Catalog Selections
Brimstone Hollow
Archer Sullivan
Following her powerful debut in The Witch’s Orchard, private investigator Annie Gore returns in Brimstone Hollow, bringing readers back to the mountains that author Archer Sullivan, a ninth-generation Appalachian, knows so well. There isn’t much that happens in the Appalachian Mountains that Private Investigator Annie Gore hasn’t seen. Before she was an Air Force Special Investigator, she was born and raised in those rolling hills, and lately Annie’s cases have called her away from her Louisville office and closer to the small towns of her youth than she ever anticipated. But when her newest client asks if she’s ever been to a snake-handling church, Annie knows she’s about to enter unknown territory. Katie May has been estranged from her father-one of Appalachia’s last infamous snake handling preachers-for twenty years. But when Katie finds out he’s been fatally bitten, and a funeral was held within twenty-four hours, she questions whether someone deliberately rushed the process. Despite Annie’s doubts, she takes the case. After all, when she looks at Katie, she sees a version of herself: a girl who needs to understand her father in order to understand herself. As she navigates the hidden hollers and dangerous secrets of this insular Eastern Kentucky town, Annie works fast, hoping to find the truth in record time for her client-and before too many memories from her own childhood surface. But it soon becomes apparent that someone wants Annie’s investigation to stop-by any means necessary.–
The Cure at Walden Pond: a guide to recovering our humanity
Thomas Moore
From the bestselling author of Care of the Soul comes a reflective guide to healing, renewal, and recovering our humanity through the writings and philosophy of Henry David Thoreau. Drawing upon Walden and Thoreau’s journals, Moore explores themes of mindfulness, spirituality, simplicity, nature, memory, and community, encouraging readers to cultivate a more meaningful and harmonious life.
The Disappearers
Marlon James
In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. Though strangers to one another, they share an inescapable truth: All of them are gay. And they live in a world that refuses to accept them. One night the men are savagely beaten, and one of them is killed. As their bodies heal, the survivors begin to face the hatred and contempt that the violence laid bare. Some try to ignore what happened. Others double down on retribution. Some disappear completely. In this spellbinding novel, Marlon James has written a propulsive crime story and a deeply human account of connection and acceptance. Full of fascinating characters, biting humor, and unapologetic sex, The Disappearers is both a thrilling page-turner and a finely etched portrait of queer life.
Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
Ben Reeves
A short, exquisitely moving novel about finding beauty, hope, and meaning in the brevity of life, as narrated by the one who knows it best: Death. Travis is Death in the modern world. He wears jeans and a T-shirt and lives in a small, grey town. His job is to offer people comfort in their final hours of life. He’s stoic, gentle, and a little naive, despite everything he knows. He’s young and handsome, despite who he is. Each death he witnesses is meaningful to him; he listens, never judges, and most importantly, never tries to change anyone’s fate. He knows that every living creature’s life must eventually end to maintain the balance of the universe. He respects the cycle. Then he meets Dalia, a midwife, and her boisterous eight-year-old daughter Layla, who live across the hall. As Dalia and Layla come to embrace Travis, he finds it more and more difficult to maintain the detachment that’s allowed him to function for so long. Their time together teaches him what’s truly important in life—and what might be irrevocably lost in death. Written with radiant warmth, wisdom,and compassion, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt is a timeless story about appreciating life, accepting its end, and finding our place in the universe—especially when it feels most impossible—that will resonate with anyone who has ever loved and lost or worried at time’s passing.
Exhumed : unearthing the history of the American vampire
Aaron Mahnke
From critically acclaimed podcaster and bestselling author Aaron Mahnke comes this engrossing and macabre exploration of the folklore and early medical practices that led to the New England Vampire Panic in the 1890s. What would drive a man to exhume the body of his daughter and remove her heart? That question has haunted Aaron Mahnke, creator and host of the award-winning podcast Lore. Fueled by a decade of research, Mahnke excavates the past to understand the hysteria that fueled the ghastly exhumation of Mercy Brown in 1892, who like her mother and sister before her, succumbed to “consumption” at the age of 19. With Exhumed, Mahnke presents a unique history of the intersection of folklore and science, and how pop culture and both genuine medical advancements and pseudoscience of the time shaped the perspectives of people in 19th century America. From the death of George Washington to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein, Mahnke leads reads on a fascinating journey through history, touching on methods of mummification, the multifaceted role of executioners, medicine made from corpses, European folklore that traveled across the Atlantic, and so much more. He reveals that as shocking as Brown’s exhumation might seem, it also reflected surprisingly common attitudes and beliefs about the relationship between the dead and the living, the nature of science and magic, and the fate of a human soul. It all builds to a revelatory understanding of human behavior that continues to this very day. Possessing an irreverent view of science, history, and the human condition, Exhumed is perfect for fans of Mary Roach’s Stiff, as well as readers of forgotten American histories like Brad Meltzer’s New York Times-bestselling The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington.
