"As a writer lies dying, he has one last story to tell: a tale of faith and devotion, a meditation on what lies beyond this life, and a prayer of gratitude that may lead to rebirth..."Language is a map leading to a place not on the map," announces a young writer lying in a hospital bed at the beginning of The Presence of Absence. As he contemplates his impending physical disappearance and the impact on his beloved wife, he realizes, "Life doesn't...

"A restless golden boy and a girl with a troubled past navigate a love story that may be doomed before it even begins, in this irresistible new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of All We Ever Wanted and The Lies That Bind. The Kingsley family is American royalty, beloved for their military heroics, political service, and unmatched elegance. In 1968, after Joseph S. Kingsley, Jr. is killed in a tragic accident, his charismatic son...

"A young royal from the far north, is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully. Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained...

"Shut up in a trunk by a taciturn old sea captain with a secret, five friends--a king, a wolf, a girl, a boy, and an owl--bicker, boast, and comfort one another in the dark. Individually, they dream of song and light, freedom and flight, purpose and glory, but they all agree they are part of a larger story, bound each to each by chance, bonded by the heart's mysteries. When at last their shared fate arrives, landing them on a mantel in a blue room...

"The Cleric Chih accompanies a beautiful young bride to her wedding to the aging ruler of a crumbling estate situated at the crossroads of dead empires. The bride's party is welcomed with elaborate courtesies and extravagant banquets, but between the frightened servants and the cryptic warnings of the lord's mad son, they quickly realize that something is haunting the shadowed halls. As Chih and the bride-to-be explore empty rooms and desolate courtyards,...

Darcie Wilder's literally show me a healthy person is a careful confession soaking in saltwater, a size B control top jet black pantyhose dragged over a skinned knee and slipped into unlaced doc martens. Blurring the lines of the written word, literally show me a healthy person is a portrait of a young girl, or woman, or something; grappling with the immediate and seemingly endless urge to document and describe herself and the world around her. Dealing...

"An incendiary and stylish debut from a young literary provocateur Love is a fever dream of a novella about a young sex worker whose life blurs the boundaries between violence and intimacy, objectification and real love. Startlingly intimate and lyrically deft, Maayan Eitan's debut follows Libby as she goes about her work in a nameless Israeli city, riding in cars, seeing clients, meeting and befriending other sex workers and pimps. In prose as crystalline...

"A chance encounter in the dark leads 18-year-old Daniel and the girl who stumbles across him to profess their love for each other. But this love has conditions: They agree it will last only one hour, and it will be only make-believe. When their hour is up and the girl rushes off like Cinderella, Daniel tries to convince himself that what happened between them seemed perfect only because they were pretending it was. Moments like that happen only in...

Firuz-e Jafari was able to escape the slaughter of traditional blood magic practitioners by immigrating to the city-state of Qilwa. But now a terrible disease is spreading through the city, and Firuz believes it comes from ineptly performed blood magic. Now they must find a way to break a cycle of prejudice in order to survive.

"Natalie Jenner, the internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society, returns with a compelling and heartwarming story of post-war London, a century-old bookstore, and three women determined to find their way in a fast-changing world in Bloomsbury Girls. Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare book store that has persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the general manager's unbreakable fifty-one...