Newly widowed and stuck in a middle-aged funk, Poppy has been running on cookies, infomercials, and one-sided chats with her cat for months. There's no way on earth she's attending her twenty-five-year class reunion--especially after receiving a very bizarre letter from Barbie, the popular cheerleader who taunted her all through high school. At least, not until Poppy's best friend practically drags her to the event . . . Using the dreaded homecoming as an excuse to visit her eccentric Aunt Ginny, Poppy vows to leave Cape May with pride and Spanx intact. Too bad Barbie is still the queen of mean at the reunion. And worse, that her dead body is lying right in front of Poppy's old locker. Singled out as the killer, it's up to Poppy to confront her past and clear her name. But between protecting her aunt from disaster and tackling a gluten-free diet, can Poppy crack the case before she's voted Most Likely to Die by the murderer?

A beloved Japanese bestseller, The Menu of Happiness is for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and asks the question: What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time? Every memory has a flavor. A very special restaurant in Kyoto helps find them . . . Tucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner, run by Chef Nagare and his daughter, Koishi. The father-daughter duo have reinvented themselves as “food detectives,” offering a service that goes beyond cooking mouthwatering meals. Through their culinary sleuthing, they harness the power of taste to rekindle forgotten memories. From the yakisoba holding the memories of precious first love to the dumplings shared between sworn enemies, each client will be forever changed by what they find on the menu, because the Kamogawa Diner doesn’t just serve meals—it’s a door to the past.

Is love on the small screen better than the real thing? A young divorcée finds herself in the ideal world of her favorite 2000s teen soap in this “gleefully nostalgic and completely fresh”* romance from the author of This Spells Love. Newly divorced on the eve of her thirtieth birthday, Brynn is sick of heartbreak. She thought she had found her happy ending, but now she’s living with a roommate, Josh, to afford her mortgage, and she’s trying to adjust to her new single life. At least she’s got Carson’s Cove to binge, her beloved 2000s teenage soap. The show ended unexpectantly on a cliffhanger after five seasons, and the two main characters, Sloan and Spencer, never got to declare their love for each other. The show is still perfect in Brynn’s eyes; despite all the drama that goes down, things always have a way of working out in Carson’s Cove . . . unlike her own life. So when a birthday cake surprisingly shows up on her and Josh’s doorstep, Brynn makes a wish for the one thing she’s always wanted (but has failed to achieve herself): a happily-ever-after. The next morning, she doesn’t wake up in her apartment. She’s in Carson’s Cove . . . and Josh is there too. Everyone seems to know them, except they’re not Brynn and Josh; they’re Sloan, the sweetheart of Carson’s Cove, and Fletch, the town’s bad boy. And to get home, they have to make Brynn’s wish come true by ensuring Sloan and Spencer, the hometown heartthrob, end up together at last. But as they spend more time together, Brynn and Josh realize that Carson’s Cove might not be as perfect as seen on television . . . especially when they start developing feelings for each other in a plot twist no one has expected. Will they stick to the script, or will real love change the story forever?

Low-rise jeans, butterfly clips, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, and Paris Hilton’s nights out. The early 2000s were a time of major moments in fashion, media, celebrity culture, and especially music. The aughts saw female artists, specifically pop stars, make up more than half of the highest-grossing musicians of the decade—the only time in the history of recorded music. Artists such as Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and Beyoncé were leading the charge—their success not only reflecting a new investment in female-led music, but also major cultural changes. In Hit Girls, Nora Princiotti examines how these artists built the modern music industry by redefining its relationship to genre, technology, and celebrity. She unpacks when Brit wore pigtails and opened the bubblegum floodgates for Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson to run through them, leading to the emergence of Avril, P!nk, and Paramore as a (no-less-poppy) punk antidote to the first wave of pop. Innovations in technology lead to the rise of EDM, as artists like Rihanna experimented with sound while artists like Ke$ha and Katy Perry embraced the “party anthem.” Along the way, Princiotti explores how celebrity evolved alongside the shift in media from tabloids to MySpace to Instagram and how Taylor ultimately created one of the largest, most dedicated fandoms the world has ever seen. With passion, energy, and a slew of fun facts, Hit Girls shows how this decade of pop became a major cultural signifier continues to have a lasting impact today.

From 2000 to its final episode in 2007, Gilmore Girls raised the bar for television writing, redefined the dramatic comedy, and cultivated a dedicated fan base not seen since the heights of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. However, unlike Buffy, little has been published about what went on behind-the-scenes of Gilmore Girl. Until now. The Gilmore Girls Companion provides the first detailed account of the creation of this groundbreaking series, based on dozens of exclusive interviews with the actors and behind-the-camera talent who brought Stars Hollow to life. Over 500 pages!

