Emily Austin, the bestselling “queen of darkly quirky, endearingly flawed heroines” (Sarah Haywood, author of The Cactus), returns with a luminous new novel following a librarian who comes back to work after a mental breakdown only to confront book-banning crusaders in an empowering story of grief, love, and the power of libraries. Darcy’s life turned out better than she could have ever imagined. She is a librarian at the local branch, while her wife Joy runs a book binding service. Between the two of them, there is no more room on their shelves with their ample book collections, various knickknacks and bobbles, and dried bouquets. Rounding out their ideal life is two cats and a sun-soaked house by the lake. But when Darcy receives the news that her ex-boyfriend, Ben, has passed away, she spirals into a pit of guilt and regret, resulting in a mental breakdown and medical leave from the library. When she returns to work, she is met by unrest in her community, and protests surrounding intellectual freedom, resulting in a call for book bans and a second look at the branch’s upcoming DEI programs. Through the support of her community, colleagues, and the personal growth that results from examining her previous relationships, Darcy comes into her own agency and the truest version of herself. Is This a Cry for Help? not only offers a moving portrait of queer life after coming of age but also powerfully explores questions about sexuality, community, and the importance of libraries.

When you lose your way in life, the Elsewhere Express just might find you. Step aboard the train that can take you to your life’s purpose, in this cozy and inspiring fantasy from the author of Water Moon.This hardcover edition Interactive endpapers with a scene you can color inA full-color illustrated book case beneath the jacketYou can’t buy a ticket for the Elsewhere Express. Appearing only to those whose lives are adrift, it’s a magical train carrying very rare and special a sense of purpose, peace, and belonging.Raya is one of those lost souls. She dreamed of being a songwriter, but when her brother died, she gave up on her dream and started living his instead.One day, as her thoughts wander while on the subway, she's swept off to the Elsewhere Express. There she meets Q, a charming, handsome artist who, like her, has lost his place in the world.Together they find a train full of wonders, from a boarding car that's also a meadow to a dining car where passengers can picnic on lilypads to a bar where jellyfish and whales swim through pink clouds.But they also discover that the train harbors secrets—and A mysterious stranger has stowed away on the train and brought with him a dark, malignant magic that threatens to destroy it.But in investigating the stowaway's identity, Raya also finds herself drawing closer to the ultimate What is her life's true purpose—and might Q be connected to it?

In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness. First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.

Long ago, following a cataclysm called “The Rupture,” the world was shattered into many floating celestial islands. Known now as Arks, each has developed in distinct ways; each seems to possess its own unique relationship to time, such that nowadays vastly different worlds exist, together but apart. And over all of the Arks the spirit of an omnipotent ancestor abides. Ophelia lives on Anima, an ark where objects have souls. Beneath her worn scarf and thick glasses, the young girl hides the ability to read and communicate with the souls of objects, and the power to travel through mirrors. Her peaceful existence on the Ark of Anima is disrupted when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, from the powerful Dragon clan. Ophelia must leave her family and follow her fiancée to the floating capital on the distant Ark of the Pole. Why has she been chosen? Why must she hide her true identity? Though she doesn’t know it yet, she has become a pawn in a deadly plot.

One of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard reveals the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans in this deeply personal and groundbreaking portrait of a nation. Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants--and to find the hidden key to her own. Looking beyond the flashpoints of the border or the activism of the DREAMers, Cornejo Villavicencio explores the lives of the undocumented--and the mysteries of her own life. She finds the nation of singular, effervescent characters often reduced in the media to political pawns or nameless laborers. The stories she tells are not deferential or naively inspirational but show the love, magic, heartbreak, insanity, and vulgarity that infuse the day-to-day lives of her subjects. In New York, we meet the undocumented workers who were recruited into the federally funded Ground Zero cleanup after 9/11. In Miami, we enter the ubiquitous botanicas, which offer medicinal herbs and potions to those whose status blocks them from any other healthcare options. In Flint, Michigan, we learn of demands for state ID in order to receive life-saving clean water. In Connecticut, Cornejo Villavicencio, childless by choice, finds family in two teenage girls whose father is in sanctuary. And through it all we see the author grappling with the biggest questions of love, duty, family, and survival. In her incandescent, relentlessly probing voice, Cornejo Villavicencio combines sensitive reporting and powerful personal narratives to bring to light remarkable stories of resilience, madness, and death. Through these stories we come to understand what it truly means to be a stray. An expendable. A hero. An American.

Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds. Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters, and the mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends. Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.

When you lose your way in life, the Elsewhere Express just might find you. Step aboard the train that can take you to your life’s purpose, in this cozy and inspiring fantasy from the author of Water Moon.This hardcover edition Interactive endpapers with a scene you can color inA full-color illustrated book case beneath the jacketYou can’t buy a ticket for the Elsewhere Express. Appearing only to those whose lives are adrift, it’s a magical train carrying very rare and special a sense of purpose, peace, and belonging.Raya is one of those lost souls. She dreamed of being a songwriter, but when her brother died, she gave up on her dream and started living his instead.One day, as her thoughts wander while on the subway, she's swept off to the Elsewhere Express. There she meets Q, a charming, handsome artist who, like her, has lost his place in the world.Together they find a train full of wonders, from a boarding car that's also a meadow to a dining car where passengers can picnic on lilypads to a bar where jellyfish and whales swim through pink clouds.But they also discover that the train harbors secrets—and A mysterious stranger has stowed away on the train and brought with him a dark, malignant magic that threatens to destroy it.But in investigating the stowaway's identity, Raya also finds herself drawing closer to the ultimate What is her life's true purpose—and might Q be connected to it?