New York Times BestsellerErin Sterling casts a delightful spell with a spine-tingling romance full of wishes, witches, and hexes gone wrong.“A delightful and witty take on witchy mayhem.” — PopsugarNine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths…and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows she shouldn’t use her magic this way, but with only an “orchard hayride” scented candle on hand, she isn’t worried it will cause him anything more than a bad hair day or two.That is until Rhys Penhallow, descendent of the town’s ancestors, breaker of hearts, and annoyingly just as gorgeous as he always was, returns to Graves Glen, Georgia. What should be a quick trip to recharge the town’s ley lines and make an appearance at the annual fall festival turns disastrously wrong. With one calamity after another striking Rhys, Vivi realizes her silly little Ex Hex may not have been so harmless after all.Suddenly, Graves Glen is under attack from murderous wind-up toys, a pissed off ghost, and a talking cat with some interesting things to say. Vivi and Rhys have to ignore their off the charts chemistry to work together to save the town and find a way to break the break-up curse before it’s too late.

The Ex Hex: A Novel

“A powerful family and a deadly game. Be prepared for a nail-biting, roller-coaster of a ride” (B. A. Paris, author of Behind Closed Doors), from the New York Times bestselling author of Something in the Water, Mr. Nobody, and The Disappearing Act . “The Holbecks are what you might come up with if you took the Roys from Succession and blended them with the Murdochs, the Macbeths, and the Borgias. . . . Let the fun begin!”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice). THE RULES1. Listen carefully2. Do your research3. Trust no one4. Run for your life. Harriet Reed, a novelist on the brink of literary stardom, is newly engaged to Edward Holbeck, the heir of an extremely powerful family. And even though Edward has long tried to severe ties with them, news of the couple’s upcoming marital bliss has the Holbecks inching back into their lives.. As Harriet is drawn into their lavish world, the family seems perfectly welcoming. So when Edward’s father, Robert, hands Harriet a tape of a book he’s been working on, she is desperate to listen.. But as she presses play, it’s clear that this isn’t just a novel. It’s a confession.. A confession to a grisly crime. A murder. And, suddenly, the game is in motion.. Feeling isolated and confused, Harriet must work out if this is part of a plan to test her loyalty or something far darker. What is it that Robert sees in her? Why give her the power to destroy everything?. This might be a game to the Holbeck family—but losing could still prove deadly. READY OR NOT, HERE THEY COME . . .

The Family Game: A Novel

An NPR Best Book of 2023 A collection of nineteen dark, wildly imaginative short stories from the author of the award-winning TikTok sensation Tender Is the Flesh.. From celebrated author Agustina Bazterrica, this collection of nineteen brutal, darkly funny short stories takes into our deepest fears and through our most disturbing fantasies. Through stories about violence, alienation, and dystopia, Bazterrica’s vision of the human experience emerges in complex, unexpected ways—often unsettling, sometimes thrilling, and always profound. In “Roberto,” a girl claims to have a rabbit between her legs. A woman’s neighbor jumps to his death in “A Light, Swift, and Monstrous Sound,” and in “Candy Pink,” a woman fails to contend with a difficult breakup in five easy steps. Written in Bazterrica’s signature clever, vivid style, these stories question love, friendship, family relationships, and unspeakable desires.

Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of Dark Matter and the Wayward Pines trilogy comes a relentless thriller about time, identity, and memory—his most mind-boggling, irresistible work to date, and the inspiration for Shondaland’s upcoming Netflix film.. “Gloriously twisting . . . a heady campfire tale of a novel.”—The New York Times Book Review. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • NPR • BookRiotReality is broken. At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery—and what’s in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself. In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth—and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery . . . and the tools for fighting back. Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront their enemy—before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos.Praise for Recursion. “An action-packed, brilliantly unique ride that had me up late and shirking responsibilities until I had devoured the last page . . . a fantastic read.”—Andy Weir, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Martian. “Another profound science-fiction thriller. Crouch masterfully blends science and intrigue into the experience of what it means to be deeply human.”—Newsweek. “Definitely not one to forget when you’re packing for vacation . . . [Crouch] breathes fresh life into matters with a mix of heart, intelligence, and philosophical musings.”—Entertainment Weekly. “A trippy journey down memory lane . . . [Crouch’s] intelligence is an able match for the challenge he’s set of overcoming the structure of time itself.”—Time. “Wildly entertaining . . . another winning novel from an author at the top of his game.”—AV Club

Recursion: A Novel

I'm a Fan

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. JIMMY FALLON SUMMER READS WINNER. ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE READS OF SUMMER 2024. “The God of the Woods should be your next summer mystery.” —The Washington Post. “Extraordinary . . . Reminds me of Donna Tartt’s 1992 debut, The Secret History . . . I was so thoroughly submerged in a rich fictional world, that for hours I barely came up for air.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR. “Riveting from page one to the last breathless word.” —Rebecca Makkai, New York Times bestselling author of I Have Some Questions For You. When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide. Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.

