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9 New Books to Add to your Summer Reading List

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In the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy with one eye, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

Timeless and bittersweet, Husbands & Lovers takes readers on an unforgettable journey of heartbreak and redemption, from the revolutionary fires of midcentury Egypt to the moneyed beaches of contemporary New England. Acclaimed author Beatriz Williams has written a poignant and beautifully voiced novel of deeply human characters entangled by morally complex issues—of privilege, class, and the female experience—inside worlds brought shimmering to life.

Brooke Hastings is ready to end her six-week affair. Gideon Ross is charming but not worth throwing away her marriage for. So, she breaks it off, hoping Gideon will understand. He doesn’t. Gideon insists that he and Brooke are meant to be together. Finally, he backs off, but not before issuing a promise that he’ll never let her go. Six years later, Brooke wants to believe it’s all behind her. Gideon has vanished. But Brooke is worried. And maybe she’s right to be. Because Gideon is a man who keeps his promises.

Hannah finds community in a true-crime forum that’s on a mission to solve the murders of four women in Atlanta. After William, a handsome lawyer, is arrested for the killings, Hannah begins writing him letters. But when William writes back, Hannah’s interest in the case goes from curiosity to obsession. When a fifth woman is discovered murdered, the jury has no choice but to find William not guilty, and Hannah is the first person he calls upon his release. The two of them quickly fall into a routine of domestic bliss. Well, as blissful as one can feel while secretly investigating their partner for serial murder.

Daphne McFadden is tired of rejection. After submitting her manuscript to dozens of agents, she’s gotten rejection after rejection. And so, Daphne submits her manuscript again, under a man’s name. Imagine her surprise when it becomes a publicity darling. Only she needs a man to play her alter ego Zane Remington. Enter Chris Stanton, who absolutely looks the part of a survivalist. But Chris has a few secrets of his own. When Daphne’s book becomes a bestselling sensation and they’re forced to go on tour together, Daphne finds herself wondering if this city‑boy geek is exactly what she needs to push her to claim her dreams.

On the way to an annual book club retreat, Eileen Merriweather, a Literature professor’s car unexpectedly breaks down, and she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a novel of her favorite romance series. It’s perfect but trapped in the late author’s last unfinished story. Elsy is sure that’s why she must be here: to help bring the town to its storybook ending. Except there is a character in Eloraton, a grumpy bookstore owner, that does not want her finishing this book. Which is a problem because Elsy is beginning to think the town’s happily-ever-after might just be intertwined with her own.

It’s the opening night of The Manor, and no expense has been spared. The infinity pool sparkles and crystal pouches for guests’ healing have been placed in the Seaside Cottages and Woodland Hutches. Everyone is wearing linen. But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. Just outside the Manor’s immaculately kept grounds, an ancient forest bristles with secrets. And the Sunday morning of opening weekend, the local police are called. It all began with a secret. Now the past has crashed the party. And it’ll end in murder.

The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle occurred in Ethan Marsh’s backyard. One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend and neighbor, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a manicured lawn in a quiet, quaint New Jersey. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. Thirty years later, Ethan has reluctantly returned to his childhood home and he begins to notice strange things happening in the middle of the night. Someone seems to be roaming the cul de sac at odd hours, and signs of Billy’s presence keep appearing in Ethan’s backyard. Is someone playing a cruel prank? Or has Billy, long thought to be dead, somehow returned to Hemlock Circle?

As a young couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. Eve lets them in but as soon as the strangers enter their home, uncanny and inexplicable things start happening. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?

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The Ocean is Calling with these 9 Beach Reads

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 Rocked by tragedy, Annie Marlow heads to the one place that makes her happy: Oceanside in the Pacific Northwest. Once there, Annie begins to restore her broken spirit, thanks in part to Keaton to whom Annie feels most drawn. His peaceful nature offers her comfort, and the two begin to grow closer. And when the opportunity of a lifetime lands in her lap, she is torn between the excitement of a new journey toward success and the safe and secure arms of the haven — and the man — she’s come to call home.

There’s a lot happening on this little island at Christmas. No one knows why Dixie’s son is here, on Christmas Day, no less. And he doesn’t look happy. Bookstore owner Dixie is keeping a big secret that will shake up everyone around her. Julie’s daughter, Colleen, is coming home for a visit, but she’s not alone. Janine makes a new friend, but nobody is thrilled about it. Julie and Dawson question their budding relationship. Will they move forward or decide that being friends is the best way to go? 

