THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  A millionaire and a house cleaner are a match  maid  in heaven in this sparkling new romantic comedy by New York Times  bestselling author Lynn Painter. As a professional cleaner, Abi Mariano never thought her apartment would have any sort of infestation, but because of a building-wide outbreak, she now needs somewhere to stay for a week. As a part-time student with two jobs, she doesn’t have many options. Then the solution presents itself: the owner of the penthouse she cleans is out of town for the week. She normally wouldn’t consider it, but he’s literally never around (she hasn’t even met him). It goes great…until one morning she finds two strangers in the kitchen. They’re the parents of the penthouse owner and they seem to think they’ve heard all about Abi—not as their son’s maid, but as his  girlfriend . Declan Powell has always put his career first, working his way up to become an executive at his company, but he still has his sights set on the next lev...

  Love is a dangerous game when your clients are killers…from the bestselling author behind  Love Letters to a Serial Killer . When Lexie's fiancé runs off with her so-called best friend on her birthday, her carefully crafted fairy-tale life shatters. Having survived horrors in her past, she was determined to finally get her happily-ever-after—and she's not giving up yet. To distract herself, Lexie throws herself into her unusual job: matchmaking psychopaths (a specialty her clients are blissfully unaware of). But the loneliness is crushing. So when a gorgeous, overprotective new client named Aidan insists they're soulmates, and another intriguing client, Rebecca, seems perfect to fill the best-friend-shaped hole in her life, Lexie can't help but find the attention comforting—despite her own professional boundaries. Then a human heart appears on Lexie's doorstep. As more threatening packages arrive and her fiancé mysteriously disappears, she must confront a terrifyi...

  In this sharply funny, feminist tinderbox, a theater critic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe writes a vicious one-star review of a struggling actress with whom he has a one-night stand . Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance—the show either deserves a five-star rave or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn’t deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair’s show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress. Unaware that she’s gone home with the theater critic who’s just written a career-ending review of her, Hayley wakes up at his apartment to see his scathing one-star critique in print on the kitchen table, and she’s not sure which humiliation offends her the most. So she revamps her show into a viral sensation critiquing Alex Lyons himself—entitled son of a famous actress, serial phi...

  From a true modern master of noir fiction comes a twisty new tale about two small town crooks who get in over their heads . . . Peck and Al have a good thing going. The two brothers own a bar and a hardware store and make a comfortable living. They also launder money for a criminal organization. Everything is perfectly fine until Peck begins to suspect that his brother is going to betray him to the local District Attorney. Things get even more complicated between them when Al’s hard drive with millions of dollars in Crypto goes missing – Peck was the only other person with access.  What starts out as a family squabble turns into an international battle between competing crime organizations, moving from small town New England to San Francisco to Mexico. Along the way the brothers encounter betrayal, double-dealing, kidnapping, and ultimately, revenge.                                     ...

    THE VIEW FROM LAKE COMO (Dutton) by bestselling author, Adriana Trigiani  is everything an immersive summer read should be—fresh, funny and heart-wrenching, with perfectly imperfect characters that readers will feel deeply connected to. With its vivid depiction of the complexities of familial relationships, the novel is a love letter to big Italian American families, Old World roots, and daughters who learn to live life on their own terms.   Readers will meet and quickly fall in love with Jess Capodimonte Baratta, a recently divorced young Italian American woman who’s had to move into the basement of her parents’ home in Lake Como, New Jersey, to hide, heal and dutifully care for her outspoken and overprotective parents, who don’t understand why her marriage to Bobby Bilancia, “the catch of Lake Como,” didn’t work out (it’s complicated). Jess is also a talented draftswoman working in a marble business run by her dapper Uncle Louie, who believes she can do anythin...

  An electric coming-of-age novel that explores grief, family, sexuality, and love as an ambitious young woman from Washington Heights tries to make it on Broadway. How much of yourself are you willing to sacrifice to chase your dreams? After her sister Nena’s sudden death, Xiomara, an Afro-Latina singer and actress born and raised in Washington Heights, is numb. With her sister gone, Xiomara is painfully close to thirty, living in a tiny apartment with her ultra-Catholic Puerto Rican mother, and having the same shitty sex with the same shitty men that she’s been entertaining for years. When a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to audition for Manny Santos, the most charismatic director of the moment, falls into her lap, it seems to Xiomara like a second chance to pursue the dream she thought she’d left behind has finally come. Nothing is simple, and soon Xiomara finds herself interacting with the ugliest sides of the industry and the powerful men that control it. While Xiomara grapple...

  January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles. Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile. Meanwhile FBI Agent Tucker Minnick, whose coal tattoo hints at an Appalachian past, presses his ears to the hotel’s walls, listening for the diplomats’ secrets. He has one of his own, which is how he knows that June’s balancing act can have dangerous consequences: the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal. June has never met a guest she couldn’t delight, ...

  GRAVE BIRDS (MIRA) is a twisty, fresh take on Southern Gothic that follows a mysterious, charming bachelor as he makes his way into a small town, bringing a plague and the devil with him. Grave birds haunt the cemeteries of Hawthorne, South Carolina, where Spanish moss drips from the trees and Southern charm is imbued with lies. Hollis Sutherland never knew these unique birds existed, not until she died and was brought back to life. The ghostly birds are manifestations of the dead’s unfinished business, and they know Hollis and her uncanny gift can set them free. When a mysterious, charming bachelor wanders into the small town, bizarre events begin to plague its wealthiest citizens—blood drips from dogwood blossoms, flocks of birds crash into houses, fire tornadoes descend from the sky. Hollis knows these are the omens her grandfather warned about, announcing the devil’s return. But despite Cain Landry’s eerie presence and the plague that has followed him, his...

  When her father dies suddenly, Jane thinks it’s the worst thing that could ever happen to her. And then she finds the letters – nine years’ worth of  “I love you’s”  from a woman who isn’t her mother. The letters make her cry. And then they make her angry. Because in them is talk of a baby, and if Jane has a half-sibling, she wants to know. So she boards a flight from LA to Boston to find her father’s mistress and the teenage child she suspects they had together.   In a suburb of Boston, sixteen-year-old Adam Ross dreams of playing college football. But he’s got to get his weight under control first. Because he wants to be a wide receiver and wideouts are lean and fast. But he just can’t stop eating.   Adam’s mother never wanted to show him the letters from his birth mother, but Adam is self-destructing and wants answers, even if they hurt. And so she gives her son the box full of  “I’m sorry’s”  from the woman who birthed then abandoned him – which ...