A NOVEL LOVE STORY meets LOVE IN THE TIME OF SERIAL KILLERS in this rom-com following Roxie Mitchell, an adventure-loving romance reader who finds herself trapped in a meet-cute turned murderousWhen Roxie makes a tongue-in-cheek wish to live out the plot of her favorite author’s next novel, she has romance in mind—namely, the sweet, safe, swoon-worthy storylines Anna Matthews is known for. It should be a dream come true when her wish is granted and she finds herself swept into a first date with a handsome stranger who seems designed to take her breath away.Except for one little That handsome stranger tries to take her breath away. Literally. With a knife. The thing is, Roxie may be the new Anna Matthews protagonist—but this time, Anna is writing a crime thriller.Thrown into a perilous genre she’s never read, Roxie is desperate for help. So when her escape takes her straight into the path of Grant Hoffman, an anxious English professor with a convenient love of crime novels, she decides that kidnapping a grown man is a small price to pay for her own survival. Together, Roxie and Grant navigate a madcap story where the lines between fiction and reality blur. They’ll find out if they have what it takes to make it to The End—or maybe even Happily Ever After.

Deborah Blum, writing with the high style and skill for suspense that is characteristic of the very best mystery fiction, shares the untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. In The Poisoner's Handbook Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Drama unfolds case by case as the heroes of The Poisoner's Handbook—chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler—investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, Barnum and Bailey's Famous Blue Man, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner serving poisoned pies, and many others. Each case presents a deadly new puzzle and Norris and Gettler work with a creativity that rivals that of the most imaginative murderer, creating revolutionary experiments to tease out even the wiliest compounds from human tissue. Yet in the tricky game of toxins, even science can't always be trusted, as proven when one of Gettler's experiments erroneously sets free a suburban housewife later nicknamed "America's Lucretia Borgia" to continue her nefarious work. From the vantage of Norris and Gettler's laboratory in the infamous Bellevue Hospital it becomes clear that killers aren't the only toxic threat to New Yorkers. Modern life has created a kind of poison playground, and danger lurks around every corner. Automobiles choke the city streets with carbon monoxide; potent compounds, such as morphine, can be found on store shelves in products ranging from pesticides to cosmetics. Prohibition incites a chemist's war between bootleggers and government chemists while in Gotham's crowded speakeasies each round of cocktails becomes a game of Russian roulette. Norris and Gettler triumph over seemingly unbeatable odds to become the pioneers of forensic chemistry and the gatekeepers of justice during a remarkably deadly time. A beguiling concoction that is equal parts true crime, twentieth-century history, and science thriller, The Poisoner's Handbook is a page-turning account of a forgotten New York.

The Descent meets The Ritual in a cult aquatic horror about a group of academics trapped in a sea cave who must reckon with eldritch horrors as they are forced to atone for their greatest sins. ATONE OR DIE. Grad student Caro has no idea what she wants to do with her life, but when an opportunity arises to act as a research assistant on an anthropological expedition for her professor and lover, Edward Beck, she doesn't hesitate. Beck assembles a team of academics and professionals to study the ancient sea-based Cult of the Leviathan, and the expedition descends into the sea caves where the cult are said to have dwelt. But when the cave entrance collapses, trapping them inside, the expedition will find they are not alone in the darkness. Surrounded by strange artefacts and scattered bones, an ancient trial has been set in motion. One by one, the members of the expedition will be tested and forced to atone for their greatest sin. . . or die.

