One late spring evening in 1912, in the kitchens at Sterne, preparations begin for an elegant supper party in honor of Emerald Torrington's twentieth birthday. But only a few miles away, a dreadful accident propels a crowd of mysterious and not altogether savory survivors to seek shelter at the ramshackle manor—and the household is thrown into confusion and mischief.The cook toils over mock turtle soup and a chocolate cake covered with green sugar roses, which the hungry band of visitors is not invited to taste. But nothing, it seems, will go according to plan. As the passengers wearily search for rest, the house undergoes a strange transformation. One of their number (who is most definitely not a gentleman) makes it his business to join the birthday revels.Evening turns to stormy night, and a most unpleasant parlor game threatens to blow respectability to smithereens: Smudge Torrington, the wayward youngest daughter of the house, decides that this is the perfect moment for her Great Undertaking.The Uninvited Guests is the bewitching new novel from the critically acclaimed Sadie Jones. The prizewinning author triumphs in this frightening yet delicious drama of dark surprises—where social codes are uprooted and desire daringly trumps propriety—and all is alight with Edwardian wit and opulence.

In the days that followed Karen's decision to postpone the abortion, she became increasingly aware of the unique position pregnancy afforded her. . . .For the first time in her life, she began to feel that she could do something that changed the way people thought. . . .It might be the best idea she would ever have.Karen Halloway is a philosophy graduate student, searching for a dissertation topic strong enough to change the world. When she accidentally gets pregnant, she has the epiphany she's been looking for—a way to transform the situation into an object lesson for mankind.A surprising story of freedom, choice, and desperate measures, Strange Animals is a fiendishly suspenseful and eye-opening novel from one of our most provocative writers.

What do you imagine when you hear the name . . . Bradbury?You might see rockets to Mars. Or bizarre circuses where otherworldly acts whirl in the center ring. Perhaps you travel to a dystopian future, where books are set ablaze . . . or to an out-of-the-way sideshow, where animated illustrations crawl across human skin. Or maybe, suddenly, you're returned to a simpler time in small-town America, where summer perfumes the air and life is almost perfect . . . almost.Ray Bradbury—peerless storyteller, poet of the impossible, and one of America's most beloved authors—is a literary giant whose remarkable career has spanned seven decades. Now twenty-six of today's most diverse and celebrated authors offer new short works in honor of the master; stories of heart, intelligence, and dark wonder from a remarkable range of creative artists.

This e-book edition of the New York Times bestselling novel The Hurricane Sisters includes an excerpt from Frank's new novel, All the Single Ladies.Hurricane season begins early and rumbles all summer long, well into September. Often people's lives reflect the weather and The Hurricane Sisters is just such a story.Once again Dorothea Benton Frank takes us deep into the heart of her magical South Carolina Lowcountry on a tumultuous journey filled with longings, disappointments, and, finally, a road toward happiness that is hard earned. There we meet three generations of women buried in secrets. The determined matriarch, Maisie Pringle, at eighty, is a force to be reckoned with because she will have the final word on everything, especially when she's dead wrong. Her daughter, Liz, is caught up in the classic maelstrom of being middle-age and in an emotionally demanding career that will eventually open all their eyes to a terrible truth. And Liz's beautiful twenty-something daughter, Ashley, whose dreamy ambitions of her unlikely future keeps them all at odds.Luckily for Ashley, her wonderful older brother, Ivy, is her fierce champion but he can only do so much from San Francisco where he resides with his partner. And Mary Beth, her dearest friend, tries to have her back but even she can't talk headstrong Ashley out of a relationship with an ambitious politician who seems slightly too old for her.Actually, Ashley and Mary Beth have yet to launch themselves into solvency. Their prospects seem bleak. So while they wait for the world to discover them and deliver them from a ramen-based existence, they placate themselves with a hare-brained scheme to make money but one that threatens to land them in huge trouble with the authorities.So where is Clayton, Liz's husbandHe seems more distracted than usual. Ashley desperately needs her father's love and attention but what kind of a parent can he be to Ashley with one foot in Manhattan and the other one planted in indiscretionAnd Liz, who's an expert in the field of troubled domestic life, refuses to acknowledge Ashley's precarious situation. Who's in charge of this familyThe wake-up call is about to arrive.The Lowcountry has endured its share of war and bloodshed like the rest of the South, but this storm season we watch Maisie, Liz, Ashley, and Mary Beth deal with challenges that demand they face the truth about themselves. After a terrible confrontation they are forced to rise to forgiveness, but can they establish a new order for the future of them all?Frank, with her hallmark scintillating wit and crisp insight, captures how a complex family of disparate characters and their close friends can overcome anything through the power of love and reconciliation. This is the often hilarious, sometimes sobering, but always entertaining story of how these unforgettable women became The Hurricane Sisters.

