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.

Sizzling hot and soulful secret "confessions" from four of the most exciting voices in erotic black fiction!Bianca's job as the new personal assistant to an arrogant NBA superstar is unending hell. But when the lights go down—and the uniform comes off—she's seduced by this hard-bodied athlete's off-the-court moves . . . Love B-Ball Style by Joy KingKennedy Logan is too ashamed to reveal the truth about her steamyrelationship with hot, insatiable Drake—his sweet lies and hellacious lovemaking—to anyone except her private diary . . . These Are My Confessions by Electa Rome ParksFresh from a break-up, uptight, unfulfilled middle school teacher Alexis heads to Texas, where they say everything is bigger—and where she finds a tasty Dallas police officer who's strapped with way more than a gun . . . Strapped by Cheryl RobinsonLucky went from waitress to recording star, with a string of hits and a Miami mansion. Now she's back home in the Windy City to tease and torture the handsome, cheating stud who broke her heart. But the man's hot loving may be too hard for her to resist . . . Divas Need Love Too by Méta Smith

From childhood, Molly Bell Redwine was taught by her charismatic, domineering mother that "family is everything." But no one warned Molly that family can change unexpectedly. In rapid succession, her husband of more than twenty years abandons her for a younger woman, her mother dies, and her Atlanta clan scatters to the four winds. Molly is set adrift in a heartbeat. With her old world crumbling, Molly takes refuge with a friend on Martha's Vineyard, hoping to come to terms with who she truly is. When the summer season ends, Molly decides to stay on, renting a small cottage on a remote up-island pond—becoming part of an odd, new, very real family that taxes her old outworn notions. And as the long Vineyard winter approaches, Molly braces herself for the arduous task she must undertake: a search for renewal and identity, and the strength to carry her through to the warm and healing spring.

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.

Having lost a wife to violence and a son to retribution, onetime Texas sheriff Daniel Shaye has brought what remains of his shattered family -- two grown boys fiercely devoted to their father and justice -- to Vengeance Creek, Arizona. In a lawless town, they become the law, grieving for their slain loved ones while looking to start a new life free of further bloodshed. But destiny has other plans for the Shayes.Eight men ride into town with designs on the bank's money -- and when they ride out, a dozen innocent people are dead and Dan Shaye is down with a gunshot wound. Now it's up to his boys to settle one more score, riding hell for leather toward a final reckoning ... and a mystery.And if Death comes again for the sons of Daniel Shaye, so be it, because any man who won't lay down his life for what is right is no man at all.

Small-town librarian Ophelia Jensen is finally starting to embrace her lot as one of the "chosen"—a psychic and folk magick practitioner, a.k.a. a witch. Expert loving guidance from her magickally adept grandmother Abby helps—and adopting Tink, an exceptionally talented teenage medium, has given Ophelia's life new purpose . . . until a brutal murder clouds the sunshine of their days. Ophelia's co-worker and best friend, Darci, is distraught when her cousin is implicated in the small Iowa town of Summerset's most recent murder—the violent death of a biker. Unfortunately for Darci's cousin, it's her fingerprints all over the murder weapon. She claims she's innocent, but it'll take Ophelia and Abby more than a good incantation or two to get to the bottom of this crime—what with ghosts, crooked cops, secret identities, and a small army of outlaw bikers thrown into this devil's brew.

Over the course of a storied literary career that has spanned more than half a century, Ray Bradbury has taken us to wonderful places: across vast oceans to foreign lands, onto summer porches of small-town America, through dark and dangerous forests where predators wait, into the hypnotic mists of dream, back to a halcyon past to remember, forward into an exhilarating future, and rocketing through outer space.In We'll Always Have Paris—a new collection of never-before-published stories—the inimitable Bradbury once again does what few writers have ever done as well. He delights us with prose that soars and sings. He surprises and inspires, exposing truths and provoking deep thought. He imagines great things and poignantly observes human foibles and frailties. He enchants us with the magic he mastered decades ago and still performs flawlessly. In these pages, radio voices become indomitable flesh and the dead arise to recapture life. There is joy in an eccentric old man's dance for the world and wonder over the workings of humankind's best friend, O Holy Dog. Whether he's exploring the myriad ways to be reborn, or the circumstances that can make any man a killer, or returning us to Mars, Bradbury opens the world to us and beckons us in.Get ready to travel far and wide once again with America's preeminent storyteller. His tales will live forever. We will always have Bradbury—and for that reason, we are eternally blessed.

Wives & Lovers is a collection of three short novels from the author whom the Boston Globe calls "one of the most expert and substantial of our writers."Requisite Kindness -- published here for the first time -- tells the story of a man who must come to terms with a life of treating women badly when he goes to live with his sister and dying mother. Rare & Endangered Species demonstrates how a wife and mother's suicide reverberates in the small community where she lived, and affects the lives of people who don't even know her. Finally, Spirits is about the pain that men and women can -- and do -- inflict upon each other. These three very different works illuminate the unadorned core of love -- not the showy, more celebrated sort but what remains when lust, jealousy, and passion have been stripped away.

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.

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.

