Author: enelson

New Fall Fiction Available at the Library

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It’s autumn in Connecticut and there’s a chill in the air and pumpkin spice is the flavor of the season. Melanie Travis is perennially busy, of course—but when the owner of a local pet supply shop is found murdered, sleuthing tops her To Do list . . . Between taking care of her family and assorted Standard Poodles, Melanie is also working as a special needs tutor for Howard Academy, a private school in Greenwich, where her younger son attends kindergarten. Over the headmaster’s objections, Melanie is once again drawn into an investigation.

The man’s body is found in the early morning light by a local dog walker in the park outside Rosebank, a home for troubled teens in the coastal village of Longwater. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who was due to work the previous night but never showed up. DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate the death, with her only clue being the disappearance of one of the home’s residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spence. Vera can’t bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can’t dismiss the possibility.

I have a gorgeous husband, Scott, two lovely children, a successful career and a stylish townhouse. Anyone would think my life is perfect. But it’s all a lie. My twelve-year-old Katie has been in trouble at school and won’t talk to me. Desperate, we hire young, willowy brunette Deanna – an expert tutor – to help my daughter. I’ve been so worried, and my husband blames me. Have I failed as a mother? Deanna is our last hope, the only person who seems able to help my precious child. But I’m starting to wonder about her intentions…

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She’s immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamt of coming for years―she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him.

Lennon Carter’s life is falling apart. Then she gets a mysterious phone call inviting her to take the entrance exam for Drayton College, a school of magic hidden in a secret pocket of Savannah. Lennon has been chosen because—like everyone else at the school—she has the innate gift of persuasion, the ability to wield her will like a weapon, using it to control others and, in rare cases, matter itself. After passing the test, Lennon begins to learn how to master her devastating and unsettling power.

It’s been almost a year since Clay Edison was forced out of his job at the coroner’s bureau. Now he’s on his own, working as a private eye. When a client brings him a fraud case, Clay dives into a decades-old scheme targeting the vulnerable. His investigation leads him to a bizarre town buried in the remote California wilderness. The residents don’t care much for outsiders. They certainly don’t like Clay asking questions. And they’ll do just about anything to shut him up.

The disappearance of a local politician’s teenaged daughter is major news in Minnesota. As a huge manhunt is launched to find her, Cork O’Connor’s grandson stumbles across the shallow grave of a young Ojibwe woman—but nobody seems that interested. Nobody, that is, except Cork and the newly formed Iron Lake Ojibwe Tribal Police. As Cork and the tribal officers dig into the circumstances of this mysterious and grim discovery, they uncover a connection to the missing teenager. And soon, it’s clear that Cork’s grandson is in danger of being the killer’s next victim.

Erika Cass has a perfect family and a perfect life. Until the evening when two detectives show up at her front door. A high school girl has vanished from Erika’s quiet suburban neighborhood. The police suspect the worst–murder. And Erika’s teenage son, Liam, was the last person to see the girl alive. Erika has always sensed something dark and disturbed in her seemingly perfect older child. She wants to believe he’s innocent, but as the evidence mounts, she can’t deny the truth–Liam may have done the unthinkable.

The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.

It’s Spooky Season! Check Out New Horror Audiobooks Available on the Libby App

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Sloane Parker is dreading her birthday. She doesn’t need a reminder she’s getting older, or that she’s feeling indifferent about her own life. Her husband surprises her with a birthday weekend getaway—not with him, but with Sloane’s longtime best friend, troublemaker extraordinaire Naomi. Sloane anticipates a weekend of wine tastings and cozy robes and strategic avoidance of issues she’d rather not confront, like her husband’s repeated infidelity. But when they arrive at their rental cottage, it becomes clear Naomi has something else in mind.

Beware the one who got away . . .Father Silence once terrorized the rural town of Twisted Tree, disguising himself as a priest to prey on the most vulnerable members of society. When the police finally found his “House of Horrors,” they uncovered nineteen bodies and one survivor–a boy now locked away in a hospital for the criminally insane. Nearly two decades later, Father Silence is finally put to death, but by the next morning, the detective who made the original arrest is found dead. A new serial killer is taking credit for the murder and calling himself the Outcast.

Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home lab, has achieved the breakthrough of his career — he’s created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He calls the half-formed robot William. No one knows about William. Henry’s agoraphobia keeps him inside the house, and his fixation on his project keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily. When Lily’s coworkers show up, wanting to finally meet Henry and see the new house Henry decides to introduce them to William, and things go from strange to much worse.

Sixteen-year-old Nate Campbell grew up in the shadow of Murder Road – a street cursed by the vengeful spirit of the Hiding Boy. Every few years, for nearly six decades, a different house on that street has been the scene of a tragedy. Nate and his family move to a new town as they try to outrun the curse once and for all. But, when he is pulled into his new friends’ urban legend club, new ghost stories merge with old until there is nowhere left to run.

The last thing Nick Morrow expected to receive was an invitation from his father to return home. When he left rural Nebraska behind, he believed he was leaving everything there, including his abusive father, Carlyle, and the farm that loomed so large in memory, forever. But neither Nick nor his brother Joshua, disowned for marrying Emilia, a woman of Asian descent, can ignore such summons from their father, who hopes for a deathbed reconciliation.

In the grisly aftermath of a botched bank heist, career criminal Anne Heller has no choice but to return to her family’s cabin – a secluded shack in the San Luis Valley, and the site of her mother’s untimely death. Along for the ride are Jessup, Anne’s badly wounded partner, and Dutch, the police officer she’s taken hostage. As they wait for help, Anne discovers strange relics of her mother and begins to unfold the mystery of her childhood at the cabin.

“You can never go home again,” the saying goes—but Hal, Athena, and Erin have to. In high school, the three were students of the eccentric Professor Marsh, trained in a secret system of magic known as the Dissonance, which is built around harnessing negative emotions: alienation, anger, pain. Then, twenty years ago, something happened that shattered their coven, scattering them across the country, stuck in mundane lives, alone. But now, terrifying signs and portents (not to mention a pointed Facebook invite) have summoned them back to Clegg, Texas.

To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”  When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the same question, over and over . . . Bela understands that unless she says yes, soon her family must pay. Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage.

Most people’s births aren’t immortalized in a police report—but Olivia was born during the infamous Camp Lost Lake murders. Seventeen years later, Olivia’s life looks pretty perfect . . . until she discovers the man she calls dad is not her biological father. Now she wants answers about her bloodline, and the only place she knows to look is Camp Lost Lake. In the court of public opinion, her mom was found guilty of the deaths at Camp Lost Lake, and both of them have been in hiding ever since.

New Fiction Titles to Enjoy in October

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The crumbling house – Burton Makepeace and its chatelaine the Dowager Lady Milton – suffered the loss of their last remaining painting of any value, a Turner, some years ago. The housekeeper, Sophie, who disappeared the same night, is suspected of stealing it. Jackson, a reluctant hostage to the snowstorm, has been investigating the theft of another The Woman with a Weasel, a portrait, taken from the house of an elderly widow, on the morning she died. The suspect this time is the widow’s carer, Melanie. Is this a coincidence or is there a connection?

Ophelia Simmons is back home at the Paradise—the former brothel where her mom raised her and six sisters—contemplating her next career move and dodging Great Aunt Bernie’s matchmaking attempts. She is about to meet her match in Jake Brennan, the ruggedly handsome owner of a local winery where Aunt Bernie convinces her to take a job for the summer. At first Ophelia and Jake’s personalities clash, but soon enough sparks start flying.

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan. Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

On the night before graduation, seven students gather in the basement of their university’s rare books library. They’re not allowed in the library after closing time, but it’s the perfect place for the ritual they want to perform—one borrowed from the Greeks, said to free those who take part in it from the fear of death. And what better time to seek the wisdom of ancient gods than in the hours before they’ll scatter in different directions to start their real lives? But just a few minutes into their celebration, the lights go out—and one of them drops dead.

Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one. He’s the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there. Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

When African jihadis attack a Nigerian regiment using American weapons, Cabrillo and the Oregon crew are on the case, investigating from Afghanistan to Kuala Lumpur to track a mysterious arms dealer—a genius, or perhaps a devil—known only as the Vendor.    Cabrillo goes undercover to find the Vendor’s base, but his adversary isn’t just an arms smuggler. He’s an arms maker, and Cabrillo just walked into a lethal military game alongside the most dangerous mercenaries in the world, designed to test the Vendor’s cutting-edge AI arsenal.