The moment Jane Tennison takes over Scotland Yard's investigation into the death of sex worker Della Mornay, two grim facts become immediately clear to her. First, that the constabulary's old boy club is determined to hinder, harass, and undermine the new female Detective Chief Inspector at every turn. And second, that their murder victim isn't Della Mornay.Now the police are a step behind, and a madman is loose on the streets of London. To apprehend the criminal stalking women through the city's shadows, Tennison will have to steel herself against the hostility of her fellow officers and conceal her own mounting obsession?with breaking through the glass ceiling of the station house—even as department politics, a crumbling relationship, and a wickedly elusive prime suspect threaten her very existence.A dark and riveting race against the clock, Prime Suspect is an unforgettable introduction to this bestselling series from Edgar Award-winning author Lynda La Plante.

They make clothes for “Petites” so why not a specialized diet planYou’re smaller, you’re more delicate, you’re 5'4" or under, yet you’re expected to follow a diet plan for the taller girls. What’s wrong with that?“A lot,” says Jim Karas, author of the number one New York Times bestseller The Business Plan for the Body. For over twenty years, Karas has helped the Petites. He makes them longer (without the rack). He makes them leaner (without starving) and he makes them feel more confident and sexier than they have ever felt before. WhyBecause he knows how to get results specifically for you . . . a “Petite”. . . and get them fast. “I understand you,” says Karas. “I know you are watching your taller friends and colleagues eat more than you do but stay slim.” Fact: you do have to eat less, because a Petite needs only about 1,600 calories a day (compared to 2,500 calories for a taller woman) and is therefore naturally more prone to gain weight. But you are looking at the glass only as half empty. Thee glass, according to Karas, is really half full. Being a Petite has huge advantages such as:You can work out more effectively than a taller woman because your muscle-to-height ratio is greater; translation—better opportunity to boost your metabolismYour center of gravity is lower, and therefore you are less likely to injure yourself when you’re working out, andYou can create that sexy hour-glass figure that taller women can’t achieve. Think Penelope Cruz (5’4”) and Dolly Parton (5’0”). Both are gorgeous members of “The Petites,” whose bodies rock.Karas has worked with women of all heights and sizes for more than twenty years, and has perfected strategies that bring effective and lasting fat loss for Petites. Based on solid, recent research, coupled with his passion for creating concrete solutions, Karas has crafted a program specially designed to help you create a longer, leaner, sexier body. Petites, you’re gonna love it!

The stunning conclusion to the smash New York Times bestselling series the Wicked YearsHailed as “bewitching,” “remarkable,” “extraordinary,” “engrossing,” “amazing,” and “delicious,” Gregory Maguire’s Wicked Years series—a sophisticated fantasy cycle inspired by the classic children’s novel The Wizard of Oz—became national bestsellers and the basis for a hit Tony-winning Broadway musical. Now, Maguire returns with the final installment in his transformative work, a thrilling and compulsively readable saga in which the fate of Oz is decided at last. . . .Once peaceful and prosperous, the spectacular Land of Oz is knotted with social unrest: The Emerald City is mounting an invasion of Munchkinland, Glinda is under house arrest, and the Cowardly Lion is on the run from the law. And look who’s knocking at the door. It’s none other than Dorothy. Yes. That Dorothy. Yet amidst all this chaos, Elphaba’s granddaughter, the tiny green baby born at the close of Son of a Witch, has come of age. Now it is up to Rain to take up her broom—and her legacy—in an Oz wracked by war. The stirring, long-awaited conclusion to the bestselling series begun with Wicked, Out of Oz is a magical journey rife with revelations and reversals, reprisals and surprises—the hallmarks of the unique imagination of Gregory Maguire.

