Lisa Jewell returns with a scintillating new psychological thriller about a woman who finds herself the subject of her own popular true crime podcast. Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins. A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life. Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home. But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat. Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?

Moving to NYC means a fresh start for Naina, until an unexpected connection has her questioning everything she thought she knew about love, ambition, and her place in the world. Naina Rao is ready for this to be her year: She’s entered her mid-twenties, landed a steady job, broken up with her intensely passionate older girlfriend Sofia, and committed to hustling her way into a creative career. But the city doesn’t exactly embrace her with open arms – at least not until she meets David, an aspiring filmmaker and collaborator who makes New York start to feel like home. But is this a professional connection or a romantic one? And does opening herself up to a relationship with David mean compromising her sexual identity and her aspirations?

From the late feminist icon and New York Times bestselling author of All About Love, bell hooks takes an in-depth look at one of the most critical issues facing black people in America: a collective wounded self-esteem that has prevailed from slavery to the present day. “Each offering from bell hooks is a major event, as she has so much to give us.” —Maya Angelou Why do so many African-Americans—whether privileged or poor, urban or suburban, young or old—live in a state of chronic anxiety, fear, and shame? Rock My Soul breaks through collective denial and dares to tell this truth: that crippling low self-esteem has reached epidemic proportions in our lives and in our diverse communities. With visionary insight, hooks exposes the underlying reality that it has been difficult—if not impossible—for us to create a culture that promotes and sustains healthy self-esteem. Moving beyond a discussion of race, she identifies diverse barriers keeping us from well-being: the trauma of abandonment, constant shaming, and the loss of personal integrity. Offering critical insight and hard won wisdom about what it takes to heal the scars of the past, promote and maintain self-esteem, and lay down the roots for a grounded community with a prosperous future, hooks gets to the heart and soul of the African American identity crisis. In highlighting the role of desegregation, education, the absence of progressive parenting, spiritual crisis, and fundamental breakdowns in communication, hooks identifies mental health as the new revolutionary frontier—and provides guidance for healing within the black community.

From The Guardian. Oct. 4, 2017. R.O. Kwon "Lorde seems prophetic, perhaps alive right now, writing in and about the US of 2017 in which a misogynist with white supremacist followers is president. But she was born in 1934, published her first book of poetry in 1968, and died in 1992. Black, lesbian and feminist; the child of immigrant parents; poet and essayist, writer and activist, Lorde knew about harbouring multitudes. Political antagonists tried, for instance, to discredit her among black students by announcing her sexuality, and she decided: “The only way you can head people off from using who you are against you is to be honest and open first, to talk about yourself before they talk about you.” Over and over again, in the essays, speeches and poems collected in Your Silence Will Not Protect You, Lorde emphasises how important it is to speak up. To give witness: “What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?” '

A juicy mystery of jealousy, love, and betrayal set on a Semester at Sea-inspired cruise ship, with a diverse cast of delightfully suspicious characters who’ll leave you guessing with every jaw-dropping twist. After being jilted by her ex-boyfriend and best friend, Jade couldn't be more ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime—11 countries in 4 months, all from the luxurious Campus on Board ship—and to wedge an entire globe between her and the people who broke her heart. But when Jade discovers the backstabbing couple are also setting sail, her obsession with them grows and festers, leading to a shocking murder. And as their friends begin to drop like flies, Jade and her new crush must race to clear her name and find the killer they’re trapped at sea with….before anyone else winds up in body bags. Perfect for readers of Natalie D. Richards, E. Lockhart, and Karen McManus!

A professor of literature finds herself caught up in a work of fiction… literally. Eileen Merriweather loves to get lost in a good happily-ever-after. The fictional kind, anyway. Because at least imaginary men don’t leave you at the altar. She feels safe in a book. At home. Which might be why she’s so set on going to her annual book club retreat this year—she needs good friends, cheap wine, and grand romantic gestures—no matter what. But when her car unexpectedly breaks down on the way, she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a novel… Because it is. This place can’t be real, and yet… she’s here, in Eloraton, the town of her favorite romance series, where the candy store’s honey taffy is always sweet, the local bar’s burgers are always a little burnt, and rain always comes in the afternoon. It feels like home. It’s perfect—and perfectly frozen, trapped in the late author’s last unfinished story. Elsy is sure that’s why she must be here: to help bring the town to its storybook ending. Except there is a character in Eloraton that she can’t place—a grumpy bookstore owner with mint-green eyes, an irritatingly sexy mouth and impeccable taste in novels. And he does not want her finishing this book. Which is a problem because Elsy is beginning to think the town’s happily-ever-after might just be intertwined with her own.

'...And then we heard the rain falling, and that was the drops of blood falling; and when we came to get the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.' Harriet TubmanIn five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five men in her life, to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth--and it took her breath away. Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships. Jesmyn says the answer was so obvious she felt stupid for not seeing it. But it nagged at her until she knew she had to write about her community, to write their stories and her own. Jesmyn grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi. She writes powerfully about the pressures this brings, on the men who can do no right and the women who stand in for family in a society where the men are often absent. She bravely tells her story, revisiting the agonizing losses of her only brother and her friends. As the sole member of her family to leave home and pursue high education, she writes about this parallel American universe with the objectivity distance provides and the intimacy of utter familiarity.