Welcome to the Island of Anchor's Mercy. For generations, Anchor’s Mercy has welcomed visitors from all over the world to revel in the island’s pristine beauty and queer culture. But something is wrong. Very wrong. And Ollie Veltman is going to have to figure it out if he wants to stop his island, and everyone upon it, from drowning within a supernatural, radiant plague rising from the waves. Take a deep breath... Told as a kaleidoscopic drama between past and present, narration and interview, text and pictures, The Dead of Summer is a story within a scavenger hunt for truths so dangerous they will make your skin crawl and your lungs ache for air. Get ready to scream!

A bracelet. A curse. And golden fishbones to be returned to the sea ...Guangdong, 1940. When Ha Yut Ying narrowly escapes Japanese soldiers by turning invisible, she knows her new-found magic must be kept a secret. But her mother, whose dreams foretell the future, suspects her daughter has changed, and warns her of a curse upon their family. For her protection, she gives her a gold bracelet whose links are shaped like fishbones.​After the war, Ha Yut Ying is sent to live with her father and his second wife, who have become wealthy factory owners in Hong Kong. Her stepmother, jealous of her beauty, forces her to work in the family's shoe factory.But when Yut Ying collides with a boy on a bicycle on her way to work, she loses her bracelet. The boy is Tommy Yeung, scion of a local soymilk tycoon. And their encounter will change both of their destinies forever...

Two former best friends find themselves fake dating on their favorite race-around-the-world reality TV show competition in Erin Baldwin's newest YA sapphic romance. The perfect book for fans of Heated Rivalry, Becky Albertalli, and The Amazing Race. Reality TV enthusiasts Noelle and Yumi spent a decade attached at the hip—until one ill-fated night (and one awkward kiss) ended their friendship. After a year of no contact, fate throws the girls back together when they’re offered a last-minute spot on The Adventureverse, their favorite race-around-the-world reality show. It’s a chance to put their superfan status to the test, a dream come true. Except for a few snags: It’s an all-couples season, filming starts in two days, and Noelle hasn’t spoken to her “girlfriend” in a year. But she already has plans to use the prize money on her ailing father’s medical expenses, and she would do anything for him—including fake date her ex-bestie on national television. Can Noelle walk a tightrope between reality and TV while juggling a pretend relationship and true feelings? Or will she get sent home empty-handed and brokenhearted?

A humorous collection of autobiographical essays from comedian and Somebody Somewhere actor Jeff Hiller, who shares his journey from growing up “profoundly gay” in 1980s Texas to his experiences as an inept social worker and how he clawed, scraped, and brawled to Hollywood’s lower middle-tier. While struggling to find success as an actor and pay the bills, something accidentally happened to Jeff he aged. And while it’s one thing to get older and rest on the laurels of success from the blood, sweat, and tears of your youth, it’s quite another to be old and have no laurels. At forty, stuck in a temp job making spreadsheets, the dream of becoming a star seemed out of reach. But after twenty-five years of guest roles on TV and performing improv in a grocery store basement, he finally struck gold with a breakout role on HBO’s Somebody Somewhere, playing Joel—the kind of best friend everyone wishes they had. In his book, Jeff dives into the grit and grind of climbing the Hollywood ladder. It’s a raw and often hilarious tale of the struggles, triumphs, and humiliations that shaped him into the wonderfully imperfect person he is today. With a mix of awkward charm and heartfelt honesty, Jeff shares his growing up very Lutheran in Texas, navigating bullying as a gay kid, working as a social worker for unhoused youth and HIV prevention, and the endless ups and downs of being a struggling actor. For every one of us who have a dream that we’re chasing—and chasing, and chasing—his is a funny, moving, and utterly relatable story.

A stunning novel about love, work, and marriage that asks how far one family and one community will go to protect their future. Colleen and Rich Gundersen are raising their young son, Chub, on the rugged California coast. It’s 1977, and life in this Pacific Northwest logging town isn’t what it used to be. For generations, the community has lived and breathed timber; now that way of life is threatened. Colleen is an amateur midwife. Rich is a tree-topper. It’s a dangerous job that requires him to scale trees hundreds of feet tall—a job that both his father and grandfather died doing. Colleen and Rich want a better life for their son—and they take steps to assure their future. Rich secretly spends their savings on a swath of ancient Redwoods. Colleen, desperate to have a second baby, challenges the logging company’s use of herbicides that she believes are responsible for the many miscarriages in the community—including her own. Colleen and Rich find themselves on opposite sides of a budding conflict that threatens the very thing they are trying to protect: their family. Told in prose as clear as a spring-fed creek, Damnation Spring is an intimate, compassionate portrait of a family whose bonds are tested and a community clinging to a vanishing way of life. An extraordinary story of the transcendent, enduring power of love—between husband and wife, mother and child, and longtime neighbors. An essential novel for our times.

