It's the dead of winter and struggling actress and wedding-cake decorator Piper Donovan is thrilled to be in warm and romantic Sarasota, Florida, enjoying the powdery white beaches, soothing seas, and golden sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico. She and her family are there to celebrate her beloved cousin's wedding. Not only is Piper creating the sugar-sand-dollar-festooned wedding cake, she's also the maid of honor.But a cloud seems to be hovering over the whole affair. Shortly after a bridesmaid mysteriously disappears, a kindly neighbor's car is run off the road and a prospective witness, an innocent Amish teenager, is threatened to keep silent. Then a body is found on the beach where the wedding will take place. With the nuptials threatened, it falls to Piper to unmask a killer. Could it be the wedding planner with something to hideA doctor and his wife who collect unusual Japanese figurinesThe best man, an ex–drug dealer with lecherous eyes and roving handsWhat about her cousin's future stepfather—or even the bridegroom himself?As Piper gets close to figuring out who's been covering his guilty footprints in the sand, the cunning killer has already set his sights on Piper as his next victim!

A riveting Southern mystery in which Memphis detective Billy Able descends into the bizarre world of flawed heroes, Santería voodoo, and cold-hearted killings linked to a damning photograph and a stunning betrayal by a civil rights iconBurned by his last case, Memphis detective Billy Able is at a crossroads. He doubts himself. He doubts his career. But he can't turn off instincts honed by a decade on the force. The suspicious deaths of two legendary bluesmen are ruled due to natural causes. Convinced that a crime has been committed, Billy Able and straitlaced female cop Frankie Malone refuse to let it go. A voodoo curse, a Santerían priest, and a decades-old photograph may connect the seemingly unrelated homicides. But the clues don't add up until a third victim is cruelly murdered. Guilt-ridden, Billy swears to dig into the city's dark history for answers, then finds himself caught up in a web of incriminating evidence. Hunter becomes prey. Frankie has his back as they race to solve the deadly puzzle from which Billy may not come out alive.

From the critically acclaimed author of Real Life & Liars and Things We Didn't Say comes a timely and provocative novel that asks: What happens when the things we own become more important than the people we love?Trish isn't perfect. She's divorced and raising two kids—so of course her house isn't pristine. But she's got all the important things right and she's convinced herself that she has it all under control. That is, until the day her youngest son gets hurt and Child Protective Services comes calling. It's at that moment when Trish is forced to consider the one thing she's always hoped wasn't true: that she's living out her mother's life as a compulsive hoarder.The last person Trish ever wanted to turn to for help is her sister, Mary—meticulous, perfect Mary, whose house is always spotless . . . and who moved away from their mother to live somewhere else, just like Trish's oldest child has. But now, working together to get Trish's disaster of a home into livable shape, two very different sisters are about to uncover more than just piles of junk, as years of secrets, resentments, obsessions, and pain are finally brought into the light.

For more than two decades, Terry Pratchett has been regaling readers with tales of Discworld—a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants, which are standing on the back of a giant turtle, flying through space. It is a world populated by ineffectual wizards and sharp-as-tacks witches, by tired policemen and devious dictators, by reformed thieves and vampires who have sworn to drink no blood. It is a world that is vastly different from our own . . . except when it isn't.Now, in The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld, various nuggets of Pratchett's witty commentary and sagacious observations have been compiled by Pratchett expert Stephen Briggs, a man who, they say, knows even more about Discworld than Terry Pratchett.Within these pages, you'll find musings on:Interior decorating: "It's a fact known throughout the universes that no matter how carefully the colors are chosen, institutional decor ends up as either vomit green, unmentionable brown, nicotine yellow, or surgical appliance pink. By some little-understood process of sympathetic resonance, corridors painted in those colors always smell slightly of boiled cabbage—even if no cabbage is ever cooked in the vicinity." (Equal Rites)Travel: "Any seasoned traveler soon learns to avoid anything wished on them as a 'regional speciality,' because all the term means is that the dish is so unpleasant the people living everywhere else will bite off their own legs rather than eat it. But hosts still press it upon distant guests anyway: 'Go on, have the dog's head stuffed with macerated cabbage and pork noses—it's a regional speciality.'" (The Last Continent)Young men: "And then there was the young male walk. At least women swung only their hips. Young men swung everything, from the shoulders down. You have to try to occupy a lot of space. It makes you look bigger, like a tomcat fluffing his tail. The boys tried to walk big in self-defense against all those other big boys out there. I'm bad, I'm fierce, I'm cool, I'd like a pint of shandy and me mam wants me home by nine." (Monstrous Regiment)Class: "'Old money' meant that it had been made so long ago that the black deeds that had originally filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant. Funny, that; a brigand for a father was something you kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of." (Making Money) . . . and more! Culled from all the Discworld novels, The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld confirms Pratchett's place in the pantheon of great satirists and proves why the Chicago Tribune has praised his Discworld as "entertaining and gloriously funny . . . an accomplishment nothing short of magical."

