THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  Murder disrupts the routine for four quirky librarians who hide among books to keep their secrets in THE LIBRARIANS (Berkley) from  USA Today  bestselling author Sherry Thomas. Sometimes a workplace isn’t just a workplace but a place of safety, understanding, and acceptance. And sometimes murder threatens the sanctity of that beloved refuge.... In the leafy suburbs of Austin, Texas, a small branch library welcomes the public every day of the week. But the patrons who love the helpful, unobtrusive staff and leave rave reviews on Yelp don’t always realize that their librarians are human, too. Hazel flees halfway across the world for what she hopes will be a new beginning. Jonathan, a six-foot-four former college football player, has never fit in anywhere else. Astrid tries to forget her heartbreak by immersing herself in work, but the man who ghosted her six months ago is back, promising trouble. And Sophie, who has the most to lose, maintains a careful and respectfu...

  Award-winning author Keith Lowe's newest critical deep dive into the history of Naples during WWII is NAPLES 1944 (StMartinsPress)hh Keith Lowe has chronicled the end of WWII in Europe in his award-winning book,  Savage Continent,  and the war’s aftermath in the sequel,  The Fear and the Freedom. In  Naples, 1944,  he brings readers another masterful chronicle of the terrible and often unexpected consequences of war. Even before the fall of Mussolini, Naples was a place of great contrasts filled with palaces and slums, beloved cuisine and widespread hunger.  After the Allied liberation, these contrasts made the city instantly notorious. Compared to the starving population, Allied soldiers were staggeringly wealthy. For a packet of cigarettes, even the lowest ranks could buy themselves a watch, a new suit, or a woman for the night. As the biggest port in Allied hands, Naples quickly became the center of Italy’s black market and has remained so ever si...

  A harrowing abduction becomes a tantalizing nationwide game in a twisty and ingenious novel of suspense by  bestselling author Cate Holahan. Alice Ingold has been kidnapped. Call the police. Alert the media. You can’t play this game without all the pieces. Beautiful, blond, and immensely privileged, Alice Ingold is the perfect victim for a true-crime obsessed culture―and for a masked duo with a singular purpose. Instead of a ransom demand, her captors have a riddle, and they’re inviting the entire country to solve it. No one is more invested in the search than Alice’s parents: Catherine, a socialite with obscene generational wealth, and Brian, a visionary AI tech guru. But while Brian turns to machines to solve the problem, Catherine tries to crowdsource the solution, stopping at nothing to bring her daughter home. And America isn’t just watching the story unfold…it’s playing along. The nationwide scavenger hunt for Alice is on. As an increasingly desperate Catherine strives...

  A gothic feminist body horror in two timelines revolving around three Anatomical Venuses—ultrarealistic wax figures of women—that come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them. Seoul, present day.  Antiques dealer Alys’s task is nearly complete. She has at last secured Elizabeth, the final anatomical Venus in a dangerously intertwined trio. Crafted in eighteenth-century London and modeled after real-life sex workers to entice male medical students to study female anatomy, these eerie wax figures, known as slashed beauties, carry unsavory lore. Legend has it that the figures are bewitched, and come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them. Now Alys embarks for England, where she knows what she must do: sever her cursed connection to the Venuses once and for all. London, 1763.  Abandoned and penniless in Covent Garden, wide-eyed Eleanor and another young woman, Emily, are taken under the wing of beautiful and beguiling Elizabeth, one of the city’s ...

  The spellbinding new cosy fantasy, Uncharmed (Berkley) from  bestselling author Lucy Jane Wood is perfect  in every witch way… Annie Wildwood is practically perfect in every witch way. Her life is a haze of pink, magic, and impossibly high standards. But, when she is tasked with mentoring a troubled teenage witch with extraordinary powers, Annie’s charmed existence is quickly thrown into utter chaos… Set in the same enchanting world as  Rewitched ,  Uncharmed  celebrates found family, unconditional love, and the joy of swapping perfectionism and people-pleasing for being your true magical self. I found myself falling into the world of writing almost by accident. My blogging friends at university were applying for swanky magazine internships, and I decided I should probably do something useful like that for myself. It was an obvious decision that almost made itself on my behalf, because writing is just who I am, and reading has always just been what I do. ...

  A shocking murder in the New Zealand bush—and the witness who looks all too familiar—draws a woman back to the very place she swore she’d never return to in this breakneck debut thriller, THE VANISHING PLACE (Berkley) by Zoe Rankin. A child who ran from the forest. A woman who must return to it Growing up with her younger siblings in the unforgiving New Zealand bush, Effie believed their parents had cut them off from civilization because they loved Nature. She never suspected that their reasons might be more menacing. After witnessing a terrifying episode of violence, she escaped the wilderness to forge a life for herself halfway across the globe. Now, when she learns the only witness to a murder is a little girl who looks just like her, Effie is compelled to return to the scene of her troubled childhood, where the secrets of her upbringing and the terrors of her past come rushing back to the surface. To find out once and for all what became of her family—and possibly help this m...

