This book will rip readers’ hearts to shreds. Much like Broadchurch, Every Moment Since zeros in on a small Southern community where eleven-year-old Davy Malcor went missing in 1985. At once a family drama and a literary mystery, the novel opens when Davy’s distinct jacket is found twenty-one years later, and everyone is left grappling with their roles in what really happened that night. Deftly handling both grief and hope, nostalgia and tragedy, Whalen’s latest is an emotionally raw and gripping story that reminds readers that sometimes all one can do is take the next breath.
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EXPOSURE
In 2004, Juliette Marker, a white college freshman, and Noah King, a Black high school senior, are two lonely souls who enter each other’s orbit, forge a connection, and, after a chance meeting, go home together. Twelve years later, Noah has done the impossible and made it in Hollywood. His first film is about to be released, and he and his beloved wife Jesse, a successful writer herself, have just had a baby. Meanwhile, Juliette’s best friend Annie is back in LA for the first time in more than a decade. As teenagers, Juliette and Annie shared an enviable bond, memorialized by Juliette’s mother, Margot, a renowned photographer. When Annie returns to the Topanga Canyon home where they spent their idyllic adolescence, she makes a startling discovery about Juliette that will threaten to blow up the life Noah has struggled to build. Spanning decades, from LA to Chicago, and told through multiple perspectives, this powerful, provocative novel delves into one life-changing night and the complex lives and relationships of those affected by it, exploring how race, artistic ambition, and grief expose different versions of the same story.
HARLEM RHAPSODY
The extraordinary story of Jessie Redmon Fauset, whose passion and genius created the community of friends and rivals that became the Harlem literary Renaissance, written by Victoria Christopher Murray, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian.
When Jessie Redmon Fauset arrives in Harlem in 1919, something is stirring. Against the pervasive racism and discrimination that pulses throughout the country, there is this little corner in America called Harlem where Black is beautiful. Black pride is evident everywhere—in music, theatre, fashion and the arts. As the new literary editor of Crisis magazine, Jessie aspires to bring this sense of pride to literature.
Her boss and founder of the preeminent Negro magazine, W. E. B. Du Bois charges her with discovering young writers whose words will change the world. And Jessie’s triumph is almost instant. She meets sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen in church, and seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes when he submits his high school graduation photograph to the magazine; she and Nella Larsen become best friends…she even mentors Zora Neale Hurston. Crisis becomes known for its groundbreaking poetry and short stories. And it isn’t the writers alone who are celebrated. Jessie shines as well, becoming famous in publishing circles.
However, W. E. B. is not only Jessie’s mentor, but also her lover—and their torrid and tumultuous affair, despite their fourteen-year-age difference and in spite of him being very married, threatens all Jessie has achieved. From the beginning, Jessie has harbored a secret desire—to become the editor of the Crisis. But W. E. B. has no intention of ever walking away from the magazine—and the woman—he loves. In the face of overwhelming sexism and racism, Jessie has realized unparalleled success and to preserve her legacy she’ll have to stand her ground once more to capture what her heart desires most.
HOMESEEKING
A single choice can define an entire life. Suchi first sees Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood when she is seven years old, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossoms into love, but when Haiwen secretly enlists in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, Suchi is left with just his violin and a note: Forgive Me. Sixty years later, recently widowed Haiwen spots Suchi at a grocery store in Los Angeles. It feels to Haiwen like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back. In the twilight of their lives, can they reclaim their past and the love they lost?
NORTH IS THE NIGHT
Two bold young women defy the gods and mortals, living and dead, in this sapphic reimagining of Finnish folklore from internationally bestselling author Emily Rath. The first in a darkly mythical duology for readers of Katherine Arden, Naomi Novik, T. Kingfisher, and The Witch’s Heart…In the Finnish wilderness, more than wolves roam the dark forests. For Siiri and Aina, summer’s fading light is a harbinger of unwelcome change. Land-hungry Swedes venture north, threatening the peace; a zealous Christian priest denounces the old ways; and young women have begun to disappear. Bold and resilient, Siiri vows to protect Aina from danger. But even Siiri cannot stop a death goddess from dragging her friend to Tuonela, the mythical underworld. Determined to save Aina, Siiri braves a dangerous journey north to seek the greatest shaman of legend, the only person to venture to the realm of death and return alive. Down in the dark of Tuonela, the cruel Witch Queen turns Aina’s every waking moment into a living nightmare. But armed with compassion and cleverness, Aina learns the truth of her capture: the king of the underworld himself has plans for her. To return home, Aina must bargain her heart—as Siiri plots a daring rescue of the woman she loves the most.
