On a damp October night, 24-year-old Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley's life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror film director Stanislaus Cordova--a man who hasn't been seen in public for more than thirty years. For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova's dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself. Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova's eerie, hypnotic world. The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.

YOU'RE HERE BECAUSE OF A STORY . . . It starts with a class in an old movie theatre. Folklore 517: Local Legends and Urban Myths, taught by a woman called the Professor. Most students believe the Professor's stories are just fiction, but Holland St. James has always been convinced that magic is real. Her search for the truth leads her to a dazzling new world, a deadly ultimatum hidden at the heart of Los Angeles, and into the path of a magnetic stranger who claims he's been sent to save her life. But everyone in this intoxicating new world is lying to her, even this stranger. And if she can't figure out whom to trust, her magical reality could change from a Hollywood dream to a nightmare. Alchemy of Secrets is the spectacular new novel from global phenomenon Stephanie Garber, the multimillion-copy bestselling author of the Caraval and Once Upon a Broken Heart series. Fusing spellbinding Hollywood secrets with a cinematic mystery, it will transport you into another world.

Winner of the 2024 Dave Greber Freelance Writers Book Award A series of profiles of foreign workers illuminates the precarity of global systems of migrant labor and the vulnerability of their most disenfranchised agents. In 2023, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomoyo Obokata spent two weeks in Canada, meeting with representatives from federal and provincial governments and human rights commissions, trade unions, civil society organizations, and academics—as well as migrants working in agriculture, caregiving, food processing, and sex work. His the country’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” “I am deeply disturbed by the accounts of exploitation and abuse shared with me by migrant workers,” Obotaka said in a statement. Workers complained of excessive hours and unpaid overtime; of being forced to perform dangerous tasks or ones not specified in their contracts; of being denied access to health care, language courses, and other social services; of being physically abused, intimidated, sexually harassed; of the overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions that deprived them of their privacy and dignity. In response, some farm owners and their advocates, angry at Obokata’s comparison to slavery, defended the program, citing long standing relationships with workers who returned to their operations year after year. “If the program is so damned bad,” one farmer advocate asked, “why do these guys keep coming back?” In the Lives of Migrant Workers, Marcello Di Cintio seeks the answers to both the question and illuminates the charges that compelled it, researching the history of Canada’s migrant labour program and speaking with migrant workers across industries and across the country to understand who, in this global elaborate enterprise, stands to gain, who to lose, and how a system that depends on the vulnerability of its most disenfranchised actors can—or can’t—become more just.

Regency housemaid Euphemia Reeves has acquired a faerie godfather. Unfortunately, he has no idea what he's doing. Effie has most inconveniently fallen in love with the dashing Mr Benedict Ashbrooke. There's only one problem; Effie is a housemaid, and a housemaid cannot marry a gentleman. It seems that Effie is out of luck until she stumbles into the faerie realm of Lord Blackthorn, who is only too eager to help Effie win Mr Ashbrooke's heart. All he asks in return is that Effie sew ten thousand stitches onto his favourite jacket. Effie has heard rumours about what happens to those who accept help from faeries, but life as a maid at Hartfield is so awful that she is willing to risk even her immortal soul for a chance at something better. Now, she has one hundred days - and ten thousand stitches - to make Mr Ashbrooke fall in love and propose. . . if Lord Blackthorn doesn't wreck things by accident, that is. For Effie's greatest obstacle might well prove to be Lord Blackthorn's overwhelmingly good intentions. From the author of HALF A SOUL comes a whimsical fantasy romance with a Cinderella twist. Pick up TEN THOUSAND STITCHES, and dive into another enchanting faerie tale set in Olivia Atwater's charming, magical version of Regency England!

Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman’s determined quest to seize a final chance at glory—and write her own legend. Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural. But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will. Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.

Two feuding co-stars in a Jane Austen film adaptation accidentally travel back in time to the Regency Era in this delightfully clever and riotously funny debut Tess Bright just scored her dream role starring in an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. It's not just the role of a lifetime, but it’s also her last chance to prove herself as a serious actress (no easy feat after being fired from her last TV gig) and more importantly, it’s her opportunity to honor her mom, who was the biggest fan of Jane Austen ever. But one thing is standing in Tess’s way—well, one very tall, annoyingly handsome person, actually: Hugh Balfour. A serious British method actor, Hugh wants nothing to do with Tess (whose Teen Choice Awards somehow don’t quite compare to his BAFTA nominations). Hugh is a type-A, no-nonsense, Royal Academy prodigy, whereas Tess is big-hearted, a little reckless, and admittedly, kind of a mess. But the film needs chemistry—and Tess’s career depends on it. Sparks fly, but not in the way Tess hoped, when an electrical accident sends the two feuding co-stars back in time to Jane Austen’s era. 200 years in the past with only each other to rely on, Tess and Hugh need to ad-lib their way through the Regency period in order to make it back home, and hopefully not screw up history along the way. But if a certain someone looks particularly dashing in those 19th century breeches…well, Tess won’t be complaining. A wickedly funny, delightfully charming story, The Austen Affair is a tribute to Jane Austen, second chances, and love across the space-time continuum.

