Library Closure

The Chesapeake City Branch Library will be temporarily closed for updates from Monday, December 1, 2025, through Saturday, January 3, 2026. The Branch will reopen on Monday, January 5, and will be open 6 days per week. For assistance during the closure, please call (410) 996-5600 or email ask@cecilcountylibrary.org.

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Book Lists

Pumpkin Spice Puppy

Laurien Berenson

It’s autumn in Connecticut and there’s a chill in the air, the fall leaves are a riot of color, and pumpkin spice is the flavor of the season. Melanie Travis is perennially busy, of course—but when the owner of a local pet supply shop is found murdered, sleuthing tops her To Do list . . .

Between taking care of her family and assorted Standard Poodles, Melanie is also working as a special needs tutor for Howard Academy, a private school in Greenwich, where her younger son attends kindergarten. This year, the headmaster has come up with an idea for a school fundraiser. All students will participate in a town-wide treasure hunt, with grades competing against each other.

Tokens shaped like pumpkin spice muffins have been hidden in downtown stores. Students will scramble to collect as many as they can in exchange for prizes. At first all goes smoothly, and the uptick in foot traffic to the stores is a win-win. . . . . Until the pet supply shop owner lodges a complaint. When Melanie stops by to smooth things over, she instead finds the man dead, a knife in his back, and his loyal, ever-vigilant Chow Chow locked in the storeroom.

Over the headmaster's objections, Melanie is once again drawn into an investigation. It doesn't take her long to gather a list of suspects, from neighbors balking about the number of rescue Chows the man was fostering in his home, to the landlord who’d filed an eviction notice against him, to the bitter ex-wife who is happy he's gone. With the fundraiser soon drawing to a close and celebrations imminent, Melanie will have to follow every clue—before the biggest prize is staying alive . . .

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Cat + Gamer Volume 2

Wataru Nadatani

A quiet office worker embraces her new role as a cat mom when she begins sharing superfluous amounts of cat photos on the internet.

Riko can’t help it—her tuxedo baby is just too cute! Will her coworkers feel the same or will it add to their bewilderment about her? At home, Riko learns more about Musubi, from favorite toys such as a free grocery bag to their shared joy of video games. And Musubi himself learns a new trick—how to tell her when it’s dinner time!

“Leveling up” in skills, surprises, and adventures extends to real life, as Riko discovers what it’s like living with a cat!

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Dungeon Crawler Carl

Matt Dinniman

You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show. That’s what.

Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game–like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. This ain’t your ordinary game show.

Welcome, Crawler. Welcome to the Dungeon. Survival is optional. Keeping the viewers entertained is not.


 

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It's Only a Game

Kelsea Yu

In this twisty, fast-paced YA thriller, a dangerous game becomes all too real when Marina and her friends are framed for murder.

When Marina Chan ran from her old life, she brought nothing with her-not even her real name. Now she lives in fear of her past being discovered. But when her online gaming team is offered a tour of their favorite game company, Marina can't resist accepting, even though she knows it might put her fake identity at risk.

Then the creator of the game is murdered during their tour. The killer plans to frame Marina and her friends for the murder unless they win four rounds of a dangerous game. A game that requires them to lie, trespass, and steal. A game that could destroy everything Marina's worked so hard to build.... A game that she might not survive.

This pulse-pounding YA thriller is perfect for fans of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder and Slay.

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Press Reset

Jason Schreier

Jason Schreier's groundbreaking reporting has earned him a place among the preeminent investigative journalists covering the world of video games. In his eagerly anticipated, deeply researched new book, Schreier trains his investigative eye on the volatility of the video game industry and the resilience of the people who work in it.

The business of videogames is both a prestige industry and an opaque one. Based on dozens of first-hand interviews that cover the development of landmark games—Bioshock Infinite, Epic Mickey, Dead Space, and more—on to the shocking closures of the studios that made them, Press Reset tells the stories of how real people are affected by game studio shutdowns, and how they recover, move on, or escape the industry entirely.

Schreier's insider interviews cover hostile takeovers, abusive bosses, corporate drama, bounced checks, and that one time the Boston Red Sox's Curt Schilling decided he was going to lead a game studio that would take out World of Warcraft. Along the way, he asks pressing questions about why, when the video game industry is more successful than ever, it's become so hard to make a stable living making video games—and whether the business of making games can change before it's too late.

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Game On

Seressia Glass

When an unexpected Player Two enters her life, a gamer must decide if their relationship is worth leveling up in this new romance from the author of The Love Con.

Samara Reynolds has built a large following as a gamer under an anonymous screen name, and uses her skills as a DEIA consultant to advocate for equal representation in video games. When she posted a video critiquing the popular game Legendsfall, she knew she’d get a reaction from her fans, but the video leads to hundreds of female gamers critiquing the game and its company, Artemis Games. The only thing more unexpected than starting an online movement is getting a job offer from the handsome CEO of Artemis.

Aron Galanis has been on a mission to get his company certified to create gaming content for people with disabilities. When he sees Artemis trending online for all the wrong reasons, he’s determined to right his wrongs and offers the originator a mea culpa, as well as a job offer to overhaul the character options in Legendsfall.

Working together turns Aron and Samara from adversaries into allies, allies into friends, and after that—something more. But once their relationship goes public, will Aron and Samara be able to weather the storm and fight for their happy ending, or is it game over?

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Let's Play Volume 1

Leeanne M. Krecic

She’s young, single and about to achieve her dream of creating incredible video games. But then life throws her a one-two punch: a popular streamer gives her first game a scathing review.

Even worse, she finds out that same troublesome critic is now her new neighbor! A funny, sexy, and all-too-real story about gaming, memes, and social anxiety.

Come for the plot, stay for the doggo.

 

 

 

 

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Dungeons and Drama

Kristy Boyce

No one loves musicals more than Riley Morris—her dream is to be a Broadway director. But when the spring show is canceled, Riley has to figure out a way to bring it back. Easier said than done—she’s stuck working at her dad’s game store. The place that means more to him than his family does.

Riley can't waste time at a dead-end job when her entire future is resting on making a name for herself. So she convinces her co-worker Nathan Wheeler—the floppy-haired, glasses-wearing guy she barely knows from school—to help her. In exchange, she’ll help him make his gamer-girl crush jealous. Plus it won’t hurt to show her egotistical ex, Paul, just what he’s missing without her.

Soon Riley and Nathan are “a couple,” and people seem to believe it. But selling the ruse means joining Nathan’s role-playing game. To Riley’s surprise, the game is almost fun. And even more surprising, flirting with Nathan doesn’t require as much acting as she thought it would. . . .

 

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88 Names

Matt Ruff

John Chu is a "sherpa"--a paid guide to online role-playing games like the popular Call to Wizardry. For a fee, he and his crew will provide you with a top-flight character equipped with the best weapons and armor, and take you dragon-slaying in the Realms of Asgarth, hunting rogue starships in the Alpha Sector, or battling hordes of undead in the zombie apocalypse.

Chu's new client, the pseudonymous Mr. Jones, claims to be a "wealthy, famous person" with powerful enemies, and he's offering a ridiculous amount of money for a comprehensive tour of the world of virtual-reality gaming. For Chu, this is a dream assignment, but as the tour gets underway, he begins to suspect that Mr. Jones is really North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, whose interest in VR gaming has more to do with power than entertainment. As if that weren't enough to deal with, Chu also has to worry about "Ms. Pang," who may or may not be an agent of the People's Republic of China, and his angry ex-girlfriend, Darla Jean Covington, who isn't the type to let an international intrigue get in the way of her own plans for revenge.

What begins as a whirlwind online adventure soon spills over into the real world. Now Chu must use every trick and resource at his disposal to stay one step ahead--because in real life, there is no reset button.

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The Everything Tabletop Games Book

Bebo

In our ever-increasing technological world, playing old-school games is a welcome retreat from the overexposure to Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and the rest of social media. Over the past few years, board games have become the hot new hobby. Instead of friends sitting around the same table and staring at their phones, they are now either working with or against each other. Millions upon millions of new fans have begun to join their friends in real life for a fun game of Pandemic, 7 Wonders, or Ticket to Ride.

The Everything Tabletop Games Book shows how to play some of the best tabletop games in the world, from classic strategy games like Settlers of Catan to great new games like Gloomhaven. Throughout the book, you’ll learn the different genres of tabletop and board games; how to play each game; rules and strategies to help you win; and even where to play online—including new expansions to keep your favorite games fresh and exciting.

So gather up some friends, pick a game from this book, and start playing! You’ll be having a blast in no time.

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Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games Vol. 1

Eri Ejima

This over-the-top comedy about delicate young ladies indulging in hardcore gaming is soon to be an anime!

Kuromi Girls’ Academy is a refined, elegant school that expects the very best in deportment from its young ladies. Aya got into this peerless rich-girls’ institution on a scholarship, and hopes to grow as lovely as her fellow student and idol, the so-called “Shirayuri-sama.” But Shirayuri hides a terrible secret: she’s a trash-talking, combo-chaining, newbie-stomping, ruthless hardcore gamer! Could a mutual indulgence in no-holds-barred video game combat grow into a deeper rapport between these two girls?

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Video Game of the Year

Jordan Minor

Video Game of the Year breaks down the 40-year history of the world's most popular art form--one game at a time.

Pong. The Legend of Zelda. Final Fantasy VII. Rock Band. Fortnite. Animal Crossing: New Horizons. For each of the 40 years of video game history, there is a defining game, a game that captured the zeitgeist and left a legacy for all games that followed. Through a series of entertaining, informative, and opinionated critical essays, author and tech journalist Jordan Minor investigates, in chronological order, the most innovative, genre-bending, and earth-shattering games from 1977 through 2022.

Exploring development stories, critical reception, and legacy, Minor also looks at how gaming intersects with and eventually influences society at large while reveling in how uniquely and delightfully bizarre even the most famous games tend to be. From portly plumbers to armor-clad space marines and the speedy rodents in between, Video Game of the Year paints individual portraits that, as a whole, give readers a stronger appreciation for the vibrant variety and long-lasting impact of this fresh, exciting, and massively popular art form.

Illustrated throughout with retro-inspired imagery and featuring contributions from dozens of leading industry voices, including New York Times bestselling author Jason Schreier, Max Scoville, Rebekah Valentine, Blessing Adeoye Jr., and Devindra Hardawar, this year-by-year anthology is a loving reflection on the world's most popular art form.

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Who We Are in Real Life

Victoria Koops

IRL, Darcy has just moved to the small prairie town of Unity Creek with her two moms. It feels like she left everything good behind in the city. She misses her tabletop gaming friends and her boyfriend -- and is horrified by the homophobia her family faces in their new home. Then she meets kind, quiet Art, who invites her to join his Dungeons & Dragons game.

Art is mostly happy fading into the background at school and only really coming alive during his friends' weekly D&D game -- until meeting Darcy pulls his life off-course in wonderful and alarming ways. Suddenly he has something worth fighting for. But what if that something puts him in conflict with his father, an influential and conservative figure in their town? Can Art stand up against his father's efforts to prevent Darcy and her friends from starting a queer-straight alliance at school?

Meanwhile, in game, Darcy's and Art's D&D characters join forces to fight corruption as they grow closer in the homebrew world of Durgeon's Keep -- as fantasy and reality collide.

 

 

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The Games Gods Play (Standard Edition)

Abigail Owen

The gods love to play with us mere mortals. And every hundred years, we let them...