When a Halloween stalker shows up on Mischief Night, Vic encounters lots of tricks, no treats, and one murder … It’s the post-summer season in Oceanside Park, and mystery writer Victoria Rienzi’s hometown is preparing for one last blast on the boardwalk—its annual Mischief Night parade, held the evening before Halloween. While Nonna keeps her busy making treat bags full of Italian candy, Vic dreams up the perfect costumes for herself and Tim: Nick and Nora Charles, the famed detective pair from The Thin Man movies. Completing their look is a canine scamp, Willie, borrowed to play the part of Nora’s pet terrier. But Victoria’s excitement is dimmed by the presence of a stalker, Edward Millman, who’s seen lurking around the Rienzi family restaurant. And who shows up at the Mischief Night parade dressed as Victoria’s book sleuth, Bernardo Vitali. But halfway through the parade, Willie sniffs out trouble, leading Vic and Tim on a not-so-merry chase that brings them to a dead body—Victoria’s stalker, Edward Millman. And in a scene straight out of Victoria’s latest book, Millman is found with a knife sticking from his chest, along with a nasty note: You deserved this. As Vic digs into the details of the victim’s life, she wonders: Is it life imitating art? Or is there a more deadly form of mischief at work this Halloween?

In the mid-1990s, two major Hollywood studios, Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures, each launched their own broadcast television network with the hope of becoming the fifth major player in an industry long dominated by ABC, CBS, NBC, and, more recently, Fox. Despite the odds against them, the WB and UPN went on to alter the landscape of primetime television, only to then merge as the CW network in 2006—each a casualty of conflicting personalities, relentless competition, and a basic failure to anticipate the future of the entertainment business. Unfolding amid this backdrop of high-stakes business ventures, fanatical creative struggles, and corporate power plays, Season Finale traces the parallel stories of the WB and UPN from their prosperous beginnings to their precipitous demise. Following the big money, big egos, and big risks of network television, Susanne Daniels, a television executive with the WB for most of its life, and Cynthia Littleton, a longtime television reporter for Variety, expose the difficult reality of trying to launch not one but two traditional broadcast networks at the moment when cable television and the Internet were ending the dominance of network television. Through in-depth reportage and firsthand accounts, Daniels and Littleton expertly re-create the creative and business climate that gave birth to the WB and UPN, illustrating how the race to find suitable programming spawned a heated rivalry between the two but also created shows that became icons of American youth culture. Offering insider stories and never-before-published details about shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson's Creek, 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls, Smallville, Felicity, Girlfriends, Everybody Hates Chris, and America's Next Top Model, Daniels and Littleton provide an exhaustive account of the two creative teams that ushered these groundbreaking programs into the hearts, minds, and living rooms of Americans across the country. But in spite of these successes, the WB and UPN unraveled, and here the authors elucidate the corporate miscalculations that led to their undoing, examining the management missteps and industry upheaval that brought about their rapid decline and the surprising teamwork that united them as the CW. The result is a cautionary and compelling entertainment saga that skillfully captures a precarious moment in television history, when the dramatic transformation of the broadcast networks signaled an inevitable shift for all pop culture.

Two women—separated by decades and continents, and united by a mysterious family heirloom—reclaim family secrets and lost loves in this sweeping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Wives. New England, 2022. Three years ago, single mother Mallory Dunne received the telephone call every parent dreads—her ten-year-old son Sam had been airlifted from summer camp with acute poisoning from a toxic death cap mushroom, leaving him fighting for his life. Now, in a search for the donor kidney that will give her son a chance for a normal life, Mallory’s forced to confront two harrowing secrets from her past: her mother’s adoption from an infamous Irish orphanage in 1952, and her own all-consuming summer romance fourteen years earlier with her childhood best friend Monk Adams—now one of the world’s most beloved singer-songwriters—a fairytale cut short by an agonizing betrayal. Cairo, 1951. After suffering tragedy beyond comprehension in the war, Hungarian refugee Hannah Ainsworth has forged a respectable new life for herself—marriage to a wealthy British diplomat, a coveted posting in glamorous Cairo. But a fateful encounter with the enigmatic manager of a hotel bristling with spies leads to a passionate affair that will reawaken Hannah's longing for everything she once lost. As revolution simmers in the Egyptian streets, a pregnant Hannah finds herself snared into a game of intrigue between two men…and an act of sacrifice that will echo down the generations. Timeless and bittersweet, Husbands And Lovers draws readers on an unforgettable journey of heartbreak and redemption, from the revolutionary fires of midcentury Egypt to the moneyed beaches of contemporary New England. Acclaimed author Beatriz Williams has written a poignant and beautifully voiced novel of deeply human characters entangled by morally complex issues—of privilege, class, and the female experience—inside worlds brought shimmeringly to life.

Elin Hilderbrand, author of the enchanting Summer People and The Beach Club, invites you to experience the perfect getaway with her sparkling new novel. Adrienne Dealey has spent the past six years working for hotels in exotic resort towns. This summer she has decided to make Nantucket home. Left flat broke by her ex-boyfriend, she is desperate to earn some fast money. When the desirable Thatcher Smith, owner of Nantucket's hottest restaurant, is the only one to offer her a job, she wonders if she can get by with no restaurant experience. Thatcher gives Adrienne a crash course in the business...and they share an instant attraction. But there is a mystery about their situation: what is it about Fiona, the Blue Bistro's chef, that captures Thatcher's attention again and again? And why does such a successful restaurant seem to be in its final season before closing its doors for good? Despite her uncertainty, Adrienne must decide whether to open her heart for the first time, or move on, as she always does. Infused with intimate Nantucket detail and filled with the warmth of passion and the breeze of doubt, The Blue Bistro is perfect summer reading.