Archives

The Personal Librarian

The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian—who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray.

With Teeth

If she’s being honest, Sammie Lucas is scared of her son. Working from home in the close quarters of their Florida house, she lives with one wary eye peeled on Samson, a sullen, unknowable boy who resists her every attempt to bond with him. Uncertain in her own feelings about motherhood, she tries her best—driving, cleaning, cooking, prodding him to finish projects for school—while growing increasingly resentful of Monika, her confident but absent wife. As Samson grows from feral toddler to surly teenager, Sammie’s life begins to deteriorate into a mess of unruly behavior, and her struggle to create a picture-perfect queer family unravels. When her son’s hostility finally spills over into physical aggression, Sammie must confront her role in the mess—and the possibility that it will never be clean again.

When Stars Rain Down

Set in 1936, Angela Jackson-Brown’s latest novel follows the journey of Opal Pruitt who is not only navigating new adulthood, but also the residual effects of Reconstruction—which includes unprovoked beatings and property burnings by the Ku Klux Klan. Despite these struggles, Opal’s town of Parsons, Georgia is preparing for its annual Founder’s Day celebration, but when the underlying tension begins to erupt in the heat, everything is at risk of changing.

Morningside Heights

When Ohio-born Pru Steiner arrives in New York in 1976, she follows in a long tradition of young people determined to take the city by storm. But when she falls in love with and marries Spence Robin, her hotshot young Shakespeare professor, her life takes a turn she couldn’t have anticipated.

Thirty years later, something is wrong with Spence. The Great Man can’t concentrate; he falls asleep reading The New York Review of Books. With their daughter, Sarah, away at medical school, Pru must struggle on her own to find Spence the help he needs. One day, feeling especially isolated, Pru meets a man, and the possibility of new romance blooms. Meanwhile, Spence’s estranged son from his first marriage has come back into their lives. Arlo, a wealthy entrepreneur who invests in biotech, may be his father’s last, best hope.

Morningside Heights is a sweeping and compassionate novel about a marriage surviving hardship. It’s about the love between women and men, and children and parents; about the things we give up in the face of adversity; and about how to survive when life turns out differently from what we thought we signed up for.

Libertie

With Libertie, the critically acclaimed and Whiting Award-winning author of We Love You, Charlie Freeman returns with an unforgettable story about the meaning of freedom. Coming of age as a free-born Black girl in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, Libertie Sampson was all too aware that her purposeful mother, a practicing physician, had a vision for their future together: Libertie would go to medical school and practice alongside her. But Libertie, drawn more to music than science, feels stifled by her mother’s choices and hungry for something else. And she is constantly reminded that, unlike her light-skinned mother, Libertie will not be able to pass as white. When a young man from Haiti proposes to Libertie and promises she will be his equal on the island, she accepts, only to discover that she is still subordinate to him and all men. As she tries to parse what freedom actually means for a dark-skinned Black woman, Libertie struggles with where she might find it—for herself and for generations to come. Inspired by the life of one of the first Black female doctors in the United States and rich with historical detail, Kaitlyn Greenidge’s new novel is a soaring mother-daughter story, perfect for readers of Brit Bennett, Min Jin Lee, and Yaa Gyasi.

Northern Spy

A producer at the Belfast bureau of the BBC, Tessa is at work one day when the news of another raid comes on the air. The IRA may have gone underground after the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, but they never really went away, and lately, bomb threats, security checkpoints, and helicopters floating ominously over the city have become features of everyday life. As the news reporter requests the public’s help in locating those responsible for this latest raid—a robbery at a gas station—Tessa’s sister, Marian, appears onscreen. She watches in shock as Marian pulls a black ski mask over her face.
The police believe Marian has joined the IRA, but Tessa knows this is impossible. Though their family is Catholic, they were raised to oppose the violence enacted in the name of Republicanism. The sisters have attended peace vigils together. And besides, Marian is vacationing on the north coast. Tessa just spoke to her yesterday.
When the truth of what has happened to Marian reveals itself, Tessa is faced with impossible choices that test the limits of her ideals, the bonds of her family, her notions of right and wrong, and her identity as a sister and a mother. Walking an increasingly perilous road, she fears nothing more than endangering the one person she loves more fiercely than her sister: her infant son, Finn.
A riveting and exquisite novel about family, terror, motherhood, betrayal, and the staggering human costs of an intractable conflict, Northern Spy cements Flynn Berry’s reputation as one of the most sophisticated and accomplished authors of crime and suspense novels working today.

Caul Baby

From New York Times bestselling author Morgan Jerkins, an electrifying tale rife with secrets, betrayal, intrigue, and magic that brings to life one powerful and enigmatic family. Laila desperately wants to become a mother, but each of her previous pregnancies has ended in heartbreak. To protect the child she’s carrying, she turns to the Melancons, an old and powerful Harlem family known for their caul, a precious layer of skin that is rumored to hold miraculous healing properties. But the deal to acquire the caul falls apart, and Laila’s child is stillborn. Overcome with grief and rage, Laila does not know that her niece, Amara, an ambitious college student, is secretly expecting a baby. When the girl arrives, Amara names her Hallow and arranges for her to be privately adopted. What she doesn’t know is that the adoptive family are the Melancons, who are eager to raise this extraordinary child as their own. Seeing Hallow’s unusual caul, the Melancon matriarch predicts the girl will save the family and restore the riches that they once enjoyed. Growing up, Hallow feels that something in her life is not right. Did Josephine, the woman she calls mother, really bring her into the world? Why is her cousin Helena allowed to roam the streets of New York freely while she must remain at home? Is she fated to live, work, and die in the Melancons’ crumbling brownstone? As the family’s thirst to maintain their status grows, fate reunites Hallow and Amara, whose career has reached astonishing heights. Now, daughter and mother must decide where their true allegiances lie. Engrossing, unique, and page-turning, Caul Baby illuminates the search for familial connection, the enduring power of tradition, and the darkest corners of the human heart.

The Plot

Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot is a psychologically suspenseful novel about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it.

After Francesco

Acclaimed author Brian Malloy brings insight, humor, and the authenticity of his own experiences as a member of the AIDS generation to this universal story of love and loss set in New York City and Minneapolis at the peak of the AIDS crisis. Published on the 40th anniversary of the disease’s first reported cases, After Francesco is both a tribute to a generation lost to the pandemic as well as a powerful exploration of heartbreak, recovery and how love can defy grief.

The Letter Keeper

Combining the heart-wrenching emotion of Nicholas Sparks with the tension of John Grisham, New York Times bestselling author Charles Martin explores the true power of sacrificial love in his second novel featuring Murphy Shepherd.