I have never been favored by the gods. Far from it, thanks to Zeus.

Living as a cursed office clerk for the Order of Thieves, I just keep my head down and hope the capricious beings who rule from Olympus won't notice me. Not an easy feat, given San Francisco is Zeus' patron city, but I make do. I survive. Until the night I tangle with a different god.

The worst god. Hades.

For the first time ever, the ruthless, mercurial King of the Underworld has entered the Crucible—the deadly contest the gods hold to determine a new ruler to sit on the throne of Olympus. But instead of fighting their own battles, the gods name mortals to compete in their stead.

So why in the Underworld did Hades choose me—a sarcastic nobody with a curse on her shoulders—as his champion? And why does my heart trip every time he says I’m his?

I don’t know if I’m a pawn, bait, or something else entirely to this dangerously tempting god. How can I, when he has more secrets than stars in the sky?

Because Hades is playing by his own rules...and Death will win at any cost.

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The Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide

James D’Amato

Improve your RPG campaign with this comprehensive and interactive guide to making the most out of your gaming experience.

Whatever RPG game you play, from D&D to Call of Cthulu to licensed games like Star Wars, every detail is important. From setting the scene to choosing the right music or even adjusting the lighting to create the right atmosphere, every choice helps maximize your gaming experience.

The Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide provides practical advice for everything from pre-game preparations and in-game improvisation to working out a plan of attack with your teammates to learning how to lean into the setting of your game. Including instructions, prompts, and activities, it offers everything you need for successful, fun role-playing with your friends every time you play.

Create hours of narrative and make the most out of your storytelling skills by setting the perfect scene for your adventure. Whether you need advice on your character or working better with your gaming group, James D’Amato includes everything you’ll need to take your game to the next level.

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Ready Player One

Ernest Cline

A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?

In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days.

When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself. 

Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win.

 

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The Comic Book Story of Video Games

Jonathan Hennessey

A complete, illustrated history of video games--highlighting the machines, games, and people who have made gaming a worldwide, billion-dollar industry/artform--told in a graphic novel format.

Author Jonathan Hennessey and illustrator Jack McGowan present the first full-color, chronological origin story for this hugely successful, omnipresent artform and business. Hennessey provides readers with everything they need to know about video games--from their early beginnings during World War II to the emergence of arcade games in the 1970s to the rise of Nintendo to today's app-based games like Angry Birds and Pokemon Go. Hennessey and McGowan also analyze the evolution of gaming as an artform and its impact on society. Each chapter features spotlights on major players in the development of games and gaming that contains everything that gamers and non-gamers alike need to understand and appreciate this incredible phenomenon.

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We Are Watching Eliza Bright

A. E. Osworth

In this thrilling story of survival and anger, a woman has her whole life turned upside down after speaking out against workplace hostility-and inadvertently becomes the leader of a cultural movement.

Eliza Bright is living the dream as an elite video game coder at Fancy Dog Games, the first woman to ascend that high in the ranks--and some people want to make sure she's the last. To her friends, Eliza Bright is a brilliant, self-taught coder bravely calling out the misogyny that pervades her workplace and industry. To the men who see her very presence as a threat, Eliza Bright is a woman who needs to be destroyed to protect the game they love.

When Eliza's report of workplace harassment is quickly dismissed, she's forced to take her frustrations to a journalist who blasts her story across the internet. She's fired and doxxed, and becomes a rallying figure for women everywhere. But she's also enraged the beast comprised of online male gamers--their unreliable chorus narrates our story. Soon, Eliza is in the cross-hairs of the gaming community, threatened and stalked as they monitor her every move online and across New York City.

As the violent power of the angry male collective descends upon everyone in Eliza's life, it becomes increasingly difficult to know who to trust, even when she's eventually taken in and protected by an under-the-radar Collective known as the Sixsterhood. The violence moves from cyberspace to the real world, thanks to a vicious male super-fan known only as The Inspectre, determined to exact his revenge on behalf of men everywhere. We watch alongside the Sixsterhood and subreddit keyboard warriors as this dramatic cat-and-mouse game plays out to its violent and inevitable conclusion in this thrilling story of resilience and survival.

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Voices of War

Tom Wiener

The experience of war has affected every generation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and every soldier has a story to tell. Since the year 2000, the Veteran's History Project, a new permanent department of the Library of Congress, has been collecting and preserving the memories of veterans. In addition to more than 50,000 recorded oral histories, the Veteran's History Project has amassed thousands of letters, photographs, scrapbooks, and invaluable mementos from nearly a century of warfare.

In the first book to showcase the richness and depth of this collection, Voices of War tells a compelling, emotional, history of the experience of war, weaving together veterans' stories from in World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf. The stories are organized thematically into sections-from signing up to coming home, generations of veterans recall individual experiences that together tell the extraordinary story of America at war. Letters, photographs, sketches and paintings enrich the compelling oral history.

Voices of War is sure to provoke memories and reflection and truly honor the sacrifices made by millions of veterans who have fought to defend our freedom.

Introduction by former Senator Max Cleland and an Afterword by Senator Chuck Hagel, both of whom are Vietnam veterans.

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The Wives

Simone Gorrindo

This profoundly intimate memoir about marriage, friendship, and the power of human connection tells the story of one woman’s experience of joining a community of army wives after leaving her New York City job.

When her new husband joins an elite Army unit, Simone Gorrindo is uprooted from New York City and dropped into Columbus, Georgia. With her husband frequently deployed, Simone is left to find her place in this new world, alone—until she meets the wives.

Gorrindo gives us an intimate look into the inner lives of a remarkable group of women and a tender, unflinching portrait of a marriage. A love story, an unforgettable coming-of-age tale, and a bracing tour of the intractable divisions that plague our country today, The Wives offers a rare and powerful gift: a hopeful stitch in the fabric of a torn America.

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Home Front

Kristin Hannah

In her bestselling novels Kristin Hannah has plumbed the depths of friendship, the loyalty of sisters, and the secrets mothers keep. Now, in her most emotionally powerful story yet, she explores the intimate landscape of a troubled marriage with this provocative and timely portrait of a husband and wife, in love and at war.

All marriages have a breaking point. All families have wounds. All wars have a cost. . . .

Like many couples, Michael and Jolene Zarkades have to face the pressures of everyday life---children, careers, bills, chores---even as their twelve-year marriage is falling apart. Then an unexpected deployment sends Jolene deep into harm's way and leaves defense attorney Michael at home, unaccustomed to being a single parent to their two girls. As a mother, it agonizes Jolene to leave her family, but as a solider she has always understood the true meaning of duty. In her letters home, she paints a rose-colored version of her life on the front lines, shielding her family from the truth. But war will change Jolene in ways that none of them could have foreseen. When tragedy strikes, Michael must face his darkest fear and fight a battle of his own---for everything that matters to his family.

At once a profoundly honest look at modern marriage and a dramatic exploration of the toll war takes on an ordinary American family, Home Front is a story of love, loss, heroism, honor, and ultimately, hope.

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While They're at War

Kristin Henderson

Kristin Henderson is a journalist married to a military chaplain who has served in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In While They're at War, she draws upon the trust she's earned from military families and her unique access to military staff to give us a "powerful, revealing, and sometimes painful . . . look behind the scenes" (Booklist) at the modern military's untold story.

We first meet Marissa Bootes and Beth Pratt, new Army wives undergoing intense indoctrination on Fort Bragg, North Carolina, while their husbands are fighting in Iraq. Their stories unfold to reveal often hidden aspects of life on the homefront. Through gripping storytelling, we see families battling the overwhelming effects of isolation and anticipatory grief, the strongly enforced codes concerning infidelity, their feelings of alienation both from military staff and from nonmilitary citizens, and the harrowing impact of e-mail/cellphone/CNN culture. Moving scenes bring to life the special struggles of children and those who teach and care for them, as well as the toll that combat exposure takes on families, especially if it erupts into homecoming violence. Finally, Henderson reveals the life-changing solidarity experienced in an informal support group like Fort Bragg's Hooah Wives.

While They're at War is an indelible portrait, too, of virtually invisible figures such as homefront fathers raising teenagers alone. We meet the chaplains, social workers, and psychiatrists dedicated to helping military families cope. And, through Henderson's brilliant reporting from Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Ward 57, we are given a searing view of the wounded and their families confronting changed lives.

"In a country of nearly three hundred million people," Henderson writes, "only two and half million serve in the active duty armed forces. . . Yet in our American democracy, the warriors themselves don't get to decide when [sacrifices] are to be made. Civilians make that decision. It's up to our civilian Congress to declare war. . . and it's up to the civilians who elect those leaders to pay attention, to make sure that the cause of the hour is worth the sacrifices being made on their behalf." While They're at War is moving and necessary testimony for all Americans, from the military families who make possible America's way of war and way of life.

Kristin Henderson has written frequently on military issues; this book had its origins in two cover stories for the Washington Post Magazine. She is also the author of Driving by Moonlight, an account of her experience during her husband's deployment to Afghanistan. A practicing Quaker, she is married to a Navy chaplain serving with the Marines and is active in the Marine Corps's Key Volunteer family readiness program.

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The Reality of Everything

Rebecca Yarros

Two years after the man she loved was killed in Afghanistan, Morgan Bartley is trying to put the pieces of her life back together. The reno on her dilapidated beach house in the Outer Banks might be just the distraction she needs to keep her debilitating anxiety attacks at bay and begin to heal her heart...if she can ignore the ridiculously handsome guy next door.

At twenty-eight, single-dad Jackson Montgomery’s life revolves around his five-year-old daughter and his job as a search-and-rescue pilot for the coast guard. He’s no stranger to saving a damsel in distress, and though his gorgeous new neighbor is clearly in distress, she’s no damsel. She’s stubborn as hell with walls a mile thick, and the dog tags hanging from her rearview mirror give him a pretty good clue as to why.

It doesn’t matter that their attraction is undeniable—she swore she’d never fall for another pilot, let alone a military man. There are some wounds time can’t heal, and some fears too consuming to conquer.

She’s a barely breathing heartbreak on the edge of recovery.

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Front Page Murder

Joyce St. Anthony

In this World War II-era historical mystery series debut by Joyce St. Anthony, small-town editor Irene Ingram has a nose for news and an eye for clues.

Irene Ingram has written for her father’s newspaper, the Progress Herald, ever since she could grasp a pencil. Now she’s editor in chief, which doesn’t sit well with the men in the newsroom. But proving her journalistic bona fides is the least of Irene’s worries when crime reporter Moe Bauer, on the heels of a hot tip, turns up dead at the foot of his cellar stairs.

An accident? That’s what Police Chief Walt Turner thinks, and Irene is inclined to agree until she finds the note Moe discreetly left on her desk. He was on to a big story, he wrote. The robbery she’d assigned him to cover at Markowicz Hardware turned out to be something far more devious. A Jewish store owner in a small, provincial town, Sam Markowicz received a terrifying message from a stranger. Moe suspected that Sam is being threatened not only for who he is…but for what he knows.

Tenacious Irene senses there’s more to the Markowicz story, which she is all but certain led to Moe’s murder. When she’s not filling up column inches with the usual small-town fare—locals in uniform, victory gardens, and scrap drives—she and her best friend, scrappy secretary Peggy Reardon, search for clues. If they can find the killer, it’ll be a scoop to stop the presses. But if they can’t, Irene and Peggy may face an all-too-literal deadline.

