A wrenching psychological thriller in the vein of Tana French’s In the Woods, Jon Bassoff’s Beneath Cruel Waters reminds us that the sins of the mothers are the sins of the sons. Holt Davidson, a Kansas firefighter, hasn’t been back to his hometown of Thompsonville, Colorado, for more than two decades, but when he learns that his estranged mother has taken her own life, he returns for the funeral, hoping to make peace with her memory. He spends the night at his childhood home, rummaging through each room, exploring the past. But instead of nostalgic souvenirs, he discovers a gun, a love letter, and a Polaroid photograph of a man lying in his own blood. Who is the dead man? Was his mother the one who killed him, and, if so, why? Who sent the love letter? And what role did his sister, institutionalized since she was a teenager, play in this act of violence? As his own traumatic memories begin to resurface, Holt begins an investigation into his mother’s and sister’s pasts—as well as his own.
Black Swan meets Paranormal Activity in this compelling ghost story about a former dancer whose grip on reality slips when she begins to think a dark entity is stalking her. Something is wrong with Marianne. It's not just that her parents have finally split up. Or that life hasn't been the same since she quit dancing. Or even that her mother has checked herself into the hospital. She's losing time. Doing things she would never do. And objects around her seem to break whenever she comes close. Something is after her. And the only one who seems to believe her is the daughter of a local psychic. But their first attempt at an exorcism calls down the full force of the thing's rage. It demands Marianne give back what she stole. Whatever is haunting her, it wants everything she has—everything it's convinced she stole. Marianne must uncover the truth that lies beneath it all before the nightmare can take what it thinks it's owed, leaving Marianne trapped in the darkness of the other side.
As the only brother in a family of mermaids living in Lake Superior, Calder White is expected to seduce Lily, the daughter of the man believed to have killed the mermaids' mother, but he begins to fall in love with her just as Lily starts to suspect that the legends about the lake are true. Reprint.
A mysterious Iraq war veteran with a horribly scarred face…A disturbed young man in a strange mountain town…A masked preacher with a terrible secret…Amidst a firestorm of violence, betrayal and horror, their three worlds will eventually collide in an old mining shack buried deep in the mountains. Corrosion, the shattering debut novel by Jon Bassoff, is equal parts Jim Thompson, Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner, and an unforgettable journey into the underbelly of crime and passion. Drawn from the darkest corners of the human experience, it is sure to haunt readers for years to come. Praise for CORROSION: “Bassoff confronts directly the traumatic stress disorder of our world today and tears off its mask, even if the face must follow.” —New York Magazine “Corrosion is a beautifully bleak noir novel that stretches the boundaries of the genre to its breaking point. A virtuoso performance by the terrific Jon Bassoff.” —Jason Starr, international bestselling author of The Craving “Like some unholy spawn of Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God and Donald Ray Pollock’s The Devil All the Time, Corrosion offers pungent writing, a cast of irresistibly damaged characters, and a narrative that’s as twisted and audacious as any I have read in a long while. A dark gem.” —Roger Smith, author of Dust Devils “Sharp, original, fierce, a real gut-ripper. Corrosion is one of the most startlingly original and unsettling novels I’ve read in ages. It ramps your pulse, it claws at your sweet spot. Bassoff has a career ahead of him brightly lit by a very bad star.” —Tom Piccirilli, author of the Edgar Award-nominated novel The Cold Spot “Imagine Chuck Palahniuk filtered through Tarantino speak, blended with an acidic Jim Thompson and a book that cries out to be filmed by David Lynch, then you have a flavor of Corrosion. The debut novel from the unique Jon Bassoff begins a whole new genre: Corrosive Noir.” —Ken Bruen, Shamus Award-winning author of The Guards “Jon Bassoff gives new meaning to the phrase ‘Hell on earth’ in his debut novel, Corrosion. It’s a harrowing page-turning tale of lost, misplaced, and mangled identity that barrels its way to breakdowns and showdowns of literal and figurative biblical proportions.” —Lynn Kostoff, author of Late Rain “Jon Bassoff’s stream of conscious novel sports Faulkner-like as this dark tale is told in first person timelines. It will grip and engage and ultimately leave you shaken to the core. Not for the tenderhearted… not no way, not no how. Corrosion is the tale of a man on a mission from God… or is it the Devil? Dare to find out.” —Charlie Stella, author of Johnny Porno “Talk about a book starting one way and then springing something on you…[Bassoff’s Corrosion] is dark and funny and sick, a book as much about identity as it is about crime.” —Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series “Corrosion is a fever dream, a lucid nightmare. It is at once poetic and brutal; hypnotic and vicious; empathetic and heartless. It is the most effective kind of horror—the kind you believe. Reading it is a deeply uncomfortable experience in the best possible way.” —Marcus Sakey, author of The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes “An archetypal, nightmare journey down a hall of mirrors. Corrosion will burn your eyeballs. Keeps you reading relentlessly to the end.” —Jonathan Woods, author of A Death in Mexico
