The narrator of The Zahir is a bestselling novelist who lives in Paris and enjoys all the privileges money and celebrity bring. His wife of ten years, Esther, is a war correspondent who has disappeared along with a friend, Mikhail, who may or may not be her lover.Was Esther kidnapped, murdered, or did she simply escape a marriage that left her unfulfilledThe narrator doesn't have any answers, but he has plenty of questions of his own. Then one day Mikhail finds the narrator and promises to reunite him with his wife. In his attempt to recapture a lost love, the narrator discovers something unexpected about himself.

Jacquelyn Mitchard's first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, launched Oprah Winfrey's Book Club and riveted millions of readers worldwide. Now this supremely talented author offers her most powerful work to date. The emotional story of a fierce custody battle over a little girl, A Theory of Relativity is an unforgettable tale of love and the bonds that unite us all.

With her sharp wit and riveting style, Leslie Carroll plunges us deep into the world of the overscheduled children of New York, and the oversexed, over-lipoed, overpaid people who raise them -or pay their nannies!What happens when a trophy wife gets turned in for someone even younger, blonder, and prettierClaire Marsh doesn't take it lying down. She may have lost both husband and housekeeper in the horrible divorce, but even if she's not able to keep living in the manner to which she's accustomed, she'll do what it takes so that her daughter will with a little help from her slightly wild, slightly out-of-control sister MiMi.

Fall has fallen upon Judith McMonigle Flynn, leaving her Hillside Manor nearly devoid of guests. And what better cure for the off-season blahs than a brief bout of BB sifting for a friend amid the quiet rustic splendor of secluded Chavez IslandJudith and cousin Renie both are more than ready for some relaxation. But their peace goes to pieces when Renie conks an odious interloping blowhard on the noggin with a heavy china dish-and, moments later, the woozy lout takes a fatal tumble down an inconvenient staircase. Judith suspects that death by dinnerware was not the real cause of this fellow's demise. But to prove her cantankerous cuz innocent, she'll have to uncover the real killer from among the motley island crew. And that could pile a lot more nastiness on Judith's plate than the harried bed-and-breakfast hostess can consume in one sitting!

From the mega-bestselling author of Beaches , a new novel, available in mass market for the first time, once again celebrating female relationships. Two very different women fulfil a childhood promise to take care of one another no matter what.Dahlia Green is a struggling songwriter in Los Angeles who has fallen on hard times. She's had few of her songs recorded, but lately there's been a long pause between sales and she's starting to believe she'll never sell another song. As a child Dahlia and her cousin Annie wrote duets together as child play. Then Annie was diagnosed with schizophrenia and for all of her adult life has cycled in and out of mental hospitals where no one ever goes to visit her. Now twenty-five years later Dahlia has a chance to shine again by selling a song she and Annie wrote. So she tracks Annie in an institution and brings her home in hopes of convincing her to sign away her rights to the tune. But what starts out as a scheme to get ahead and exploit her cousin results in Dahlia putting someone else's needs above her own for the first time in her life. She fulfils a childhood promise made long ago to take care of one another no matter what.

Judy Carrier takes the case of her career to defend Anthony Lucia, fondly known as "Pigeon Tony," who freely admits to killing his lifelong enemy in order to settle a personal vendetta. Her client's guilt, however, is only the beginning of Judy's problems. The victim's family wants revenge and is determined to finish off Pigeon Tony and Judy before the case goes to trial. Then there's Pigeon Tony's hunky grandson, who makes Judy think about everything but the law. In a case steeped in blood and memory, it will take brains and a lot of luck to save Pigeon Tony. But if anyone will see justice done, it's this gutsy girl who'll risk everything to win -- including her life.

Some marriages are made in heaven . . . Some are not.What happens when "the happiest day of your life" turns into a nightmareForget the drunken best man or the bridesmaid dresses from the '80s . . . none of these wedding day disasters can compare to a cursed bride determined to make it down the aisle, or a vampire who is about to disrupt your wedding.Join New York Times bestselling authors Maggie Shayne and Jeaniene Frost, USA Today bestseller Kathryn Smith, as well as Terri Garey in four unforgettable tales of unholy matrimony . . . where the grooms are dark, dangerous, and mostly dead, and to love and cherish till death takes on a whole new meaning.

