THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  Jeremy Meeks first catapulted to fame when his model-worthy mugshot went viral—now he sets the record straight about his life-changing journey from the streets to the runway. His harrowing and inspirational memoir, MODEL CITIZEN (KingstonImperialLLC) about overcoming gang violence, poverty, and race—perfect for fans of  Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood  and  Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem It all started with the mugshot seen ‘round the world. Jeremy Meeks rose to global fame, as his photograph from jail led to nicknames like Prison Bae and Hot Felon soon after. He became an icon while still behind bars, and once he left the prison system, he vowed never again to return. But there is much more to Meeks than a pretty face. From bouncing coast to coast in his childhood, to enduring a poverty-stricken and gang-tied adolescence that ultimately led to prison being his second home, Meeks has a story to tell.  Model Citizen  is the tale of how one m...

  #TheBlueSisters (BallantineBooks) by Coco Mellors  is a story of what it takes to keep living after loss—and, ultimately, to fall in love with life again. The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different.  Avery , the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London;  Bonnie , a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and  Lucky , the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left the family reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in. But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize that the greatest secrets they...

  When an heiress disappears from her superyacht and security footage shows her getting pushed, the main suspect has to prove her innocence in Jan Gansei's new novel, DEAD BELOW DECK (HarperCollins).  It was supposed to be the best-ever girls’ trip: five days, four friends, one luxury yacht, no parents. But on the final night, as the yacht cruised the deep and dark waters between Florida and Grand Cayman, eighteen-year-old heiress Giselle vanished. She’s nowhere to be found the next morning even after a frantic search, until security footage surfaces . . . showing Maggie pushing her overboard. But Maggie has no memory of what happened. All she knows is that she woke up with a throbbing headache, thousands of dollars in cash in her safe, a passport that isn’t hers, and Giselle’s diary. And while Maggie had her own reasons to want Giselle dead, so did everyone else on board: jealous Viv, calculating Emi, even some members of the staff. What really went down on the top deck that ...

  Autumn is in full swing for the town of Shady Palms—the perfect time for warm drinks, cozy cardigans, and…dead bodies? The annual Shady Palms Corn Festival is one of the town’s biggest moneymakers, drawing crowds from all over the Midwest looking to partake in delicious treats, local crafts, and of course, the second largest corn maze in Illinois. Lila Macapagal and her Brew-ha Cafe crew, Adeena Awan and Elena Torres, are all too happy to participate in the event and even make a little wager on who can make it through the corn maze the fastest—but their fun is suddenly cut short when a dead body is found in the middle of the maze…and an unconscious Adeena lies next to it, clutching a bloody knife. The body is discovered to be a local politician’s wife, and all signs—murder weapon included—point to Adeena as the culprit. But Lila knows her best friend couldn’t have done this, so she and her crew put on their sleuthing caps yet again to find the killer who framed Adeena and show th...

  The world of social media, big tech and internet connectivity provides fertile new ground for humans to deceive, defraud and possibly murder one another in Jane Pek's new novel, THE VERIFIERS (VintagePublisher/AAKnopf). Claudia is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she's just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency.    A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she's landed her ideal job. But when a client vanishes, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit. Part literary mystery, part family story,  The Verifiers  is a clever and incisive examinat...

  A dazzling new romance by  USA TODAY  bestselling author,   Sara Ackerman .   They say opposites attract, but are they meant to last? ‘Iwa Young’s life is high in the Maui rainforest. As a field biologist, she’s happiest in the company of trees and birds and waterfalls. When a developer arrives with plans for a so-called eco resort in the middle of a forest full of endangered species, ‘Iwa puts all her energy into the fight to protect it. But a chance encounter threatens to distract her. His name is Dane Parsons, a big-wave surfer from California. ‘Iwa has a few unbreakable rules, and at the top of her list:  never date a surfer .  Dane is part of an underground group of big-wave riders, and his connection to the ocean runs deep. When he meets ‘Iwa, he can’t get her out of his mind. But ‘Iwa wants nothing to do with Dane until he offers to help protect her beloved forest and waterfall. Always on the hunt for the ultimate ride, Dan...