After she discovers her sister Tanya dead on the floor of her fashionable New York City townhouse, Letty Carnahan is certain she knows who did it: Tanya’s ex; sleazy real estate entrepreneur Evan Wingfield. Even in the grip of grief and panic Letty heeds her late sister’s warnings: “If anything bad happens to me – it’s Evan. Promise me you’ll take Maya and run. Promise me.” So Letty grabs her sister’s Mercedes and hits the road with her wailing four-year-old niece Maya. Letty is determined to out-run Evan and the law, but run to where?

Five years ago, Cass barely survived a brutal attack that left her family dead. Now a scuba diving instructor in Thailand, she has spent years trying to build a new, anonymous life for herself as one of the Permanents, a group of expats who have claimed the beautiful Thailand destination as their own. But her dark past is about to catch up with her when Lucy, one of Cass’ dive students, turns up dead and she starts getting messages from someone who has discovered who she really is.

In a lonely cottage on the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of a sun-drenched summer of his youth, and of the killer that stalked the small New England town. And of the terrible tragedy that forever bonded him with his friends Nat and Harper in unknowable ways. Decades later, Wilder returns to the town in an attempt to recount that summer’s events in his memoirs. But as he writes, Wilder begins to fear his grip on the truth is fading and that the book may be writing itself.

 New York heiress Catherine Dohan seemingly has it all but it’s a lie. As soon as the Morro Castle leaves port, Catherine’s past returns with a vengeance and threatens her life. Joining forces with a charismatic jewel thief, Catherine must discover who wants her dead–and why. Elena Palacio is a dead woman. Or so everyone thinks. After a devastating betrayal, Elena’s journey on the Morro Castle is her last hope. Burning for revenge, her return to Havana is a chance to right her wrongs.

When twelve-year-olds Kat Steiner and Blake O’Neill meet at Camp Chickawah, they have an instant connection. But everything falls apart when they learn they’re not just best friends-they’re also half-sisters. Confused and betrayed, their friendship instantly crumbles. Fifteen years later when their father dies suddenly, Kat and Blake discover he’s left them the family beach house. The two sisters are instantly at odds. They clash as Blake’s renovation plans conflict with Kat’s creative vision, and each sister finds herself drawn into a summer romance. As the weeks pass, the two women realize the most difficult project they face this summer will be learning how to become sisters.

The narrator is Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who, soon after his wife’s death, has gone back to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child — a retreat from the grief, anger, and numbness of his life without her. But it is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, the well — heeled vacationing family with whom he experienced the strange suddeness of both love and death for the first time. The seductive mother; the imperious father; the twins — Chloe, fiery and forthright, and Myles, silent and expressionless — in whose mysterious connection Max became profoundly entangled, each of them a part of the “barely bearable raw immediacy” of his childhood memories.

Busy flower shop manager Evita Machado can’t wait to get to Nantucket. With a bad breakup behind her, relaxing at the shore with her folks sounds like the sure cure for heartache. But when they arrive at the quaint rose-covered cottage, another group has already put down stakes: the Hatfields. Ryan Hatfield was Evita’s former crush from high school, but their business rival moms refused to let them date. Once it’s clear there’s been a double-booking, Ryan’s mom digs in her heels, meaning to stay. Both sides tepidly agree to share the luxury accommodations by dividing the cozy space. Can Evita and Ryan keep the peace between the warring factions while fostering a growing chemistry between the two of them?”

Enjoy these Books in the Great Outdoors

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In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world and the hatred and misinformation that became a daily presence on social media. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater—an opportunity to connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.

Nick Offerman has always felt a particular affection for the Land of the Free—not just for the people and their purported ideals but to the actual land the bedrock, the topsoil, and everything in between that generates the health of your local watershed. In his new book, Nick takes a humorous, inspiring, and elucidating trip to America’s trails, farms, and frontier to examine the people who inhabit the land, what that has meant to them and us, and to the land itself, both historically and currently.

This magical journey into the world of the octopus will reveal how the large and capable brain of these creatures occupies their whole body–not just their heads—and they can actually adjust their genetic makeup to respond to the demands of the environment. It will allow readers to watch them change shape and color in order to camouflage themselves more effectively than any other species. And it will divulge how octopus mothers give their all in order to bring forth a new generation.

