Fiction

From the co-author of the two-million copy mega-bestseller "The Rule of Four "comes a riveting thriller with a brilliant premise based on the 2012 apocalypse phenomenon--perfect for readers of Steve Berry, Preston and Child, and Dan Brown.
For decades, December 21, 2012, has been a touchstone for doomsayers worldwide. It is the date, they claim, when the ancient Maya calendar predicts the world will end.
In Los Angeles, two weeks before, all is calm. Dr. Gabriel Stanton takes his usual morning bike ride, drops off the dog with his ex-wife, and heads to the lab where he studies incurable prion diseases for the CDC. His first phone call is from a hospital resident who has an urgent case she thinks he needs to see. Meanwhile, Chel Manu, a Guatemalan American researcher at the Getty Museum, is interrupted by a desperate, unwelcome visitor from the black market antiquities trade who thrusts a duffel bag into her hands.
By the end of the day, Stanton, the foremost expert on some of the rarest infections in the world, is grappling with a patient whose every symptom confounds and terrifies him. And Chel, the brightest young star in the field of Maya studies, has possession of an illegal artifact that has miraculously survived the centuries intact: a priceless codex from a lost city of her ancestors. This extraordinary record, written in secret by a royal scribe, seems to hold the answer to her life's work and to one of history's great riddles: why the Maya kingdoms vanished overnight. Suddenly it seems that our own civilization might suffer this same fate.
With only days remaining until December 21, 2012, Stanton and Chel must join forces before time runs out.
Advance praise for "12.21"
" "
"Dustin Thomason, M.D., will invariably be compared to Michael Crichton, M.D., and "12.21" will be favorably compared to "The Andromeda Strain." Both authors have written first-rate medical thrillers, the kind of fact-based fiction that is "very" scary but also "very" entertaining. Thomason knows his stuff, and it shows on every page. I truly could not put this book down."--Nelson DeMille
"The most exciting novel of its kind since the days of Michael Crichton, "12.21" takes us from the frontiers of modern neuroscience to the riddles of ancient Maya texts, with nothing less than the future of our civilization at stake."--Vince Flynn
"A fast-moving tale . . . Thomason displays an impressive depth of knowledge of both science and the ancient Mayan way of life. Along the way, he skillfully ramps up the action, one notch at a time. A winning book."--"Kirkus Reviews"
"Fascinating, terrifying for its potential realism. I loved how tightly everything fit together. I had to keep reading."--Taylor Stevens, "New York Times" bestselling author of "The Informationist
"
"Fast, suspenseful . . . Michael Crichton fans will find a lot to like."--"Publishers Weekly"

1984 has come and gone, but George Orwell's prophetic, nightmare vision in 1949 of the world we were becoming is timelier than ever. "1984" is still the great modern classic "negative Utopia" - a startling original and haunting novel that creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing from the first sentence to the last four words. No one can deny this novel's power, its hold on the imagination of whole generations, or the power of its admonitions - a power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.

A "captivating and bittersweet" novel by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Summer of '69 Their secret love affair has lasted for decades -- but this could be the summer that changes everything (People).
When Mallory Blessing's son, Link, receives deathbed instructions from his mother to call a number on a slip of paper in her desk drawer, he's not sure what to expect. But he certainly does not expect Jake McCloud to answer. It's the late spring of 2020 and Jake's wife, Ursula DeGournsey, is the frontrunner in the upcoming Presidential election.
There must be a mistake, Link thinks. How do Mallory and Jake know each other?
Flash back to the sweet summer of 1993: Mallory has just inherited a beachfront cottage on Nantucket from her aunt, and she agrees to host her brother's bachelor party. Cooper's friend from college, Jake McCloud, attends, and Jake and Mallory form a bond that will persevere -- through marriage, children, and Ursula's stratospheric political rise -- until Mallory learns she's dying.
Based on the classic film Same Time Next Year (which Mallory and Jake watch every summer), 28 Summers explores the agony and romance of a one-weekend-per-year affair and the dramatic ways this relationship complicates and enriches their lives, and the lives of the people they love.

