Queen Esther by John Irving

After forty years, John Irving returns to the world of his bestselling classic novel and Academy Award–winning film, The Cider House Rules, revisiting the orphanage in St. Cloud’s, Maine, where Dr. Wilbur Larch takes in Esther—a Viennese-born Jew whose life is shaped by anti-Semitism.

The Rembrandt Heist: The Story of a Criminal Genius, a Stolen Masterpiece, and an Enigmatic Friendship by Anthony M. Amore

On April 14, 1975, Myles Connor, already a known art thief, entered the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in disguise along with a cohort. The pair went directly the Dutch Gallery and proceeded to remove Portrait of Elsbeth van Rijn from its place on the wall. After a brief scuffle with the guards—with Myles deterring his partner from shooting a bystander—the pair was gone, leaving behind no traceable evidence amidst the mayhem.

Who was Myles Connor and what were his motivations? Most thieves are in it for the money, but Myles was far from most thieves. His motive was freedom. The summer before the heist, he was arrested by the FBI when he attempted to sell three highly valuable paintings by Andrew and N.C. Wyeth to an undercover agent. Incredibly, Myles did this while out on bail for possession of yet more stolen art. When he was arrested and placed in the back seat of a state police vehicle, the FBI agent said to him, “We’ve got you now. Let’s see you get out of this one.” Without batting an eye, Connor calmly replied, “Just you watch me.”

Bread of Angels: A Memoir by Patti Smith

“God whispers through a crease in the wallpaper,” writes Patti Smith in this moving account of her life. A post–World War II childhood unfolds in a condemned housing complex where we enter the child’s world of the imagination. Smith, the captain of her loyal and beloved sibling army, vanquishes bullies, communes with the king of tortoises, and searches for sacred silver pennies.

The most intimate of Smith’s memoirs, Bread of Angels takes us through her teenage years where the first glimmers of art and romance take hold. Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan emerge as creative role models as she begins to write poetry then lyrics, ultimately merging both into the songs of iconic recordings such as Horses, Wave, and Easter.

Bitter Honey by Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström

1978: A scholarship draws Nancy from Gambia’s warmth into Stockholm’s frigid winter. When her friendship with charismatic scholar Lars blossoms into something more, she thinks she may have finally found her place. But there’s more to Lars than his charming persona, and Nancy is about to discover the danger of being drawn into his world…

2006: Tina has had her taste of fame as Sweden’s sweetheart pop princess, representing her country at Eurovision. But beneath her glittery façade, she’s uncertain who she really is. Her mother, Nancy, seems desperate to keep the past under wraps, but will the unexpected appearance of Tina’s father—a man she has long thought dead—help open the door to self-discovery?

Nancy just wants to protect her daughter from making the same mistakes she did, but Tina longs for the freedom to mess up, knowing her mother will always be there to support her. The two women love each other unconditionally, but can they learn to trust each other as well?

Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore by Char Adams

In Black-Owned, Char Adams celebrates the living history of Black bookstores. Packed with stories of activism, espionage, violence, community, and perseverance, Black-Owned starts with the first Black-owned bookstore, which an abolitionist opened in New York in 1834, and after the bookshop’s violent demise, Black book-lovers carried on its cause. In the twentieth century, civil rights and Black Power activists started a Black bookstore boom nationwide. Malcolm X gave speeches in front of the National Memorial African Book Store in Harlem—a place dubbed “Speakers’ Corner”—and later, Black bookstores became targets of FBI agents, police, and racist vigilantes. Still, stores continued to fuel Black political movements.

Coldwire by Chloe Gong

Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite

When Ebun gives birth to her daughter, Eniiyi, on the day they bury her cousin Monife, there is no denying the startling resemblance between the child and the dead woman. So begins the belief, fostered and fanned by the entire family, that Eniiyi is the actual reincarnation of Monife, fated to follow in her footsteps in all ways, including that tragic end.

There is also the matter of the family curse: “No man will call your house his home. And if they try, they will not have peace…” which has been handed down from generation to generation, breaking hearts and causing three generations of abandoned Falodun women to live under the same roof.

When Eniiyi falls in love with the handsome boy she saves from drowning, she can no longer run from her family’s history. As several women in her family have done before, she ill-advisedly seeks answers in older, darker spiritual corners of Lagos, demanding solutions. Is she destined to live out the habitual story of love and heartbreak? Or can she break the pattern once and for all, not only avoiding the spiral that led Monife to her lonely death, but liberating herself from all the family secrets and unspoken traumas that have dogged her steps since before she could remember?

