A psychosexual relationship between a rabbi and the man devoted to him goes off the rails in this explosive novel.The rabbi is, to the untrained eye, far from desirable. Lofty and disorderly, aging and constantly losing members of his flock, he is nonetheless the singular object of obsession for the self-abjecting narrator of My Lover, the Rabbi. From the start of their psychosexual affair, the two men torment, pleasure, and manipulate each other with ardor. When they're apart, the narrator manically contemplates every element of the rabbi's being: his alluring adopted son, his false erudition, his patrilineage, his broken-down Pontiac, his out-of-state husband (who the narrator has also slept with), and, maybe most of all, the universe between the rabbi's legs. Spending time together in the narrator's bed, in a tiny town near Hoboken, New Jersey, that our narrator is "devastated to admit is my personal address," a tender, volatile intimacy brews and curdles....

In this debut collection, celebrated journalist Patrick Strickland's vivid and character-driven stories are as true to life as his award-winning reportage.In A History of Heartache, boys grow up fast in the blazing heat of North Texas, and men grow old before their time. A wayward son rides shotgun into a night he can't take back. A janitor at an abortion clinic can’t outrun a ghost—or a camera. Strickland writes with clear-eyed realism and unsparing craftsmanship about common people—fathers and sons; widowers and junkies—poised on the knife-edge of hope.With taut sentences and a wicked sense of humor, these 14 stories chart the small mercies and big mistakes that make a life: the songs we inherit, the bottles we empty, the tools we fashion from whatever’s at hand. Gritty and tender in the same breath, this debut fiction collection asks what it costs to stay, what it takes to leave, and who we become when we do. Readers of Denis...

A woman learns to be the heroine of her own life in this heartfelt novel inspired by Anne of Green Gables by New York Times bestselling author Virginia Kantra.She believed life could follow a plotline—until the story she was living unraveled.Anne Gallagher has always lived by the book. Anne of Green Gables, that is. Growing up on Mackinac Island, she saw herself as her namesake: the same impulsive charm, the same wild imagination, even the same red hair (dyed, but still). She followed in Anne Shirley’s fictional footsteps, chasing dreams of teaching and writing, and falling for her very own storybook hero.But when a string of real-life plot twists—a failing romance, a fight with the administration, and the sudden death of her beloved father—pulls her back to the island she once couldn’t wait to leave, Anne is forced to face a truth no story ever prepared her for. Sometimes, life doesn’t follow a...

The Duke’s Dearest Dilemma (Willful Wainwrights, Book 1)

From New York Times bestselling author N.J. Walters comes the tale of Death’s third son…in this gripping, paranormal small-town romance where love defies fate—and even Death himself. Love her. Defy Death. Lose everything. Kieran Blackwell has always done everything right. While his brothers rebelled against their father—the Grim Reaper himself—Kieran followed the rules. Reaped souls without question. Buried every shred of emotion that might make him weak. As Death’s most loyal son, he thought he’d earned his place at his father’s side. He was wrong. Now his brothers have fallen—choosing love over immortality—and Kieran has been sent to the small town of Redemption to clean up their mess. One final assignment. One impossible task. Reap the soul of a woman destined to die. It should’ve been simple. Find her. Do the job. Walk away. Then he meets Georgia Baker. She’s warm, stubborn, and far too good for a creature like him. A small-town baker with a fierce heart and a dangerous past, she sees something in Kieran he thought he’d buried long ago. And for the first time in centuries…he feels. But Georgia isn’t just anyone. She’s his assignment. And this time, failure doesn’t mean punishment. It means exile…or worse—losing the only woman who’s ever made him want to live.

This "thoroughly engaging" novel by the author of Beetlecreek ("[a] quiet masterpiece" —Kirkus Reviews) follows a Black journalist in the 1970s whose bourgeois life is turned upside down by the subject of his writing assignment.“One of the great novelists of the last 100 years.” —Ishmael Reed, author of Mumbo JumboIn the midst of the tumultuous 1970s, Edwards, a freelance writer and Black Studies professor at a small college in New York City, is assigned a story for New Black Woman magazine: a profile of Mona Pariss, an aging former singer whose popularity once rivaled Josephine Baker’s. With his creditors at the door, Professor Edwards beats a path to the crumbling Harlem apartment house where Mona Pariss, once the toast of Europe for her singing, now lives in squalid obscurity. As his interviews progress, Edwards is gradually drawn into Mona’s strange world. At the same time, he finds himself entering into...

A chilling horror-thriller debut where a mother's search for her missing daughter battles against the shadows of a historic, dangerous legend.Single mother Jenna arrives on the tranquil shores of Athelsea fueled by the desperate hope to find Chloe, her teenage daughter who's disappeared from their London home. She has no idea why–all she knows is that Chloe had changed in the previous two weeks, haunted by something, or someone, and the ferry ticket here is the only clue she has.As she explores the village and interacts with the locals, Jenna soon realizes a macabre secret is being hidden in plain sight. A dark legend of a vengeful woman called the Bone Queen is spoken of in hushed tones amongst the villagers, some of whom are frantically trying to suppress the tale that has long terrorized their lives. As Jenna starts to learn more about the Bone Queen and her previous victims, the village's grip on reality begins to loosen and no one can say for...