Asteria is dying. Its kingdoms are fractured, its people warring, its magic faltering—and anyone who could save it has vanished. On Earth, Conor will do whatever it takes to keep her head down and her sister alive. She’s a shadow in her own life—until the night her classmate Jaime drags her into the woods and through a rift between worlds. Trapped in the mysterious realm of Asteria, Conor has no choice but to flee with him through dark forests and even darker tunnels. As they race to evade prowling fexes and sentinels, she searches for something—anything—that could get her home. She’s not the only one desperate to escape. In the sea’s shadowy depths, a thief and an assassin hunt for answers that might save their doomed city. Atop floating towers, a reluctant queen uncovers ancient secrets. As storms rise and dragons stir, she longs only to disappear. Across the wintry meadows below, an exiled heir fights to outwit an unsettling captor—all while plotting to reclaim her stolen throne. Their paths are converging. Something in Asteria is waking. And nothing will ever be the same.

Award-winning author Lauren E. Rico’s intense psychological thriller plumbs the depths of trauma and identity in an emotional story about twin sisters set against the murky backdrop of the Everglades. Dr. Jennifer Flores swore she’d never return to Miami—not after her mentor nearly destroyed her career and reputation to save his own. But when he asks the successful psychiatrist to consult on a high-profile case, she reluctantly agrees. This case echoes Jenn’s own twin-related trauma, and no one is better suited for the job. Separated at birth, identical twins Mary Langston and Samantha Kinski met by chance in college five years ago. Today, they were found deep in the Florida Everglades, one barely alive and the other deceased. Jenn’s evaluation of survivor Mary’s mental status reveals more of the sisters’ extraordinary backstory. They experienced two vastly different While adopted Mary thrived in the lap of luxury, Sam faltered in the brutal foster system. As Jenn digs deeper into the twins’ turbulent bond, a dark picture emerges. Psychological manipulation. Family secrets. Mistaken identity. And as she gets closer to uncovering the truth, she finally confronts her own devastating loss.

In This Is Your Mind on Plants, Michael Pollan dives deep into three plant drugs--opium, caffeine, and mescaline--and throws the fundamental strangeness, and arbitrariness, of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs while consuming (or, in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants. Why do we go to such great lengths to seek these shifts in consciousness, and then why do we fence that universal desire with laws and customs and fraught feelings?

For generations, four Clans of wild cats have shared the forest according to the laws laid down by their warrior ancestors. But the ThunderClan cats are in grave danger, and the sinister ShadowClan grows stronger every day. Noble warriors are dying—and some deaths are more mysterious than others. In the midst of this turmoil appears an ordinary house cat named Rusty . . . who may turn out to be the bravest warrior of them all.