They are Microserfs—six code-crunching computer whizzes who spend upward of sixteen hours a day "coding" and eating "flat" foods (food which, like Kraft singles, can be passed underneath closed doors) as they fearfully scan company e-mail to learn whether the great Bill is going to "flame" one of them. But now there's a chance to become innovators instead of cogs in the gargantuan Microsoft machine. The intrepid Microserfs are striking out on their own—living together in a shared digital flophouse as they desperately try to cultivate well-rounded lives and find love amid the dislocated, subhuman whir and buzz of their computer-driven world.

A gifted writer makes her fiction debut with this lyrical and haunting story of missed chances and enduring love, set against the backdrop of high society Charleston, which asks the eternal question: can we ever truly go home again?When Eliza Poinsett left the elegant world of Charleston for college, she never expected it would take her ten years to return. Now she is an art historian in London with a charming Etonian boyfriend who adores her. But the past catches up with her when she runs into Henry, a former boyfriend from Charleston, at a wedding in the English countryside.Already unnerved by the earlier encounter, Eliza's carefully guarded equilibrium is shattered when she meets Henry again in Charleston, where she's come for her stepsister's debut, a decade after she first left. Set against a backdrop of stately homes, the seductive Lowcountry landscape, and the entangled lives of families who trace their ancestors back for generations, 2 hinges on Eliza's difficult choice: must she risk everything for which she has worked so hard to be with the only man she has ever truly loved?2 is an evocative, melancholy novel about one woman's love—for both a man and an unforgettable city. Emotionally resonant, beguiling in its atmosphere, it illuminates the elusive notion of home, and explores whether we can ever truly go back to the place—and the people—that indelibly shaped us.

A house as old as Fiercombe Manor holds many secrets within its walls. But which dark chapter of its history is haunting Alice, a young woman staying there during the course of a fateful summer?In 1933, naive twenty-two-year-old Alice is pregnant, unmarried, and disgraced. She can no longer share her parents' London home, so her desperate mother concocts a cover story and begs her old friend, Mrs. Jelphs, for help. The housekeeper at rural Fiercombe Manor, Mrs. Jelphs is moved by Alice's "plight" as a new widow and agrees to watch over her in the secluded English countryside until the baby is born and given up for adoption. Because the manor house's owners, Lord and Lady Stanton, no longer live there, Alice's only company will be Mrs. Jelphs and her skeleton staff.Thirty years before Alice's arrival, Lady Elizabeth Stanton awaits the birth of her second child, fervently hoping he will be the boy her husband desires. But as her time nears, she is increasingly tormented by memories of what happened with her first baby and terrified that history will repeat itself . . . with devastating consequences.At first, Fiercombe Manor offers Alice a welcome relief from her mother's disapproving gaze. But she begins to sense that all is not well in the picturesque Gloucestershire valley. After a chance encounter with Tom, the young scion of the Stanton family, Alice discovers that Fiercombe's beauty is haunted by the clan's tragic past. She is determined to exorcise the ghosts of the idyllic, isolated house.Nothing can prepare Alice for what she uncovers. Can she escape the tragic fate of the other women who have lived in the Fiercombe valley?

A refreshingly imaginative, daring debut collection of stories that illuminates with audacious wit the complexity of human behavior, and the veneer of civilization over our darkest urges.Told with perfect rhythm and unyielding brutality, these stories expose unsuspecting men and women to the realities of nature, the primal instincts of man, and the dark humor and heartbreak of our struggle to not only thrive, but survive. In "Girl on Girl," a high school freshman goes to disturbing lengths to help an old friend. An insatiable temptress pursues the one man she can't have in "Meteorologist Dave Santana." And in the title story, a long-fraught friendship comes undone when three buddies get impossibly lost on a lake it is impossible to get lost on. Below the quotidian surface of Diane Cook's worlds lurks an unexpected surreality that reveals our most curious, troubling, and bewildering behavior. Other stories explore situations pulled directly from the wild, imposing on human lives the danger, tension, and precariousness of the natural world: a pack of "not-needed" boys takes refuge in a murky forest where they compete against one another for their next meal; an alpha male is pursued through city streets by murderous rivals and desirous women; helpless newborns are snatched from their suburban yards by a man who stalks them. Through these characters Cook asks: What is at the root of our most heartless, selfish impulsesWhy are people drawn together in such messy, needful waysWhen the unexpected intrudes upon the routine, what do we discover about ourselvesAs entertaining as it is dangerous, this accomplished collection explores the boundary between the wild and the civilized, where nature acts as a catalyst for human drama and lays bare our vulnerabilities, fears, and desires.

