An emotional, electrifying, and darkly hilarious debut about a woman who finds a dead body and can’t give up its ghost, for fans of Mona Awad, Yellowjackets, and weird girl fiction. Spiraling from a disastrous falling-out with her best friend, Savannah retreats to her parents’ empty lake house in upstate New York to tend her wounds. Isolated and reeling from rejection, she spends her days in a fog, drinking and overthinking in equal worrisome measure. Until she wakes up one morning in the woods behind the house—next to a dead body. Instead of calling the police, Savannah reads the journal she finds nearby, reliving the last desperate months of this woman’s life lost in the wilderness, fighting for survival. Ava, as it turns out, is more than just a cold, lonely corpse. She was funny. She was smart. And Savannah has finally found someone she can talk to… As she pushes deeper into Ava’s harrowing story, Savannah notices a change, a shift in her reality. Each page brings her closer to the Ava from the journal…and the ghost before her now. Before long, Savannah feels something for Ava she hasn’t felt for anyone else—and there’s a good chance letting go would haunt her for the rest of her life. Is Savannah finally losing her grip? Or has she found the friend she’s needed all along?

An emotional, electrifying, and darkly hilarious debut about a woman who finds a dead body and can’t give up its ghost, for fans of Mona Awad, Yellowjackets, and weird girl fiction. Spiraling from a disastrous falling-out with her best friend, Savannah retreats to her parents’ empty lake house in upstate New York to tend her wounds. Isolated and reeling from rejection, she spends her days in a fog, drinking and overthinking in equal worrisome measure. Until she wakes up one morning in the woods behind the house—next to a dead body. Instead of calling the police, Savannah reads the journal she finds nearby, reliving the last desperate months of this woman’s life lost in the wilderness, fighting for survival. Ava, as it turns out, is more than just a cold, lonely corpse. She was funny. She was smart. And Savannah has finally found someone she can talk to… As she pushes deeper into Ava’s harrowing story, Savannah notices a change, a shift in her reality. Each page brings her closer to the Ava from the journal…and the ghost before her now. Before long, Savannah feels something for Ava she hasn’t felt for anyone else—and there’s a good chance letting go would haunt her for the rest of her life. Is Savannah finally losing her grip? Or has she found the friend she’s needed all along?

A small-town waitress and a Hollywood star’s worlds collide in this new romance by Ashley Herring Blake, USA Today bestselling author of Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date. Once upon a time, Ramona Riley was a student at a prestigious art school, with dreams of landing in Hollywood as a costume designer to the stars. But after her father’s car accident, she had to quit and return to her small New Hampshire town, Clover Lake, to help take care of her younger sister. Twelve years later, Ramona is still working at the town’s café, all but given up on her dream. But when a big-budget romantic comedy comes to Clover Lake to film, she wonders if this could be her chance. There’s only one problem—Dylan Monroe, her first kiss and Hollywood’s favorite wild child—is the star. Dylan Monroe has always lived an unconventional life, having famous rock icons for parents. But she wants to prove that she’s not some chaotic, talentless nepo baby, that she has actual skills, that she’s just a normal person. To do that, Dylan takes on a project at a charming lake town—she even works at the town’s café (very quaint), shadowing a local waitress there (very cute), and asks her to take Dylan around to do Normal People Things. But Dylan soon realizes it’s not just some small-town waitress she’s getting to know—Ramona Riley is someone she’s met before, someone who remembers her even more vividly. Before long, however, reality hits them, and both women must decide if the spark between them can fan the flames of their individual dreams, or if it will extinguish their light.

A small-town waitress and a Hollywood star’s worlds collide in this new romance by Ashley Herring Blake, USA Today bestselling author of Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date. Once upon a time, Ramona Riley was a student at a prestigious art school, with dreams of landing in Hollywood as a costume designer to the stars. But after her father’s car accident, she had to quit and return to her small New Hampshire town, Clover Lake, to help take care of her younger sister. Twelve years later, Ramona is still working at the town’s café, all but given up on her dream. But when a big-budget romantic comedy comes to Clover Lake to film, she wonders if this could be her chance. There’s only one problem—Dylan Monroe, her first kiss and Hollywood’s favorite wild child—is the star. Dylan Monroe has always lived an unconventional life, having famous rock icons for parents. But she wants to prove that she’s not some chaotic, talentless nepo baby, that she has actual skills, that she’s just a normal person. To do that, Dylan takes on a project at a charming lake town—she even works at the town’s café (very quaint), shadowing a local waitress there (very cute), and asks her to take Dylan around to do Normal People Things. But Dylan soon realizes it’s not just some small-town waitress she’s getting to know—Ramona Riley is someone she’s met before, someone who remembers her even more vividly. Before long, however, reality hits them, and both women must decide if the spark between them can fan the flames of their individual dreams, or if it will extinguish their light.

