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The Forgotten Midwife: A NovelSet in present-day New Jersey and 1950s Ireland, and inspired by real historical events, The Forgotten Midwife is a powerful dual-timeline novel of sisterhood, family secrets, and resilience from the author of the “profound, moving, and memorable” (Fresh Fiction) The Women on Platform Two. New Jersey, present day. Riley Carmichael is getting married and joining a huge, loving family, yet she can’t ignore the emptiness on her side of the church. For most of her life, it’s been just Riley and her grandmother, Betty, but as late-stage dementia overtakes her grandmother’s mind, Riley knows she’s losing her. During a rare moment of lucidity, Betty gives Riley a tattered, long-hidden birth certificate for an unknown baby born in Ireland in the 1950s. Searching for answers about her family history, Riley travels to Ireland in hopes of finding a sense of heritage. Tipperary, Ireland, 1954. Margaret Lannigan dreams of a life with her beloved Joseph. But when her older sister dies suddenly, Margaret must fulfill her family’s generations-old commitment to the Catholic Church. Forced to take the veil, she is sent to Ballyvale Home for Fallen Girls, where unmarried expectant mothers endure terrible cruelty. Despite having no training as a midwife, Margaret fights to give these women the care they deserve. When Margaret encounters Delia O’Rourke, the terrified younger sister of her childhood best friend, she risks everything to protect Delia and her baby from a system designed to make them disappear. The Forgotten Midwife is a haunting, hopeful novel about women’s strength and resilience, the meaning of family, and the lifesaving power of friendship. - 12.
Nasty Little Secrets: A NovelUSA TODAY BESTSELLER! "A smart, twisty debut that will keep you guessing until the final shocking twist . . . Readers take note—Gabbie Hanks is a writer to watch!” —Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Hosts An infamous murder case is blown back open when a crime writer’s sister goes missing—and her bestselling book might be the key to finding her. Rose Dearling’s life changed forever when her brother was imprisoned for the murder of his high school sweetheart. Now, a decade after the crime ripped her family and Florida hometown apart, Rose is the only one who still believes he didn’t do it. So much so that she wrote a bestselling book about the case to cement his innocence. This may have gained her a bad reputation, but it also bought her a new life in Manhattan, far away from where it all began. Then Rose gets a call that shatters her world for a second time: her younger sister has gone missing. Back home and under the same roof as her family for the first time in years, Rose begins the search for her sister. But when connections between both past and present cases emerge, Rose realizes that her own book could hold all the answers . . . Propulsive and razor-sharp, Nasty Little Secrets is a crackling psychological suspense about family secrets and small-town scandal, which grips you until the final, jaw-dropping twist. - 13.
My Cousin RachelNOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING RACHEL WEISZ AND SAM CLAFLIN!
"From the first page...the reader is back in the moody, brooding atmosphere of Rebecca."--The New York Times
From Daphne du Maurier, the legendary author of Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, comes a gothic classic set in beautiful, mysterious, and eerie Cornwall.
Philip Ashley's older cousin Ambrose, who raised the orphaned Philip as his own son, has died in Rome. Philip, the heir to Ambrose's beautiful English estate, is crushed that the man he loved died far from home. He is also suspicious. While in Italy, Ambrose fell in love with Rachel, a beautiful English and Italian woman. But the final, brief letters Ambrose wrote hint that his love had turned to paranoia and fear.
Now Rachel has arrived at Philip's newly inherited estate. Could this exquisite woman, who seems to genuinely share Philip's grief at Ambrose's death, really be as cruel as Philip imagined? Or is she the kind, passionate woman with whom Ambrose fell in love? Philip struggles to understand Rachel's intentions, knowing Ambrose's estate, his future, and his sanity, hang in the balance.
An atmospheric mystery full of doubt and paranoia, My Cousin Rachel is a suspenseful gothic treat for long-time fans and new readers of Daphne du Maurier.
