I was riveted. Painstakingly researched and pulsing with adrenaline, Carrasco’s debut will leave you thirsty for more.” —Lyndsay Faye, author of The Gods of GothamA vivid, sexy barn burner of a historical crime novel, The Best Bad Things introduces readers to the fiery Alma Rosales—detective, smuggler, spyIt is 1887, and Alma Rosales is on the hunt for stolen opium. Trained in espionage by the Pinkerton Detective Agency—but dismissed for bad behavior and a penchant for going undercover as a man—Alma now works for Delphine Beaumond, the seductive mastermind of a West Coast smuggling ring.When product goes missing at their Washington Territory outpost, Alma is tasked with tracking the thief and recovering the drugs. In disguise as the scrappy dockworker Jack Camp, this should be easy—once she muscles her way into the local organization, wins the trust of the magnetic local boss and his boys, discovers the turncoat, and keeps them all from uncovering her secrets. All this, while sending coded dispatches to the circling Pinkerton agents to keep them from closing in.Alma’s enjoying her dangerous game of shifting identities and double crosses as she fights for a promotion and an invitation back into Delphine’s bed. But it’s getting harder and harder to keep her cover stories straight and to know whom to trust. One wrong move and she could be unmasked: as a woman, as a traitor, or as a spy.A propulsive, sensual tour de force, The Best Bad Things introduces Katrina Carrasco, a bold new voice in crime fiction.

    . . [and] unapologetically raw."—New York TimesIt's 1999 in San Francisco, and as shockwaves of gentrification sweep through Michelle's formerly scruffy neighborhood, money troubles, drug-fueled mishaps, and a string of disastrous affairs send her into a tailspin. Desperate to save herself, Michelle sets out to seek a fresh start in Los Angeles.Meanwhile, climate-related disruptions and a string of extinctions are the background noise of impending doom. One day, Michelle wakes up to an official announcement: the world will be ending in exactly one year. Daily life in Los Angeles quickly becomes intensely surreal.Humans begin to collectively dream of the lives and loves they would have had, if not for the end of the world, and the lines between fantasy and reality become increasingly blurred. As the planet nears its expiration date, Michelle holes up in an abandoned bookstore and calmly begins to write—convinced she's finally stumbled upon the elusive "universal story"—a novel about a struggling writer facing the end of the world.Funny, gritty, improbable, and endearing, Black Wave muses on the hallucinatory confusions of addiction, the hope and despair of a barely published writer, notions of destiny, and the porous boundaries between memoir and fiction.Michelle Tea has published four memoirs, including the award-winning Valencia; the novel Rose of No Man's Land; and the poetry collection The Beautiful. Her latest book How to Grow Up: A Memoir, was recently published by Plume.

    She owns a private island with an Inn off the coast of Maine. She treasures her loving relationship with her older brother Jack, his wife, Marie, and dotes on her niece Laura. She has a passionate and supportive relationship with her partner, Brooke, and a successful business that doesn't require her undivided attention allowing her ample time to pursue her true passion, painting.Ren's idyllic world crumbles when Brooke dies. Friends and family worry that Ren may never fully recover from her loss. Dr. Lindy Caprini, a multi-lingual professor, is looking for an artist to illustrate the book she is writing comparing fairy tales from around the world. To make working together on on the book easier, Lindy take a year sabbitical and leaves friends, home, and boyfriend in Pennsylvania and moves to Ren's island. Ren soon discovers that the beautiful and mischievous Lindy is a talented author and a witty conversationalist. Their collaboration on the book leads to a close, light hearted, and flirtatious friendship. Will their collaboration end there?

    But her life has turned inside out like a sock. She can't rely on family, her body is letting her down, and friends and colleagues are turning away—they treat her like a victim. She needs to break that narrative: build her own community, learn new strengths, and fight. But what do you do when you find out that the story you’ve been told, the story you’ve told yourself, is not true? How can you fight if you can’t trust your body? Who can you rely on if those around you don’t have your best interests at heart, and the systems designed to help do more harm than good? Mara makes a decision, and acts, but her actions unleash monsters aimed squarely at the heart of her new community.This is fiction from the front lines, incandescent and urgent, a narrative juggernaut that rips through sentiment to expose the savagery of America’s treatment of the disabled and chronically ill. But So Lucky also blazes with hope and a ferocious love of self, of the life that becomes possible when we stop believing lies.

    A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year.

    Three years later when offered a business opportunity she can't pass by, she decides it's finally time to return home—even though she’s far from sure of her welcome.Katherine Hunter took a different path in the face of loss, throwing herself into her work to fill the emptiness in her heart. She doesn't have the time to date, even if she wanted to. But then fate drops Devon on her doorstep—literally—and Kat begins to question if the life she has painstakingly rebuilt is really enough.Despite Devon and Kat’s powerful attraction, the past stands between them—preventing them from taking a chance on the future. Will what is growing between them be enough to convince them that from this moment on, anything is possible, even love?

    Canadian-Japanese Karen, who has left her lesbian lover of eight years, befriends Red, a young woman with an unknown background who cleans houses for three others--acrid Milly, divorced by her husband after a 20-year marriage; Henrietta, whose husband is institutionalized in Vancouver; and Miss James, an eccentric, elderly spinster. Birth, illness and death follow one another, uniting the five independent and incisively drawn protagonists. "All that time I was trying to teach you how to live alone and really take care of yourself, I was teaching myself, too," Henrietta tells Red. The resulting warmth is not saccharine but realistic, as Rule illuminates the vagaries and pain of abandonment and loss, and the fragile joy of new bonds.

