A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity’s foibles, the lion spends their days protecting the welfare of a nearby homeless encampment, observing obnoxious hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience. “I have so much language in my brain,” our lion says, “and nowhere to put it.”

Tokyo resident Keiko Furukara has never fit in - neither in her family, nor in school - but when at the age of 18 she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of national convenience store chain Smile Mart, she realizes instantly that she has found her purpose in life. Delighted to be able to exist in a place where the rules of social interaction are crystal clear (many are laid out line-by-line in the store's manual), Keiko does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and mode of speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a "normal" person excellently, more or less.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body using a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth. However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she's found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warmhearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human

Since time immemorial, the Haddesley family has tended the cranberry bog. In exchange, the bog sustains them. The staunch seasons of their lives are governed by a strict covenant that is renewed each generation with the ritual sacrifice of their patriarch, and in return, the bog produces a “bog-wife.” Brought to life from vegetation, this woman is meant to carry on the family line. But when the bog fails—or refuses—to honor the bargain, the Haddesleys, a group of discordant siblings still grieving the mother who mysteriously disappeared years earlier, face an unknown future.

When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Meanwhile, their literature teacher Miss Clara, who is obsessed with imitating her dead mother, struggles to preserve her deteriorating sanity. Each day she edges nearer to a total break with reality.

A fresh-faced newcomer arrives in an isolated, gang-run town and soon finds herself taking a job nobody else wants: bodyguard to a ghoul. Not just your average mindless, half-rotted shuffler, though. Lucille is a dancer who can still put on her own lipstick and whose shows are half burlesque, half gladiator match. But the stranger is no stranger to this particular ghoul. Both women are undercover in their own way. And both have something to lose if their connection comes to light.

In bawdy, moving prose, Rita Mae Brown tells the story of Molly Bolt, the adoptive daughter of a dirt-poor Southern couple who boldly forges her own path in America. With her startling beauty and crackling wit, Molly finds that women are drawn to her wherever she goes - and she refuses to apologize for loving them back.

Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina's relationship with her obsessive best friend and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention....

When Bernie replies to Leah’s ad for a new housemate in Philadelphia, the two begin an intense and defiantly uncategorizable friendship based on a mutual belief in their art, and one another. Both aspire to capture the world around them: Leah through her writing; Bernie through her photography. After Bernie’s former photography professor, the renowned yet tarnished Daniel Dunn, dies and leaves her a complicated inheritance, Leah volunteers to accompany Bernie to his home in rural Pennsylvania.

Eat Pray Love meets American Psycho in a seductive and sinister debut literary thriller. Food critic Dorothy Daniels indulges in her homicidal urges by murdering her lovers and devouring their organs in this intense, visceral, and lushly told tale of food, sex, power, and the pursuit of a very particular taste set between New York and Italy. Please Note: A Certain Hunger contains adult language and depictions of violence. Discretion is advised.

Tucked away in an old building at the end of a narrow alley in Kyoto, the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul can only be found by people who are struggling in their lives and genuinely need help. The mysterious clinic offers a unique treatment to those who find their way there: it prescribes cats as medication. Patients are often puzzled by this unconventional prescription, but when they “take” their cat for the recommended duration, they witness profound transformations in their lives, guided by the playful, empathetic, occasionally challenging yet endearing cats.

In a world reeling from an unusual plague, monsters lurk in the streets while terrified survivors arm themselves and roam the countryside in packs. Or perhaps something very different is happening. When a disease affects how reality is perceived, it's hard to be certain of anything . . . Spence is one of the "cured" living at the Ironside rehabilitation facility. Haunted by guilt, he refuses to face the changed world until a new inmate challenges him to help her find her old crew. But if he can't tell the truth from the lies, how will he know if he has earned the redemption he dreams of?

Leah is changed. Months earlier, she left for a routine expedition, only this time her submarine sank to the sea floor. When she finally surfaces and returns home, her wife Miri knows that something is wrong. Barely eating and lost in her thoughts, Leah rotates between rooms in their apartment, running the taps morning and night. As Miri searches for answers, desperate to understand what happened below the water, she must face the possibility that the woman she loves is slipping from her grasp.

Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. Until Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and lie beneath him. She refuses—and is banished forever from Paradise. Demonized and sidelined, Lilith watches in fury as God creates Eve, the woman who accepts her submission. But Lilith has a secret: she has already tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Endowed with Wisdom, she knows why Asherah—God's wife and equal, the Queen of Heaven—is missing. Lilith has a plan: she will rescue Eve, find Asherah, restore balance to the world, and regain her rightful place in Paradise.

As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit into her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut who has explained to her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth.

When mystery author D. B. Ziegler is late delivering her book, Abi Schore steps in to help. Surely she can give her favorite author moral support over the holiday break and get the manuscript to her boss at Tea & Sympathy Publishing in time for the new year. When Abi shows up on Ms. Ziegler’s doorstep bearing holiday treats, she’s met by the author’s handsome grandson Dov, who reveals a startling plot twist. His grandmother isn’t able to finish the book and Dov promised he’d complete it so fans won’t be disappointed—a task that’s harder than he ever imagined.

Two little girls stand with their heads bowed in my living room. I’m told they’re my granddaughters. Daisy is nine, and Alice seven. Daisy is the spitting image of her mother. This is the first time I’ve met them since my daughter and I fell out after she married that waste of space, Vince. They’ve come to live with me because their mother — my daughter — was murdered. In her own home while they slept close by. I think Vince killed her. But the police can’t prove it. I’ve always known he was no good. He treated my daughter like dirt. I said he’d cheat on her — but she wouldn’t listen.

There's no place like home for the holidays ... especially for Lesley Carver. Life in the big city just wasn't her jam and now she's back in Hickory Falls, working at the family diner and helping her mom after she took a tumble. Lesley longs to build a life here, working at the cafe, selling her handmade ornaments and ... er, apparently reviving her high school crush on her best friend’s older brother. Only one problem, her mom wants her to leave Hickory Falls far behind.

Tilly Farriday isn’t feeling very jolly this season. Recently divorced and broke, she’s squatting in one of her rental agency’s properties until her new home is ready. The sprinkles on top of the burnt Christmas cookie that is her life? The new owner shows up early, forcing Tilly to hide in the attic to save her job…and what remains of her dignity.

First published in 1843, it tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean and unpleasant man who dislikes people generally and Christmas especially. One Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come and given a glimpse of the many homes and lives which Scrooge has touched in his wretched life to date. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

Clark Griswold was onto something...at least with his annual holiday meltdown. And since the last three weeks of my life have been riddled with humbug—another breakup, a broken toe, an office promotion I deserved and didn’t get—I’m not at all in the mood to celebrate nor have the happ, happ, happiest Christmas EVER.

My fiancé brought me tea and scrambled eggs in bed that morning, and we snuggled together, talking about buying our rings, and about our perfect wedding next year. Then we headed into town. He held my hand and gazed at the ring I liked best, a smile spreading slowly over his face. Then a glass of bubbly to celebrate. I felt flushed, excited and ready for the rest of my life with the man I loved. We race to get on the train home. It screams to a halt and I run towards its open doors. Made it. I think he’s right behind me — but when I turn around, he’s gone.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.

Like every other girl in her class, twelve-year-old Justine is drawn to her glamorous, charismatic new teacher and longs to be her pet. However, when a thief begins to target the school, Justine's sense that something isn't quite right grows ever stronger. With each twist of the plot, this gripping story of deception and the corrosive power of guilt takes a yet darker turn. Young as she is, Justine must decide where her loyalties lie.

On the night of September 28, 2016, twenty-five-year-old Carolyn Bush was brutally stabbed to death in her New York City apartment by her roommate Render Stetson-Shanahan, leaving friends and family of both reeling. In life, Carolyn was a gregarious, smart-mouthed aspiring poet, who had seemingly gotten along well with Render, a reserved art handler. Where had it gone so terribly wrong?

Growing up in Slater, Isadora Chang never felt at ease in the repressive small town, even before she realized she was bisexual—but after the deaths of two childhood friends, Slater went from feeling claustrophobic to suffocating. So, Isa took off before the town could swallow her, too. Even though it meant leaving everything she knew behind, including her last surviving friend, Mason. When Isa’s abusive father dies, however, she agrees to come back from art school just long enough to collect the inheritance. But then Mason turns up at the cemetery with a revelation and a plea.

