On the outskirts of Rainbow Town, there is an old, abandoned house. They say that if you send a letter detailing your misfortunes there, you could receive a ticket. If you bring this ticket to the house on the first day of the rainy season, you'll be granted entrance into the mysterious Rainfall Market—where you can choose to completely change your life. No one is more surprised than Serin when she receives a ticket. Lonely and with no real prospects for a future, Serin ventures to the market, determined to create a better life for herself.

Cecilia Bassingwaite is the ideal Victorian lady. She's also a thief. Like the other members of the Wisteria Society crime sorority, she flies around England drinking tea, blackmailing friends, and acquiring treasure by interesting means. Sure, she has a dark and traumatic past and an overbearing aunt, but all things considered, it's a pleasant existence. Until the men show up.

Born with mysterious powers she does not know how to control, young Jieun accidentally causes her family to vanish. She vows to live a million lives in search of them. Finally, one night, she brings the Marigold Mind Laundry into existence. Its service: to remove the deepest pain from our hearts. Jieun listens while customers share their unhappy memories. As they speak, she transfers their sadness onto T-shirts as stains. After a spin in the washing machine, the stains become flower petals that soar into the air, and Jieun’s customers find solace.

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets. Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.

In this dual collection of short stories, Alexander McCall Smith brings his trademark humor and warmth to inventive tales of spying and vengeance. In one story, a spy dropped deep into enemy territory manages to disguise himself—quite convincingly—as a nun. In another, an invitation to join the Vatican Secret Service sends a prospective operative down a rabbit hole of controversy and confusion. A third story finds an author, on the brink of public ruin, seeing the error of his ways after an act of kindness saves the day.

Holland, 1650. One fine spring day in Friesland, twenty-year-old Clara van Weiren is faced with an ill omen: a whale, beached and rotting in the noonday sun. But Clara doesn’t believe in magic and superstition, and this portent is quickly dismissed when a proposal from a wealthy merchant arrives, promising Clara the freedom she seeks from her mother’s overbearing rule. When her attempts at overseeing the household at the family’s estate lead to her chance encounter with a young man with russet hair and sparkling eyes the color of the sea, she finds herself strangely drawn to him.

Rikki Thunder, twenty-two-year-old drummer for the scorching new ’80s metal band Whyte Python, is about to have it all: absurd wealth, global fame, and a dream girlfriend. But an unwitting role as an international spy? That was definitely not part of the plan.

The body in the closet was going to be a problem. Kathryn Hu knew it. Yes, Tucker Jones was a cheating scumbag, and yes, she’d agreed to meet Olivia and Elle—Tucker’s other girlfriends—to exact revenge for all he’d put them through… But then they found him. Dead. Do they look guilty? Yes. Do they feel guilty for having wished him dead just hours before? Maybe a little. But—solid motive and a crime scene covered in their DNA aside—they’re innocent. They swear. To clear their names, Kat, Olivia and Elle team up to find the real killer.

Dok-go lives in Seoul Station. He can’t remember his past, and the only thing he knows for certain is that he could really use a drink. When he finds a lost wallet filled with documents, his life is drastically changed.

Situated at the heart of a rapidly gentrifying district of Seoul, the Yeonnam-dong Smiley Laundromat is a place where the extraordinary stories of ordinary residents unfold. It is already a haven of tranquility and reflection for locals, but when someone leaves a notebook behind, the laundromat becomes a place that brings people together. One by one, customers start jotting down candid diary entries, opening their hearts and inviting acts of kindness from neighbors who were once just faces in the crowd.

The Serpent King is the most eligible bachelor in the land: a monster with dark and terrible magic and the ruler of the last free kingdom. Riches and power await his future bride—but also a life forever trapped in the games of court. That fate is eighteen-year-old Saphira's worst nightmare. Ever since the Empire made her an orphan, she’s found freedom in being invisible. So, despite her rare gift for harnessing the magic in gemstones, she lets an unscrupulous jewelsmith take credit for her increasingly sought-after work.

