The horrormance genre mash-up you've been waiting for - from the award-winning Korean author Cho Yeeun comes a new novel where a young girl and a teddy bear team up to enact revenge!Yamu, pop. 200,000 - A coastal town that has seen better days. A massive redevelopment plan is in place, including that for a luxury apartment complex dubbed Sea View Park. One day, a delivery of rice cakes is made to the building supposedly from one of the new neighbours. The rice cakes are laced with cyanide, however, resulting in a lethal mass poisoning.Hwa-young's mother, who works as a live-in housekeeper at Sea View Park, is one of the victims. Hwa-young, turned out on the streets, lives in a flophouse for runaways at the mercy of landlord Young-jin, who regularly extorts money from her. Hwa-young refuses to believe that her mother, who never touched rice cakes in her life, died from eating them, and suspects foul play. Swearing to find the true culprit and avenge her mother's death, Hwa-young is determined to save 20 million won in order to place a hit on the suspect, and does whatever work she can find.One day, Hwa-young is bullied into playing bait for one of Young-jin's scams. Left in a motel room alone with the mark, she is alarmed when he begins to unpack one lethal weapon after another. She signals Young-jin for help, but when no one comes she realizes that she has been tricked, and that Young-jin has sold her to the would-be murderer. Just when the man is about to attack Hwa-young, he collapses in pain, bleeding. Hwa-young is about to escape when a teddy bear speaks to her. It's a grubby Happy Smile Bear doll.And thus begins the extraordinary journey as a Happy Smile Bear, possessed by the spirits of a murdered young boy, and Hwa-yeong, an orphaned young girl, join forces enact vengeance and bring the true culprit to justice.

The heartwarming Japanese bestseller about grief, love and a cat who will do anything to see his beloved owner again'A much-needed dose of comfort and positivity' SHANNA TANAfter a long and happy life with a loving human family, tabby cat Fuuta has passed into the afterlife. But he is not as far from his owner Michiru as it seems. Sometimes the divide between the lands of the living and the dead can be traversed.Eager to see Michiru again, Fuuta interviews for a position at Café Pont, which sits in the liminal space between the two worlds. The café is known for its unique its living customers can request meetings with the person they'd most like to see again, through the specially selected spirits of messenger cats.Fuuta must investigate and deliver his messages without unnerving the living, or worse, upsetting the balance of the universe itself. It is a weighty task for a tabby cat, but Fuuta rises to the challenge. After all, the job offers a special he will get to see Michiru again. And he'll do anything to reunite with his family.Readers love Messenger Cat Cafe‘This book is so heartwarming… delightful!’ *****'Softly magical and deeply comforting... A beautiful meditation on love that never truly ends' *****‘What an absolutely gorgeous read this was!’ *****‘This book is so sweet. I loved all the little ways it reminds you to live, to love, and to stop regretting things that you cannot control or change’ *****

By the million-copy bestselling author of WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS IN THE LIBRARY, a Times bestseller and Time magazine Top 100 title.From the three-times nominated author for the Japan Booksellers Volume Two of the Marble Cafe series, in which customers, staff, artists and manager connect over 12 powerful episodes to create vivid experiences of unexpected happy encounters and anonymous kindness.

From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a “maestra of literary fiction” (NPR)—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most, her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.