Her One Regret by Donna Freitas

When successful Rhode Island real estate agent Lucy Mendoza vanishes, leaving her baby behind in a grocery store parking lot, the news quickly makes national headlines. Lucy’s best friend, Michelle, is devastated, and terrified that Lucy’s life is at stake. But she knows something that could complicate the police investigation. Lucy had confessed something unspeakable: She regretted becoming a mother, so much that she’d fantasized about faking her own kidnapping. If the police and media were to find out, Lucy would become a monster in public opinion. Michelle is sure Lucy would never abandon her daughter. But could she be wrong? Could Lucy have been so desperate she chose to escape her life?

Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel

In the beginning, there was happiness. Maya, an artist obsessed with the nature of beauty, and Noah, a quantum physicist preoccupied by the mysteries of the universe, found in each other a shared curiosity about the world. But beneath the surface of their happy marriage is a third rail: Serena, the lost child who Noah had with his ex-wife, Eileen.

One day Noah gets a call from an eccentric billionaire, asking him to participate in a clandestine project aiming to unravel the secrets of time and consciousness. The couple agrees to relocate to the Janus Lab, deep in the desert, where Noah finds himself drawn into a dangerous kind of time travel that could result in seeing Serena again.

As Noah delves into this groundbreaking, fringe work, his past begins to overtake him. And when his ex-wife, Eileen, joins the project, Maya embarks on a journey back to her own past, one that takes her to Japan, to her family, and to a formative lover who once shattered her heart. As Noah, Maya, and Eileen grapple with the balance between holding on and letting go, new information emerges that the Janus Lab might not be exactly what it seems.

Masters of the Game: A Conversational History of the NBA in 75 Legendary Players by Sam Smith

Sam Smith and Phil Jackson grew to know and respect each other in the late 1980s, when Smith was a Chicago Tribune sportswriter and Jackson was an assistant coach for the Chicago Bulls. Forty years later, the two remain close friends. In 2021, Smith helped the NBA arrive at a list of the seventy-five greatest players of all time in celebration of its seventy-fifth anniversary. Phil Jackson was asked to participate too, but he’s not a big fan of ranking greatness. They’ve been enjoying the argument ever since.

In Masters of the Game, Smith and Jackson chop it up about the basketball life, the sport, and the genius and the shadow side of the all-time greats: Jordan, Kobe, Shaq, Magic, Bill Russell, Wilt, Jerry West, Bird, LeBron, KD, Steph Curry, Bill Walton, and more. In a conversation full of high-grade analysis and high-grade gossip, we meet the stars of long-ago eras of basketball and see the mark race left on players and the business of the game—and we get a master class on character and the alchemy of a good team. And of course, inevitably, these two old heads get into the GOAT debate.

Other People’s Fun by Harriet Lane

Ruth is alone, unnoticed, and at a loss: her marriage has ended, her daughter is leaving home, and her job is leading nowhere.

But luckily Sookie is back in her life–vivid, self-assured Sookie, who never spared the time for Ruth when they were teenagers, but who now seems to want to be friends. But as Ruth is caught up in Sookie’s life, she sees that everything is not as Instagrammable as Sookie would have you believe. As the truth about Sookie becomes clearer, so too does the choice Ruth will have to make.

Palaver by Bryan Washington

In Tokyo, the son works as an English tutor and drinks his nights away with friends at a gay bar. He’s entangled in a sexual relationship with a married man, and while he has built a chosen family in Japan, he is estranged from his mother in Houston, whose preference for the son’s oft-troubled homophobic brother, Chris, pushed him to leave home. Then, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, ten years since they last saw each other, the mother arrives uninvited on his doorstep.

With only the son’s cat, Taro, to mediate, the two of them bristle at each other immediately. The mother, wrestling with memories of her youth in Jamaica and her own complicated brother, works to reconcile her good intentions with her missteps. The son struggles to forgive. But as life steers them in unexpected directions―the mother to a tentative friendship with a local bistro owner and the son to a cautious acquaintance with a new patron of the bar―they begin to see each other more clearly. During meals and conversations and an eventful trip to Nara, mother and son try as best they can to determine where “home” really is―and whether they can even find it in one another.

The Bridesmaid by Cate Quinn

The Kensingtons invite you to the society wedding of the decade. There’s just one hitch. You might not make it out alive.

When a celebrity bridesmaid is murdered weeks before an exclusive society wedding, forensic attorney Holly Stone is drafted as an unlikely undercover replacement. As she works to unpick the lives of the notoriously private Kensington family, glamour-averse Holly discovers a new worst enemy in bridezilla Adrianna. Heir to a multimillion dollar fortune, Adrianna is set on throwing the event of the decade, and she won’t let anything get in her way.

But beneath the veneer of poise and sophistication, Adrianna and her bridesmaids have secrets worth killing for.

The Dinner Party by Viola Van De Sandt

Franca left the Netherlands behind to start her new life in England with Andrew. Andrew, whose parents lived in South Kensington but had a flat their son could “borrow” nearby. Andrew, an old-fashioned British gentleman who encourages her not to work but to instead focus on her writing. Andrew who suggests a dinner party with his colleagues to celebrate their big upcoming launch.

