#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life twenty-five years later. Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.

All Cherine Cadet has ever known is desperate circumstances—crushing poverty,cruel servitude, and no hope of escape. When a band of Vikings attacks the estatewhere she lives, her old life goes up in flames. On the verge of death, she’s rescuedby an unexpected savior—Erik the Axe, second in command of the Viking fleet.Erik claims her as a spoil of war, and takes her back to his leader, Rolf the Walker.Erik is dark and sensual to Rolf’s brutal and commanding. Subject to the whims ofboth men, Cherine is once again left with no choices and no hope. She’ll have todiscover her own warrior spirit before the desires of these two men leave herburned down to ash like the life she left behind.VIKINGS VALHALLA meets HOOKED in this Dark Viking Romance 50K word novella by NYTbestselling author Karina Halle. If you like your heroes morally gray, ruthless, andlooking like a Skarsgård, get ready to be RAVAGED. as this book is dark, pleasetake heed of the content warning inside the book.

A mindbending, relentlessly surprising thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy. Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters. "Are you happy with your life?" Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend." In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Is it this world or the other that's the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could've imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human--a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of.

A tender, witty, and sharp debut novel about the passions and peculiarities of modern love, by “an extraordinarily gifted writer” (Sally Rooney).Chuck and Joey meet in a bar. He’s in his mid-thirties; she’s twelve years younger. He long ago abandoned his ambition of being a novelist and works as a copywriter at a big ad agency. "Lead copywriter," he corrects himself. Joey is living paycheck to paycheck on her barista wages and privately dreams of making it as a poet. They go back to Chuck’s luxury flat—a world away from Joey’s cramped house-share, the crumbs in her bed. Soon, Joey is imagining a future between them and Chuck is moving on from a major change in his recent past. Amazing, how meeting a new person can make you feel so new.Funny, excruciating, and true, Jem Calder's I Want You to Be Happy is a sharp-eyed tale of two people searching for meaning and connection in modern times, missing the mark maybe, but still trying.

An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people from spreading it.Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which you wouldn't share with anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets. Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers, and dreams... But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely. How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war? Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. No, this is not your first day.This ebook is an official release by me, qntm from the SCP Foundation wiki! PM me if you require confirmation. This ebook collects all of my Antimemetics Division SCP-055, SCP-2256 and the complete serials There Is No Antimemetics Division and Five Five Five Five Five.

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. So begins Robert Fagles' magnificent translation of the Odyssey. If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey though life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' translation. This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students. -- Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, presents us with Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning new modern-verse translation.

In Fiasco, Kentucky, there is one rule: never fall for a Foxx brother. Any woman who did, ended up dead—or so the rumor goes. Townies call it a curse. But I’ve lived it, and I won’t survive it again. I’m not a cop anymore, but I’ve seen enough danger to know that Laney Young, the beautiful stranger who just showed up in my small town, is running from it. She’s lying about where she came from and what she’s doing here. I don’t want her near my family or the quiet life I’ve made for myself. But my brothers have other plans. Now she’s everywhere–working at my distillery, living in our guest house, calling me ‘cowboy’ and skinny-dipping in my horse trough. But it’s the way she dishes out attitude from that pretty mouth of hers that has me wanting things I’ve sworn to myself I’d never want again. I should push her away, forget how her lips taste, and ignore how she makes me want more out of life again. When her past shows up and mingles too closely with mine, her lies begin to unravel. The rules don’t matter anymore. I mess up, dig too far, and get too close. Only two things have the power to keep her safe now: bourbon and lies.

A vivid, surreal Gothic about a queer, Latine, working class witch who sets out to rescue a bespelled heiress and loses control of her powers and her heart in the process. It is 1968 Oakland, and Natalia Fuentes has been hearing rumors about the beautiful Violeta Miramontes. The young heiress to Spanish colonial wealth has been left paralyzed by a mysterious illness. But Nati knows a thing or two about witchcraft, and she is certain that this is the work of dark magic. Armed with a plan to break the spell and earn a handsome reward, Nati works her way into the house as Violeta’s caretaker, and immediately discovers her suspicions are true. But who cursed Violeta? And why? As feelings between the two women bloom into romance, Nati grows more and more reckless, and is forced to face her own ghosts— ones she hoped would stay gone forever. Riveting and richly layered, Muñeca explores how far one will go to save the person they love—even if that means damning themselves. Cynthia Gómez fills her debut novel with moments that chill your bones and warm your heart, a razor-sharp examination of deep-rooted issues that will haunt readers long after the last page is turned.

