Pictures of You by Josh Malerman

After a magical night out on the town with her boyfriend Jack, Emily wakes alone in a huge bed in a beautiful, well-lit room. But the pink ceiling, the mauve walls, and the deep, dark corners are nothing like the hotel she and Jack rented.

More worrisome yet: Emily has no memory of this place from the night before.Where is she?

A woman’s voice directs her to remain in bed. Just so . . . And beyond the end of the bed, a picture frame upon an easel—a frame with no canvas, no painting, no art.

Only . . . there is the silhouette of a person Emily does not recognize. A person emanating demand, danger, evil. And the way the woman talks . . . and the things she says . . . She’s acting as if Emily herself is the painting. The still life. The art.

Emily is as scared as she is confused. But it’s immediately clear Jack’s life is on the line with her own. And if she attempts to escape the bed and the wood frame of this nightmare masterwork, neither will survive the experience.

Emily is fierce, independent, brilliant, but to get out of this, she’ll have to think like an artist herself.

The clock is ticking. For Emily. For Jack. For being forever trapped.

Plot Twist: Life, Craft, and the Messy First Draft: A Memoir on Writing by Harlan Coben

With 100 million books in print world-wide and over twenty blockbuster television and film adaptations of his work, Harlan Coben has much to teach us about the creative process. Part deeply personal memoir, part masterclass in storytelling, Plot Twist is a refreshingly honest look at the life of a writer whose stories have thrilled us for decades.

Plumbing memories from his suburban childhood and his early years trying to break into publishing, Coben tells his own story for the first time, revealing the real-world inspirations for some of his most beloved characters as well as the innovative plots that drive his propulsive novels. Filled with useful tips and techniques on the creative process, Coben does away with the traditional “categories” of writing―characters, plot, setting, etc―and looks at the process holistically. Plot Twist is a masterclass on the act of being a writer, and everything that comes with it: the self-doubt, the hubris, the contradictions, the passion and dedication. At the end of the day, his calculus is a simple one: “If it helps me produce pages, good. If it doesn’t, bad.” This book will help every aspiring writer produce pages.

Honest, funny, insightful, and at times deeply moving, this is both a captivating memoir and an essential guide for anyone looking to master the art of storytelling from one of our most beloved authors.

Taipei Story by R. F. Kuang

College freshman Lily Chen is off to spend the summer in Taipei at an intensive language program like so many Chinese American students before her, hoping to connect with the culture she inherited but never fully understood. But a promising start quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate is driving her insane, and a reckless trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon has her classmates viciously gossiping. She feels adrift, a foreigner in a country she thought would feel like home.

Then shocking news arrives: Lily’s grandfather has passed away. The loss forces her to grapple with now-unanswerable questions about her family history. As Lily grieves, she’s drawn into a journey of self-discovery—piecing together memories, stories, and silences over a series of hilarious and devastating attempts at connection.

Taipei Story asks: What if the diaspora fantasy of homecoming never comes true? What if learning a language can’t bring you any closer to the people you’re trying to reach? What if you search for your family’s history, but your family doesn’t want to share? What if you wait too long to ask the right questions? As Lily struggles for answers, her summer becomes a poignant search for understanding—of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.

Queenie Is Working on It by Candice Carty-Williams

She’s thirty-three, the editorial director for The Good Sis, a thriving media network amplifying the voices of Black women—a far cry from her former toxic workplace. With a great platform and a renewed sense of purpose, she’s fighting the good fight.

So when an appointment for research goes haywire and reveals startling truths about her own fertility, Queenie is confronted with a racing biological clock when she’s not even sure she wants kids in the first place. She’s sort of seeing someone, but it’s not that serious (according to him), and her mom, grandma, and aunt Maggie all mean well, but they keep asking when she’s going to settle down.

Surrounded by loyal friends who seem to fall in love with their person and get pregnant at the drop of a hat and the reappearance of an old flame she never stopped loving while being pulled into a series of confusing “situationships” that really do NOT go anywhere means that for Queenie, time is running out in all parts of her life. She’s determined to do what she thinks is best to get back on track, no matter how many mistakes it takes to get this right.

Hijacked by Goats by Ann Braden

Josie arrives at Bryce Haven Psychiatric Hospital sure that she’s a bad person and a bad friend. She must be, because her brain constantly yells at her for not being good enough. It tells her she needs to be perfect or else she’ll be alone and miserable forever. She’s so overwhelmed with worries about bad things happening as punishment for her imperfections that she sometimes feels compelled to punish herself.