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Vanishing Point

Tom Wilber

In Vanishing Point, award winning journalist and author Tom Wilber pieces together the largely forgotten story of the bomber, Getaway Gertie, and an eclectic group of enthusiasts who have spent years searching for it.

At the height of World War II, a B-24 Liberator bomber vanished with its crew while on a training mission over upstate New York. The final hours and ultimate resting place of pilot Keith Ponder and seven other US aviators aboard the plane remain mysteries to this day. The tale is at once a compelling instance of loss on the World War II American home front and a more extensive, largely unreported history. Ponder-a 21-year-old from rural Mississippi-and his crew were tragically unexceptional casualties in the monumental effort to recruit and train an air force en masse to counter the global conquest of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. More than fifteen thousand American airmen and, in some cases, women burned, crashed, or fell to their deaths in stateside training accidents during the war-their lives and stories shuffled away in piles of Air Force bureaucracy.

The forgotten story of Getaway Gertie was originally inspired by summer evenings around the campfire on the shores of Lake Ontario, where parts of the plane have washed up. Building on those campfire tales, Wilber deftly connects myth with fact and memory with historicity. The result is a vivid portrait of the forgotten soldier of the home front and a new take on the meaning of wartime sacrifice as the last survivors of the Greatest Generation pass away.

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While We're Far Apart

Lynn Austin

In an unassuming apartment building in Brooklyn, New York, three lives intersect as the reality of war invades each aspect of their lives. Young Esther is heartbroken when her father decides to enlist in the army shortly after the death of her mother. Penny Goodrich has been in love with Eddie Shaffer for as long as she can remember; now that Eddie's wife is dead, Penny feels she has been given a second chance and offers to care for his children in the hope that he will finally notice her and marry her after the war. And elderly Mr. Mendel, the landlord, waits for the war to end to hear what has happened to his son trapped in war-torn Hungary.

But during the long, endless wait for victory overseas, life on the home front will go from bad to worse. Yet these characters will find themselves growing and changing in ways they never expected--and ultimately discovering truths about God's love...even when He is silent.

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The 5 Love Languages Military Edition

Gary D. Chapman

"Marriage is hard enough for the everyday civilian. But imagine marriage when you're separated by thousands of miles. when one of you daily faces the dangers of combat. while the other shoulders all the burden of homefront duties. Add to that unpredictable schedules, frequent moves, and the challenge of reintegration, and it's no wonder military marriages are under stress. Husbands and wives in all five branches of the military need a special resource to help them navigate marriage in the midst of it all. These men and women who are giving so much for so many need a way to love one another - a way that powerfully communicates to the heart.The 5 Love Languages has a successful track record of helping military couples heal broken relationships and strengthen healthy relationships. Now this #1 New York Times bestseller has been adapted specifically for military couples.Special features of the Military Edition include: Stories of military couples from every branch of service who have found ways to use the 5 love languages in their unique lifestyles A Decoding Deployments section at the end of each love language chapter, offering tips on how to express love when you are apart. A new chapter, Love Language Scramblers, explains how to speak the love languages through some of the most challenging times of a military marriage. An updated Q&A section to include questions specific to military marriage. The 5 Love Languages profile will help you and your partner identify your love languages so you can put the principles to work for you immediately. Guided by input from dozens of military couples in all stages of their careers, authors Gary Chapman and former military wife Jocelyn Green offer you an unparalleled tool for your marriage with The 5 Love Languages Military Edition"--

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Dust Child

Que Mai Phan Nguyen

From the bestselling author of The Mountains Sing, a richly poetic and suspenseful saga about two Vietnamese sisters, an American veteran, and an Amerasian man whose lives intersect in surprising ways, set during and after the war in Việt Nam.

In 1969, sisters Trang and Quỳnh, desperate to help their parents pay off debts, leave their rural village to work at a bar in Sài Gòn. Once in the big city, the young girls are thrown headfirst into a world they were not expecting. They learn how to speak English, how to dress seductively, and how to drink and flirt (and more) with American GIs in return for money. As the war moves closer to the city, the once-innocent Trang gets swept up in an irresistible romance with a handsome and kind American helicopter pilot she meets at the bar.

Decades later, an American veteran, Dan, returns to Việt Nam with his wife, Linda, in search of a way to heal from his PTSD; instead, secrets he thought he had buried surface and threaten his marriage. At the same time, Phong--the adult son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman--embarks on a mission to find both his parents and a way out of Việt Nam. Abandoned in front of an orphanage, Phong grew up being called "the dust of life," "Black American imperialist," and "child of the enemy," and he dreams of a better life in the United States for himself, his wife Bình, and his children.

Past and present converge as these characters come together to confront decisions made during a time of war--decisions that reverberate throughout one another's lives and ultimately allow them to find common ground across race, generation, culture, and language. Immersive, moving, and lyrical, Dust Child tells an unforgettable story of how those who inherited tragedy can redefine their destinies with hard-won wisdom, compassion, courage, and joy.

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Be Safe, Love Mom

Elaine Brye

When you enlist in the United States military, you don't just sign up for duty; you also commit your loved ones to lives of service all their own.

No one knows this better than Elaine Brye, an "Army brat" turned military wife and the mother of four officers—one each in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. For more than a decade she's endured countless teary goodbyes, empty chairs at Thanksgiving dinners, and sleepless hours waiting for phone calls in the night. She's navigated the complicated tangle of emotions—pride, worry, fear, hope, and deep, enduring love—that are part and parcel of life as a military mother.

In Be Safe, Love Mom Elaine braids together her own personal experiences with those of fellow parents she's met along the way. She offers gentle guidance and hard-earned wisdom on topics ranging from that first anxious goodbye to surrendering all control of your child, from finding comfort in the support of the military community and the healing power of faith to coping with the enormous sacrifices life as a military mother requires. Readers looking for encouragement and hard-to-come-by information as they travel the challenging road of having a child in uniform will find Elaine a wise and trusted friend, and Be Safe, Love Mom an essential handbook to membership in a strong and special sisterhood.

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Things We Didn't Say

Amy Lynn Green

Headstrong Johanna Berglund, a linguistics student at the University of Minnesota, has very definite plans for her future . . . plans that do not include returning to her hometown and the secrets and heartaches she left behind there. But the US Army wants her to work as a translator at a nearby camp for German POWs.

Johanna arrives to find the once-sleepy town exploding with hostility. Most patriotic citizens want nothing to do with German soldiers laboring in their fields, and they're not afraid to criticize those who work at the camp as well. When Johanna describes the trouble to her friend Peter Ito, a language instructor at a school for military intelligence officers, he encourages her to give the town that rejected her a second chance.

As Johanna interacts with the men of the camp and censors their letters home, she begins to see the prisoners in a more sympathetic light. But advocating for better treatment makes her enemies in the community, especially when charismatic German spokesman Stefan Werner begins to show interest in Johanna and her work. The longer Johanna wages her home-front battle, the more the lines between compassion and treason become blurred--and it's no longer clear whom she can trust.

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Shoot Like a Girl

Mary Jennings Hegar

On July 29, 2009, Air National Guard major Mary Jennings "MJ" Hegar was shot down while on a Medevac mission on her third tour in Afghanistan. Despite being wounded, she fought the enemy and saved the lives of her crew and their patients. But soon she would face a new battle: to give women who serve on the front lines the credit they deserve...

After being commissioned into the U.S. Air Force, MJ Hegar was selected for pilot training by the Air National Guard, finished at the top of her class, then served three tours in Afghanistan, flying combat search-and-rescue missions, culminating in a harrowing rescue attempt that would earn MJ the Purple Heart as well as the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor Device.

But it was on American soil that Hegar would embark on her greatest challenge--to eliminate the military's Ground Combat Exclusion Policy, which kept female armed service members from officially serving in combat roles despite their long-standing record of doing so with honor.

In Shoot Like a Girl, MJ takes the reader on a dramatic journey through her military career: an inspiring, humorous, and thrilling true story of a brave, high-spirited, and unforgettable woman who has spent much of her life ready to sacrifice everything for her country, her fellow man, and her sense of justice.

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Honor Bound

Amy McGrath

The inspiring story of the first female Marine to fly a combat mission in an F/A-18--and the transformative events that led to her bold decision to take on the most powerful man in the U.S. Senate.

Amy McGrath grew up in Edgewood, Kentucky, a childhood shaped by love of country, baseball (the Cincinnati Reds), and, from the age of twelve, a fascination with fighter jets. Her devastation at learning that a federal law prohibited women from flying in combat fueled her determination to do just that--and then, to help change the laws to improve the lives of all Americans.

McGrath writes of gaining an appointment in high school to the U.S. Naval Academy, making it through Marine Corps training, graduating from Annapolis, Maryland, becoming a Second Lieutenant, and raising her right hand to swear to defend the U.S. Constitution, honor bound.

She vividly recounts her experiences flying in the Marines, and her combat deployments to Iraq (Kuwait) and Afghanistan, her work as an Air Combat Tactics instructor--and what it was like to finally fly that fighter jet: high-speed, intense, and physically demanding.

Here is McGrath, training to do the most intense tactical flying there is (think the Navy's TOPGUN ); meeting the man who would become her husband; being promoted to major and then lieutenant colonel; marrying, having three children, a career and life in Washington and then moving her family back to Kentucky to begin a whole new chapter in politics; her roller-coaster congressional campaign (she lost by three percentage points); and making the tough decision to run again, in an even bigger, higher-stakes national campaign, against the five-term leader of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell.

A moving, inspiring American story of courage, determination, and large dreams.

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Small Wars

Sadie Jones

Fresh off her triumphantly assured debut novel The Outcast, award-winning author Sadie Jones has again delivered a quiet masterpiece in Small Wars. Set on the colonial, war-torn island of Cyprus in 1956, Jones tells the story of a young solider, Hal Treherne, and the effects of this “small war” on him, his wife Clara, and their family. Reminiscent of classic tales of love and war such as The English Patient and Atonement, Jones’s gripping novel also calls to mind the master works of Virginia Woolf and their portrayal of the quiet desperation of a marriage in crisis. Small Wars is at once a deeply emotional, meticulously researched work of historical fiction and a profound meditation on war-time atrocities committed both on and off the battlefield.

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DC Pride

Jadzia Axelrod

DC Pride: The New Generation collects DC Pride 2022 #1 and DC Pride: Tim Drake Special #1, including the following stories:

  • “Super Pride” by Devin Grayson, Nick Robles, Triona Farrell and Aditya Bidikar
  • “Confessions” by Stephanie Williams, Meghan Hetrick, Marissa Louise and Ariana Maher
  • “Special Delivery” by Travis G. Moore, Enrica Eren Angiolini and Ariana Maher
  • “Are You Ready for This?” by Danny Lore & Ivan Cohen, Brittney Williams, Enrica Eren Angiolini and Ariana Maher
  • “A World Kept Just For Me” by Alyssa Wong, W. Scott Forbes and Ariana Maher
  • “The Gumshoe in Green” by Tini Howard, Evan Cagle and Lucas Gattoni
  • “Think of Me” by Ted Brandt & Ro Stein and Frank Cvetkovic
  • “Public Display of Electromagnetism” by Greg Lockard, Giulio Macaione and Aditya Bidikar
  • “The Hunt” by Dani Fernandez, Zoe Thorogood, Jeremy Lawson and Aditya Bidikar
  • “Bat’s in the Cradle” by Stephanie Philips, Samantha Dodge, Marissa Louise and Lucas Gattoni
  • “Up at Bat” by Jadzia Axelrod, Lynne Yoshii, Tamra Bonvillain and Ariana Maher
  • and “Finding Batman,” a personal story by Kevin Conroy with art by J.Bone and Aditya Bidikar

 

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Godzilla Library Collection, Vol. 1

James Stokoe

Beginning with Gangsters & Goliaths, Detective Makoto Sato is on a quest to bring down the Takahashi crime syndicate, but Sato's efforts earn him an unexpected one-way trip to Monster Island! Alone and facing death at the hands of both mobsters and monsters, Sato can only survive using his wits and the aid of some unusual friends in this pulp-fiction yarn by John Layman and Alberto Ponticelli.

