Jan 13

Jan 13 28 Books Publishing This Week

The afternoon in early January feels spare and honest, stripped down to essentials. The holidays have receded, decorations tucked away, the calendar freshly turned. Outside, the light is pale and clean, winter sun hanging low in the sky, casting long, quiet shadows across the ground. The air is cold but bright, the kind that sharpens your senses and makes even small moments feel deliberate.

You’ve been craving this pause all day. Not rest exactly—something deeper. A reset. You make your way to your favorite spot, where the afternoon light lands just right, pooling softly on the floor or across the arm of a chair. A mug of something warm waits nearby, steam rising lazily, scent grounding you in the present moment. You pull a sweater tighter around yourself, not because you’re cold, but because it feels right to be wrapped up right now.

The book rests in your hands, new and unopened. There’s something especially satisfying about starting a book in January, when everything else feels unfinished, when the year is wide open and undefined. You don’t need this book to teach you anything or transform you. You just want it to accompany you—to move alongside you as the days stretch forward, quiet and uncertain and full of possibility.

You open the cover slowly, appreciating the resistance of the spine, the crispness of untouched pages. The first sentence meets you without urgency. It doesn’t demand attention; it invites it. You settle in, letting your body soften as your mind begins to shift gears, moving away from lists and plans and into something more fluid.

Outside, the world is hushed. A car passes occasionally, tires whispering against cold pavement. A bird flits across the yard, quick and purposeful. Everything feels reduced to simple motion, simple sound. Inside, the heater hums softly, a steady backdrop as the afternoon unfolds.

You read slowly at first, allowing yourself to linger. Early January is not a time for rushing. It’s a time for noticing. The cadence of the writing. The way a character is introduced. The mood being established sentence by sentence. You pause now and then, lifting your gaze to the window, watching the light shift almost imperceptibly as the sun moves lower.

The warmth of your drink fades, but you don’t mind. You take another sip anyway, welcoming the contrast, the reminder of time passing. The book begins to open up to you—not dramatically, not all at once, but steadily. A setting takes shape. A voice becomes familiar. You feel the quiet satisfaction of having chosen well, of knowing this story will stay with you.

January afternoons have a way of stretching, elastic and gentle. You lose track of time, pages slipping by without effort. The outside light turns more silvery now, the edges of the day beginning to soften. You pull your sweater sleeves down over your hands and turn another page, fully at ease.

This moment feels intentional in a way that doesn’t require explanation. You’re not escaping anything. You’re simply choosing to be here, with this book, in this season that asks for patience and presence. There’s comfort in the restraint of winter, in the way it encourages inwardness, reflection, slow beginnings.

When you finally close the book—only a few chapters in—you mark your place carefully. The afternoon has shifted toward evening, the light dimmer now, cooler. You sit for a moment longer, book resting in your lap, feeling quietly grounded.

This is how the year begins for you: not with urgency or ambition, but with attention. With a story unfolding at its own pace. With an early January afternoon spent exactly where you are—steady, thoughtful, and open to what comes next.

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Books Publishing January 11 - 17

The Shark House by Sara Ackerman

Author Interview with Sara Ackerman

Set in 1998 Hawai'i, this nostalgic women's fiction combines the atmosphere and family dynamics of The Cliffs with the drive of a heroine working in a male dominated field in Lessons in Chemistry. The Shark House follows a marine biologist who must confront both a deadly white shark and her own haunting past in this chilling exploration of nature and self-discovery.

1998. The Kohala coast has seen a series of shark attacks in less than a week, setting the island community on edge. Biologist and shark whisperer Minnow Gray arrives on the scene to better understand what may have provoked the attacks, and if the same great white shark is still haunting the area. But as she descends into the blue Hawaiian depths, she soon learns there is far more going on than meets the eye.

Witness to an unspeakable tragedy involving a white shark and her own father, Minnow has her own dark past to contend with. She knows deep inside that unlocking the memory of that long ago morning will be the only way to set her life back on track. And the longer she's in Hawai'i, the more she comes to see that her journey here might be as much about finding herself as finding the shark.

The Shark House is an atmospheric exploration of the intricate dance between humans and sharks, set against a backdrop of stunning Hawaiian landscapes and deep-sea danger. It's a tale of resilience, redemption, and the raw power of the natural world. Dive in, if you dare.