From the multi-award-winning and bestselling author of The Night Watch and Fingersmith comes an astonishing novel about love, loss, and the sometimes unbearable weight of the past. In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to see a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the once grand house is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its garden choked with weeds. All around, the world is changing, and the family is struggling to adjust to a society with new values and rules. Roddie Ayres, who returned from World War II physically and emotionally wounded, is desperate to keep the house and what remains of the estate together for the sake of his mother and his sister, Caroline. Mrs. Ayres is doing her best to hold on to the gracious habits of a gentler era and Caroline seems cheerfully prepared to continue doing the work a team of servants once handled, even if it means having little chance for a life of her own beyond Hundreds. But as Dr. Faraday becomes increasingly entwined in the Ayreses’ lives, signs of a more disturbing nature start to emerge, both within the family and in Hundreds Hall itself. And Faraday begins to wonder if they are all threatened by something more sinister than a dying way of life, something that could subsume them completely. Both a nuanced evocation of 1940s England and the most chill-inducing novel of psychological suspense in years, The Little Stranger confirms Sarah Waters as one of the finest and most exciting novelists writing today.
London, 1871: After ministering to the wretched poor and fallen women of the city, Evelyn suffers a nervous breakdown, and is sent to the hydrotherapy establishment of Wakewater House to recuperate... Over a century later, the imposing building has been renovated into modern apartments, and Kirsten moves in, eager for the restorative calm of the Thames. But her neighbour Manon fills her head with the river's murky past. As Kirsten learns more of Wakewater's secrets, she is haunted by a solitary figure in the river, and becomes ever more desperate to understand what the water wants of her...
The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is America's most significant and authentic contribution to the history of spirituality, says Richard Rohr. He makes a case that the Twelve Steps relate well to Christian teaching and can rescue people who are drowning in addiction and may not even realize it. To survive the tidal wave of compulsive behavior and addiction, Christians must learn to breathe under water and discover God's love and compassion. In this exploration of Twelve Step spirituality, Rohr identifies the Christian principles in the Twelve Steps, connecting The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous with the gospel. He draws on talks he has given for over twenty years to people in recovery and those who counsel and live with people with addictive behavior. Rohr offers encouragement for becoming interiorly alive and inspiration for making one's life manageable for dealing with the codependence and dysfunction (sin) rampant in our society.
In this incendiary debut collection, activist and poet Cicely Belle Blain intimately revisits familiar spaces in geography, in the arts, and in personal history to expose the legacy of colonization and its impact on Black bodies. They use poetry to illuminate their activist work: exposing racism, especially anti-Blackness, and helping people see the connections between history and systemic oppression that show up in every human interaction, space, and community. Their poems demonstrate how the world is both beautiful and cruel, a truth that inspires overwhelming anger and awe -- all of which spills out onto the page to tell the story of a challenging, complex, nuanced, and joyful life. In Burning Sugar, verse and epistolary, racism and resilience, pain and precarity are flawlessly sewn together by the mighty hands of a Black, queer femme. This book is the second title to be published under the VS. Books imprint, a series curated and edited by writer-musician Vivek Shraya, featuring work by new and emerging Indigenous or Black writers, or writers of color. This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. A Simple book with few images, which is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.