Next, within a world where monsters roam freely, some stories have been lost to time...until now! In Legends, Godzilla's fearsome rogues' gallery--including Anguirus, Rodan, Titanosaurus, Hedorah, and Kumonga--takes center stage in terrifying tales from Chris Mowry, E.J. Su, Bobby Curnow, Dean Haspiel, Mike Raicht, Tony Parker, Jonathan Vankin, Simon Gane, Matt Frank, and Jeff Prezenkowski.

Finally, in The Half-Century War, follow one man's journey from the moment Godzilla's reign of destruction begins in 1954, continuing over his lifetime, taking him from Ghana to India...and maybe even to the end of the world, as chronicled by James Stokoe.

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Batman: Three Jokers

Geoff Johns

Who are the three jokers?

Batman doesn't understand how or why, but the fact is certain: the man he has spent a lifetime chasing isn't one man at all. There are three Jokers. Now that he knows the unbelievable truth, Bruce needs real answers. Joined by Barbara Gordon and Jason Todd, two former victims of the Joker's brutality, the Dark Knight is finally on a path to defeat the madman once and for all. Every last one of him.

Geoff Johns (Doomsday Clock, Batman: Earth One) and Jason Fabok (Justice League: The Darkseid War) reunite to present one of the most highly anticipated comics events in years! Collects Batman: Three Jokers #1-3.

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Static: Up All Night

Lamar Giles

VIRGIL (aka STATIC) can do amazing things with his vast array of electrical abilities, but instantly mending a broken heart isn’t in his skill set.

Virgil Hawkins has just gone through a bad break up. He can’t get over his ex, so his best friend Richie has an idea for how to distract him: attend a music festival in their city of Dakota. But wouldn’t you know it—his ex is in attendance. And that’s just the beginning of his troubles.

A series of encounters and events leads to an all-night adventure involving super villains, a diner, a reluctant rapper, and a size-changing kleptomaniac, as well as Virgil’s frequent bad decision making. But in the end, with the help of his friends, Virgil will find he can move on from a broken heart.

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My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two

Emil Ferris

Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late '60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two is the eagerly awaited conclusion to one of the most acclaimed graphic novels of the past decade. Presented as the fictional graphic diary of 10-year-old Karen Reyes as she tries to solve the murder of her beloved and enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, while the interconnected stories of those around her unfold.

In Book Two, dark mysteries past and present continue to abound in the tumultuous and violent Chicago summer of 1968. Young Karen attends a protest in Grant Park and finds herself swept up in a police stomping. Privately, she continues to investigate Anka's recent death and discovers one last cassette tape that sheds light upon Anka's heroic activities in Nazi Germany. She wrestles with her own sexual identity, the death of her mother, and the secrets she suspects her brother Deez of hiding. Ferris's exhilarating cast of characters experience revelations and epiphanies that both resolve and deepen the mysteries visited upon them earlier. Visually, the story is told in Ferris's inimitable style that breathtakingly and seamlessly combines panel-to-panel storytelling and cartoon montages filled with B-movie horror and pulp monster mag iconography.

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Something is Killing the Children Book Two Deluxe Edition

James Tynion IV

Erica Slaughter returns after the Archer’s Peak Saga in this deluxe hardcover collection of the multiple Eisner Award-winning and Harvey Award-nominated series from GLAAD Award-winning author James Tynion IV (The Department Of Truth, Batman), artist Werther Dell’Edera (Razorblades), colorist Miquel Muerto (Bleed Them Dry), and letterer AndWorld Design (Nightwing). With the unforgiving Order of St. George on her trail and the deadly Duplicitype–a new monster with horrifying implications on the hunt, Erica is in dire straits. If that wasn’t enough, the Order has sent Cutter to pursue the rogue Black Mask, making Erica truly outmatched and without a prayer. Collecting the entire second story cycle of Something is Killing the Children, this epic hardcover collection is the perfect place to continue reading the national bestseller, with over 2,000,000 units sold! Collects Something is Killing the Children #21-35.

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Freaking Romance Volume One

Snailords

Every relationship has its bumps. For this couple, it’s interstellar.

From the creator of Snailogy and Death: Rescheduled comes a sexy supernatural story about being out on your own, finding your dream apartment and discovering that your new place is haunted by a handsome spectral stranger from another dimension. Sure, he can’t see you and you can’t touch him, but who said every relationship starts out perfectly?

Freaking Romance is for fans of Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, This One Summer and Bloom.

This volume collects episodes 1–21 of the supernatural hit WEBTOON comic.

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Solo Leveling, Vol. 8 (comic)

Chugong

"After his victory on Jeju Island, the top guilds are all clamoring to recruit Jinwoo Sung, the strongest S-rank hunter and the hero of Korea--a far cry from the hapless E-rank hunter he used to be. As exciting as each new development is, however, Jinwoo's eager to finally get some answers, so an invitation from the system to return to the double dungeon that changed his life is a welcome opportunity. He'll have to put the visit on the back burner, though, because first things first--Jinwoo has a guild to establish!"--Provided by publisher.

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Nightwing Vol.1: Leaping into the Light

Tom Taylor

Nightwing is back—and his drive to keep Blüdhaven safe has never been stronger! But his adoptive city has elected a new mayor with the last name Zucco. When Nightwing enlists Batgirl’s help in investigating the politician bearing the same name as the man who murdered his parents, she unearths details that will shock and fundamentally change the hero.

Dick Grayson’s big heart has protected those persecuted by bullies in his youth, combated evil alongside Batman as Robin, and pledged his newly inherited wealth to enriching Blüdhaven as Nightwing. His kindness and generosity have always guided his life. But now a new villain stalks the back alleys, removing the hearts of the city’s most vulnerable. Who is this terrifying new menace named Heartless, and will he be able to resist plucking out the biggest heart in all of Blüdhaven?

Collected in this Infinite Frontier Nightwing evolution are issues #78-83.

 

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles X Stranger Things

Cameron Chittock

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meet the Stranger Things crew in this epic crossover graphic novel event that everybody has been waiting for!

Eleven, Max, Dustin, Mike, Will, and Lucas are looking forward to a nonthreatening, fun-filled trip to New York City. With the gang hundreds of miles from Hawkins, they're sure to catch a break this time! That is, until they encounter a threat both bizarre and familiar...and some allies that are just bizarre!

This new adventure brings together the best of Stranger Things supernatural horror and TMNT martial arts for a butt-kicking, fan-pleasing crossover.

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Nubia: Real One

L. L. McKinney

Can you be a hero...if society doesn't see you as a person?

Nubia has always been a little bit...different. As a baby she showcased Amazonian-like strength by pushing over a tree to rescue her neighbor's cat. But despite her having similar abilities, the world has no problem telling her that she's no Wonder Woman. And even if she were, they wouldn't want her. Every time she comes to the rescue, she's reminded of how people see her: as a threat. Her moms do their best to keep her safe, but Nubia can't deny the fire within her, even if she's a little awkward about it sometimes. Even if it means people assume the worst.

When Nubia's best friend, Quisha, is threatened by a boy who thinks he owns the town, Nubia will risk it all--her safety, her home, and her crush on that cute kid in English class--to become the hero society tells her she isn't.

From the witty and powerful voice behind A Blade So Black, and with endearing and expressive art by Robyn Smith, comes a vital story for today about equality, identity, and kicking it with your squad.

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UnOrdinary

uru-chan (Comics writer and artist)

From WEBTOON, the #1 digital comic platform, comes unOrdinary, the popular, action-packed series about John, an ordinary teen trying to survive high school in a world where superpowers dictate social status, and betrayal and conspiracies make up every turn.

Nobody pays much attention to John--just a normal teenager at a high school where the social elite happen to possess unthinkable powers and abilities. John prefers it that way. The more he stays under the radar, and stays close to the Royal's most powerful Ace, Seraphina, the safer he is in the halls of Wellston High.

But John has a secret past that threatens to bring down the school's whole social order--and much more. And when the other students start to suspect John has something to hide, he becomes their latest target. Suddenly, John is pulled into a world of turf wars, betrayals, and deadly conspiracies.

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Here I Am, I Am Me

Cara Bean

This colorful graphic novel adventure through the brain demystifies and destigmatizes emotional and mental health for children through accessible language and lessons.

Join author-illustrator Cara Bean in Here I Am, I Am Me, as she takes readers on an illustrated journey to the center of the brain. Each of the 9 chapters in this therapist-recommended book explores a different aspect of mental health, from the brain and the mind, to feelings and emotions. By portraying complex neuroscience concepts with a cast of illustrated characters (that represent parts of the brain), the book explains what is really going on in the reader's head in an accessible, approachable way that ultimately serves to empower the reader.

Each chapter includes a "question map" that gives context to and helps frame the pages that follow as well as a "Bean Memory," which shares a first-person true story that illustrates the chapter's subject matter as it has played out in the author's life.

The book doesn't talk down to its readers, and it doesn't pretend that teens are immune to mental health struggles: Cara Bean masterfully discusses crucial topics like depression, substance use and addiction, and suicide, all while equipping readers with mindfulness tips, specific resources, and empathetic affirmations. Readers will learn to destigmatize the conversation around mental health by reframing their thinking, learning how to use conscious language, and helping themselves and others through mental health dilemmas.

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Batman: Justice Buster Vol. 1

Eiichi Shimizu

Crime in Gotham has gotten so out of control that Batman must step up his arsenal of fabulous toys.

Gotham City has been under the protection of Batman for only a short amount of time, but since the vigilante's appearance, crime has changed. It's gotten more bold, more destructive. As Batman tries to rise to meet these new threats, he develops a computer system, ROBIN, to help him analyze and subdue the rising criminal tide and hopefully one day put an end to crime in Gotham.

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Let's Make Bread!

Ken Forkish

An accessible and easy-to-follow comic book cookbook for baking delicious breads, featuring a basic universal method, guidelines for maintaining a sourdough starter, and recipes for classic loaves and fun new riffs, from the beloved author of Flour Water Salt Yeast
 

New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Ken Forkish adapts his expert bread baking tips and recipes from Evolutions in Bread and Flour Water Salt Yeast for the fun, beginner-friendly comic book cookbook format. With comics artist Sarah Becan’s lively and colorful illustrations, Let’s Make Bread! invites readers to embark on the journey of making bread with this new visual twist.
 
Forkish and Becan provide valuable tips for the first-time breadmaker, from the necessary equipment and ingredients to the basic eight-step bread method. They explain how to start, feed, maintain, and share a sourdough starter and include valuable troubleshooting tips for temperature, dough texture, proofing, and more. They also present seventeen gold-standard recipes for both traditional and customizable loaves, including The Saturday Bread, The Standard, Corn Kernel Bread, and Raisin-Pecan Bread, and more!
 