Dandelion is Dead by Rosie Storey

When Poppy discovers unanswered messages from a charming stranger in her late sister's dating app, she makes an impulsive choice: She'll meet him, just once, on what would have been Dandelion's fortieth birthday. It's exactly the kind of wild adventure her vivacious sister would have pushed her toward.

Jake is ready to find something real—and not least because his ex-wife's twentysomething boyfriend has moved into their old family home. When he meets the intriguing woman who calls herself Dandelion, their connection is undeniable, and he can think of little else.

As their relationship deepens, Poppy finds herself trapped in a double life she never meant to create. Every moment with Jake feels genuine, electric, and totally right—despite the fact they're tangled in deceit. As the lines between grief and love blur, Poppy faces a choice: keep her sister's memory alive through her lies, or risk everything for a chance at her own happiness?

With sparkling wit and aching tenderness, debut author Rosie Storey gives us a modern love story about the courage it takes to live again after loss and finding hope in the most unexpected places.

The Lust Crusade by Jo Segura

Daniela Guiterrez has been in love with her brother’s best friend for as long as she can remember—until he went missing a year ago during an archaeological expedition. But on a solo trip to Greece, the intrepid librarian discovers that Theo is very much alive, although judging by the criminals holding him hostage, he is not doing well.

An expert in Ancient Greek archaeology, Dr. Theo Galanis has been abducted by artifact smugglers in search of a priceless gemstone—the Eye of the Minotaur. This ridiculous assignment was supposed to get Dani out of his system, not keep her tied up next to him. But when a little white lie spirals into his captors believing Theo and Dani are engaged, they must utilize her research skills and his expertise to solve the centuries’ old Minoan mystery, all while feigning a romance to keep each other alive.

Now with less than six days to find the jewel, underground societies, mythological beings, and pesky abductors are only half the battle. Because among the ancient ruins and temples they explore is an even bigger danger: falling in love for real.

For Our Next Song by Jessica James

The decade-long friendship between two rock goddesses is thrust into the spotlight after their mutual desire strikes a perfect—and very public—chord.

For Glitter Bats keys player Jane Mercer, writing music helps tune out her self-doubt from a strict upbringing. Composing also distracts from her longtime feelings for her bandmate and best friend, Keeley, who Jane can’t pursue if she wants to keep her bisexuality out of the media. But when an incompetent percussionist quits mid–recording session on one of her major solo projects, there’s only one drummer to call to make the deadline.

Keeley Cunningham is determined to do what’s best for the newly-reunited Glitter Bats—including conceal her incurable attraction to Jane by keeping her distance. Still, when Jane asks for her help in the studio, Keeley drops everything to fill in. They collaborate harmoniously… until their repressed feelings crescendo into a massive argument about the band’s future that leaves them barely speaking.

As music forces Jane and Keeley into increasingly close proximity, the lingering tension finally ignites into the romance they’ve both been craving—and it’s hot, emotional, and fundamentally secret. But after an intimate moment is caught on camera, they’ll have to decide if their duet can survive its debut—both on and off stage.

Murder Your Darlings by Jenna Blum

For every woman who’s ever fallen for a man who seems too good to be true, comes MURDER YOUR DARLINGS, a hilarious and eviscerating suspense novel of love, loss, and publishing deadlines from New York Times bestselling author Jenna Blum.

The Last of Earth by Deepa Anappara

1869. Tibet is closed to Europeans, an infuriating obstruction for the rapidly expanding British Empire. In response, Britain begins training Indians—permitted to cross borders that white men may not—to undertake illicit, dangerous surveying expeditions into Tibet.

Balram is one such surveyor-spy, an Indian schoolteacher who, for several years, has worked for the British, often alongside his dearest friend, Gyan. But Gyan went missing on his last expedition and is rumored to be imprisoned within Tibet. Desperate to rescue his friend, Balram agrees to guide an English captain on a foolhardy mission: After years of paying others to do the exploring, the captain, disguised as a monk, wants to personally chart a river that runs through southern Tibet. Their path will cross fatefully with that of another Westerner in disguise, fifty-year-old Katherine. Denied a fellowship in the all-male Royal Geographical Society in London, she intends to be the first European woman to reach Lhasa.

As Balram and Katherine make their way into Tibet, they will face storms and bandits, snow leopards and soldiers, fevers and frostbite. What’s more, they will have to battle their own doubts, ambitions, grief, and pasts in order to survive the treacherous landscape.