Bed-and-breakfast hostess Judith McMonigle and her policeman beau Joe Flynn hgave finally gotten hitched-and they're off on a sunny honeymoon to beautiful Buccaneer Beach.But an unfortunate confrontation with a dune buggy run amok puts hubby Joe in hospital traction-leaving his beleaguered blushing bride stranded in paradise with a bad case of ennui by the sea. Luckily irrepressible cousin Renie has selflessly agreed to keep Judith company. And when the landlady of their cozy, costly cottage by the shore turns up dead in their living room, the cousins suddenly have a murderous mystery to keep them afloat. Rumors of a fortune in buried pirate gold add spice to their adventure. But digging up both a treasure and a killer is dirty business-and Judith and Renie might end up digging their own graves.

Van Gogh-ing...going...gone! Poor Judith McMonigle Flynn! All she wants is a much-needed break from the rigors of running Hillside Manor. But she and cousin Renie have barely set foot in their family's backwoods vacation cottage...and already they're having a brush with the local law. It appears someone has painted their neighbor, world-renowned artist Riley Tobias, permanently out of the picture. And the artful slayer has managed to frame luckless Judith for the crime! But the model amateur sleuth isn't about to sit still for this , as she and her cuz canvas the countryside in search of a killer. Judith is certain the culprit can be found in the rogues' gallery of oily agents, malicious mistresses, and crafty critics who inhabited the defunct da Vinci's surrealistic world. But the cousins could be painting themselves into a dangerous corner with this unofficial investigation...and setting themselves up for another fatal art attack.Poor Judith McMonigle Flynn! All she wants is a much-needed break from the rigors of running Hillside Manor. But she and cousin Renie have barely set foot in their family's backwoods vacation cottage...and already they're having a brush with the local law. It appears someone has painted their neighbor, world-renowned artist Riley Tobias, permanently out of the picture. And the artful slayer has managed to frame luckless Judith for the crime! But the model amateur sleuth isn't about to sit still for this, as she and her cuz canvas the countryside in search of a killer. Judith is certain the culprit can be found in the rogues' gallery of oily agents, malicious mistresses, and crafty critics who inhabited the defunct da Vinci's surrealistic world. But the cousins could be painting themselves into a dangerous corner with this unofficial investigation...and setting themselves up for another fatal art attack.Poor Judith McMonigle Flynn! All she wants is a much-needed break from the rigors of running Hillside Manor. But she and cousin Renie have barely set foot in their family's backwoods vacation cottage...and already they're having a brush with the local law. It appears someone has painted their neighbor, world-renowned artist Riley Tobias, permanently out of the picture. And the artful slayer has managed to frame luckless Judith for the crime! But the model amateur sleuth isn't about to sit still for this, as she and her cuz canvas the countryside in search of a killer. Judith is certain the culprit can be found in the rogues' gallery of oily agents, malicious mistresses, and crafty critics who inhabited the defunct da Vinci's surrealistic world. But the cousins could be painting themselves into a dangerous corner with this unofficial investigation...and setting themselves up for another fatal art attack.

Michael "Mad Dog" Hertzog lived for soldiering but he wasn't willing to die following the orders of bureaucrats and incompetents. Now he and his private army of warriors-for-hire are doing war Dog's way. Hertzog's right hand man has vanished . . . along with $30 million of Mad Dog's money. The evidence says a trusted British merc has gone rogue, but there may be a different, more virulent form of treachery at work here. There are answers waiting aboard a train racing east from Moscow, carrying Russian gangsters, stolen Siberian diamonds, a shadow team of Iranian agents . . . and a pair of nuclear warheads. Suddenly the stakes have gotten perilously high for Mad Dog, his team, and the world . . . as time ticks rapidly away on a terrifying plot to bathe the Middle East in nuclear fire.

Forty is fabulous for Tessa Craig. Heck, she has it all—a glamorous job as a political speechwriter, a Manhattan duplex, and a handsome boyfriend, Congressman David Weyburn, whose integrity, charisma, and good looks have made him his party's rising star. But her fabulosity fizzles when scandal strikes, and Tessa watches helplessly as her seemingly happy love life and successful career collapse like a house of cards. Tessa realizes it's time to embark on a new journey, one she should have made a long time ago. It's a trip that takes her to the Emerald Isle and back, leading her heart in unimagined directions. She makes new friends, unexpectedly adopts a new family (or do they adopt her?), and discovers unanticipated love with silver-tongued, green-eyed, aspiring pub owner, Jamie Doyle. And, most importantly, Tessa makes that uphill climb over the rainbow to find the ultimate pot of gold: Herself.

