The vivid and masterful story of an American original—a formidable art collector and builder of one of America’s most unique and stunning museums—a late bloomer whose own life was remade by art. Isabella Stewart Gardner’s museum, with its plain exterior enfolding an astonishing four-story Italian palazzo, rose from Boston’s Fens in 1902. The museum would be a work of art in itself—the first built to house a private collection, which included the first Vermeer and first Botticelli in America. Its treasures encompassed not only paintings but tapestries, rare books, prints, porcelains, fine furniture—all in evocative, intimately personal arrangements. An extraordinary achievement of storytelling and scholarship, Chasing Beauty uncovers the multi-layered self-portrait encoded in the museum’s objects and rooms, at the same time delivering the story of a life every bit as dazzling and haunting.   Born in 1840 to a privileged New York family, Isabella Stewart married Boston Brahmin Jack Gardner before she was twenty. Misunderstood by Boston’s internecine society, Isabella suffered the death of her only child, a beloved two-year-old boy. In time, friendships, glittering and bohemian; awe-inspiring world travels; being in the presence of beautiful things; and soon enough collecting them with a keen eye and competitive pace—all these became balm for loss. Henry James and John Singer Sargent—whose portrait of Isabella was a masterpiece and a scandal—came to recognize her originality. Bernard Berenson, leading connoisseur of the Italian Renaissance, was her art dealer. From award-winning author Natalie Dykstra, the uncovered story of the complex and singular woman behind one of the most fascinating museums in America and the world—a tale of beauty and loss, grit and American self-invention. 

A swoon-worthy debut queer Victorian romance in which two debutantes distract themselves from having to seek husbands by setting up their widowed parents, and instead find their perfect match in each other—the lesbian Bridgerton/Parent Trap you never knew you needed! Gwen has a brilliant beyond brilliant idea. It’s 1857, and anxious debutante Beth has just one season to snag a wealthy husband, or she and her mother will be out on the street. But playing the blushing ingenue makes Beth’s skin crawl and she’d rather be anywhere but here. Gwen, on the other hand, is on her fourth season and counting, with absolutely no intention of finding a husband, possibly ever. She figures she has plenty of security as the only daughter of a rakish earl, from whom she’s gotten all her flair, fun, and less-than-proper party games. “Let’s get them together,” she says. It doesn’t take long for Gwen to hatch her latest scheme: rather than surrender Beth to courtship, they should set up Gwen’s father and Beth’s newly widowed mother. Let them get married instead. “It’ll be easy” she says. There’s just…one, teeny, tiny problem. Their parents kind of seem to hate each other. But no worries. Beth and Gwen are more than up to the challenge of a little twenty-year-old heartbreak. How hard can parent-trapping widowed ex-lovers be? Of course, just as their plan begins to unfold, a handsome, wealthy viscount starts calling on Beth, offering up the perfect, secure marriage. Beth’s not mature enough for this… Now Gwen must face the prospect of sharing Beth with someone else, forever. And Beth must reckon with the fact that she’s caught feelings, hard, and they’re definitely not for her potential fiancé. That’s the trouble with matchmaking: sometimes you accidentally fall in love with your best friend in the process.

In this debut fantasy, a witch cursed to never love meets a girl hiding her own dangerous magic, and the two strike a dangerous bargain to save their queendom. Tamsin is the most powerful witch of her generation. But after committing the worst magical sin, she’s exiled by the ruling Coven and cursed with the inability to love. The only way she can get those feelings back—even for just a little while—is to steal love from others. Wren is a source—a rare kind of person who is made of magic, despite being unable to use it herself. Sources are required to train with the Coven as soon as they discover their abilities, but Wren—the only caretaker to her ailing father—has spent her life hiding her secret. When a magical plague ravages the queendom, Wren’s father falls victim. To save him, Wren proposes a bargain: if Tamsin will help her catch the dark witch responsible for creating the plague, then Wren will give Tamsin her love for her father. Of course, love bargains are a tricky thing, and these two have a long, perilous journey ahead of them—that is, if they don't kill each other first..

The spellbinding tale of six queer witches forging their own paths, shrouded in the mist, magic, and secrets of the ancient California redwoods. Danny didn't know what she was looking for when she and her mother spread out a map of the United States and Danny put her finger down on Tempest, California. What she finds are the Grays: a group of friends who throw around terms like queer and witch like they're ordinary and everyday, though they feel like an earthquake to Danny. But Danny didn't just find the Grays. They cast a spell that calls her halfway across the country, because she has something they need: she can bring back Imogen, the most powerful of the Grays, missing since the summer night she wandered into the woods alone. But before Danny can find Imogen, she finds a dead boy with a redwood branch through his heart. Something is very wrong amid the trees and fog of the Lost Coast, and whatever it is, it can kill. Lush, eerie, and imaginative, Amy Rose Capetta's tale overflows with the perils and power of discovery — and what it means to find your home, yourself, and your way forward.

Once upon a time, the kingdoms of Wales were rife with magic and conflict, and eighteen-year-old Mererid “Mer” is well-acquainted with both. She is the last living water diviner and has spent years running from the prince who bound her into his service. Under the prince’s orders, she located the wells of his enemies, and he poisoned them without her knowledge, causing hundreds of deaths. After discovering what he had done, Mer went to great lengths to disappear from his reach. Then Mer’s old handler returns with a proposition: use her powers to bring down the very prince that abused them both. The best way to do that is to destroy the magical well that keeps the prince’s lands safe. With a motley crew of allies, including a fae-cursed young man, the lady of thieves, and a corgi that may or may not be a spy, Mer may finally be able to steal precious freedom and peace for herself. After all, a person with a knife is one thing…but a person with a cause can topple kingdoms. The Drowned Woods—set in the same world as The Bone Houses but with a whole new, unforgettable cast of characters—is part heist novel, part dark fairy tale.

Explore its many rooms, pick something nice off the shelf, and have a little read by the fire at the Cozy Quill Bookshop. Running from strife in her homeland, Maribella Waters becomes the new owner of the fabled Cozy Quill. After finding squatters on her property, she employs Asteria Helsdottir, a giant, barbarian warrior woman more accustomed to swinging an axe than opening a book. Together, the odd couple must make a success out of the bookshop—and survive a dizzying procession of seasonal festivals. But the local evil noblewoman has other plans in mind. Threatened with being run off the land, Maribella and Asteria must use their wits to outsmart Lady Malicent and keep their business open. Along the way, the whole town lends a hand, friendships are forged, and mysteries are revealed. The Bookshop and the Barbarian is a low stakes, comedic and cozy fantasy with a slice-of-life, sapphic romance. It is about the celebration of books, autumn and winter, community, friendship, and unexpected love. There is plenty of fourth-wall breaking, and a narrator who may or may not be a green slime. And it is also very patiently waiting for you to pick it up and read it.

In a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly eccentric expedition sets out. There's an avaricious but inept wizard, a naive tourist whose luggage moves on hundreds of dear little legs, dragons who only exist if you believe in them, and of course THE EDGE of the planet...

After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness. And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

A magical adventure to delight the imagination. A curl-up-on-the-sofa debut from a uniquely talented author. Eleven year-old Tilly has lived above her grandparents' bookshop ever since her mother disappeared shortly after she was born. Like the rest of her family, Tilly loves nothing more than to escape into the pages of her favourite stories. One day Tilly realises that classic children's characters are appearing in the shop through the magic of `book wandering' - crossing over from the page into real life. With the help of Anne of Green Gables and Alice in Wonderland. Tilly is determined to solve the mystery of what happened to her mother all those years ago, so she bravely steps into the unknown, unsure of what adventure lies ahead and what dangers she may face.

