Nella Larsen's fascinating exploration of race and identity--the inspiration for the upcoming Netflix film directed by Rebecca Hall, starring Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga. This Signet Classics edition of Passing includes an Introduction by Brit Bennett, the bestselling author of The Vanishing Half. Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her past--even hiding the truth from her racist husband. Clare finds herself drawn to Irene's sense of ease and security with her Black identity and longs for the community (and, increasingly, the woman) she lost. Irene is both riveted and repulsed by Clare and her dangerous secret, as Clare begins to insert herself--and her deception--into every part of Irene's stable existence. First published in 1929, Larsen's brilliant examination of the various ways in which we all seek to "pass," is as timely as ever.

In 1926, five women disappeared from a remote island in Vermont. Now, one hundred years later, it’s happening again. Struggling actress Marin Keane is shocked when she lands a role in a major motion picture about the unsolved mystery of New Avalon, an island on sprawling Lake Faraday in Vermont. She’s even more surprised when she learns that the role requires a weeklong research trip to that very spot. Because New Avalon isn’t your ordinary island. A century ago, it was a commune for spiritual mediums—until they all vanished in 1926. The only trace of them was five dresses hanging from the branches of an old oak tree in the middle of the island, one for each missing woman. Some locals say they simply left. Others think they were murdered. But the prevailing opinion, thanks to a diary left behind by one of the vanished, a young woman named Daisy Rue, is that a séance gone wrong conjured something supernatural that took them all one by one. Not long after arriving, Marin and her castmates, including legendary actress Violet Wright and white-hot director Ronan Peters, begin to realize all is not right with New Avalon. They hear strange noises in the night and notice mysterious symbols left behind by the island's previous occupants. And after a sudden health emergency leaves Marin, Ronan, and the other actors stranded on the island, the disappearances begin again. Is it the work of someone trying to derail the movie? Or is the island’s alleged supernatural past catching up with the present? As fear and suspicion mount, Marin turns to Daisy’s diary, hoping it holds the key to figuring out what really happened to the women of New Avalon—and how to keep the island’s terrible history from repeating itself.

"Have you ever wondered how long it would take for a lethal dose of arsenic to kill you? Thirty-five hours, twenty-nine minutes, and fifteen seconds. I should know. I counted myself." Amidst the gaslit alleys and cobblestone streets of Victorian London, two killers find themselves entangled in a waltz they cannot escape. Alina Lis, a botanist and hobbyist poisoner, has a pastime of killing unsavory men in her twisted sense of poetic justice. When she targets the conceited playboy, Silas Forbes, only to find him in her apothecary the following week, she discovers human men are the least of her problems. The pair’s unlikely association sparks gossip among affluent society. As their mysterious bond deepens, a chilling truth emerges—concealed identities, lurking foes, and questions as plentiful as the hydra’s head brew within this haunting Gothic tale of violent passion. Will Silas and Alina find themselves in each other's arms, or will the shadows of their past keep them apart?

THE BRAND NEW NOVEL FROM THE AUTHOR OF TIKTOK SENSATION MAGNOLIA PARKSLondon-based Georgia Carter, professional lie-detector and body-language savant, has long been estranged from her infuriating, close-minded, wealthy South Carolina family. After a falling-out years ago, the chasm runs deep between the black sheep - Georgia and her gay, alcoholic brother - and their parents and elder siblings. But when their father dies suddenly, Georgia returns to the States for the funeral ... where she comes face-to-face with Sam Penny, her brother's AA sponsor.Amid the tensions, dramas and revelations of the family reunion, Georgia and Sam are instantly drawn to each other.However, Georgia's brother also harbours feelings for Sam, and the last thing Georgia wants to do is hurt the only family she's ever really had.When their father's will reveals a surprising bequest to a mysterious stranger, Georgia's ability to read people becomes crucial in unravelling her father's hidden past. The delicate balance within the family teeters, and secrets - both old and new - threaten to push them beyond the breaking point.There are only so many cracks a damaged family can take before it shatters.

The emperor's reign has lasted for decades, his mastery of bone shard magic powering the animal-like constructs that maintain law and order. But now his rule is failing, and revolution is sweeping across the Empire's many islands. Lin is the emperor's daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic. Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright - and save her people.

A vacation in paradise turns deadly when four teens' sailing charter hits stormy seas in this propulsive new thriller from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Megan Lally! Hannah is having an incredible spring break. A week at a resort in Mexico with her best friend Emmy and her family is perfect for de-stressing from senior year, even if it’s awkward being around Emmy's older brother, Jackson, who she’s had a crush on for as long as she can remember. Still, the beach is gorgeous. So is the guy they meet in the surf. Except Hannah is now the third wheel in Emmy’s vacation romance. Eager to impress Emmy, her wealthy new boyfriend charters a private sailboat to make the most of their last day in paradise, and Hannah and Jackson are invited along. As the clouds roll in and the skies darken, their boat is the only one leaving the marina. And the further they get into open water, the more unsettled Hannah becomes. A storm is brewing onboard that’s as deadly as the one racing toward them. Forget surviving graduation. Who will make it back to land alive?

