Socially inept self doubter Matt has managed to etch out a regular life for himself. When he’s landed in the deep end of a situation beyond his control due to a viral outbreak in Ireland, can he not only win over the girl of his dreams but save them both in the process?

A series of seemingly random murders along a fifty-mile stretch of the rugged northern California coast, committed by an unknown dubbed by the media the Coastline Killer. A young couple with marital problems, Shelby and Jay Macklin, who decide to spend the week between Christmas and New Year's at a friend's remote coastal cottage. Two couples in a neighboring home whose relationships are thick with festering menace. A fierce winter storm that leads to a night of unrelenting terror. These are the main ingredients in Bill Pronzini's chilling and twist-filled tale about the hidden nature of crime and its motives

Abbey knows that Caspian is her destiny. Theirs is a bond that transcends even death. But as Abbey finally learns the full truth about the dark fate that links her to Caspian and ties them both to the town of Sleepy Hollow, she suddenly has some very hard choices to make. Caspian may be the love of her life, but is that love worth dying for? Beautifully spun, emotionally gripping, and irresistibly romantic, The Hidden will leave you breathless

From the outside, Eleanor and Edward Hamilton have the perfect life but they're harbouring a secret that threatens to fracture their entire world. London, 1929. Eleanor Hamilton is a dutiful mother, a caring sister and an adoring wife to a celebrated war hero. Her husband, Edward, is a pioneer in the Eugenics movement. The Hamiltons are on the social rise, and it looks as though their future is bright. When Mabel, their young daughter, begins to develop debilitating seizures, they have to face the uncomfortable truth – Mabel has epilepsy: one of the 'undesirable' conditions that Edward campaigns against. Forced to hide the truth so as not to jeopardise Edward's life's work, the couple must confront the truth of their past – and the secrets that have been buried. Will Eleanor and Edward be able to fight for their family?

Worldwide bestseller Camilla Lackberg weaves together another brilliant contemporary psychological thriller with the chilling struggle of a young woman facing the darkest chapter of Europe's past… Crime writer Erica Falck is shocked to discover a Nazi medal among her late mother's possessions. Haunted by a childhood of neglect, she resolves to dig deep into her family's past and finally uncover the reasons why. Her enquiries lead her to the home of a retired history teacher. He was among her mother's circle of friends during the Second World War but her questions are met with bizarre and evasive answers. Two days later he meets a violent death. Detective Patrik Hedström, Erica's husband, is on paternity leave but soon becomes embroiled in the murder investigation. Who would kill so ruthlessly to bury secrets so old? Reluctantly Erica must read her mother's wartime diaries. But within the pages is a painful revelation about Erica's past. Could what little knowledge she has be enough to endanger her husband and newborn baby? The dark past is coming to light, and no one will escape the truth of how they came to be…

Gender roles in the American Revolutionary War period were not exactly a bastion of progressiveness. However, even during a time when most women were encouraged to shrink from conflict and follow the lead of any man in the vicinity, there were a few iconoclastic females who broke this mold. The defiantly independent heroine at the center of The Hidden Children steadfastly refuses to be held down by social conventions she sees as useless

The Pandion Knight Sparhawk had bested the massed forces of the God Cyrgon upon the field of battle. But victory turned to ashes when the foul God’s minions kidnapped Sparhawk’s wife, the beautiful Queen Ehlana. Sparhawk must surrender Bhelliom, the awesome jewel of power—or Ehlana would die. But Cyrgon’s lackeys had misjudged their foe. Sparhawk fought on, and nonre of his companions flinched from the awesome struggle, though each must vanquish forces of evil from Tamuli’s dark past, and from fetid places beyond human ken. Still, the full magnitude of their peril was yet to be revealed...Cyrgon had dared the unthinkable: He had called forth Klael, Bhelliom’s opposite, to rend the very world asunder. Thus, as it had ever been decreed, would Bhelliom and Klael contend for the fate of this world—even as the man Sparhawk must finally face the God Cyrgon, in mortal combat and alone

