When is a debt ever fully paid? Penny and Hattie are sisters in a small town, bound tight to the point of knots. They share a secret they cannot escape, even while it pulls them apart. One night, a match is lit, and Penny’s terrible husband is killed – a marriage going up in flames, and offering the potential of a new life. The sisters retreat into their family home – a house of secrets and memories – and try to live in the shadow of what they put in motion. But Penny’s husband is not the only thing they are hiding, from the outside world and from each other. Under a cloud of long-held resentments, sibling rivalry, and debts unpaid, the bonds of sisterhood begin to crack. How long will Penny and Hattie demand the unthinkable of each other? How often will they say, “You owe me,” and when will it ever be enough?

Nalo Hopkinson--winner of the John W. Campbell Award, the Sunburst Award, and the World Fantasy award (among others), and lauded as one of our "most inventive and brilliant writers" (New York Post)--returns with a new work exploring the relationship between two sisters in this richly textured and deeply moving novel. We'd had to be cut free of our mother's womb. She'd never have been able to push the two-headed sport that was me and Abby out the usual way. Abby and I were fused, you see. Conjoined twins. Abby's head, torso, and left arm protruded from my chest. But here's the real kicker; Abby had the magic, I didn't. Far as the Family was concerned, Abby was one of them, though cursed, as I was, with the tragic flaw of mortality. Now adults, Makeda and Abby still share their childhood home. The surgery to separate the two girls gave Abby a permanent limp, but left Makeda with what feels like an even worse deformity: no mojo. The daughters of a celestial demigod and a human woman, Makeda and Abby were raised by their magical father, the god of growing things--a highly unusual childhood that made them extremely close. Ever since Abby's magical talent began to develop, though, in the form of an unearthly singing voice, the sisters have become increasingly distant. Today, Makeda has decided it's high time to move out and make her own life among the other nonmagical, claypicken humans--after all, she's one of them. In Cheerful Rest, a run-down warehouse space, Makeda finds exactly what she's been looking for: an opportunity to live apart from Abby and begin building her own independent life. There's even a resident band, led by the charismatic (and attractive) building superintendent. But when her father goes missing, Makeda will have to discover her own talent--and reconcile with Abby--if she's to have a hope of saving him . . .

A must-read family drama for fans of The Mother-in-Law! ‘Nail-biting... Vivien carefully constructs this web of intrigue’ People’s Friend

** From the author of Stargazer, one of Cosmopolitan's hottest new beach reads for summer 2022, comes a sharp, disquieting thriller with a devastating twist ** Two sisters. One fire. A secret that won't burn out. The Grayson sisters are trouble. Everyone in their small town knows it. But no-one can know of the secret that binds them together. Hattie is the light. Penny is the darkness. Together, they have balance. But one night the balance is toppled. A match is struck. A fire is started. A cruel husband is killed. The potential for a new life flickers in the fire's embers, but resentment, guilt, and jealousy suffocate like smoke. Their lives have been engulfed in flames - will they ever be able to put them out? Steeped in intrigue and suspense, