A social media celebrity, a wife and mother who sells her fantasy pioneer lifestyle of sourdough and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of followers, suddenly wakes up cold, dirty, and hungry in the year 1805 and must uncover the nature – hoax, reality show, test from God – of her terrifying new existence in this sensational debut novel. “My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.” Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the Republican equivalent of a Kennedy? What Natalie’s followers – all 8 million of them – don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal – and just so happens to be building an empire from it. Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children – they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a brutal reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.

When a middle-aged widowed loses her job at the butcher shop, she’s at a loss as to how to provide for her family–until she’s offered a position that puts her carving skills to new uses in this darkly humorous bestselling Korean thriller.Mrs. Shim needs money. She’s lost her husband and her job, and she’s got three mouths to feed at her kitchen table. If she doesn’t find work soon, she and her children are going to lose their home.So when she answers a vague job ad for the Smile Detective Agency, Mrs. Shim expects the job will be some kind of cleaning position. But when they only ask her questions about her experience as a butcher and what she can do with a cleaver, she begins to realize they want her to do a very different kind of cleaning–they want her to be an assassin. Too scared not to take them up on their offer, she agrees to the position.And Mrs. Shim soon finds that her new job isn’t so different from her old one in the butcher shop, quickly becoming the agency’s best contract killer–but her rise to the top hasn’t gone unnoticed. Jealous of her talents, her agency’s competitors–and even her own colleagues– begin pointing fingers (and knives) in her direction.If she wants to keep her job, her family, and her reputation intact, Mrs. Shim is going to have to take out the secretive leader of a rival agency. But when she has the chance to strike, she’s stunned to find a familiar face at the end of her blade.As it turns out, this just may be one mess she can’t cut her way out of . . .

Becky Watson learned early that trust is a weapon and secrets are survival. From foster homes to abandoned backroads, she and her childhood confidant Orion have buried more than just memories. Now, as a college freshman, Becky’s harboring her most dangerous secret yet: her newborn daughter, Janie.Desperation drives Becky to contact her estranged grandmother, Lillian. She swoops in like a guardian angel, but her salvation comes with a poisoned price tag. Behind Lillian’s nurturing facade lurks a web of generational secrets. As buried truths claw their way to the surface, Becky faces an impossible choice: sacrifice her daughter or herself to break a twisted family legacy.

Jax has a slight issue with control–as in, she needs it. Always. Too bad she has power only over the Painted Lady Bookstore, the Victorian mansion turned bookshop she inherited. No one else listens to a word she says. Her ex gets engaged for questionable reasons. Her beloved sister, Ryleigh, wants to move away to find a husband. And the handsome contractor Jax has chosen to convince Ryleigh to stay is only interested in Jax. Still, she’s living the bookworm dream–until an unhappy accident erases the names from the bookshop lockboxes where the town keeps their diaries. Which means the only way to find a diary’s owner is…to read it. As secrets spill and scandals surface, life at the Painted Lady Bookstore gets a lot more colorful and chaotic. But for a woman who’s always had to take charge, Jax will see that losing control–especially with the right wrong guy–can set you free.

A beloved schoolteacher chronicles the meteoric rise of his most dazzling student in this ambitious, big-hearted story of learning and legacy. Mr. Keating is an extraordinary teacher: brilliant, dedicated, and possibly a few pages ahead in a book no one else is reading. He’s a magician, able to enchant fourteen-year-olds into a love of writing and literature. Yet no student has lived up to the promise of their potential more than Clara Hightower. Over the course of three decades, Clara goes from kindergarten thief to a high school genius, Silicon Valley celebrity, and, finally, animal rights activist turned terrorist. But to tell Clara’s story, Mr. Keating must tell his own, including his courtship and marriage, his dreams of writing and comedy, his days in the classroom in lower Manhattan and his rivalry and friendship with his head of school, and his eventual stroke and the isolation that follows. Fiercely original, The Optimists is a love story, a joke book, and a meditation on the meaning of life and death. Tender and insightful, it’s a profound testament to the lessons that reach far beyond the classroom.

A laugh-out-loud rom-com wrapped in a whodunit, this high-seas adventure proves that sometimes the best love stories start with a little murder.

