Why does our society hold the belief that we are all destined to have children? Why do we believe that parenthood is the ultimate road to fulfillment in life? In The Baby Why Freeing Our Minds From Outmoded Thinking About Parenthood & Reproduction Will Create a Better World, author Laura Carroll answers these questions and more through an exploration of and critical look at the pervasiveness of “pronatalism” – the belief that having children should be the central focus of every adult’s life.Carroll examines the historical origins of pronatalism, the reasons why it has such a deep hold on societies even though most people remain unaware of it, and whether it makes sense –for individuals or for the world as a whole. She shows the ways in which pronatalism is perpetuated, scrutinizes seven major pronatalist assumptions that lead people to accept them without question, and offers alternative assumptions that reflect realities, true reproductive freedom and responsibility in today's society. Whether you are already a parent, want to be a parent, or don’t want children, you will never think about parenthood in the same way.Investigating what few have had the courage to discuss, The Baby Matrix examines the negative effects of pronatalist beliefs, including how they dictate the “normal path” to adulthood, put unwarranted pressure on people to have biological children, and fail to foster a society in which those who are best suited to become parents are the ones who have children.Carroll also brings to light the impact that pronatalism has had on the world at large and will continue to have if its ubiquitous influence is not challenged. Citing compelling statistics, she shows how our belief that we can have as many children as we want is a serious threat in a world with finite resources. In the process, she brings into focus how every life brought into the world directly affects our survival.This manifesto makes the case for why it’s time for all of us to understand why we can no longer afford to leave pronatalist assumptions unquestioned. Without compromise, The Baby Matrix is a reality check for us all. Are we willing to hold on to beliefs that aren’t necessarily true … even to our detriment? This book will make you examine your own intentions and beliefs, will rile you, and might just change your mind.The Baby Matrix is a must-read for anyone interested in psychology, sociology, anthropology, parenting issues, environmentalism, and social justice. But most of all, it’s for anyone, parent or not, who reveres the truth and wants the best for themselves, their families, and our world.

An alternate cover edition for ISBN 9781492669005 can be found here. Every summer camp has a ghost story. For Alex Parson, that story came true—and twenty-one years later, the ghost from that story is back for revenge… Every summer camp has a ghost story. While Alex is working as a swimming instructor at a rural boys' camp, he hears the tale of John Otis, who is rumored to snatch one boy from the camp every seventh summer. It's a ridiculous story, clearly meant to rile up the campers. The next day, an eight-year-old boy named Joey Proctor is in Alex's swimming group. Frustrated by Joey's fear of the water, Alex leaves him on a raft in the lake, tells him to swim back on his own, and storms off. Alex returns after nightfall to find the raft empty. Joey is never seen again. Now, twenty-one years later, Alex is a wealthy Manhattan-based real estate developer with a trophy wife and two young daughters. But someone is after Alex—it seems Joey Proctor is back, and he wants revenge…

A love letter to pop music, American Spirits charts an icon’s fall—and an obsessive fangirl’s rise.Thirty-eight-year-old Blue Velour has finally achieved the critical acclaim she’s long been chasing. Over the last decade, she’s released six studio albums to mixed reviews, landing her somewhere between performance artist and niche legend. But her latest album, Blue’s Beard—a cheeky reference to the subreddit fanatically dedicated to her suspected secret relationship with longtime producer Sasha Harlow—has rocket-launched her reputation. Blue hires nerdy superfan Rose Lutz as her assistant to handle the pressures of the upcoming tour. When the pandemic shuts down the tour, however, Blue decides to hole up in the redwoods with Sasha to make another album. An aspiring singer herself, Rose is frothing at the mouth to be isolated in a cabin with these two legends, but what begins as a creative retreat spirals into a flurry of chaos and betrayal—culminating in a tragic act that changes their lives forever. Smart, entertaining, and edgy, American Spirits is a compelling exploration of the dark side of fame.

The internationally beloved author of Kitchen and Dead-End Memories returns with a beautiful and heartfelt story of a young woman haunted by her childhood and the inescapable bitterness that inevitably comes from knowing the truth. Yayoi, a nineteen-year-old woman from a seemingly loving middle-class family, has lately been haunted by the feeling that she has forgotten something important from her childhood. Her premonition grows stronger day by day and, as if led by it, she decides to move in with her mysterious aunt, Yukino. No one understands her aunt's unusual lifestyle. For as long as Yayoi can remember, Yukino has lived alone in an old gloomy single-family home, quietly, almost as though asleep. When she is not working, Yukino spends all day in her pajamas, clipping her nails and trimming her split ends. She eats only when she feels like it, and she often falls asleep lying on her side in the hallway. She sometimes wakes Yayoi at two in the morning to be her drinking companion, sometimes serves flan in a huge mixing bowl for dinner, and watches Friday the 13th over and over to comfort herself. A study desk, old stuffed animals--things Yukino wants to forget--are piled up in her backyard like a graveyard of her memories. An instant bestseller in Japan when first published in 1988, The Premonition is finally available for the first time in English, translated by the celebrated Asa Yoneda.

Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family. The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in. But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.

Freya is still searching. For four years, she's been looking for a way to fill the empty space her brother's death left behind. Ready for another distraction, Freya decides to swim every tidal pool in Britain in a year with her friend Miri. The adventure takes them from a pool hidden in the cliffs of fishing-village Polperro to the quarry lagoon of Abereiddi via Trinkie Wick where locals meet each year to give the pool wall a fresh lick of paint. As Freya travels further from London, she finds herself closer to memories of her brother. With every swim, and every stranger they meet in the water, the challenge becomes more than just a way to explore the coast, but a journey of self-discovery. The Tidal Year is a true story about the healing power of wild swimming and the space it creates for reflection, rewilding, and hope. An exploration of grief in the modern age, it's also a tale of loss, love, female rage and sisterhood.

In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness. In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This self-described sentimental bird is attracted to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and physical pain of loss gives way to memories, this little unit of three begin to heal. In this extraordinary debut - part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief, Max Porter's compassion and bravura style combine to dazzling effect. Full of unexpected humour and profound emotional truth, Grief is the Thing with Feathers marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent.

In this story of intense friendship and grit, two down-and-out teens escape the hopelessness of their lives and chase a different future through rock-climbing -- from the New York Times bestselling author of My Absolute Darling. Dan and Tamma are two teenagers in their last year of high school in the southern Mojave Desert. One is a gifted golden child, the other a mouthy burnout. Climbing boulders in trash-strewn parking lots during cold desert nights, they seal their unique bond and dream of a life of adventure. As the year progresses and adult reality looms, they are rocked by change and pulled apart by irreconcilable obligations. Differences of class, talent, and prospects take on new importance; options dwindle, and their decisions grow ever more consequential and perilous. It feels inevitable, finally, that something must give. With a magnificent gift for nature writing and a joyful appreciation for the redemptive power of friendship, Gabriel Tallent gives readers a rollicking, adrenaline-filled, and soul-searching novel about risking everything to change your life.

Call Me By Your Name meets Elena Ferrante in this debut coming-of-age novel about a young girl who spends summers working at her family’s timeworn Italian agriturismo, the tragedy that rends her life into “before” and “after,” and her romance with an American girl, which has unexpected consequencesTo ten-year-old Leo, life is a collection. She spends her mornings tidying the rooms of her Nonna Tina’s timeworn Italian agriturismo, carefully accumulating the curious bits of left-behind detritus from guests—a pearl earring, a lock of hair. Her nights are suffused with gathering the stories that flow from her father’s lips—liquor-spun tales of Odysseus and the Trojans in secret battle. But when an accident rips the gentle membrane of Leo’s childhood, she is left vulnerable to the pains and pleasures of growing up. Years later, in a sultry summer not unlike the many that came before, the agriturismo is the only thing that remains the same. Nonna Tina has grown older, Leo’s brother Max is intractable and mercurial, and the curiosity Leo so loved to feed as a child has turned into something more confusing. When she meets Dolores, an American girl made brilliant by Leo’s perception of her, she can’t help but gather all the experiences first love promises, while shedding parts of the past she no longer fits into. Embroidering the atmospheric yearning of Call Me By Your Name with the precise, elevated prose of Elena Ferrante, Sofia Montrone’s jaw-dropping debut revels in the exuberant highs and awkward lows of girlhood and captures the universal experiences of trying to hold on to what is elusive, to deny what cannot be faced, and to say what cannot be said.

In this addictive dual-timeline debut novel, a woman confronts her past at the remote Southern summer camp where the tragic death of her fellow counselor may not have been an accident after all.Five years ago, Greer left her family’s summer camp in the mountains of Georgia and vowed she’d never return. An idyllic season had turned into a nightmare after a mysterious Phantom began stalking the camp—and ended with Greer’s friend and fellow counselor dead. Losing Steph shattered everything, and Greer’s been fleeing from the grief ever since.But then Greer’s mother dies, and Greer finds herself back at Dread’s Cove, surrounded by the people she was closest to that intense summer. Two ex-boyfriends—one a childhood sweetheart, the other the guy she's never gotten over—and old friends. Including Margo, Steph's best friend.Greer and Margo didn’t leave things on the best of terms. But now, Margo needs her. Margo never believed that Steph’s death in that horrific fire was an accident—and she’s on the trail of an explosive secret Steph took to her grave.Greer has to make a choice: keep the Cove’s secrets and her own, or finally face the truth about that summer.