OLD SOUL
In Osaka, two strangers, Jake and Mariko, miss their flight, and over dinner discover they have both brutally lost loved ones whose paths crossed with a beguiling woman no one has laid eyes on since.
Following the traces this woman left behind, Jake gathers testimonies from other troubled souls who encountered her across the years, and lands on a sculptor in Taos County, New Mexico. She knows the woman better than anyone—and might just hold the key to who, or what, she is. Part horror, part western, part thriller, Old Soul is a wildly innovative and fearlessly bold genre-defying tale that explores vulnerability, loss, and predation, spanning centuries and crossing the globe, and is ultimately a moving portrait of love and the will to live.
SHRED SISTERS
Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental health, loss and love. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight, but when her stunning confidence morphs into something erratic and unpredictable, she becomes a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core dreams of winning a Nobel Prize and unlocking the mysteries of the mind. Amy believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. Except none of that can explain what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the bipolar disorder that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed world. As Amy comes of age and seeks to find her place—first in academics, then New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships—every step brings collisions with Ollie, who slips in and out of the Shred family without warning. For all that upends and unsettles these sisters, an inextricable bond always draws them back.
TARTUFO
After nearly losing the election to a geriatric but wildly popular donkey named Maurizio, newly installed Mayor Delizia Miccuci can’t help but feel like the sun has finally set on the rural Italian village of Lazzarina Boscarino. Tourists only stop by to ask for directions, Nonna Amara’s cherished ristorante is long shuttered, and the town hall is disgustingly overrun with glis glis poo—even Postman Duccio has been disgraced. All that’s left is Bar Celebrità, a rustic establishment where weary locals gather to quibble over decades-long disputes, submit their poor stomachs to bartender Giuseppina’s volcanic espresso, and wonder what will become of the place where together they’ve spent their entire lives.
THE ANCIENTS
A richly imagined, sweeping novel set in the climate-changed world of our own descendants, by the acclaimed author of Whiskey When We’re Dry.
A young boy and his older sisters find themselves suddenly and utterly alone, orphaned in an abandoned fishing village. Their food supplies dwindling, they set out across a breathtaking yet treacherous wilderness in search of the last of their people.
Down the coast, raiders deliver the children’s mother, along with the rest of their human cargo, to the last port city of a waning empire. Determined to reunite with her family, she plots her escape—while her fellow captives plan open revolt.
At the center of power in this crumbling city, a young scholar inherits his father’s business and position of privilege, along with the burden of his debts. As the empire’s elite prepare to flee to new utopia across the sea, he must decide where his allegiance lies.
With a rapidly changing climate shifting the sands beneath their feet, these three paths converge in a struggle for the future of humanity—who will inherit what remains and who gets to tell its story. At once a sweeping survival story; an epic of the distance future; and a post-apocalyptic vision of hope and optimism, The Ancients weaves a multilayered narrative about human resilience, hope, and stewardship of our world for future generations.
THE BOOK OF GEORGE
If you haven’t had the misfortune of dating a George, you know someone who has. He’s a young man brimming with potential but incapable of following through; noncommittal to his long-suffering girlfriend, Jenny; distant from but still reliant on his mother; funny one minute, sullenly brooding the next. And yet, it’s hard not to root for George at least a little. Beneath his cynicism is a reservoir of fondness for Jenny’s valiant willingness to put up with him. Each demonstration of his flaws is paired with a self-eviscerating comment. No one is more disappointed in him than himself (except maybe Jenny and his mother). Here, Kate Greathead paints one particular, unforgettable George in a series of droll and surprisingly poignant snapshots of his life over two decades. As hilarious as it is astute and singular as it is universal, The Book of George is a deft, unexpectedly moving portrait of millennial masculinity.