From the mountains to the ocean shores, from the wetlands to the deserts, North America teems with flora and fauna in delicately balanced ecosystems found nowhere else on Earth. With this book in hand, you will understand the language of nature and see those wild places with new eyes. This volume celebrates a tradition of knowledge established by the Nature Study Guild. For more than sixty years, the Guild’s pocket guidebooks have helped hikers, campers, foragers, and explorers navigate the great outdoors.

Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is. We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for—if at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants—and our own place—in the natural world.

Humans have given meanings and stories to plants and flowers for thousands of years, from myths of Greek Gods who pecked out the eyes of anyone who moved the sacred Peony plant, to 19th century Victorian tales that saw flowers foreshadow death. With details on the origins of the folklore behind each plant, and a beautiful ritual to help you better connect with the teaching each plant has to offer, this is the perfect book for foragers, gardeners, and budding horticulturists looking to develop their knowledge of plants beyond the exterior.

Torbjørn Ekelund dreams of spending more time in nature, but he’s so busy with city life that he has no desire to travel far. So, he hatches a plan. Ekelund decides to leave the city after work and camp near a tiny pond in the forest. The next morning, he returns to work as usual. He does this once a month for a full year. What happens over the course of that year is nothing short of transformative. Evoking Henry David Thoreau, A Year in the Woods asks if the secret to communing with nature lies in small rituals and reflection.

Connecting with green spaces, trees, and plants can lift our spirits, lower our stress levels, and relax our brains – in short, playing outside is good for adults, too. Forest School for Grown-Ups is here to help. A gorgeous and comprehensive guide to all things outdoors for anyone who loves being in and interacting with nature, readers will learn how to make a rope sing, go forest bathing, read flowers, build a campfire, and make a forest potion. From practical tips and how-tos to forest folklore, there’s something for everyone.

Frankie O’Neill and Anne Ryan would seem to have nothing in common. Frankie is a lonely ornithologist struggling to salvage her dissertation on the spotted owl following a rift with her advisor. Anne is an Irish musician far from home and family, raising her five-year-old, Aiden, who refuses to speak. When Frankie finds an injured baby crow in the forest, little does she realize that the charming bird will bring all three lost souls—Frankie, Anne, and Aiden—together on a journey toward hope, healing, and rediscovering joy.

Dive into Summer with these Beach Reads

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There aren’t enough labeled glass containers to contain the mess that is Ali Morris’s life. She’s a professional organizer whose pantry is a disgrace. No one is more surprised than Ali when the first time she takes off her wedding ring, she meets someone. Ethan smiles at Ali like he likes what he sees. The last thing Ali needs is to make her life messier, but there’s no harm in a little Summer Romance. Is there?

Four freshmen arrive at college from completely different worlds. Soon after moving into their shared dorm, they become fast friends. As their college years fly by, their bond intensifies and the four become inseparable. But as graduation nears, a pact is made to be there for each other in their time of need. Years later, when Hannah calls on her closest friends, they stay true to their promise and agree to embark on a journey of self-discovery, forgiveness, and acceptance.

Jen Weinstein and Lauren Parker rule the town of Salcombe, Fire Island every summer. Their husbands, Sam and Jason, have summered together on the island since childhood, despite lifelong grudges and numerous secrets. But even with plenty to gossip about, this season starts out as quietly as any other. Until a body is discovered, face down off the side of the boardwalk.

Poppy and Alex. They have nothing in common and somehow, they are the very best of friends. And every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together. Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since. But she decides to convince him to take one more vacation together. Miraculously, he agrees. Now she has a week to fix everything. What could possibly go wrong?

Lux McAllister wants to leave Hawaii and travel the world after a family tragedy. When her boyfriend, Nico, and two women named Brittany and Amma hire them to sail to a remote island in the South Pacific, Lux jumps at the chance. The island is known for its shipwrecks and rumored murders, but Lux and her friends are excited to disconnect from the real world. However, they soon discover that they are not alone on the island and that things may not go as planned.

Justin has a curse, and thanks to a Reddit thread, it’s all over the internet. Every woman he dates goes on to find their soul mate the second they break up. When a woman slides into his DMs with the same problem, they come up with a plan: They’ll date each other and break up. Their curses will cancel each other’s out, and they’ll both go on to find the love of their lives. It’s a bonkers idea… and it just might work. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?

