Charlotte Runcie has always felt pulled to the sea, lured by its soothing, calming qualities but also enlivened and inspired by its salty wildness. When she loses her beloved grandmother, and becomes pregnant with her first child, she feels its pull even more intensely. In Salt On Your Tongue Charlotte explores what the sea means to us, and particularly what it has meant to women through the ages. This book is a walk on the beach with Turner, with Shakespeare, with the Romantic Poets and shanty-singers. It's an ode to our oceans - to the sailors who brave their treacherous waters, to the women who lost their loved ones to the waves, to the creatures that dwell in their depths, to beach trawlers, swimmers, seabirds and mermaids. In mesmerising prose, Charlotte Runcie shows how the sea has inspired, fascinated and terrified us, and how she herself fell in love with the deep blue. Navigating through ancient Greek myths, poetry, shipwrecks and Scottish folktales, Salt On Your Tongue is about how the wild untameable waves can help us understand what it means to be human.

Ben Weissenbach—an L.A. native with little prior wilderness experience—treks through the Alaskan tundra with a series of eccentric environmental scientists, and returns with a new perspective on technology and a revitalized sense of wonder for the natural world. At the age of twenty-one, college student Ben Weissenbach set out into the Alaskan wilderness armed with little more than inspiration from his literary heroes and a growing interest in climate change. What meets him there is a landscape both stark and awe-inspiring—a part of the world seen by few outside a small contingent of scientists with big personalities. There’s Roman Dial, the larger-than-life field scientist who leads him on a five week journey into the Alaskan backcountry. There’s Kenji Yoshikawa, the isolated researcher who leaves Ben alone for eleven days to care for his remote cabin, where temperatures at night drop to -49 degrees Fahrenheit. And there’s Matt Nolan, the independent glaciologist who flies planes onto glaciers. As Ben’s mental and physical resilience is tested, he discovers far more than his own limits; struck by the landscape’s staggering beauty and sheer indifference to humanity, Ben emerges from each experience with a new perspective on our modern relationships to technology—and a deep sense of wonder for our natural world.  

'Beautiful' Nigella Lawson'I adored it' Dolly Alderton'Wonderful' Lisa Taddeo'Intoxicating' Abi MorganWhat happens when your story doesn't end the way you thought it would?When you realise - after getting married and having a baby - that you chose wrong?When the life you dreamt of becomes something you must walk away from?And when you then find yourself not lonely, but elated - elated to be alone with yourself?

S.T. Gibson's sensational novel is the darkly seductive tale of Dracula's first bride, Constanta. This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession. . . Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things. Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband's dark secrets. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.

Three women must chase a curse through the generations in order to reclaim their power in this fierce and stunning novel from Such a Pretty Smile author Kristi DeMeester. 1750: Anne Bolton sets off with her daughter to begin a life of secrecy. In town, they are killing women accused of witchcraft every day, and as a healer, she’ll soon be persecuted too. But then she makes a deal with the Dark Sisters to protect those under her purview–and unleashes a devastating power with consequences that will echo for three hundred years. 1953: Mary Shephard is a new mother, a picture-perfect wife, and dutiful member of The Path–a community of faith that holds piety and family values above all else. But Mary feels oppressed by these limiting expectations, so she takes a part-time job. Then she meets Sharon, and their star-crossed love story begins. But that’s the thing about star-crossed lovers–people just want to tear you apart. 2007: Camilla Burson is the preacher’s daughter, and she knows how to play the game. But now women in The Path are dying of a rare disease, including her mother, and this time she’ll push her father too far. Her punishment: The Retreat, a place that shows troublemakers like Camilla that toeing the line is best for everyone. But there is an old, forgotten power awaiting her; a power that if Camilla can claim, will change everything. "Magnificent.” - Rachel Harrison "A visceral, mesmerizing nightmare. I couldn't look away." - Hannah Morrissey

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “exquisitely researched and deeply engrossing” ( The New York Times ) true survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly awry—with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter “The energy of the narrative never flags. . . . Sancton has produced a thriller.”— The Wall Street Journal In August 1897, the young Belgian commandant Adrien de Gerlache set sail for a three-year expedition aboard the good ship Belgica with dreams of glory. His destination was the uncharted end of the the icy continent of Antarctica. But de Gerlache’s plans to be first to the magnetic South Pole would swiftly go awry. After a series of costly setbacks, the commandant faced two bad turn back in defeat and spare his men the devastating Antarctic winter, or recklessly chase fame by sailing deeper into the freezing waters. De Gerlache sailed on, and soon the Belgica was stuck fast in the icy hold of the Bellingshausen Sea. When the sun set on the magnificent polar landscape one last time, the ship’s occupants were condemned to months of endless night. In the darkness, plagued by a mysterious illness and besieged by monotony, they descended into madness. In Madhouse at the End of the Earth, Julian Sancton unfolds an epic story of adventure and horror for the ages. As the Belgica’s men teetered on the brink, de Gerlache relied increasingly on two young officers whose friendship had blossomed in the expedition’s lone American, Dr. Frederick Cook—half genius, half con man—whose later infamy would overshadow his brilliance on the Belgica; and the ship’s first mate, soon-to-be legendary Roald Amundsen, even in his youth the storybook picture of a sailor. Together, they would plan a last-ditch, nearly certain-to-fail escape from the ice—one that would either etch their names in history or doom them to a terrible fate at the ocean’s bottom. Drawing on the diaries and journals of the Belgica’s crew and with exclusive access to the ship’s logbook, Sancton brings novelistic flair to a story of human extremes, one so remarkable that even today NASA studies it for research on isolation for future missions to Mars. Equal parts maritime thriller and gothic horror, Madhouse at the End of the Earth is an unforgettable journey into the deep.

Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. The bloody messes don't bother her, not when she's already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train. Before fleeing the scene, the murderer whispered two words: bat eater. Months pass, the killer is never caught, and Cora can barely keep herself together. She pushes away all feelings, disregards the bite marks that appear on her coffee table, and won't take her aunt's advice to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the gates of hell open. Cora tries to ignore the rising dread in her stomach, even when she and her weird co-workers begin finding bat carcasses at their crime scene clean-ups. But Cora can't ignore the fact that all their recent clean-ups have been the bodies of East Asian women. Soon Cora will learn: you can't just ignore hungry ghosts.

An exhilarating, twisted tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961—a powerful exploration of the legacy of WWII and the darker parts of our collective past. A house is a precious thing... It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season. Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation—leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem. Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is a brilliantly plotted and provocative debut novel you won’t soon forget.

Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? Can they create their own traditions and rituals? Whom can they consider family? As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, spends her days gathering footage from the neighborhood park like an anthropologist observing local customs. “Forget about daily life,” chides her grandmother on the phone. “We named you for a whole continent and you're filming a park.” Life back in Asya and Manu's respective home countries continues-parents age, grandparents get sick, nieces and nephews grow up-all just slightly beyond their reach. But the world they're making in their new city is growing, too, they hope, into something that will be distinctly theirs. As they open up the horizons of their lives, what and whom will they hold onto, and what will they need to release? Hailed by Lauren Groff and Marina Abramovic, Savas's fine, precise craft turns The Anthropologist's simple apartment search into a soulful, often funny, examination of modern coupledom, home-building, and expat life in the universal modern city.

Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida—war photographer, gambler, and closet queen—has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka. Ten years after his prize-winning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a “thrilling satire” (Economist) and rip-roaring state-of-the-nation epic that offers equal parts mordant wit and disturbing, profound truths.

A remarkable tale about the life-changing power of books, following the Titanic librarian whose survival upends the course of his life. For weeks after the sinking of the Titanic, Yorick spots his own name among the list of those lost at sea. As an apprentice librarian for the White Star Line, his job was to curate the ship’s second-class library. But just as he was about to board to tend to his library throughout the passage, a superior takes his place, leaving Yorick stranded at the dock. The Titanic was not Yorick’s first brush with death, but as with every near-miss he manages to escape into the world of books. After he learns of the ship’s sinking, he takes this twist of fate as a sign to follow his lifelong dream of owning a bookshop in Paris. It’s at his shop that he receives an invitation to a secret society of survivors where he encounters other ticket-holders who didn’t board the ship. Haunted by their good fortune, they decide to transform their group into a book society, where they can grapple with their own anxieties through the guise of discussing contentious works such as The Awakening or The Picture of Dorian Gray. Of the ragtag group of survivors, Yorick finds himself particularly drawn to the wealthy candy heiress Zinnia and the mysterious and alluring Haze. Yorick feels like an outsider looking in, falling hopelessly for Haze as Haze courts Zinnia; a tangled triangle of love and friendship forms between them. Yet with the Great War looming, their close-knit group is shattered, only brought back together once the death of a fellow book club member leaves them wondering what fate has in store for each of them. Elegant and elegiac, The Titanic Survivors' Book Club is a dazzling ode to love, chance, and the transformativepower of books to bring people together.

The Sirens of Titan is an outrageous romp through space, time, and morality. The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course there's a catch to the invitation—and a prophetic vision about the purpose of human life that only Vonnegut has the courage to tell.

A remarkable tale about the life-changing power of books, following the Titanic librarian whose survival upends the course of his life. For weeks after the sinking of the Titanic, Yorick spots his own name among the list of those lost at sea. As an apprentice librarian for the White Star Line, his job was to curate the ship’s second-class library. But just as he was about to board to tend to his library throughout the passage, a superior takes his place, leaving Yorick stranded at the dock. The Titanic was not Yorick’s first brush with death, but as with every near-miss he manages to escape into the world of books. After he learns of the ship’s sinking, he takes this twist of fate as a sign to follow his lifelong dream of owning a bookshop in Paris. It’s at his shop that he receives an invitation to a secret society of survivors where he encounters other ticket-holders who didn’t board the ship. Haunted by their good fortune, they decide to transform their group into a book society, where they can grapple with their own anxieties through the guise of discussing contentious works such as The Awakening or The Picture of Dorian Gray. Of the ragtag group of survivors, Yorick finds himself particularly drawn to the wealthy candy heiress Zinnia and the mysterious and alluring Haze. Yorick feels like an outsider looking in, falling hopelessly for Haze as Haze courts Zinnia; a tangled triangle of love and friendship forms between them. Yet with the Great War looming, their close-knit group is shattered, only brought back together once the death of a fellow book club member leaves them wondering what fate has in store for each of them. Elegant and elegiac, The Titanic Survivors' Book Club is a dazzling ode to love, chance, and the transformativepower of books to bring people together.