Fashionable and upbeat high schooler Aya falls head over heels for an employee at a local CD shop. He’s got an air of mystery about him, always dressed well, and has impeccable taste in music. Little does she know―this supposedly male employee is actually her female classmate Mitsuki! Mitsuki generally keeps to herself, but since her seat is right next to Aya’s, she can't help but be extremely aware of the other’s crush. Revealing the truth is out of the question―but perhaps getting closer to Aya wouldn’t be so bad...

A spellbinding tale about two daring women who hunt for truth and justice in the perilous art of conjuring the dead.1873. At an abandoned château on the outskirts of Paris, a dark séance is about to take place, led by acclaimed spiritualist Vaudeline D’Allaire. Known worldwide for her talent in conjuring the spirits of murder victims to ascertain the identities of the people who killed them, she is highly sought after by widows and investigators alike.Lenna Wickes has come to Paris to find answers about her sister’s death, but to do so, she must embrace the unknown and overcome her own logic-driven bias against the occult. When Vaudeline is beckoned to England to solve a high-profile murder, Lenna accompanies her as an understudy. But as the women team up with the powerful men of London’s exclusive Séance Society to solve the mystery, they begin to suspect that they are not merely out to solve a crime, but perhaps entangled in one themselves…

A lively, accessible survey of literary censorship through the ages. The freedom to read is under attack. There are, today, more efforts to ban books from libraries than ever before. The supposed "dangers" posed by books including The Handmaid's Tale, Gender Queer, Huckleberry Finn, and the works of Dr. Seuss—leading children down a path of sexual deviance, or harming them with racist language or non-inclusive narratives—fuel the puritanical zeal of De Santis Republicans and progressive educators alike. On Book Banning argues that today's culture warriors proceed from a misunderstanding of literature as instrumental to the pursuit of their ideological agendas. In treating libraries as sites of contagion and exposure, censors are warping our children's relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is cancellation or outright expurgation. On Book Banning provides a lively, accessible survey of literary censorship through the ages—from the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome, to the Catholic Church's attempts to tamp down religious dissent and scientific innovation, to state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ literature in the 1980s and beyond. Throughout, Ira Wells demonstrates how today's book bans stem from the ineradicable human impulse toward social control. In a whistle-stop tour of landmark legal cases, literary controversies, and philosophical arguments, we discover that the freedom to read and publish is the aberration in human history, and that censorship and restriction have been the rule. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who reject the conflation of art and propaganda, for whom books remain sacred vessels of our shared humanity, and who will always insist upon reading for ourselves.

“A poignant, innovative, and urgent blend of memoir and criticism that has replenished my belief in how art and love can save your life.”—Torrey Peters “I'm in awe—this collection is an absolute sensation.”—Jeanne Thornton A sharply personal and expansive essay collection dedicated to the strange and absurd beauty of horror films, exploring the complications of gender, the insidiousness of class ascension, and the latent violence hidden in our own uncanny reflections. This is how it first I loved them, and then I loved myself. At twenty-seven, poet Zefyr Lisowski found herself in the place she feared a locked psych ward. While inside, she turned to horror movies—her deepest, most constant comfort. Rather than disturb, scary movies have always provided solace and connection for Lisowski, as they do many others—offering a vision of a world filled equally with beauty and pain, and a reason to reach out to others and hold them tight. After all, as Lisowski argues, what terrifies us most about these movies is our own uncanny reflection—and at the root of that fear, a desperate desire to love and be loved. In these wide-ranging essays, Lisowski weaves theory and memoir into nuanced critiques of films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Saint Maud. From fears about sickness and disability, to trans narratives and the predator/victim complex, to the struggle to live in a world that wants you dead, she explores horror’s reciprocal impact on our culture and—by extension—our lives. Through it all, Lisowski lays bare her own complex biography—spanning from a trans childhood in the South to the sweaty dancefloors of Brooklyn—and the family, friends, and lovers that have bloomed with her into the present. Deeply felt, blood-spattered, and brimming with care and wonder, Uncanny Valley Girls thrusts this seasoned poet to centerstage.