Pairing foolproof techniques and recipes with an exciting and inviting comic format, Let’s Make Bread! is an enjoyable guide to making your own perfect loaf at home.

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Witch Hat Atelier Kitchen 1

Hiromi Sato

Witch Hat Atelier is back in this culinary spinoff that lets readers try their hand at recreating a variety of sumptuous recipes. This time, the magic is in the kitchen as Qifrey and the gang whip up everything from sizzling stews to crackling croquettes. Ideal for both existing fans of the main series and newcomers looking for an easily "disgestible" introduction to the world of Witch Hat.

Evening falls on Qifrey's atelier, and Coco and her fellow witches-in-training take to their beds. In the quiet of midnight, Qifrey and Olruggio are finally free to pursue their culinary experiments. The kitchen comes alive as they whip up puddings, stews, parfaits, and jellies, and when the sun rises, Coco and the gang are there to savor every bite!

Includes a variety of real sweet and savory recipes with step-by-step instructions.

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Never Whistle at Night

Shane Hawk

Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home.

These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.

 

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Woman of Light

Kali Fajardo-Anstine

There is one every generation, a seer who keeps the stories.

Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished, and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.

Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s singular voice, the wildly entertaining and complex lives of the Lopez family fill the pages of this multigenerational western saga. Woman of Light is a transfixing novel about survival, family secrets, and love—filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, all of whom are just as special, memorable, and complicated as our beloved heroine, Luz.
 

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Project 562

Matika Wilbur

A photographic and narrative celebration of contemporary Native American life and cultures, alongside an in-depth examination of issues that Native people face, by celebrated photographer and storyteller Matika Wilbur of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes.

In 2012, Matika Wilbur sold everything in her Seattle apartment and set out on a Kickstarter-funded pursuit to visit, engage, and photograph people from what were then 562 federally recognized Native American Tribal Nations. Over the next decade, she traveled six hundred thousand miles across fifty states—from Seminole country (now known as the Everglades) to Inuit territory (now known as the Bering Sea)—to meet, interview, and photograph hundreds of Indigenous people. The body of work Wilbur created serves to counteract the one-dimensional and archaic stereotypes of Native people in mainstream media and offers justice to the richness, diversity, and lived experiences of Indian Country.

The culmination of this decade-long art and storytelling endeavor, Project 562 is a peerless, sweeping, and moving love letter to Indigenous Americans, containing hundreds of stunning portraits and compelling personal narratives of contemporary Native people—all photographed in clothing, poses, and locations of their choosing. Their narratives touch on personal and cultural identity as well as issues of media representation, sovereignty, faith, family, the protection of sacred sites, subsistence living, traditional knowledge-keeping, land stewardship, language preservation, advocacy, education, the arts, and more.

A vital contribution from an incomparable artist, Project 562 inspires, educates, and truly changes the way we see Native America.

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And Then She Fell

Alicia Elliott

On the surface, Alice is exactly where she thinks she should be: She’s just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her charming husband, Steve—a white academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture—is nothing but supportive; and they’ve moved into a new home in a posh Toronto neighborhood. But Alice could not feel like more of an impostor. She isn’t connecting with her daughter, a struggle made even more difficult by the recent loss of her own mother, and every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from Steve and their ever-watchful neighbors, among whom she’s the sole Indigenous resident. Even when she does have a minute to herself, her perpetual self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: her goal of writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story.

Then, as if all that wasn’t enough, strange things start to happen. She finds herself losing bits of time and hearing voices she can’t explain, all while her neighbors’ passive-aggressive behavior begins to morph into something far more threatening. Though Steve assures her this is all in her head, Alice cannot fight the feeling that something is very, very wrong, and that in her creation story lies the key to her and Dawn’s survival.... She just has to finish it before it’s too late.

Told in Alice’s raw and darkly funny voice, And Then She Fell is an urgent and unflinching exploration of inherited trauma, womanhood, denial, and false allyship, which speeds to an unpredictable—and surreal—climax.

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To Shape a Dragon's Breath

Moniquill Blackgoose

A young Indigenous woman enters a colonizer-run dragon academy—and quickly finds herself at odds with the “approved” way of doing things—in the first book of this brilliant new fantasy series.

The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon.

Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have different opinions. They have a very specific idea of how a dragon should be raised, and who should be doing the raising—and Anequs does not meet any of their requirements. Only with great reluctance do they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school on the mainland. If she cannot succeed there, her dragon will be killed.

For a girl with no formal schooling, a non-Anglish upbringing, and a very different understanding of the history of her land, challenges abound—both socially and academically. But Anequs is smart, determined, and resolved to learn what she needs to help her dragon, even if it means teaching herself. The one thing she refuses to do, however, is become the meek Anglish miss that everyone expects.

Anequs and her dragon may be coming of age, but they’re also coming to power, and that brings an important realization: the world needs changing—and they might just be the ones to do it.

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Dog Flowers

Danielle Geller

When Danielle Geller’s mother dies of alcohol withdrawal during an attempt to get sober, Geller returns to Florida and finds her mother’s life packed into eight suitcases. Most were filled with clothes, except for the last one, which contained diaries, photos, and letters, a few undeveloped disposable cameras, dried sage, jewelry, and the bandana her mother wore on days she skipped a hair wash.

Geller, an archivist and a writer, uses these pieces of her mother’s life to try and understand her mother’s relationship to home, and their shared need to leave it. Geller embarks on a journey where she confronts her family's history and the decisions that she herself had been forced to make while growing up, a journey that will end at her mother's home: the Navajo reservation.

Dog Flowers is an arresting, photo-lingual memoir that masterfully weaves together images and text to examine mothers and mothering, sisters and caretaking, and colonized bodies. Exploring loss and inheritance, beauty and balance, Danielle Geller pays homage to our pasts, traditions, and heritage, to the families we are given and the families we choose.

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Indian Burial Ground

Nick Medina

All Noemi Broussard wanted was a fresh start. With a new boyfriend who actually treats her right and a plan to move from the reservation she grew up on—just like her beloved Uncle Louie before her—things are finally looking up for Noemi. Until the news of her boyfriend’s apparent suicide brings her world crumbling down.

But the facts about Roddy’s death just don’t add up, and Noemi isn’t the only one who suspects that something menacing might be lurking within their tribal lands.

After over a decade away, Uncle Louie has returned to the reservation, bringing with him a past full of secrets, horror, and what might be the key to determining Roddy’s true cause of death. Together, Noemi and Louie set out to find answers...but as they get closer to the truth, Noemi begins to wonder whether it might be best for some secrets to remain buried.

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The Rediscovery of America

Ned Blackhawk

A sweeping and overdue retelling of U.S. history that recognizes that Native Americans are essential to understanding the evolution of modern America

 

The most enduring feature of U.S. history is the presence of Native Americans, yet most histories focus on Europeans and their descendants. This long practice of ignoring Indigenous history is changing, however, with a new generation of scholars insists that any full American history address the struggle, survival, and resurgence of American Indian nations. Indigenous history is essential to understanding the evolution of modern America.

 

Ned Blackhawk interweaves five centuries of Native and non‑Native histories, from Spanish colonial exploration to the rise of Native American self-determination in the late twentieth century. In this transformative synthesis he shows that

* European colonization in the 1600s was never a predetermined success;

* Native nations helped shape England's crisis of empire;

* the first shots of the American Revolution were prompted by Indian affairs in the interior;

* California Indians targeted by federally funded militias were among the first casualties of the Civil War;

* the Union victory forever recalibrated Native communities across the West;

* twentieth-century reservation activists refashioned American law and policy.

 

Blackhawk's retelling of U.S. history acknowledges the enduring power, agency, and survival of Indigenous peoples, yielding a truer account of the United States and revealing anew the varied meanings of America.

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Blood Sisters

Vanessa Lillie

There are secrets in the land.

As an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Syd Walker spends her days in Rhode Island trying to protect the land's indigenous past, even as she’s escaping her own.

While Syd is dedicated to her job, she’s haunted by a night of violence she barely escaped in her Oklahoma hometown fifteen years ago. Though she swore she’d never go back, the past comes calling.

When a skull is found near the crime scene of her youth, just as her sister, Emma Lou, vanishes, Syd knows she must return home. She refuses to let her sister's disappearance, or the remains, go ignored—as so often happens in cases of missing Native women.

But not everyone is glad to have Syd home, and she can feel the crosshairs on her. Still, the deeper Syd digs, the more she uncovers about a string of missing indigenous women cases going back decades. To save her sister, she must expose a darkness in the town that no one wants to face—not even Syd.

The truth will be unearthed.

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We Refuse to Forget

Caleb Gayle

In We Refuse to Forget, award-winning journalist Caleb Gayle tells the extraordinary story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that two centuries ago both owned slaves and accepted Black people as full citizens. Thanks to the efforts of Creek leaders like Cow Tom, a Black Creek citizen who rose to become chief, the U.S. government recognized Creek citizenship in 1866 for its Black members. Yet this equality was shredded in the 1970s when tribal leaders revoked the citizenship of Black Creeks, even those who could trace their history back generations—even to Cow Tom himself.

Why did this happen? How was the U.S. government involved? And what are Cow Tom’s descendants and other Black Creeks doing to regain their citizenship? These are some of the questions that Gayle explores in this provocative examination of racial and ethnic identity. By delving into the history and interviewing Black Creeks who are fighting to have their citizenship reinstated, he lays bare the racism and greed at the heart of this story. We Refuse to Forget is an eye-opening account that challenges our preconceptions of identity as it shines new light on the long shadows of white supremacy and marginalization that continue to hamper progress for Black Americans.

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Probably Ruby

Lisa Bird-Wilson

This is the story of a woman in search of herself, in every sense. When we first meet Ruby, a Métis woman in her thirties, her life is spinning out of control. She’s angling to sleep with her counselor while also rekindling an old relationship she knows will only bring more heartache. But as we soon learn, Ruby’s story is far more complex than even she can imagine.

Given up for adoption as an infant, Ruby is raised by a white couple who understand little of her Indigenous heritage. This is the great mystery that hovers over Ruby’s life—who her people are and how to reconcile what is missing. As the novel spans time and multiple points of view, we meet the people connected to Ruby: her birth parents and grandparents; her adoptive parents; the men and women Ruby has been romantically involved with; a beloved uncle; and Ruby’s children. Taken together, these characters form a kaleidoscope of stories, giving Ruby’s life dignity and meaning.

Probably Ruby is a dazzling novel about a bold, unapologetic woman taking control of her life and story, and marks the debut of a major new voice in Indigenous fiction.

 

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Heart Berries

Terese Marie Mailhot

Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder, Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father―an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist―who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.

Mailhot trusts the reader to understand that memory isn't exact, but melded to imagination, pain, and what we can bring ourselves to accept. Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. As she writes, she discovers her own true voice, seizes control of her story, and, in so doing, reestablishes her connection to her family, to her people, and to her place in the world.

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Winter Counts

David Heska Wanbli Weiden

A groundbreaking thriller about a vigilante on a Native American reservation who embarks on a dangerous mission to track down the source of a heroin influx.

Virgil Wounded Horse is the local enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When justice is denied by the American legal system or the tribal council, Virgil is hired to deliver his own punishment, the kind that's hard to forget. But when heroin makes its way into the reservation and finds Virgil's nephew, his vigilantism suddenly becomes personal. He enlists the help of his ex-girlfriend and sets out to learn where the drugs are coming from, and how to make them stop.