Zillah’s twenty-three and stuck. She’s stuck living with her quirky mother, stuck with a diet of ten toddler-approved foods, and stuck in a relationship with a man who thinks sharks are immortal. Zillah desperately wants to move out on her own, but first she needs to prove she’s brave enough and that her mom won’t self-destruct. Things change when she secretly listens to her neighbor’s exposure therapy and decides to DIY her own mental health. But her first therapy experiment accidentally injures her mom, and life gets even stranger when she befriends the neighbor she’s been spying on. Zillah gets to see the power of leaning into fear up close. But she also topples her carefully constructed home life, questions the “facts” of her childhood, and risks her mother’s stability as long-buried truths start to unravel. Zillah must decide who she wants to be and what she’s willing to leave behind. Tender, funny, and full of nervy optimism, PICKY celebrates the courage it takes to reject the meal you were handed and instead choose from the buffet.

A rollicking work of lyricism and humor, about one family’s tumble into the unknown, from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of North Woods Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, twelve years late with his PhD on Russian folktales, and increasingly haunted by a sense that he's become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife Kate accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the far away forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be his year to finally move forward with his life. But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms, one who possesses, in Kate’s words, “a great capacity to fall in with anyone, anywhere.” And no sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as any of his folktales, from a ghostly tree surgeon to a scythe-mad biochemist, a Shakespearean temptress and a photographer of snowflakes obsessed with chronicling, on thousands of index cards, the world’s delusions in a “Inventory of Wrong Ideas.” The new friends, the enchanted woods, the sure, no PhD, but all good fun. Until Miles stumbles upon a bizarre—perhaps ridiculous—local legend, which, he soon suspects, might not be just a legend after all. Joyous, absurd, and life-affirming, Country People is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.

"A complex, beautiful coming-of-age novel...a love story unlike any I've ever read." —Ali Hazelwood "A soulful book about the politics of labor and submission." —Raven Leilani Normal People meets Fifty Shades of Grey in this sharp and provocative coming-of-age debut chronicling the turbulent romance between a brilliant economics grad student and a magnetic Wall Street banker two decades her senior. When Lili Marwan—seeking to escape the unrelenting pressures of her master’s thesis, recent rejection from her foster family, and unresolved grief from the death of her parents—has an intense one-night stand with Aleksandr Petrov, her restless mind finally goes calm. At twenty-two, Lili is already opinionated beyond her years: whether it’s astrology, democratic socialism, veganism, or the ravages of late-stage capitalism run rampant. But when a tall, dark stranger buys her a drink in a FiDi bar, she meets her match. Aleksandr is formidable, fiercely intelligent, and infuriatingly disarming. He’s also two decades older than her, a Capricorn with a birth chart full of red flags, a neoliberal capitalist, and a strong believer in the power of free markets, having escaped the Soviet Union in its dying days. He’s the opposite of Lili in nearly every way. He challenges her at every turn. And she can’t stay away. Over the course of a heady New York City summer, Lili and Aleksandr reach across the divide of their differences and the decades of their lives, discovering startlingly shared experiences. Their casual arrangement—rough sex, hours where Lili does not need to make any decisions—gives way fast to an unexpected intimacy, by turns breathtaking, then devastating. As Lili struggles to understand herself and the complicated threads of her ambition, pain, and desire, she will have to decide: is she willing to risk great loss again, for the hope of profit that is finally within reach?

Zillah’s twenty-three and stuck. She’s stuck living with her quirky mother, stuck with a diet of ten toddler-approved foods, and stuck in a relationship with a man who thinks sharks are immortal. Zillah desperately wants to move out on her own, but first she needs to prove she’s brave enough and that her mom won’t self-destruct. Things change when she secretly listens to her neighbor’s exposure therapy and decides to DIY her own mental health. But her first therapy experiment accidentally injures her mom, and life gets even stranger when she befriends the neighbor she’s been spying on. Zillah gets to see the power of leaning into fear up close. But she also topples her carefully constructed home life, questions the “facts” of her childhood, and risks her mother’s stability as long-buried truths start to unravel. Zillah must decide who she wants to be and what she’s willing to leave behind. Tender, funny, and full of nervy optimism, PICKY celebrates the courage it takes to reject the meal you were handed and instead choose from the buffet.

In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada's life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows. She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose, and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get them all killed. And Ada must decide whether she's willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all. Featuring an irresistibly no-nonsense, courageous, and determined heroine, Outlawed dusts off the myth of the old West and reignites the glimmering promise of the frontier with an entirely new set of feminist stakes. Anna North has crafted a pulse-racing, page-turning saga about the search for hope in the wake of death, and for truth in a climate of small-mindedness and fear.

Following a shocking murder, a young woman must face the secrets from her past—and a husband she thought she knew—in this twisty, sizzling novel from the bestselling authors of Happy Wife. Este Walker didn’t move to Winter Park, Florida, to make friends. Five years ago, she ghosted her life in California to reinvent herself among the lakefront estates of Florida’s elite. With a cocktail in hand, more money than she could ever spend, and secrets she intends to keep buried, she’s finally content—or, you know, close enough. Who cares if her seclusion and secrets have left her with a small social circle? Her husband Beau and her best friend Nora are the only company she needs. But Este’s secrets are catching up to her. Last year, when Nora gained national attention as a suspect in her husband's disappearance, Este’s picture was flashed onscreen. Suddenly the past she had hoped to keep buried is closing in on her—and Beau might be keeping secrets of his own. And then a mysterious death turns Winter Park upside down. Thrust into a high-stakes murder investigation, Este must unravel a web of lies and secrets to answer the What exactly happened in California, and has it come back to haunt her? More How is she going to get herself out of this mess?