In an uncertain world, we cling to familiar things to make us feel secure: Baseball, a local watering hole, a friendly town sheriff, man's best friend, a nicely landscaped backyard, love... What happens when these safe havens become unsafe? When the familiar turns outlandish and incomprehensible? Come join the choir of surreal dark melodies that lurk in the wilderness of Alex Kimmell's imagination. Six unforgettable tales plus the mind altering first chapters of the upcoming new novel Down the Sunday Hole, where a young boy finds himself shoved beyond the borders of perception.

Lisette Beaucaire was angry when her parents sent her away from Paris that September day in 1940. And although she knew that with the Nazis occupying the city she'd be safer at her Aunt Josephine's farm in the Dordogne valley, Lisette resented her "exile." She'd miss her friends and the excitement of being thirteen and starting a new school. Instead she'd have nothing to do but amuse her little cousin Cecile.

In 1951, Jacques Barzun, W. H. Auden, and Lionel Trilling joined together to form the editorial board of the Readers' Subscription Book Club. Thus began a venture unique in the annals of American culture. Never before or since have three such eminent intellectuals collaborated to bring books to the attention of the general public.

Now, a half century later, "A Company of Readers" tells the story of this extraordinary partnership and presents for the first time a selection of essays from the publications of the Readers' Subscription Book Club and its successor, the Mid-Century Book Society.

As they composed their comments to club members, these distinguished editors freely shared with each other their notes and drafts. The result is criticism of the highest order: smart, humane, learned -- in short, stuff that makes for damn good reading. And because these pieces were written for the general public by men who knew that books still mattered, perhaps no other collection of essays gives so natural and vivid a picture of the cultural landscape at midcentury.

Together, Auden, Barzun, and Trilling would plunge into a pile of books and pick out what they liked, what they thought would instruct and delight. What they chose may surprise you. Here is Auden on J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Fellowship of the Ring, " Barzun on Virginia Woolf's "Writer's Diary, " and Trilling on Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows." Each book, whether weighty or light, summoned from the editors a spirited appraisal, in language that welcomed any kind of reader.

The Mid-Century club disbanded in 1963, but its legacy lives on in these pages. "A Company of Readers" is essential to admirers of thisillustrious trio, and it offers a window on an America in which books took center stage.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with a new riveting novel featuring her vastly popular character forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who must use all her tradecraft to discover the identity of a faceless corpse, its connection to a decade-old missing child case, and why the dead man had her cell phone number.

It's sweltering in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Temperance Brennan, still recovering from neurosurgery following an aneurysm, is battling nightmares, migraines, and what she thinks might be hallucinations when she receives a series of mysterious text messages, each containing a new picture of a corpse that is missing its face and hands. Immediately, she's anxious to know who the dead man is, and why the images were sent to her.

An identified corpse soon turns up, only partly answering her questions.

To win answers to the others, including the man's identity, she must go rogue, working mostly outside the system. That's because Tempe's new boss holds a fierce grudge against her and is determined to keep her out of the case. Tempe bulls forward anyway, even as she begins questioning her instincts. But the clues she discovers are disturbing and confusing. Was the faceless man a spy? A trafficker? A target for assassination by the government? And why was he carrying the name of a child missing for almost a decade?

With help from a number of law enforcement associates including her Montreal beau Andrew Ryan and the always-ready-with-a-smart-quip, ex-homicide investigator Skinny Slidell, and utilizing new cutting-edge forensic methods, Tempe draws closer to the astonishing truth.

But the more she uncovers, the darker and more twisted the picture becomes...

Corruption, Creatures, and Clams

"If you listen carefully, as you wander the darkened streets of Providence late at night, perhaps you will hear a sound..."

Home to H.P. Lovecraft and haunted by Edgar Allen Poe, Rhode Island has long been a nexus of horror.
What lurks under the streets of Providence? What is swimming up Narragansett Bay? What do you do with the corpse of a bloated city councilor?

In this collection, award-winning author and storyteller Mark Binder shares tales of horrific history, pernicious politics and fatal food. Limited edition volume of three stories: The Vampire Clams of Narragansett Bay, Old Scratch Nickels, The Old One.