In the tradition of Roger Zelazny’s classic Amber novels, the second volume of Charles Stross’s thrill-a-minute saga of multiple worlds. Miriam, a hip tech journalist from Boston, discovered her alternate world relatives in The Family Trade, and with them an elite identity she didn’t know was hers. Now, in order to avoid a slippery slope down to an unmarked grave, Miriam, known as Lady Helge to the Family, starts applying modern business practices and scientific knowledge to a trade dominated by mercantilists — with unexpected consequences for three different timelines, including the quasi-Victorian one exploited by the hidden family. Charles Stross is one of the big new SF writers of the 21st century, and the saga of The Merchant Princes is his most ambitious work yet

A mystical Javan prince and a promiscuous wife are twin challenges to Commissioner Van Oudijck's seemingly impregnable authority. As he struggles to maintain control of his district in the Dutch East Indies, as well as of his family, ancient local traditions reassert their influence and colonial power begins to disintegrate

From award-winning author Ken Liu comes his much anticipated second volume of short stories. Ken Liu is one of the most lauded short story writers of our time. This collection includes a selection of his latest science fiction and fantasy stories over the last five years—sixteen of his best—plus a new novelette. In addition to these seventeen selections, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories also features an excerpt from book three in the Dandelion Dynasty series, The Veiled Throne. [Contains table.]

THE HIDDEN MAN introduces attorney Jason Kolarich, a Midwestern everyman with a lineman's build and an easy smart-ass remark. He's young, intelligent, and driven, but he's also saddled with an overwhelming emotional burden – one that threatens to unravel his own life, and possibly the lives of those around him. Twenty-seven years ago, two-year-old Audrey Cutler disappeared from her home in the middle of the night. Her body was never found. All the detectives had to go on were vague eyewitness accounts of a man running down the Cutler's street, apparently carrying someone. Without enough evidence to suggest otherwise, Griffin Perlini – a neighbor with prior offenses against minors – was arrested, but never convicted. The case is long closed when Perlini is murdered in his apartment nearly thirty years later. Now a man named Mr. Smith appears in Jason Kolarich's office offering him a suspicious amount of money to defend the lead suspect in Perlini's murder, saying only that he represents an interested third party and that Kolarich is perfect for the case. Sure enough, the man on trial is Audrey Cutler's older brother Sammy, Kolarich's childhood best friend, a man he hasn't seen since a falling out almost twenty years prior. And just when it seems like the case can't get any more complex, the mysterious third party starts applying pressure to Kolarich. With his own life and Sammy's in the balance, Kolarich has to not only put aside the mounting anxiety of the case but also a heart wrenching personal tragedy in order to find out what really happened to Audrey all those years ago

Elena Palomares’s summer archaeological project in Copan, Honduras turns into a nightmare when she discovers someone has been stealing stones from the Hieroglyphic Staircase, she finds a stranger dead at her work site, and she’s a suspect. She meets Dominic Harte, an ex-priest haunted by his own past, who offers to help clear her good name. In the course of their investigation, they discover that a local homeless boy is key to solving the mystery. But there is a price to pay for disturbing the ghosts of the ancient Mayans, and Elena must decide if she is willing to pay it

In the year of grace 1345, as Sir Roger Baron de Tourneville is gathering an army to join King Edward III in the war against France, a most astonishing event occurs: a huge silver ship descends through the sky and lands in a pasture beside the little village of Ansby in northeastern Lincolnshire. The Wersgorix, whose scouting ship it is, are quite expert at taking over planets, and having determined from orbit that this one was suitable, they initiate standard world-conquering procedure. Ah, but this time it’s no mere primitives the Wersgorix seek to enslave — they’ve launched their invasion against Englishmen! In the end, only one alien is left alive — and Sir Roger’s grand vision is born. He intends for the creature to fly the ship first to France to aid his King, then on to the Holy Land to vanquish the infidel! Nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1961

In this final part of the chronicle of Prydain the forces of good and evil meet in an ultimate confrontation, which determines the fate of Taran, the Assistant Pig-Keeper who wanted to be a hero

In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomás discovers an old journal. It hints at the existence of an extraordinary artifact that — if he can find it — would redefine history. Traveling in one of Europe’s earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this strange treasure. Thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie finds himself at the center of a mystery of his own and drawn into the consequences of Tomás’s quest. Fifty years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in his ancestral village in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he arrives with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee. And there the century-old quest will come to an unexpected conclusion. The High Mountains of Portugal—part quest, part ghost story, part contemporary fable — offers an exploration of love and loss

