"A "mind-blowing, page-turning, unputdownable" novel (Elif Batuman) about the fifteen-year fallout from a poisonous high school rumor, exploring how stories from the past can come to define who we are. A gifted and reclusive ghostwriter, Alice Lovett makes a living helping other people tell their stories. But she is haunted by the one story she cannot tell: the story of, as she puts it, "the things that happened while I was asleep." Back in 1999,...

"In a tiny village in Italy, the self-appointed mayor (and vacuum cleaner repairman) Signor Speranza will do anything he can to save his beloved town. When he learns that the water is going to be cut off in sixty days unless he can come up with some quick cash, he tries to boost tourism by spreading a harmless rumor that major movie star Dante Rinaldi is planning to film a movie in the village. The plan works a little too well, and soon everyone wants...

Cassie McDowell's life in 1980s Minnesota seems perfectly wholesome. She lives on a farm, loves school, and has a crush on the nicest boy in class. Yes, there are her parents' strange parties and their parade of deviant guests, but she's grown accustomed to them. All that changes when someone comes hunting in Lilydale. One by one, local boys go missing. One by one, they return changed-violent, moody, and withdrawn. What happened to them becomes the...

Nobody in sixteen-year-old Beckett's life seems to be telling the whole story. Her boyfriend Jake keeps hiding texts, which could mean he's cheating on her. Her father lied about losing his job and so much more before his shocking death. And everyone in school seems to be whispering about her and her family behind her back. But none of that compares to the day Beckett finds the body of a newborn baby in a gym bag--Jake's gym bag--on the floor of her...

"It wasn't supposed to happen this way. When Eliza Hunt created The Hudson Valley Ladies' Bulletin Board fifteen years ago she was happily entrenched in her picture-perfect suburban life with her husband and twin preschoolers. Now, with an empty nest and a crippling case of agoraphobia, the once-fun hobby has become her lifeline. So when a rival parenting forum threatens the site's existence, she doesn't think twice before fabricating a salacious...