A polyphonic novel about the various ways humans try to leave a mark on the world—from the enduring nature of family and friendship to the egomania and obsessions of the colonial enterprise—The Last of Earth confirms Deepa Anappara as one of our greatest and most ambitious storytellers.

The Magic of Untamed Hearts by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

After several years stuck as a ghost, Sky Flores learns to reconnect with the living again with the help of her handsome neighbor in this lush romance from the USA Today bestselling author of Witch of Wild Things.

Like her sisters, Sage and Teal, Sky Flores has a touch of magic, and it’s caused nothing but heartache. Not only did she disappear into the woods years ago and reappear with no rational explanation, she’s also more comfortable talking to animals than to people. Different and misunderstood, Sky is shunned in the small town of Cranberry.

Sky’s neighbor, Adam Noemi, has his own problems. After being laid off from a prestigious newspaper, Adam, ever the ambitious reporter, needs a big headline to redeem his career. Enter Sky, a girl with a story that news outlets have been chasing for years. Sky agrees to grant Adam an exclusive interview on one condition: that he befriend Sky, in a very public way, to prove to everyone in Cranberry that she’s not an outcast.

As Sky shares her experiences with Adam, something much bigger than a simple agreement begins to grow between them. But for love to take root, Adam will have to take a leap towards a life that defies expectations, and Sky must open her heart – full of flora and fauna and mystical energies – to his curious mind.

Into the Midnight Wood by Alexandra McCollum

A whimsical queer romance about two mismatched roommates, an impending family wedding, and an otherworldly danger in an enchanted wood that upends their fragile (definitely not romantic at all) balance.

There are 100 things wrong with Meredith Schwarzwelder. At least. In fact, keeping track of these things is the only way David Carew has managed to remain living with Meredith, an irredeemable eccentric who flirts with everyone in his path (#3 on the list), cries at anything (#35), makes the worst coffee in the world (#70), and talks to mice, or imagines he does (#52), for as long as he has.

It’s bad enough living with such a person on the edge of the Midnight Wood, but when magic starts to seep from the wood and a dark being with a sinister plan involving Meredith emerges, David decides that it’s time to leave the cottage, and his roommate, behind. Then Meredith’s brother gets engaged to the daughter of David’s boss, and David sees an opportunity; if he can insert himself into the festivities, maybe he can advance his career and get himself out of a personal rut.

With wedding bells sounding and the dangers of the Midnight Wood encroaching, David realizes there’s much more hiding beneath the surface of his roommate’s seemingly carefree charm, and perhaps his own exasperation carries more fondness than he’d like to admit.

Confessions of a Problem Seeker by Howard Steinberg

A raw and unflinchingly honest memoir of one man’s midlife reckoning and search to find his soul. As a childhood shaped by trauma and illness gave way to an illusion of adult success and purpose—marriage, fatherhood, entrepreneurial achievement—the author finds himself grappling with the unshakable feeling that he has lived a life shaped more by fear and survival instincts than by inner truth. Triggered by divorce, professional loss, and a deep inner emptiness, his search for peace leads him to psychedelics and a spiritual awakening as he begins to heal old wounds, including the lingering shadows of his Holocaust- survivor parents. He offers a compassionate invitation for others—particularly those in the second half of life —to question who they really are beneath their busy identities and to reclaim the joy and stillness of an authentic, present life.

The Midnight Carousel by Fiza Saeed McLynn

For fans of The Circus Train and Water for Elephants, a spellbinding historical novel about an enchanting carousel that causes people who ride it to mysteriously disappear.

1920, Chicago
Maisy Marlowe has come to America for a fresh start. After discovering an antique fairground carousel, she is seized by the idea of running a glittering amusement park. But little does she know that the wondrous object has a sinister past of its own.

Paris
A decade ago, fairgoers inexplicably vanished riding an extraordinary carousel, and Detective Laurent Bisset closed the case with a suspect behind bars. So when rumors of fresh disappearances in Chicago also linked to a carousel make their way across the Atlantic, Laurent sets out for new answers to an old mystery.
Maisie and Laurent both hold clues to this dark puzzle.
But can they piece it together before the carousel claims someone else?

The Younger Gods by Katie Shepard

Danger looms when a former priestess sails to the realm of the dead to find her fallen lover, only to discover the gods she thought she defeated are preparing for war.

