A provocative novel about an immigrant family living the American dream—and the daughter whose death raises questions about just how American they really want to become.Zorah Sharaf is her family’s pride and joy.Zorah Sharaf is bringing shame to her family.What is the truth? It depends on who you ask.After fleeing the horrors of war in Afghanistan, the Sharaf family resettles as refugees in Northern Virginia. After many years of hard work, the father has become a millionaire. Now they live in the most exclusive neighborhood, their growing family attending the most prestigious schools. And Zorah, the eldest daughter, is the apple of her father’s eye.When Zorah dies after her car veers off the road, it initially seems like a tragic accident—a rainy night, an inexperienced young driver. But stories start to emerge of Zorah as a daughter who disgraced her family, who cavorted with boys. There is talk that the Sharafs’ perfect teenage daughter was far from perfect.The media seizes on the story, dragging the family into the court of public opinion. Was Zorah’s death a tragic accident, or did she die by the hands of her own family in an “honor killing?”Told through multiple points of view and set against a backdrop of Islamophobia and xenophobia, the novel is riveting, provocative, and unforgettable. Good People is sure to spark ongoing conversation with its urgent storytelling, daring structure, and nuanced look at some of the most pressing questions of our time.

A cultural history of the goddess of love, from a New York Times bestselling and award-winning historian. Aphrodite was said to have been born from the sea, rising out of a froth of white foam. But long before the Ancient Greeks conceived of this voluptuous blonde, she existed as an early spirit of fertility on the shores of Cyprus -- and thousands of years before that, as a ferocious warrior-goddess in the Middle East. Proving that this fabled figure is so much more than an avatar of commercialized romance, historian Bettany Hughes reveals the remarkable lifestory of one of antiquity's most potent myths. Venus and Aphrodite brings together ancient art, mythology, and archaeological revelations to tell the story of human desire. From Mesopotamia to modern-day London, from Botticelli to Beyoncé, Hughes explains why this immortal goddess continues to entrance us today -- and how we trivialize her power at our peril.

From the nationally bestselling author of the “powerful, heartbreaking” (Shelf Awareness) The Stationery Shop, a heartfelt, epic new novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran. In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation. Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.” But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives. Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences. Written with Marjan Kamali’s signature “evocative, devastating, and hauntingly beautiful” (Whitney Scharer, author of The Age of Light) prose, The Lion Women of Tehran is a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young, and the way love and courage transforms our lives.