Praise for Daphne du Maurier:
"Miss du Maurier is... a storyteller whose sole aim is to bewitch and beguile. And in My Cousin Rachel she does both, with Rebecca looking fondly over her shoulder."--New York Times
"Double-distilled readers' delight."--Manchester Guardian
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Are You Staying, Mandy Boyle?A brilliant debut from Melanie Moore, Are You Staying, Mandy Boyle? will have you laughing, crying, and aching with the frustrations and joys of taking huge risks and falling in love big time. Mandy Boyle is thirty-five, still living with her stepfather in his rent-stabilized apartment, and still stuck as a copy editor at The New York Times, awaiting the next big layoff. It wasn't supposed to be like this, but ten years ago, she put her journalism career on hold and moved back to the city to care for her dying mother. Of course, she can't be salty about that. Then everything changes when Mandy wins a one-hundred-plus-year-old newspaper in Vermont and the apartment over it--a New Yorker's dream! The only catch? She must run The Liberty Eagle for one year and can't sell it to a conglomerate until that year is up. Sounds great, until Mandy discovers the Eagle is definitely old school, definitely not profitable, and that she is definitely in way over her head. Suddenly she's a city girl thrust into a quaint Vermont town at Christmastime, where everyone knows everything about each other. One plus? The mechanic in the next building, Greg Stewart, who keeps trying to sell her snow tires, is very easy on the eyes. Mandy would like to know more about him, but he's plenty guarded. As she struggles to right the sinking newspaper, she bonds with people in the town, including a young woman who is losing her own mother to cancer, an emotional connection that cracks open Mandy's own guarded heart. Through it all, Mandy is drawn to Greg. He just may be her best friend. Maybe the love of her life. But how can two such guarded hearts ever fully fall for each other--especially when Mandy is sure she'll be leaving by the time next Christmas rolls around?
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For My Sister Nicole: Love Shouldn't Hurt -- What to Know About Domestic ViolenceFrom Denise Brown--older sister of Nicole Brown Simpson--comes a vital, trauma-informed book that illuminates intimate partner violence and the systems that enable it. About one in three women in the US experience domestic violence, and many incidents are never reported. Drawing on decades of work with domestic violence shelters and the aftermath of her sister's death, Denise blends memoir and biography with passages from Nicole's journals, centering the voices and lived experiences of survivors. Denise teaches practical, evidence-based ways to recognize warning signs--because abusers often hide behind charm, wealth, or charisma--and explains how friends, family, and communities can respond safely and effectively. Compassionate and urgent, For My Sister Nicole is both a necessary survivor narrative and a call to action, helping readers to better understand what happened to Nicole and learn how to recognize and support other people in danger.
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May We Feed the King: Booker Prize FinalistFINALIST FOR THE 2026 BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2026 WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE A curator is absorbed in the medieval world of a reluctant monarch in this searing debut about what becomes lost over time and what devotion can reanimate. A curator spends her days reconstructing the past--selecting and carefully arranging furniture, fabrics, and replica food to bring medieval rooms back to life. Whether it's a feast with spilling platters or a table for two littered with small hints of intimacy, it must appear as if the people have just left the room. After accepting a commission to work on the private quarters of a medieval palace, the curator becomes absorbed in the story of a king almost forgotten by history. As she studies the traces he left behind, the boundary between her own life and his begins to blur. The King is an unlikely ruler: a man with little appetite for power, hurried to the throne after the sudden deaths of his brothers. At court, doubts about his judgment are whispered from chamber to chamber. Then an unthinkable possibility emerges among the gossip: maybe someone else will take the crown. A riveting debut from an award-winning poet, May We Feed the King is a story seen through shadows and old slips of paper, heard through cracked doors and murmured breaths. It asks how history takes shape--and how the stories that survive can distort the lives they claim to preserve. Laced with desire and longing, Perry's novel is a searing meditation on the small details and large gaps that make up a life. - 17.
MazywoodAll the Sinners Bleed meets Erasure in this literary thriller from the award-winning author of The Reformatory following the grandson of a famous Black actress who returns to his grandmother’s cabin retreat in the California mountains only to encounter the legacy of her rage born in Old Hollywood. When Johnny—a filmmaker and grandson of the famous Black actress Mazelle Washington—brings his family to Mazywood, the secluded California mountain lodge left behind by his grandmother, he expects a quiet retreat. Instead, he uncovers a legacy of rage, secrets, and terror that has haunted his family for generations. Set primarily in the present day, with haunting flashbacks to Hollywood’s Golden Age, Mazywood explores three generations while following Johnny as he pieces together the true story of his grandmother. As a young Black actress whose career spanned from the 1920s to the 1940s, Mazelle brushed shoulders with giants like Lena Horne, Clark Gable, and Hattie McDaniel. But beneath her public appearance, she carried a secret she had kept and nurtured since she was a child, when a dark wish came true and changed the course of her life forever. Now, fifty years after Mazelle’s death, Johnny finds himself confronting the truth she buried—and the consequences she left behind. For a monster lurks outside Mazywood, hidden for generations, and Johnny brought his family to its hunting grounds. - 18.