Addison Torres has nothing left to lose in New no job, no fiancé, no parents to lean on. So when Uncle Arnie offers her a concierge gig in sunny California, she hops on a plane without looking back. Before it all came crashing down, Addison had a matchmaking career and handsome partner—then she got a little too cozy with a client. Digging her way out of the wreckage, she’s taken a strict vow of celibacy. Unfortunately, Addison’s new home is where such promises go to die.

Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now. Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job…

The gods love to toy with us mere mortals. And every hundred years, we let them…I have never been favored by the gods. Far from it, thanks to Zeus. Living as a cursed office clerk for the Order of Thieves, I just keep my head down and hope the capricious beings who rule from Olympus won’t notice me. Not an easy feat, given San Francisco is Zeus’ patron city, but I make do. I survive. Until the night I tangle with a different god. The worst god. Hades.

Start Your Fall Season with these New Nonfiction Books

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Luis “Lue” Elizondo is a former senior intelligence official and special agent who was recruited into a strange and highly sensitive US government program to investigate UAP incursions into sensitive military installations and air space. To accomplish his mission, Elizondo had to rely on decades of experience gained working some of America’s most sensitive and classified programs. Even then, he was not prepared for what he would learn, and the truth about the government’s long shadowy involvement in UAP investigations, and the lengths officials would take to keep them a secret.

Enjoy instant access to North America’s most beloved and best-selling annual, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which has been making every day special since 1792. Trusted by generations from all walks of life for its honesty and accuracy, the Almanac delivers fun facts, predictions, feature articles, and advice across many interest areas to readers who actually live—or aspire to live—the country lifestyle, with the intent of helping them to make better decisions.

America is as divided-generationally and politically-as it has ever been. But the strength of America has always been its people. Our teachers, families, coaches, mentors, and volunteers have the opportunity to shape America’s future. In doing so, they will not only improve individual lives, but also have the biggest impact on our national security. With 20 years of working in the trenches of America’s emergency rooms and with 22 years of military service, Dr. (Colonel) McConkey combines lessons of leadership and poignant examples of how we can move Americans forward.

America has always been a nation of laws. But today our laws have grown so vast and reach so deeply into our lives that it’s worth asking: In our reverence for law, have we gone too far? Over just the last few decades, laws in this nation have exploded in number; they are increasingly complex; and the punishments they carry are increasingly severe. Some of these laws come from our elected representatives, but many now come from agency officials largely insulated from democratic accountability. In Over Ruled, Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze explore these developments and the human toll so much law can carry for ordinary Americans.

Bookstores have always been unlike any other kind of store, shaping readers and writers, and influencing our tastes, thoughts, and politics. They nurture local communities while creating new ones of their own. Bookshops are powerful spaces, but they are also endangered ones. In The Bookshop, we see those stakes: what has been, and what might be lost. Evan Friss’s history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many.

For the first time in history, chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and obesity plague our population on a global scale. From a seasoned physician, this paradigm-shifting book comprehensively explains the linked cause of chronic diseases and exposes the misconceptions prevalent in modern medicine. In Lies I Taught in Medical School, Robert Lufkin, MD, explains that metabolic dysfunction is the common underlying cause of most chronic diseases that has been overlooked for decades, providing the tools needed to prevent and reverse them in ourselves.

A revolutionary and much-needed exploration of Alzheimer’s, how it is a complex disease that requires a complex approach, how the vast majority of dementia research overlooks this fundamental truth, and how patients and their caregivers can simplify this complexity and take back control from this insidious disease. An estimated 6.7 million Americans aged 65 and older are living with Alzheimer’s dementia today. The toll is it is the fifth-leading cause of death among older Americans. But that doesn’t mean most of us are doomed to develop Alzheimer’s.

There are many miles from the business school and basketball court at the University of Southern California to 50 million viewers for the final episode of a TV show called Magnum P.I. Tom Selleck has lived every one of those miles in his own iconoclastic and joyful way. Frank, funny and open-hearted, You Never Know is an intimate memoir from one of the most beloved actors of our time, the highly personal story of a remarkable life and thoroughly accidental career. In his own voice and uniquely unpretentious style, the famed actor brings readers on his uncharted but serendipitous journey to the top in Hollywood.

