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Margaret’s rare autoimmune condition has destroyed her life, leaving her isolated and in pain. It has no cure, but she’s making do as best she can --- until she’s offered a fully paid-for spot in an experimental medical trial at Graceview Memorial. The conditions are simple, if grueling: she will live at the hospital as a full-time patient, subjecting herself to the near-total destruction of her immune system and its subsequent regeneration. The trial will essentially kill most, but not all, of her. But as the treatment progresses and her body begins to fail, she stumbles upon something sinister living and spreading within the hospital. Unsure of what's real and what's just medication-induced delusion, Margaret struggles to find a way out as her body and mind succumb further to the darkness lurking throughout Graceview's halls.
The FBI calls on former agent Jessica Blackwood to look at a puzzling crime. A wildlife officer has found the body of a popular YouTuber encased in an obelisk made of salt in a remote refuge. When the agency is tipped off to a second body, that of a TikTok star chained to the bottom of Nevada’s Pyramid Lake --- her hands clasped in prayer --- Jessica recruits a trusted colleague of her own: Floridian underwater investigator Sloan McPherson. It appears to be the work of a ritualistic serial killer preying on influencers. That tracks when a third victim --- a fantasy-game live streamer --- barely survives a pipe bomb attack. As the threats multiply across the country, Jessica and Sloan fear they’re playing with something more extreme than they imagined: a killer’s endgame that could be nothing less than apocalyptic.
Although they started out as roommates at Harvard, Sara, Bee, Dina, Allie, Wesley and Claudine soon became family. They had their whole bright lives ahead of them --- until their senior year, when a shocking tragedy changed everything. Twenty years later, five of the roommates still indulge in a secret tradition they’ve kept alive since their campus days: the Circus, a harmless elimination-style “killing” game played across the private rooms and hidden alleys of New York City. The game is a nod to their younger selves and a tribute to the sixth roommate they lost too young. But this year, Sara wants out of the game --- until she discovers there is a small fortune awaiting the winner of this final round. As the Circus unfolds, Sara begins to suspect that the others aren’t playing by the rules.
An army veteran with a career as a beat cop behind her, security guard Addie Finch finds Jonathan, a homeless teenager abandoned by his mother, holed up in a warehouse and vulnerable to the elements and to predators. Touched by the boy’s gentle nature and a wisdom beyond his years, Addie offers him temporary shelter in her garden shed in exchange for maintaining the sprawling property. It’s an act of kindness and purpose that means the world to Jonathan. But when Addie faces a situation that sends her internal world tumbling, the emotional connection with Jonathan becomes her lifeline as well. As both process past traumas, Addie and Jonathan forge a surrogate grandmother-grandson bond --- a chosen family that could restore trust and heal hearts they thought were broken forever.
Luca Matius must carry on the family name, maintaining its presence in the Forum once his powerful and cruel uncle dies. But his noviceship with the city's Philosopher places him in the middle of a catastrophe that will alter the destiny of his people. Maris Casperia was raised amidst the strategic maneuvers of the Citadel's inner workings, and she knows what her future holds --- a lifetime of service to a corrupt city. But her years of serving as a novice to the last Priestess who possesses the stolen magic of the Old War has made her envision a different kind of future for the city. When she meets Luca, a fated chain of events is set into motion that will divinely entangle their lives. As a secret comes to light, Luca and Maris hatch a plot to create a calculated alliance. But when an execution forces Luca to become the symbol of rebellion, he and Maris are thrown onto opposite sides of a holy war.
Months after a freak accident involving lightning, Juliet Nightingale is fully recovered but is left feeling that something is missing from her life. Impulsively, she decides to take a solo summer road trip. Newly single mom Tallulah Byrd Mayfield is hanging by a thread after her neat, tidy world was completely undone when her husband decided that their marriage was over. In the aftermath of the breakup, she and her two daughters move in with her 80-year-old grandfather. Tallulah starts a new job at the Forget-Me-Not Library, where old, treasured memories can be found within the books --- and where Lu must learn to adapt to the many changes thrown her way. When a road detour leads Juliet to Forget-Me-Not, Alabama, and straight into Tallulah’s life, the two women soon discover there’s magic in between the pages of where you’ve been and where you still need to go.
When a celebrity bridesmaid is murdered weeks before an exclusive society wedding, forensic attorney Holly Stone is drafted as an unlikely undercover replacement. As she works to unpick the lives of the notoriously private Kensington family, glamour-averse Holly discovers a new worst enemy in bridezilla Adrianna. Heir to a multimillion-dollar fortune, Adrianna is set on throwing the event of the decade, and she won't let anything get in her way. But beneath the veneer of poise and sophistication, Adrianna and her bridesmaids have secrets worth killing for. As the wedding day gets closer, it's clear that one of the five hand-picked bridesmaids has committed murder --- and a destination wedding is a perfect place to strike again. Soon, Holly finds herself on the playground of the rich and famous, but if she wants to find answers, she'll have to make it out alive.
Avery is a grad student in New York working on a collection of cultural reports and flailing financially and emotionally. She dates older men for money, and others for the oblivion their egos offer. In an act of desperation, Avery takes a job at a right-wing dating app. The "white-paper" she is tasked to write for the startup eventually merges with her dissertation, resulting in a metafictional text that reveals itself over the course of the novel. Meanwhile, her best friend, Frances, an effortlessly chic emerging filmmaker from a wealthy Southern family, drops out of grad school, gets married, and somehow still manages to finish her first feature documentary. Frances' triumphant return to New York as the toast of the art world sends Avery into a final tailspin, pushing her to make a series of devastating decisions.
In BLACK-OWNED, longtime NBC News reporter Char Adams celebrates the living history of Black bookstores. Packed with stories of activism, espionage, violence, community and perseverance, the book starts with the first Black-owned bookstore, which an abolitionist opened in New York in 1834. After its violent demise, Black booklovers carried on its cause. In the 20th century, civil rights and Black Power activists started a Black bookstore boom nationwide. Malcolm X gave speeches in front of the National Memorial African Book Store in Harlem --- a place dubbed “Speakers’ Corner” --- and later, Black bookstores became targets of FBI agents, the police and racist vigilantes. Still, stores continued to fuel Black political movements. Amid these struggles, bookshops were also places of celebration.
Innsbruck, 1485. Helena Scheuberin should be doing what every other young wife is doing: keeping house, supporting her husband, and bearing his children. But as an outspoken, strong woman, she sometimes has difficulty fitting in. Then she draws the unwanted attention of a malign priest who is just starting his campaign to root out “witches” from among the women of her town. And when her husband’s footman dies, she finds herself accused not only of murder but of witchcraft. Helena must find the courage to risk her life and the lives of others by standing up to a man determined to paint her as the most wicked of all.