What a terrible thing at a time like this: to own a house, and the trees around it. Janet sat rigid in her seat. The plane lifted from the city and her house fell away, consumed by the other houses. Janet worried about her own particular garden and her emptied refrigerator and her lamps that had been timed to come on at six. So begins "Mycenae," a story in The High Places, Fiona McFarlane's first story collection. Her stories skip across continents, eras, and genres to chart the borderlands of emotional life. In "Mycenae," she describes a middle-aged couple's disastrous vacation with old friends. In "Good News for Modern Man," a scientist lives on a small island with only a colossal squid and the ghost of Charles Darwin for company. And in the title story, an Australian farmer turns to Old Testament methods to relieve a fatal drought. Each story explores what Flannery O'Connor called "mystery and manners." The collection dissects the feelings-longing, contempt, love, fear-that animate our existence and hints at a reality beyond the smallness of our lives. Salon's Laura Miller called McFarlane's The Night Guest "a novel of uncanny emotional penetration. . How could anyone so young portray so persuasively what it feels like to look back on a lot more life than you can see in front of you?" The High Places is further evidence of McFarlane's preternatural talent, a debut collection that reads like the selected works of a literary great

Professional go-between Philip St. Ives finds himself in a London jail even before he has accepted an offer from Ned and Norbert Nitry to recover the fabulous Sword of St. Louis which as (or has it?) been stolen from them and is being ransomed. When Philip does accept the offer, he becomes involved in a deadly game of deception and murder with a bizarre group of characters that includes two professional con men (highbinders). Readers of previous Oliver Bleeck books will found the action, suspense, wit and great dialogue they’ve come to expect from an acknowledged master of the suspense novel

The highest treason of all is not so easy to define—and be it noted carefully that the true traitor in this case was not singular, but very plural…

"Sensuous prose and indelible imagery." — New York TimesThree stories in which history and imagination intertwine to re-create the world of Jerusalem during the last days of the British Mandate. Refugees drawn to Jerusalem in search of safety are confronted by activists relentlessly preparing for an uprising, oblivious to the risks. Meanwhile, a wife abandons her husband, and a dying man longs for his departed lover. Among these characters lives a boy named Uri, a friend and confidant of several conspirators who love and humor him as he weaves in and out of all three stories. The Hill of Evil Counsel is "as complex, vivid, and uncompromising as Jerusalem itself" (Nation)

****Amanda Gorman 's powerful and historic poem "The Hill We Climb," read at President Joe Biden's inauguration, is now available as a collectible gift edition.** **** **" Stunning." --CNN ** **" Dynamic." --NPR** **" Deeply rousing and uplifting." -- *Vogue*** ** **** On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Taking the stage after the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, Gorman captivated the nation and brought hope to viewers around the globe. Her poem "The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country" can now be cherished in this special gift edition. Including an enduring foreword by Oprah Winfrey, this keepsake celebrates the promise of America and affirms the power of poetry

“Normality” is a myth; we’re all a little neurotic, and the study of neurosis has been able to classify the general types of disturbance which are most common. And some types (providing the subject is not suffering so extreme a case as to have crossed the border into psychosis) can be not only useful, but perhaps necessary for certain kinds of work…