What if the history of the transatlantic slave trade had been reversed and Africans had enslaved Europeans? How would that have changed the ways that people justified their inhuman behavior? How would it inform our cultural attitudes and the insidious racism that still lingers today? We see this tragicomic world turned upside down through the eyes of Doris, an Englishwoman enslaved and taken to the New World, movingly recounting experiences of tremendous hardship and the dreams of the people she has left behind, all while journeying toward an escape into freedom.

A queer, gothic horror romance set in a necromancy-tinged London, sure to entrance fans of The Death of Jane Lawrence and Mexican Gothic. London, December 1849­ Irene Shallcross Haley has dedicated her life to necromancy, a forbidden, reviled art that is passed along through sentient grimoires bound in human skin. With her undead husband St. John—a marriage of kindred spirits and platonic convenience—she has been protecting the knowledge of generations of witches that came before her. Like any magic, it has come at a cost: her reputation, her relationship with her sister, and her soul. But when Irene’s love, Agnes, is hanged for witchcraft, Irene refuses to let Agnes be one more thing that is taken from her. A true resurrection has not been achieved in two thousand years, but Irene is determined. With the help of St. John, Irene bangs on the doors of the Halls of the Dead, demanding the third part of their triumverate back…or did she? Because the Agnes that awakens comes with both a hunger for raw flesh and a malignant ghost tied to her soul. Necromancy is the art of saying no—no, I won't let you go; no, I won't let you be destroyed—and Irene’s work is not yet done. She must find a way to bring Agnes back to her true self, she must navigate her feelings for her resurrected lover as well as St. John, and she must do all of this without catching the attention of Sir Silas Underhill, the man who sentenced Agnes to death. Death is not the end of love. But Irene may realize it can actually be the beginning. 

What if the history of the transatlantic slave trade had been reversed and Africans had enslaved Europeans? How would that have changed the ways that people justified their inhuman behavior? How would it inform our cultural attitudes and the insidious racism that still lingers today? We see this tragicomic world turned upside down through the eyes of Doris, an Englishwoman enslaved and taken to the New World, movingly recounting experiences of tremendous hardship and the dreams of the people she has left behind, all while journeying toward an escape into freedom.

From a dazzling new talent, a sensual and spellbinding novel about one summer that shatters the balance between three best friends, forcing them to confront the line between friendship and desireFifteen-year-old Mina’s whole world is her two best friends, but after an unexpected kiss, the established dynamics of their trio quickly unravel. Everything that was once shared openly, from clothes to secrets, now feels impossibly fragile. Loyalties shift and tensions simmer across the long days of this pivotal summer, where the girls have nowhere new to go and everything new to feel.Looking back, an adult Mina traces the undercurrents of longing that shaped her first experience of desire. The rituals of girlhood—gossip, selfies, sleepovers, and videogames—become threads in a delicate, volatile web of intimacy, in which everything feels achingly fleeting and permanently etched. Loving one person, Mina learns, can change the way we love everyone else—including ourselves. Bold, vulnerable, and sharply observant, Girl’s Girl is a sundrenched and dewy snapshot of modern girl culture set in the blaze of one suburban Midwest summer.

They knew they were changing history. They didn't know they would change each other. Following the unlikely friendship of four of the first ever women to matriculate at Oxford University in the aftermath of the First World War, a captivating debut novel about sisterhood, self-determination and the many forms courage can take. Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world's most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms. Beatrice, Dora, Marianne and Otto (collectively known as The Eights) have come here from all walks of life, and they are thrown into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship. Dora was never meant to go to university, but, after losing both her brother and her fiancé on the battlefield, has arrived in their place. Politically-minded Beatrice, daughter of a famous suffragette, sees Oxford as a chance to make her own way - and some friends her own age. Otto was a nurse during the war but is excited to return to her socialite lifestyle in Oxford - where she hopes to find distraction from the memories that haunt her. And finally Marianne, the quiet, clever daughter of a village pastor, who has a shocking secret she must hide from everyone, even her new friends, if she is to succeed. But Oxford's dreaming spires cast a dark shadow: in 1920, misogyny is still rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War are still very real indeed. And as the group navigate this tumultuous moment in time, their friendship will become more important than ever.