  In stories tailor-made for pet lovers, a seasoned veterinarian shares her good, bad, and messy days on the job—and highlights the undeniable magic of the human-animal bond in TALES OF A PET VET (SheWritesPress). Dr. Dawn Filos has always had a passion for animals—and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, she turned that passion into a career. Here, with emotional honesty, Dr. Dawn shares her colorful, memorable journey from nervous novice to seasoned, self-assured doctor. This modern-day James Herriot ultimately finds her niche as a house-call vet, where she creates a way to practice on her own terms with the privilege of unique, intimate access into the homes and lives of her beloved patients and their human families. Sometimes heartwarming, sometimes sad, and often hilarious,  Tales of a Pet Vet  will resonate deeply with pet lovers everywhere. Dr. Dawn Filos has been a practicing small animal veterinarian for over 31 years. She has taught pet first aid courses, C...

  Self-made billionaire Dakota Wynfred is convinced that the only way to save American democracy is by putting the last Tudor Queen in the Oval Office. Dakota Wynfred will stop at nothing to prevent the reelection of the vile US president, Robert Vlakas, who wants to nationalize her cybersecurity company and simultaneously set fire to the Constitution. And that includes finding a champion who can defeat him in the 2028 presidential election. But it won’t be easy because Dakota’s champion of choice—though brilliant, politically savvy, charming, and tough enough to survive multiple assassination attempts—happens to have been dead for over 400 years. So, what if Queen Elizabeth I has never heard of electricity, Netflix, or Uber? Dakota’s team of experts travel back in time to try to convince Elizabeth to leap more than four centuries into the future to embark on a quest to become the greatest woman ruler in history…again. Maria Vetrano tried to save the whales when she was nine years ...

  In this one-of-a-kind mystery with heart and humor, a hilariously grumpy pony must save the only human he’s ever loved after discovering she stands accused of a murder he knows she didn’t commit. Pony has been passed from owner to owner for longer than he can remember. Fed up, he busts out and goes on a cross-country mission to reunite with Penny, the little girl who he was separated from and hasn’t seen in years. Penny, now an adult, is living an ordinary life when she gets a knock on her door and finds herself in handcuffs, accused of murder and whisked back to the place she grew up. Her only comfort when the past comes back to haunt her is the memory of her precious, rebellious pony. Hearing of Penny’s fate, Pony knows that Penny is no murderer. So, as smart and devious as he is cute, the pony must use his hard-won knowledge of human weakness and cruelty to try to clear Penny’s name and find the real killer. This acutely observant, feel-good mystery reveals the humanity of ani...

  Shortlisted for the 2024 Financial Times & Schroders Business Book of the Year In November of 2022, a webpage was posted online with a simple text box. It was an AI chatbot called ChatGPT, and was unlike any app people had used before. It was more human than a customer service agent, more convenient than a Google search. Behind the scenes, battles for control and prestige between the world’s two leading AI firms, OpenAI and DeepMind, who now steers Google's AI efforts, has remained elusive - until now. In  Supremacy , Olson, tech writer at  Bloomberg,  tells the astonishing story of the battle between these two AI firms, their struggles to use their tech for good, and the hazardous direction they could go as they serve two tech Goliaths whose power is unprecedented in history. The story focuses on the continuing rivalry of two key CEOs at the center of it all, who cultivated a religion around their mission to build god-like super intelligent machines: Sam Altma...

  In Drop Dead Sisters (MindysBookStudio) by Amelia Diane Coombs, t hree sisters reunite on a family vacation and rekindle their relationship the only way they know how―by covering each other’s tracks in a real-life murder mystery not even they can figure out. Remi Finch has spent the better part of her adult life avoiding family―especially her sisters. They just don’t click. Besides, her unconventional upbringing and major anxiety have convinced Remi that she can’t build a relationship with anyone. Period. When her parents plan a family reunion camping trip to celebrate their anniversary, Remi’s willing to reconnect, if only because she doesn’t have a choice. But then a dead body turns up at their campsite, and their sisterly bonding kicks into high gear. No one knows the whole story, but the Finch women are prepared to cover up the pieces before anyone tries to put them together. It’s a precautionary measure, probably unnecessary. Nobody else was there, so how could they have see...