Speaking Bones

"The concluding book of the Dandelion Dynasty begins in the middle of two wars on two landsamong three peoples separated by an ocean yet held together by invisible strnds of love and ideals. Harried by Lyucu pursuers, Princess Thâera and Pâekyu Takval try to reestablish an ancestral dream even as their hearts grow in doubt. The people of Dara continue the struggle against the genocidal Lyucu as bon nations vacillate between starkly contrasting visions for their futures. Even the gods cannot see through the Wall of Storms, for only mortal hearts can decide mortal fates." -- From jacket flap

In this latest blockbuster novel from bestselling author Kathy Reichs, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan investigates what looks to be a typical missing person case, only to find herself digging up bones possibly left by a serial killer, a cult, or perhaps something not entirely of this world. For every case that Temperance Brennan has solved, there remain numerous bodies that remain unidentified in her lab. Information on some of these cold cases is available online, where amateur detectives sometimes take a stab at solving cases. When Tempe gets a call from Hazel “Lucky” Strike, a web sleuth who believes she’s successfully connected a body in Tempe’s lab to a missing eighteen-year-old girl, Tempe writes it off as another false alarm. Still reeling from her mother’s diagnosis and the shock of Andrew Ryan’s potentially life-change proposal, Tempe has little patience for chasing false leads. But when the bones in the lab match the missing girl’s medical records, Tempe re-opens the case, returning to the spot where her remains were originally found. What seems at first to be an isolated tragedy takes on a more sinister cast as Tempe uncovers two more sets of bones nearby. Even more troubling is that the area is known as a viewing point for a famous unexplained light phenomenon, and that a local cult nearby has significant interest in the site. Tempe’s suspicions turn to murder by ritual sacrifice—a theory that gains even more urgency when Hazel herself turns up dead. Struggling to follow the tracks of a killer who will do anything not to be discovered, Tempe races to solve the murders and unravel the mysteries surrounding the site before the body count climbs higher. A suspenseful, modern addition to Temperance Brennan’s ongoing story, Speaking in Bones proves that Kathy’s pulse-pounding Bones series shows no signs of slowing down.

The battle continues in this silkpunk fantasy as science and destiny collide against the will of the gods in this final installment in the epic Dandelion Dynasty series from the “genius” (Elizabeth Bear, Hugo Award­–winning author of the Eternal Sky series) Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award–winning author Ken Liu. The concluding book of The Dandelion Dynasty begins immediately after the events of The Veiled Throne, in the middle of two wars on two lands among three people separated by an ocean yet held together by the invisible strands of love. Harried by Lyucu pursuers, Princess Théra and Pékyu Takval try to reestablish an ancestral dream even as their hearts grow in doubt. The people of Dara continue to struggle against the genocidal Lyucu as both nations vacillate between starkly contrasting visions for their futures. Even the gods cannot see through the Wall of Storms, for only mortal hearts can decide mortal fates. Award-winning author Ken Liu fulfills the covenants first laid out a decade ago in a series delving deep into the connection between national myths and national constitutions in this “magnificent fantasy epic” (NPR).

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From award-winning author Alan Bradley comes the next cozy British mystery starring intrepid young sleuth Flavia de Luce, hailed by USA Today as “one of the most remarkable creations in recent literature.” Eleven-year-old amateur detective and ardent chemist Flavia de Luce is used to digging up clues, whether they’re found among the potions in her laboratory or between the pages of her insufferable sisters’ diaries. What she is not accustomed to is digging up bodies. Upon the five-hundredth anniversary of St. Tancred’s death, the English hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey is busily preparing to open its patron saint’s tomb. Nobody is more excited to peek inside the crypt than Flavia, yet what she finds will halt the proceedings dead in their tracks: the body of Mr. Collicutt, the church organist, his face grotesquely and inexplicably masked. Who held a vendetta against Mr. Collicutt, and why would they hide him in such a sacred resting place? The irrepressible Flavia decides to find out. And what she unearths will prove there’s never such thing as an open-and-shut case. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Alan Bradley’s The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches. Acclaim for Speaking from Among the Bones “[Alan] Bradley scores another success. . . . This series is a grown-up version of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and all those mysteries you fell in love with as a child.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune “The precocious and irrepressible Flavia . . . continues to delight.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Fiendishly brilliant . . . Bradley has created an utterly charming cast of characters . . . as quirky as any British mystery fan could hope for.”—Bookreporter “Delightful and entertaining.”—San Jose Mercury News

With the invasion of Dara complete, and the Wall of Storms breached, the world has opened to new possibilities for the gods and peoples of both empires as the sweeping saga of the award-winning Dandelion Dynasty continues in this third book of the “magnificent fantasy epic” (NPR). Princess Théra, once known as Empress Üna of Dara, entrusted the throne to her younger brother in order to journey to Ukyu-Gondé to war with the Lyucu. She has crossed the fabled Wall of Storms with a fleet of advanced warships and ten thousand people. Beset by adversity, Théra and her most trusted companions attempt to overcome every challenge by doing the most interesting thing. But is not letting the past dictate the present always possible or even desirable? In Dara, the Lyucu leadership as well as the surviving Dandelion Court bristle with rivalries as currents of power surge and ebb and perspectives spin and shift. Here, parents and children, teachers and students, Empress and Pékyu, all nurture the seeds of plans that will take years to bloom. Will tradition yield to new justifications for power? Everywhere, the spirit of innovation dances like dandelion seeds on the wind, and the commoners, the forgotten, the ignored begin to engineer new solutions for a new age. Ken Liu returns to the series that draws from a tradition of the great epics of our history from the Aeneid to the Romance on the Three Kingdoms and builds a new tale unsurpassed in its scope and ambition.

A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life “Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years. Both of Foo’s parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she’d moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD. In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don’t move on from trauma—but you can learn to move with it. Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman’s ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.

Hiding out in the French Quarter of New Orleans only made sense for someone like Skylar Livingston. Owning a voodoo shop was just an added touch for fun. It also helped with her cover, plus gave space to the multitude of ghosts in her family. And her shop was close to the cemeteries, … a very necessary part of her … hobby. Gage Hawkins was tracking his uncle’s last movements before his disappearance hunting a special set of tarot cards which led to Skylar’s shop, Talking Bones. After a bad head injury that brought weird sights into his view, Gage could see this Talking Bones place and Skylar were special. He could only hope she had answers because he had a lot of questions … Skylar preferred the dead to the living most times, but Gage had her reconsidering. Until she realizes something is wrong in his world, and it’s quickly overtaking hers. When Gage’s uncle turns up dead, more than the undead are in Skylar’s world. … A killer is too …