They follow a lead to Denver and find that drug cartels are rapidly expanding and forming new and terrifying alliances. And back on the reservation, a new tribal council initiative raises uncomfortable questions about money and power. As Virgil starts to link the pieces together, he must face his own demons and reclaim his Native identity. He realizes that being a Native American in the twenty-first century comes at an incredible cost.

Winter Counts is a tour-de-force of crime fiction, a bracingly honest look at a long-ignored part of American life, and a twisting, turning story that's as deeply rendered as it is thrilling.

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Cahokia Jazz

Francis Spufford

Like his earlier novel Golden Hill, Francis Spufford’s Cahokia Jazz inhabits a different version of America, now through the lens of a subtly altered 1920s—a fully imagined world filled with fog, cigarette smoke, dubious motives, danger, and dark deeds. In the main character of hard-boiled detective Joe Barrow, we have a hero of truly epic proportions, a troubled soul to fall in love with as you are swept along by a propulsive and brilliantly twisty plot.

One snowy night at the end of winter, Barrow and his partner find a body on the roof of a skyscraper. Down below, streetcar bells ring, factory whistles blow, Americans drink in speakeasies and dance to the tempo of modern times. But this is Cahokia, the ancient indigenous city beside the Mississippi living on as a teeming industrial metropolis containing people of every race and creed. Among them, peace holds. Just about. Yet that corpse on the roof will spark a week of drama in which this altered world will spill its secrets and be brought, against a soundtrack of jazz clarinets and wailing streetcars, either to destruction or rebirth.
 

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Native Nations

Kathleen DuVal

Long before the colonization of North America, Indigenous Americans built diverse civilizations and adapted to a changing world in ways that reverberated globally. And, as award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal vividly recounts, when Europeans did arrive, no civilization came to a halt because of a few wandering explorers, even when the strangers came well armed.

A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size. Then, following a period of climate change and instability, numerous smaller nations emerged, moving away from rather than toward urbanization. From this urban past, egalitarian government structures, diplomacy, and complex economies spread across North America. So, when Europeans showed up in the sixteenth century, they encountered societies they did not understand—those having developed differently from their own—and whose power they often underestimated.

For centuries afterward, Indigenous people maintained an upper hand and used Europeans in pursuit of their own interests. In Native Nations, we see how Mohawks closely controlled trade with the Dutch—and influenced global markets—and how Quapaws manipulated French colonists. Power dynamics shifted after the American Revolution, but Indigenous people continued to command much of the continent’s land and resources. Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa forged new alliances and encouraged a controversial new definition of Native identity to attempt to wall off U.S. ambitions. The Cherokees created institutions to assert their sovereignty on the global stage, and the Kiowas used their power in the west to regulate the passage of white settlers across their territory.

In this important addition to the growing tradition of North American history centered on Indigenous nations, Kathleen DuVal shows how the definitions of power and means of exerting it shifted over time, but the sovereignty and influence of Native peoples remained a constant—and will continue far into the future.

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The Angel of Indian Lake

Stephen Graham Jones

The final installment in the most lauded trilogy in the history of horror novels picks up four years after Don’t Fear the Reaper as Jade returns to Proofrock, Idaho, to build a life after the years of sacrifice—only to find the Lake Witch is waiting for her in New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones’s finale.

It’s been four years in prison since Jade Daniels last saw her hometown of Proofrock, Idaho, the day she took the fall, protecting her friend Letha and her family from incrimination. Since then, her reputation, and the town, have changed dramatically. There’s a lot of unfinished business in Proofrock, from serial killer cultists to the rich trying to buy Western authenticity. But there’s one aspect of Proofrock no one wants to confront…until Jade comes back to town. The curse of the Lake Witch is waiting, and now is the time for the final stand.

New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones has crafted an epic horror trilogy of generational trauma from the Indigenous to the townies rooted in the mountains of Idaho. It is a story of the American west written in blood.

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Small Town Horror

Ronald Malfi

Five childhood friends are forced to confront their own dark past as well as the curse placed upon them in this horror masterpiece from the bestselling author of Come with Me.

Maybe this is a ghost story…

Andrew Larimer has left his past behind. Rising up the ranks in a New York law firm, and with a heavily pregnant wife, he is settling into a new life far from Kingsport, the town in which he grew up. But when he receives a late-night phone call from an old friend, he has no choice but to return home.

Coming home means returning to his late father’s house, which has seen better days. It means lying to his wife. But it also means reuniting with his friends: Eric, now the town’s deputy sheriff; Dale, a real-estate mogul living in the shadow of a failed career; his childhood sweetheart Tig who never could escape town; and poor Meach, whose ravings about a curse upon the group have driven him to drugs and alcohol.

Together, the five friends will have to confront the memories—and the horror—of a night, years ago, that changed everything for them.

Because Andrew and his friends have a secret. A thing they have kept to themselves for twenty years. Something no one else should know. But the past is not dead, and Kingsport is a town with secrets of its own.

One dark secret...

One small-town horror...

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All These Sunken Souls

Kalynn Bayron

Welcome to the Dark.

We are all familiar with tropes of the horror genre: slasher and victims, demon and the possessed. Bloody screams, haunted visions, and the peddler of wares we aren't sure we can trust. In this young adult horror anthology, fans of Jordan Peele, Lovecraft Country, and Horror Noire will get a little bit of everything they love--and a lot of what they fear--through a twisted blend of horror lenses, from the thoughtful to the terrifying.

From haunted, hungry Victorian mansions, temporal monster-infested asylums, and ravaging zombie apocalypses, to southern gothic hoodoo practitioners and cursed patriarchs in search of Black Excellence, All These Sunken Souls features the chilling creations of acclaimed bestsellers and hot new talents.
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Contributors

Kalynn Bayron @KalynnBayron
Ashia Monet @AshiaMonet
Liselle Sambury @LiselleSambury
Sami Ellis @themoosef
Joel Rochester @fictionalfates
Joelle Wellington @joelle_welling
Brent C. Lambert @BrentCLambert
Donyae Coles @okokno
Ryan Douglass @ryandouglassw
Circe Moskowitz @circemoskowitz

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This Cursed House

Del Sandeen

In this Southern gothic horror debut, a young Black woman abandons her life in 1960s Chicago for a position with a mysterious family in New Orleans, only to discover the dark truth: They’re under a curse, and they think she can break it.

In the fall of 1962, twenty-seven-year-old Jemma Barker is desperate to escape her life in Chicago—and the spirits she has always been able to see. When she receives an unexpected job offer from the Duchon family in New Orleans, she accepts, thinking it is her chance to start over.

But Jemma discovers that the Duchon family isn’t what it seems. Light enough to pass as white, the Black family members look down on brown-skinned Jemma. Their tenuous hold on reality extends to all the members of their eccentric clan, from haughty grandmother Honorine to beautiful yet inscrutable cousin Fosette. And soon the shocking truth comes out: The Duchons are under a curse. And they think Jemma has the power to break it.

As Jemma wrestles with the gift she’s run from all her life, she unravels deeper and more disturbing secrets about the mysterious Duchons. Secrets that stretch back over a century. Secrets that bind her to their fate if she fails.

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The Amityville Horror

Jay Anson

In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their new home on suburban Long Island. George and Kathleen Lutz knew that, one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers, and sisters in the house, but the property—complete with boathouse and swimming pool—and the price had been too good to pass up.

Twenty-eight days later, the entire Lutz family fled in terror.

This is the spellbinding, shocking true story that gripped the nation about an American dream that turned into a nightmare beyond imagining—“this book will scare the hell out of you” (Kansas City Star).

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The Night Guest

Hildur Knútsdóttir

Hildur Knútsdóttir's The Night Guest is an eerie and ensnaring story set in contemporary Reykjavík that’s sure to keep you awake at night.

Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause.

When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same — have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps.

Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night . . .

What is happening when she’s asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?

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The Final Girl Support Group

Grady Hendrix

In horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standing when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives…but what happens after?

Like his bestselling novel The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix’s latest is a fast-paced, frightening, and wickedly humorous thriller. From chain saws to summer camp slayers, The Final Girl Support Group pays tribute to and slyly subverts our most popular horror films—movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.

Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.
 
But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.

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The Night Eaters

Marjorie M. Liu

The Night Eaters: She Eats the Nights is the first volume in a graphic novel horror trilogy from author Marjorie Liu and illustrator Sana Takeda--the creative team behind the New York Times bestselling series Monstress.

Chinese American twins Milly and Billy are having a tough time. On top of the multiple failures in their personal and professional lives, they're struggling to keep their restaurant afloat.

Luckily their parents, Ipo and Keon, are in town for their annual visit. Having immigrated from Hong Kong before the twins were born, Ipo and Keon have supported their children through thick and thin and are ready to lend a hand--but they're starting to wonder, has their support made Milly and Billy incapable of standing on their own?

When Ipo forces them to help her clean up the house next door--a hellish and run-down ruin that was the scene of a grisly murder--the twins are in for a nasty surprise. A night of terror, gore, and supernatural mayhem reveals that there is much more to Ipo and her children than meets the eye. 

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The Year of the Witching

Alexis Henderson

A young woman living in a rigid, puritanical society discovers dark powers within herself, with terrifying and far-reaching consequences, in this stunning, feminist fantasy debut.

In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet's word is law, Immanuelle Moore's very existence is blasphemy. Her mother's union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement.

But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood.

Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.

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The Haunting of Hill House

Shirley Jackson

The Haunting Four seekers have come to the ugly, abandoned old mansion: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of the psychic phenomenon called haunting; Theodara, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, the lonely, homeless girl well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the adventurous future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable noises and self-closing doors, but Hill House is gathering its powers and will soon choose one of them to make its own.

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Horror Movie

Paul Tremblay

A chilling twist on the "cursed film" genre from the bestselling author of The Pallbearers Club and The Cabin at the End of the World.

In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick.

The weird part? Only three of the film's scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot.

The man who played "The Thin Kid" is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he's going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions--demons of the past be damned.

But at what cost?

Horror Movie is an obsessive, psychologically chilling, and suspenseful feat of storytelling genius that builds inexorably to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion.

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The Luminous Dead

Caitlin Starling

A thrilling, atmospheric debut with the intensive drive of The Martian and Gravity and the creeping dread of Annihilation, in which a caver on a foreign planet finds herself on a terrifying psychological and emotional journey for survival.

When Gyre Price lied her way into this expedition, she thought she’d be mapping mineral deposits, and that her biggest problems would be cave collapses and gear malfunctions. She also thought that the fat paycheck—enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother—meant she’d get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane.

Instead, she got Em.

Em sees nothing wrong with controlling Gyre’s body with drugs or withholding critical information to “ensure the smooth operation” of her expedition. Em knows all about Gyre’s falsified credentials, and has no qualms using them as a leash—and a lash. And Em has secrets, too . . .

As Gyre descends, little inconsistencies—missing supplies, unexpected changes in the route, and, worst of all, shifts in Em’s motivations—drive her out of her depths. Lost and disoriented, Gyre finds her sense of control giving way to paranoia and anger. On her own in this mysterious, deadly place, surrounded by darkness and the unknown, Gyre must overcome more than just the dangerous terrain and the Tunneler which calls underground its home if she wants to make it out alive—she must confront the ghosts in her own head.