The Barnes & Noble Review The old-fashioned ghost story has never fallen out of style: Charles Dickens is still best remembered for A Christmas Carol, and Peter Straub, despite his many fine novels, found in the ghost story his most potent tale (Ghost Story, of course!). When Shirley Jackson wrote The Haunting of Hill House and Henry James wrote The Turn of the Screw, did they know they were creating their most-remembered works in the horror genre? Barbara Michaels has written everything from outright horror (Ammie, Come Home) to horror cozies (The Crying Child), but her new one has more in common with Peter Straub's Ghost Story (without the violence) than with anything she's written before. As several men gather in a special club to discuss unexplained mysteries of the past, an aura of chilly darkness surrounds them. The men are famous and the time is the past. In a London Club, Houdini, Conan Doyle, and other psychic investigators and debunkers gather to tell ghost stories. Their purpose is to tell the tale, and then each will pick it apart to try to find an explanation for the phenomenon in question. The first story is one of the most famous historical hauntings in U.S. history: the Bell Witch in Tennessee. The second is a moderately well-known haunting in Stratford, Connecticut, called, appropriately, the Stratford Haunting. Each tale is told, and then the guests gathered around the club describe their understanding of whether the hauntings are either fake or very real. But an eerie edge begins to creep like fog into each tale,andalthough there is no Grand Guignol to Michaels's novel, there is a decidedly eerie — and yes, old-fashioned — feeling of dread. Imagine a séance with some of the best storytellers gathered around the table, or a fire at a campsite, or even the distinguished London club where these men congregate. Michaels captures this mood better than most, and she has a way of telling a tale that is never violent but features a mounting fear of the unknown that persists and becomes captivating. Those unfamiliar with the Bell Witch and the Stratford haunting will enjoy hearing these stories as well as the various solutions proposed by the august assembly. In the second section of the novel, which deals with the Stratford haunting, a new guest joins the men's table to tell the tale, and in many ways Other Worlds becomes more thrilling as this one — a story of family madness and human experimentation from a previous century — begins. When you pick this novel up — which you should — think Hawthorne, think Melville's short stories, and you'll definitely see the mastery of what I'd term a horror cozy that Barbara Michaels has at her fingertips. This novel is not for anyone who loves outright violence in dark fiction, but for the millions of readers who love a good ghost story, superlatively told. Douglas Clegg is the author of numerous horror novels, including The Halloween Man and Bad Karma, written under his pseudonym, Andrew Harper. His recent Bram Stoker-nominated short story, "I Am Infinite, I Contain Multitudes," can be found in the anthology The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Volume 11.—Barnesandnoble.com

Echo Ridge is small-town America. Ellery's never been there, but she's heard all about it. Her aunt went missing there at age seventeen. And only five years ago, a homecoming queen put the town on the map when she was killed. Now Ellery has to move there to live with a grandmother she barely knows. The town is picture-perfect, but it's hiding secrets. And before school even begins for Ellery, someone's declared open season on homecoming, promising to make it as dangerous as it was five years ago. Then, almost as if to prove it, another girl goes missing. Ellery knows all about secrets. Her mother has them; her grandmother does too. And the longer she's in Echo Ridge, the clearer it becomes that everyone there is hiding something. The thing is, secrets are dangerous--and most people aren't good at keeping them. Which is why in Echo Ridge, it's safest to keep your secrets to yourself.

To serial slayer Andrew Compton, murder is an art, the most intimate art. After feigning his own death to escape from prison, Compton makes his way to the United States with the sole ambition of bringing his "art" to new heights. Tortured by his own perverse desires, and drawn to possess and destroy young boys, Compton inadvertently joins forces with Jay Byrne, a dissolute playboy who has pushed his "art" to limits even Compton hadn't previously imagined. Together, Compton and Byrne set their sights on an exquisite young Vietnamese-American runaway, Tran, whom they deem to be the perfect victim. Swiftly moving from the grimy streets of London's Piccadilly Circus to the decadence of the New Orleans French Quarter, and punctuated by rants from radio talk show host Lush Rimbaud, a.k.a. Luke Ransom, Tran's ex-lover, who is dying of AIDS and who intends to wreak ultimate havoc before leaving this world, Exquisite Corpse unfolds into a labyrinth of murder and love. Ultimately all four characters converge on a singular bloody night after which their lives will be irrevocably changed — or terminated. Poppy Z. Brite dissects the landscape of torture and invites us into the mind of a killer. Exquisite Corpse confirms Brite as a writer who defies categorization. It is a novel for those who dare trespass where the sacred and profane become one.

FATE IS A CRUEL MISTRESS The daughter of a powerful but disgraced Blood Worker, Shan LeClaire has spent her entire life perfecting her blood magic, building her network of spies, and gathering every scrap of power she could. Now, to protect her brother, she assassinates their father and takes her place at the head of the family. And that is only the start of her revenge. Samuel Hutchinson is a bastard with a terrible gift. When he stumbles upon the first victim of a magical serial killer, he's drawn into the world of magic and intrigue he's worked so hard to avoid - and is pulled deeply into the ravenous and bloodthirsty court of the vampire king. Tasked by the Eternal King to discover the identity of the killer cutting a bloody swath through the city, Samuel, Shan and mysterious Royal Bloodworker Isaac find themselves growing ever closer to each other. But Shan's plans are treacherous, and as she lures Samuel into her complicated web of desire, treason and vengeance, he must decide if the good of their nation is worth the cost of his soul.