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DISCUSSION GUIDES
- 1.A Harvest of Hearts: Deluxe Stenciled EdgesIn the beloved tradition of Howl’s Moving Castle and The House in the Cerulean Sea, a whimsical and unforgettable cozy fantasy about adventure, common sense, and the power of love, as a cheeky butcher's daughter, a befuddlingly handsome sorcerer, and his clever talking cat unlock magical secrets in the dark heart of their kingdom…
DELUXE EDITION WITH STENCILED EDGES, PRINTED INTERIOR COVERS, SOFT TOUCH & SPOT GLOSS COVER!
A Sunday Times Bestseller!
“Down-to-earth and completely irresistible, Foss is fantastic, as is her talking cat! A Harvest of Hearts is that rare story that feels both classic and unique at the same time. I loved it!” —Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop
Everyone in Foss Butcher’s village knows what happens when the magic-workers come; they harvest human hearts to use in their spells. That’s just how life in her kingdom works. But Foss, plain, clumsy, and practical as a boot, never expected anyone would want hers.
When a sorcerer snags a piece of Foss’s heart without meaning to, she is furious. For once a heart is snagged, the experience is . . . well, unpleasant. So, Foss finds herself stomping toward the grand City to keep his enchanted House and demands that he fixes her before she keels over and dies, or whatever happens when hearts are Snagged.
But the sorcerer, Sylvester, is not what she expected. Petulant, idle, and new to his powers, Sylvester has no clue how to undo the heart-taking, or how to do much of anything really, apart from sulk. Foss’s only friend is a talking cat and even the House’s walls themselves have moods.
As Foss searches for a cure, she accidentally uncovers that there is much more to the heart-taking—and to the magic-workers themselves—than she could have ever imagined. . . . - 2.More or Less Maddy: A Novel**National Bestseller**
A “riveting page-turner” (Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee) about a young woman diagnosed with bipolar disorder who rejects the stability and approval found in a traditionally “normal” life for a career in stand-up comedy.
Maddy Banks is just like any other stressed-out freshman at NYU. Between schoolwork, exams, navigating life in the city, and a recent breakup, it’s normal to be feeling overwhelmed. It doesn’t help that she’s always felt like the odd one out in her picture-perfect Connecticut family. But Maddy’s latest low is devastatingly low, convincing her to go on an antidepressant. She begins to feel good, dazzling good in fact, and she soon spirals high into a wild and terrifying mania that culminates in a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
As she struggles to find her way in this new reality, navigating the complex effects bipolar has on her identity, her relationships, and her life dream, Maddy will have to figure out how to manage being both too much and not enough.
With her signature “deep empathy and insight” (Booklist), Harvard-trained neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author Lisa Genova has crafted an “affecting, harrowing, beautiful, and enlightening” (Shelf Awareness) novel that makes complicated mental health issues accessible and human. More or Less Maddy is destined to become another classic like Still Alice. - 3.The Keeper of Happy Endings
An enchanting novel about fate, second chances, and hope, lost and found, by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Last of the Moon Girls.
Soline Roussel is well schooled in the business of happy endings. For generations her family has kept an exclusive bridal salon in Paris, where magic is worked with needle and thread. It's said that the bride who wears a Roussel gown is guaranteed a lifetime of joy. But devastating losses during World War II leave Soline's world and heart in ruins and her faith in love shaken. She boxes up her memories, stowing them away, along with her broken dreams, determined to forget.
Decades later, while coping with her own tragic loss, aspiring gallery owner Rory Grant leases Soline's old property and discovers a box containing letters and a vintage wedding dress, never worn. When Rory returns the mementos, an unlikely friendship develops, and eerie parallels in Rory's and Soline's lives begin to surface. It's clear that they were destined to meet--and that Rory may hold the key to righting a forty-year wrong and opening the door to shared healing and, perhaps, a little magic.
- 4.Strange Sally Diamond“Shocking, disturbing, and utterly original.” —Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author
This “haunting and poignant tale, one that won’t be easy to forget any time soon” (Mystery and Suspense Magazine), follows an enigmatic woman confronting her unknown past—from internationally bestselling author Liz Nugent.
Reclusive Sally Diamond is thrust into the media spotlight when she tries to incinerate her dead father, causing widespread outrage. Now she’s the center of attention, not only from hungry reporters and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she does not remember. As she begins to discover the repressed memories of her horrific early childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, big decisions, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.
But who is the man observing Sally from the other side of the world, and why does he call her Mary? And why does her new neighbor seem to be obsessed with her? Sally’s trust issues are about to be severely challenged in this “truly incredible reading experience” (Lisa Jewell, #1 New York Times bestselling author). - 5.A History of Wild Places: A NovelIn this “riveting, atmospheric thriller that messes with your mind in the best way” (Laini Taylor, New York Times bestselling author), three residents of a secluded, seemingly peaceful commune investigate the disappearances of two outsiders.
Travis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Often hired by families as a last resort, he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books—and is soon led to a place many believed to be only a legend.
Called Pastoral, this reclusive community was founded in the 1970s by like-minded people searching for a simpler way of life. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore and soon after Travis stumbles upon it…he disappears. Just like Maggie St. James.
Years later, Theo, a lifelong member of Pastoral, discovers Travis’s abandoned truck beyond the border of the community. No one is allowed in or out, not when there’s a risk of bringing a disease—rot—into Pastoral. Unraveling the mystery of what happened reveals secrets that Theo, his wife, Calla, and her sister, Bee, keep from one another. Secrets that prove their perfect, isolated world isn’t as safe as they believed—and that darkness takes many forms.
