Serial the podcast meets The Other Black Girl in a haunted house, as young African author disappears after being invited to an exclusive writing residency, and her sister is left only with a true crime podcast to help her uncover the truth about what really happened…Anaya Sebeya is missing. Before her disappearance, Anaya was a brilliant a rising star. Invited to a prestigious writing residency at Günter Huis, an eerie colonial mansion on the slopes of Devil’s Peak, Anaya was supposed to craft the next great African literary masterpiece—and so were four other young, emerging writers, all competing for the grand prize. But Anaya never made it home. When a sensationalized true crime podcast about Anaya emerges, claiming to reveal everything that happened at Günter Huis, her sister Ranewa is both skeptical and furious. But with each surreal episode, Ranewa begins to piece together a truth worse than she ever could have imagined… At Günter Huis, Anaya’s nightmares consume her. Time slips away from her. Günter Huis inflicts distorted visions and terrible supernatural visitations, pushing Anaya to tell a story no one dares. But exorcising the house’s endless cycle of evil requires a sacrifice that neither Anaya nor her fellows are ready to make. In House of Margins, award-winning Motswana author Tlotlo Tsamaase delivers a mesmerizing story of a young generation facing colonialism’s cultural legacy in Africa.

After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness. And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

When Neema Avashia tells people where she’s from, their response is nearly always a disbelieving “There are Indian people in West Virginia?” A queer Asian American teacher and writer, Avashia fits few Appalachian stereotypes. But the lessons she learned in childhood about race and class, gender and sexuality continue to inform the way she moves through the world today: how she loves, how she teaches, how she advocates, how she struggles. Another Appalachia examines both the roots and the resonance of Avashia’s identity as a queer desi Appalachian woman, while encouraging readers to envision more complex versions of both Appalachia and the nation as a whole. With lyric and narrative explorations of foodways, religion, sports, standards of beauty, social media, gun culture, and more, Another Appalachia mixes nostalgia and humor, sadness and sweetness, personal reflection and universal questions.

After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness. And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats. Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get: horned men start shadowing her, a corpse falls out of her sister’s ceiling, and ugly, impossible memories start to twist their way to the forefront of her mind. As Iris retraces Grey’s last known footsteps and follows the increasingly bizarre trail of breadcrumbs she left behind, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her sister is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children. The closer Iris gets to the truth, the closer she comes to understanding that the answer is dark and dangerous – and that Grey has been keeping a terrible secret from her for years.

For readers of Ace and Belly of the Beast: A Black queer feminist exploration of asexuality—and an incisive interrogation of the sex-obsessed culture that invisibilizes and ignores asexual and A-spec identity. Everything you know about sex and asexuality is (probably) wrong. The notion that everyone wants sex—and that we all have to have it—is false. It's intertwined with our ideas about capitalism, race, gender, and queerness. And it impacts the most marginalized among us. For asexual folks, it means that ace and A-spec identity is often defined by a queerness that's not queer enough, seen through a lens of perceived lack of pleasure, connection, joy, maturity, and even humanity. In this exploration of what it means to be Black and asexual in America today, Sherronda J. Brown offers new perspectives on asexuality. She takes an incisive look at how anti-Blackness, white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and capitalism enact harm against asexual people, contextualizing acephobia within a racial framework in the first book of its kind. Brown advocates for the "A" in LGBTQIA+, affirming that to be asexual is to be queer—despite the gatekeeping and denial that often says otherwise. With chapters on desire, f*ckability, utility, refusal, and possibilities, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality discusses topics of deep relevance to ace and a-spec communities. It centers the Black asexual experience—and demands visibility in a world that pathologizes and denies asexuality, denigrates queerness, and specifically sexualizes Black people. A necessary and unapologetic reclamation, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality is smart, timely, and an essential read for asexuals, aromantics, queer readers, and anyone looking to better understand sexual politics in America.

