Winner of the 2021 Edgar Award – G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award Finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards An NPR Best Book of the Year "Gripping, subtle, magnificently written." —The New York Times Book Review "A delectable page-turner . . . Vera Kelly introduces a fascinating new spy to literature’s mystery canon—one we hope sticks around long beyond this snappy, intimate debut." —Entertainment Weekly New York City, 1962. Vera Kelly is struggling to make rent and blend into the underground gay scene in Greenwich Village. She's working night shifts at a radio station when her quick wits, sharp tongue, and technical skills get her noticed by a recruiter for the CIA. Next thing she knows she's in Argentina, tasked with wiretapping a congressman and infiltrating a group of student activists in Buenos Aires. As Vera becomes more and more enmeshed with the young radicals, the fragile local government begins to split at the seams. When a betrayal leaves her stranded in the wake of a coup, Vera learns the Cold War makes for strange and unexpected bedfellows, and she's forced to take extreme measures to save herself. An exhilarating page-turner and perceptive coming-of-age story, Who Is Vera Kelly? introduces an original, wry, and whip-smart female spy for the twenty-first century.

Edgar Award Nominee for Best First Novel Named a New York Times Best Thriller of 2021 "I devoured this riveting book through a day of travel...My desire to rush to the end clashed with my desire to savor every word. Who would be the last psychopath standing?” — New York Times Book Review "Fresh, fast-paced and fiendishly clever! If you love watching true crime and wonder about the psychopaths among us, this is the book for you!" — Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author You should never trust a psychopath. But what if you had no choice? It would be easy to underestimate Chloe Sevre… She’s a freshman honor student, a legging-wearing hot girl next door, who also happens to be a psychopath. She spends her time on yogalates, frat parties and plotting to kill Will Bachman, a childhood friend who grievously wronged her. Chloe is one of seven students at her DC-based college who are part of an unusual clinical study of psychopaths—students like herself who lack empathy and can’t comprehend emotions like fear or guilt. The study, led by a renowned psychologist, requires them to wear smart watches that track their moods and movements. When one of the students in the study is found murdered in the psychology building, a dangerous game of cat and mouse begins, and Chloe goes from hunter to prey. As she races to identify the killer and put her own plan for revenge into action, she’ll be forced to decide if she can trust any of her fellow psychopaths—and everybody knows you should never trust a psychopath.

Home tells the story of a man who falls in love with a small town’s haunted house. Twice-divorced and enjoying his trucking job, Richard Trent purchases the seven-bedroom Marstead place despite the barely concealed fear expressed by the locals. Resistant to ghost stories and eyeing one of the local diner’s attractive owners, Richard brushes off the rumors and moves in. But when the curtains in the window of the sealedoff attic moves without anyone there, dirty clothes get laundered, and meager furniture gets moved around, everything Richard has ever heard about his house are all gaining confirmation. Is his new house truly haunted and will his invisible housemates take serious offense at his presence? “I write like I talk. That would explain some of the statements that don’t make sense,” Dunton states in his opening note. Supplied with a generous helping of quick-wit humor threaded into an engaging narrative, Home will give the creeps even as it will amuse.

Have you ever wanted ... •To create unforgettable characters? The kind readers talk about well after the book is finished? •Your characters to jump off the page and tell you what they like and dislike? •To make your characters multi-dimensional, complicated, deeper, and larger than life? •Create compelling quirks, flaws, and internal conflicts to differentiate your characters? •To keep your story from being predictable by having your character surprise you and your reader? •To hear readers tell you they walked with your characters, lived, loved, and felt every emotion your character experienced? •To have an ongoing relationship with your characters so you can keep them consistent if writing a series? 366 Ways to Know Your Character is the right workbook for you. Whether you’re developing your character before writing, or working it out as you’re writing, answering the daily questions can stimulate your characters to surprise and shock you as well as take your story in directions you might not have expected. Each question is designed to draw you deeper into your character’s psyche. It doesn’t matter whether the answer jumps out at you or that you must painfully dig it out. Either way, you will win new insights into your characters until they feel and act like real people. Answer the daily questions and revolutionize your writing with living, breathing characters you and your readers will remember long after the dust settles on "The End." Use this book with the companion Romance In A Month: Guide to Writing a Romance in 30 Days. --- Other Writing Books by Rachelle Ayala - Dangerous Love: Writing Romantic Suspense - Writing Asian Romance Characters - Love Stories: Writing a Romance Novella - Romance In A Month