Winston Churchill’s frequent stays at the White House inform this illuminating account of America and Britain’s “Special Relationship” during World War II and the 1950s. Scores of biographies have been written about Winston Churchill, yet none examine his frequent, sometimes furtive, trips to the White House, where he resided for weeks on end. These extended visits during his two terms as prime minister were spirited, even entertaining, occasions. Yet, in retrospect, they take on a new level of diplomatic significance, demonstrating just how influential a foreign leader can become in shaping American foreign policy.

New DVDs Available at the Library

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From Alejandro Monteverde, award-winning director of 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮, comes the powerful epic of Francesca Cabrini, an Italian immigrant who arrives in New York City in 1889 and is greeted by disease, crime, and impoverished children. Cabrini sets off on a daring mission to convince the hostile mayor to secure housing and healthcare for society’s most vulnerable. With broken English and poor health, Cabrini builds an empire of hope unlike anything the world had ever seen.

Radio Silence, the filmmakers behind the horror hits Ready or Not, Scream (2022) and Scream VI, bring a brash and bloodthirsty new vision of vampires with Abigail. A heist team is hired by a mysterious fixer to kidnap the daughter of a powerful underworld figure. They must guard the 12-year-old ballerina for one night to net a $50 million ransom. As the captors start to dwindle one by one, they discover to their mounting terror that they’re locked inside an isolated mansion with no ordinary little girl.

Ryan Gosling stars as Colt Seavers, a battle-scarred stuntman fresh off an almost career-ending accident. Colt is persuaded to return to his stunt career when he’s told his ex, Jody (Emily Blunt), is directing a film and asked for him specifically. With hopes of winning back the love of his life, Colt returns to set only to find the movie’s leading man missing and production in peril. Ensnared in an increasingly wild conspiracy, he must solve the mystery to save Jody’s film and get one last shot with her.

From filmmaker Alex Garland comes a journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House.

After landing a spot on the Thunderbirds team, an Air Force pilot must find a way to balance flying, family, and her budding romance with a widowed father.  The movie stars Heather Hemmens as Captain Emma “Blitz” Fitzgerald, Niall Matter as Paul, Georgia Acken as Alice, Pietra Castro as Lucy Fitzgerald, and Lossen Chambers as Kyle Warren.

In the near future on a decimated Earth, Paul and his twin sons face terror at night when ferocious creatures awaken. When Paul is nearly killed, the boys come up with a plan for survival, using everything their father taught them to keep him alive.

For twenty years, Charlie Swift has been a fixer and hitman for a mob boss named Stan. After a rival boss puts a hit on Stan and his crew, Charlie is the sole survivor. Charlie decides to avenge his friend. Charlie Swift is a fixer with a problem: the target he’s whacked is missing his head and the only way Charlie will be paid is if the body can be identified. Enter Marcie Kramer, the victim’s ex-wife and a woman with all the skills Charlie needs.

As the world falls, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and ends up in the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland, they come across the Citadel, presided over by Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.

Season seven picks up from the harrowing events of the end of Season Six, with Jamie and Young Ian racing to rescue Claire before she’s tried and wrongfully convicted for the murder of Malva Christie. But their mission is complicated by the beginning of a geopolitical firestorm: The American Revolution has arrived. In the seventh season of Outlander, Jamie, Claire, and their family are caught in the violent birth pains of an emerging nation as armies march to war and British institutions crumble in the face of armed rebellion.

New Mysteries and Thrillers to Read While You Wait for Fall

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After winning the popular reality talent show Searching for a Star and a subsequent record deal at the age of nineteen, Amanda Pearson was the hottest thing in the UK. But as her short-lived fame began to fade. The dream was over. Amanda Pearson would forever be a one-hit wonder.Six years later, after cleaning her act up but failing to reestablish her career, her ex-manager informs her of an unexpected opportunity that will help alleviate her dire financial situation and potentially thrust her back into the spotlight.

Margot needs a minute. She’s been working eighty-hour weeks as a newly minted partner at her law firm. She’s disconnected from her brother, the only family she has left. And she’s still not pregnant after years of trying. Stars Harbor Astrological Retreat promises rest, relaxation, and wisdom for Margot and her friends. With Instagram-worthy views and nightly astrology readings in an impeccably restored waterfront Victorian house, this getaway should be nothing but idyllic fun.

