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IN HER DEFENSE by Philippa Malicka - Spotlight

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  As a sensational celebrity libel trial unfolds, a young woman at the periphery secretly wields the power to make or break the case. But with her own hidden past, will she dare to speak up? Everyone is watching. Only one person knows the truth. The whole country has been riveted by the trial: Beloved TV star and national treasure Anna Finbow, standing in court, accusing her daughter’s therapist, Jean Guest, of brainwashing her daughter, Mary, for her own financial gain. Jean insists Mary’s traumatic memories arise from her upbringing and her time studying at a prestigious art school in Rome; wounds only Jean’s therapy can heal. But as the trial unfolds, it’s Augusta “Gus” Bird, Anna’s former employee—a seemingly insignificant bystander, a nobody—who holds the key to unraveling the tangled web of lies and deceit. What really happened to Mary in Rome? And if her memories can’t be trusted, how will they ever uncover the truth behind her estrangement? Twisty and propulsive,  In H...

YOURS ALWAYS by Corrine Sullivan - Spotlight

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  Talia Danvers is an engineer for a high-end dating app who hasn’t managed to code her own love life. Then she reconnects with Townsend Fuller: the one who got away. Or, more accurately, the one who left her for someone else. But Townsend swears he’s a changed man, and Talia wants to believe him. Even if he  is  the prime suspect in the disappearance of Amanda Reade, the same woman who broke them up in the first place. In cases like these, it’s always the boyfriend. That’s what Amanda’s sister Kaitlyn thinks. So does Talia’s colleague Meera Ratnam—and she’ll risk everything to convince Talia that she’s making a deadly mistake. Then Talia starts receiving menacing texts from Amanda. Suddenly, no one knows what to believe. Is Townsend guilty? Is Amanda alive? Or is someone playing games? Featuring unreliable narrators and written with acid wit and creeping unease,  Yours Always  is a mind-bending tale of dangerous love. Corinne Sullivan is the senior news editor ...

ADULTING FOR AMATEURS by Jess H. Gutierrez - Spotlight

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  In  Adulting for Amateurs , Jess H. Gutierrez marvels at how—we can’t avoid the fact anymore—her cohort, the millennials, are approaching middle age. While 1998 seems like just yesterday, we are now grown-ups who feel like we’re still growing up. And at forty-two, Jess has quite a trove of stories to tell. Jess is leaning into her geriatric millennial years and reflects on how growing up does not necessarily bestow one with maturity. When the dinner covers were lifted to reveal vertically posed sausages, hundreds of the fanciest wedding guests, including the mayor, were treated to a demure and refined Jess’s explosive guffaws. While Jess’s brothers now have wholesome families and responsible jobs, she can’t stop one-upping them, even if it gets her brother nearly fired by a potty-brained prank right before he scrubs into surgery. When Jess and her wife booked their first grown-up vacation, they discovered too late that their Hawaiian trip was to a Mormon resort and therefore...

NIGHT WE MET by Abby Jimenez - Spotlight

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From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Say You'll Remember Me comes a beautiful, compelling novel that revels in laughter, friendship, and the messy choices life can throw our way. In everyone’s life, there’s a split-second decision that can change everything... For Larissa, it came when choosing which guy to ride home with after a concert. That night, she had no idea she’d met the perfect man. She and Chris are great together, co-parenting a slightly unhinged rescue Yorkie, sharing their favorite books, and judging bread (pumpernickel for the win!). For the first time amid all her side hustles to scrape by, things finally feel easy. But Chris isn't the one who drove Larissa home all those months ago—Chris is her boyfriend's best friend. All Chris wants is for Larissa to be happy. Standing by on the sidelines is slowly killing him, but making a move would destroy someone else. And he’s just not that guy. Abby Jimenez is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of la...

A SPELL FOR SAINTS AND SINNERS by Emily Carpenter - Spotlight

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  Like a gender-flipped  You  but dripping with Southern Gothic atmosphere, a young psychic on the verge of losing everything becomes obsessed with a wealthy, beautiful heiress in this clever, darkly atmospheric novel, A SPELL FOR SAINTS AND SINNERS (Kensington)  by Emily Carpenter. It's a psychological suspense set amid the lush, moss-draped beauty of Savannah. In front of an elegantly shabby townhouse on a Savannah side street sits a hand-painted sign:  Miss Edie, Psychic . Ingrid White inherited the house and business from her beloved grandmother, a local celebrity in town. But unless Ingrid can find a way to pay for crushing property taxes and mounting repairs, she’s going to lose them both.     Ingrid has faith in the homespun witchcraft Edie passed down to her, yet hope, and clients are dwindling. . . . Until Sailor Loeffler’s bachelorette party changes everything. Sailor is local royalty—part of the vast “Savannah Sauce” empire, beauti...

THE KEEPER: Book 3 in the Cal Hooper series by Tana French - Spotlight

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  Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by  The New York Times ,  The Washington Post ,  Time ,  Oprah Daily ,  Today ,  BookPage , and  Goodreads On a cold night in the remote Irish village of Ardnakelty, a girl goes missing. Sweet, loving Rachel Holohan was about to be engaged to the son of the local big shot. Instead, she’s dead in the river. In a close-knit small town, a death like this isn’t simple. It comes wrapped in generations-old grudges and power struggles, and it splits the townland in two. Retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper has friends here now, and he owes them loyalty, but his fiancĂ©e Lena wants nothing to do with Ardnakelty’s tangles. As the feud becomes more vicious, their settled peace starts to crack apart. And when they uncover a scheme that casts a new light on Rachel’s death and threatens the whole village, they find themselves in the firing line.                       ...

THE PIE & MASH DETECTIVE AGENCY by J.D. Brinkworth - Spotlight

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  Oddball couple Jane and Simon take a private detective class and must use their (admittedly limited) skills to solve a series of mysterious disappearances in this delightful debut mystery. Jane Pye and Simon Mash are a millennial couple with a little extra time on their hands. Jane was recently let go from her position as a back-end programmer, having never been quite sure what that meant. And Simon’s career as a corporate collaboration consultant seems to be less collaborating and more scrolling the internet in search of matching velour tracksuits and well-balanced charcuterie boards. When they sign up for a private detective class on a whim, they quickly realize they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.  Their instructor, having a feeling his two worst students don’t have a chance of solving anything beyond finding the classroom, assigns them the case of Nellie Thorne, a woman recently reported missing. But she's not the first Nellie Thorne to disappear. In fact, sh...