The Ladies’ Hall
Vanessa Miller
1880s, Ohio. When Mary and Anna enter the Bachelor of Arts program, also known as the “gentlemen’s course” of study, at Oberlin College, they have little in common other than the color of their skin and their passion for education. While Mary was raised in luxury, attending presidential inaugurations with her wealthy father, Anna is a schoolteacher, likely the daughter of her enslaved mother’s former owner, and works a second job to pay for her room and board. But despite their differences, both women share strength, ambition, and a deep yearning for change. If they can bridge the gaps between them, they just might build a lasting legacy. From its earliest days in the 1830s, Oberlin College admitted men and women, white and Black students. Though the doors are officially open, school policy cannot change the hearts of classmates who refuse to see a woman, and especially a Black woman, excel. Despite constantly being forced to prove themselves, the women triumphantly overcome every obstacle and push through their pain. And as the world evolves around them, Mary and Anna persevere to build a legacy of success and excellence. Based on the real lives of Mary Church Terrell, Anna Julia Cooper, and Ida Gibbs Hunt, The Ladies Hall is a mirror into times of great change–where progress and new possibilities are met with violence and resistance . . . but hope always rises. And it rises still.
The Opposite of Murder
Sophie Hannah
The perfect alibi. The perfect motive. The perfect lie? Jemma Stelling walks into a police station and confesses-not to a murder she’s committed but to the one she’s terrified she might. Jemma can’t stop herself from thinking about murdering her stepmother, Marianne Upton. The only way stop herself might be to confess before she snaps and does the unthinkable. But while Jemma is still giving her statement, a call comes in: Marianne has just been found stabbed to death, killed in exactly the way Jemma described. Suddenly, the woman desperate to prevent a murder has an unshakeable alibi… and a disturbingly accurate description of the crime she couldn’t have committed. Is Jemma an innocent bystander? Or a brilliant, cold-blooded killer who planned everything down to the minute? In The Opposite of Murder, New York Times bestselling author Sophie Hannah unveils another mind-bending mystery-an impossible puzzle guaranteed to hold readers spellbound to the very end.
Sunrise
Téa Obreht
In 2024, Nina’s small-engine plane crashes into a lake in the Wyoming mountains. Her boyfriend Ben, who was flying it, is nowhere to be found. Lost and freezing on the shore, Nina is armed with only a few old protein bars, a phone with no service, and a vague hope of rescue. It is up to her to survive in the vast wilderness. But then she stumbles upon Sunrise—a town of the Old West that is strangely well maintained, but seemingly abandoned. A place that holds the missing link to a ghost story one hundred years in the making. In 2003, Sand Daw’s golden boy Coll is putting the finishing touches on the town’s annual historical reenactment. But when an upstart would-be author comes to him with questions about one of Sunrise’s most beloved figures, it threatens to upend everything he thought he knew about the city—and himself. In 1902, town founder, gunslinger, and legendary pulp hero Anton Vargas returns to Sunrise and quickly takes charge of a group searching for a missing boy. But who really is Vargas? What does he know about the boy’s disappearance? And why has he returned after such a long absence?
Taipei Story
R. F. Kuang
College freshman Lily Chen is off to spend the summer in Taipei at an intensive language program, like so many Chinese American students before her, hoping to connect with the culture she inherited but never fully understood. But a promising start quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate is driving her insane, and a reckless trip to a hot springs resort with a guy she barely knows soon has her classmates viciously gossiping. She feels adrift, a foreigner in a country she thought would feel like home. Then shocking news arrives: Lily’s grandfather has passed away. The loss forces her to grapple with now-unanswerable questions about her family history. As Lily grieves, she’s drawn into a journey of self-discovery—piecing together memories, stories, and silences over a series of hilarious and devastating attempts at connection.
Time Travel for Beginners
Jaclyn Moriarty
On a bustling road in Sydney, Australia, lies a nondescript storefront known simply as the Time Travel Agency. At once a confounding mystery and a beacon of hope, the Agency attracts those at a crossroads in their life. Single mother Anna is in desperate need of change, and the Agency gives her the chance to begin her career-and life-anew. Teddy is a genius at salvaging businesses but needs saving himself, and he’s drawn to the Agency hoping to travel back in time to untangle his troubled childhood and his recently imploded marriage. Jade has no interest in the Agency at all, because there’s no way people are literally time traveling, right? Jade’s present is challenging enough with her spirited, increasingly bad-tempered daughter and a deeply buried secret too painful for words. As Anna’s, Teddy’s, and Jade’s paths converge, the question of just how legitimate the Agency’s ventures into the past are becomes a provocative, tantalizing, and even heart-wrenching one to parse-but there is no denying that the ripple effects through all three of their lives are very, very real.