"One of Rhode Island's Leading Storytellers"
- Providence Journal

Mark Binder is a graduate of Columbia University, where he studied autobiographical storytelling with Spalding Gray, and was kicked out of class for lying. An award-winning performance storyteller, he relishes spinning tales for multigenerational listeners around the world. He is the author of more than 20 books and audio books. Mark lives in Providence with his wife and family.

A remarkable debut novel rich in atmosphere, color, and suspense, Caro Peacock's A Foreign Affair is an irresistible blend of history, adventure, and ingenious invention that brings an extraordinary new writer--and a truly endearing and unforgettable heroine--to the literary stage.

The year is 1837. Queen Victoria, barely eighteen, has just ascended to the throne of England, and a young woman named Liberty Lane has just had her first taste of true sorrow. Refusing to accept that her gentle, peace-loving father has been killed fighting a duel, she vows to see justice done. . . .

The trail she follows is a twisting and dangerous one, leading the spirited young Englishwoman into an intricate weave of conspiracy. Contacted by secret agents, she is asked to pose as a governess in order to infiltrate cold, rambling Mandeville Hall and spy on its master, Sir Herbert Mandeville, who is at the center of a treasonous plan.

Nothing at the hall is what it seems, and every turn reveals another deceit, another surprise, another peril, leaving Libby to wonder who to trust and embroiling her in a deadly affair that could destroy the young queen and place Libby herself in mortal peril. . . .

From the bestselling author of Chasing Cezanne comes a satisfying and delectable novel that portrays the sensual wonders of Provence while it tells a fascinating tale of the hugely lucrative and competitive boutique-wine trade.

Edwina Goodman teaches physics at an elite college in a picturesque New England town. Driven by an imagination that pushes her thinking well outside the box of conventional logic--and an ability to see patterns of cause and effect where others can't--Edwina helps uncover the sinister underbelly in her Police Detective boyfriend's investigation into a suspicious death at the nearby headquarters of GHN ("Gotta Have It Now" home shopping network). Her snug and comfortable world of afternoon tea in the Physics Department library explodes like a supernova when the disturbing truth of the case is revealed.

With more than 2 million copies of the Mitford Years titles in print, the endearing and eccentric residents of the little town with the big heart have become like family members to hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic readers. Fans just can't get enough--they swarm to Jan Karon's author appearances and flock to Mitford events hosted by bookstores.

First published in 1923, A Lost Lady is one of Willa Cather's classic novels about life on the Great Plains. It harkens back to Nebraska's early history and contrasts those days with an unsentimental portrait of the materialistic world that supplanted the frontier. In her subtle portrait of Marian Forrester, whose life unfolds in the midst of this disquieting transition, Cather created one of her most memorable and finely drawn characters. The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition of A Lost Lady is edited according to standards set by the Committee for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association. A wide range of biographical, historical, and textual information about the novel is presented. A selection of archival photographs illuminates the connection between the photographs illuminates the connection between the novel and the people and places from Cather's formative years in Nebraska.

Susan refuses to let her husband sell their Philadelphia newspaper, and he leaves her penniless in retaliation. She hires attorney Dan Lazar to help her, and they become lovers. When her husband is murdered, all evidence points to Susan as the murderer--and Dan is left to defend her even though he doesn't believe she is innocent.

When a bright young heiress with a flair for romance and one too many enemies is found brutally murdered, Nero Wolfe and his sidekick, Archie, find themselves embroiled in a case that is not as black and white as it first appears.

Susan Brooke has everything going for her. Men would have killed themselves to marry her, and, in fact, one did.

Susan came to New York to find love and fulfillment, and ended up dead on a tenement floor. The police say her black fiance did it, but Wolfe has other ideas. Before he's done, he'll prove that good intentions and bad deeds often go hand in hand and that the highest ideals can sometimes have the deadliest consequences.