At just twenty-three years old, Shauna Reid weighed 351 pounds. Spurred into action by the sight of her enormous white knickers billowing on the clothesline, she created the hugely successful blog "The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl." Hiding behind her Lycra-clad, roly-poly alter-ego, her transformation from couch potato to svelte goddess began.Today, eight thousand miles, seven years, and 175 pounds later, the gloriously gorgeous Shauna is literally half the woman she used to be. Hysterically funny and heart-wrenchingly honest, The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl includes travel tales from Australia to Paris to Red Square, plus romance when she meets the man of her dreams in a Scottish pub. This is the uplifting true story of a young woman who defeated her demons and conquered her cravings to become a real-life superhero to inspire us all.

The poignant and unforgettable sequel to the beloved bestseller Lost & Found; a marvelous tale of life-altering surprises and unanticipated guestsPeaks Island, Maine, vibrates with its own special magic, a unique flow to life that knits together the small community that calls it home. The people, the animals, and even the houses have a charm and personality all their own. Just ask Rocky Pelligrino. Devastated by her husband Bob's sudden death, she found hope thanks to a relentlessly loyal black Lab named Cooper. Warm friends and a new job—as the island's animal control warden—have helped Rocky chart a course toward a promising future. She's even ready to try love again with Hill, the gentle and patient archery instructor. And there is an old house haunted by lost love and forgotten secrets that speaks to her soul. But a phone call from a troubled young woman looking for her biological father shakes Rocky's newfound joy. Could this young girl hold a tendril of the man who was the love of her lifeOr could the girl's appearance throw Rocky's world into chaos . . . and shatter her heart again?

As a writer for Chick Habit, an increasingly popular women's website, Alex Lyons gets paid to be a bitch. She's churning out several posts a day, and she saves her juiciest ones for blog prime time, when working women eat their sad desk salads in their offices. Alex tells herself she's fulfilling her dream of being a professional writer; so what if it means being glued to her couch and her laptop from six a.m. to six p.m., scouring the web in search of the next big celebrity scandalSince Chick Habit's parent company keeps close tabs on page views, Alex knows her job is always at risk.So when an anonymous tipster sends her the year's most salacious story—a politico's squeaky-clean Ivy League daughter caught in a very R-rated activity—it's a no-brainer. But is Alex really willing to ruin the girl's life by igniting the next Internet feeding frenzyAnd what she doesn't yet realize is how this big scoop is about to send her own life spiraling out of control.

Molly Hagan is overwhelmed.Her husband left her for a younger, blonder woman; her six-year-old son is questioning her authority, and now so is she. In order to pay her Brooklyn rent and keep her son supplied with Pokémon and Legos, not to mention food and clothing, she has to get a job—fast.So when an old friend offers Molly a freelance position copywriting for a new bakery, finding romance is just about the last thing on her mind. But the sexy British pastry chef who's heading up the bakery has other thoughts. And then so does Molly, when she meets the chef's intimidating business partner—who also happens to have a secret that might prevent Molly from getting her own happily ever after.