Demons clash with inheritance claims as secrets unfold and violence is unleashed over twelve harrowing hours trapped in a house with the worst thing imaginable: family.When Papi Ramon, the patriarch of the wealthy Abreu family dies, he gives the family one last message in the will: One of you is el bacà, the demon that I made a deal with. Get rid of them or you will be damned. Xiomara, the uncontested favorite of Papi Ramon (and therefore the least liked in the family), watches as everyone dismisses this as the joke of a senile old man and demands the lawyer obtain the previous will Papi wrote.While the lawyer drives back to his office, a storm breaks out, forcing the entire family–Xiomara’s aunts and uncles and cousins–to remain in the house. And the words of Papi’s will hangs over their heads even heavier than the rain clouds. Over the course of the night, scandal after scandal is revealed to the public about the family. Suddenly a tense few hours of surviving her family turns into a vicious night of recrimination, violence, accusations…and murder.Xiomara is faced with an impossible task: uproot a demon and somehow kill it or excise the ghosts that linger within her own family.And the clock is ticking…

Agnes Aubert leads a meticulously organized life, and she likes it that way. As the proudly type-A manager of a cat rescue charity, she has devoted her life to finding forever homes for stray cats. Now it’s the shelter that needs a new home. And the only landlord who will rent a space to a cat rescue is a mysterious man called Havelock–who also happens to be the world’s most infamous magician, running an illegal magic shop out of his basement. Havelock is cantankerous and eccentric, but not not handsome, and no, Agnes absolutely does not feel anything but disdain for him. After all, rumors swirl about his shadowy past–including whispers that his dark magic once almost brought about the apocalypse. Then one day a glamorous magician comes looking for Havelock, putting the magic shop–and the cat shelter–in jeopardy. To save the shelter, Agnes will have to team up with the magician who nearly ended the world . . . and may now be trying to steal her heart. Havelock is everything Agnes thinks she doesn’t need in her life: chaos, mischief, and a little too much adventure. But as she gets to know him, she discovers that he’s more than the dark magician of legend, and that she may be ready for a little intrigue–and romance–in her life. After all, second chances aren’t just for rescue cats. . . .

Ellie’s universe–and this one–is falling apart. Her ailing mother is in a coma; her sister, Chris, accuses her of being insufficiently Chinese between assassination attempts; and a shadowy cabal of engineers is trying to hijack the skunkworks, the machinery that keeps the physics of each universe working the way it’s supposed to. Daniel, Ellie’s cousin, has found an illicit device in the skunkworks–one that keeps Ellie’s comatose mother alive while also creating destabilizing bugs in the physics of this universe. It’s not a good day. If she can confront her mother’s legacy and overcome her family’s generational trauma, she just might find a way to preserve the skunkworks and reconcile with her sister…but digging into her family’s past is thornier than it seems, and the secrets she uncovers will force Ellie to choose between her family and the universe itself.

There’s a killer inside all of us…In the remote hills of western Ireland, fear spreads as the locals struggle to make sense of a killer who is seemingly one of their own…Dr. Alexander Gregory, a psychologist recovering from the collapse of a high-profile criminal profiling unit, wants nothing more than a quiet life to finally sit and think things through. But his rare ability to understand the minds of violent offenders makes him hard to ignore–especially when a small town is shaken by a brutal murder. Reluctantly pulled into the case, Gregory finds himself confronting not only a cunning predator, but the darker corners of his own mind.

From the author of the international bestseller Life of Pi, a brilliant retelling of the Trojan War from the perspective of two commoners: an ancient soldier and a modern scholar.

The epic saga of Smoke Jensen takes a wild and dangerous turn when the legendary mountain man joins a wagon train of Civil War widows and orphans on a perilous journey to a new life in Wyoming–

From Sally Hepworth, the New York Times bestselling author of The Soulmate and The Good Sister, comes a twist-filled, darkly funny mystery about the two kinds of people no one ever expects to be murderers: little girls and old ladies. Meet Mad Mabel. Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She’s lived on her idyllic street, Kenny Lane, for sixty years–longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else’s business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past that she has worked exceedingly hard at concealing. Because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end. When a new little girl (talkative, curious, nosy) moves into the neighborhood and stops at nothing to befriend Elsie, her carefully-constructed life threatens to come crashing down as the secrets in Elsie’s past start coming to light. Who was Mad Mabel fifty years ago? Who is Elsie Fitzpatrick today? And if the past has a habit of repeating itself, who has the most to lose? Told with Sally Hepworth’s twists, humor, charm, and heart, MAD MABEL is novel that weaves past and present together–through the power of justice and redemption, and all the way to its stunning conclusion.