Our Cut of Salt: A NovelAN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER! In this lyrical debut, three generations of Palestinian women must put the haunting of their ancestral home to rest, before the secrets of the past drown them all. Our Cut of Salt is a powerful and intimate look at what it means to make a home, to lose it, and to return, only to find it irrevocably changed. “A one-of-a-kind haunted house.” —Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author There is something haunting Nuhad’s childhood home in Haifa. Cats avoid its perimeter, strange noises come from within, and residents have mysteriously vanished without a trace. Although Nuhad has not returned to her home since the Nakba in 1948, she always held a place for the house in her heart. And, in return, the house did the same for her. After Nuhad passes away, her granddaughter, Marina, is determined to visit her grandmother’s home after a lifetime of being kept in the dark about her culture and family history. Marina's mother, Haifa - named for the city that was lost to their family - reluctantly agrees to her trip, though she knows firsthand that some secrets are better left buried. But the house is no longer a home. It is a painful, festering wound that infects everything it touches. The more Marina digs into her family’s past, the sicker she becomes. Despite Nuhad’s ghostly warnings, Haifa rushes to help her daughter. As the three women converge in their ancestral home, they must put the haunting to rest before the secrets of the past drown them all. Reading with a group?
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The Disappearers: A NovelAN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2026 BOOKER PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION “This masterpiece is the novel of the decade, if not the century... The Disappearers places [James] near the front of the line, a decade or two from now, for the Nobel Prize.” –The New York Times “Harrowing, hilarious, magnificent …this novel will be read decades from now, pored over in seminars and bookmarked on subway commutes … [James’] defiant queer epic belongs to us all.” –The Boston Globe “Among Marlon James’s most ambitious and history-making works… James is a singular literary talent.” –Booker Prize judge's citation From Marlon James, author of the Booker Prize–winning A Brief History of Seven Killings: the electrifying story of the murder of a gay man in 1980s Jamaica and its far-reaching consequences In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. Though strangers to one another, they share an inescapable truth: All of them are gay. And they live in a world that refuses to accept them. One night the men are savagely beaten and one of them is killed. As their bodies heal, the survivors begin to face the hatred and contempt that the violence laid bare. Some try to ignore what happened. Others double down on retribution. Some disappear completely. In this spellbinding novel, Marlon James has written a propulsive crime story that is also a deeply human account of connection and acceptance. Full of fascinating characters, biting humor, and unapologetic sex, The Disappearers is both a thrilling page-turner and a finely etched portrait of queer life. - 20.
The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman: A Novel – A Sharp Satirical Drama of Megachurch Scandal, Shame, and FreedomNATIONAL BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE WILLIE MORRIS AWARDS FOR SOUTHERN FICTION New York Times Book Review Editors' Pick "Fierce, fabulous, and very funny." - Oprah Daily, Best Books of Fall 2026 list "A raucous and moving tale of triumph told with biting wit." - #1 on People’s Must-Read Books of Fall 2026 The wife of a popular and powerful megachurch pastor upends her charmed “rags-to-Rolex” life when her secret past comes roaring into the spotlight—in this "funny and juicy and sexy and delicious peek behind the pulpit" (Samantha Irby) from the acclaimed and beloved author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. From the moment Scharisse Freeman ditched her humble roots and married a megachurch pastor fifteen years her senior, she’s been labeled too brash and too “of the world” by church folks who grudgingly accepted her into their fold, and too holy by her estranged childhood bestie Petra. Schar doesn’t have many allies, but that hasn’t stopped her from building an enviable business empire spanning books to clothing to branded products, and living the comfortable life her husband's power affords her. On the eve of her 40th birthday, Schar gets the final bit of validation she’s always dreamt of: a coveted invitation to participate in the First Lady USA pageant. This is her chance to be accepted by the other pastors’ wives—First Ladies—who are “like Jesus’ disciples if they had been a group of mean girls.” Finally, blissfully, the ice between Schar and the other First Ladies begins to thaw. But as the pageant nears, a sensational scandal breaks with Schar at its center, and her carefully curated life implodes. Schar faces down shame and terrible secrets from her childhood and is reminded that in the eyes of the church, optics can matter more than the truth. Unflinchingly funny, frank, and splendidly unruly, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman exults in the luscious, messy pleasure of finally feeling free. "Smart and juicy and compulsively readable." - Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Date and The Proposal "Philyaw has created a heroine you can’t help but root for, and a book you can’t help but love." - Rufi Thorpe, author of Margo's Got Money Troubles A Most Anticipated Book by Goodreads, Audible, PEN America, Kirkus Reviews, Electric Literature, The Root, BookPage, Lit Hub, Ms. Magazine, Debutiful, Country Living, She Reads, Book Riot