Did the seventeen-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia survive the massacre of the Russian imperial family in 1918? Over the years, the possibility that the youngest of the tsar s four daughters might have escaped the killings has provided rich spawning ground for claimants. By far the best known of these was Anna Anderson, a mysterious young woman who appeared in Berlin in 1920. Anna attracted a bizarre coterie of supporters some of whom had known the grand duchess as a child who risked life and limb, and often all their savings, in a desperate attempt to prove that Anastasia had, after all, survived. But who was Anna Anderson and just how did she manage to convince so many people that she was the real Anastasia? Frances Welch s A Romanov Fantasy is a tragic comedy in the best Russian tradition a compelling, eerie, and frequently hilarious study of discipleship, snobbery, and life after death."

An American classic and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to World War II.

Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read.

Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.

-- A New York Times, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, New York Newsday, New York Post, and Independent bestseller
-- A Star Called Henry -- one of only four works of fiction -- was chosen by the editor's of The New York Times Book Review as one of the eleven Best Books of the Year
-- Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Time Out New York, Publishers Weekly, Esquire, Newsday, Miami Herald, Seattle Times, and The Atlanta Journal Constitution
-- An American Library Association Notable Book
-- Nominated for Best Fiction of 1999, the New Yorker Book Awards

Can love for a secret child heal old wounds?

St. Paul, MN, 1946: Introspective Shannon Malone and her more popular sister Eliza are Irish twins and best friends. As little girls, they relied on each other for companionship and affection as their mother remained distant, beating back the demons of her own mysterious childhood. With the war finally over, womanhood approaches and both girls look forward to promising--though different--futures. But when tragedy rocks their family, silence and shame bloom and one sister leaves, possibly forever. Heart-broken and physically scarred, the other secretly vows to hold the invisible thread that runs deeply between them. In the course of her journey she finds a child with a hidden past, the love of a good man, and discovers the true meaning of family. But is it enough to bring her sister home?

.

"Absurdistan is not just a hilarious novel, but a record of a particular peak in the history of human folly. No one is more capable of dealing with the transition from the hell of socialism to the hell of capitalism in Eastern Europe than Shteyngart, the great-great grandson of one Nikolai Gogol and the funniest foreigner alive."
-Aleksandar Hemon

From the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook comes the uproarious and poignant story of one very fat man and one very small country
Meet Misha Vainberg, aka Snack Daddy, a 325-pound disaster of a human being, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, proud holder of a degree in multicultural studies from Accidental College, USA (don't even ask), and patriot of no country save the great City of New York. Poor Misha just wants to live in the South Bronx with his hot Latina girlfriend, but after his gangster father murders an Oklahoma businessman in Russia, all hopes of a U.S. visa are lost.
Salvation lies in the tiny, oil-rich nation of Absurdistan, where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as minister of multicultural affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century.
With the enormous success of The Russian Debutante's Handbook, Gary Shteyngart established himself as a central figure in today's literary world--"one of the most talented and entertaining writers of his generation," according to The New York Observer. In Absurdistan, he delivers an even funnier and wiser literary performance. Misha Vainberg is a hero for the new century, a glimmer of humanity in a world of dashed hopes.

"From" New York Times "bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk-show host Michael Savage comes a high-intensity debut thriller, the story of a smeared network journalist who uncovers a chilling terrorist plot."

Jack Hatfield is a hardened former war correspondent who rose to national prominence for his insightful, provocative commentary. But after being smeared as a bigot and extremist by a radical leftist media-watchdog group, he ultimately loses his job and finds himself working in obscurity as a freelance news producer in San Francisco.

One afternoon Hatfield is on a ride-along with the SFPD bomb squad when a seemingly routine carjacking turns deadly, after police find several pounds of military-grade explosives in the jacked car. And when the FBI urges Hatfield to stay out of it, he knows he's onto something big.

This event will open up a shadowy trail that leads Hatfield from San Francisco to Tel Aviv, London, Paris, and back again, as he works with a stunning Yemeni intelligence agent and a veteran Green Beret to expose a terrorist group known as the Hand of Allah--and a plot within the highest corridors of power that will dwarf 9/11.

"Abuse of Power "is a lightning-paced thriller, spanning the globe from Europe and Israel to the back alleys of San Francisco's Chinatown. Jack Hatfield must make the choice between protecting his own life and investigating a terrorist cell whose goal is nothing less than total political control--no matter what the cost.