Princess Jessamine and Elric’s story continues after she has brought him back to full physical form in this second book in a romantasy trilogy from USA TODAY bestselling author Emma Hamm, perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas.She won the heart of Death…now she must fight for the hearts of her people. Jessamine never expected to be on the Deathless One’s side–let alone be in love with him. But now that Elric has returned to his corporeal form and Jessamine has joined the coven of witches that sustain his power, the two are stronger than ever. But the kingdom is still in turmoil. Jessamine and Elric must prepare their coven of witches to meet the kingdom’s forces in battle–before the man who’s usurped her throne learns how to harness the power of Elric’s fellow gods. How can Jessamine accept that to fight for her kingdom, she might have to fight against it?

In the 1920s, archeologist Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon of Highclere Castle made headlines around the world with the discovery of the treasure-filled tomb of the boy Pharaoh Tutankhamun. But behind it all stood Lady Evelyn Herbert–daughter of Lord Carnarvon–whose daring spirit and relentless curiosity made the momentous find possible. Nearly 3,000 years earlier, another woman defied the expectations of her time: Hatshepsut, Egypt’s lost pharaoh. Her reign was bold, visionary–and nearly erased from history. When Evelyn becomes obsessed with finding Hatshepsut’s secret tomb, she risks everything to uncover the truth about her reign and keep valued artifacts in Egypt, their rightful home. But as danger closes in and political tensions rise, she must make an impossible choice: protect her father’s legacy–or forge her own. Propelled by high adventure and deadly intrigue, Daughter of Egypt is the story of two ambitious women who lived centuries apart. Both were forced to hide who they were during their lifetimes, yet ultimately changed history forever.

Celebrate 250 years of American history–and witness the nation’s decade-by-decade evolution–in this gorgeously illustrated volume featuring more than 600 Smithsonian objects. The 250th anniversary of the United States marks a major milestone, representing two-and-a-half centuries of upholding democracy, building communities, defining freedom, and working to become a more perfect union. In The Promise of a Nation, Smithsonian curators share aspirational stories that have shaped the nation in chapters representing each decade from the 1770s to the 2020s. Smithsonian objects help bring each decade to life and personalize the history, from George Washington’s sword (1770s) to an African American volunteer fire company badge (1860s) to Marian Anderson’s attire worn at her Lincoln Memorial concert (1930s) to Space Shuttle Discovery (1990s). Each chapter begins with a timeline of major events and census data, followed by an essay that considers American history through a meaningful and often unexpected lens. Gorgeous full spreads feature spotlight objects that tell decade-specific stories and offer important insight into each decade and the American story. The nation’s semiquincentennial is an opportunity to reflect on the past with care and curiousity. The scope of American history is vast, but The Promise of a Nation distills it into compelling narratives that speak to the strength and aspirations of the American people and inspire optimism for what comes next.

Joyful, Anyway is colorful and layered, unafraid of the occasional gut-punch of raw feeling and vulnerability–much like Kate Bowler herself. She suffers no fools, especially the toxic optimists.–Jerry Seinfeld A book to take you through life’s aftermaths.–Katherine May, New York Times bestselling author of WinteringYou can’t always be happy, but you can be joyful, anyway. We live in a culture convinced that chasing happiness will optimize our bodies, our minds, our relationships, our lives. But in the meantime, bad news usually stays bad: illness, chronic pain, grief, and disappointment don’t obey our timelines or vision boards. We are left wondering why, if we’re doing everything right, life still feels so hard. Honest and bracingly tender, Joyful, Anyway proves that experiencing joy does not depend on resolving everything that makes life difficult. Drawing on a decade of living with serious illness and a lifetime studying America’s obsession with progress, Kate Bowler shows why people so busy chasing happiness miss out on actual joy. Joy isn’t something you can optimize or manufacture–it finds us at the edge of expectation, when life interrupts our scripts. Joyful, Anyway gives language for the ache we all carry and practices for putting yourself in the way of joy loosening control, introducing novelty, choosing charity, and staying open to the surprising, technicolor moments that pull us back into life. Joy reminds us that no matter what, life is still worth loving. For every time we ask is this it?, joy will answer: There is more.