The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club PickWhen ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well.The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby's high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that's exactly what they get.So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family's history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future.In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present.

The acclaimed author of the “lyrical coming-of-age novel” (Good Morning America) The People We Keep returns with a luminous new story of redemption, breaking generational curses, and the power of family in its truest form. After an emergency leaves her short on rent, thirty-year-old Freya Arnalds bails on her lackluster life as bartender in Maine and returns to her suburban hometown of Somers, New York, to live in the house she inherited from her estranged parents. Despite attempts to lay low, Freya encounters childhood friends, familial enemies, and old flames—as well as her fifteen-year-old niece, Aubrey, who is secretly living in the derelict home. As they reconnect, Freya and Aubrey lean on each other, working to restore the house and come to terms with the devastating events that pulled them apart years ago. Set in the birthplace of the American circus, this deeply moving novel is an exploration of broken families, the weight of the past, and the complicated journey of finding home.

An insanely competitive housing market. A desperate buyer on the edge. In Marisa Kashino’s darkly hilarious debut novel, Best Offer Wins, the white picket fence becomes the ultimate symbol of success—and obsession. How far would you go for the house of your dreams? Eighteen months and 11 lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month. Desperate to escape the cramped apartment she shares with her husband Ian—and in turn, get their marriage, plan to have a baby, and whole life back on track—Margo becomes obsessed with buying the house before it’s publicly listed and the masses descend (with unbeatable, all-cash offers in hand). A little stalking? Harmless. A bit of trespassing? Necessary. As Margo infiltrates the homeowners’ lives, her tactics grow increasingly unhinged—but just when she thinks she’s won them over, she hits a snag in her plan. Undeterred, Margo will prove again and again that there’s no boundary she won’t cross to seize the dream life she’s been chasing. The most unsettling part? You’ll root for her, even as you gasp in disbelief. Dark, biting, and laugh-out-loud funny, Best Offer Wins is a propulsive debut and a razor-sharp exploration of class, ambition, and the modern housing crisis.

A bracelet. A curse. And golden fishbones to be returned to the sea ...Guangdong, 1940. When Ha Yut Ying narrowly escapes Japanese soldiers by turning invisible, she knows her new-found magic must be kept a secret. But her mother, whose dreams foretell the future, suspects her daughter has changed, and warns her of a curse upon their family. For her protection, she gives her a gold bracelet whose links are shaped like fishbones.​After the war, Ha Yut Ying is sent to live with her father and his second wife, who have become wealthy factory owners in Hong Kong. Her stepmother, jealous of her beauty, forces her to work in the family's shoe factory.But when Yut Ying collides with a boy on a bicycle on her way to work, she loses her bracelet. The boy is Tommy Yeung, scion of a local soymilk tycoon. And their encounter will change both of their destinies forever...

From #1 New York Times bestseller Julie Murphy comes a heartfelt and hilarious tale of a woman who thinks life and love have passed her by until she’s thrown into her grandmother’s quirky world of octogenarian free love and gets a second chance with the one man she never expected to see again. Perhaps it’s never too late to play the opening credits… Welcome to Starlight Palms, a favorite retirement facility among Hollywood actors and industry professionals tucked away just outside of sunny Palm Springs. Filled with forgotten scream queens, eccentric screenwriters, and heartthrobs of the past, it has a brand-new Vera Stein, age forty. Vera knows she’s missed her chance at a life worthy of the silver screen, just like she missed her chance at ever finding true love. But Vera isn’t one to take chances. She’s spent most of her adult years caretaking for her dying mother and her movie star boss’s ego. Now abruptly houseless and jobless, Vera has nowhere to land, so to grandmother’s house we go! The Starlight Palms Senior Living Center is midcentury Hollywood down to its pastel-painted bones. This desert gem isn’t lacking in saucy plot twists (swinging seniors, anyone?) or a leading Elias Buckley, the on-site doctor and Vera’s former ill-fated college fling and—for reasons that will stay in Vegas—legally her ex-husband according to the state of Nevada. It’s not long before Vera falls into a job as the activities coordinator and under the spell of a certain smart-mouthed doctor… Suddenly all those empty years in LA look less like mistakes and a lot more like backstory. With a fresh start at her fingertips, Vera begins to see that even with all the detours she’s taken, there’s still a Hollywood ending (and maybe even a happily ever after) in sight… TROPES Second Chance Romance Workplace Romance Multigenerational Family Drama Forced Proximity New Lease on Life and Spice