Carter the Great—is a young master performer whose skill as an illusionist exceeds even that of the great Houdini. But nothing in his career has prepared Carter for the greatest stunt of all, which stars none other than President Warren G. Harding and which could end up costing Carter the reputation he has worked so hard to create. Filled with historical references that evoke the excesses and exuberance of Roaring Twenties, pre-Depression America, Carter Beats the Devil is a complex and illuminating story of one man's journey through a magical—and sometimes dangerous—world, where illusion is everything.

    Parrot, the son of an itinerant English printer, wanted to be an artist but has ended up in middle age as a servant. When Olivier sets sail for the New World - ostensibly to study its prisons, but in reality to avoid yet another revolution - Parrot is sent with him, as spy, protector, foe and foil. Through their adventures with women and money, incarceration and democracy, writing and painting, they make an unlikely pair. But where better for unlikely things to flourish than in the glorious, brand-new experiment, America? A dazzlingly inventive reimagining of Alexis de Tocqueville's famous journey, Parrot and Olivier in America brilliantly evokes the Old World colliding with the New. Above all, it is a wildly funny, tender portrait of two men who come to form an almost impossible friendship, and a completely improbable work of art.

    A gentle, solitary man, he finds solace and purpose in the sweetness of the apples, apricots, and plums he grows, and in the quiet, beating heart of the land--the valley of yellow grass bordering a deep canyon that has been his home since he was nine years old. Everything he is and has known is tied to this patch of earth. It is where his widowed mother is buried, taken by illness when he was just thirteen, and where his only companion, his beloved teenaged sister Elsbeth, mysteriously disappeared. It is where the horse wranglers--native men, mostly Nez Perce--pass through each spring with their wild herds, setting up camp in the flowering meadows between the trees.One day, while in town to sell his fruit at the market, two girls, barefoot and dirty, steal some apples. Later, they appear on his homestead, cautious yet curious about the man who gave them no chase. Feral, scared, and very pregnant, Jane and her sister Della take up on Talmadage's land and indulge in his deep reservoir of compassion. Yet just as the girls begin to trust him, brutal men with guns arrive in the orchard, and the shattering tragedy that follows sets Talmadge on an irrevocable course not only to save and protect them, putting himself between the girls and the world, but to reconcile the ghosts of his own troubled past.Writing with breathtaking precision and empathy, Amanda Coplin has crafted an astonishing debut novel about a man who disrupts the lonely harmony of an ordered life when he opens his heart and lets the world in. Transcribing America as it once was before railways and roads connected its corners, she weaves a tapestry of solitary souls who come together in the wake of unspeakable cruelty and misfortune, bound by their search to discover the place they belong. At once intimate and epic, evocative and atmospheric, filled with haunting characters both vivid and true to life, and told in a distinctive narrative voice, The Orchardist marks the beginning of a stellar literary career.The National Book Foundation selected Amanda Coplin as one of the authors being honored as "5 Under 35" in 2013.

    She is a farmer's faithful wife, but she has left her husband to don the uniform of a Union soldier in the Civil War. NEVERHOME tells the harrowing story of Ash Thompson during the battle for the South. Through bloodshed and hysteria and heartbreak, she becomes a hero, a folk legend, a madwoman and a traitor to the American cause.Laird Hunt's dazzling new novel throws a light on the adventurous women who chose to fight instead of stay behind. It is also a mystery story: why did Ash leave and her husband stay? Why can she not return? What will she have to go through to make it back home?In gorgeous prose, Hunt's rebellious young heroine fights her way through history, and back home to her husband, and finally into our hearts.

    It is the story of Lassiter, a gunslinging avenger in black, who shows up in a remote Utah town just in time to save the young and beautiful rancher Jane Withersteen from having to marry a Mormon elder against her will. Lassiter is on his own quest, one that ends when he discovers a secret grave on Jane’s grounds. “[Zane Grey’s] popularity was neither accidental nor undeserved,” wrote Nye. “Few popular novelists have possessed such a grasp of what the public wanted and few have developed Grey’s skill at supplying it.”

    Born with magical hands, Madge has the power to discern others’ suffering, but she cannot heal her own damaged heart. To mend herself and help those in need, she must return to Tennessee to face the women healers who rejected her as a child. Sadie can commune with the dead, but until she makes peace with her father, she, too, cannot fully engage her gift.Searching for his missing family, Hemp arrives in this northern city that shimmers with possibility. But redemption cannot be possible until he is reunited with those taken from him. In the bitter aftermath of a terrible, bloody war, as a divided nation tries to come together once again, Madge, Sadie, and Hemp will be caught up in a desperate, unexpected battle for survival in a community desperate to lay the pain of the past to rest. Beautiful in its historical atmosphere and emotional depth, Balm is a stirring novel of love, loss, hope, and reconciliation set during one of the most critical periods in American history.

    From the New York Times bestselling author of Cane River comes the dramatic, intertwining story of two families and their struggles during the tumultuous years that followed the Civil War.

    Blinded in the accident, she hires a "seeing-eye guy" as her assistant. On her first day back she gets emails from "Dad," asking her to find and upload computer files. But the emailer isn't the only one who wants whatever's in those files, and suddenly people around her start dying violently. Tess wonders how much her Uncle Travis, a former assassin for the Army Special Forces, knows about the files. He returned from a mission a year earlier to guard the family from a potential threat. And since he was on watch at the time, she also wonders what he knows about the accident that took both her sight and her parents' lives. In a race against time, Tess and her companion Oliver must learn the secret of the mysterious computer files before the killers stalking her get their hands on technology that could change the balance of world power.

    Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing. - John Moe

    Her father, a former territorial governor, must now make the hard decision to recruit a former friend and gunfighter, whom he tried to hang in the past, to join in pursuit of his strong-willed daughter and the violent men she seeks. The energetic and exciting story is told from both perspectives as they must fight their way through the still untamed towns and locations of New Mexico Territory and Texas of 1884. And blended into the backdrop of their journey are the final days of the spirited campaign to elect a new President—Grover Cleveland. Behind this story lies the dynamics of two former friends who grew up together and fought alongside one another as members of the Texas Brigade in the Civil War and later as Texas Rangers. But they would be driven apart later by the sides of the law they would hold to. They now come together once again in an epic tale and must reach beyond their strained relationship to the strong bonds of friendship of their youth.

     This is a newly re-formatted edition (as of January 23, 2014) to address quirks in previous editions. "Noel Hynd knows the ins and outs of Washington's institutions, public and private." Publishers Weekly (on 'The Enemy Within") From the author of FLOWERS FROM BERLIN, CONSPIRACY IN KIEV and two dozen other best selling thrillers, comes a newly revised 'endgame' spy story, based on the events of 1983 that were all too real. It is 1983, the freezing point of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Behind the headlines, unknown to most private citizens, the two super powers bumble toward nuclear confrontation....and in the back streets and back alleys of world capitals, spies and recalled spies fight for a part of a missile guidance system that could tip the balance during nuclear confrontation. And at the center is a woman with a terrible secret. Noel Hynd takes you on a journey into the world of espionage in both the 1960's and 1980s. Based on fascinating real life detail, some of it autobiographical, the story teams with real life characters from Andropov to Profumo and spawls across CIA stations in London and Paris as well as Parisian night spots and journalistic/spy haunts such as Harry's New York Bar in Paris. The times were deadly, but riveting, the mood intoxicating but frightening. For spy fans, this is a trip into the real world. You will never feel the same about the year 1983. "The novels of Noel Hynd stand out like emeralds." - NY Times Book Review. "A few notches above the Ludlums and Clancys of the world - Booklist "(False Flags is)...readable and highly complex....written with intelligence and style....a REAL PAGE TURNER. - Publishers Weekly.

    She never overcame her humble beginnings and when Willie Eubanks rescued her from the orphanage by marrying her, she ended up right back where she started. Living in the same cabin, she was born in twelve and a half years earlier. However, she grew to love Willie and was determined that she and Willie were not going to end up as her parents had. In addition, she wanted to make sure her children were not going to have to suffer through the same experiences she had.

    It is the only reasonable explanation the court can see for her willful behavior, so she is sent away to Sanibel Asylum to be restored to a good, compliant woman. Iris knows, though, that her husband is the true criminal; she is no lunatic, only guilty of disagreeing with him on notions of justice, cruelty, and property. On this remote Florida island, cut off by swamps and seas and military blockades, Iris meets a wonderful collection of residents--some seemingly sane, some wrongly convinced they are crazy, some charmingly odd, some dangerously unstable. Which of these is Ambrose Weller, the war-haunted Confederate soldier whose memories terrorize him into wild fits that can only be calmed by the color blue, but whose gentleness and dark eyes beckon to Iris. The institution calls itself modern, but Iris is skeptical of its methods, particularly the dreaded "water treatment." She must escape, but she has found new hope and love with Ambrose. Can she take him with her? If they make it out, will the war have left anything for them to make a life from, back home? Blue Asylum is a vibrant, beautifully-imagined, absorbing story of the lines we all cross between sanity and madness. It is also the tale of a spirited woman, a wounded soldier, their impossible love, and the undeniable call of freedom. http://www.hmhbooks.com/blueasylum/

    Geoffrey S. Edwards's first novel tells the story of New York Tribune reporter John Sharp, sent to cover the capital trial of Darcy Calhoun, a farmer who stands accused of harboring a fugitive slave. As the trial begins, John quickly realizes that not everything is as it appears in the genteel city of Charleston. A series of mysterious fires in white establishments brings the state militia, a curfew for the black population, and rising tension at the courthouse. To unravel the city's secrets, Sharp must enter Charleston's plantation society, where he is befriended by Tyler Breckenridge, owner of the Willowby plantation, and his beautiful sister Clio. Set against the backdrop of a nation headed toward civil war, Fire Bell in the Night is a page-turning account of a trial and one young reporter's efforts to discover the truth.

    BUT THE ONE WHO KNOWS THEM BEST MAY HAVE OTHER PLANS ...Abigail Stanton's whole life was rooted in her faith, a faith she now clings to solely to survive. In the wake of losing her husband and young son, Abby sets out alone, bereft and heartsick, to discover what God wants her to do. When he leads her to Conor MacKay's doorstep, though, the very foundation of her beliefs starts to shift.As the volatile rancher's new housekeeper, Abby is supposed to keep his affairs --- and his equally capricious little girl --- in order. Why, then, does she feel confusion, passion, desire, and anything but order every time they are together? Conor tries to hide his own seething emotions beneath a cold facade, but there is something about his prim new housekeeper that sets him on edge. And the more ruthlessly he attacks Abby's faith, the more his defenses crack.As Abby and Conor draw closer to the flame of their attraction, they must grapple with their deepest beliefs and fears. In opening their hearts again, both risk even greater loss for a chance at the greatest love of all.