No One Home

On Halloween night, the residents of Black Gale gather for a dinner party. As the only nine people living there, they've become close friends as well as neighbours. They eat, drink and laugh. They play games and take photographs. Except those photographs will be the last record of any of them. By the next morning, the whole village has vanished. With no bodies, no evidence and no clues, the mystery of what happened at Black Gale remains unsolved two and a half years on. But then the families of the missing turn to investigator David Raker - and their obsession becomes his. What secrets were the neighbours keeping from their families - and from each other? Were they really everything they seemed? And is Raker looking for nine missing people - or nine dead bodies?

For fans of The Haunting of Hill House comes a dark tale of a mansion haunted by a legacy of tragedy and a family trapped by lies. Margot and Myron Spielman move to a new town, looking for a fresh start and an escape from the long shadow of their past. But soon after they buy Rawlingswood, a foreclosed mansion rumored to be haunted, they realize they're in for more of the same...or worse. After a renovation fraught with injuries and setbacks, the Spielmans move in to the century-old house, and their problems quickly escalate. The home's beautiful facade begins to crumble around them when their teenage son uncovers disturbing details of Rawlingswood's history--a history of murder, betrayal, and financial ruin. The Spielmans' own shameful secrets and lies become harder to hide as someone or something inside the house watches their every move. As tensions build between the family members, the home's dark history threatens to repeat itself. Margot and Myron must confront their own ghosts and Rawlingswood's buried past before the house becomes their undoing.

"Readers will be captivated by this beautifully written novel about young people who must use their instincts and grit to survive. Padma shares with us an unflinching peek into the reality millions of homeless children live every day but also infuses her story with hope and bravery that will inspire readers and stay with them long after turning the final page."--Aisha Saeed, author of the New York Times Bestselling Amal Unbound Cover may vary. Four determined homeless children make a life for themselves in Padma Venkatraman's stirring middle-grade debut. Life is harsh in Chennai's teeming streets, so when runaway sisters Viji and Rukku arrive, their prospects look grim. Very quickly, eleven-year-old Viji discovers how vulnerable they are in this uncaring, dangerous world. Fortunately, the girls find shelter--and friendship--on an abandoned bridge. With two homeless boys, Muthi and Arul, the group forms a family of sorts. And while making a living scavenging the city's trash heaps is the pits, the kids find plenty to laugh about and take pride in too. After all, they are now the bosses of themselves and no longer dependent on untrustworthy adults. But when illness strikes, Viji must decide whether to risk seeking help from strangers or to keep holding on to their fragile, hard-fought freedom.

This is an ethnographic study, based on fieldwork and extensive personal interviews, of Brazilians of Japanese descent who have migrated to Japan in response to the government's call for ethnically acceptable unskilled workers. These people of Toyota City are among 200,000 Brazilians of Japanese descent who live in Japan today, forming Japan's third-largest minority group.

*THE INAUGURAL SARAH JESSICA PARKER PICK FOR BOOK CLUB CENTRAL* CHOSEN AS A 2017 BEST SUMMER READ PICK BY The Wall Street Journal • The Washington Post • The Seattle Times NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2017 BY Entertainment Weekly • Nylon • Elle • Redbook • W Magazine • The Chicago Review of Books JJ Ferguson has returned home to Pinewood, North Carolina, to build his dream house and to pursue his high school sweetheart, Ava. But as he reenters his former world, where factories are in decline and the legacy of Jim Crow is still felt, he’s startled to find that the people he once knew and loved have changed just as much as he has. Ava is now married and desperate for a baby, though she can’t seem to carry one to term. Her husband, Henry, has grown distant, frustrated by the demise of the furniture industry, which has outsourced to China and stripped the area of jobs. Ava’s mother, Sylvia, caters to and meddles with the lives of those around her, trying to fill the void left by her absent son. And Don, Sylvia’s unworthy but charming husband, just won’t stop hanging around. JJ’s return—and his plans to build a huge mansion overlooking Pinewood and woo Ava—not only unsettles their family, but stirs up the entire town. The ostentatious wealth that JJ has attained forces everyone to consider the cards they’ve been dealt, what more they want and deserve, and how they might go about getting it. Can they reorient their lives to align with their wishes rather than their current realities? Or are they all already resigned to the rhythms of the particular lives they lead? No One Is Coming to Save Us is a revelatory debut from an insightful voice: with echoes of The Great Gatsby it is an arresting and powerful novel about an extended African American family and their colliding visions of the American Dream. In evocative prose, Stephanie Powell Watts has crafted a full and stunning portrait that combines a universally resonant story with an intimate glimpse into the hearts of one family.

In her long career, Ugresic has published several novels (e.g., The Ministry of Pain), but she made her name with her essay collections, which have caused controversy and earned her the admiration of writers and critics abroad. In these latest musings, written over the course of several years, Ugresic leaves no stone unturned and no thought contained, doing what she does best: writing about the human condition through her own experience. Refusing to establish a central theme, she touches upon a wide range of topics: the paradox of multiculturalism, metaphors as our "defense against nightmares," the eerie similarities between capitalism and communism, and ways in which we try to rise hopelessly above our less-than-perfect existence. Along the way, she pays homage to the works of literature that have influenced her own creative process, in an effort to pay "a symbolic literary tax on narcissim" because "writing is not the humblest of vocations." Perhaps not, but Ugresic certainly knows how to balance being a critic with being criticized. Recommended for all libraries collecting cultural criticism.--Mirela Roncevic, Library Journal Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

For Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive. Everyone tells him it’s time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible–that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive. Beck has been warned to tell no one. And he doesn’t. Instead, he runs from the people he trusts the most, plunging headlong into a search for the shadowy figure whose messages hold out a desperate hope. But already Beck is being hunted down. He’s headed straight into the heart of a dark and deadly secret–and someone intends to stop him before he gets there.

An instant NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY BESTSELLER! "I was knocked over by the momentum of an intense psychological thriller that doesn’t let go until the final page. This is a terrific read." – Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author *Marie Claire's September Book Club Pick* Rear Window meets Get Out in this gripping thriller from a critically acclaimed and New York Times Notable author, in which the gentrification of a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on a sinister new meaning… Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block—her neighbor Theo. But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised. When does coincidence become conspiracy? Where do people go when gentrification pushes them out? Can Sydney and Theo trust each other—or themselves—long enough to find out before they too disappear? Featured in Parade, Essence, Bustle, Popsugar, Elle, Shondaland, Marie Claire, Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, Good Housekeeping, Brit + Co, Real Simple, Lit Hub, Crime Reads, Blavity, Ms. Magazine, Hello Giggles, The New York Times, Town & Country, Newsweek, New York Post, Refinery29, Woman's World, Washington Post, the Skimm, Book Riot, Bookish, Huffington Post, and more!