On the eve of the Nazi occupation, in the heart of Brussels, life for the residents of 33 Place Brugmann is about to change forever. Charlotte Sauvin, an art student raised by her beloved architect father in apartment 4L, knows all the details of the building and its people: how light falls on wood floors and voices echo off the marble staircase, the distinct knock of her dear friend, Julian Raphaël, the son of the art dealer’s family across the hall. Then the Raphaëls disappear, leaving everything behind but their priceless art collection, which has simply vanished.

In a reunified Korea of the near future, the sun beats down on a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, broken down for parts. Eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through the scraps, searching for a piece that might support her failing body. There among the piles of trash, something catches her eye: a robot boy—so lifelike and strange, unlike anything she’s ever seen before.

Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it’s just been Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While she sometimes admits it’s a bit lonely and a less exciting life than she imagined for herself, it’s mostly OK. Mostly. Then one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she’s his half sister.

It’s an autumn weekend at a comfortable New York country house where two deeply intertwined families have gathered to mark the host’s fifty-second birthday. Together, the group forms an enviable portrait of middle age. The wives and husbands have been friends for over thirty years, their teenage daughters have grown up together, and the drinks, dinners, rituals, and games that form their days all reflect the rich bonds between them.

Thus Were Their Faces offers a comprehensive selection of the short fiction of Silvina Ocampo, undoubtedly one of the twentieth century's great masters of the story and the novella. Here are tales of doubles and impostors, angels and demons, a marble statue of a winged horse that speaks, a beautiful seer who writes the autobiography of her own death, a lapdog who records the dreams of an old woman, a suicidal romance, and much else that is incredible, mad, sublime, and delicious.

From creation myths and foundation legends to fascinating stories of human relationships and animal tales, these stories provide a diverse look at the countries and cultures across the African continent. Noted folklorist Helen Nde provides context for history and colonial influences for the stories.

From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove Karen Russell comes a gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the dust bowl drought, but beneath its own violent histories.

The unnamed Iranian-Indian American narrator of Liquid has always believed herself to be the smartest person in the room. And from an early age, she and her best friend—a poet-turned-marketer named Adam—have turned their noses up at other peoples’ riches. But two years after earning a PhD from UCLA, the narrator is no closer to the middle-class comfort promised to her by the prestige of her fancy, scholarship-funded education and the successes of her immigrant parents. Jokingly, Adam suggests she just "marry rich."

Something wicked is going on in the village of Ascension. A mother wasting away from cancer is suddenly up and about. A boy trampled by a milk cart walks away from the accident. A hanged man can still speak, broken neck and all. The dead are not dying. When Rabbit and Sadie Grace accompany their friend Rose to Ascension to help take care of her ailing cousin, they immediately notice that their new house, Bethany Hall, is occupied by dozens of ghosts. And something is waiting for them in the attic.

Jane and Dan have been married for nineteen years, but Jane isn’t sure they’re going to make it to twenty. The mother of two feels unneeded by her teenagers, and her writing career has screeched to an unsuccessful halt. Her one published novel sold under five hundred copies. Worse? She’s pretty sure Dan is cheating on her. When the couple goes to the renowned upscale restaurant La Fin du Monde to celebrate their anniversary, Jane thinks it’s as good a place as any to tell Dan she wants a divorce.

The interwar period was a golden age for the occult. Spiritualists, clairvoyants, fakirs, Theosophists, mind readers, and Jinn summoners all set out to assure the masses that just as newly discovered invisible forces of electricity and magnetism determined the world of science, unseen powers commanded an unknown realm of human potential. Drawing on untapped sources in Arabic in addition to European ones, Raphael Cormack follows two of the most unusual and charismatic figures of this age.

Florence Grimes is a thirty-one-year-old party girl who always takes the easy way out. Single, broke and unfulfilled after the humiliating end to her girl band career, she has only one reason to get out of bed each day: her ten-year-old son Dylan. But then Alfie Risby, her son’s bully and the heir to a vast frozen food empire, mysteriously vanishes during a class trip, and Dylan becomes the prime suspect. Florence, for once, is faced with a task she can’t quit: She’s got to find Alfie and clear her son’s name, or risk losing Dylan forever.

Claire is excited to drop off a surprise workday lunch for her fiancé, Noah. It’s their anniversary, after all. But when the receptionist tells her that no one with Noah’s name works there, Claire thinks there must be a mistake. Noah isn’t picking up her calls. Her texts go unanswered. It turns out Noah has a different life . . . one with a beautiful girlfriend, a beautiful house. Claire was never really in the picture.

It's 2004 and former reality TV star and party girl Maya Miller has just married the most eligible bachelor on the planet: Colin Sterling, of the globally famous Sterling family whose history of aristocratic titles and land holdings rival a British royal and whose media empire is comparable to the Murdochs. To some, Maya represents the American dream. To others, a gold digger. But when Colin's cousin Arianna, the heiress to the family's immense fortune, is found murdered, Maya is thrust into the spotlight.

The only love Ari has known is Morgan. Engaged and planning a life with him in New York, Ari is shocked when Morgan sits her down one rainy afternoon and tells her their decade-long relationship is over. They’ve been over for a long time now, he says—and Ari knows he’s right.