Investigative reporter Rose Howard is exhausted from trying to manage her seemingly perfect life. With her marriage to the man she thought was her one true love collapsing, she desperately needs for one thing to go right. While striving for a promotion to senior reporter, her efforts are interrupted when she learns her former best friend and travel vlogger, Eve Castillo, isn't responding to attempts to contact her at the North Carolina cottage she's reviewing. Rose knows Eve can be flaky and irresponsible.

It's the ultimate haunted house challenge. A crumbling stone mansion nestled in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, it may be the best-kept secret in Europe—a little-known attraction featuring nine escape rooms to explore, nine puzzles to solve, and a large cash prize for anyone who makes it to the end. There's just one catch: no one makes it to the end of The No-End House . . . When Joe Hadfield hears about the house from a pair of backpackers, he's intrigued but not interested. He's trying to escape a nightmare of his own.

Once upon a time a young couple met and fell in love. You probably know that story, and how it ended (hint: badly). Only here’s the thing: That’s not how it ended at all. Romeo and Juliet are alive and well and the parents of seven kids. I’m the oldest, with the emphasis on ‘old’—a certified spinster at twenty, and happy to stay that way. It’s not easy to keep your taste for romance with parents like mine. Picture it—constant monologues, passionate declarations, fighting, making up, making out … it’s exhausting.

Last week, Nina Hunnicutt was a professor about to move into a gorgeous new apartment with her long-term boyfriend. Now, she’s single, unemployed, and living with her parents. Even more surprising is the fact that Quentin Bell, her childhood neighbor (and okay, fine, crush), is also back in town—and wants to resume the treasure hunt that ended their friendship almost two decades ago. Hoping the reward promised to whoever finds the rumored riches left behind by the town’s eccentric turn-of-the-century seltzer magnate will help her get her life back on track, Nina agrees.

Nora Davies doesn’t exactly fit in to Winter Park, Florida, where old-guard Floridians mix with the tax-fleeing coastal elite. Twenty-eight and barely making ends meet working at a country club, Nora feels like she’s going nowhere fast. Enter Will Somerset: a prominent forty-six-year-old lawyer, father to a teenage daughter, and recently divorced. The two set Winter Park’s social scene agog when they fall in love and marry after a whirlwind Cinderella-style courtship. But Winter Park is fully upended when Will disappears the morning after a birthday bash Nora throws for him.

The sleepy community of Kenorapeake Falls in northern Ontario seems like somewhere Constable Oaklynn Brock can finally outrun her violent past. That is, until she’s assigned to investigate a series of suspicious deaths. She can’t reveal that she knows how serial killers think because she grew up with one. Yet the eerie similarities between these murders and those committed by her father, known as the Suicide Slayer, hint at a copycat in their midst. But why here and why now?

Yeongju is burned out. With her high-­flying career, demanding marriage, and busy life in Seoul, she knows she should feel successful, but all she feels is drained. Yet an abandoned dream nags at her, and in a leap of faith, she leaves her old life behind. Quitting her job and divorcing her husband, Yeongju moves to a small residential neighborhood outside the city, where she opens the Hyunam-dong Bookshop.

Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a loner and a maverick scientist who lives out of her mobile lab. She scours the country’s forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails, while her relatives urge her to settle down and finally start a family of her own. What they don’t know: Yeva already dates plenty of men—not for love, but to fund her work—entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they’ll find docile brides untainted by feminism and modernity.

Vasalie Moran was once a dancer in King Illian’s court, until he framed her for murder. Barely surviving her two years in the dungeons, she’s suddenly called to face her king. He offers her a deal: become his spy at the six-week royal Gathering and he’ll grant her freedom. As Illian’s orders grow bloody and dangerous, forcing her to harm and betray those around her, Vasalie discovers that the monster she serves may be aligned with a bigger monster—one far closer to home.