Arcs

With the tenacious spirit of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and the long-lived verve of Thursday Murder Club comes a heartwarming story of a curmudgeon and a newcomer who strike up an unlikely friendship over cutthroat Scrabble at their retirement home, outrageously starting something new in their golden eras. As a new resident of Golden Grove, an independent living community for active seniors, Sally wants to do everything in her power to start off on the right foot. But between navigating unspoken social rules of the community and leaving two struggling adult children back at home, fitting in becomes harder than she expected. So when she sees flyers advertising the Scrabble Club, she thinks she might as well give it a try. She quickly realizes her faux pas when she walks into the library to find just one man, Walter Kretzer, who has a reputation for being "a bit intense." Walter has taken his Scrabble club a pinch too seriously in the past, but when he meets Sally, with her golden-flecked eyes and sensible style, and discovers she is something of a prodigy at the game, he can't help but feel his fate is about to change. As he draws Sally into the world of high-stakes Scrabble tournaments, his feelings for her grow and inspire him to take a hard look at his life. When the truth about Sally's reasons for moving to Golden Grove are suddenly exposed, Walter finds himself with the gumption to make his last chapter in life the best yet.

“I see something in you, Miss Abbott, something I recognize. The potential for greatness, for channeling magic. For bending the world to your will.” After an affair with her teacher, Rose’s parents ship her off to Livingston Academy, a stuffy all-girls’ boarding school. Ashamed of her past and herself, sixteen-year-old Rose just wants to chill, pass her classes, and make friends. The last thing on her mind is becoming a witch… Until the enigmatic headmistress gives her the chance to join a coven secret from the rest of the school. Desperate to prove herself and looking for a purpose, the headmistress’s offer seems too perfect to pass up. Rose puts on her metaphorical pointy hat and becomes a Livingston witch. She quickly discovers that the other witches don’t want her in their group—especially because she’s filling their dead friend’s space—but if they can’t band together, the witch-hunting headmaster of the boys’ school will kill them. Meanwhile, Rose struggles to understand her growing feelings for her roommate, who may or may not hate her guts. You know, typical boarding school stuff.

Graham Greene meets David Lean in Murder in Constantinople \- a historical murder mystery in which a wayward boy from London's East End is pulled into the hunt for a serial killer on the eve of the Crimean WarLondon, 1854\. Twenty\-one\-year\-old Ben Canaan attracts trouble wherever he goes. His father wants him to be a good Jewish son, working for the family business on Whitechapel Road, but Ben and his friends, the 'Good\-for\-Nothings', just want adventure.Then the discovery of an enigmatic letter and a photograph of a beautiful woman offer an escapade more dangerous than anything he'd imagined. Suddenly Ben is thrown into a mystery that takes him all the way to Constantinople, the jewel of an empire and the centre of a world on the brink of war.His only clue is three 'The White Death'. Now he must find what links a string of grisly murders, following a trail through kingmaking and conspiracy, poison and high politics, bloodshed and betrayal. In a city of deadly secrets, no one is safe \- and one wrong step could cost Ben his life.

Evelyn is a master thief, her alias—the Bird of Bordeaux—is whispered with awe and fear throughout the underworld of swindlers and assassins. When a shadowy figure known as the Reaper offers her the heist of a lifetime, she’s tempted to accept. The target? A relic of dark magic, sealed deep within the cursed tunnels beneath Paris. The reward? A fortune large enough to restore the Vineyard, the orphanage that raised her, and a chance to avenge her parents' murder. The catch? She won’t be working alone. Her partner, Jaq, is as clever as he is infuriating. They don't trust each other and they don't need to. But as secrets unravel and an unexpected attraction flares between them, the job becomes far more complicated than Evelyn ever planned. In the end, it's not the relic or the risk that haunts her, but the love she could've had—if she hadn't been prepared to betray him.

From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a twisted psychological thriller about the bonds of family and the disconnect between memory and the truth. Come here. Come closer. Halley James knows her marriage is over. But she’s not prepared for the rest of her life to fall apart too. No one can hear you. No one can help you. She just lost her job at the forensics lab. Her dad needs emergency surgery. But the biggest blow comes back home in Marchburg, Virginia, where she discovers her mother didn’t actually die in a car crash. Her mom was murdered—and her father lied about it all these years. I have nothing to hide from you. Are you hiding something from me? Since she was six years old, it’s been Halley and her dad. Now, she doesn’t know what to believe. Desperate for the truth, Halley chases down a lead in Brockville, Tennessee. But all there is not as it seems. Brockville’s utopian charm hides a chilling darkness. And Halley’s search for answers threatens to expose an unspeakable reality.

Can two broken people save each other—or will they destroy each other? What if your soulmate knew your darkest secret before your first date? -Some people fear being alone. Others fear being known. Just when Patrick thinks he has exhausted all avenues to find his soul mate, he meets Margaret Warner of Chemical Souls, a company using the latest in advanced technology to match people to their perfect soul mates. After answering many questions, Patrick makes a confession: he doesn’t want the interview to end. Margaret doesn’t want it to end either. But will they still feel the same after they discover the dark truth lurking under their pleasant conversation? Only he can decide whether it truly ends… or lives.