Hailed as "The Great Israeli Novel" (Time Out Tel Aviv) and winner of the prestigious Bernstein Prize, The Hilltop is a monumental and daring work about life in a West Bank settlement from one of Israel's most acclaimed young novelists. On a rocky, beautiful hilltop stands Ma'aleh Hermesh C, a fledgling community flying under the radar. According to the government it doesn't exist; according to the military it must be defended. On this contested land, Othniel Assis — under the wary gaze of the neighboring Palestinian village — plants asparagus, arugula, and cherry tomatoes, and he installs goats — and his ever-expanding family. As Othniel cheerfully manipulates government agencies, more settlers arrive, and, amid a hodge-podge of shipping containers and mobile homes, the outpost takes root. One of the settlement's steadfast residents is Gabi Kupper, a one-time free spirit and kibbutz-dweller, who undergoes a religious awakening. The delicate routines of Gabi's new life are thrown into turmoil with the sudden arrival of Roni, his prodigal brother, who, years after venturing to America in search of fortune, arrives at Gabi's door, penniless. To the settlement's dismay, Roni soon hatches a plan to sell the "artisanal" olive oil from the Palestinian village to Tel Aviv yuppies. When a curious Washington Post correspondent stumbles into their midst, Ma'aleh Hermesh C becomes the focus of an international diplomatic scandal and faces its greatest test yet. By turns serious and satirical, The Hilltop brilliantly skewers the complex, often absurd reality of life in Israel, the West Bank settlers, and the nation's relationship to the United States, and makes a startling parallel between today's settlements and the kibbutz movement of Gabi and Roni's youth. Rich with humor and insight, Assaf Gavron's novel is the first fiction to grapple with one of the most charged geo-political issues of our time, and he has written a masterpiece.Hailed as "The Great Israeli Novel" (Time Out Tel Aviv) and winner of the prestigious Bernstein Prize, The Hilltop is a monumental and daring work about life in a West Bank settlement from one of Israel's most acclaimed young novelists. On a rocky, beautiful hilltop stands Ma'aleh Hermesh C, a fledgling community flying under the radar. According to the government it doesn't exist; according to the military it must be defended. On this contested land, Othniel Assis — under the wary gaze of the neighboring Palestinian village — plants asparagus, arugula, and cherry tomatoes, and he installs goats — and his ever-expanding family. As Othniel cheerfully manipulates government agencies, more settlers arrive, and, amid a hodge-podge of shipping containers and mobile homes, the outpost takes root. One of the settlement's steadfast residents is Gabi Kupper, a one-time free spirit and kibbutz-dweller, who undergoes a religious awakening. The delicate routines of Gabi's new life are thrown into turmoil with the sudden arrival of Roni, his prodigal brother, who, years after venturing to America in search of fortune, arrives at Gabi's door, penniless. To the settlement's dismay, Roni soon hatches a plan to sell the "artisanal" olive oil from the Palestinian village to Tel Aviv yuppies. When a curious Washington Post correspondent stumbles into their midst, Ma'aleh Hermesh C becomes the focus of an international diplomatic scandal and faces its greatest test yet. By turns serious and satirical, The Hilltop brilliantly skewers the complex, often absurd reality of life in Israel, the West Bank settlers, and the nation's relationship to the United States, and makes a startling parallel between today's settlements and the kibbutz movement of Gabi and Roni's youth. Rich with humor and insight, Assaf Gavron's novel is the first fiction to grapple with one of the most charged geo-political issues of our time, and he has written a masterpiece

People laughed at the image of pretzel-legged yogis focusing on the tip of their noses- until Swami Rama walked into a laboratory and showed scientists what a yogi with control over his respiration can actually do. Before astonished researchers, he demonstrated perfect control over his heart rate and brain waves- control physiologists hadnt believed humans could possibly achieve. For thousands of years, yogic adepts have claimed that breath is the essential link between body and mind, energizing a subtle body which connects the physical and mental aspects of our being. In this landmark book, Swami Rama and two noted American physicians explore the science of breath as the missing key to both physical health and the attainment of higher states of consciousness. Basic yogic breathing techniques are explained so that we can immediately begin working with this powerful ancient science

The new novel from the winner of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, The Hired Man is a taut, powerful novel of a small town and its dark wartime secrets, unwittingly brought into the light by a family of outsiders. Aminatta Forna has established herself as one of our most perceptive and uncompromising chroniclers of war and the way it reverberates, sometimes imperceptibly, in the daily lives of those touched by it. With The Hired Man, she has delivered a tale of a Croatian village after the War of Independence, and a family of newcomers who expose its secrets. Duro is off on a morning’s hunt when he sees something one rarely does in Gost: a strange car. Later that day, he overhears its occupants, a British woman, Laura, and her two children, who have taken up residence in a house Duro knows well. He offers his assistance getting their water working again, and soon he is at the house every day, helping get it ready as their summer cottage, and serving as Laura’s trusted confidant. But the other residents of Gost are not as pleased to have the interlopers, and as Duro and Laura’s daughter Grace uncover and begin to restore a mosaic in the front that has been plastered over, Duro must be increasingly creative to shield the family from the town’s hostility, and his own past with the house’s former occupants. As the inhabitants of Gost go about their days, working, striving to better themselves and their town, and arguing, the town’s volatile truths whisper ever louder. A masterpiece of storytelling haunted by lost love and a restrained menace, this novel recalls Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee and Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje. The Hired Man confirms Aminatta Forna as one of our most important writers