When Kathleen Deane’s husband, Tom, tells her he’s no longer happy with his life and their marriage, Kathleen is confused. They’ve been married thirty years. Who said anything about being happy? But with Tom off finding himself, Kathleen starts to think about what she wants. And her thoughts lead her to a small beach community on the east coast, a town called Whitbey. As Kathleen gets more and more involved in the town’s politics, she realizes that Whitbey may not be a fairytale, but it just might be exactly what she needed.

The world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the last island: it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. Until one of the scientists is found stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island. If the murder isn’t solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island—But the security system has also wiped everyone’s memories of what happened the night before. And the clock is ticking.

In a sleepy seaside town in Maine, recently widowed Evvie rarely leaves her large, painfully empty house. Everyone in town, even her best friend, Andy, thinks grief keeps her locked inside. Meanwhile, in New York City, Dean Tenney, former Major League pitcher, is wrestling with a terrible injury. As the media storm heats up, an invitation from Andy to stay in Maine seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button. When he moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie’s house, what starts as an unexpected friendship soon turns into something more.

New Audiobooks to Enjoy in the Libby App

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After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to sort out her estate. Beth, the oldest, never left home. She stayed with her mom, caring for her until the very end. Nicole, the middle child, has been kept at arm’s length due to her ongoing battle with a serious drug addiction. Michael, the youngest, hasn’t been back to their small Wisconsin town since their father ran out on them. The siblings must now decide whether to leave the past in the past or uncover the dark secret their mother took to her grave.

Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn’t be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.

Summer Sullivan, the youngest founding member of Elm Creek Quilts, has spent the last two years pursuing a master’s degree in history at the University of Chicago. Her unexpected return home to the celebrated quilter’s retreat is met with delight but also concern from her mother, Gwen; her best friend, Sarah; master quilter Sylvia; and her other colleagues—and rightly so. Stymied by writer’s block, Summer hasn’t finished her thesis, and she can’t graduate until she does.

Summer, 1939. The glittering Côte d’Azur is having a particularly brilliant season, as the world’s wealthiest vacationers collide with Hollywood’s illustrious movie stars for the first-ever film festival on the French Riviera. Into this hothouse playground comes an American named Annabel Faucon. Having left a dead-end job and a broken heart back in New York, she’s escaped to a summer stint at the fabulous Grand Hotel where her uncle is the manager.

Erebus Resort, offers guests the experience of viewing woolly mammoths, and giant sloths in their native habitat, brought back from extinction through genetic manipulation. When a billionaire’s son and his new wife are kidnapped and murdered in the Erebus back country by what is assumed to be a gang of eco-terrorists, Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frances Cash partners with county sheriff James Colcord to track down the perpetrators.

Joe Leaphorn may be long retired from the Navajo Tribal Police, but his detective skills are still sharp, honed by his work as a private detective. His experience will be essential to solve a compelling new finding the birth parents of a woman who was raised by a bilagáana family but believes she is Diné based on one solid clue, an old photograph with a classic Navajo child’s blanket. Leaphorn discovers that his client’s adoption was questionable, and her adoptive family not what they seem.

A beautiful discovery outside the window of her underwater home prompts the reclusive E. to begin a correspondence with renowned scholar Henerey Clel. The letters they share are filled with passion, at first for their mutual interests, and then, inevitably, for each other. Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E.’s home, and she and Henerey vanish.

Los Angeles, 1932: Lulu Wong, star of the silver screen and the pride of Chinatown, has a face known to practically anyone, especially to the Chow sisters—May, Gemma, and Peony—Lulu’s former classmates and neighbors. So the girls instantly know it’s Lulu whose body they discover one morning in an out-of-the-way stable, far from the Beverly Hills mansion where she moved once her fame skyrocketed. The sisters suspect Lulu’s death is the result of foul play, but the LAPD—known for being corrupt to the core—doesn’t seem motivated to investigate.

Years after a breakdown and a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder derailed her historical preservationist career, Kenetria Nash and her alters have been given a second chance they can’t refuse: a position as resident caretaker of a historic home. Having been dormant for years, Ken has no idea what led them to this isolated Hudson River island, but she’s determined not to ruin their opportunity. Then a surprise visit from the home’s conservation trust just as a Nor’easter bears down on the island disrupts her newfound life.