Victor Silvius has spent nine years as an inmate at The Grange, a private sanatorium, for the crime of attacking judge Sir Giles Drury. Now, the judge’s wife, Lady Elspeth Drury, believes that Silvius is the one responsible for a series of threatening letters her husband has recently received. Eager to avoid the scandal that involving the local police would entail, Lady Elspeth seeks out retired stage magician Joseph Spector, whose discreet involvement in a case Sir Giles recently presided over greatly impressed her.

Attorney Jane Smith is mounting an impossible criminal defense. Her client, Rob Jacobson, is the unluckiest of the unlucky. No sooner is he accused of killing a family of three in the Hamptons than a second family is gunned down. It’s not double jeopardy. It’s not double murder. It’s double triple homicide. Jane’s career has spanned from NYPD beat cop to Hamptons courtroom. She’s tough to beat. She’s even tougher to kill. The defense may never rest.

Called to Washington, DC to analyze the victims of a mysterious arson attack, Tempe quickly finds her misgivings justified. The fire site is in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood with a colorful history, and as the pieces start falling into place, the property’s ownership becomes more and more suspicious. Sensing a good story, Tempe teams up with a new ally, tele journalist Ivy Doyle. Delving into the past, the duo learns that back in the Thirties and Forties the home was the hangout of a group of bootleggers and racketeers known as the Foggy Bottom Gang.

Meg’s neighbors, the Smetkamps’, have won a makeover for their old home from Marvelous Mansions, a flashy, yet dubious company, focused on making historic homes more “modern.” The company already several days into its makeover of the Smetkamps’ house, and tensions are running high. Meg arrives at the Smetkamps to find that Caerphilly’s resident flock of feral turkeys has moved into their yard–or been relocated there by someone who wanted to cause them trouble.

The disappearance of a local politician’s teenaged daughter is major news in Minnesota. As a huge manhunt is launched to find her, Cork O’Connor’s grandson stumbles across the shallow grave of a young Ojibwe woman—but nobody seems that interested. Nobody, that is, except Cork and the newly formed Iron Lake Ojibwe Tribal Police. As Cork and the tribal officers dig into the circumstances of this mysterious and grim discovery, they uncover a connection to the missing teenager. And soon, it’s clear that Cork’s grandson is in danger of being the killer’s next victim.

It’s been almost a year since Clay Edison was forced out of his job at the coroner’s bureau. Now he’s on his own, working as a private eye. When a client brings him a fraud case, Clay dives into a decades-old scheme targeting the vulnerable. His investigation leads him to a bizarre town buried in the remote California wilderness. The residents don’t care much for outsiders. They certainly don’t like Clay asking questions. And they’ll do just about anything to shut him up.

Erika Cass has a perfect family and a perfect life. Until the evening when two detectives show up at her front door. A high school girl has vanished from Erika’s quiet suburban neighborhood. The police suspect the worst–murder. And Erika’s teenage son, Liam, was the last person to see the girl alive. Erika has always sensed something dark and disturbed in her seemingly perfect older child. She wants to believe he’s innocent, but as the evidence mounts, she can’t deny the truth–Liam may have done the unthinkable.

New Novels to Enjoy in September

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Clayton Stumper might be twenty-six years old, but he dresses like your grandpa and drinks sherry like your aunt. Abandoned at birth on the steps of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers, he was raised by a group of eccentric enigmatologists and now finds himself among the last survivors of a fading institution. When the esteemed crossword compiler and main maternal presence in Clayton’s life, Pippa Allsbrook, passes away, she bestows her final puzzle on him: a promise to reveal the mystery of his parentage and prepare him for life beyond the walls of the commune.

 Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she and her assistant, Caz—a magically sentient spider plant—have spent the last decade sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite. When a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz flee with all the spellbooks they can carry and head to a remote island Kiela never thought she’d see again: her childhood home.