A dinner party that Franca must plan and shop and cook and clean for. A dinner party during a heatwave when the fridge breaks, alcohol replaces water, and an unexpected guest joins their ranks, upending the careful balance between everything Franca once was and now is…

The Place Where They Buried Your Heart by Christina Henry

On an otherwise ordinary street in Chicago, there is a house. An abandoned house where, once upon a time, terrible things happened. The children who live on this block are told by their parents to stay away from that house. But of course, children don’t listen. Children think it’s fun to be scared, to dare each other to go inside.

Jessie Campanelli did what many older sisters do and dared her little brother Paul. But unlike all the other kids who went inside that abandoned house, Paul didn’t return. His two friends, Jake and Richie, said that the house ate Paul. Of course adults didn’t believe that. Adults never believe what kids say. They thought someone kidnapped Paul, or otherwise hurt him. They thought Paul had disappeared in a way that was ordinary, explainable.

The disappearance of her little brother broke Jessie’s family apart in ways that would never be repaired. Jessie grew up, had a child of her own, kept living on the same street where the house that ate her brother sat, crouched and waiting. And darkness seemed to spread out from that house, a darkness that was alive—alive and hungry.

The Stolen Crown: Treachery, Deceit, and the Death of the Tudor Dynasty by Tracy Borman

In the long and dramatic annals of British history, no transition from one monarch to another has been as fraught and consequential as that which ended the Tudor dynasty and launched the Stuart in March 1603. At her death, Elizabeth I had reigned for 44 turbulent years, facing many threats, whether external from Spain or internal from her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots. But no danger was greater than the uncertainty over who would succeed her, which only intensified as her reign lengthened. Her unwillingness to marry or name a successor gave rise to fierce rivalry between blood claimants to the throne—Mary and her son, James VI of Scotland, Arbella Stuart, Lady Katherine Grey, Henry Hastings, and more—which threatened to destabilize the monarchy.

As acclaimed Tudor historian Tracy Borman reveals in The Stolen Crown, according to Elizabeth’s earliest biographer, William Camden, in his history of her reign, on her deathbed the queen indicated James was her chosen heir, and indeed he did become king soon after she died. That endorsement has been accepted as fact for more than four centuries. However, recent analysis of Camden’s original manuscript shows key passages were pasted over and rewritten to burnish James’ legacy. The newly-uncovered pages make clear not only that Elizabeth’s naming of James never happened, but that James, uncertain he would ever gain the British throne, was even suspected of sending an assassin to London to kill the queen. Had all this been known at the time, the English people—bitter enemies with Scotland for centuries—might well not have accepted James as their king, with unimagined ramifications.

The Tortoise’s Tale by Kendra Coulter

Snatched from her ancestral lands, a giant tortoise finds herself in an exclusive estate in southern California where she becomes an astute observer of societal change. Her journey is one of discovery, as she learns to embrace the music of jazz and the warmth of human connection.

The tortoise’s story is enriched by her bond with Takeo, the estate’s gardener, who sees her as a being with thoughts and feelings, not just a creature to be observed. The tortoise’s mind and heart are further expanded by Lucy, a young girl who names the tortoise Magic and shares a friendship that transcends species. Together, they witness the estate’s transformation into a haven for industry titans, politicians, and rock stars, each leaving their mark on the world and on Magic’s heart.

The tortoise embraces her role as a muse with gusto and witnesses how diverse human harmonies and the mighty winds of social change both uplift people and tear them apart. Over the course of her lifetime, the estate changes ownership, bringing raucous Hollywood parties, and animals both familiar and unexpected. There are also threats, as the estate’s idyll is not immune to the ravages of a damaged planet. Through each era, the tortoise remains a refreshingly honest and endearing narrator whose unique vantage point illuminates the transcendent power of compassion, the unexpected connections that shape how we see ourselves and each other, and the wide-reaching effects of choice—or the lack thereof.

The Weekend Crashers by Jamie Brenner

Maggie Hodges and her daughter Piper are looking forward to a restful knitting retreat in the picturesque village of New Hope, Pennsylvania. But instead, they are surprised to find themselves sharing their charming riverside inn with a rowdy bushcraft bachelor party. Undaunted by the clash of interests and personalities, Maggie suggests a lighthearted competition—a battle of crafts—that sparks a rivalry between the two groups, and perhaps something more. But as the weekend unfolds, old mistakes and buried resentments begin to surface, threatening to destroy Maggie and Piper’s cherished connection.

In knitting, one can easily fix mistakes by picking apart each stitch and starting anew. But life’s tangles aren’t so easily mended. With tensions rising and the retreat coming to a close, Maggie must act quickly before she loses everything she holds dear. Can she repair what’s been broken before everything unravels?