A dangerous spell gone wrong forces the passionate professor of incantations to share tight quarters with her magical college’s leading—and most brooding—alchemist.Despite the college’s budget cuts that slashed her syllabus, Linguistics and Incantation Translation professor Maggie Linden has almost made it to the end of the spring semester. To celebrate, Maggie attends a magical masquerade on Beltane. Maybe the end-of-year frenzy explains why she kissed a masked stranger at the festival, though her celebration may have come too soon….An accident in the lab of famous (and famously broody) alchemist Arthur Taliesin sets loose a dangerous, haunting magic called a pall that renders the nicer parts of their academic building uninhabitable. Maggie is assigned to share her tiny basement office with none other than Taliesin himself. With his insufferable attitude and unfortunate good looks, Arthur makes it impossible for Maggie to concentrate on anything—her research, her students’ final exams, or tracking down her mysterious Beltane suitor.She’ll do anything to get Arthur out of her office, including offering to help him reverse the magic that threatens the school. But Maggie is starting to realize her officemate may not be the conceited grump he pretends to be. In fact, much of what she thinks is true about Arthur is merely a mask….

When you think of serial killers throughout history, the names that come to mind are likely Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy. But what about Tillie Klimek, Moulay Hassan, and Kate Bender? The narrative we're comfortable with is one where women are the victims of violent crime-not the perpetrators. In fact, serial killers are thought to be so universally male that, in 1998, FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood infamously declared that There are no female serial killers. Inspired by Telfer's Jezebel column of the same name, Lady Killers disputes that claim and offers fourteen gruesome examples as evidence. Although largely forgotten by history, female serial killers rival their male counterparts in cunning, cruelty, and appetite. Each chapter explores the crimes and history of a different female serial killer and then proceeds to unpack her legacy and her portrayal in the media as well as the stereotypes and sexist cliches that inevitably surround her.

Warm and witchy, The Misfit Witches of Marigold Island is a cozy fantasy and slow-burn sapphic romance for fans of The Spellshop and The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. A spell gone wrong leaves a witch powerless—but opens the door to a new kind of magic. Paloma has spent a decade as a witch's apprentice, dedicating herself completely to the craft of spell casting. But even with her whole future planned, all it takes is one sneeze to send a spell awry, extinguishing her magic completely. Paloma's distraught: Without her powers, can she even call herself a witch? At the gentle urging of her mentor, Paloma returns home to verdant, magical Marigold Island. There, she launches By the Broom, a successful courier service, and finds community in a house of other Queer misfit witches and their familiars—including a straw hat–wearing raccoon named Nori. Still, the ache of losing her powers—and her sense of self—lingers. Even a flirtation with Liss, the charming café owner whose chocolate chip cookies are literally enchanted to feel like a hug, can't quiet her grief. As she zooms around making deliveries, she can't ignore the blight creeping across the island—or the feeling that Marigold's magic is fading too. Paloma's used to solving problems on her own. Can she learn to accept her limitations and trust her new housemates to help her save the island they all love before it's lost to them forever?

Enemies-to-lovers? Don’t mind if I do. Everything in Eve Lockwood’s life is grey—and not in a fun, morally ambiguous kind of way. No matter how much soggy takeout she orders or how many Friends reruns she binges, the only place she can truly escape is between the pages of her beloved romantasy novels. So, when an advertisement for a romantasy-lovers retreat crosses her path, Eve jumps at the chance to play out her favorite bookish fantasies with likeminded readers. What could go wrong? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Namely, that while doing a retreat activity in the middle of the woods, she somehow trips and falls through a portal into a real-life fantasy world—and straight into the arms of a (ridiculously attractive) grumpy, woodland fae prince. Just her luck, honestly. At first, Eve is convinced it’s all part of the retreat, until she survives a monster attack, unlocks forgotten magic that apparently makes her The Chosen One™, and is shipped off on a quest to break an ancient curse all before lunchtime. Wonderful. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t take long for her quest to go off the rails, and Eve soon finds this storyline isn’t as perfect as her novels. With her newfound magic wildly out of control, her enemies-to-lovers arc with the prince staying firmly in the enemies stage, and a hot mysterious, shadowy figure lurking in her dreams, the curse seems more likely to break Eve than the other way around. Armed with only her knowledge of book tropes and a misguided belief that the main character can’t die, Eve must rise to become The Chosen One she was (probably not) destined to be, save the world, and get home . . . if she even wants to?