Once a bright student on the cusp of a promising art career, she now languishes in her childhood home, trudging to and from her job as a supermarket cashier. Each day she is taunted from the magazine racks by the success of her former best friend Elise, a rising Hollywood starlet whose life in pictures Abby obsessively scrapbooks. At night Abby escapes through the films of her favorite director, Auguste Perren, a cult figure known for his creative institute the Rhizome. Inspired by Perren, Abby draws fantastical storyboards based on her often premonitory dreams, a visionary gift she keeps hidden.When Abby encounters Elise again at their high school reunion, she is surprised and warmed that Elise still considers her not only a friend but a brilliant storyteller and true artist. Elise's unexpected faith in Abby reignites in her a dormant hunger, and when Elise offhandedly tells Abby to look her up if she's ever in LA, Abby soon arrives on her doorstep. There, Abby discovers that although Elise is flourishing professionally, behind her glossy magazine veneer she is lonely and disillusioned. Ever the supportive friend, Abby becomes enmeshed in Elise's world, even as she guards her own dark secret and burning desire for greatness. As she edges closer to Elise, the Rhizome, and her own artistic ambitions, the dynamic shifts between the two friends--until Abby can see only one way to grasp the future that awaits her.The Paper Wasp is a thrilling, unexpected journey into the psyche and imagination of a woman determined to fulfill her destiny from one of our most unique and incisive writers.

    I was too much of a bastard to push her away.I grew up in this life, and now I run these streets. Blood and violence taint everything I touch.Everything but her. She was my constant through it all.Just a touch would singe and soothe.Just a look would tempt and torment.She became my escape and my addiction.I only survived because she was by my side.I should’ve known better than to indulge.I should’ve known better than to let her fall for me.It was only a matter of time before the danger bled into what we had.I was Laura’s downfall. Problem was, she was mine too.

    Worship the Magicians. Forsake the Iconoclasts. To Annabelle Klein, the rules laid down by the Magicians are the mere ramblings of stuffy old men. As far as she’s concerned, the historic Iconoclasts, heretics who nearly destroyed the Magicians so long ago, are nothing but myth. She has much more important matters to worry about. Heiress to a manor mortgaged down to its candlesticks and betrothed to her loathsome cousin, sixteen-year-old Annabelle doubts the gods could forsake her more. Then Annabelle is informed of her parents’ sudden and simultaneous deaths, and all of the pigment drips out of her skin and hair, leaving her colourless. Within moments, Annabelle is invisible and forgotten by all who know her. Living like a wraith in her own home, Annabelle discovers that to regain her color she must solve the mystery behind her parents’ murders and her strange transformation. Meanwhile, hundreds of the Magicians’ monks, with their all-black eyes and conjoined minds, have usurped control of Annabelle’s family manor. An Iconoclast is rumored to be about—a person who they claim goes unseen, unheard, and lost to memory, yet is the greatest threat to all of Domengrad. For the first time in a hundred years, the monks plan to unleash the dire wolves of old. Their only target: Annabelle.

    If Millie Crossan doesn't know anything else, she knows this one truth simply because her brother Finley grew up beside her. Charismatic Finley, eighteen months her senior, becomes Millie's guide when their mother Posey leaves their father and moves her children from Minnesota to Memphis shortly after Millie's tenth birthday. Memphis is a world foreign to Millie and Finley. This is the 1970s Memphis, the genteel world of their mother's upbringing and vastly different from anything they've ever known. Here they are the outsiders. Here, they only have each other. And here, as the years fold over themselves, they mature in a manicured Southern culture where they learn firsthand that much of what glitters isn't gold. Nuance, tradition, and Southern eccentrics flavor Millie and Finley's world as they find their way to belonging. But what hidden variables take their shared history to leave both brother and sister at such disparate ends?