But how come she can’t shake the feeling she’s being followed?

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We Came to Welcome You

Vincent Tirado

Where beauty lies, secrets are held...ugly ones.

Sol Reyes has had a rough year. After a series of workplace incidents at her university lab culminates in a plagiarism accusation, Sol is put on probation. Dutiful visits to her homophobic father aren't helping her mental health, and she finds her nightly glass of wine becoming more of an all-day--and all-bottle--event. Her wife, Alice Song, is far more optimistic. After all, the two finally managed to buy a house in the beautiful, gated community of Maneless Grove.

However, the neighbors are a little too friendly in Sol's opinion. She has no interest in the pushy Homeowners Association, their bizarrely detailed contract, or their never-ending microaggressions. But Alice simply attributes their pursuit to the community motto: "Invest in a neighborly spirit"...which only serves to irritate Sol more.

Suddenly, a number of strange occurrences--doors and stairs disappearing, roots growing inside the house--cause Sol to wonder if her social paranoia isn't built on something more sinister. Yet Sol's fears are dismissed as Alice embraces their new home and becomes increasingly worried instead about Sol's drinking and manic behavior. When Sol finds a journal in the property from a resident that went missing a few years ago, she realizes why they were able to buy the house so easily...

Through Sol's razor-sharp tongue and macabre sense of humor, Tirado explores the very real pressures to assimilate with one's surroundings to "survive," while also asking the question: Is it survival when you're no longer your true self? Because in Maneless Grove, either you become a good neighbor--or you die.

 

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The Ghost Bride

Yangsze Choo

Yangsze Choo’s stunning debut, The Ghost Bride, is a startlingly original novel infused with Chinese folklore, romantic intrigue, and unexpected supernatural twists.

Li Lan, the daughter of a respectable Chinese family in colonial Malaysia, hopes for a favorable marriage, but her father has lost his fortune, and she has few suitors. Instead, the wealthy Lim family urges her to become a “ghost bride” for their son, who has recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at what price?
 
Night after night, Li Lan is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, where she must uncover the Lim family’s darkest secrets—and the truth about her own family.
 

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Through the Midnight Door

Katrina Monroe

Three sisters. Three keys. Three unspeakable horrors.

The Finch sisters once spent long, hot summers exploring the dozens of abandoned properties littering their dying town--until they found an impossible home with an endless hall of doors...and three keys left waiting for them. Curious, fearless, they stepped inside their chosen rooms, and experienced horrors they never dared speak of again.

Now, years later, youngest sister Claire has been discovered dead in that old, desiccated house. Haunted by their sister's suicide and the memories of a past they've struggled to forget, Meg and Esther find themselves at bitter odds. As they navigate the tensions of their brittle relationship, they draw unsettling lines between Claire's death, their own haunted memories, and a long-ago loss no one in their family has ever been able to face. With the house once again pulling them ever-closer, Meg and Esther must find the connection between their sister's death and the shadow that has chased them across the years...before the darkness claims them, too.

As emotional as it is haunting, Through the Midnight Door explores the sometimes-fragile bonds of sisterhood and the way deeply rooted trauma can pass from generation to generation.

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The Mystery Writer

Sulari Gentill

There's nothing easier to dismiss than a conspiracy theory--until it turns out to be true

From 2023 Edgar Award nominee and bestselling author Sulari Gentill comes a literary thriller about an aspiring writer who meets and falls in love with her literary idol--only to find him murdered the day after she gave him her manuscript to read.

When Theodosia Benton abandons her career path as an attorney and shows up on her brother's doorstep with two suitcases and an unfinished novel, she expects to face a few challenges. Will her brother support her ambition or send her back to finish her degree? What will her parents say when they learn of her decision? Does she even have what it takes to be a successful writer?

What Theo never expects is to be drawn into a hidden literary world in which identity is something that can be lost and remade for the sake of an audience. When her mentor, a highly successful author, is brutally murdered, Theo wants the killer to be found and justice to be served. Then the police begin looking at her brother, Gus, as their prime suspect, and Theo does the unthinkable in order to protect him. But the writer has left a trail, a thread out of the labyrinth in the form of a story. Gus finds that thread and follows it, and in his attempt to save his sister he inadvertently threatens the foundations of the labyrinth itself. To protect the carefully constructed narrative, Theo Benton, and everyone looking for her, will have to die.

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Literary Journeys

John McMurtrie

From Homer’s Odyssey, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and Cervantes’s Don Quixote to Melville’s Moby-Dick, Kerouac’s On the Road, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, some of the most powerful works of fiction center on a journey. Extending to the ends of the earth and spanning from ancient Greece to today, Literary Journeys is an enthralling book that takes you on a voyage of discovery through some of the most important journeys in literature. In original essays, an international team of literary critics, scholars, and other writers explore exciting, dangerous, tragic, and uplifting journeys in more than seventy-five classic and popular works of fiction from around the world. Chronologically arranged and gorgeously illustrated throughout with paintings, engravings, photographs, and maps in full color, this captivating book will appeal to readers who have travelled widely, who are planning a trip, or who love armchair travel.

  • Contributors include Robert McCrum, Susan Shillinglaw, Maya Jaggi, Robert Holden, Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Alan Taylor, Michael Bourne, Sarah Mesle—and dozens more.
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The Murders in Great Diddling

Katarina Bivald

The best stories are the ones we didn't know needed to be told

The small, rundown village of Great Diddling is full of stories--author Berit Gardner can feel it. The way the villagers avoid outsiders, the furtive stares and whispers in the presence of newcomers... Berit can sense the edge of a story waiting to be unraveled, and she's just the person to do it. In fact, with a book deadline looming over her and no manuscript (not even the idea for a manuscript, truth be told), Berit doesn't just want this story. She needs it.

Then, while attending a village tea party, Berit becomes part of the action herself. An explosion in the library of the village's grand manor kills a local man, and the resulting investigation and influx of outsiders sends the quiet, rundown community into chaos. The residents of Great Diddling, each one more eccentric and interesting than any character Berit could have invented, rewrite their own narrative and transform the death of one of their own from a tragedy into a new beginning. Taking advantage of Great Diddling's new notoriety, the villagers band together to start a book and murder festival designed to bring desperately-needed tourists to their town. What they couldn't have predicted is how the new story they've begun to tell will change all their lives forever.

Uplifting, charming, and laugh-out-loud funny, The Murders in Great Diddling by New York Times bestselling author Katarina Bivald is a celebration of the life-changing magic of books and the people who love them.

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Farewell, Amethystine

Walter Mosley

January 1970 finds Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, LA's premier Black detective, at 50 years of age despite all expectations. He has a loving family, a beautiful home, and a thriving investigation agency. All is right with the world... and then Amethystine Stoller, his own personal Helen of Troy, arrives. Her ex-husband is missing. A simple enough case. But even as Easy takes his first step in the investigation he trips. He falls into the memory of things past. Little things, like loss, love, a world war, and a hunger that has eaten at him since he was a Black boy on his own on the streets of Fifth Ward, Houston, Texas.

The missing ex, a young white man named Curt Fields, is found dead. Easy's only real friend in the LAPD, Melvin Suggs, has gone into hiding rather than allow his femme fatale wife to go to the gas chamber. And that's only the beginning.

Easy finds himself pressed into a reckoning. All of his success cannot succor his heart. The 1970's have ushered in new expectations of men and women, Black and White, and Easy has to make a choice that will almost certainly hasten a permanent descent, one that might sunder his soul.

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The Final Curtain

Keigo Higashino

A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, only to die alone in an apartment far away, leaving her estranged son with many unanswered questions.

Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. Strangled to death, left in the bare apartment rented under a false name by a man who has disappeared without a trace. Oshitani lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo - and neither her family nor friends have any idea why she would have gone there.

Hers is the second strangulation death in that approximate area of Tokyo - the other was a homeless man, killed and his body burned in a tent by the river. As the police search through Oshitani's past for any clue that might shed some light, one of the detectives reaches out to Detective Kaga for advice. As the case unfolds, an unexpected connective emerges between the murder (or murders) now and the long-ago case of Detective Kaga's missing mother.

The Final Curtain, one of Keigo Higashino's most acclaimed mysteries, brings the story of Detective Kaga to a surprising conclusion in a series of rich, surprising twists.

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Arya Winters and the Tiramisu of Death

Amita Murray

Arya Winters is your typical cozy heroine. She lives in a cottage in a small English village, and bakes for a living - well, she specializes in macabre desserts. She has nosy neighbors, who she avoids ruthlessly due to her social anxiety. And she has a keen interest in all things sexy, especially Branwell Beam, the writer next door.

When her neighbor Tobias Yards turns up dead after eating poisoned tiramisu (definitely not poisoned when she baked it), no one seems to connect it to Arya's Auntie Meera's recent death. Instead, they blame her excruciatingly average ex-boyfriend--and Tobias's nephew--and so she takes matters into her own hands. Now all she has to do to uncover the truth is to get over her aversion to Other People. Besides that, it's just a matter of getting beyond some yellow tape, dodging her former BFF Tallulah from secondary school, and getting into Branwell's pants--he seems strangely reluctant.

What Arya doesn't realize is that the murderer is dangerous, preying on lonely people who've experienced trauma, and that she might have to do all she can not to become the next victim.

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Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

Benjamin Stevenson

When the Australian Mystery Writers' Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn't pan out.

The program is a who's who of crime writing royalty:

the debut writer (me!)

the forensic science writer

the blockbuster writer

the legal thriller writer

the literary writer

the psychological suspense writer

But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.

Of course, we should also know how to commit one.

How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?

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Writing an Identity Not Your Own

Alex Temblador

A practical guide to help authors authentically write and edit a character whose identity is different than their own.

Do you have the tools to authentically write and edit a character whose identity is different than your own? It’s not a subject that’s generally taught in creative writing programs, and there are so few craft books and online resources on the subject. Even if you can take a seminar, class, or workshop, there’s nothing like having an easy-to-understand book on hand to provide guidance and insight every time you craft characters with historically
marginalized identities.


In Writing an Identity Not Your Own, award-winning author Alex Temblador discusses one of the most contentious topics in creative writing: crafting a character whose identity is historically marginalized. What is “identity,” and how do unconscious biases and bias blocks impact and influence what we write? What is intersectionality? You’ll learn about identity terms, stereotypes, and tropes, and receive genre-specific advice related to various identities to consider when writing different races and ethnicities, sexual and romantic orientations, gender identities, disabilities, nationalities, and more. Through writing strategies, exercises, and literary excerpts, writers will gain a clearer understanding on how misrepresentations and harmful portrayals can appear in storylines, dialogue, and characterization. Alex will guide writers from the brainstorming phase
through the editing process so they can gain a full understanding of the complexities of writing other identities and why it’s important to get them right.

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What Fire Brings

Rachel Howzell Hall

A writer's search for her missing friend becomes a real-life thriller in a twisting novel of suspense by the New York Times bestselling author of These Toxic Things.

Bailey Meadows has just moved into the remote Topanga Canyon home of thriller author Jack Beckham. As his writer-in-residence, she's supposed to help him once again reach the bestseller list. But she's not there to write a thriller--she's there to find Sam Morris, a community leader dedicated to finding missing people, who has disappeared in the canyon surrounding Beckham's property.