A heartfelt exploration of the night on Earth, following a travel journalist and dark sky advocate around the globe as she seeks out dark places in our ever-brightening world. People, plants and animals all depend on the natural night–both its darkness and its starlight–for so much, from regulating our sleep cycles to providing the inspiration for myths and legends across the millennia. But darkness is disappearing, and with it, our view of the stars. The constant glow of streetlights, of headlights streaming down highways, and wasteful glare from skyscrapers left shining all night have created so much light pollution that the majority of Americans can no longer see the Milky Way or experience the restful embrace of a natural night. As the dark becomes ever more elusive, it is a critical moment to stop, look up, and consider what we lose with the disappearing stars. In Nightfaring, Megan Eaves-Egenes travels around the world to better understand our deep connection to the dark. Finding solace in the stars at a time of difficulty in her own life, she embarks on a journey from New Zealand to Uzbekistan, Italy to Japan, Germany to the Himalaya, exploring the many ways that humans have depended on, feared, and mythologized darkness. Blending travel and nature writing with history and self-discovery, Megan writes of how the stars have helped her chart the course of her own life–just as they’ve guided humankind for as long as we’ve slept beneath them.

Everything you need to venture into self-employment, as a freelancer or a business owner and operator. From planning and bookkeeping to marketing and more, The Small Business Start-Up Kit has you covered.

From a social emotional learning expert: a book providing simple, science-based, practical advice including scripts, tips and strategies to help Neurodivergent adults who have ADHD, autism or anxiety find the belonging and support of lifelong friendships they seek. Friendship can be hard for many Neurodivergent adults. There is an assumption that good, worthwhile friendships should come easy. However, for Neurodivergent adults, there are brain-based reasons why friendship can feel less intuitive. From differences in the parts of the brain that are vital to managing the logistics of a fulfilling social life to difficulty with self-regulation, the way neurodiverse individuals experience social bonding and connection can feel unintuitive. Friendship Skills For Neurodivergent Adults is a guide to navigate these differences, broken into three parts: 1. How friendship works 2. How to find your people 3. How connecting will get you in motion With the guidance of Friendship Skills For Neurodivergent Adults, readers will feel less alone, and have the tools to understand the unique way neurodiverse individuals can approach friendship.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS FOR SPRING 2026: Epicurious, Bon App tit From the team behind the #1 New York Times bestseller The King Arthur Baking Company Big Book of Bread, comes the definitive book dedicated to the key elements of making pizza in any home oven, countertop pizza oven, or backyard oven or grill. The bakers at King Arthur Baking Company researched, tested–and tasted –hundreds of pizzas and cooking methods to develop the most comprehensive book yet dedicated to the art and science of making pizza at home. Organized around twelve distinct styles–New York, New Haven, Chicago Tavern, Grandma, Neapolitan, and more–King Arthur Baking Company’s The Book of Pizza goes deep on every element of a great pie, from dough and sauce to the cheese and the bake. Comprehensive yet accessible, the book is packed with innovative topping suggestions to match each crust style (don’t sleep on the Prosciutto and Hot Honey Neapolitan pie). But it also empowers bakers to mix and match sauces and toppings, allowing them to customize pizzas exactly to their liking. Rounding out the pizza recipes are four quintessential pizza night salads and an entire chapter of desserts, including Spumoni Semifreddo, an array of Italian-inspired cookies, and simple cakes, like Olive Oil Cake with Chocolate Ganache, to end pizza night with a bang.