“As spine-chilling as it is beautifully crafted” (Ruth Emmie Lang, author of Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance), A History of Wild Places is a story about fairy tales, our fear of the dark, and losing yourself within the wilderness of your mind. - 6.The Quiet American (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)Graham Greene's classic exploration of love, innocence, and morality in Vietnam
"I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused," Graham Greene's narrator Fowler remarks of Alden Pyle, the eponymous "Quiet American" of what is perhaps the most controversial novel of his career. Pyle is the brash young idealist sent out by Washington on a mysterious mission to Saigon, where the French Army struggles against the Vietminh guerrillas.
As young Pyle's well-intentioned policies blunder into bloodshed, Fowler, a seasoned and cynical British reporter, finds it impossible to stand safely aside as an observer. But Fowler's motives for intervening are suspect, both to the police and himself, for Pyle has stolen Fowler's beautiful Vietnamese mistress.
Originally published in 1956 and twice adapted to film, The Quiet American remains a terrifiying and prescient portrait of innocence at large. This Graham Greene Centennial Edition includes a new introductory essay by Robert Stone.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. - 7.Like a Sister
In this "crackling domestic suspense" filled with "wry humor and deft pacing" (Alyssa Cole), no one bats an eye when a Black reality TV star is found dead--except her estranged half-sister, whose refusal to believe the official story leads her on a dangerous search for the truth.
Edgar Award Finalist for Best Novel - Anthony Award winner for Best Hardcover Novel - Lefty Award winner for Best Mystery Novel - A Book of the Month Club Pick - An Oxygen Book Club Pick - A Today Show Spring Fiction Pick - A New York Post Best New Book of the Week - A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year - A South Florida Sun-Sentinel Best Mystery of the Year - A CrimeReads Best Psychological Thriller of the Year
"A mystery that has everything I love most: an intriguing set up; an absorbing storyline that kept me guessing; a satisfying ending; and, most of all, incredibly well-developed characters I kept thinking about long after I finished the book." ―Jasmine Guillory, Today Show
"I found out my sister was back in New York from Instagram. I found out she'd died from the New York Daily News."
When the body of reality TV star Desiree Pierce is found on a playground in the Bronx the morning after her twenty-fifth birthday party, the police and the media are quick to declare her death an overdose. A tragedy, certainly, but not a crime.
Yet Columbia grad student Lena--principled, headstrong, and allergic to the spotlight--knows that can't be the case. Despite the bitter truth that the two hadn't spoken in two years, they were half-sisters. Lena knew Desiree. And Desiree would never travel above 125th Street. Something is very wrong with the facts. So why is no one listening?
While the two sisters had been torn apart by Desiree's partying and by their difficult father, Lena becomes determined to find justice for Desiree. Even if that means untangling her family's darkest secrets--or ending up dead herself.
"A briskly plotted, socially astute thriller." ―Los Angeles Times
"Equal parts charm and heartbreak, with razor-sharp insights on class, race, and family." --Laura Lippman
"Dishes up the glitz of the haves and the struggles of the have-nots, infusing classic noir storytelling with Big Apple glamour--#pageturner." --Oprah Daily
"A twisty murder mystery with nuance and heart." ―BookPage
"Noir for the media-struck generation...Original and witty." ―National Public Radio
- 8.Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs)NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW AN EXCITING SERIES FROM NETFLIX • The shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning in this “tour de force of genre-bending, a brilliantly realized exercise in science fiction.”—The New York Times Book Review
In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person’s consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or “sleeve”) making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.
Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, re-sleeved into a body in Bay City (formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats “existence” as something that can be bought and sold. - 9.The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter: A Novel
A young woman at the crossroads of life and death embarks on an extraordinary journey across time in an epic novel about beauty, hope, endurance, and endless loves.
Most humans cower in the face of Death. Not Nella May Carter. She sees him. She doesn't hide. Instead, she bargains.
Born enslaved in eighteenth-century Georgia, Nella still believes in the will to survive amid the most untenable of conditions, in the glory of life, and in the ultimate goodness of the human race. She asks that Death, doubtful and curious, allow her to live long enough to prove it. He's giving Nella all the time in the world.
Challenged, Nella embarks on an epic journey across the globe and centuries. Each new incarnation records the joys and losses, and the friendships and heartbreaks, throughout her lifetimes. When she meets handsome and passionate professor Sebastian Moore--the first man to whom she has ever revealed her secrets--Nella yearns for the mortality that escapes her. She can't bear to leave this love behind.
As Death keeps watch, has Nella's journey come to an end? Or is a new one just beginning?
- 10.The River Runs South: A NovelThis transporting and illuminating debut novel will resonate with readers who have ever felt a little bit lost, perfect for fans of Kristy Woodson Harvey and Linda Holmes.
Exploring love, loss, and the courage of starting over fresh, this novel will appeal to readers on the hunt for emotionally rich fiction.
When Camille Taylor’s husband dies unexpectedly, the carefully constructed life she worked so hard to build in Washington, DC, shatters. After struggling for almost a year, she reaches a breaking point, packs up her daughter, and heads for the Alabama coast where she grew up.
The salt air and slow rhythms of the coast soothe Camille’s spirit, but when she meets local fisherman Mack Phillips, she learns that things have changed in her hometown. Runoff from an abandoned development site is polluting the water, and Mack has brought a suit against the site’s owners—Camille’s father among them.
Battling her own fears for the fragile ecosystem of her beloved Mobile Bay, Camille joins her father’s defense team, but the more she learns, the more she wonders if she’s landed on the right side of the fight. Meanwhile, Camille is slowly drawn to Mack's fearless resolve, his sterling ideals, and finally to the man himself.
Faced with blurred lines between right and wrong, Camille must decide for herself what the next chapter of her life will bring.
With timely commentary on Alabama's fragile ecosystem and exploring themes of grief, love, and community, The River Runs South will appeal to southern fiction readers on the hunt for the nostalgia of Sweet Home Alabama.