Iona Night-Singer thought she’d overthrown the gods. Her mortal rebellion eked out a painful victory by using the gods’ own powers against them—though she lost her betrothed, Taran, in a final battle with the god of death. Months later, the war doesn’t feel over. Not with Taran gone. Especially not when the gods still answer the prayers she sings.

Angry, grieving, and with a gnawing dread that the gods will return, Iona strikes a deal with her former patron goddess: if Iona can convince Taran to follow her home from the Underworld, he’ll be free to live again. If she fails, they’ll both be trapped there forever.

No sooner does she find him, she makes a horrible discovery. The dead gods have been reborn, they are plotting revenge—and Taran, it seems, was always one of them. This reincarnated trickster god with Taran’s face no longer remembers her or the war they fought together, and she doubts not just his loyalties but his love.

Determined to stop the next war without revealing her part in the last one, Iona enters her deadliest battle yet, one where she fights to bring Taran home without him even knowing it.

Chef's Kiss at The Chalet by Sookie Snow

Torn between two worlds, can their love survive the season?

When Eleanor Evans lands a spot at London’s most prestigious culinary school, her dreams finally feel within reach. Desperate to scrape together the cash for her tuition, she accepts a last-minute agency position as a chalet girl that whisks her away to Maplewood Creek, a quaint, snow-kissed town nestled in the Rocky mountains of Colorado.

Hired by the affluent Hawthorne family, Elle finds herself in a world of wealth, luxury and big egos, far removed from her humdrum everyday life. As she navigates the challenges of her new job, mastering gourmet dishes and catering to the whims of her discerning employers, she soon realizes there’s something she hadn't accounted for: Charles Hawthorne, the family’s charming and undeniably sexy eldest son.

Charles soon becomes an unexpected distraction for Elle, and she can't deny the sizzling chemistry between them. But with Elle’s career aspirations hanging in the balance, and Charles's carefree lifestyle and family expectations putting strain on their blossoming relationship, can this unlikely duo survive the season . . . ?

The Jilted Countess by Loretta Ellsworth

The war stole Roza Meszaros’s dreams of becoming a ballerina and her aristocratic family’s fortune. But the penniless Hungarian countess’s fate takes a hopeful turn when she meets an American soldier named Joe, who promises to marry her and take her to the States. After two years of waiting to obtain the necessary money and paperwork to emigrate, Roza finally arrives in Minnesota—and discovers Joe has married someone else.

Determined to stay in America, Roza turns to popular newspaper columnist Cedric Adams to help her find a suitable husband. Sharing Roza’s story and her picture, Adams makes a special plea to his military readers. The response is overwhelming—nearly 1,800 World War II veterans bombard the paper’s offices with telegrams, flowers, candy, and cash, “a world-record” for marriage proposals, Adams tells Roza.

Like a 1948 version of The Bachelorette, Roza ultimately chooses Finn Erickson, a former soldier and railroad locomotive engineer. Putting aside her romantic ideals, she and her new husband settle into the small riverside town of Red Wing, Minnesota. But when Roza unexpectedly runs into her former fiancé, things quickly become complicated.

A captivating and unusual tale of love, loss, finding yourself, and creating your destiny, The Jilted Countess examines the meaning of marriage, the American dream, and what it takes to face our demons while searching for happiness.

Two Left Feet by Kallie Emblidge

A Premier League football star must defend his roster spot—and his heart—when a threateningly talented and handsome midfielder joins his team in this utterly charming debut romance, a profound love letter to the world’s most popular sport.

Oliver Harris is football royalty in London. Ordinarily the star of the Camden Roses is calm, cool, and collected, keeping his club relevant with his prowess in the midfield and his mighty left foot. But this season, the threats abound: There’s Camden’s management to contend with—complete with a prickly new Dutch coach, eager for better results—and a midseason injury, which sidelines him when his team needs him most. When a recruit is called up to fill in, Oliver fears he’ll be replaced. If he can mentor this younger talent, then they might just have a chance at winning, together.

After a string of lackluster performances in his native Spain, Leonardo Davies-Villanueva is looking for one last shot with the club he always dreamed of, where he once played in the youth academy. Oliver immediately finds confident, eager Leo irritating. He can barely go through the motions, let alone coach him, without outright hostility. When he comes to admire Leo’s skill and warms to his humor and energy, though, he begins to see Leo as a friend—and then, to his mounting horror, as something more.

