine paces, at the side of the village church. Fleeing the grief of losing a much-loved sister in childbirth as well as pressure to marry, she decides to renounce the world --- with all its dangers, desires and temptations --- and commit herself to a life of prayer. But it soon becomes clear that even the thick, unforgiving walls of Sarah’s cell cannot keep the outside world away, and her body and soul are still in great danger.

Cadwallader’s powerful novel tells an absorbing and compulsively readable story of faith, desire, shame, fear and the very human need for connection and touch. Compelling, evocative and haunting, THE ANCHORESS is both quietly heartbreaking and thrillingly unpredictable.

A delicious and heartfelt debut in which five amateur bakers compete in a baking competition only to discover that the recipe for happiness may not be so easy to follow.

A delicious and heartfelt debut in which five amateur bakers compete in a baking competition only to discover that the recipe for happiness may not be so easy to follow.

There are many reasons to bake: to feed; to create; to impress; to nourish; to define ourselves; and, sometimes, it has to be said, to perfect. But often we bake to fill a hunger that would be better filled by a simple gesture from a dear one. We bake to love and be loved.

In 1966, Kathleen Eaden, cookbook writer and wife of a supermarket magnate, published The Art of Baking, her guide to nurturing a family by creating the most exquisite pastries, biscuits and cakes. Now, five amateur bakers are competing to become the New Mrs. Eaden. There's Jenny, facing an empty nest now that her family has flown; Claire, who has sacrificed her dreams for her daughter; Mike, trying to parent his two kids after his wife's death; Vicki, who has dropped everything to be at home with her baby boy; and Karen, perfect Karen, who knows what it's like to have nothing and is determined her façade shouldn't slip.

As unlikely alliances are forged and secrets rise to the surface, making the choicest pastry seems the least of the contestants' problems. For they will learn --- as Mrs. Eaden did before them --- that while perfection is possible in the kitchen, it's very much harder in life.

Bitingly funny, raw and insightful, DANGEROUS WHEN WET is the unforgettable story of a unique relationship between a son and his mother.

Bitingly funny, raw and insightful, DANGEROUS WHEN WET is the unforgettable story of a unique relationship between a son and his mother.

"Whoever said you can't get sober for someone else never met my mother, Mama Jean. When I came to in a Manhattan emergency room after an overdose to the news that she was on her way from Texas, I panicked. She was the last person I wanted to see on that dark September morning, but the person I needed the most."

So begins this astonishing memoir --- by turns both darkly comic and deeply poignant --- about this native Texan's long struggle with alcohol, his complicated relationship with Mama Jean, and his sexuality. From the age of five, all Brickhouse wanted was to be at a party with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and all Mama Jean wanted was to keep him at that age, her Jamie doll forever. A Texan Elizabeth Taylor with the split personality of Auntie Mame and Mama Rose, always camera-ready and flamboyantly outspoken, Mama Jean haunted him his whole life, no matter how far away he went or how deep in booze he swam.

Brickhouse's journey takes him from Texas to a high-profile career in book publishing amid New York's glamorous drinking life to his near-fatal descent into alcoholism. After Mama Jean ushers him into rehab and he ultimately begins to dig out of the hole he'd found himself in, he almost misses his chance to prove that he loves her as much as she loves him.

Bitingly funny, raw and insightful, DANGEROUS WHEN WET is the unforgettable story of a unique relationship between a son and his mother.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction Erik Larson comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction Erik Larson comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania.

On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its 10th month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds” --- the fastest liner then in service --- and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack.

Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small --- hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more --- all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.

It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, DEAD WAKE brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love.

Gripping and important, DEAD WAKE captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.

Set between two world wars and inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead, EUPHORIA is an enthralling story of passion, possession, exploration and sacrifice from accomplished author Lily King.

Set between two world wars and inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead, EUPHORIA is an enthralling story of passion, possession, exploration and sacrifice from accomplished author Lily King.

Winner of the 2014 Kirkus Prize
Winner of the 2014 New England Book Award for Fiction
Finalist for the National Book Critic Circle Award for Fiction

New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2014; TIME Top 10 Fiction Books of 2014; New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books of 2014; NPR Best Books of 2014; Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Fiction Books of 2014; Washington Post Top 50 Fiction Books of 2014; Kirkus Best of 2014; Amazon 100 Best of 2014 #16; Publishers Weekly Best Fiction Books of 2014; Our Man in Boston’s Best of 2014; Oprah.com 15 Must Reads of 2014; Buzzfeed 32 Most Beautiful Book Covers of 2014; A Vogue Top 10 Book of 2014; A New York magazine Best Book of the Year; Seattle Times Top Books of 2014; San Francisco Chronicle Top 10 Books of 2014

From New England Book Award winner Lily King comes a breathtaking novel about three young anthropologists of the 1930s caught in a passionate love triangle that threatens their bonds, their ca­­reers, and, ultimately, their lives.

English anthropologist Andrew Banson has been alone in the field for several years, studying the Kiona river tribe in the Territory of New Guinea. Haunted by the memory of his brothers’ deaths and increasingly frustrated and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of suicide when a chance encounter with colleagues, the controversial Nell Stone and her wry and mercurial Australian husband, Fen, pulls him back from the brink. Nell and Fen have just fled the bloodthirsty Mumbanyo and, in spite of Nell’s poor health, are hungry for a new discovery. When Bankson finds them a new tribe nearby, the artistic, female-dominated Tam, he ignites an intellectual and romantic firestorm between the three of them that burns out of anyone’s control.

Set between two world wars and inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead, EUPHORIA is an enthralling story of passion, possession, exploration and sacrifice from accomplished author Lily King.

Filled with her trademark wit, sassy, heartwarming characters and the steamy Southern atmosphere and beauty of her beloved Carolina Lowcountry, THE HURRICANE SISTERS is New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank’s enchanting tale of the ties and lies between generations.

Filled with her trademark wit, sassy, heartwarming characters and the steamy Southern atmosphere and beauty of her beloved Carolina Lowcountry, THE HURRICANE SISTERS is New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank’s enchanting tale of the ties and lies between generations.

Once again Dorothea Benton Frank takes us into the heart of her magical South Carolina Lowcountry on a tumultuous journey filled with longings, disappointments and a road toward happiness that is hard earned.

Three generations of women are buried in secrets. The determined matriarch, Maisie Pringle, at 80, is a force to be reckoned with. Her daughter, Liz, is caught up in the classic maelstrom of being middle-aged and in an emotionally demanding career. And Liz's beautiful twentysomething daughter, Ashley, has dreamy ambitions of her unlikely future that keeps them all at odds.

Mary Beth, Ashley's dearest friend, tries to have her back, but even she can't talk headstrong Ashley out of a relationship with an ambitious politician who seems slightly too old for her. Actually, Ashley and Mary Beth have yet to launch themselves into solvency. So while they wait for the world to discover them, they placate themselves with a harebrained scheme to make money...and threatens to land them in huge trouble with the authorities.

So where is Clayton, Liz's husband? Ashley desperately needs her father's love and attention, but what kind of a parent can he be to Ashley with one foot in Manhattan and the other one planted in indiscretion? And Liz, who's an expert in the field of troubled domestic life, refuses to acknowledge Ashley's precarious situation. The Lowcountry has endured its share of war and bloodshed like the rest of the South, but this storm season we watch Maisie, Liz, Ashley and Mary Beth deal with challenges that demand they face the truth about themselves.