From Mo’orea, a tiny volcanic island off the coast of Tahiti, a French biologist obsessed with saving Polynesia’s imperiled coral reefs sends her teenage daughter to live with her ex-husband in New York. By the time fifteen-year-old Pia arrives at her father Stephen’s luxury apartment in Manhattan and meets his new, younger wife, Kate, she has been shuttled between her parents’ disparate lives—her father’s consuming work as a surgeon at an overwhelmed New York hospital, her mother’s relentless drive against a ticking ecological clock—for most of her life.

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years. As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her.

They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change. Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.  When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be.

Allegra Dixon has never felt loved or wanted. Rejected by her mother ­­­­- a cold, beautiful socialite – and her absentee military father, Allegra’s only escape from her lonely existence is through books and her own rich fantasy world. When she finds love with childhood sweetheart Shepherd Williams, her heart feels full for the first time. But as Shep follows in her father’s footsteps, pulled into the dark world of military conflict, Allegra fears she will end up alone for a second time.

Evie Sage has never been happier to be the assistant to The Villain. Who would have thought that working for an outrageously handsome (shhh, bad for his brand) evil overlord would be so rewarding? Still, the business of being bad is demanding, the forces of good are annoyingly persistent, and said forbidding boss is somewhat…er, out-of-evil-office. But Rennedawn is in grave trouble, and all signs point to catastrophe. Something peculiar is happening with the kingdom’s magic, and it’s made The Villain’s manor vulnerable to their enemies.

In 1581, Emilia Bassano—like most young women of her day—is allowed no voice of her own. But as the Lord Chamberlain’s mistress, she has access to all theater in England, and finds a way to bring her work to the stage secretly. And yet, creating some of the world’s greatest dramatic masterpieces comes at great cost: by paying a man for the use of his name, she will write her own out of history. In the present, playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano.

What if you had to work with your archenemy? Everything was going according to plan until Beau Sutton and his brother Hank bought my family’s pizzeria and took away my dream. That’s okay because I have a plan. Be a surrogate. Buy back my family’s pizzeria or start a new one. Don’t fall for grumpy Beau. This plan sounded simple. None of these plans are working out like I thought they would. Holly Springs is the worst and best thing that could have happened to me. For the first time in my life, I’m trying to put myself first, starting over.

New Audiobooks to Enjoy on Your End of Summer Road Trip

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When the stars align, anything can happen. On stage at an awards banquet is the last place Lexi Cole expected to drown. But as she accepts the award for top-seller at her realty firm, something unusual catches Lexi’s eye: aman surrounded by a dark haze. Then she hears a woman screaming for help, and the taste of saltwater overwhelms her. Just as Lexi’s throat begins to close, the man leaves the room and the sensation of drowning abruptly stops. Later that night, the man dies of an overdose, and Lexi learns about the traumatic boating accident that killed his sons and tore his family apart.

Every year Jess and Storey have made an annual pilgrimage to northern Maine where they camp, hunt, and hike, leaving much of their long friendship unspoken. Although the state has convulsed all summer with secession mania—a mania that had simultaneously spread across other states—Jess and Storey figure it’s a fight reserved for legislators or, worse-case scenario, folks in the capitol. But after two weeks hunting moose off the grid, the men reach a small town and are shocked to find a bridge blown apart, buildings burned to the ground, and bombed-out cars abandoned on the road.

When thirty-year-old post-double-mastectomy BRCA 1 carrier and reluctant thrill-seeker Alison Mullally arrives at her ex-boyfriend Sam’s funeral to find that no one knows he dumped her, she agrees to play the grieving girlfriend for the sake of the family and pack up Sam’s apartment with his prickly best friend, Adam Berg. After all, it’ll only take four weekends . . But Adam doesn’t want Alison anywhere near him. Forced to spend long hours with the grump, and his monosyllabic demeanor, Alison decides she must put her people-pleasing abilities to the test.

Alex Marks’s move to New York City is supposed to be a fresh start. She plans to lay low with her mundane copywriting job but the news of the murder of her childhood hero, Francis Keen, throws her for a loop. Beloved staff writer and the woman behind the famous advice column, Dear Constance, Keen’s death is a shock to her countless fans and readers. When Alex sees an advertisement searching for her replacement, she impulsively applies. But almost immediately, she begins to receive strange letters at the office and soon, Alex wonders why the murderer has never been found.

