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Featured Guide

Emma Donoghue, author of The Paris Express

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, THE PARIS EXPRESS is set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.

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Patti Callahan Henry, author of The Story She Left Behind

In 1927, Clara Harrington’s magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, disappears off the coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national sensation when she was just 12 years old. Her departure leaves behind not only a devoted husband and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work. By 1952, Clara is an illustrator raising her own daughter, Wynnie. One day, a stranger named Charlie Jameson contacts her from London claiming to have discovered a handwritten dictionary of her mother’s lost language. At the Jameson family’s retreat, Clara must find the courage to uncover the truth about her mother and the story she left behind.

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Sophie Stava, author of Count My Lies

Sloane Caraway is a liar. Harmless lies, mostly, to make her self-proclaimed sad little life a bit more interesting. So when Sloane sees a young girl in tears at a park one afternoon, she can’t help herself. She tells the girl’s (very attractive) dad that she’s a nurse and helps him pull a bee stinger from the girl’s foot. With this lie, and chance encounter, Sloane becomes the nanny for the wealthy and privileged Jay and Violet Lockhart. They’re the perfect New York couple, with a brownstone, a daughter in private school, and summers on Block Island. But maybe Sloane isn’t the only one lying, and all that’s picture-perfect harbors a much more dangerous truth.

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Charlotte McConaghy, author of Wild Dark Shore

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore. As they nurse Rowan back to strength, it begins to feel like she might be just what they need. Rowan starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again. But she isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes that Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late.

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Elle Cosimano, author of Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave

Finlay Donovan and her nanny/partner-in-crime, Vero, have not always gotten along with Finlay’s elderly neighbor, Mrs. Haggerty, the community busybody and president of the neighborhood watch. But when a dead body is discovered in her backyard, Mrs. Haggerty needs their help. At first a suspect, Mrs. Haggerty is cleared by the police, but her house remains an active crime scene. She has nowhere to go…except Finlay’s house, right across the street. Finlay and Vero have no interest in getting involved in another murder case --- or sacrificing either of their bedrooms. But when the focus of the investigation widens to include Finlay’s ex-husband, Steven, Finlay and Vero are left with little choice but to get closer to Mrs. Haggerty and uncover her secrets…before the police start digging up theirs. But who will solve the mystery first?

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Chris Bohjalian, author of The Jackal's Mistress

Virginia, 1864. Libby Steadman’s husband has been away for so long that she can barely conjure his voice in her dreams. While she longs for him in the night, fearing him dead in a Union prison camp, her days are spent running a gristmill with her teenage niece, a hired hand and his wife. It’s an uneasy life in the Shenandoah Valley, and Libby awakens every morning expecting to see her land a battlefield. And then she finds a gravely injured Union officer left for dead in a neighbor’s house. Captain Jonathan Weybridge of the Vermont Brigade is her enemy --- but he’s also a human being, and Libby must make a terrible decision: Does she leave him to die alone? Or does she risk treason and try to nurse him back to health? And if she succeeds, does she try to secretly bring him across Union lines, where she might negotiate a trade for news of her own husband?

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Amy Griffin, author of The Tell: A Memoir

For decades, Amy Griffin ran. Through the dirt roads of Amarillo, Texas, where she grew up; to the campus of the University of Virginia, as a student athlete; on the streets of New York, where she built her adult life; through marriage, motherhood and a thriving career. To outsiders, it all looked, in many ways, perfect. But Amy was running from something --- a secret she was keeping not only from her family and friends, but unconsciously from herself. “You’re here, but you’re not here,” her daughter said to her one night. “Where are you, Mom?” So began Amy’s quest to solve a mystery trapped in the deep recesses of her own memory --- a journey that would take her into the burgeoning field of psychedelic therapy, to the limits of the judicial system, and, ultimately, home to the Texas panhandle, where her story began.

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Clare Leslie Hall, author of Broken Country

Beth and her gentle, kind husband, Frank, are happily married, though their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager --- the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son, Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident. As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was and the woman she has become.

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Lisa Unger, author of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

Charismatic daredevil and extreme adventurer Maverick Dillan invites you to the ultimate game of hide-and-seek. But as the players gather on Falcao Island, the event quickly spirals into a chilling test of survival. A storm rages as a deadly threat stalks the contestants, turning the challenge into something far more sinister than the social media stunt it was intended to be. Enter Adele, a single mother with a fierce determination to protect her children at all costs. When she begins the game, she unwittingly enters a twisted web of deception and intrigue. Can she maneuver through the treacherous storm and the relentless competition and get home to her family? In a ruthless battle for survival where the stakes are higher than ever, the blurry line between the virtual and the real proves that the only person we can trust is ourselves.

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Pam Jenoff, author of Last Twilight in Paris

London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a department store in Paris, and she is certain she has seen the necklace before, when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe --- and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend, Franny, during the war. Following the trail of clues to Paris, Louise seeks help from her former boss, Ian, with whom she shares a romantic history. She races to find the connection between the necklace, the department store and Franny’s death. But nothing is as it seems, and there are forces determined to keep the truth buried forever.

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