Leo craves Oliver’s attention and partnership; Oliver can’t afford to fall in love with his teammate. He’s always kept a tight lid on his sexuality in a league that’s never had a player come out. As the season heats up, a lot more than football hangs in the balance. Can Oliver—and Leo—win when it counts most?

“An exuberant heart-squeeze of a book . . . Two Left Feet is the kind of joyful, hopeful story the romance genre was made for.”—Rachel Lynn Solomon, author of What Happens in Amsterdam

It Should Have Been You by Andrea Mara

Your neighbors have secrets. How far would they go to keep them?

“A simple, ordinary mistake explodes into a suburban nightmare in this hugely compelling, one-sitting read packed full of thrilling moments and genuinely surprising twists. Andrea Mara is at the very top of her game.” —Catherine Ryan Howard

You press send and your message disappears. Full of secrets about your neighbors, it’s meant for your sister. But it doesn’t reach her – it goes to the entire local community WhatsApp group instead.

As rumor spreads like wildfire through the picture-perfect neighborhood, you convince yourself that people will move on, that this will quickly be forgotten. But then you receive the first death threat.

The next day, a woman has been murdered. And what’s even more chilling is that she had the same address as you – 26 Oakpark – but in a different part of town. Did the killer get the wrong house? It won’t be long before you find out…

The Montana Gold Mine by Tim Piper

In spring 1874, the American economy is descending into a depression, following the collapse of Jay Cooke’s financial empire. Amid the chain of bank and business failures set off by Cooke’s bankruptcy, Jubilee Walker struggles to keep Warner and Walker Outfitters solvent.

Jubil’s grand plans for developing Yellowstone National Park into a popular tourist destination were dashed when Cooke’s business failed, but he is still determined to help fulfill the park’s potential—not to mention his promise to his friend White Dog to end the corruption affecting the well-being of the people living on the Crow reservation.

When Jubil solicits support from the highest levels of government, he sets off a chain of events that puts not only him but the ones he loves most in grave danger. What is the nature of the secret Jubil’s nemesis is hiding? And how far will he go to protect it?

Book four in the Jubilee Walker series is loosely based on historical events.

You'll Never Forget Me by Isha Raya

In this sharp, seductive debut thriller, struggling actress Dimple Kapoor accidentally kills her Hollywood rival—and sees the opportunity of a lifetime. With the role she’s always wanted within reach, Dimple will do whatever it takes to keep her secret buried. But when Irene’s parents hire brilliant private investigator Saffi Mirai Iyer to find the truth, the two women become locked in a dangerous game of deception and desire. As Saffi and Dimple circle each other—equal parts adversaries and reluctant intimates—their battle of wits becomes a slow-burning collision of ambition, morality, and attraction. Propulsive, provocative, and darkly funny, You’ll Never Forget Me announces Isha Raya as a bold new voice in upmarket suspense.

The Stay-At-Home Mother by Nicole Trope

Author Interview with Nicole Trope

From a bestselling author, a psychological thriller about a mother's worst nightmare that will leave you on the edge of your seat—perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Liane Moriarty.

Her chest tightens, her heart speeding up. The kitchen is chaos. She steps on something hard and looks down. Toy dinosaurs are scattered everywhere. But her son is nowhere—her baby boy is gone.

The police arrive. She can’t look at her husband. Instead, she studies the network of lines on her shaking hands.

Then her phone beeps with a voice message. ‘Listen to it on speaker,’ says the detective.

A woman’s voice fills the air.

‘I’m assuming this is the Andrea Gately listed as a contact on the Missing Children of the World website. I’m calling to let you know that I’ve given your details to the police. Why are you using a picture of my son on a missing children’s website? Why are you using it and where did you get it?’

Mend Or Move On: A Guide to Healing or Leaving Toxic Relationships by Kate King, MA, LPC, ATR-BC

Relationships are meant to nourish us―but what happens when they cause harm instead? In Mend or Move On, licensed professional counselor and board-certified art therapist Kate King offers a bold, compassionate guide to breaking free from toxic dynamics and reclaiming a life rooted in self-respect and happiness.

