Fiction

Dating is hard. Being dateless at your perfect sister’s wedding is harder.

Meet Kelly. Twenty-nine, go-getter, a brilliant robotics engineer, and perpetually single. So when her younger sister’s wedding looms and her attempts to find a date become increasingly cringeworthy, Kelly does the only logical thing: she builds her own boyfriend.

Ethan is perfect: gorgeous, attentive, and smart–all topped off by a mechanical heart endlessly devoted to her. Not to mention he’s good with her mother. When she’s with him, Kelly discovers a more confident, spontaneous version of herself–the person she’d always dreamed she could be. But as the struggle to keep Ethan’s identity secret threatens to detonate her career, Kelly knows she has to kiss her perfect man good-bye.

There’s just one problem: she’s falling for him.

Rebecca and Brian Unsworth appear to have it all. A nice house in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Two well-behaved, healthy teenage children. Important government jobs—Rebecca working in counterterrorism for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Brian serving as a coder for the National Security Agency. Their lives stand to improve even more as Brian, in his off-hours, has just developed and sold a highly profitable app.

However, the Unsworths’ marriage isn’t as perfect as it seems. After two decades together, they’ve drifted apart, talking little and having sex even less. Seeking to revive their strained relationship, they decide for their twentieth wedding anniversary to take their two kids, Kira and Tony, on a European getaway.

They have a blast…until one night in Barcelona when Kira doesn’t come home from a dance club. She’s gone. Abducted. Over the course of a single weekend, the Unsworths will do everything possible to find her—as Kira herself discovers just how far she’ll go to break free of the trap that’s been set for her. And even as Rebecca and Brian come together for Kira, they realize their marriage is more tenuous than they realized.

The Power Couple is both a fast-paced, globe-trotting espionage novel full of surprising twists and a nuanced look at modern marriage—the challenges of balancing career, parenthood, sex, and love.

This gorgeous collection features four Puffin in Bloom classics with illustrated covers by Anna Bond in a charming keepsake box designed in her signature style. Box includes: Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, Little Women, and A Little Princess

With the Second World War only a few years in the past, and Japan still reeling from its effects, two sisters—born to the same father but different mothers—struggle to make sense of the new world in which they are coming of age. Asako, the younger, has become obsessed with locating a third sibling, while also experiencing love for the first time.

While Momoko, their father’s first child—haunted by the loss of her kamikaze boyfriend and their final, disturbing days together—seeks comfort in a series of unhealthy romances. And both sisters find themselves unable to outrun the legacies of their late mothers. A thoughtful, probing novel about the enduring traumas of war, the unbreakable bonds of family, and the inescapability of the past, The Rainbow is a searing, melancholy work from one of Japan’s greatest writers.

Lucy Price is living the American dream. She has been married to her successful husband and businessman, Edward Price for a year and couldn’t be happier until she learns that Eddie is a dangerously ruthless man, heavily involved in illegal activities that threaten not only her marriage, but her life. Eddie abruptly disappears, but not before warning Lucy that if she wants to keep breathing she’d better keep her mouth shut. Six months later, word of her husband surfaces when she learns that he is presumed murdered in a small Texas town, apparently killed by his “wife”, Marlowe Price.

Marlowe is no stranger to trouble. An outcast in her own community for being one of those “hoodoo women,” who can curse you or cast you under her beguiling spell, Marlowe is shunned at every turn. Six months ago, a whirlwind romance in Mexico led Marlowe to marry the man she thought she’d spend the rest of her life with. For Marlowe and Eddie, there is no such thing as trouble in paradise. But late one night, when Marlowe witnesses her husband putting the body of a dead man in the trunk of his car, the illusion comes crashing down around her and she knows she has to move fast before the devil comes calling once again.

Now, Lucy and Marlowe must come together to find out where and who Eddie really is, and help each other through the threat he poses. There’s nothing more dangerous than a woman scorned…except for two women scorned who are willing to put their pasts behind them and band together to take one bad man down…

Alexis and Austin don’t have a typical “meet cute”—their first encounter involves Alexis, an emergency room doctor, suturing a bullet wound in Austin’s arm. Six months later, they’re on a romantic getaway in Vietnam: a bike tour on which Austin can show Alexis his passion for cycling, and can pay his respects to the place where his father and uncle fought in the war. But then Austin fails to return from a solo ride. Alexis’s boyfriend has vanished, the only clue left behind a bright yellow energy gel dropped on the road.

As Alexis grapples with this bewildering loss, she starts to uncover a series of strange lies that force her to wonder: Where did Austin go? Why did he really bring her to Vietnam? And how much danger has he left her in? Set amidst the adrenaline-fueled world of the emergency room, The Red Lotus is a global thriller about those who dedicate their lives to saving people—and those who peddle death to the highest bidder.

How many times can a rake get it wrong . . . before he becomes Mr. Right?

Philip Thane—rogue, rake and scoundrel extraordinaire—hadn’t wanted to visit some dumpy provincial town to give a speech, but he’d struck a devil’s bargain with old Henrietta Penhallow, the imperious family matriarch. Nor did he expect that once he got there, he’d somehow be living the same day over and over again. It’s strange! It’s terrible!

On the other hand, it is giving him time to cozy up to the delectable, brainy Margaret Allen, in town to research the book she’s writing. Philip is sure she’ll fall starry-eyed into his arms, just as women always do.

But to his amazement Miss Allen stands firm against his wiles, day after day. How can she resist his seductive charm? Why won’t she change her mind? What must he do to win her heart?

Maybe—just maybe—it isn’t Margaret who needs to change, but rather a certain rogue, in love for the first time in his life, who will . . .