Nine Books to Read Before Watching the New Movie

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When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum’s classic tale we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious Witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?An astonishingly rich re-creation of the land of Oz, this book retells the story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, who wasn’t so wicked after all.  

Penelope Featherington has secretly adored her best friend’s brother, Colin Bridgerton, for what feels like forever. After half a lifetime of watching him from afar, she thinks she knows everything about him, until she stumbles across his deepest secret…and fears she doesn’t know him at all. But when he discovers that Penelope has secrets of her own, this elusive bachelor must decide…is she his biggest threat – or his promise of a happy ending?

One moonlit night, fourteen-year-old Reena Virk went to join friends at a party and never returned home. In this “tour de force of crime reportage,” acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey takes us into the hidden world of the seven teenage girls—and boy—accused of a savage murder. As she follows the investigation and trials, Godfrey reveals the startling truth about the unlikely killers. 

Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening with his family, when a masked abductor knocks him unconscious. He awakens to find himself surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And he is not a college professor, but a celebrated genius. How can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answer is a journey that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself as he battles a seemingly unbeatable foe.

One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy Delaney’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaney’s are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that was all she wanted. Later, when Joy goes missing, and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent, two are not so sure—but as the two sides square off against each other, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light.

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.

Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. So when she feels a spark with a neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, Lily can’t get him out of her head. As questions about her new relationship with Ryle overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan — her first love and a link to the past she left behind. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.

After Englishman John Blackthorne is lost at sea, he awakens in Nippon. Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne’s loyalty is tested by both passion and loss, and he is torn between two worlds.

9 Books to Add to Your Reading List this August

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In January 1939, Pablo Picasso was renowned in Europe but disdained by many in the United States. One year later, Americans across the country were clamoring to see his art. Picasso’s War is the never-before-told story about how a single exhibition, a decade in the making, irrevocably changed American taste, and in doing so saved dozens of the twentieth century’s most enduring artworks from the Nazis.

As a historian, Buck resurrects the era’s adventurous spirit, but he also challenges familiar myths about American expansion, confronting the bloody truth behind settlers’ push for land and wealth. Weaving together a tapestry of first-person histories, Buck portrays this watershed era of American expansion as it was really lived. Life on the Mississippi is a majestic feat of storytelling from a writer who may be the closest that we have today to Mark Twain.

Sharp-tongued Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake. As an expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show “Brown Sugar,” she’s made it her mission to make sure the women at Whitewell University do not fall into the mess of “situationships”, players, and heartbreak. But when she kisses Malakai Korede, the guy she just publicly denounced as “The Wastemen of Whitewell,” in front of everyone on campus, she finds her show on the brink. They’re soon embroiled in a fake relationship to try and salvage their reputations and save their futures.

London, 1940. Bombs fall and Josie Banks’s world crumbles around her. Her overbearing husband, Stan, is called to service. Her home, a ruin of rubble and ash. Evacuated to the English countryside, Josie ends up at the estate of the aristocratic Miss Harcourt. Seeing an opportunity, Josie convinces Miss Harcourt to let her open a humble tea shop. Her newfound courage will be put to the test if she is to emerge, like a survivor, triumphant.

 In the span of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream murdered as many as ten people in the United States, Britain, and Canada, a death toll with almost no precedent. Poison was his weapon of choice. Jobb exposes the blind trust given to medical practitioners, as well as the bungled investigations, corrupt officials, and stifling morality of Victorian society that allowed Dr. Cream to prey on vulnerable and desperate women.

Imagine nine women meeting. They’ve come together to share their love of books. They are friends. It’s a happy gathering. What could be more harmless? Then scratch the surface and look closer. One is lonely. One is desperate. And one of them is a killer. When the body of a woman is discovered on a Cambridge common, DCI Barrett and DI Palmer are called in to investigate. But the motive behind the crime isn’t clear–and it all leads back to a book club.

