THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  Minha is born on the backstreets of late nineteenth-century London, the daughter of an Indian spice merchant and an English prostitute. She has a remarkable gift: an incredible sense of taste. She can taste the earth in which potatoes were grown or the tree on which fruits have ripened. She can smell each ingredient—and identify a single false note. But Minha’s gift and her mixed-race heritage provoke mistrust and rejection, even within her own family.  Escaping alone to France, Minha chances upon work in the Château de Bellefalaise, where for the first time her strange abilities are lauded.       As official poison taster for Duc Nicolas, Minha must taste every morsel of food that will pass his lips. Others in the household are hostile to her, but when she discovers a man hiding in the stables, their unexpected meeting turns into the first true connection she’s felt since arriving in France.      But mystery and paranoi...

  A deadly game of cat and mouse unfolds when a housewife with a secret life takes on a tech billionaire with secrets darker than her own in Ren DeStephano's novel, A LIE FOR A LIE (Berkley). Margaux leads a double life that would make most people dizzy. By day, she's a seemingly ordinary interior decorator with a picture-perfect marriage. By night, she works for a mysterious employer known only as Mr. X. She infiltrates the lives of dangerous targets, gaining their trust and ultimately exposing their crimes.  Her latest Unraveling the secret life of Bertram Casimir, a billionaire tech CEO whose career is as mysterious as his past. His sister claims he stole her app to build his fortune. Not only that, his girlfriend may have gone missing recently. He sees through her carefully constructed facade, matching her move for move. As the lines between hunter and prey blur, Margaux finds herself unexpectedly drawn to Bertram. They share more than she'd like to admit—a dangerous in...

  From acclaimed agrarian activist and ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan, WATER IN THE DESERT (MilkweedEditions)  is a profoundly inspiring account of interspecies belonging, collaborative conservation, and the sacred work of caring for the earth. “I went looking for water in the desert and found that the world was teaching me how to listen.” Celebrated as a “world visionary” ( Utne Reader ) and our “lyrical poet of biodiversity” ( Mother Jones ), Gary Paul Nabhan has authored dozens of books and been awarded a MacArthur “genius grant.” In Water in the Desert , he traces the fascinating story of his life, offering in the process a vision for cultural renewal. As a Lebanese-American boy growing up in the dunes along Lake Michigan’s southern shore, where school is excruciating and symptoms of neurodivergence are diagnosed as disabilities, Nabhan finds refuge and revelation in the natural world. In college, he gravitates to the thinkers now associated with the dawn of ecology as a d...

  Brimming with nostalgia, but also mysteries and lies, Darby Bozeman's  SUMMER’S NEVER OVER (Berkley)  finds a young woman haunted by the events of a catastrophic summer at her family’s remote Southern camp. Now, she is forced to confront her past—and dig up the truth—to determine whether the tragic death of her fellow counselor was truly an accident.   Dread’s Cove is a summer camp nestled in the Georgia mountains, beside a gorgeous lake. It’s full of the expected things: friendship, sneaking out late, drama, angst, and romance. But at this camp, there are also sinister, long-buried secrets.   Five years ago, Greer left Dread’s Cove and vowed she’d never return. A summer of new friendships, campfire stories, and young love devolved into terror when dangerous and threatening acts were committed by a mysterious presence. The campers dubbed the culprit “The Phantom”—based on an old ghost story, taking on a new life. And The Phantom’s perilous string of tricks end...

  A scandalous affair. A power struggle for the throne. A sensational rivalry between an English queen and an American social climber. In this electrifying novel, THE WINDSOR WOMEN(Ballantine/RandomHouseBooks), tells the story of the Abdication of Edward VIII—and the two women at the center of it all. Feuding Windsor brothers and their wives—some things, it seems, never change.  The Men : Edward David Windsor, heir to the British throne, and younger brother Albert, aka Bertie, “the spare.”  The Women : Edward’s wife, Wallis, an American divorcée, and Bertie's wife,b Elizabeth, daughter of Scottish nobility.  The Feud : a rivalry that will last all their lives, make headlines, and still fuel gossip pages a century later. The Windsor Affair  recreates the cataclysmic events that nearly toppled the monarchy and incited the power struggle between Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the queen-to-be, and Wallis Simpson, aka “That Woman," who fell into a calculated love affair ...

  When two misfits discover they’ve inherited the same beach house, sparks fly in the most unexpected ways, in this hilarious and heartfelt rom-com, THE SUMMER SHARE (Berkley) by Jenn McKinley from the  New York Times  bestselling author of  Summer Reading . Free-spirited travel influencer Hannah Spencer has spent five years touring the country in her vintage van, alone save for her hulking Great Dane, Dude. Until an unexpected inheritance from her pops has Hannah thinking about putting down roots in Cape Split, North Carolina, where she’s the new owner of a worse-for-wear seaside beach house. Or, rather, fifty percent of one. Turns out Simon O’Malley inherited the other half from his gramps. As Simon and Hannah spend the summer tag-teaming repairs on the crumbling cottage, they discover it was once home to a timeless love story. As their own relationship shifts from enemies to friends to lovers, they begin to wonder if the house’s romantic past might be a good omen ...