At the age of eight Brian Lackey is found bleeding under the crawl space of his house, having endured something so traumatic that he cannot remember an entire five hour period of time. During the following years he slowly recalls details from that night, but these fragments are not enough to explain what happened to him, and he begins to believe that he may have been the victim of an alien encounter. Neil McCormick is fully aware of the events from that summer of 1981. Wise beyond his years, curious about his developing sexuality, Neil found what he perceived to be love and guidance from his baseball coach. Now, ten years later, he is a teenage hustler, a terrorist of sorts, unaware of the dangerous path his life is taking. His recklessness is governed by idealized memories of his coach, memories that unexpectedly change when Brian comes to Neil for help and, ultimately, the truth.

Rebecca Wells's wonderful third book in her Ya-Ya trilogy, which includes Little Altars Everywhere and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, is sure to provide reading that makes you laugh and cry, a book that will break your heart and mend it again. Ya-Yas in Bloom reveals the roots of the Ya-Yas' friendship in the 1930s, following Vivi, Teensy, Caro and Necie through sixty years of marriage, child-raising, and hair-raising family secrets. When four-year-old Teensy Whitman prisses one time too many and stuffs a big old pecan up her nose, she sets off the chain of events that lead Vivi, Teensy, Caro, and Necie to become true sister-friends. Using as narration the alternating voices of Vivi and the Petite Ya-Yas, Siddalee and Baylor Walker, as well as other denizens of Thornton, Louisiana, Wells show us the Ya-Yas in love and at war with convention. Through crises of faith and hilarious lapses of parenting skills, brushes with alcoholism and glimpses of the dark reality of racial bigotry, the Ya-Ya values of unconditional loyalty, high style, and Louisiana sass shine through. But in the Ya-Yas' inimitable way, these four remarkable women also teach their children about the Mysteries: the wonder of snow in the deep South, the possibility that humans are made of stars, and the belief that miracles do happen. And they need a miracle when old grudges and wounded psyches lead to a heartbreaking crime...and the dynamic web of sisterhood is the only safety net strong enough to hold families together and endure. After two bestsellers and a blockbuster movie, the Ya-Yas have become part of American culture -- icons for the power of women's friendship. Ya-Yas in Bloom continues the saga, giving us more Ya-Ya lore, spun out in the rich patois of the Louisiana bayou country and brim full of the Ya-Ya message to embrace life and each other with joy.

Carved into a moving island of ice twice the size of the United States, Ice Station Grendel has been abandoned for more than seventy years. The twisted brainchild of the finest minds of the former Soviet Union, it was designed to be inaccessible and virtually invisible. But an American undersea research vessel has inadvertently pulled too close—and something has been sighted moving inside the allegedly deserted facility, something whose survival defies every natural law. And now, as scientists, soldiers, intelligence operatives, and unsuspecting civilians are drawn into Grendel's lethal vortex, the most extreme measures possible will be undertaken to protect its dark mysteries—because the terrible truths locked behind submerged walls of ice and steel could end human life on Earth.

Not a man to dwell on the past, Stone Barrington has no choice but to rattle old skeletons when the people closest to him start dying, and he has little to go on but the suspicion that the killer might be someone he once knew. The trip down memory lane isn't all bad though, for it reunites Stone with his ex-partner, Dino Bacchetti, now head of detectives in the nineteenth precinct.Trying to find a brilliant killer in a sea of old faces is difficult enough without Stone's former love, Arrington, now Mrs. Vance Calder, resurfacing too—especially when she sets off her own fireworks coming nose to nose with his latest flame, a Mafia princess as beautiful as she is dangerous.Caught on a thrill ride of a case that tests him as none has ever done before, Stone races to find a twisted madman with a taste for blood vengeance, with only a prayer to find him before Stone's worst fears are realized.

A corpse whose palms and soles have been "scalped" is only the first in a series of disturbing clues: an airplane's mysterious crash in the nighttime desert, a bizarre attack on a windmill, a vanishing shipment of cocaine. Sgt. Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police is trapped in the deadly web of a cunningly spun plot driven by Navajo sorcery and white man's greed.