Before hypnotism, there was Mesmerism. And in 1894 Minneapolis, in the wake of a national financial crisis, spiritualism of every stripe is all the rage, and women are dying under mysterious circumstances. But until a new guest lands at the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers, refusing to speak or explain her arrival, the sordid stories of unexplained deaths seem unconnected. Faith’s reticence is quickly interpreted as malevolence, setting the house abuzz with whispers of dark magic.

When Saint Sebastian's School becomes the target of a shocking arson spree, the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and their surrounding community are thrust into chaos. Unsatisfied with the officials' response, sardonic and headstrong Sister Holiday becomes determined to unveil the mysterious attacker herself and return her home and sanctuary to its former peace. Her investigation leads down a twisty path of suspicion and secrets in the sticky, oppressive New Orleans heat, turning her against colleagues, students, and even fellow Sisters along the way.

Still reeling in the aftermath of the deadliest war the world had ever seen, the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit collectively lost its mind. Some historians believe the mysterious illness and violent hallucinations were caused by spoiled bread; others claim it was the result of covert government testing on the local population.

Blandine isn't like the other residents of her building. An online obituary writer. A young mother with a dark secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents — neighbors, separated only by the thin walls of a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial center of Vacca Vale, Indiana.

In this close-up look at the ardent love affair between the author and her painting teacher, which began in the 1970s, when she was seventeen and he was forty-seven and married with two children, Ciment not only reflects on how their love ignited (who leaned in first for that kiss?) but interrogates her 1990s memoir on the subject, Half a Life. She asks herself if she told the whole truth when she wrote about their passion back then, and what truth looked like to her in the even longer-ago era of love-bead curtains when she fell in love.

Un thriller psicológico brillante con una trama tan apasionante y giros tan inesperados que es absolutamente imposible parar de leer. No has leído nada igual.En un caluroso día de verano, Amy y Nick se disponen a celebrar su quinto aniversario de bodas en North Carthage, a orillas del río Mississippi. Pero Amy desaparece esa misma mañana sin dejar rastro. A medida que la investigación policial avanza las sospechas recaen sobre Nick. Sin embargo, Nick insiste en su inocencia.

Thrift fashionista Dez Lane doesn't want to date Patrick Ruskin; she just wants to meet his mother, the editor-in-chief of Nouveau magazine. When he invites her to his family's big Easter reunion at their ancestral home, she's certain she can put up with his arrogance and fend off his advances long enough to ask Marie Caulfield-Ruskin for an internship someone with her pedigree could never nab through the regular submission route. But once all the family members are on the island and the ferry has departed, things take a dark turn.

When Bernie replies to Leah’s ad for a new housemate in Philadelphia, the two begin an intense and defiantly uncategorizable friendship based on a mutual belief in their art, and one another. Both aspire to capture the world around them: Leah through her writing; Bernie through her photography. After Bernie’s former photography professor, the renowned yet tarnished Daniel Dunn, dies and leaves her a complicated inheritance, Leah volunteers to accompany Bernie to his home in rural Pennsylvania.

The world is more astonishing, more miraculous, and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this brilliant and passionately persuasive book, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction. This urgent, inspiring book of essays dedicated to 23 unusual and underappreciated creatures is a clarion call insisting that we look at the world around us with new eyes.

England, 1840. Orabella Mumthrope spies an unexpected visitor in her uncle’s parlor. Scruffy in appearance yet claiming to be the scion of a fabulously wealthy family, Elias Blakersby declares a deep desire to make Orabella his wife. The orphaned daughter of a white man and a Black woman—an outsider with no fortune or connections—Orabella never expected to marry. But her uncle has many debts, and Orabella, curious about the seeming devotion Elias bestows upon her, agrees.

In Falls Landing, Florida—a place built of theme parks, swampy lakes, and scorched bougainvillea flowers—something sinister lurks in the deep. A gang of thirteen-year-old girls obsessively orbit around the local preacher's daughter, Sammy. She is mesmerizing, older, and in love with Eddie. But suddenly, Sammy goes missing. Where is she? Watching from a distance, they edge ever closer to discovering a dark secret about their fame-hungry town and the cruel cost of a ticket out. What they see will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach, her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life.