In 1943, while the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals were winning pennants and meeting in that year’s World Series, Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, and Johnny Said practiced on a skinned-out college field in the heart of North Carolina. They and other past and future stars formed one of the greatest baseball teams of all time. They were among a cadre of fighter-pilot cadets who wore the Cloudbuster Nine baseball jersey at an elite Navy training school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Kitty Talbot needs a husband who has a fortune. Left with her father’s massive debts, she has only twelve weeks to save her family from ruin. Kitty has never been one to back down from a challenge, so she leaves home and heads toward the most dangerous battleground in all of England: the London season. The only thing she doesn’t anticipate is Lord Radcliffe. The worldly Radcliffe sees Kitty for the mercenary fortune-hunter that she really is and is determined to scotch her plans at all costs, until their parrying takes a completely different turn.

A once idyllic American landscape is home to a closely knit, rural community that, for more than a generation, has battled the polluting practices of large-scale farming that had been making them sick and damaging their homes. After years of frustration and futile attempts to bring about change, an impassioned cadre of local residents, led by a team of intrepid and dedicated lawyers, brought suit against one of the world’s most powerful corporations-and, miraculously, they won.

1.21 Gigawatts: Time Travel Books Lost in the Stacks

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Kendra Donovan is a rising star at the FBI. Yet her path to professional success waivers when a disastrous raid gets half her team killed, and she herself is severely wounded. Soon after she recovers, she goes rogue and travels to England to assassinate the man responsible for the deaths of her teammates. While fleeing from an unexpected assassin herself, Kendra travels through time leaving her stranded in the same place but in the year 1815.

 For August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train. Jane. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane is literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her.

Anne Gallagher grew up enchanted by her grandfather’s stories of Ireland. Heartbroken at his death, she travels to his childhood home to spread his ashes. There, overcome with memories of him, she is pulled into another time. The Ireland of 1921 is teetering on the edge of war, but Anne finds herself there. Caught between history and her heart, she must decide whether she’s willing to let go of the life she knew for a love she never thought she’d find.

 When Melisande Stokes, an expert in linguistics, accidently meets military intelligence operator Tristan Lyons, it is the beginning of a chain of events that will alter human history itself. Tristan needs Mel to translate some old documents, which, if authentic, prove that magic actually existed. And so the Department of Diachronic Operations–D.O.D.O. –gets cracking on its mission: to develop a device that can bring magic back, and meddle with a little history.

A time travelling serial killer is impossible to trace, until one of his victims survives. In Depression-era Chicago, Harper Curtis finds a key to a house that opens on to other times. But it comes at a cost. He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential. He stalks them across different eras until in 1989, one of his victims—Kirby Mazrachi—starts hunting him back. Working with an ex-homicide reporter, Kirby has to unravel time to solve an impossible mystery.

 Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach – an “outlander” – in a Scotland torn by war and raising clans in the year 1743. Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart.

 After the death of her beloved twin brother, Felix, and the breakup with her longtime lover, Nathan, Greta Wells embarks on a radical psychiatric treatment to alleviate her suffocating depression. But the treatment has unexpected effects, and Greta finds herself transported to the lives she might have had if she’d been born in different eras. Which life will she choose as she wrestles with the consequences of her choices?

Jake Epping is a 35 year old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine. Jake’s friend, Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret to Jake one day: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So Jake begins a new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald, and a beautiful librarian Sandie Dunhill—a life that transgressed all the normal rules of time.

If you could go back, who would you want to meet? In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee–the chance to travel back in time. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.

Take Me to Your Leader: Extraterrestrial Books Lost in the Stacks

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The future is here…in an adventure of cosmic dimension. When a signal is discovered that seems to come from far beyond our solar system, a multinational team of scientists decides to find the source. What follows is an eye-opening journey out to the stars to the most awesome encounter in human history. Who—or what—is out there? Why are they watching us? And what do they want with us?

 In the haunted city of Derry, four boys stood together and did a brave thing. Years later, the boys are now men with separate lives, but their ties endure. Each hunting season they reunite in the woods of Maine. This year, a stranger stumbles into their camp, disoriented, mumbling something about lights in the sky. Before long, the men are plunged into a horrifying struggle with a creature from another world. Their only chance of survival is locked in their shared past and in the Dreamcatcher.

Jonathan Doors. A man at the head of the world’s largest corporation, Doors International. A man of wealth and power, with the resources to change the world. The Taelons have arrived from beyond the stars on mission of mercy, to help humanity claim its destiny. Contacted by these Companions, Jonathan Doors helps introduce the aliens and their fantastic technology to the world, but there is a dark shadow behind the Taelons’ bright promises.