I'd been demoted and was shoveling slide-back and minding my own business when they found Dwayne Mays's body in a pile of gob. Shoveling slide-back is maybe the worst job in the mine. Slide-back is what they give you when they want you to quit. It's a punishment.In the depths of the Knight Hawk, one of the last working collieries in downstate Illinois, the body of a reporter is found, his mini-recorder tied around his neck and a notepad stuffed in his mouth.The Knight Hawk's owner, Matthew Luster, isn't happy. He wants answers—and he doesn't want the cops or any more press poking into his business. To protect himself and the operation, he turns to Slim, a mine employee with a reputation for "bloodhounding"—finding lost souls when the police can't or won't. Luster needs Slim to locate a missing photographer named Beckett, a close associate of the victim . . . and who just happens to be his son-in-law.A hardworking single father barely making ends meet, Slim accepts the job— after Luster offers him a guaranteed pension and job security for life. But when you make a deal with the devil, you're going to get burned . . . and now Slim is all too close to the flames. Circumstances have led him into the grimy underworld of Little Egypt, Illinois—a Babel's Tower of rednecks, rubes, freaks, tweakers, gun nuts, and aging hippies—and it quickly becomes clear that he's much more involved in the murder than an innocent man should be.Down Don't Bother Me marks the debut of a wildly assured mystery novelist.

Full of emotion and suspense, Crooked River is an inventive and atmospheric story about family and friendship, good and evil, secrets and lies, grief and forgivenessWhere should I startWith Mom's funeralOr a week earlier on the Fourth of July, the day she diedOr should I skip all that stuff and get straight to the part where Ollie and I just wanted to go swimming and pretend our lives were ordinary again, but when we got down to the river we found another dead woman instead?Still grieving over the sudden death of their mother, fifteen-year-old Sam McAlister and her ten-year-old sister, Ollie, move from the comforts of Eugene to rural Oregon to live in a meadow in a teepee under the stars with Bear, their reclusive beekeeper father. But soon after they arrive in Terrebone, a young woman is found dead floating in Crooked River and the police arrest their eccentric father for the murder. He is not evil. I am not good.We are the same: broken and put back together again.Sam knows that Bear is not a killer, even though the evidence points to his guilt—including information that she and Ollie have uncovered. Filled with remorse and refusing to accept that her father could have hurt anyone, Sam embarks on a desperate hunt to save him and keep her damaged family together. They had mysteriously lost Bear once before and Sam is terrified they will lose him again. Only this time they won't ever get him back. She needs Ollie to help her, but Ollie has not spoken a word since their mother's death.I see things no one else does.I see them there and wish I didn't. I want to tell and I can't.Ollie, too, knows that Bear is innocent. The Shimmering have told her so. One followed her home from her mom's funeral and continues to hover, a spectrum of colors—pink and rose red, sky blue and honey gold. Now another, coiled and hissing, is following Sam. Both spirits warn Ollie: the real killer is out there, waiting. Somehow, she must warn her sister. But Ollie worries that if she tries to speak—even to write—the Shimmering will slip inside her, take control, and never leave. Sam and Ollie must find the truth quickly—a search that will lead them to unexpected secrets and terrible lies—because the danger is closer to them than either girl knows.Told in Sam's and Ollie's vibrant voices, Crooked River is a family story, a coming-of-age story, a ghost story, and a psychological mystery as haunting as the best Southern gothic fiction that will touch your heart and grip you until the final page.

*Cosmopolitan Must-Read**InStyle Book Club Pick**Glamour Book Club Pick**#1 May read on POPSUGAR.COM**Featured on NPR**Featured on HuffPost Live* This unforgettable debut novel asks us to look up from our screens and out at the world . . . and to imagine what life would be like with no searches, no status updates, no texts, no Tweets, no pins, and no postsEvie Rosen has had enough. She's tired of the partners at her law firm e-mailing her at all hours of the night. The thought of another online date makes her break out in a cold sweat. She's over the clever hashtags and the endless selfies. So when her career hits a surprising roadblock and her heart is crushed by Facebook, Evie decides it's time to put down her smartphone for good. (Beats stowing it in her underwear—she's done that too!)And that's when she discovers a fresh start for real conversations, fewer distractions, and living in the moment, even if the moments are heartbreakingly difficult. Babies are born; marriages teeter; friendships are tested. Evie may find love and a new direction when she least expects it, but she also learns that just because you unplug your phone doesn't mean you can also unplug from life.