The God of the Woods: A Novel

In this suspenseful and darkly funny debut novel, a sophisticated French woman spends her life obsessing over her perfect husband—but can their marriage survive her passionate love?A Belletrist Book Club Pick • An Amazon UK Best Book of the Year • Winner of France’s First Novel Prize • Named a Best Book of the Summer by Vogue • theSkimm • Oprah Daily • The MillionsAt forty years old, she has an enviable life: a successful career, stunning looks, a beautiful house in the suburbs, two healthy children, and most importantly, an ideal husband, whose wealthy background allows her to transcend her own social class. After fifteen years together, she is still besotted with him. But she’s never quite sure that her passion is reciprocated.Determined to keep their relationship perfect, she meticulously prepares for every encounter they have, always taking care to make her actions seem effortless. She watches him attentively, testing him to make sure that he still loves her just as much as he did when they first met.Until one day she realizes she may have gone too far . . .“Fans of Caroline Kepnes’ You or Gillian Flynn will find My Husband to be a new, satisfying, and unnerving take on the relationship-suspense genre.” —Booklist (starred review)

My Husband: A Novel

“Much like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, M. L. Rio’s sparkling debut is a richly layered story of love, friendship, and obsession...will keep you riveted through its final, electrifying moments.”―Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of The Nest"Nerdily (and winningly) in love with Shakespeare…Readable, smart.”―New York Times Book Review. On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the man who put him there is waiting at the door. Detective Colborne wants to know the truth, and after ten years, Oliver is finally ready to tell it.. A decade ago: Oliver is one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extras. . But in their fourth and final year, good-natured rivalries turn ugly, and on opening night real violence invades the students’ world of make-believe. In the morning, the fourth-years find themselves facing their very own tragedy, and their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, each other, and themselves that they are innocent. . If We Were Villains was named one of Bustle's Best Thriller Novels of the Year, and Mystery Scene says, "A well-written and gripping ode to the stage...A fascinating, unorthodox take on rivalry, friendship, and truth."

If We Were Villains: A Novel

A revolutionary memoir about domestic abuse by the award-winning author of Her Body and Other Parties. In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.. And it’s that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope―the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman―through which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships.. Machado’s dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek, and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction. The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be.

In the Dream House: A Memoir

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “[An] exceedingly complex, inventive, resourceful examination of harm and power.” —The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice“A lightning rod . . . brilliantly crafted.”—The Washington PostA most anticipated book by The New York Times • USA Today • Entertainment Weekly • Marie Claire • Elle • Harper's Bazaar • Bustle • Newsweek • New York Post • Esquire •  Real Simple • The Sunday Times • The Guardian Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer.2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher. 2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed?Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.

My Dark Vanessa: A Novel

Soon to be a major motion picture. "Jon Swift + Witches of Eastwick + Kelly 'Get In Trouble' Link + Mean Girls + Creative Writing Degree Hell! No punches pulled, no hilarities dodged, no meme unmangled! O Bunny you are sooo genius!" —Margaret Atwood, via Twitter. "A wild, audacious and ultimately unforgettable novel." —Michael Schaub, Los Angeles Times . "Awad is a stone-cold genius." —Ann Bauer, The Washington PostThe Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel from the acclaimed author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl.. "We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?". Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one. . But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision. . The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.. Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Vogue, Electric Literature, and The New York Public Library

Bunny: A Novel

Ursula K. LeGuin meets The Road in a post-apocalyptic modern classic of female friendship and intimacy.Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.

I Who Have Never Known Men

The Book Was Better

**Consideration** means reviewing manuscripts and deciding which book we want to publish. At the end of this phase, we offer an author a book deal.

Consideration

**Editorial** has several phases, which occur on a parallel track with early cover designs.

Editorial

**Design** includes the cover process and interior layout, as well as format decisions like paper stocks and special treatments.

Design

**Printing** means the final files are at the printer and we’re reviewing color proofs and early off copies hot off the press.

Printing

**Published** is when the book releases into the world! Go give it some love.

Published

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Kayla

Kayla Shea (also known as the reader behind The Book Was Better) has been flipping pages and stealing hearts since she was a little kid growing up on the east coast. Today she loves sharing all things Bookish to her global audience of readers, and on any given day, you might just find her at her cabin in the woods fawning over a mesmerizing thriller mystery novel. 

Kayla Shea is one of today’s most tenacious readers and reviewers of all things Bookish! 