King challenges the long-held belief that family loyalty and social harmony should come at the expense of personal well-being. This book is not about saving every connection―it's about knowing which relationships are worth healing, and which ones demand an honest goodbye. With insight, clarity, and empathy, King outlines the seven most common traps that keep people stuck in painful friendships, partnerships, family bonds, and professional dynamics. These include internalized guilt, unhealed trauma, codependency, and more. She guides readers through the difficult process of deciding whether to stay or walk away by outlining practical, psychology-informed tools that support both paths. Whether repairing a struggling bond or finding the strength to sever it, readers will gain strategies to navigate complex emotional territory with integrity.

Through cutting-edge research and powerful stories from her clients and her own life, King offers a safe space to explore questions of belonging, betrayal, boundaries, and healing. Her unique approach provides a holistic path forward that emphasizes creative expression, evidence-based concepts, and nervous system regulation. This guide invites readers to build relationships that are honest, kind, and respectful―and to walk away from those that are dysfunctional, abusive, and beyond repair.

How the Rhino Lost His Horn: Cautionary Tales from Appalachia to Africa by Jack Rathmell

Growing up, Jack has heard all about the supposed virtues of the modern world: connection, convenience, opportunity. But from where he stands in small-town Appalachia, those promises ring hollow. With college (and a lifetime of debt) looming, he goes with the oldest trick in the quarter-life-crisis-haver’s playbook: If in doubt, go to Africa to save the children. What could go wrong?
Quite a bit, in fact. In Cape Town, he's thrown into a backwards, lawless world, one of bloodthirst and betrayal—and that's just among his fellow volunteers. The local wildlife, meanwhile, don't turn out to be much more welcoming.
Yet something about this place keeps pulling him back again and again. His adventures over those next few years challenge everything he thought he knew, revealing the forces shaping both South Africa and the world at large.
Told with biting wit and unflinching honesty, How the Rhino Lost His Horn is a reckoning with the stories we tell about the world and our place in it, and the realities we must confront if we want to build something better.

Ghost Town by Dr. James R. Gregory

In the isolated coal mining town of Sulphur Creek in the late 1800s, young Sammy Murphy’s world is a blend of shadowy tunnels and unspoken secrets. Born into solitude and pushed into reclusion, Sammy’s quiet life starkly contrasts with the booming industry that surrounds him. But as he searches for connection in an era of ruthless expansion, he finds himself at odds with forces far greater than he imagined.

Enter Barry Bacon, an ambitious industrialist who fancies himself a peer to magnates like Andrew Carnegie. Driven by unbridled ambition, Bacon’s dreams stretch far beyond the soot-covered rooftops of Sulphur Creek. But as the weight of his empire bears down, his unchecked arrogance threatens to unravel everything he’s built.

As Sammy faces an unexpected awakening brought forth by a fleeting love, and Bacon’s empire teeters on the brink of collapse, both men must face truths that transcend time—true love extends beyond mere attraction and real power is more than forceful arrogance.

Set against the raw, unforgiving landscape of America’s industrial ascent, Ghost Town is a gripping novel of ambition, isolation, and the pursuit of connection. With richly drawn characters and a hauntingly relevant message, it echoes through history, exploring what it truly means to lead, to love, and to belong.

Don't Step into My Office by David Fishkind

A gripping debut novel of literary suspense and a vivid portrait of wealth's hidden violence.

Aspiring writer and general layabout Jacob Garlicker doesn't expect—walking along the beach on the night of his twenty-sixth birthday—to witness a murder. After a hapless attempt to help the victim, Jacob decides to forget the incident entirely. And for a while, he does, returning to his bohemian life in NYC as if nothing of consequence had occurred.

Seven years later, Jacob is blissfully married. Now mostly sober, and mostly at peace with his failed writing career, he's feeling alright as he heads to his father-in-law's birthday celebration in the Hamptons, even as he knows the well-heeled WASPs that populate his in-laws' social circle will spend the weekend treating him with polite disdain. Everything shifts, however, when Jacob arrives on Long Island and begins to realize that those well-heeled WASPs are not as harmless as they seem.

Over the course of this propulsive, at times blackly comic narrative, Jacob wavers between addled narcissism and earnest commitment as he searches for the brutal, booze-soaked truth. Indebted to the suspenseful, page-turning plotwork of Patricia Highsmith and the operatic madness of Dario Argento, Don't Step into My Office is a mesmerizing literary puzzle.

A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes by Nancy J. Allen

The lush and layered stories in this delightful debut stretch from the deep darkness of Carlsbad Caverns to the light of desert stars.