  She’s known as the Ice Princess. He’s got a reputation for melting hearts...except hers. Let the rivalry begin. Cynthia Kumar always wins. She’s successful, competitive, and knows exactly what she wants: to be the heir to her father’s multimillion-dollar business. Except her father just chose his successor, and it’s not her…it’s her one-night stand. Rohit Patel can’t believe his luck. He’s just landed the opportunity of a lifetime, his future is once again on track, and the woman he spent one steamy night with could be the love of his life. Except, she’s his new boss’s daughter, and now she hates him. When Kumar Constructions falls under scrutiny, both Cynthia and Rohit are determined to see its tarnished reputation restored to its original glory. As they each try to swoop in and save the day, their game of one-upmanship fails spectacularly, leaving them no choice but to set their differences aside and work together. But as their partnership to save the company—and their feelings...

  A woman must confront the demons of her past when she attempts to fix up her childhood home in this devilishly clever take on the haunted house novel from bestselling author Rachel Harrison. Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, but beneath the glossy veneer, she harbors a not-so glamorous secret: she grew up in a haunted house. Well, not haunted.  Possessed . After Clio’s parents' messy divorce, her mother, Alex, moved Clio and her sisters into a house occupied by a demon. Or so Alex claimed. That’s not what Clio’s sisters remember or what the courts determined when they stripped her of custody after she went off the deep end. But Alex was insistent; she even wrote a book about her experience in the house. After Alex’s sudden death, the supposedly possessed house passes to Clio and her sisters. Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio sees an opportunity for house flipping content. Only, as the home makeover process begins, Clio di...

  From New York Times bestselling author, Erin A. Craig comes an irresistible blend of dark fairytale and romantic fantasy set in the beautiful but brutal Canadian wilderness in her new novel, A LAND SO WIDE (Pantheon). Like everyone else in the settlement of Mistaken, Greer Mackenzie is trapped. Founded by an ambitious Scottish lumber merchant, the tiny town on the edge of the American continent is blessed with rich natural resources that have made its people prosperous, but at a cost. The same woods that have lined the townsfolk’s pockets harbor dangerous beasts: wolves, bears, and the Bright-Eyeds—monsters beyond description who have rained utter destruction down on nearby settlements. But Mistaken’s founders made a deal with the mysterious Benevolence: the Warding Stones that surround the town will keep the Bright-Eyeds out—and the town’s citizens in. Anyone who spends a night within Mistaken’s borders belongs to it forever. Greer, a mapmaker and eccentric dreamer, has always a...

  A searing take on femininity and power,  Marrow (PutnamBooks) by Samantha Browning Shea  transports readers to a small island off the coast of Maine, where a coven has done the seemingly impossible. The day Oona was kicked out of her mother’s coven, she gave up on her dreams of harnessing the witchcraft that was her birthright. Years later, she's carved out an ordinary life with her husband, though she is filled with a longing she can barely name. If she could only become a mother, then—according to island lore—she would come into her magic.   But after years of being unable to carry a pregnancy to term, Oona begins to feel desperate. Without the money to seek medical treatment, she decides she must return to the rugged, windswept island where she was raised—and to her dark, enigmatic mother . . . a witch who gives childless women the chance to become mothers. Oona returns under the cover of anonymity, hoping for an answer. But, despite a celebrity client...

    Copper Run, Vermont, 1997 : The leaves are changing colors. School is back in session. The locals are decorating for Halloween. The most inviting scents are wafting from the bakery. And a taxicab delivers an out-of-towner and her dog to the local inn.   When big-city advertising executive and recent divorcee Michelle arrives at the bed-and-breakfast that was her mother’s retirement project, she can hardly appreciate the glories of a New England fall. Michelle is grieving her failed marriage and the unexpected loss of her mom. With her life crumbling around her, Michelle suffers one more blow when she agrees to take a leave of absence from her job at the ad agency in Seattle to handle things at her mother’s small-town inn in Vermont.   Michelle doesn’t know the first thing about running an inn. So, when her very helpful, very attractive, single dad of a next-door neighbor offers to give her some hospitality lessons, Michelle agrees. It’s not long before this stubb...

  A manipulative kidnapper gives a true crime podcaster one week to locate her brother’s best friend. If she succeeds, she’ll learn the truth about her brother’s disappearance six years ago, but if she fails, his friend will die.   You never know who’s listening.   To Stella Dixon, sneaking her teenage brother out of their parents’ house for a beach party was harmless fun—until Max disappeared without a trace.   Six years later, Stella’s family is still broken, and she can’t let go of her guilt. The only thing that keeps her going is helping other families find closure through "A Killer Motive," her true crime podcast.   In a bid to find new sponsors and keep making episodes, Stella goes on a local radio show. But when she says on air that if she had  just one clue , she’d find Max and bring whoever hurt him to justice, someone takes it as a challenge.   A mysterious invitation to play a game arrives, with the promise that if Stella wins, she’ll get in...