Jake Branigan is the pastor’s kid, and everyone thinks they know him. What they don’t know is how tired he is of his boring, normal, predictable, respectable life. Even living in an apartment with friends Stephen and Matt doesn’t help with the feeling that he’s missing something. However, Jake’s dad is about to misstep, and the pastor’s kid has to figure out what to do once his dad is no longer a pastor. Follow Jake on a journey of discovery as he deals with work, friends, girls, and a new quest for purpose once his old world is stripped away. From an old man to an old house to a possum skeleton, God has a lot of lessons to throw at Jake to teach him about his real identity. Knowing Jake is book nine in the Boys of Summer series, Christian romance and drama for teens and the young at heart.

Faithfully helping her married sister on the family farm, Vera sees childhood friends fall in love and marry. But no one shows any interest in Vera - no one, that is, until that dashing Bryon Gates arrives in their small town to visit his friend Clarence. Tales of Byron's past flirtations and love of gambling soon circulate, but while other questions his motives, Vera trusts that his interest in her is sincere and that his resolve to follow God and change his ways is firm. But when unsavory characters confront Byron, demanding payment for debts he never incurred, Vera's life is threatened. Will Byron's past end any hopes for his and Vera's future, or will Vera finally gain her turn for love?

A marvelous collection from "the greatest living writer of short stories in the English language" (The New Yorker). Four-time winner of the O. Henry Prize, three-time winner of the Whitbread Prize, and five-time finalist for the Man Booker Prize, William Trevor is one of the most acclaimed authors of our time. Over a career spanning more than half a century, Trevor has crafted exquisitely rendered tales that brilliantly illuminate the human condition. Bringing together forty-eight stories from After Rain, The Hill Bachelors, A Bit on the Side, and Cheating at Canasta, this second volume of Trevor's collected fiction offers readers "treasures of gorgeous writing, brilliant dialogue, and unforgettable lives" (The New York Times Book Review).

Winner of the 2021 Edgar Award – G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award Finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards The “splendid genre-pushing” (People) Vera Kelly series returns in full force as our recently out-of-the-spy-game heroine finds herself traveling from Brooklyn to a sprawling countryside estate in the Caribbean in her first case as a private investigator. When ex-CIA agent Vera Kelly loses her job and her girlfriend in a single day, she reluctantly goes into business as a private detective. Heartbroken and cash-strapped, she takes a case that dredges up dark memories and attracts dangerous characters from across the Cold War landscape. Before it’s over, she’ll chase a lost child through foster care and follow a trail of Dominican exiles to the Caribbean. Forever looking over her shoulder, she nearly misses what’s right in front of her: her own desire for home, connection, and a new romance at the local bar. In this exciting second installment of the Vera Kelly series, Rosalie Knecht challenges and deepens the Vera we love: a woman of sparkling wit, deep moral fiber, and martini-dry humor who knows how to follow a case even as she struggles to follow her heart.

Combining the classic charms of Agatha Christie with the delightful humor of M. C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin novels, Mark Reutlinger's Mrs. Kaplan mystery series returns as a notorious crank meets an untimely fate. Yom Kippur is a day of reflection and soul searching. But at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors, Vera Gold misses this opportunity to atone for her many sins when she up and dies. Indeed, Vera was such a pain in the tuchis to all those around her that when her sister claims Vera was deliberately poisoned, the tough question isn't who would want to kill her—but who wouldn't?