Lola Milholland grew up in the nineties, the child of iconoclastic hippies. Both threw open the doors of the Holman House, their rambling home in Portland, Oregon, to long-term visitors and unusual guests in need of a place to stay. Years later, after college and after her parents’ separation, Milholland returned home. There, she joined her brother and his housemates—an eccentric group of stop-motion animators and accomplished cooks—in choosing to further the experiment of communal living into a new generation.

Annie never much believed in love. That is, until meeting Mark. After crossing paths on morning commutes, they connect at a group counseling session for trauma survivors. Each recognizes something in the other, though both hide their own troubled pasts. It’s a whirlwind romance that propels Annie through their courtship, all the way to her wedding day. But as Annie stands at the altar, casting her eyes over the rows of well-wishers, she spots a stranger in the crowd, and she soon learns that her new life isn’t going to be the happily ever after that she had planned.

Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn’t allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother’s beautiful white horse. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers. After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known.

In November 2021, an obscure email from the California Department of Education landed in New York Times reporter Thomas Fuller’s inbox. The football team at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside, a state-run school with only 168 high school students, was having an undefeated season. It was uplifting. During the pandemic’s gloom, it was a happy story. It was a sports story but not an ordinary one, built on the chemistry between a group of underestimated boys and their superhero advocate coach, Keith Adams, a deaf former athlete himself.

When a pilot suffers a heart attack at 35,000 feet, a commercial airliner filled with passengers crashes into a nuclear power plant in the small town of Waketa, Minnesota, which becomes ground zero for a catastrophic national crisis with global implications. The International Nuclear Event Scale tracks nuclear disasters. It has seven levels. Level 7 is a Major Accident, with only two on record: Fukushima and Chernobyl. There has never been a Level 8. Until now. In this heart-stopping thriller, ordinary people are thrust into an extraordinary situation as they face the ultimate test of their lives.

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October 1891. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte, Montana is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad-maker of the town, but also a doper, a drinker, and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the extremely devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington.

Knives Out meets Bridgerton in Fair Verona, as New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd kicks off a frothy, irreverent, witty new series with an irresistible premise—Romeo and Juliet’s daughter as a clever, rebellious, fiercely independent young woman in fair Verona—told from the delightfully engaging point of view of the captivating Rosie Montague herself… Once upon a time a young couple met and fell in love. You probably know that story, and how it ended (badly). Only here’s the That’s not how it ended at all.

It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. But for Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection. The Great Divide explores the intersecting lives of activists, fishmongers, laborers, journalists, neighbors, doctors, and soothsayers.

Art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon has slipped quietly into London to attend a reception at the Courtauld Gallery celebrating the return of a stolen self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh. But when an old friend from the Devon and Cornwall Police seeks his help with a baffling murder investigation, he finds himself pursuing a powerful and dangerous new adversary. The victim is Charlotte Blake, a celebrated professor of art history from Oxford who spends her weekends in the same seaside village where Gabriel once lived under an assumed identity.

The teenagers get their kicks telling ghost stories in the old graveyard. The parents trust their kids will arrive home safe from school. Everyone knows everyone. Curtains rarely twitch. Front doors are left unlocked. But Diana Brewer isn’t lying safely in her bed where she belongs. Instead, she lies in a hayfield, circled by vultures, discovered by a local farmer. How quickly a girl becomes a ghost. How quickly a town of friendly, familiar faces becomes a town of suspects, a place of fear and paranoia.

Over the course of a single week, a woman who is ready to die discovers an unexpected reason to live. Following the deaths of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns to the English village of her childhood after living abroad for six decades. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss. Helen retreats into her home on Westminster Crescent, becoming a creature of routine and habit. Then, one cold autumn night, a chance encounter with an abandoned pet mouse on the street outside her house sets Helen on a surprising journey of friendship.

On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

Take Ainsley. The gorgeous mother of two lives a picture-perfect life with her husband, Ben, in suburban Washington, DC. But in reality, Ainsley has no idea what she’s doing and is terrified someone will figure out who she really is and where she came from. Nikki’s fighting to keep afloat as a stay-at-home mother of four. She’s a mess on the outside, and inside yearns for the validation of the television news career she left behind. When a dangerous figure from Ainsley’s past becomes a coach at her kids’ school, she fears the worst and confides in Nikki, spilling every detail of her former life.