The Unspeakable tells the story of two men, both priests, whose strange and divergent paths collide. Peter Whitmore, an administrator for the Diocese of St. Paul, is asked to investigate and ultimately discredit a priest who, it is rumored, possesses a remarkable power—the power to heal.The priest in question, Jim Marbury, is no stranger to Whitmore. He is an old friend, a seminary roommate, and a spiritual mentor whom Whitmore has not seen in more than twenty years. But much has changed. Always somewhat unconventional, Marbury is now mute, speaking only in sign language, his voice reportedly stolen by God on a trip that he took through western Pennsylvania. On that same journey, in a snowstorm that nobody can verify, Marbury encountered a terrible car accident and a family who changed his life irrevocably.Marbury gets drawn into a world he did not expect—a world where the past repeats itself, where the mystical is not in a book but alive and breathing. And now Whitmore, his old friend, has to decide for himself which events are really the hand of God and which are the delusions of Marbury gone mad.

Dennis Lehane returns to the streets of his acclaimed New York Times bestseller Mystic River with The DropA love story wrapped in a crime story wrapped in a journey of faithThree days after Christmas, Bob, a lonely bartender looking for a reason to live, hears a whimper coming from inside a trash can. The abused puppy he finds there will change his life forever, as will Nadia, the damaged woman he meets that night. Like him, she's desperately searching for something to believe in.Bound together by their decision to rescue the puppy, Bob and Nadia's relationship grows. But just as they've found something to live for, they cross paths with the Chechen mafia; a man grown dangerous with age and thwarted hopes; two hapless stick-up artists; a very curious cop; and the original owner of the puppy, who wants his dog back. . . .From New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane, a new novel that's the basis of the major motion picture from Fox Searchlight Pictures directed by Micha?l r. Roskam, screenplay by Dennis Lehane, and starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, and James Gandolfini

The award-winning speculative debut novel, now in English for the first time!In the far north of the Scandinavian Union, now occupied by the power state of New Qian, seventeen-year-old Noria Kaitio studies to become a tea master like her father. It is a position that holds great responsibility and a dangerous secret. Tea masters alone know the location of hidden water sources, including the natural spring that once provided water for her whole village. When Noria's father dies, the secret of the spring reaches the new military commander . . . and the power of the army is vast indeed. But the precious water reserve is not the only forbidden knowledge Noria possesses, and resistance is a fine line.Threatened with imprisonment, and with her life at stake, Noria must make an excruciating, dangerous choice between knowledge and freedom.

On a quiet morning in California, a lone gunman opens fire on a busload of children headed for a field trip, then turns the gun on himself. Forensic psychiatrist Leander Heartwood and special agent Gabriel Chin team up to investigate the case, seeking at first only to solve this single disturbing crime but in time delving into issues of race, morality, and the complex forces at work in all horrifying acts of violence.Part mystery, part psychological thriller, part piercing social commentary, Equation for Evil is a riveting and incisive meditation on violence and the nature of evil.

Through a largely hidden ceremony . . . four friends discover the true meaning of lifeIt's 2006 in a seaside village in Israel, where a war is brewing. Lauren, Emily, Aviva and Rachel, four memorable women from different backgrounds, are drawn to the village. Lauren, a maternity nurse, loves her Israeli doctor husband but struggles to make a home for herself in a foreign land thousands of miles away from her beloved Boston. Seeking a fresh start after a divorce, her vivacious friend Emily follows. Strong, sensuous Aviva, brought to Israel years earlier by intelligence work, has raised a family and now lost a son. And Rachel, a beautiful, idealistic college graduate from Wyoming, arrives with her hopeful dreams.The women forge a friendship that sustains them as they come to terms with love and loss, and the outbreak of war. Their intimate bond is strengthened by their participation in a traditional ritual that closes the circle of life. As their lives are slowly transformed, each finds unexpected strength and resilience.Brimming with wisdom, rich in meaningful insights, A Remarkable Kindness is a moving testament to women's friendship, illuminating a mostly unknown ritual that underscores what it means to truly be alive.