Then, when Josie gets discharged and returns home, she’s forced to deal with Hal—the mean, smelly bully of a goat her dad is goat-sitting. Hal has a bad habit of climbing where he shouldn’t and refusing to get out of the way.

When Josie’s therapist diagnoses her with OCD, describing it as a bully in her brain, Josie denies it. Surely her brain is just trying to be helpful . . . right? But eventually, she begins to see that her OCD bears a striking resemblance to Hal, so maybe she shouldn’t feel guilty about wanting to kick it out. With her therapist’s help and the support of her dad and friends, Josie might finally be ready to stand up to the bully in her brain.

Love Felt Like This by Julie Olivia

Griffin Harvey lives his life in the spotlight. Reluctantly. The brooding famous singer-songwriter is on the cusp of composing his sophomore album . . . if only he could find the notes. But after gaining custody of his two-year-old daughter, the only music he’s writing is about shapes and counting to ten.

Enter Beverly, who lives her life in the background producing children’s television and laughter. Except joy is hard to find when her nonprofit loses funding. She sinks all of her savings to revive the children’s show by herself, but when her variety show appearance collides with Griffin’s, their banter and chemistry is caught on live television.

Suddenly, Griffin is singing a new tune. He needs a muse, and Beverly needs all the help she can get. With his secret daughter in tow, they hide out in her cozy mountain hometown, attempting to script, compose, and revive television magic. Their dynamic shouldn’t work. He’s all harsh tattoos and rough hands while she’s bright colors and gentle touches. Once their three months of work are done, they’ll return to their separate worlds. But what happens when it seems the true magic might be found in each other?

Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry

Noah is the boy everyone admires―an honor student, a champion swimmer, a hometown success story. Until he confesses to sexually abusing young girls during swim practice. In a single moment, his future evaporates, and his family shoulders the fallout.

After eighteen months in a juvenile sexual rehabilitation center, Noah returns home. But the town recoils, and his father refuses to let him back into their family’s life. Noah’s mom, Adrianne, is forced into an impossible role: the mother of a child no one believes deserves saving.

Loving Noah means losing everything else―her marriage, her community, and her certainty about right and wrong. As devastating truths emerge, Adrianne must confront the darkest question of all: when does standing by your child become a betrayal of everyone around you?

She’s A Doll by Barbara Truelove

Lucy McQuinn has been murdered, but she’s not about to go quietly.

If she doesn’t get to keep breathing, then neither does Kyle, her killer. Possessing the body of an antique doll, she sets out on a quest for revenge. But it’s hard when you’re eighteen inches tall and made of porcelain.

For help, she turns to Nicola, a human and fellow outsider with her own reasons to hate Kyle. But in their small idyllic town, no one wants to hear the truth, especially not about such a promising young man. If they can’t expose his crimes, Lucy will have to roll up her lacy little sleeves and teach him a lesson the old-fashioned way—as slowly and painfully as possible.

Stitched by Eli McCann

Sixty-five-year-old Betty Lou Dearden has been a member of the Ogden Quilter’s Association for more than twenty years when it’s announced that the biggest quilting competition in the country is coming to Utah. With the clock ticking and a chance to finally beat their long-time rival quilting circle, the women welcome two young gay men to their group as they bicker their way to an award-worthy entry.

With disarming humor and extraordinary heart, Eli McCann takes readers deep into the cozy but cutthroat world of competitive quilting and the sometimes-messy friendships that shape our lives.

Switzy by Emma Cline

A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself, but he struggles to recognize his own handwriting.

A mystery, among many mysteries. The world, once so knowable, has been rendered inscrutable.

This is what David knows: Cody, his assistant, asleep in the seat next to him, will shepherd him along the voyage. A stopover in London. Dinner with his adult daughter. A meeting in France with an old friend, estranged for decades.

His final destination is Zurich.

David glides through hotel rooms and airports and foreign cities, running out the clock on his mortal life. His grasp on the present slips away, and the past rushes in: the Sunday roasts of childhood. The stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend’s house. The losses and missteps that punctuate a life.

