Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.

When level-headed Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer bridegroom—she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one. Odder still, her abductor is far from what the popular media have led her to expect, with a body like a tumbleweed and a mass of lightning-fast tentacles. Nor is Francie the only victim of the alien’s abduction spree.

A few years from now, in a world similar to ours, there exists a sort of “depression plague” that people refer to simply as “The Grey.” No one can predict whom it will afflict, or how, but once infected, there’s no coming back. A young Hong Kong based scientist, Lily Barnes, is trying to maintain her inner light in an increasingly dark world. The human race is dwindling, and people fighting to push forward are increasingly rare. One day, Lily comes across something that seems to be addressing her directly, calling to her, asking her to follow a path.

Charlie Travers figures his life can’t get much worse. He lives over a pizza restaurant, he’s lost his girlfriend, and has no prospects for a career. Then, he’s abducted by an alien robot and taken across the galaxy. When he wakes up, he finds himself stranded thousands of light-years away, and about to be killed by space pirates.

After a rough break up, Wyatt moves to New York City, eager to prove himself while working on Wall Street. When he’s asked to visit the father of his ex-girlfriend, a billionaire tycoon, his fate is sealed. The revolutionary company, Nu-En, launches a radical innovation, an energy that will allow every person on the planet access to power. Only it doesn’t perform as anticipated. Harnessing the ocean has consequences, and highly dangerous creatures emerge from the depths. Soon, the Earth is fracturing, and the world will never be the same.

In the face of a pandemic, an unprepared world scrambles to escape the mysterious disease causing sensory damage, nerve loss, and, in most cases, death. Neffy, a disgraced and desperately indebted 27-year-old marine biologist, registers for an experimental vaccine trial in London—perhaps humanity’s last hope for a cure. Though isolated from the chaos outside, she and the other volunteers—Rachel, Leon, Yahiko, and Piper—cannot hide from the mistakes that led them there.

Marcus grew up believing his father killed his mother—then blamed it on the boogeyman under the bed. Always leave the lights on, his father warned, or the boogeyman will get you. Marcus still heeds the superstition, especially when he invites his new girlfriend over. Is Marcus haunted by a creature or has he just inherited his father’s murderous delusions? The night will tell.

For more than 25 years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to listen without laughing.

It's spring break and Max is stuck at home all by himself. Just the way he likes it. He games online, feasts on junk, and wonders why his cat can suddenly talk. Thanks to a bizarre mishap, Max has started shifting between parallel universes whenever he falls asleep. A curious affliction, and one that steadily erodes his sanity. Day after day, he awakes to a strange new reality and struggles to make sense of his surroundings.

Ringmaster—Rin, to those who know her best—can jump to different moments in time as easily as her wife, Odette, soars from bar to bar on the trapeze. And the circus they lead is a rare home and safe haven for magical misfits and outcasts, known as Sparks. With the world still reeling from World War I, Rin and her troupe—the Circus of the Fantasticals—travel the midwest, offering a single night of enchantment and respite to all who step into their Big Top. But threats come at Rin from all sides.

When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days decades earlier. Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she'd been to her three, now-grown children. But to what consequence?

Adam Rubenstein and Sunil Rao have been nemeses and reluctant partners since their Uzbekistan days. Adam is a seemingly unflappable American Intelligence officer and Rao is an ex-Mi6 agent, an addict and rudderless pleasure hound, with the uncanny ability to discern the truth of things—about everyone and everything other than Adam. When an American diner turns up in a foggy field in the UK and is followed by a mysterious death, Adam and Rao are called in to investigate.

The 1850s are a time of discovery, and London is ablaze with the latest scientific theories and debates, especially when a spectacular new exhibition of dinosaur sculptures opens at the Crystal Palace. Mary is keen to make her name in this world of science alongside her geologist husband, Henry—but despite her sharp mind and sharper tongue, without wealth and connections their options are limited.

From the author of A Little Hope—a Read with Jenna Bonus Pick—comes an enormously powerful and life-affirming novel about three individuals facing challenges and grappling with loss in his or her own way.

When Harlow Estrada is abruptly fired from her dream job and her boyfriend proves to be a jerk, her world turns upside down. She flees New York City to the one place she can always call home—the enchanted Hacienda Estrada. The Estrada family farm in Mexico houses an abundance of charmed flowers cultivated by Harlow’s mother, sisters, aunt, and cousins. By harnessing the magic in these flowers, they can heal hearts, erase memories, interpret dreams—but not Harlow.

At age 10, Jenni Farrow and her new best friend, Timmy Caruso, enjoy a glorious summer on Pearl Island filled with fireworks, beach days, and carnival rides (not to mention that strange sea creature they rescue from a tide pool). Then, one late summer day, Timmy disappears. Thirty years later, Jenni—now Jenn Lanaro, best-selling author of the Philipia Bay action-romance series—is desperate to escape the fatigue of her career and her soon-to-be-ex-husband.

Humans have reached the stars. There is no evidence any other species survived its own sentience long enough to do the same. Until now, when the Magellanix deep-space scout Accipiter discovers the Artifact, a million-year-old alien construct resting in a dormant volcano on a faraway world.

When Tara Roberts first caught sight of a photograph at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History depicting the underwater archaeology group Diving With a Purpose, it called out to her. Here were Black women and men strapping on masks, fins, and tanks to explore Atlantic Ocean waters along the coastlines of Africa, North America, and Central America, seeking the wrecks of slave ships long lost in time. Inspired, Roberts joined them—and started on a path of discovery more challenging and personal than she could ever have imagined.

Hattie Murton never dreamed of TV stardom. A straight-from-a-fairytale encounter with a casting agent somehow landed her a part on what she’d thought would be a one-off pilot for Leicester Square…

Meet Charlie; unfulfilled and perimenopausal, Charlie’s suburban life is a far cry from the Manhattan glamour she once dreamed of. Her husband is incapable of talking about anything other than his latest Ironman challenge, her sex life consists of fictional encounters with Hollywood stars, her kids need constant man-management, and to make things worse, her optician has just prescribed her reading glasses. Oh, and she can’t stop crying at TV adverts… In the hope of re-discovering her sense of self, Charlie begins writing a list: 45 things to do before she’s 45.