The smallest of small-time criminals, Ernest Stickley Jr. figures his luck's about to change when Detroit used car salesman Frank Ryan catches him trying to boost a ride from Ryan's lot. Frank's got some surefire schemes for getting rich quick—all of them involving guns—and all Stickley has to do is follow "Ryan's Rules" to share the wealth. But sometimes rules need to be bent, maybe even broken, if one is to succeed in the world of crime, especially if the "brains" of the operation knows less than nothing.

The Sparrow Sisters are as tightly woven into the New England seaside town of Granite Point as the wild sweet peas that climb the stone walls along the harbor. Sorrel, Nettie, and Patience are as colorful as the beach plums on the dunes and as mysterious as the fog that rolls into town at dusk.When a new doctor settles into Granite Point, he brings with him a mystery so compelling that town healer Patience is drawn to love him even as she struggles to mend him. But when Patience Sparrow's herbs and tinctures are believed to be implicated in a local tragedy, Granite Point is consumed by a long-buried fear—and its three-hundred-year-old history resurfaces as a modern-day witch hunt threatens. The plants and flowers, fruit trees, and high hedges begin to wither and die, and the entire town begins to fail; fishermen return to the harbor empty-handed, and blight descends on the old elms that line the lanes.It seems as if Patience and her town are lost until the women of Granite Point band together to save the Sparrows. As they gather, drawing strength from each other, will they be able to turn the tide and return life to Granite Point?

Don't try to find me. Though the message on the kitchen whiteboard is in fourteen-year-old Marley's handwriting, her mother, Rachel, knows there has to be some other explanation. Marley would never run away.I'll be okay. Marley's quiet. Innocent. Sheltered. Growing up in Northern California with all the privilege Rachel never had, what does Marley know about taking care of herselfAbout being okay?Rachel might not know her daughter at all. But she does know that she needs to find Marley before someone else does. Someone dangerous.I'll be better. The police have limited resources devoted to runaways. If Rachel and her husband, Paul, want their daughter back, they'll have to find her themselves. Paul turns to Facebook and Twitter and launches FindMarley.com.But Marley isn't the only one with something to hide. Paul's social media campaign generates national attention, and the public scrutiny could expose Rachel's darkest secrets. When she blows a television interview, the dirty speculation begins.I love you. The blogosphere is convinced Rachel is hiding something. It's not what they think; Rachel would never hurt Marley. Not intentionally, anyway. But when it's discovered that Rachel lied to the police, the devoted mother becomes the prime suspect in Marley's disappearance.Is Marley out there, somewhere, watching it all happen . . . or is the truth something far worse?

Vidocq! Master of disguise and chief of a newly created plainclothes police force, Vidocq is a man whose name sends terror rippling through the Parisian underworld of 1818—and the inconsequential life of Hector Carpentier is violently shaken when Vidocq storms into it. A former medical student living in his mother's Latin Quarter boardinghouse, Hector finds himself dragged into a dangerous mystery surrounding the fate of the dauphin, the ten-year-old son of King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette presumed to have suffered a cruel death years earlier in Paris's dreaded Temple. But the truth of what happened may be even more shocking—and it will fall to an aimless young man and the most feared detective in Paris to see justice done for a frightened little boy in a black tower . . . no matter what the cost.

History has made me an African American. It is an Africa that I have come from, and an America that I have helped to create.Since they were first brought as captives to Virginia, the people who would become African Americans have struggled for freedom. Thousands fought for the rights of all Americans during the Revolutionary War, and for their own rights during the Civil War. On the battlefield, through education, and through their creative genius, they have worked toward one goal: that the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness be denied no one.Fired by the legacy of men and women like Abd al Rahman Ibrahima, Ida B. Wells, and George Latimer, the struggle continues today. Here is African-American history, told through the stories of the people whose experiences have shaped and continue to shape the America in which we live.