    Linked by a 500-year-old mystery… The secrets of the past are irresistible—and dangerous. 1500: Born during a time wracked by war and plague, Renaissance-era artist Mira grows up in a Pyrenees convent believing she is an orphan. When tragedy strikes, Mira learns the devastating truth about her own origins. But does she have the strength to face those who would destroy her? 2015: Centuries later, art scholar Zari unearths traces of a mysterious young woman named Mira in two 16th-century portraits. Obsessed, Zari tracks Mira through the great cities of Europe to the pilgrim’s route of Camino de Santiago—and is stunned by what she finds. Will her discovery be enough to bring Mira’s story to life? A powerful story and an intriguing mystery, The Girl from Oto is an unforgettable novel of obsession, passion, and human resilience. Perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah and Anthony Doerr. Author Interview: Q: Why did you write The Girl from Oto? A: During travels with my family through Europe in 2010-11, I was thrilled by museum visits but my two young daughters were not. I wished more of the art they saw was relevant to them. We wandered through great halls of medieval and Renaissance-era paintings, and I mourned the lack of female artists. Meanwhile, my girls stared at portraits of frozen-in-time people in their gilt frames and were unmoved. I wished we knew more about the stories behind those portraits. Then I visited Oxford University and saw a 500-year-old painting of a mysterious woman, attributed to female portrait artist Caterina van Hemessen. I was floored. So there were women painters in those days! I began to dig into history, and the idea for The Girl from Oto was born. I would bring one of those mysterious old portraits to life, and I would create a place in history for its maker. Along the way I learned that women have always been artists. Their work was often attributed to men or kept anonymous, but it exists. And more and more of these women are being rescued from history’s shadows. Q: What is the significance of the Camino de Santiago in the story? A: The action in Mira’s story takes place in the Pyrenees mountains along the pilgrim’s route of Camino de Santiago (also known as the Way of St. James or St. Jacques). From the middle ages onward, this also happened to be a major trade route between what is now Spain and the rest of Europe. The mountain communities evolved with the constant presence of traveling pilgrims, itinerant merchants and artisans, smugglers, refugees, and nomadic shepherds. This created a dramatic brew of tensions, culture clashes, religious differences, unlikely alliances, the spread of disease, and a constant flow of news. Add into the mix the looming presence of the mountains themselves, and it’s a writer’s dream come true! Q: Is there a sequel? A: Yes. I am currently writing the sequel, Mira’s Way, and it will be published in 2018. A third book will follow to complete the trilogy. A prequel novella is also in the works. Q: What kind of reader likes your writing? A: Fans of Pillars of the Earth tend to like my story. People who love history, art, travel, romance, and mystery will enjoy The Girl from Oto.

    He knows he must someday do right by the Somerset line, but he’s in no hurry to give up his carefree existence.Helena Banbury is a bookkeeper in a gentleman’s gambling club, adept at analyzing numbers and accounts but helpless for lack of influence. She’s never belonged among the nobility on the gaming hell floors, but neither does she feel completely herself among the men who run the Hell and Sin Club, despite the fact that they are family. The once-illiterate girl from the streets wants more than the gilded walls her protective cage can offer.When Robert mistakenly enters her chambers one night, Helena is forced out of her predictable life and thrust into the glittering world of Society. Will the charms of the marquess prove more perilous than any danger she ever knew on the streets?

    She takes the responsibility of shielding her family’s reputation and raising her younger twin siblings onto her youthful shoulders. If not for the emotional constants of her older brother, Griff, and her old guard Southern grandmother, she would be lost. When betrayal and death arrive hand in hand, she takes to the road, headed to what turns out to be the not-so-promised land of Southern California. The dysfunction of her childhood still echoes throughout her scattered family, sending her brother on a disastrous path and drawing her home again. There she uncovers the secrets and lies that set her family on the road to destruction.

    From acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro.