When the garishly grotesque clan of wealthy carpet-sweeper magnate Otto Broadie sweeps down upon Judith McMonigle's Hillside Manor Inn, it looks like there'll be a wild night of drinking, dining, and fortune-telling in the offing. But when their soothsayer-for-hire Madame Gushenka drops dead after someone douses her tea leaves with bug killer, harried hostess Judith and her irrepressible cousin Renie are left to clean up the mess. One of the Brodie bunch would dearly love to sweep the Madame's murder under the rug, however, and that might mean eliminating the nosy Ms. McMonigle as well. But with the help of her one-time beau, policeman Joe Flynn, Judith is determined to rattle the dust off some closeted family skeletons, in order to coax a killer out of hiding before coffee is served.

Samantha Ranvali can't sleep. Haunted by nightmares and the memory of a man who attacked her years ago, she seeks a cure for her insomnia through an experimental study called "Endymion's Circle." The treatment seems to be a success, but after her first full night of sleep in months, Samantha learns that one of the other participants in the study has been murdered. The body is found crucified upside down, and a recording of J. S. Bach's "Goldberg Variations" plays at the scene. As an old lover investigates the crime, he draws Samantha into a mystery that spans over two hundred years and suggests something far more sinister than the police expect. And with each night of Samantha's newfound sleep, she awakens to another ritualistic crime. Every clue takes her deeper into her own past, her own history of loss, pain, and desperation. Every murder reveals that a dark curse has taken hold of her world. And every clue brings her closer to the revelation that she is the next victim. Here is stunning suspense that plays masterfully with the conventions of the genre and perfectly blends historical richness with modern-day terror.

At twelve, Peyton McKenzie isn't ready to share her widowed father with anyone, let alone Nora, her redheaded, cigarette-smoking cousin who just rolled into town behind the wheel of a pink Thunderbird. But her father seems to like Nora, and she does make for good conversation with her friends at the Losers Club, and prim Aunt Augusta hates her, which means she can't be all bad. In fact, maybe Nora is just what quiet Lytton, Georgia, needs this summer.And when Nora takes a job teaching the first integrated honors class at the local high school, it looks like she might stay forever. But it becomes clear that something is troubling her. Peyton knows it's more than the local gossips who don't like Nora's "unsouthern" ways. When the shocking truth comes to light, it will stun this small segregated town and, more importantly, teach Peyton a lesson she will never forget about love and its enormous cost.

The first and only vampire book to be declassified by the federal government . . .Felix Gomez went to Iraq a soldier. He came back a vampire. Now he finds himself pulled into a web of intrigue when an old friend prompts him to investigate an outbreak of nymphomania at the secret government facilities in Rocky Flats. He'll find out the cause of all these horny women or die trying! But first he must contend with shadowy government agents, Eastern European vampire hunters, and women who just want his body . . .Skewering sexual myths, conspiracy fables, and government bureaucracy, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats reveals the bizarre world of the undead with a humorous slant and a fresh twist.

A dread darkness is descending upon a great land called Midkemia—a powerful and malevolent race of monsters that has slipped through a hole in the dimensions. And two unlikely young heroes—a bastard heir denied his birthright and an irrepressible scoundrel with a penchant for thievery—must take up arms in the struggle to protect their besieged world...two friends chosen by Destiny to stand at the fore of the battle that is to come against the gargantuan reptile army of the terrible Emerald Queen.

The impact of four-year-old Spencer's death has rocked the Carpenter family. For Lainie, the loss of her son is unbearable, and now both her marriage and her very sanity are threatened. Her guitar-obsessed, slacker brother Russell isn't doing very well either, and his own love relationship is rapidly coming undone. Then there's Bop, her fierce and crusty 80-year-old grandfather. When he falls in love with a retired stripper, their earthy romance touches each of the Carpenters' lives in unexpected ways.

It is 1810, and in Napoleon's determination to conquer Portugal—and push the British back to the sea—he sends his largest army yet across the Spanish frontier. But between the Portuguese border and Napoleon's seemingly certain victory are twoobstacles—a wasted land, stripped of food by Wellington's orders, and Captain Richard Sharpe.But Sharpe is in trouble. The captain of the Light Company is threatened from inside and out: First by an incompetent British officer, who by virtue of family connections is temporarily given Sharpe's command. An even greater danger is posed by two corrupt Portuguese brothers—Major Ferreira, a high-ranking officer in the army of Portugal, and his brother, nicknamed "Ferragus" (after a legen-dary Portuguese giant), who makes no claims to respectability, preferring instead to rule by crude physical strength and pure intimidation. Together the brothers have developed a devious plot to ingratiate themselves with the French invaders who are threatening to become Portugal's new rulers.Sharpe's interference in the first stage of their plan earns the undying enmity of the brothers. Ferragus vows revenge and plots a merciless trap that seems certain to kill Sharpe and his intimates—battle-tested ally Sergeant Harper, the Portuguese officer Jorge Vicente, and a prickly but lovely English governess. As the city of Coimbra is burned and pillaged, Sharpe and his companions plot a daring escape, ensuring that Ferragus will follow on toward Lisbon, into the jaws of a snare laid by Wellington—the massive lines of Torres Vedras, a daring and ingenious last stand against the invaders. There, beneath the British guns, Sharpe is reunited with his shattered but grateful company, and meets his enemies in a thrilling and decisive fight.Sharpe's Escape emphatically reaffirms Bernard Cornwell's status as "perhaps the greatest writer of historical adventure novels today" (Washington Post); its climactic battle scenes and evocative re-creation of history sweep the reader off the page and into the action and drama of nineteenth-century warfare.