"To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history…" Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of-a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history. The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known-and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself-to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive. What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed-and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe. In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler's dark reign-and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages. Parsing obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions-and evading the unknown adversaries who will go to any lengths to conceal and protect Vlad's ancient powers-one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil. Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions, a relentless tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present, with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful-and utterly unforgettable. Amazon.com Review If your pulse flutters at the thought of castle ruins and descents into crypts by moonlight, you will savor every creepy page of Elizabeth Kostova's long but beautifully structured thriller The Historian. The story opens in Amsterdam in 1972, when a teenage girl discovers a medieval book and a cache of yellowed letters in her diplomat father's library. The pages of the book are empty except for a woodcut of a dragon. The letters are addressed to: "My dear and unfortunate successor." When the girl confronts her father, he reluctantly confesses an unsettling story: his involvement, twenty years earlier, in a search for his graduate school mentor, who disappeared from his office only moments after confiding to Paul his certainty that Dracula-Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century-was still alive. The story turns out to concern our narrator directly because Paul's collaborator in the search was a fellow student named Helen Rossi (the unacknowledged daughter of his mentor) and our narrator's long-dead mother, about whom she knows almost nothing. And then her father, leaving just a note, disappears also. As well as numerous settings, both in and out of the East Bloc, Kostova has three basic story lines to keep straight-one from 1930, when Professor Bartolomew Rossi begins his dangerous research into Dracula, one from 1950, when Professor Rossi's student Paul takes up the scent, and the main narrative from 1972. The criss-crossing story lines mirror the political advances, retreats, triumphs, and losses that shaped Dracula's beleaguered homeland-sometimes with the Byzantines on top, sometimes the Ottomans, sometimes the rag-tag local tribes, or the Orthodox church, and sometimes a fresh conqueror like the Soviet Union. Although the book is appropriately suspenseful and a delight to read-even the minor characters are distinctive and vividly seen-its most powerful moments are those that describe real horrors. Our narrator recalls that after reading descriptions of Vlad burning young boys or impaling "a large family," she tried to forget the words: "For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth." The reader, although given a satisfying ending, gets a strong enough dose of European history to temper the usual comforts of the closing words. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Considering the recent rush of door-stopping historical novels, first-timer Kostova is getting a big launch-fortunately, a lot here lives up to the hype. In 1972, a 16-year-old American living in Amsterdam finds a mysterious book in her diplomat father's library. The book is ancient, blank except for a sinister woodcut of a dragon and the word "Drakulya," but it's the letters tucked inside, dated 1930 and addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," that really pique her curiosity. Her widowed father, Paul, reluctantly provides pieces of a chilling story; it seems this ominous little book has a way of forcing itself on its owners, with terrifying results. Paul's former adviser at Oxford, Professor Rossi, became obsessed with researching Dracula and was convinced that he remained alive. When Rossi disappeared, Paul continued his quest with the help of another scholar, Helen, who had her own reasons for seeking the truth. As Paul relates these stories to his daughter, she secretly begins her own research. Kostova builds suspense by revealing the threads of her story as the narrator discovers them: what she's told, what she reads in old letters and, of course, what she discovers directly when the legendary threat of Dracula looms. Along with all the fascinating historical information, there's also a mounting casualty count, and the big showdown amps up the drama by pulling at the heartstrings at the same time it revels in the gruesome. Exotic locales, tantalizing history, a family legacy and a love of the bloodthirsty: it's hard to imagine that readers won't be bitten, too

Alexander Sutherland (1852–1902) was a Scottish-Australian educator, writer and philosopher. Sutherland did a large amount of literary work. He was responsible for the first volume only of Victoria and its Metropolis, published in 1888, an interesting history of the first 50 years of the state of Victoria. In 1890 he published Thirty Short Poems, the cultured verse of an experienced literary man, but his most important book was The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, which appeared in 1898 in two volumes. George Sutherland (1855–1905), a writer, was born in Scotland. He was taken to Australia in 1864 and graduated from the University of Melbourne. After teaching for some time he took up journalism and worked for the South Australian Register from 1881 to 1902, after which he joined the Melbourne Age. His works include: Tales of the Goldfields (1880), Australia; or, England in the South (1886), The South Australian Company (1898) and Twentieth Century Inventions (1901). With his brother, Alexander Sutherland, he wrote The History of Australia and New Zealand from 1606 to 1890 (1894), which attained a sale of 120,000 copies