In this atmospheric Appalachian gothic, the Haddesley siblings of West Virginia must unearth long-buried secrets to carve out a future when the supernatural bargain entwining their fate with their ancestral land is suddenly ruptured Since time immemorial, the Haddesley family has tended the cranberry bog. In exchange, the bog sustains them. The staunch seasons of their lives are governed by a strict covenant that is renewed each generation with the ritual sacrifice of their patriarch, and in return, the bog produces a “bog-wife.” Brought to life from vegetation, this woman is meant to carry on the family line. But when the bog fails—or refuses—to honor the bargain, the Haddesleys, a group of discordant siblings still grieving the mother who mysteriously disappeared years earlier, face an unknown future. Middle child Wenna, summoned back to the dilapidated family manor just as her marriage is collapsing, believes the Haddesleys must abandon their patrimony. Her siblings are not so easily persuaded. Eldest daughter Eda, de facto head of the household, seeks to salvage the compact by desecrating it. Younger son Percy retreats into the wilderness in a dangerous bid to summon his own bog-wife. And as youngest daughter Nora takes desperate measures to keep her warring siblings together, fledgling patriarch Charlie uncovers a disturbing secret that casts doubt over everything the family has ever believed about itself. Brimming with aching loss and the universal struggle between honoring family commitments and the drive to strike out on one’s own, The Bog Wife is a haunting invocation of the arcane power of the habits and habitats that bound us.

The New York Times best-selling author of Final Girls and Survive the Night is back with his most unexpected thriller yet. Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of liquor, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple who live in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing—a tech innovator, Tom is rich; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous. One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other—and the longer Casey watches—it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage is not as perfect and placid as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey becomes consumed with finding out what happened to her. In the process, she uncovers eerie, darker truths that turn a tale of voyeurism and suspicion into a story of guilt, obsession and how looks can be very deceiving. With his trademark blend of sharp characters, psychological suspense, and gasp-worthy surprises, Riley Sager’s The House Across the Lake unveils more than one twist that will shock readers until the very last page.

Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats. Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get: horned men start shadowing her, a corpse falls out of her sister’s ceiling, and ugly, impossible memories start to twist their way to the forefront of her mind. As Iris retraces Grey’s last known footsteps and follows the increasingly bizarre trail of breadcrumbs she left behind, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her sister is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children. The closer Iris gets to the truth, the closer she comes to understanding that the answer is dark and dangerous – and that Grey has been keeping a terrible secret from her for years.

From the award-winning author of Hula, a dazzling saga about the founding of Hawaii and a magical relic that links the generations of one extraordinary family. In the present day, a woman lies in a hospital bed, watched over by her attentive, caring grandmother. The young woman was recently at a party and was seen jumping from the roof—but that couldn’t have been what happened, surely? In fits and starts, the grandmother begins to explain to her granddaughter the long tail of their family’s history, nestled in which may be the secret to why hardship and mystery have followed them through the centuries…. Soon, we travel back in time to the 18th century, when the explorer James Cook becomes the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands. He soon intersects with Kamehameha, the first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii. And soon begins a thrilling family saga, as each generation is put in charge of the pohaku, a stone with seemingly magical powers; it is carried from Hawaii to California and possibly beyond, bringing fortune to the good and misfortune to the bad. But with each successive generation, its powers grow, and those who carry it in their lineage—especially the women of the family—are able to channel its powers for good. Reminiscent of Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, and Tommy Orange’s There, There, The Pohaku is an immersive and bold novel about the history, perseverance, and resilience of the Hawaiian people.

A native Hawaiian teen travels to a luxury island resort in search of her missing twin and uncovers the dark side of paradise, in this YA supernatural thriller that's Mexican Gothic meets She is a Haunting. Lehua is a college dropout-turned-mortician's assistant from Arizona. She never thought she'd visit Hawai'i, her family's ancestral homeland, but when her estranged twin sister Ohia goes missing, Lehua tracks her to Kōpa`a, an exclusive island resort reserved for the upper one percent. Except once she arrives on the remote island, Ohia is nowhere to be found. And as Lehua begins to ask questions, the resort’s welcoming atmosphere turns sinister. She becomes convinced her sister didn't just leave—she was running from something, and now Lehua might be trapped on the island with whoever, or whatever, took her. With the help of fellow native girl Melia, Lehua will have to confront the island's bloody past and what lurks in the old plantation's cane fields… before it consumes her entirely. With lush prose, a tender sapphic romance, and gothic horror, THAT WHICH FEEDS US deftly explores the cost of paradise, for fans of Rory Power and A Love Story.