The vampires and werewolves of the town of Concord have for centuries worked to keep their home secret and safe. With the heirs of the founding houses paired from a young age to train together and complement each other, life is almost ideal. However: Arche, lycan heir to the Warden Clan, is beginning to resent her best friend and partner, and can’t tell anyone. Lenora, the vampiric heir to the House of the Arcane, is struggling with the expectations of an additional destiny she never wanted. Not to mention being in love with her partner, who is in love with someone else. All of which matters much less when Concord is attacked by violent, vindictive cultists. In shock, on the run, and without the partners they’ve had for years, Arche and Lenora must venture far from home for the first time in search of something that will save their people. And, perhaps, consider that some partnerships are better forged in fire.

Marco's always done the right thing. But now it's time for wrong answers only. Marco should be at university, studying biomedicine. Instead, he’s been sent to live on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean with his estranged uncle, all because of a ‘blip’ everyone else is convinced was a panic attack. (Which it most definitely was not.) And even though Marco’s trip is supposed to provide answers – about himself, about his family – all he finds on board the Ocean Melody are more and more questions. But then his best friend CeCe proposes a new plan: for someone who has always done the right thing, in every possible way, it’s time for Marco to get a few things wrong. And hooking up with a hot dancer from the ship is only the beginning . . .

A memoir penned with one good finger, Ndopu writes about being profoundly disabled and profoundly successful   Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare degenerative motor neuron disease affecting his mobility. He was told that he wouldn’t live beyond age five and yet, Ndopu thrived. He grew up loving pop music, lip syncing the latest hits, and watching The Bold and the Beautiful for the haute couture, and was the only wheelchair user at his school, where he flourished academically. By his late teens, he had become a sought after speaker, travelling the world to address audiences about disability justice.  Ndopu was ecstatic when he was later accepted on a full scholarship into one of the world's most prestigious schools, Oxford University. But he soon learns that it's not just the medical community he must thwart— it's the educational one too.  In Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw, we follow Ndopu, sporting his oversized, bejewelled sunglasses, as he scales the mountain of success, only to find exclusion, discrimination, and neglect waiting for him on the other side. Like every other student, Ndopu tries to keep up appearances—dashing to and from his public policy lectures before meeting for cocktails with his squad, all while campaigning to become student body president. Privately, however, Ndopu faces obstacles that are all too familiar to people with disabilities, yet remain unnoticed by most people. With the revolving door of care aides, hefty bills, and a lack of support from the university, Ndopu feels alienated by his environment. As he soars professionally, sipping champagne with world leaders, he continues to feel the loneliness and pressure of being the only one in the room. Determined to carve out his place in the world, he must challenge bias at the highest echelons of power and prestige. But as the pressure mounts, Ndopu must find his stride or collapse under the crushing weight of ableism. Written with his one good finger, this evocative, searing, and vulnerable prose will leave you spellbound by Ndopu’s remarkable journey to reach beyond ableism, reminding us of our own capacity for resilience. 

Naoki Higashida was only thirteen when he wrote The Reason I Jump, a revelatory account of autism from the inside by a nonverbal Japanese child, which became an international success. Now he shares his thoughts and experiences as a twenty-four-year-old man living each day with severe autism. In short, powerful chapters, Higashida explores school memories, family relationships, the exhilaration of travel, and the difficulties of speech. He also allows readers to experience profound moments we take for granted, like the thought-steps necessary for him to register that it's raining outside. Acutely aware of how strange his behavior can appear to others, he aims throughout to foster a better understanding of autism and to encourage society to see people with disabilities as people, not as problems. With an introduction by bestselling novelist David Mitchell, Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8 also includes a dreamlike short story Higashida wrote especially for this edition. Both moving and of practical use, this book opens a window into the mind of an inspiring young man who meets every challenge with tenacity and good humor. However often he falls down, he always gets back up.

Imagining the future of Gaza beyond the cruelties of occupation and Apartheid, Light in Gaza is a powerful contribution to understanding Palestinian experience. Gaza, home to two million people, continues to face suffocating conditions imposed by Israel. This distinctive anthology imagines what the future of Gaza could be, while reaffirming the critical role of Gaza in Palestinian identity, history, and struggle for liberation. Light in Gaza is a seminal, moving and wide-ranging anthology of Palestinian writers and artists. It constitutes a collective effort to organize and center Palestinian voices in the ongoing struggle. As political discourse shifts toward futurism as a means of reimagining a better way of living, beyond the violence and limitations of colonialism, Light in Gaza is an urgent and powerful intervention into an important political moment. Table of Contents Map: Gaza strip and Gaza district before 1948 Foreword (Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing, Michael Merryman-Lotze) - Introduction (Jehad Abusalim) - Gaza Asks: When Shall This Pass? (Rafaad Alareer) - On Why We Still Hold Onto Our Phones and Keep Recording (Asmaa Abu Mezied) - Breaking the Vicious Circle of Permanent Temporality (Shahd Abusalama) - Don't Step on My Feet Again (Basman Aldirawi) - Lost Identity: The Tale of Peasantry and Nature (Asmaa Abu Mezied) - Why Are You Still Here? (Basman Aldirawi) - Ethical Implications of Experimental Design on Affected Communities in the Gaza Strip (Salem Al Qudwa) - People's Light In Gaza's Darkness (Suhail Taha) - Artificial Intelligence as a Tool for Restoring Palestinian Rights and Improving the Quality of Life (Nour Naim) - Exporting Oranges and Short Stories: Cultural Struggle in the Gaza Strip (Mosab Abu Toha) - In the Haze of Fifty-One Days (Dorgham Abusalim) - Travel Restrictions as a Manifestation of Nakba: Gazam the Path Backward is the Path Forward (Yousef M. Aljamal) - Let Me Dream (Isram Mohammed Jamal) - Gaza 2050: Three Scenarios (Basman Aldirawi) - A Rose Shoulders Up (Mosab Abu Toha) Notes Index

Young love, meddling relatives, heart-to-hearts with friends real and imagined - Philistia's world is that of an ordinary university student, except that in occupied Palestine, and when your father is in indefinite detention, nothing is straightforward. Philistia is closest to her childhood, and to her late grandmother and her imprisoned father, when she's at her part-time job washing women's bodies at the ancient Ottoman hammam in Nablus, the West Bank. A midwife and corpse washer in her time, Grandma Zahia taught Philistia the ritual ablutions and the secrets of the body: the secrets of life and death. On the brink of adulthood, Philistia embarks on a journey through her country's history - a magical journey, and one of loss and centuries of occupation. As trees are uprooted around her, Philistia searches for a place of refuge, a place where she can plant a memory for the ones she's lost.

TRUE BIZ (adj./exclamation; American Sign Language): really, seriously, definitely, real-talk True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history finals, and have politicians, doctors, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they'll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who's never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school's golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the headmistress, who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin, and February find their lives inextricable from one another's—and changed forever. This is a story of sign language and lip-reading, disability and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. Absorbing and assured, idiosyncratic and relatable, this is an unforgettable journey into the Deaf community and a universal celebration of human connection.