Named a best romance of the year by Entertainment Weekly Named a most anticipated romance by Oprah Daily, Marie Claire, BuzzFeed, PopSugar, and more! “There was no romance novel more fun this year than this extremely witty enemies-with-benefits confection.” —Entertainment Weekly The author of the “hilarious...joyful, elegant” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) To Have and to Hoax returns with an effervescent, charming, and swoon-worthy novel about a man and woman who never agree on anything—until they agree to a no-strings-attached affair in this Regency-era romp. The widowed Diana, Lady Templeton and Jeremy, Marquess of Willingham are infamous among English high society as much for their sharp-tongued bickering as their flirtation. One evening, an argument at a ball turns into a serious wager: Jeremy will marry within the year or Diana will forfeit one hundred pounds. So shortly after, just before a fortnight-long house party at Elderwild, Jeremy’s country estate, Diana is shocked when Jeremy appears at her home with a very different kind of proposition. After his latest mistress unfavorably criticized his skills in the bedroom, Jeremy is looking for reassurance, so he has gone to the only woman he trusts to be totally truthful. He suggests that they embark on a brief affair while at the house party—Jeremy can receive an honest critique of his bedroom skills and widowed Diana can use the gossip to signal to other gentlemen that she is interested in taking a lover. Diana thinks taking him up on his counter-proposal can only help her win her wager. With her in the bedroom and Jeremy’s marriage-minded grandmother, the formidable Dowager Marchioness of Willingham, helping to find suitable matches among the eligible ladies at Elderwild, Diana is confident her victory is assured. But while they’re focused on winning wagers, they stand to lose their own hearts. With Martha Waters’s signature “cheeky charm and wonderfully wry wit” (Booklist, starred review), To Love and to Loathe is another clever and delightful historical rom-com that is perfect for fans of Christina Lauren and Evie Dunmore.
Shortly after her brother, Stormy, is convicted of the brutal murder of a classmate, seventeen-year-old Lizzy Greiner is found dead in an abandoned mountain shack, the result of an apparent suicide by fire. Next to Lizzy’s charred body, investigators find several of her journals, safely stored inside a fireproof box. It soon becomes evident that these journals contain a narrative that Lizzy wanted the police to read, the truth that she wanted them to know. Detective Russ Buchanan is tasked with determining the veracity of her narrative, including Lizzy’s belief and obsession that the mysterious and murderous Lantern Man is haunting the mountains near her family’s house. He interviews family members, teachers, and classmates; he studies her psychologist’s extensive case notes. And he learns that Lizzy isn’t the only one who believes in the Lantern Man. After generations of ghost stories, is it possible that the Lantern Man actually does exist, a real-life boogeyman? Did he have something to do with the murder? Or is he simply a figment of Lizzie’s deluded imagination, an attempt to rationalize her brother’s brutality? The further into the investigation he delves, the more Buchanan questions everything he thought he knew about Lizzy’s death and the murder for which her brother was convicted. Eschewing a conventional narrative, The Lantern Man is told through newspaper articles, encyclopedia entries, artwork, police interviews and notes, and, most importantly, a dead girl’s journal. While bearing similarities to House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, Night Film by Marish Pessl, and The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, The Lantern Man stands alone in the genre of contemporary mystery/suspense. It is at once a mystery, a family drama, and a ghost story, the type of novel that is sure to keep you flipping pages deep into the night. Praise for THE LANTERN MAN: “The Lantern Man is an extraordinary novel that defies categorization. With shades of Stephen King, Silence of the Lambs, journalism, and author Jon Bassoff’s own groundbreaking vision of how to use the printed page to give readers the best story possible, The Lantern Man is a landmark novel that will make you wonder, marvel, and remember.” —James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor “The Lantern Man is disorienting in the best sense of the word. Jon Bassoff masterfully blurs the lines between genres—no, scratch that, among genres—by creating a hellish hall of competing mirrors, each holding its own twisted version of the truth. The Lantern Man is a true shape-shifter of a novel. It’s one that will remain with readers long after the last page.” —Lynn Kostoff, author of A Choice of Nightmares and Words to Die For “An engaging and immersive mashup of mystery and horror, Jon Bassoff’s The Lantern Man offers a dizzying world of clues interlacing the disappearances of several girls with the mythology of a local boogeyman. Bassoff weaves a tight and creepy tale through a series of mediums: a girl’s diary, police transcripts, a detective’s notes, newspaper articles, letters, photos, and sketches. The result is an exceptionally creative, compelling, and dark whodunit that will leave its readers, like the Lantern Man himself, hungry for more.” —Carter Wilson, USA Today bestselling author “The Lantern Man is a brilliant—and terrifying—puzzle-box narrative that dares you to keep reading. It's the kind of book that you better cancel any plans you might have before you start.” —Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse “Ever been eyebrows deep in a horrifying investigation? You’re about to be... Part memoir, part case file and completely absorbing, The Lantern Man is a compelling pastiche on the verge of madness.” —Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire mysteries, the basis for the Netflix drama Longmire “A genre-bending novel—an original, captivating mystery that might pave the way we write crime fiction forever.” —Jax Miller, author of Freedom’s Child