    Charming. Devastating. He was the last man she needed, but the only one she wanted. Orlando Holt has never assassinated a woman before. The lovely, feisty Lady Lynden will be his first. She's supposed to be a vicious murderess, but when Orlando begins to have doubts, he sets out to discover the identity of the person who hired him. What he learns will turn his world upside down, and propel him headlong into love with a woman who's immune to his charms. Twice widowed by the age of twenty-four, Lady Susanna Lynden has had enough of charming men. Her last husband knew all the right things to say to get her to the marriage bed…then made her life miserable. Money may be scarce and her house falling down around her, but the exotic fruit from her orange trees will keep poverty away. Except someone is thwarting her at every turn. Someone who may even want her dead. The books in the Assassins Guild series are: #1 The Charmer #2 The Rebel #3 The Saint #4 The Sinner

    In post-American Revolution New York City, Theodosia Burr, a scholar with the skills of a socialite, is all about charming the right people on behalf of her father—Senator Aaron Burr, who is determined to win the office of president in the pivotal election of 1800. Meanwhile, Philip Hamilton, the rakish son of Alexander Hamilton, is all about being charming on behalf of his libido.    When the two first meet, it seems the ongoing feud between their politically opposed fathers may be hereditary. But soon, Theodosia and Philip must choose between love and family, desire and loyalty, and preserving the legacy their flawed fathers fought for or creating their own.    Love, Theodosia is a smart, funny, swoony take on a fiercely intelligent woman with feminist ideas ahead of her time who has long-deserved center stage. A refreshing spin on the Hamiltonian era and the characters we have grown to know and love. It’s also a heartbreaking romance of two star-crossed lovers, an achingly bittersweet “what if.” Despite their fathers’ bitter rivalry, Theodosia and Philip are drawn to each other and, in what unrolls like a Jane Austen novel of manners, we find ourselves entangled in the world of Hamilton and Burr once again as these heirs of famous enemies are driven together despite every reason not to be.

    Walled off from the world for decades behind the towering fence surrounding her home, Iris has built a new family…of flowers. Iris propagates her own daylilies and roses while tending to a garden filled with the heirloom starts that keep the memories of her loved ones alive.When Abby Peterson moves next door with her family—a husband traumatized by his service in the Iraq War and a young daughter searching for stability—Iris is reluctantly yet inevitably drawn into her boisterous neighbor’s life, where, united by loss and a love of flowers, she and Abby tentatively unearth their secrets, and help each other discover how much life they have yet to live.With delightful illustrations and fascinating detail, Viola Shipman’s heartwarming story will charm readers while resonating with issues that are so relevant today

    Keeping it secret will destroy him.It’s Livia’s 40th birthday, and her husband Adam is throwing her the party of a lifetime to make up for the wedding they never had. Everyone she loves will be there, except her daughter Marnie, who’s studying abroad. But Livia is secretly glad Marnie won’t be there. Livia has recently uncovered a secret about their daughter which, if revealed, will shake the foundation of their family to its core. She needs to tell Adam, but she’s waiting until the party is over so they can have this last happy time together.Adam, meanwhile, has his own surprise for Livia: he’s arranged for Marnie to secretly fly back for the party. But before Marnie arrives, Adam hears some terrible news. Now he too is faced with a dilemma: Does he share what he's learned with his wife? Is hiding the truth the same as telling a lie? And how far are Adam and Livia willing to go to protect the ones they love—and give each other a last few hours of happiness?

    Such a thing is not unheard of. There are only so many options for an unmarried girl in 1850s Philadelphia. Only, when Molly arrives, she discovers her aunt is very much real, exceedingly wealthy, and with secrets of her own. Secrets and wealth she intends to share--for a price.Molly's estranged aunt Ava, has built her empire by robbing graves and selling the corpses to medical students who need bodies to practice surgical procedures. And she wants Molly to help her procure the corpses. As Molly learns her aunt's trade in the dead of night and explores the mansion by day, she is both horrified and deeply intrigued by the anatomy lessons held at the old church on her aunt's property. Enigmatic Doctor LaValle's lessons are a heady mixture of knowledge and power and Molly has never wanted anything more than to join his male-only group of students. But the cost of inclusion is steep and with a murderer loose in the city, the pursuit of power and opportunity becomes a deadly dance.