When Cleo, a student at NYU, arrives late for dinner at her childhood home in Brooklyn, she finds food burning in the oven and no sign of her mother, Kat. Then Cleo discovers her mom’s bloody shoe under the sofa. Something terrible has happened. But what? The polar opposite of Cleo, whose “out of control” emotions and “unsafe” behavior have created a seemingly unbridgeable rift between mother and daughter, Kat is the essence of Park Slope perfection: a happily married, successful corporate lawyer. Or so Cleo thinks.

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The impossible life of Tiger Woods—how did he become the GOAT, and what drove him to fall so spectacularly? In Patterson’s hands, Tiger’s story is a hole-in-one thriller. Tiger Woods is unrivaled as an athlete. He made the ultimate commitment to his chosen sport—and transformed it. Before the age of twenty-five, he rose to phenomenon twice named “Sportsman of the Year” by Sports Illustrated ; won more than thirty professional tournaments; and became the youngest player to win pro golf’s four Grand Slam tournaments.

George Harrison met Muhammad Ali in 1964, when both men were on the cusp of worldwide fame. Ten years later, the two men simultaneously staged comebacks, demonstrating just how much they embodied the promises and perils of their era. In doing so, Tracy Daugherty suggests, they revealed the scope and the limits of political courage and commitment to faith in the modern world. We Shook Up the World is the story of these two larger-than-life figures at a momentous time.

Andrew Wilkinson, touted as the Warren Buffett of tech, pulls back the curtain on the lives of the ultra-rich in this memoir outlining Wilkinson’s rapid rise from barista to successful entrepreneur. By the age of thirty-five, Andrew Wilkinson had built a business worth over a billion dollars, but his path to success was anything but a straight line. Never Enough shares both the lessons Wilkinson has learned as well as the many mistakes made on the road to wealth—some of which cost him money, happiness, and important relationships.

It all began when Darlene Schrijver was compiling her favorite salad recipes for her daughter who was off to college when a friend asked, “Why don’t you film the directions for making recipes instead and post them on TikTok? She’s always on there anyway.” Darlene started out making videos of classic and retro salads and thought it would be fun to measure the ingredients with test tubes and beakers since her daughter was a science major. She called her TikTok account The Salad Lab to encourage the spirit of experimentation.

Timed for a trial that will capture national attention, When the Night Comes Falling examines the mysterious murders of the four University of Idaho students. Having covered this case from its start, Edgar award winning investigative reporter Howard Blum takes readers behind the scenes of the police manhunt that eventually led to suspected killer, Bryan Christopher Kohberger, and uncovered larger, lurid questions within this unthinkable tragedy.

The history of national parks in the United States mirrors the fraught relations between the Department of the Interior and the nation’s Indigenous peoples. But amidst the challenges are examples of success. National Parks, Native Sovereignty proposes a reorientation of relationships between tribal nations and national parks, placing Indigenous peoples as co-stewards through strategic collaboration. 

Taking a novel approach to the military history of the post–Civil War West, distinguished historian Robert M. Utley examines the careers of seven military leaders who served as major generals for the Union in the Civil War, then as brigadier generals in command of the U.S. Army’s western departments. By examining both periods in their careers, Utley makes a unique contribution in delineating these commanders’ strengths and weaknesses.

In early America, interracial homicide—whites killing Native Americans, Native Americans killing whites—might result in a massive war on the frontier; or, if properly mediated, it might actually facilitate diplomatic relations, at least for a time. In Killing Over Land, Robert M. Owens explores why and how such murders once played a key role in Indian affairs and how this role changed over time. Though sometimes clearly committed to stoke racial animus and incite war, interracial murder also gave both Native and white leaders an opportunity to improve relations.

Myrlie Louise Beasley met Medgar Evers on her first day of college. They fell in love at first sight, married just one year later, and Myrlie left school to focus on their growing family. Medgar became the field secretary for the Mississippi branch of the NAACP, charged with beating back the most intractable and violent resistance to black voting rights in the country. Joy-Ann Reid uses Medgar and Myrlie’s relationship as a lens through which to explore the on-the-groundwork that went into winning basic rights for Black Americans, and the repercussions that still resonate today.