In the spirit of Station Eleven and Never Let Me Go, this dazzling and ambitious literary debut follows three generations of beekeepers from the past, present, and future, weaving a spellbinding story of their relationship to the bees—and to their children and one another—against the backdrop of an urgent, global crisis. England, 1852. William is a biologist and seed merchant, who sets out to build a new type of beehive—one that will give both him and his children honor and fame. United States, 2007. George is a beekeeper fighting an uphill battle against modern farming, but hopes that his son can be their salvation. China, 2098. Tao hand paints pollen onto the fruit trees now that the bees have long since disappeared. When Tao’s young son is taken away by the authorities after a tragic accident, she sets out on a grueling journey to find out what happened to him. Haunting, illuminating, and deftly written, The History of Bees joins “the past, the present, and a terrifying future in a riveting story as complex as a honeycomb” (New York Times bestselling author Bryn Greenwood) that is just as much about the powerful bond between children and parents as it is about our very relationship to nature and humanity

A witty and irresistible story of a mother and daughter regarding each other through the looking glass of time, grief, and forgiveness. In two beautifully counterpoised narratives, two women — mother and daughter — try to make sense of their own lives by revisiting what they know about each other. The History of Great Things tells the entwined stories of Lois, a daughter of the Depression Midwest who came to New York to transform herself into an opera star, and her daughter, Elizabeth, an aspiring writer who came of age in the 1970s and ’80s in the forbidding shadow of her often-absent, always larger-than-life mother. In a tour de force of storytelling and human empathy, Elizabeth chronicles the events of her mother’s life, and in turn Lois recounts her daughter’s story — pulling back the curtain on lifelong secrets, challenging and interrupting each other, defending their own behavior, brandishing or swallowing their pride, and, ultimately, coming to understand each other in a way that feels both extraordinary and universal. The History of Great Things is a novel about a mother and daughter who are intimately connected and not connected enough; it will make readers laugh and cry and wonder how we become the adults we always knew we should — even if we’re not always adults our parents understand

The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen, translated by William Purdie Dickson

The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen, translated by William Purdie Dickson

The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen, translated by William Purdie Dickson

The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen, translated by William Purdie Dickson

The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen, translated by William Purdie Dickson

In this “ingenious” novel (New York Times) by “one of Europe’s most original and remarkable writers” (Los Angeles Times), a proofreader’s deliberate slip opens the door to romance-and confounds the facts of Portugal’s past

Meet Simon Crane, the hottest hard-boiled antihero since Mike Hammer! Неге’s an ex-cop who’s up to his neck in blood, booty, and blackmail: Number One target in a gangland countdown to murder. The Hit resounds with a tough, ingenious triple-crossing twist — alter all, who would rob the Mafia?　 Author Brian Garfield scores a criminal bull’s-eye in this uncompromising thriller that rips the veneer off the Establishment of a sleepy southwestern state, exposing a merry-go-round of murder, vice, and mob control. It all explodes when a Cosa Nostra kingpin is found dead m the living room of his palatial estate. A gaping wall safe discloses the killer’s motive: a missing three million dollars in cash — and a giant political scandal. The state’s entire political elite is incriminatingly indebted to the murdered mobster, but the bloody trail seems to lead to the door of Simon Crane. A handier suspect couldn’t be found, either by the mob or by the corrupt police. Besides, no one is fool enough to openly accuse a famous political figure of robbery and murder when a desperate ex-cop might solve the mystery to save his own skin. And Crane’s alleged motive is clearly personal: her name is Joanna, a frail, blond ex-Mafia playmate whose one and only fling with the deceased was recorded on film and preserved in the safe’s incendiary archives. Wasn’t that reason enough to kill — for revenge, a king’s ransom, and the intensely private files of a first-class manipulator? Facing trial by gunpoint either way he turns, Crane parlays his only chance into a deal with Mafia executioners: forty-eight hours to prove his innocence. Forty-eight hours to trap a wily thief and return to the mob with three million in home-grown graft and a payload of political dynamite. It’s the biggest, nastiest, most extraordinary gamble in years, starring hard-nosed, daring Simon Crane, who plays a criminal deck with a master hand — and challenges the powerbrokers to a no-holds-barred game of survival