Plague has ravaged the prestigious King's Cavalla of Gernia, decimating the ranks of both cadets and instructors. Yet Nevare Burvelle has made an astonishingly robust recovery, defeating his sworn nemesis while in the throes of the disease and freeing himself—he believes—from the Speck magic that infected him. And now he is journeying home to Widevale, anticipating a tender reunion with his beautiful fiancée, Carsina, and a bright future as a commissioned officer.But there is no haven in the bosom of his kinfolk, for his nights are haunted by grim visions of treachery—and his days are tormented by a strange side-effect of the plague that shames his family and repulses the lady of his heart. And as the still-potent magic in his blood roars to life, Nevare realizes a terrible truth: that the enemy who seeks to destroy everything he loves dwells perhaps not without but within him.

The year is 885, and England is at peace, divided between the Danish kingdom to the north and the Saxon kingdom of Wessex in the south. Uhtred, the dispossessed son of a Northumbrian lord—warrior by instinct, Viking by nature—has finally settled down. He has land, a wife, and two children, and a duty given to him by King Alfred to hold the frontier on the Thames. But then trouble stirs: a dead man has risen, and new Vikings have arrived to occupy the decayed Roman city of London. Their dream is to conquer Wessex, and to do it they need Uhtred's help.Alfred has other ideas. He wants Uhtred to expel the Viking raiders from London. Uhtred must weigh his oath to the king against the dangerous turning tide of shifting allegiances and deadly power struggles. And other storm clouds are gathering: ?thelefl?d—Alfred's daughter—is newly married, but by a cruel twist of fate, her very existence now threatens Alfred's kingdom. It is Uhtred—half Saxon, half Dane—whose uncertain loyalties must now decide England's future.A gripping story of love, deceit, and violence, Sword Song is set in an England of tremendous turmoil and strife—yet one galvanized by the hope that Alfred may prove an enduring force. Uhtred, his lord of war and greatest warrior, has become his sword—a man feared and respected the length and breadth of Britain.

Stone Barrington thought he'd heard the last of former girlfriend Arrington after she left him to marry Vance Calder, Hollywood's hottest star. The last thing Stone expected was a desperate call from Calder. Arrington has vanished, and her new fiancé wants Stone to come to LA and find her.In a town where the sharks drive Bentleys and no one can be trusted, Stone soon discovers he's drowning in a sea of empty clues that takes him from Bel Air to Malibu to Rodeo Drive. Running out of time and leads, he needs to keep his head above water and find Arrington fast, or end up swimming with the fishes himself.

In the scorching heat of the Southwestern desert, a frightened old man knows his time is quickly running out . . . as the lethal secret he protects can be hidden no longer.Risa Sheridan knows everything about gold—its mysteries, its allure, its perils. Her boss, Shane Tannahill—owner of the ultra-successful Las Vegas gambling mecca, the Golden Fleece—is addicted to the stuff. Now an ancient Celtic piece is being offered to Shane for his collection, with the promise of more to come, and the casino owner is hooked. But though she shares Shane's enthusiasm, Risa is wary—because something about this particular artifact is mysterious and troubling, something that says "stay away." It is a voice that should be heeded, because soon people are dying all around them. And whether it's an ancient curse that has taken hold of their lives or the simple, murderous greed of unscrupulous adversaries, there is suddenly no place in the surreal, blinding glitter of Vegas for Risa and Shane to hide . . . The most dazzling, spine-tingling combination of adventure, thrills, and sensuality yet from the gold standard in contemporary suspense fiction.

The ghosts of an ancient past and the specters of a present-day evil are buried beneath the Egyptian sands . . .For archaeologist Amelia Peabody and her family, the allure of Egypt remains as powerful as ever, even in 1915, as a World War rages. But nowhere in this exotic land is safe—especially for Amelia's son Ramses and his beautiful new wife Nefret. Treachery and danger pursue the two young lovers across the desert nation, strengthening a bond of passion and devotion that only death can sever. And the grim discovery of a recent corpse in a tomb where it does not belong is pulling Amelia deeper into a storm of intrigue, corruption, kidnapping, and murder—and toward dark revelations that threaten to awaken the past . . . and alter the family's destiny.