From a global icon, a bold, essential account of how a fear of gender is fueling reactionary politics around the world. Judith Butler, the groundbreaking thinker whose iconic book Gender Trouble redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, confronts the attacks on “gender” that have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed “anti-gender ideology movements” that are dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous, perhaps diabolical, threat to families, local cultures, civilization―and even “man” himself. Inflamed by the rhetoric of public figures, this movement has sought to nullify reproductive justice, undermine protections against sexual and gender violence, and strip trans and queer people of their rights to pursue a life without fear of violence. The aim of Who’s Afraid of Gender? is not to offer a new theory of gender but to examine how “gender” has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations, and transexclusionary feminists. In their vital, courageous new book, Butler illuminates the concrete ways that this phantasm of “gender” collects and displaces anxieties and fears of destruction. Operating in tandem with deceptive accounts of “critical race theory” and xenophobic panics about migration, the anti-gender movement demonizes struggles for equality, fuels aggressive nationalism, and leaves millions of people vulnerable to subjugation. An essential intervention into one of the most fraught issues of our moment, Who’s Afraid of Gender? is a bold call to refuse the alliance with authoritarian movements and to make a broad coalition with all those whose struggle for equality is linked with fighting injustice. Imagining new possibilities for both freedom and solidarity, Butler offers us a hopeful work of social and political analysis that is both timely and timeless―a book whose verve and rigor only they could deliver.

In her forest-veiled pagan village, Évike is the only woman without power, making her an outcast clearly abandoned by the gods. The villagers blame her corrupted bloodline—her father was a Yehuli man, one of the much-loathed servants of the fanatical king. When soldiers arrive from the Holy Order of Woodsmen to claim a pagan girl for the king’s blood sacrifice, Évike is betrayed by her fellow villagers and surrendered. But when monsters attack the Woodsmen and their captive en route, slaughtering everyone but Évike and the cold, one-eyed captain, they have no choice but to rely on each other. Except he’s no ordinary Woodsman—he’s the disgraced prince, Gáspár Bárány, whose father needs pagan magic to consolidate his power. Gáspár fears that his cruelly zealous brother plans to seize the throne and instigate a violent reign that would damn the pagans and the Yehuli alike. As the son of a reviled foreign queen, Gáspár understands what it’s like to be an outcast, and he and Évike make a tenuous pact to stop his brother. As their mission takes them from the bitter northern tundra to the smog-choked capital, their mutual loathing slowly turns to affection, bound by a shared history of alienation and oppression. However, trust can easily turn to betrayal, and as Évike reconnects with her estranged father and discovers her own hidden magic, she and Gáspár need to decide whose side they’re on, and what they’re willing to give up for a nation that never cared for them at all. In the vein of Naomi Novik’s New York Times bestseller Spinning Silver and Katherine Arden’s national bestseller The Bear and the Nightingale, this unforgettable debut— inspired by Hungarian history and Jewish mythology—follows a young pagan woman with hidden powers and a one-eyed captain of the Woodsmen as they form an unlikely alliance to thwart a tyrant.

One Life to One Dawn. In a land ruled by a murderous boy-king, each dawn brings heartache to a new family. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, is a monster. Each night he takes a new bride only to have a silk cord wrapped around her throat come morning. When sixteen-year-old Shahrzad's dearest friend falls victim to Khalid, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to be his next bride. Shahrzad is determined not only to stay alive, but to end the caliph's reign of terror once and for all. Night after night, Shahrzad beguiles Khalid, weaving stories that enchant, ensuring her survival, though she knows each dawn could be her last. But something she never expected begins to happen: Khalid is nothing like what she'd imagined him to be. This monster is a boy with a tormented heart. Incredibly, Shahrzad finds herself falling in love. How is this possible? It's an unforgivable betrayal. Still, Shahrzad has come to understand all is not as it seems in this palace of marble and stone. She resolves to uncover whatever secrets lurk and, despite her love, be ready to take Khalid's life as retribution for the many lives he's stolen. Can their love survive this world of stories and secrets?