From the beloved Today show host Sheinelle Jones comes an inspiring collection of heartfelt life-lessons from hard working moms who raised some of our favorite celebrities. When Sheinelle Jones launched Through Mom’s Eyes, a recurring Today show segment interviewing celebrities’ mothers about raising successful kids, she had an ulterior motive–she wanted to bring all their wisdom to bear on raising her own three children. So she asked Lin-Manuel Miranda’s mom about staying present with kids while balancing a demanding career, talked with Lady Gaga’s mom about how to recognize bullying, and got tips from Steph Curry’s mom on making sure even future NBA royalty does his chores. She has since interviewed dozens of remarkable women and gathered a candid, warm, and insightful collection of valuable lessons about life, love, and parenthood. Now in her first book, Through Mom’s Eyes, Sheinelle is ready to share even more of those life-changing secrets with the world. Combining insights from celebrity mothers with her own journey through modern parenting, Sheinelle reveals how to make it through the hard parts of motherhood and still tap into the joys of it with empathy, generosity, and solidarity. Through Mom’s Eyes is a beautiful celebration of those who are the guiding light for their loved ones–mothers. Featuring advice from the moms of: Lady Gaga * Kevin Durant * Matthew McConaughey * Venus and Serena Williams * Lin-Manuel Miranda * Steph Curry * Padma Lakshmi * Tyra Banks * Donnie and Mark Wahlberg * Rob Gronk Gronkowski * Jessica and Ashlee Simpson * Shaquille O’Neal * Brandon Maxwell * The Jonas Brothers * Thomas Rhett

By connecting our modern heroes to the archetypes of ancient myth, Peter Meineck’s marvelous book bestows thrilling contemporary resonance upon those bygone legends. –Christopher Markus, coscreenwriter of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: EndgameWhat connects Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of transformation, and Spider-Man, a modern-day superhero?Since its inception, Marvel has created–in comics and on the silver screen–a vast, intricate universe brimming with superheroes and superhumans. Yet Marvel exists in a much larger mythological tradition, one that dates back to the ancient Greeks and their tales of gods and heroes.Professor of Classics Peter Meineck embarks on a captivating pilgrimage through ancient Greek mythology through the lens of some of Marvel’s most iconic characters, including Captain America, Wolverine, and Black Widow, and traces their lineage to the dawn of human culture. Some connections are astounding and eye-opening, like Black Panther’s ties to the legend of Atlantis and Daredevil’s relationship to the mighty Herakles, while others are uncanny in their resemblance. What, for example, do Scarlet Witch and the sorceress Medea have in common? As grieving mothers cast out from society, quite a lot, actually.As Meineck reintroduces ancient figures like Achilles and Odysseus, he demonstrates how themes that appeared in the likes of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey continue to emerge in our stories today. He explores why these tales endure and how they have shifted to reflect society’s changing values. Through his endeavor, one important question arises: What do our modern myths say about us?A fascinating and entertaining read, Tony Stark, Odysseus, and the Myths Behind Marvel is a rollicking journey from the legends of old to the pop-culture stories of today.

A Most Anticipated Book of 2026 from LitHubRamona Ausubel has poured so much humor and wisdom and practically useful counsel into this extraordinary book, a guide for both writing and living. –Karen Russell, author of The Antidote Unstuck 101 Doorways Leading from the Blank Page to the Last Page is about staying in love with your writing: feeling excited, mischievous, productive, and hopeful–the opposite of being stuck. Critically acclaimed, award-winning author and beloved teacher Ramona Ausubel offers 101 exercises that promise to welcome you back to the page again and again; to reinvigorate your process and help you see your writing through to the end. Full of personal stories and hard-earned wisdom of a veteran writer, Unstuck is written in the first person, human to human, writer to writer. Practical, clear, and welcoming, Unstuck offers immediately useable strategies for beginning, continuing, and finishing a piece of writing. Organized into doorways and keys, Unstuck turns problems into possibilities, offers keys to put into use right now, all designed to lead the writer back to the art, not toward an outside idea or formula. With Ausubel’s steady, encouraging advice–find your doorway, unlock the lock, and get writing again.

The true story of the corrupt and violent town of Borger, Texas in 1927and the legendary Texas Ranger tasked with taming it. Just a year after the town of Borger, Texas was founded, the press already called it the wickedest in the state. The town, sprung into existence overnight to support new oilfields, was a lawless haven for bootleggers, pimps and gamblers, run by a crooked city hall and corrupt police. The town also became a haven for those seeking second chances, including dance hall operators, storeowners, wrestlers, lawyers and freelance oil well firefighters. But the raucous environment attracted some of the most unsavory characters in prohibition America, including a gang of murderous bank robbers who head into Borger to spend their money on booze, gambling and prostitutes. In the span of weeks, the robbers killed three law enforcement officers, bringing the worst heat imaginable: iconic Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer, just a few years before his takedown of Bonnie and Clyde. His arrival threatens to break the hardest boomtown in Americaif it doesn’t kill him first.