In Nancy J. Allen’s fierce first collection, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, the extraordinary emerges from the everyday. Allen’s stories are informed by the vast landscapes of New Mexico and Texas, and in them the mythic and the mundane intertwine: two neighbors burn a grandson’s letters from Vietnam in a backyard grill; a child vanishes into the maze of Albuquerque’s fabled Alvarado Hotel; a sculptor meets her younger self in the eerie stillness of a theater lobby. These are only a few of the unforgettable, mysterious moments that mark the arrival of a bold new voice in contemporary Southwest fiction.

Even the Dead by John Banville

Quirke's latest case leads him inexorably toward the dark machinations of an old foe, in this mystery from “one of the most imaginative literary novelists writing in the English language today” (The Washington Post)

Perhaps Quirke has been down among the dead too long. Lately the Dublin pathologist has suffered hallucinations and blackouts, and he fears the cause is a brain tumor. A specialist diagnoses an old head injury caused by a savage beating; all that’s needed is an extended rest. But when a body turns up, any possibility of that vanishes.

The corpse, discovered in a crashed car one hot June night, is assumed to be the victim of an accident or a suicide, but Quirke’s examination of the body leads him to believe otherwise. Then his daughter Phoebe gets a mysterious visit from an acquaintance, who later disappears. Before long, Quirke and his old friend Inspector Hackett find themselves deep in a shadowy world where one of the city’s most powerful men uses the cover of politics and religion to make obscene profits.

The Undead by Svetlana Satchkova

In this gripping tale of contemporary Russia, a young filmmaker and her friends run afoul of a government that ruthlessly oppresses artists who dare to satirize the regime ...

When Maya, a young Russian filmmaker, makes a low-budget horror movie with her friends, it seems like a promising start to a career in indie film. Little does she know that her jokey lo-fi film will soon attract the attention of the autocratic censors at the highest levels of the Russian police state.

What follows is a propulsive narrative of an artist being crushed by state power, and the choices that one makes within a system where free expression is literally illegal. Written with the undeniable voice of a emigre from Putin's Russia, The Undead is a tense, piercing story that serves as a parable, and a warning, about political oppression.

The East Wind by Alexandra Warwick

Rapunzel meets the myth of Psyche and Cupid in a stand-alone fantasy romance tale of love, survival and healing, as a mortal woman and a god unite to overcome deadly trials—and their own tortured pasts—in the climactic final installment of the Four Winds series.

Min of Marles is a skilled apprentice, assisting the town's apothecarist in brewing potions, tonics, and deadly poisons. High in the estate tower where she works, a powerful immortal is kept chained, tortured daily for information. His screams haunt her waking and dreaming hours. A god, she learns. The East Wind, Eurus, who commands the sea-born storms.

A hasty attempt to free him leads to Min’s own capture and forced employment to the East Wind as an aide to his grand plans for revenge. In the City of Gods, a tournament is held every thousand years, in which the winner may ask a favor from the esteemed Council of Gods. If Eurus wins, the council must reverse his banishment, the sentence that exiled him and his brothers to the mortal realms. But he requires a deadly poison to ensure that, once the favor is granted, the council will pay for his centuries long exile.

To earn her freedom, Min reluctantly assists in Eurus’s plans. As they work together to defeat the deadly trials, she realizes her relationship to the East Wind isn’t purely transactional. But if she ever wishes to return home, she must betray the god she loves.

For more stories from the world of the Four Winds, check out The North Wind, The West Wind, and The South Wind.

The Gardener's Wife's Mistress by Cassondra Windwalker

Author Interview with Cassondra Windwalker

Hayden Hill has always felt most comfortable with his hands in dirt, nurturing life. He designs natural spaces for others and comes home to his back yard, where he seeks refuge amidst the fruits and vegetables, flora, and shade-giving trees. When he finds himself suddenly a widower, his garden becomes the resting place for the ashes of his wife, Shelly, and he’s thrown into an unexpected vortex of pain, shock, and guilt. As Hayden struggles to survive the torment of each day and keep his landscaping company functioning, a directive in Shelly’s will leads him to the discovery of a shocking secret.

Fighting to find a path through the weeds of grief, Hayden meets his wife’s secret connections and becomes involved helping local, homeless teens cast out by their families for choosing to be who they are. Rocked by this newly discovered, complicated facet of Shelly’s life, he begins to question their marriage, her identity, his past choices, and whether anything he believed about his wife was ever true.

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