    That time is the period between the two World Wars, and Barnes' novel unfolds in the decadent shadows of Europe's great cities, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna—a world in which the boundaries of class, religion, and sexuality are bold but surprisingly porous. The outsized characters who inhabit this world are some of the most memorable in all of fiction—there is Guido Volkbein, the Wandering Jew and son of a self-proclaimed baron; Robin Vote, the American expatriate who marries him and then engages in a series of affairs, first with Nora Flood and then with Jenny Petherbridge, driving all of her lovers to distraction with her passion for wandering alone in the night; and there is Dr. Matthew-Mighty-Grain-of-Salt-Dante-O'Connor, a transvestite and ostensible gynecologist, whose digressive speeches brim with fury, keen insights, and surprising allusions. Barnes' depiction of these characters and their relationships (Nora says, "A man is another person—a woman is yourself, caught as you turn in panic; on her mouth you kiss your own") has made the novel a landmark of feminist and lesbian literature. Most striking of all is Barnes' unparalleled stylistic innovation, which led T. S. Eliot to proclaim the book "so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it." Now with a new preface by Jeanette Winterson, Nightwood still crackles with the same electric charge it had on its first publication in 1936.

    But her dreams become a nightmare when Louisa is sent to Wildthorn Hall: labeled a lunatic, deprived of her liberty and even her real name. As she unravels the betrayals that led to her incarceration, she realizes there are many kinds of prison. She must be honest with herself - and others - in order to be set free. And love may be the key...

    Suzanne Malherbe, a shy seventeen-year-old with a talent for drawing, is completely entranced by the brilliant but troubled Lucie Schwob, who comes from a family of wealthy Jewish intellectuals. They embark on a clandestine love affair, terrified they will be discovered, but then, in an astonishing twist of fate, the mother of one marries the father of the other. As “sisters” they are finally free of suspicion, and, hungry for a more stimulating milieu, they move to Paris at a moment when art, literature, and politics blend in an explosive cocktail.Having reinvented themselves as Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, they move in the most glamorous social circles, meeting everyone from Hemingway and Dalí to André Breton, and produce provocative photographs that still seem avant-garde today. In the 1930s, with the rise of anti-Semitism and threat of fascism, they leave Paris for Jersey, and it is on this idyllic island that they confront their destiny, creating a campaign of propaganda against Hitler’s occupying forces that will put their lives in jeopardy.Brilliantly imagined, profoundly thought-provoking, and ultimately heartbreaking, Never Anyone But You infuses life into a forgotten history as only great literature can.

    Having grown up worse than poor in South Dakota and reinvented herself as the most prominent woman reporter in America, "Hick," as she's known to her friends and admirers, is not quite instantly charmed by the idealistic, patrician Eleanor. But then, as her connection with the future first lady deepens into intimacy, what begins as a powerful passion matures into a lasting love, and a life that Hick never expected to have.She moves into the White House, where her status as "first friend" is an open secret, as are FDR's own lovers. After she takes a job in the Roosevelt administration, promoting and protecting both Roosevelts, she comes to know Franklin not only as a great president but as a complicated rival and an irresistible friend, capable of changing lives even after his death. Through it all, even as Hick's bond with Eleanor is tested by forces both extraordinary and common, and as she grows as a woman and a writer, she never loses sight of the love of her life.From Washington, D.C. to Hyde Park, from a little white house on Long Island to an apartment on Manhattan's Washington Square, Amy Bloom's new novel moves elegantly through fascinating places and times, written in compelling prose and with emotional depth, wit, and acuity.

    Embraced by their love and warmly welcomed by their community of lesbian friends, she slowly discovers the true meaning of family, but their strength is put to the test when the state abruptly threatens to take her away."The story pulls us in immediately and keeps us wanting more. This is what a great novel should do..." - Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (Quarterfinalist)

    Meredith, Brandon, and Greg gain popularity, while Stephen is viciously treated as an outcast. Then two violent deaths destroy the already delicate bonds of their friendship.When the friends are drawn back together, new facts about their mutual history are exposed and what was held to be a tragic accident is revealed as murder. As the true story emerges, other secrets begin to unravel with more dangerous, far-reaching consequences.A Density of Souls is a stunning debut novel that uncovers the darker side of the teenage psyche.

    Even though a car accident caused the optical illusion, Erin’s skills as a doctor were outshone by her luminous smile. Katie begins to devise a series of excuses to trek to the small town where Erin lives and works.According to Katie’s complex rating system Erin has great promise. She’s beautiful, bright, athletic and good-hearted. Erin professes to love her job and is happy with small town life. But Katie thinks that Erin is secretly a risk-taker who craves excitement—the kind of excitement that Katie would love to provide. The first time Katie sees Erin flying down a ski slope she’s hooked, and their first kiss seals the deal.That’s when the trouble begins. Erin’s nearly an indentured servant. The town paid for her education and she promised to serve as their doctor for ten years. Ten long years attached to a place that’s only sixty miles but seems light years away from Katie’s beloved Boston.Something tells them that they could be good together, and the mutual attraction is undeniable. But one or both of them is going to have to make some massive changes before they can let the sparks fly.

    and too scared to let the world see any of those qualities. Interacting with her restaurant coworkers makes her want to melt into the floor. They're all beautiful, outgoing, and confident - terrifying to a shy lesbian. When Chloe somehow catches the most intimidating girl's eye, she wonders if their mutual attraction could develop into more. Waitressing isn't Jennie's passion, but then neither is anything else. Adrift in life, the tattooed beauty only cares about weed and her motorcycle. At least this job's paying the bills until she can move on to better things. Fooling around with coworkers isn't in her plans - but once she notices the resident wallflower is drop-dead gorgeous, those plans change. Falling for Chloe, though? That's another matter. Will Jennie chew Chloe up and spit her out? Or could Jennie be the first person to see Chloe for who she really is?