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Featured Guide

Lisa Ridzén, author of When the Cranes Fly South

Bo is running out of time. Yet time is one of the few things he has left. These days, his quiet existence is broken up only by daily visits from his home care team. Fortunately, he still has his beloved elkhound, Sixten, to keep him company…though now his son, with whom Bo has had a rocky relationship, insists upon taking the dog away, claiming that Bo has grown too old to properly care for him. The threat of losing Sixten stirs up a whirlwind of emotion, leading Bo to take stock of his life, his relationships, and the imperfect way he’s expressed his love over the years.

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Ben Markovits, author of The Rest of Our Lives

When Tom Layward’s wife had an affair 12 years ago, he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest child left the nest. Now, while driving his college-bound daughter to Pittsburgh, he remembers his promise to himself. He is also on the run from his own health issues and a forced leave from work. So, rather than returning to his wife in Westchester, Tom keeps driving west, with the vague plan of visiting people from his past --- an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son --- en route, maybe, to California. He’s moving towards a future he hasn’t even envisioned yet while he considers his past and the choices he’s made that have brought him to this particular present.

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Allen Levi, author of Theo of Golden

One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why. His name is Theo. And he asks a lot more questions than he answers. Theo visits the local coffeehouse, where 92 pencil portraits hang on the walls --- portraits of the people of Golden done by a local artist. He begins purchasing them, one at a time, and putting them back in the hands of their “rightful owners.” With each exchange, a story is told, a friendship born, and a life altered.

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Paula McLain, author of Skylark

SKYLARK chronicles two parallel journeys of defiance and rescue that connect in ways both surprising and deeply moving. 1664: Alouette Voland is the daughter of a master dyer at the famed Gobelin Tapestry Works, who secretly dreams of escaping her circumstances and creating her own masterpiece. When her father is unjustly imprisoned, Alouette's efforts to save him lead to her own confinement in the notorious Salpêtrière asylum, where thousands of women are held captive and cruelly treated. But within its grim walls, she discovers a small group of brave allies and the possibility of a life bigger than she ever imagined. 1939: Kristof Larson is a medical student beginning his psychiatric residency in Paris, whose neighbors on the Rue de Gobelins are a Jewish family who have fled Poland. When Nazi forces descend on the city, Kristof becomes their only hope for survival.

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Belle Burden, author of Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage

In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha’s Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together --- building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whiskey sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of 20 years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume. In STRANGERS, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal.

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Laura Dave, author of The First Time I Saw Him

Five years after her husband, Owen, disappeared, Hannah Hall and her stepdaughter, Bailey, have settled into a new life in Southern California. Together, they've forged a relationship with Bailey's grandfather, Nicholas, and are putting the past behind them. But when Owen shows up at Hannah's new exhibition, she knows that she and Bailey are in danger again. As a thrilling drama unfolds, Hannah and Bailey are forced to go on the run in a relentless race to keep their past from catching up with them. Hannah risks everything to get Bailey to safety --- and finds there just might be one way back to Owen.

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Heather Gudenkauf, author of The Perfect Hosts

Madeline and Wes Drake have invited 200 of their closest friends and family to their sprawling horse ranch for the most anticipated event of the year: a “pistols and pearls” gender reveal party so sensational it is sure to make headlines. But the party descends into chaos when the celebratory explosive misfires, leaving one woman dead and a trail of secrets. As the aftershocks of the bloody party ripple across the small town, Agent Jamie Saldano is brought on the scene to investigate. Battling his own demons from the past, Saldano unearths a web of deceit spun around the Drakes. The appearance of some unexpected houseguests only deepens the mystery. And as tensions mount, it becomes clear that the explosion wasn’t just an unlucky accident. But who was the target, and why? 

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Janet Rich Edwards, author of Canticle

Aleys is 16 years old and prone to religious visions. She and her only friend, Finn, have been learning Latin together in secret. But just as she thinks their connection might become something more, everything unravels. When her father promises her in marriage to a merchant she doesn’t love, she runs away from home, finding shelter among the beguines, a fiercely independent community of religious women who refuse to answer to the Church. Among these hardworking and strong-willed women, Aleys glimpses for the first time the joys of belonging. But forces both mystical and political are at work. Illegal translations of scripture, the women’s independence, and a sudden rash of miracles all draw the attention of an ambitious bishop --- and bring Aleys and those around her into ever-increasing danger.

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Andrew Miller, author of The Land in Winter

December 1962: In a village deep in the English countryside, two neighboring couples begin the day. Local doctor Eric Parry commences his rounds in the village, while his pregnant wife, Irene, wanders the rooms of their old house, mulling over the space that has grown between the two of them. On the farm nearby lives witty but troubled Rita Simmons, who is also expecting. She spends her days trying on the idea of being a farmer’s wife, but her head still swims with images of a raucous past that her husband, Bill, prefers to forget. When Rita and Irene meet across the bare field between their houses, a clock starts. When the ordinary cold of December gives way --- ushering in violent blizzards of the harshest winter in living memory --- so do the secret resentments harbored in all four lives.

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Marisa Kashino, author of Best Offer Wins

Eighteen months and 11 lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month. Desperate to escape the cramped apartment she shares with her husband, Ian, Margo becomes obsessed with buying the house before it’s publicly listed and the masses descend. A little stalking? Harmless. A bit of trespassing? Necessary. As Margo infiltrates the homeowners’ lives, her tactics grow increasingly unhinged. But just when she thinks she’s won them over, she hits a snag in her plan. Undeterred, Margo will prove again and again that there’s no boundary she won’t cross to seize the dream life she’s been chasing.

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