Simon and Vicky couldn't seem more a wealthy Chicago couple with a stable, if unexciting, marriage. But with these two... absolutely nothing is what it seems. When a beautiful socialite is found hanging in a mansion in a nearby suburb, Simon and Vicky's complex web of secrets begins to unravel. A whirlwind affair. A twenty-million-dollar trust fund about to come due. A decades-long grudge and an obsession with revenge. Both Vicky and Simon are liars--but just who exactly is conning who? Prepare to question everything you think you know in this wickedly clever novel of greed, revenge, obsession--and quite possibly the perfect murder.

Two sisters travel the same streets, though their lives couldn't be more different. Then, one of them goes missing. In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don't speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling. Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey's district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit--and her sister--before it's too late. Alternating its present-day mystery with the story of the sisters' childhood and adolescence, Long Bright River is at once heart-pounding and heart-wrenching: a gripping suspense novel that is also a moving story of sisters, addiction, and the formidable ties that persist between place, family, and fate.

‘It’s sweet, it’s sexy, it’s funny. I enjoyed it so much’ MARIAN KEYES ‘I adored this hot and hilarious love story... Do not go on holiday without it’ ROSIE WALSH ‘Funny, charming and clever, The Love Library is pure magic’ JANE CASEY ‘Sexy, sizzling hot perfection’ CRESSIDA McLAUGHLIN ‘So original, so funny, so satisfying – I LOVE this book!’ FREYA NORTH ‘Brilliant, magical, I couldn’t put it down!’ LUCY VINE ‘Every book lover’s dream. I loved it’ LAURA WOOD ‘An absolute romp of a read’ KIRSTY GREENWOOD What if you could date your favourite book boyfriend? “All loans are at the borrower’s own risk…” After a series of dating disasters, Tess Hardy wonders if she’ll ever find the man of her dreams – or if he only exists on the pages of her favourite novels. So when she’s invited to visit The Love Library, a 200-hundred-year-old institution which promises dates with her favourite romantic heroes in real life, Tess can’t resist! But handsome head librarian Gabe Sharma seems grumpily determined to keep the library under lock and key. And as soon as Tess steps into the beautiful building crammed full of books, she realises why – it’s not just dust in the air… it’s magic. Here she really can grab drinks with Heathcliff, dine with Rochester and cosy up to her one true literary love, Darcy. There’s just one problem: Gabe. He’s determined to sabotage all of Tess’s dates! And why is it that she has more fun fighting with Gabe than flirting with any of her book-bound suitors…? Heartwarming, hot and hilarious, The Love Library is a must-read for anyone who wishes they could step into the pages of their favourite book. Perfect for fans of Ashley Poston, Lucy Jane Wood and Kirsty Greenwood. **Praise for Sarra Manning** ‘Romantic, funny, sweet and sexy’ MARIAN KEYES ‘A very swoony, sexy, warm read’ CESCA MAJOR ‘Emotional and profound and so so hot’ SOPHIE IRWIN ‘Funny and sexy and rips along’ FREYA NORTH ‘Sexy, bittersweet and romantic’ LINDSEY KELK ‘Funny and filled with emotion’ BETH O’LEARY

A bold psychological suspense debut about a fiery true crime writer whose infamous case is blown back open when her sister goes missing—and her bestselling book might be the key to finding herRose Dearling’s life changed forever when her older brother was arrested for the murder of his high school sweetheart, Alexandria Hopely. Now, a decade after the crime that ripped her family and her close-knit Florida hometown apart, Rose is the only one who still believes he didn’t do it. So much so that she wrote a bestselling true crime novel about the case, pinning the murder on Alex’s father. This may have gained her a reputation for being a lying, opportunistic bitch, but it has also bought her a new life in Manhattan, far away from where it all began.Then Rose gets a call that shatters her world for the second her younger sister Hazel has gone missing without a trace. Back home and under the same roof as her family for the first time in years, Rose tries to avoid dark memories as she searches for her sister. But when connections between Hazel’s disappearance and Alex’s murder emerge, Rose realizes the past, and her own book, could hold the answers—including proof of her brother’s innocence. And if he didn't do it, that means the real killer is still on the loose, and they’ve been hiding in plain sight all this time. Razor-sharp and propulsive, Nasty Little Secrets is a crackling psychological suspense about family secrets and small-town scandal, which keeps its grip on you until the final jaw-dropping twist.