She wanted to be more daring, but one small risk is about to cost her everything?—maybe even her life.Bold and adventurous in her work as owner of one of Manhattan's boutique interior design firms, Kit Finn couldn't be tamer in her personal life. While on vacation in the Florida Keys, Kit resolves to do something risky for once. When she literally bumps into a charming stranger at her hotel, she decides to make good on her promise and act on her attraction.But back in New York, when Kit arrives at his luxury apartment ready to pick up where they left off in the Keys, she doesn't recognize the man standing on the other side of the door.Was this a cruel joke or part of something truly sinisterKit soon realizes that she's been thrown into a treacherous plot, which is both deeper and deadlier than she could have ever imagined. Now the only way to protect herself, her business, and the people she loves is to find out the true identity of the man who has turned her life upside down.Adrenaline-charged and filled with harrowing twists at every turn, The Wrong Man will keep readers riveted until the final page.

Meg Waite Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Wednesday Sisters, returns with a transportive World War II novel—inspired by real frontline stories—about journalists who, together, race the Allies to occupied Paris for the scoop of their lives.Opening in Normandy on June 29, 1944, The Race for Paris follows two American female war correspondents on their quest to document (and make) history by covering the Allied liberation of Paris. Jane is a young, single journalist for the Nashville Banner. When she's assigned to cover a field hospital, she meets Olivia, "Liv," an Associated Press photographer. However, unlike their male colleagues, Liv and Jane are constantly confronted by red tape and derision because the military believes women cannot handle the rigors of combat journalism. Jane is resigned to making the most of her assignment, but Liv is determined to get to Paris. After failing to win over her commanding officer, she goes AWOL—and seizing her chance to make a name for herself, Jane joins her. Reluctantly accompanied by Fletcher, a male British military reporter, the two women chase their story through the gunfire, carnage, and death scarring the French countryside. Their journey is further complicated by emotional bonds, romantic tensions, and one woman's secret—a secret with the power to end her career and, perhaps, her life.Inspired by pioneering World War II journalists such as Margaret Bourke-White and Martha Gellhorn—who paved the way for Christiane Amanpour, Marie Colvin, and Lynsey Addario—The Race for Paris combines riveting storytelling with deft literary craftsmanship and extensive research in a passionate narrative of women driven to transcend the limitations of their time.

International Bestselling AuthorLondon's Detective Chief Inspector Anna Travis must decide where her loyalties lie in this masterful tale of suspense from the award-winning, international bestselling author of the Prime Suspect series—who joins Sophie Hannah, Ruth Rendell, Kate Atkinson, and Ian Rankin as one of Britain's finest contemporary crime writers.Six months ago, London nightclub owner Josh Reynolds was found dead. It was ruled a suicide; the police investigation was closed. Then a young man awaiting trial for armed robbery tells his guards that Reynolds was murdered . . . and that he has information to share.As part of an exchange between the Metropolitan Police and the FBI, DCI Anna Travis is scheduled to leave for training at the Academy in Quantico. But her boss asks her to review the case before she goes, alongside senior FBI agent and crime-scene expert Jessie Dewar.The American's brash manner quickly ruffles feathers throughout the Met, and what should have been a simple matter becomes a political powder keg when the competence of the original investigation team is challenged. Suddenly, Anna is faced with a dangerous choice. Will she close ranks to protect her colleagues, or push to find the truth no matter the consequences?

