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Featured Guide

Chris Bohjalian, author of The Princess of Las Vegas

Crissy Dowling passes her days by the pool in a private cabana, and each evening she transforms into a Princess, performing her musical cabaret inspired by the life of the late Diana Spencer. Some might find her strange or even delusional, an American speaking with a British accent, living and working in a casino that has become a dated trash heap. On top of that, Crissy’s daily diet of Adderall and Valium leaves her more than a little tipsy, her Senator boyfriend has gone back to his wife, and her entire career rests on resembling a dead woman. Yet her fans see her for the gifted chameleon she is. But when Crissy’s sister, Betsy, arrives in town with a new boyfriend and a teenage daughter, and when Richie Morley, the owner of the Buckingham Palace Casino, is savagely murdered, Crissy’s carefully constructed kingdom comes crashing down all around her.

Allison Pataki, author of Finding Margaret Fuller

After Margaret Fuller accepts an invitation from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the celebrated Sage of Concord, to meet his coterie of enlightened friends, she becomes “the radiant genius and fiery heart” of the Transcendentalists. However, Margaret craves more than poetry and interpersonal drama, and her restless soul needs new challenges and adventures. When legendary editor Horace Greeley offers her an assignment in Europe, Margaret makes history as the first female foreign news correspondent. But it is in Rome that she finds a world of passion, romance and revolution, taking a Roman count as a lover --- and sparking an international scandal. Evolving yet again into the roles of mother and countess, Margaret enters the fight for Italy’s unification.

Rebecca Serle, author of Expiration Dates

Daphne Bell believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it: the exact amount of time they will be together. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over 20 years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, on the night of a blind date at her favorite Los Angeles restaurant, there’s only a name: Jake. But as Jake and Daphne’s story unfolds, Daphne finds herself doubting the paper’s prediction and wrestling with what it means to be both committed and truthful. Because Daphne knows things Jake doesn’t --- information that would break his heart if he found out.

Lisa Scottoline, author of The Truth About the Devlins

TJ Devlin is the charming disappointment in the prominent Devlin family, all of whom are lawyers at their highly successful firm --- except him. After a stint in prison and rehab for alcoholism, TJ can’t get hired anywhere except at the firm, in a make-work job with the title of investigator. But one night, TJ’s world turns upside down after his older brother, John, confesses that he murdered one of their clients, an accountant he’d confronted with proof of embezzlement. It seems impossible coming from John, the firstborn son and Most Valuable Devlin. TJ plunges into the investigation, seizing the chance to prove his worth and save his brother. But in no time, TJ and John find themselves entangled in a lethal web of deception and murder. TJ will fight to save his family, but what he learns might break them first.

Lisa Gardner, author of Still See You Everywhere

The case was sensational. Kaylee Pierson had confessed from the very beginning. Despite the media’s chronicling of her childhood spent with a violent father, no one could find sympathy for “the Beautiful Butcher” who had led 18 men home from bars before viciously slitting their throats. Twelve years ago, Pierson’s five-year-old sister, Leilani, went missing in Hawaii, and the main suspect was Pierson’s ex-boyfriend. Now, with only three weeks left to live, Pierson has finally received a lead on her sister’s whereabouts. Frankie Elkin takes on Pierson’s request to find Leilani on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific. In order to learn the truth and possibly save a young woman’s life, Frankie must go undercover at the isolated base camp.

Elle Cosimano, author of Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice

Finlay Donovan and her nanny/partner-in-crime, Vero, plan a trip to Atlantic City. But odds are it won’t be all fun and games --- seeing as it’s actually a cover story to negotiate a deal with a dangerous loan shark; save Vero’s childhood crush, Javi, from a kidnapper, Marco; and hunt down a stolen car. When they sneak into the loan shark’s suite to search for clues, they find more than they bargained for: Marco is already dead. They don’t know who murdered him, only that they themselves have a very convincing motive. Will Finlay fold under the pressure and come clean about the things she’s done, or be forced to double down?

Cristina Henríquez, author of The Great Divide

It is said that the Panama Canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. Ada Bunting is a bold 16-year-old from Barbados who arrives in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other West Indians seeking work. When she sees Omar, who has collapsed after a grueling shift, she is the only one who rushes to his aid. John Oswald has dedicated his life to scientific research and has journeyed to Panama with the goal of eliminating malaria. But his wife, Marian, has fallen ill herself, and when he witnesses Ada’s bravery and compassion, he hires her on the spot as a caregiver. This fateful decision sets in motion a sweeping tale of ambition, loyalty and sacrifice.

Amy Tintera, author of Listen for the Lie

After Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all and, if you believe the rumors, was especially popular with the men in town. It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA. But now the phenomenally huge hit true-crime podcast "Listen for the Lie" and its too-good looking host, Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy’s murder for the show’s second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one who did it.

Xochitl Gonzalez, author of Anita de Monte Laughs Last

1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City. But by 1998, Anita’s name has been all but forgotten --- certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student, is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by privileged students whose futures are already paved out for them, Raquel feels like an outsider. Students of color, like her, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret. But when Raquel becomes romantically involved with a well-connected older art student, she finds herself unexpectedly rising up the social ranks. As she attempts to straddle both worlds, she stumbles upon Anita’s story, raising questions about the dynamics of her own relationship, which eerily mirrors that of the forgotten artist.

Chantha Nguon, author of Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes

In SLOW NOODLES, Chantha Nguon recounts her life as a Cambodian refugee who loses everything and everyone --- her home, her family, her country --- all but the remembered tastes and aromas of her mother’s kitchen. She summons the quiet rhythms of 1960s Battambang, her provincial hometown, before the dictator Pol Pot tore her country apart and killed more than a million Cambodians, many of them ethnic Vietnamese like Nguon and her family. Then, as an immigrant in Saigon, Nguon loses her mother, brothers and sister and eventually flees to a refugee camp in Thailand. For two decades in exile, she survives by cooking in a brothel, serving drinks in a nightclub, making and selling street food, becoming a suture nurse and weaving silk.