As David’s arrival in Zurich looms, an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unraveling mind emerges, both darkly humorous and profoundly moving. Hypnotic and startlingly original, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when the accomplishments and compromises that have defined him, and the illusions he’s relied on, vanish.

No Song for the Dead: A Department Q Novel by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Former head of Department Q Carl Mørck has retired. That was the plan, at least. So when he comes across a disturbing audio recording, he turns it over to his former colleagues, who are struggling to keep the old department up and running on their own. That is until a new transfer unexpectedly arrives—Helena Henry, a Frenchwoman who throws herself into the investigation with gusto . . . but who may also have secrets of her own.

When the team realizes that the audio recording might shed new light on a supposedly open-and-shut murder-suicide case from years earlier, suddenly everything they thought they knew is called into question. Meanwhile, a spurt of seemingly random violence—an explosion off the coast of Jutland, a young woman shot dead in Copenhagen—leads the Department Q team to investigate a possible connection to a different long-ago dark and sinister event, one that someone has never forgotten.

The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict by Priya Parker

We say we want community. Successful teams. High-performing colleagues and workplaces. Dynamic friend groups. Yet many of us don’t understand the crucial element we need to forge long-lasting communities in our lives: healthy conflict.

In The Art of Fighting, Priya Parker explains that we can’t form and grow effective relationships without a fight. She rejects the idea that conflict is abnormal or that good groups don’t fight. All groups change and evolve; indeed, it’s because people disagree that good groups flourish.

As she did in the now-classic The Art of Gathering, Parker draws on her far-reaching experience as a conflict facilitator, her own detailed research, and real-world examples to lay out the ways that people can identify disputes, determine how to address them, and what to do if they are insurmountable. Whether people disagree in the boardroom or the locker room, on a playground or in church, online or in person, conflict is a part of life, and understanding healthy conflict and how to harness its power is more important than ever. The Art of Fighting is a vital primer to help all of us understand how to do that.

The Pirate Queen by Ariel Lawhon

Grace O’Malley was born to be a sea captain. But despite her natural skill on the water, Grace learns early that her dreams of a life at the helm are not compatible with the expectations of her noble family. As the only daughter of a powerful chieftain, her role is to secure a strong alliance and bear children. But when she’s sent to foster with a nearby clan, Grace falls for a clever and open-minded second son—a man she cannot have.

Married off against her will to a brutal warrior, Grace performs her duty, all the while gathering followers loyal to her, and consolidating her husband’s power, only to be ousted from his lands. But this betrayal offers Grace the opportunity to return to sea, finally leading clan O’Malley’s mighty fleet. Just as she finds true independence, Queen Elizabeth’s incursions into Ireland grow bolder and Grace must fight to defend her land, her ships, and the people she loves most against the cruel and power-hungry English deputies, who will stop at nothing to check her influence.

The Witches of Cambridge by Alice Hoffman

By the 1950s, Cambridge, Massachusetts feels far removed from the legendary witch trials that marked its early days as a colony. Ava, a bright young woman from a small town in Maine, arrives for her first year at Radcliffe College. There, she meets Lauren, her opposite in every way—the wild and brazen daughter of a wealthy and well-established Cambridge family. But the two have more in common than they think. Both are recruited by the Lilith Society, a secret organization of witches at Radcliffe dating back to colonial times. As they learn more about their legacy, Ava and Lauren form a close bond that is put to the test as they learn to navigate their new power, friendship, and love.

While Radcliffe seems like a safe haven, the shadow of McCarthyism looms large, an ever-present threat to the flourishing creative and intellectual life in Cambridge. And as girls from the Lilith Society begin to go missing, Ava and Lauren realize the witch trials of the past may not be as deeply buried as they once believed.

Caldecott & Co: Notes on Books & Pictures by Maurice Sendak

Over twenty-five years of his life, Maurice Sendak regularly published essays and reviews devoted to an astonishing variety of writers and illustrators whose work he admired. The subjects of his appreciation ranged from Randolph Caldecott, George MacDonald, and Beatrix Potter to Margot Zemach, Harriet Pincus, and Edward Ardizzone, from Walt Disney and Lothar Meggendorfer to Mother Goose and Hans Christian Anderson.

Back in print with a new introduction by Sergio Ruzzier, Maurice Sendak’s Caldecott & Co. is an eminent collection of essays, interviews, and speeches that’s proven to be as timeless as the beloved author and illustrator himself.