From the author of the number one Canadian bestseller The Birth House comes the story of a young girl abandoned to the streets of post-Civil War New York City. "I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart."Set on the streets of Lower Manhattan in 1871, The Virgin Cure is the story of Moth, a girl abandoned by her father and raised by a mother telling fortunes to the city's desperate women. One summer night, twelve-year-old Moth is pulled from her bed and sold as a servant to a finely dressed woman. It is this betrayal suffered at the hands of her own mother that changes her life forever.Knowing that her mother is so close while she is locked away in servitude, Moth bides her time until she can escape, only to find her old home deserted and her mother gone without a trace. Moth must struggle to survive alone in the murky world of the Bowery, a wild and lawless enclave filled with thieves, beggars, sideshow freaks, and prostitutes. She eventually meets Miss Everett, the proprietress of an "Infant School," a brothel that caters to gentlemen who pay dearly for "willing and clean" companions—desirable young virgins like Moth.Moth also finds friendship with Dr. Sadie, a female physician struggling against the powerful forces of injustice, who teaches Moth to question and observe the world around her. The doctor hopes to protect Moth from falling prey to a terrible myth known as the "virgin cure"—the tragic belief that deflowering a "fresh maid" can cleanse the blood and heal men afflicted with syphilis—that has destroyed the lives of other Bowery girls.Ignored by society, unprotected by the law, Moth dreams of independence. But there's a high price to pay for freedom, and no one knows that better than a girl from Chrystie Street.

In this arrestingly powerful novel of 1950s America, Ravi Howard, the award-winning author of Like Trees, Walking, reminds us that no black man, no matter how gifted or famous, could escape the racial tensions threatening to divide the country.Montgomery, Alabama, December 1945. The fighting in Europe is over and war hero Nat Weary has returned to his hometown, eager to build his taxi business and marry his sweetheart. His childhood friend, the famous Nat King Cole, is also home for a rare performance. During the concert, Weary plans to propose, and the singer will honor the special moment with an unforgettable song.But Weary's dreams for the future are destroyed when a white man, armed with a pipe, rushes the stage. Leaping from the audience, the soldier who valiantly fought for his country stops the assailant—an act of bravery that leads to ten years of hard labor in prison.Free at last a decade later, Weary heads to Los Angeles to work for his old friend, Nat King Cole. It is the promise of a new life removed from the terror, violence, and degradation of Jim Crow Alabama. While the City of Angels is more progressive than the Deep South, Weary discovers here, too, that wealth, popularity, and talent cannot protect a black man from discrimination and hate. From his position as Cole's chauffeur and protector, Weary sees the capacity for human cruelty hiding behind Hollywood's glittering veneer.Drawn back to Montgomery to lay some unfinished business to rest, Nat King Cole and Weary discover a city in the midst of change. A woman named Rosa Parks has inspired blacks to boycott the city's buses—a daring fight for dignity and rights that will eventually grip the entire nation.Ravi Howard, winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, creates an indelible portrait of pre–civil rights America and an exceptional friendship. Exploring the impact of prejudice and segregation, he pays tribute to the courage of ordinary lives and illuminates our capacity for hate, and for love.

In this darkly riveting debut novel, a sophisticated psychological mystery, one woman will stop at nothing to fiFInd her best friend, who seems to have gone missing. . . .?Despite Maud's growing anxiety about Elizabeth's welfare, no one takes her concerns seriously—not her frustrated daughter, not her caretakers, not the police, and especially not Elizabeth's mercurial son—because Maud suffers from dementia. But even as her memory disintegrates and she becomes increasingly dependent on the trail of handwritten notes she leaves for herself in her pockets and around her house, Maud cannot forget her best friend. Armed with only an overwhelming feeling that Elizabeth needs her help, Maud resolves to discover the truth—no matter what it takes.As this singular obsession forms a cornerstone of Maud's rapidly dissolving present, the clues she uncovers lead her deeper into her past, to another unsolved disappearance: that of her sister, Sukey, who vanished shortly after World War II. As vivid memories of a tragedy that occurred more than fifty years ago come flooding back, Maud's search for Elizabeth develops a frantic momentum. Whom can she trustCan she trust herself?A page-turning novel of suspense, Elizabeth Is Missing also hauntingly reminds us that we are all at the mercy of our memory. Always compelling, often poignant, and at times even blackly witty, this is an absolutely unforgettable novel.