The missing woman was last seen in the drought-stricken forest known for wildfires and mountain lions. Each new day, Bailey learns just how dangerous these canyons are--for the other women who have also gone missing here...and for her. Could these missing women be linked to strange events that occurred decades ago at the Beckham estate?

As fire season in the canyons approaches, Bailey must race to unravel the truth from fiction before she becomes the next woman lost in the forest.

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The Enigma of Room 622

Joël Dicker

A burnt-out writer's retreat at a fancy Swiss hotel is interrupted by a murder mystery in this metafictional, meticulously crafted whodunit from the New York Times bestselling author of The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair.

A writer named Joël, Switzerland's most prominent novelist, flees to the Hôtel de Verbier, a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. Disheartened over a recent breakup and his longtime publisher's death, Joël hopes to rest. However, his plans quickly go awry. It all starts with a seemingly innocuous detail: at the Verbier, there is no room 622.

Before long, Joël and fellow guest Scarlett uncover a long-unsolved murder that transpired in the hotel's room 622. The attendant circumstances: the succession of Switzerland's largest private bank, a mysterious counterintelligence operation called P-30, and a most disreputable sabotage of hotel hospitality. A European phenomenon, The Enigma of Room 622 is a matryoshka doll of intrigue-as precise as a Swiss watch-and Dicker's most diabolically addictive thriller yet.

Translated from the French by Robert Bononno

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Sniffing Out Murder

Kallie E. Benjamin

When a murder unleashes a widespread investigation through Crosbyville, children’s book author Pris and her trusty bloodhound, Bailey, must sniff out the truth before the whole town goes to the dogs.

After deciding that life as a teacher wasn’t right for her, Priscilla found inspiration for her first children’s book in her three-year-old bloodhound’s nose for truth, and so The Adventures of Bailey the Bloodhound was born. After the book’s massively pawsitive response led Pris to move back to her hometown of Crosbyville, Indiana, to continue the series, she’s surprised by how things have changed in the town, but even more so how they haven’t.

Pris is frustrated to discover that newly elected school board trustee Whitney Kelley—a former high school mean girl—is intent on making Crosbyville more competitive by eliminating “frivolous spending” on the arts and social programs, including Pris and Bailey’s beloved pet-assisted reading program. A minor altercation between them isn’t anything unusual, but after Bailey sniffs out Whitney’s body in a bed of begonias, locals start hounding Pris and Bailey as suspects for the crime.

With Bailey’s sharp senses and Pris’s hometown know-how, can they prove to the community that they’re all barking up the wrong tree?

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Murder Ink

Betty Hechtman

Asked to write a celebration of life book for the funeral of a former client, writer for hire Veronica Blackstone finds herself questioning the death. No one quite knows what happened and the prominent family are more concerned with their image than the truth. While celebrating her client's life, Veronica searches for the truth about her death.

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I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died

Amanda Flower

When a literary icon stays with the Dickinson family, Emily and her housemaid Willa find themselves embroiled in a shocking murder in this new mystery from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award–winning author Amanda Flower.

August 1856. The Dickinson family is comfortably settled in their homestead on Main Street. Emily’s brother, Austin Dickinson, and his new wife are delighted when famous thinker and writer Ralph Waldo Emerson comes to Amherst to speak at a local literary society and decides he and his young secretary, Luther Howard, will stay with the newlyweds. Emily has been a longtime admirer of Emerson’s writing and is thrilled at the chance to meet her idol. She is determined to impress him with her quick wit, and if she can gather the courage, a poem. Willa Noble, the second maid in the Dickinson home and Emily's friend, encourages her to speak to the famous but stern man. But his secretary, Luther, intrigues Willa more because of his clear fondness for the Dickinson sisters.

Willa does not know if Luther truly cares for one of the Dickinson girls or if he just sees marrying one of them as a way to raise himself up in society. After a few days in his company, Willa starts to believe it’s the latter. Miss Lavinia, Emily’s sister, appears to be enchanted by Luther; a fact that bothers Emily greatly. However, Emily’s fears are squashed when Luther turns up dead in the Dickinson’s garden. It seems that he was poisoned. Emerson, aghast at the death of his secretary, demands answers. Emily and Willa set out to find them in order to save the Dickinson family reputation and stop a cold-blooded fiend from killing again.

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The Black Box

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Distilled over many years from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s legendary Harvard introductory course in African American Studies, The Black Box: Writing the Race, is the story of Black self-definition in America through the prism of the writers who have led the way. From Phillis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, to Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright, James Baldwin and Toni Morrison—these writers used words to create a livable world—a "home" —for Black people destined to live out their lives in a bitterly racist society.

It is a book grounded in the beautiful irony that a community formed legally and conceptually by its oppressors to justify brutal sub-human bondage, transformed itself through the word into a community whose foundational definition was based on overcoming one of history’s most pernicious lies. This collective act of resistance and transcendence is at the heart of its self-definition as a "community." Out of that contested ground has flowered a resilient, creative, powerful, diverse culture formed by people who have often disagreed markedly about what it means to be "Black," and about how best to shape a usable past out of the materials at hand to call into being a more just and equitable future. 

This is the epic story of how, through essays and speeches, novels, plays, and poems, a long line of creative thinkers has unveiled the contours of—and resisted confinement in—the "black box" inside which this "nation within a nation" has been assigned, willy nilly, from the nation’s founding through to today. This is a book that records the compelling saga of the creation of a people.

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Clause of Death

Lorna Barrett

Tricia Miles and her sister, Angelica, are the co-presidents of the Stoneham Chamber of Commerce. Things are changing in the booktown, and some merchants would say not for the better. They grumble that too many non-book-related stores are moving into the village, taking up the most visible storefronts on Main Street, diluting the “Booktown” moniker. Of course, the members with other businesses, like the latest, The Bee’s Knees, are fine with other businesses moving in. No matter what side of the argument they're on, all the business owners agree on one thing: Tricia and Angelica are to blame. 
 
Still, it's a pretty typical day in the life of a small-town Chamber of Commerce until one of the disgruntled bookstore owners is killed—Eli Meier from The Inner Light Bookstore, the most vocal of the Chamber complainers. He sold religious and other spiritual books, but also stocked books on wild conspiracy theories and sold incense, crystals, etc. Eli had never been a member of the Chamber until Angelica recently convinced him to join. He hit on her and she, having good taste, turned him down. He hounded (but not stalked) her, and some might think that was a motive for murder. 
 
Stoneham's new police chief is an old friend of Tricia's, but that doesn't mean he's going to go easy on her sister. One might even say that he's going to throw the book at her.

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How to Sell a Haunted House

Grady Hendrix

New York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a thrilling new novel that explores the way your past—and your family—can haunt you like nothing else.
 
When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.
 
Mostly, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. But she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.
 
Some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…
 
Like his novels The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires and The Final Girl Support Group, How to Sell a Haunted House is classic Hendrix: equal parts heartfelt and terrifying—a gripping new read from “the horror master” (USA Today).

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The Dead Romantics

Ashley Poston

A disillusioned millennial ghostwriter who, quite literally, has some ghosts of her own, has to find her way back home in this sparkling adult debut from national bestselling author Ashley Poston.

Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.
 
When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won't give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.
 
For ten years, she's run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.
 
Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.
 
Romance is most certainly dead . . . but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.

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A Bad Day for Sunshine

Darynda Jones

Del Sol, New Mexico is known for three things: its fry-an-egg-on-the-cement summers, strong cups of coffee—and, now, a nationwide manhunt? Del Sol native Sunshine Vicram has returned to town as the elected sheriff—thanks to her adorably meddlesome parents who nominated her—and she expects her biggest crime wave to involve an elderly flasher named Doug. But a teenage girl is missing, a kidnapper is on the loose, and all of this is reminding Sunshine why she left Del Sol in the first place. Add to that the trouble at her daughter’s new school, plus and a kidnapped prized rooster named Puff Daddy, and, well, the forecast looks anything but sunny.

But even clouds have their silver linings. This one's got Levi, Sunshine's sexy, almost-old-flame, and a fiery-hot US Marshal. With temperatures rising everywhere she turns, Del Sol's normally cool-minded sheriff is finding herself knee-deep in drama and danger. Can Sunshine face the call of duty—and find the kidnapper who's terrorizing her beloved hometown—without falling head over high heels in love...or worse?

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A History of Ghosts, Spirits and the Supernatural

DORLING KINDERSLEY.

Discover the spine-chilling history of ghosts and the supernatural across the world in this illustrated guide.

A History of Ghosts, Spirits and the Supernatural charts the extraordinary narrative of one of the most fascinating and controversial subjects in the world, covering everything from Neolithic ancestor worship and ancient necromancy to modern-day ghost-hunting and creepypasta tales and from the Japanese onryo to the La Llorona of Latin America.

The perfect introduction to the subject, this spellbinding volume details the numerous ways in which spirits and the spirit world have been depicted in myth and religion, folklore, art, and literature.

In this ghostly novel, you will find:

  • Recounts of infamous tales of haunted houses and ghost ships, séances and mediumships, poltergeists, possessions, and demonic encounters.
  • Feature profiles for other ghostly or undead beings, such as vampires and werewolves.
  • The numerous reasons that ghost stories and tales of the uncanny are a common feature of cultures the world over.


A serious but reader-friendly overview of a fascinating and controversial subject that explores the supernatural across the world and throughout history.

The most holistic history of the subject available, A History of Ghosts, Spirits, and the Supernatural will shock and delight you in equal measure - whether you are a believer or a skeptic.

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The Library of the Dead

T. L. Huchu

Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker – and they sure do love to talk. Now she speaks to Edinburgh’s dead, carrying messages to those they left behind. A girl’s gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone’s bewitching children – leaving them husks, empty of joy and strength. It’s on Ropa’s patch, so she feels honor-bound to investigate. But what she learns will rock her world.

Ropa will dice with death as she calls on Zimbabwean magic and Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. And although underground Edinburgh hides a wealth of dark secrets, she also discovers an occult library, a magical mentor and some unexpected allies.

Yet as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted?


Edinburgh Nights series:
The Library of the Dead
Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments

The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle
The Legacy of Arniston House

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Happy Medium

Sarah Adler

Fake spirit medium Gretchen Acorn is happy to help when her best (read: wealthiest) client hires her to investigate the unexplained phenomena preventing the sale of her bridge partner’s struggling goat farm. Gretchen may be a fraud, but she'd like to think she’s a beneficent one. So if "cleansing" the property will help a nice old man finally retire and put some much-needed cash in her pockets at the same time, who's she to say no?

Of course, it turns out said bridge partner isn't the kindly AARP member Gretchen imagined—Charlie Waybill is young, hot as hell, and extremely unconvinced that Gretchen can communicate with the dead. (Which, fair.) Except, to her surprise, Gretchen finds herself face-to-face with Everett: the very real, very chatty ghost that’s been wreaking havoc during every open house. And he wants her to help ensure Charlie avoids the same family curse that's had Everett haunting Gilded Creek since the 1920s.

Now, Gretchen has one month to convince Charlie he can’t sell the property. Unfortunately, hard work and honesty seem to be the way to win over the stubborn farmer—not exactly Gretchen's strengths. But trust isn’t the only thing growing between them, and the risk of losing Charlie to the spirit realm looms over Gretchen almost as annoyingly as Everett himself. To save the goat farm, its friendly phantom, and the man she's beginning to love, Gretchen will need to pull off the greatest con of her life: being fully, genuinely herself.

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