A gripping, emotional, and darkly funny queer horror novel about family trauma and possession, for fans of Rachel Harrison and Catriona Ward.Single gay mom Brigid always thought that cutting ties with her extremist Catholic family was the best thing she could have done for her daughter, Dylan—and for herself. But when Dylan starts having terrifying fits of unnatural violence, Brigid can’t shake her memories of a girl from her childhood who behaved the same way . . . until Brigid’s uncle, Father Angus, performed an exorcism.Convinced that her daughter is suffering from demonic possession, Brigid does the thing she told herself she’d never she goes home. Father Angus is the worst person she knows, but he’s also the only person who can help her daughter.But as Brigid starts to uncover secrets about Father Angus, that long-ago exorcism, and her family’s past, she realizes that she and Dylan have never been in more danger.This Is My Body is a piercing journey into religious trauma and childhood shame, building towards a heart-pounding twisty climax that will spin your head all the way around.

A vivid, surreal Gothic about a queer, Latine, working class witch who sets out to rescue a bespelled heiress and loses control of her powers and her heart in the process. It is 1968 Oakland, and Natalia Fuentes has been hearing rumors about the beautiful Violeta Miramontes. The young heiress to Spanish colonial wealth has been left paralyzed by a mysterious illness. But Nati knows a thing or two about witchcraft, and she is certain that this is the work of dark magic. Armed with a plan to break the spell and earn a handsome reward, Nati works her way into the house as Violeta’s caretaker, and immediately discovers her suspicions are true. But who cursed Violeta? And why? As feelings between the two women bloom into romance, Nati grows more and more reckless, and is forced to face her own ghosts— ones she hoped would stay gone forever. Riveting and richly layered, Muñeca explores how far one will go to save the person they love—even if that means damning themselves. Cynthia Gómez fills her debut novel with moments that chill your bones and warm your heart, a razor-sharp examination of deep-rooted issues that will haunt readers long after the last page is turned.

Former valedictorian, current pothead, and perpetual overthinker, Nomi Wyeth is this close to opening her very own Amsterdam-style cannabis dispensary in the historic Strange Drugs Pharmacy building downtown. Former salutatorian, current doctor, and perpetual try-hard, Julian D’Angelo’s chronic failure to listen leads to a mistake that ruins his reputation and forces him to serve in Sparrow Nook’s family clinic, located next door to the Strange Drugs Pharmacy. But how is Julian supposed to be nice when the woman who stole both his valedictorian title and his heart is planning on opening some mangy weed palace for losers next to his clinic? Through zany zoning hearings and “pot luck” fundraisers, free-spirited Nomi and straight-and-narrow Julian battle against each other all over Sparrow Nook, New Jersey, bringing up old rivalries and older flames in the process. It’s tough to say what will change first—their minds or their hearts—but one thing’s for they’re not going down without a fight.

A bittersweet story of love between two women, nested in an artful exploration of language, history, and power May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She’s been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs to experience real island life and to taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear. Soon a Taiwanese woman―who is younger even than she is, and who shares the characters of her name―is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. The charming, erudite, meticulous Chizuru arranges Chizuko’s travels all over the Land of the South and also proves to be an exceptional cook. Over scenic train rides and braised pork rice, lively banter and winter melon tea, Chizuko grows infatuated with her companion and intent on drawing her closer. But something causes Chizuru to keep her distance. It’s only after a heartbreaking separation that Chizuko begins to grasp what the “something” is. Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, this novel was a sensation on its first publication in Mandarin Chinese in 2020 and won Taiwan’s highest literary honor, the Golden Tripod Award. Taiwan Travelogue unburies lost colonial histories and deftly reveals how power dynamics inflect our most intimate relationships.