A highly entertaining collection of never-before-seen stories and several previously published pieces from the bestselling master of crime fiction Elmore LeonardOver his long and illustrious career, Elmore Leonard was recognized as one of the greatest crime writers of all time, the author of dozens of bestselling books—many adapted for the big screen—as well as a master of short fiction. A superb stylist whose crisp, tight prose crackles with trademark wit and sharp dialogue, Leonard remains the standard for popular fiction and a literary model for writers of every genre.Marked by his unmistakable humor and grit, the stories in this collection—produced early in his career, when he was making his name particularly with westerns—reveal a writer in transition. In these tales Leonard explores new voices and locations, from the bars of small border towns in New Mexico to the seedy clubs of Detroit, from a film set in Hollywood where a struggling actor collapses in a valiant death again and again to a hotel in Southern Spain where oblivious, vacationing American couples drink the night away, and even to a military base in Kuala Lumpur and a small town in Mississippi during the Civil War. The stories also introduce us to classic Leonard characters, such as aging lawman Charlie Martz, who must face an old rival who returns seeking revenge, and weary former matador Eladio Montoya, who spends exhausting days working as a migrant farmer.Devoted Leonard aficionados and fans new to his fiction will marvel at these early works that reveal a developing artist on the cusp of greatness.

Susan Choi's first novel, The Foreign Student, was published to remarkable critical acclaim. The New Yorker called it "an auspicious debut," and the Los Angeles Times touted it as "a novel of extraordinary sensibility and transforming strangeness," naming it one of the ten best books of the year. American Woman, this gifted writer's second book, is a novel of even greater scope and dramatic complexity, about a young Japanese-American radical caught in the militant underground of the mid-1970s.When 25-year-old Jenny Shimada steps out of the Rhinecliff train station in New York's Hudson Valley, the last person she expects to see is Rob Frazer, a shadowy figure from her previous life. On the lam for an act of violence against the American government, Jenny agrees to take on the job of caring for three younger fugitives whom Frazer has spirited out of California. One of them, the granddaughter of a wealthy newspaper magnate in San Francisco, has become a national celebrity. Kidnapped by a homegrown revolutionary group, Pauline shocked America when she embraced her captors' ideology, denouncing family and class to enlist in their radical cell.American Woman unfolds the story of Jenny and her charges -- Pauline, Juan, and Yvonne, the remains of the busted revolutionary cadre -- as they pursue their destinies from an old farmhouse in upstate New York back to California. Provocative, suspenseful, and often wickedly comic, the novel explores the psychology of the young radicals -- outsiders all -- as isolation and paranoia inevitably undermine their ideals. American Woman is a tour de force with chilling resonance for readers today.

Arjie is "funny."The second son of a privileged family in Sri Lanka, he prefers staging make-believe wedding pageants with his female cousins to batting balls with the other boys. When his parents discover his innocent pastime, Arjie is forced to abandon his idyllic childhood games and adopt the rigid rules of an adult world. Bewildered by his incipient sexual awakening, mortified by the bloody Tamil-Sinhalese conflicts that threaten to tear apart his homeland, Arjie painfully grows toward manhood and an understanding of his own "different" identity.Refreshing, raw, and poignant, Funny Boy is an exquisitely written, compassionate tale of a boy's coming-of-age that quietly confounds expectations of love, family, and country as it delivers the powerful message of staying true to one's self no matter the obstacles.

He died in the darkness, and they find his body at sunrise. He lies on Venice’s most popular beach, his throat slit and his tongue cut out.Italian police captain Kat Tapo suspects a ritual murder. Evidence points to the shadowy brotherhood of the Freemasons, but its members won’t cooperate with a policewoman. If Kat wants to solve this case, she’ll need to use all the allies she has: friends, lovers, hackers, spies.Working alongside her American colleague, US Army lieutenant Holly Boland, Kat soon realizes that she needs to look beyond the crowded streets of Venice for answers. From the United States to North Africa to the virtual world of Carnivia, created by notorious hacker Daniele Barbo, Kat is in a deadly race against time to unlock the secrets of Italy’s past—before Venice itself starts to burn. . . .?