Rebellions aren’t born. They are forged. On Kerti Island, where knowledge is scarce and belongs solely to the regime, Zea is a Truth Seeker: scholar, polymath, advisor, prisoner—born and raised to serve. But she is done serving. Her fate will be hers to decide. And her plan might just be the spark that ignites a revolution. Ax, a thief, doesn’t care about rebellion—only money. But what if even the right price can’t buy freedom under tyranny? Veyre, a soldier, is sworn to uphold order, hunting down rebels without question. But can she keep her honor when the orders no longer demand loyalty—but her conscience? Tricks, lies, and secrets uphold the Great Leaders’ regime. And tricks, lies, and secrets will bring it to its knees. But for Kerti Island to rise, they need more than hope. More than a plan. More than a spark. Above all—they need the right story. And sometimes, a story is all it takes.

In this sweeping romantic fantasy from bestselling author Jessica Khoury, a young witch caught in a twisted bargain with the fae must disguise herself as a governess and uncover the gateway to the realm of faerie in order to save her dying magic and escape the clutches of her controlling fae handler—even as she finds herself falling for her new employer, an enigmatic young Scottish laird and the owner of a crumbling estate brimming with secrets. Rose Pryor has sacrificed everything for magic. As a Weaver skilled in the craft of spinning spells with thread and needle, she’s always chosen magic over love, and it was magic that brought her to Lachlan, the fae with whom Rose once struck a sinister deal in order to escape her abusive home. After years of running from her past, Rose has finally managed to build a new life for herself as a teacher in a school for young Weavers. But Rose has a Her magic is waning, and every spell she weaves to train her students is slowly killing her. When Lachlan returns to collect the debt Rose owes him, she finds herself on a perilous journey to the Scottish moors where she must find him an ancient gateway to the realm of the fae, lest her precious magic be forfeit. But when her quest pits her against Conrad, a young laird with a soul as lonely as her own who hires Rose to work as a governess for his rebellious young sister, Rose finds herself torn between her promise to Lachlan and her budding feelings for her new employer as her search for the gateway puts both her magic and her heart at stake.

Every quest needs a hero. This one gets a bonsai frost dragon stuck managing a band of blowhards on a doomed diplomatic mission. His boss, the wizard Jorvun Prattlethorn, plans to sneak into Frostvale and seize the crown—on the dubious claim that he’s King Trudera’s bastard son. Glimm’s only in it for the tuition to dragon college. But first, he must get them all there in one piece. There’s Elric, an ex-rogue turned inventor turned lawsuit magnet. Lark, a cultist pirate with a god-complex and a gun fetish. Fox, a bard with a magical camcorder and a pathological relationship with the truth. And Xander, a paranoid paladin with an MLM supplement empire. They’re not exactly loyal. They’re not exactly clever. But they’re all Glimm has. We’ve Come for Your Eggs is a fantasy romp where satire meets sword-and-sorcery—and at the center of it all, a tiny dragon trying to keep the quest from falling apart.

In the fashionable mansions on Chestnut Hill, a simple green baize door separates the masters’ world from the servants’. That door is thrown wide when an elderly housekeeper is found brutally murdered on the first day of the new century. Marie Chevalier, the housekeeper’s poor but ambitious granddaughter, and James Lett, the mansion owner’s kind but indolent son, suspect the killer is connected to one of their families—but which one? From drawing rooms to alleyways, their separate investigations lead them through the sometimes lavish, sometimes brutal, landscape of turn-of-the-century New England. When long-buried secrets begin to unravel the fragile threads that hold both households together, Marie and James must find a way to bridge the gulf between them—if only to prove that the murderer belongs not to their own world, but to that strange and foreign land on the other side of the green baize door. Inspired by real-life events, The Green Baize Door is a richly layered historical mystery that explores themes of class identity, family loyalty, and the sometimes blurry line between virtue and vice.

For fans of Midsommar, Catriona Ward, and Sarah Gailey, this addictively readable modern horror novel unfolds like a movie with a climax you’ll never see coming. When Jen Monroe hears her father's remains have been found, she returns home to disprove his death, only to find the forests of rural Washington are hiding unimaginable horrors. Seven years ago Jen Monroe left behind her hometown of Barrow, Washington after her father, a forest ranger passionate about protecting old trees from the aggressive logging business, vanished. She vowed never to return. Then she gets a text from her estranged mother: Her father's remains have been found. It seems impossible to Jen, who had always believed her father was alive, and she returns home determined to find out what happened. When her ex-boyfriend suggests a camping trip in the woods in her father's memory, it feels like the opportunity Jen has been hoping for: to find her father. To find the truth. But what she finds in the ancient, impenetrable forest may be deeper, darker and deadlier than she could have imagined—and it has no intention of letting her leave.

How can Silas French be homophobic? He's playing Santa on a gay cruise. After thirteen years of not talking to his grown-up son, Joey, New Yorker Silas gets worrying health news, meaning the coming holiday season might be his last chance to make things right. A job onboard the Crown Atlantic Holiday Wonderland Cruise finds him bound for Florida in the company of 3000 gay men - and one woman. Will Joey welcome his estranged father or slam the door? And when love appears unexpectedly, is it in Silas to let go of his past, and grab onto his future? GHOSTED is a dark romantic comedy about the continuing bonds we have with our loved ones after they are gone