A life-changing path to the financial freedom we all How to Be a Rich Old Lady is filled with humor, heart, and real-world perspective.Amanda Holden spent years working in investment management, where she saw exactly who gets access to the power, ease, and opportunity money can bring—and it wasn’t people like her friends. She also saw how the financial system is designed to feel exclusive and confusing, and how it blames individuals for economic problems they didn’t create. So, Amanda left her finance job to launch Invested Development, a financial education company where she has taught more than twenty-five thousand students how to invest with radical clarity, accessibility, and joy. Here, all her expertise is packed into a guide that won’t feel like getting cornered by a crypto bro. Instead, it reads like a text from your smartest “Let’s figure out money, so we can stop thinking about money.” Because this practice isn’t just about planning for your wild and glorious future—it’s about the relief of knowing you’re doing everything you can right now. In these pages, you Set up a fully automated investing strategy—so you can move on with your life Use hands-on tools and worksheets to guide you to financial independence Learn about investing in a way that is truly memorable Demystify retirement accounts and tax rules Learn who to trust in the finance world—and who to avoid Master how to research, buy, and track the right investments for you Explore what it means to live a wild, beautiful life beyond Roth IRAs How to Be a Rich Old Lady is a step-by-step road map to financial freedom. It’s not just about numbers on a spreadsheet but building a life that feels secure enough to dream into. Maybe your Rich Old Lady is wearing belly chains at the beach, tanned and wrinkly and totally unbothered. Maybe she’s befriending the birds at her cozy forest cabin. Maybe she’s leaving $500 tips on her diner coffee. Whatever your vision, this approachable guide to investing and wealth-building will help you build a plan to greet her with confidence, security, and genuine hope for tomorrow.

From New York Times bestselling author Kate Quinn comes a gorgeously written fantastical adventure which poses the question: Have you ever wished you could live inside a book? Welcome to the Astral Library, where books are not just objects, but doors to new worlds, new lives, and new futures. Alexandria “Alix” Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: books will never let you down, unlike people. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives...inside their favorite books. The Librarian takes a dazzled Alix under her wing, but before she can escape into the pages of her new life, a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped protect. Aided by a dashing costume-shop owner and bookmarking their way from volume to volume, Alix and the Librarian flee through the Regency drawing rooms of Jane Austen to the back alleys of Sherlock Holmes and the champagne-soaked parties of The Great Gatsby as their enemy draws closer. But who does their enemy really wish to destroy—the Library, the Librarian, or Alix herself?

In this charming and emotionally resonant follow up to the internationally bestselling Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Satoshi Yagisawa paints a poignant and thoughtful portrait of life, love, and how much books and bookstores mean to the people who love them. Set again in the beloved Japanese bookshop and nearby coffee shop in the Jimbocho neighborhood of Toyko, More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop deepens the relationship between Takako, her uncle Satoru , and the people in their lives. A new cast of heartwarming regulars have appeared in the shop, including an old man who wears the same ragged mouse-colored sweater and another who collects books solely for the official stamps with the author’s personal seal. Satoshi Yagisawa illuminates the everyday relationships between people that are forged and grown through a shared love of books. As time passes, Satoru, with Takako’s help, must choose whether to keep the bookshop open or shutter its doors forever. Making the decision will take uncle and niece on an emotional journey back to their family’s roots and remind them again what a bookstore can mean to an individual, a neighborhood, and a whole culture.

She’s a talented pastry chef―with a secret recipe for solving crimes… WELCOME TO THE COOKIE HOUSE Kate McGuire’s life was sweet in Manhattan before she lost her restaurant job and fiancé both. But sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, and soon she finds herself starting from scratch in the island town of Coral Cay, Florida. It has everything she’s looking for: sunny beaches, friendly locals, and a Help Wanted sign in the bakery shop window. Once she convinces the shop’s crusty owner Sam Hepplewhite to hire her, Kate can’t tie on her apron fast enough. Little does she know that trouble, like warm dough, is on the rise. . . WHERE CRIMINALS GET THEIR JUST DESSERTS Stewart Lord is a real estate developer with a taste for a different type of dough: the green kind. He knows that he could make a killing by purchasing the Cookie House from Sam, who flat-out refuses to sell. But when Stewart turns up the heat on Sam―then turns up dead after eating a fresh batch of Sam’s cinnamon rolls―all eyes focus on the town’s beloved bakery. When the police arrest Sam for murder, Kate must somehow prove that her curmudgeonly boss is innocent. Enlisting the help of a team of lovable locals, Kate sets out to catch the real culprit with his hand in the cookie jar…before someone else gets burned

The English-language debut of one of Japan's most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies there, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction―many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual―and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action… A brilliant depiction of a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures we all feel to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.

One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming.... Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby. Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute. If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.