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As spiritualism reaches its fevered pitch at the dawn of the 20th century, a Scottish girl crosses the veil to unlock a powerful connection within an infamous asylum in this thrillingly atmospheric, exquisitely evocative exploration of feminine rage and agency for readers of Sarah Penner, Alice Hoffman, and Hester Fox. Leaving behind a quiet life of simple comforts, Nairna Liath traverses the Scottish countryside with her charlatan father, Tavish. From remote cottages to rural fairs, the duo scrapes by on paltry coins as Tavish orchestrates “encounters” with the departed, while Nairna interprets tarot cards for those willing to pay for what they wish to hear. But beyond her father’s trickery, Nairna possesses a genuine gift for communicating with the spirit world, one that could get an impoverished country girl branded a witch. A talent inherited from her grandmother, Lottie Liath, widow of a Welsh coalminer, whose story of imprisonment and exploitation in a notorious asylum is calling out to Nairna from four decades past—a warning to break free from the manipulations, greed, and betrayals of others. What do the cards hold for Nairna’s future? Rescued from homelessness by a well-connected stranger, Nairna is whisked into a new life among Edinburgh’s elite Spiritualist circle, including visiting American star Dorothy Kellings. Researchers, doctors, psychics, and thrill-seekers clamor for the rising young medium. But after a séance with blood-chilling results, a shocking scandal ensues, and Nairna flees to a secluded community near Boston, where she assumes a new  Nora Grey. But Nora can’t stay hidden when Dorothy Kellings offers her the chance to face all comers and silence skeptics at a spectacular séance at Boston’s Old South Meeting Hall, where Nora will come face to face at last with her spiritual the courageous Lottie Liath, whose heart-wrenching story and profound messages are indelibly tied to Nora’s destiny.

She saw a murder. Now the ghost won't let her forget—and the killer won't let her live. Philadelphia, 1841. Seventeen-year-old Annis Hargrave is running from a nightmare. She and her brother have fled New York, burdened by secrets, grief, and the cursed blue pearl that may have brought death in its wake. But the past refuses to stay buried. Offered work as a medical illustrator by the enigmatic Dr. Thomas Mütter, Annis enters a world of surgical marvels and grotesque beauty. There, amid bottled organs and broken bodies, she begins to rebuild her shattered life—until the ghost of the girl she couldn’t save begins to appear. And the man who killed isn’t far behind. As bodies begin to fall and her brother is taken, Annis must descend into the eerie depths of Mütter’s surgical amphitheater—The Pit—for a final confrontation with the monster who haunts her…Darkly atmospheric and emotionally gripping, Needle and Bone is a gothic tale of guilt, vengeance, and a girl’s fight to reclaim her soul from the shadows.  

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family. The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered. The Glass Castle is truly astonishing--a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.

When two history professors and best friends are forced to fake hate to protect their reputations, chaos ensues, in the next rollicking historical-fantasy rom-com from beloved author India Holton. Magical-antique experts Amelia Tarrant and Caleb Sterling have been best friends forever, although lately each has begun secretly wishing for more than friendship. But when rumors about their relationship spread, they're forced to fake being enemies to protect their reputations and keep their jobs. The resulting arguments spark havoc across Oxford University, and when they cause an explosion while fighting over a magical antique, it’s the final straw for their exasperated faculty head. He dispatches them to a job in Cumbria where even they can’t get into trouble.… Which proves just how wrong one man can be. In a stormbound old manor house, Amelia and Caleb face magical mayhem and rampaging ghosts that make the previous havoc look mild in comparison. Most troublesome of all, though, is the secret of how they feel about each other. When it comes to tackling deadly antiques, hiding the truth in their hearts could destroy them for real.

A recently deceased woman meets “the one” in the afterlife waiting room, scoring a second chance at life (and love!) if she can find him on earth before ten days are up… If she wasn’t dead already, Delphie would be dying of embarrassment. Not only did she just die by choking on a microwaveable burger, but now she’s standing in her ‘shine like a star’ nightie in front of the hottest man she’s ever seen. And he’s smiling at her. As they start to chat, everything else becomes background noise. That is until someone comes running out of a door, yelling something about a huge mistake, and sends the dreamy stranger back down to earth. And here Delphie was thinking her luck might be different in the afterlife. When Delphie is offered a deal in which she can return to earth and reconnect with the mysterious stranger, she jumps at the opportunity to find her possible soulmate and a fresh start at life. But in a city of millions, Delphie is going to have to listen to her heart, learn to ask for help, and perhaps even see the magic in the life she’s leaving behind…