In Arrival’s “The Story of My Life,” alien lifeforms suddenly appear on Earth. When a linguist is brought in to help communicate with them and discern their intentions, her new knowledge of their language and its nonlinear structure allows her to see future events and all the joy and pain they may bring. In each story of this incredible collection, with sharp intelligence and humor, Ted Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by wonder.

During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she’s delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move. First contact isn’t at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human. While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity’s greatest and final hope.

Roaming through New York City at 3 a.m., April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. April and her friend, Andy, make a video, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day, April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world and April finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.  All eyes are on April to figure out what the Carls are, and what they want from us.

Prior to WWIII, the crewed spacecraft Envoy is launched toward Mars, but all contact is lost shortly before landing. Twenty-five years later, the spacecraft Champion makes contact with the missing ship and finds one survivor, Valentine Michael Smith. Raised by Martians on Mars, Valentine is a human being who has never seen another member of his species. Sent to Earth, he is a stranger who must learn what it is to be a man.

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one. Now, it’s the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets mysterious Evan Walker.

Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over the world, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.

9 Self-Help Books to Check out this August

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 In The Plus, Greg teaches you how to brainwash yourself into better behavior, retaining the pluses in your life and eliminating the minuses. His approach to self-help is simple, and perfect for cynics; it’s not about positive thinking in the short term, it’s about positive being in the long term. In The Plus, Greg shows how skeptics too can advance themselves for the betterment of their lives and the healing of their communities.

Every day, we’re bombarded with pressure to be positive. We’re constantly told that the key to happiness is silencing negativity wherever it crops up. In this refreshingly honest guide, sought-after therapist Whitney Goodman shares the latest research along with everyday examples and client stories that reveal how damaging toxic positivity is to ourselves and our relationships, and presents simple ways to experience and work through difficult emotions.

Any given day brings a never-ending list. There’s the work thing, the laundry thing, the creative thing, the exercise thing, the family thing, the thing we don’t want to do, and the thing we’ve been putting off. After years of searching for the secret to productivity, Madeleine Dore discovered there isn’t one. I Didn’t Do the Thing Today is the call to dismantle our comparisons to others, aspirational routines, and the unrealistic notions of what can be done in a day.

Celebrated self-care storyteller Alexandra Elle delivers 15 lessons on how to overcome obstacles, build confidence, and cultivate abundance in her part memoir and part guide, After the Rain. This soulful collection is filled with illuminating reflections on loss, fear, bravery, healing, love and acceptance. Readers follow along her journey as she transforms challenging experiences into fuel for her career as a successful entrepreneur and author.

Dr. Ashton becomes both researcher and subject as she focuses on twelve separate challenges. Beginning with a new area of focus each month, she guides you through the struggles she faces, the benefits she experiences, and the science behind why each month’s challenge–giving up alcohol, doing more push-ups, adopting an earlier bedtime, limiting technology–can lead to better health.

In Joyful, designer Ingrid Fetell Lee explores how the seemingly mundane spaces and objects we interact with every day have surprising and powerful effects on our mood. Drawing on insights from neuroscience and psychology, she explains why one setting makes us feel anxious or competitive, while another fosters acceptance and delight–and, most importantly, she reveals how we can harness the power of our surroundings to live fuller, healthier, and truly joyful lives.

Sisters Emily Nagoski, Ph.D., and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, are here to help end the cycle of overwhelm and exhaustion, and confront the obstacles that stand between women and well-being. With insights from the latest science, prescriptive advice, and helpful worksheets and exercises, Burnout reveals what you can do to complete the biological stress cycle and return your body to a state of relaxation.

This isn’t a book about high-fiving everyone else in your life. You’re already doing that. Cheering for your favorite teams. Celebrating your friends. Supporting the people you love as they go after what they want in life. Imagine if you gave that same love and encouragement to yourself. You’d be unstoppable. In this book, Mel teaches you how to start high-fiving the most important person in your life, the one who is staring back at you in the mirror: Yourself.

How much room are you giving to shame, to regret, to being against yourself? Whatever it is, it’s too much. Life is too short for you to live bitter and discouraged, letting your circumstances hold you back. Every morning you have to empty out anything negative from the day before and put on a fresh new attitude. Power up and get your mind going in the right direction, and you’ll step into all the new things God has in store for you.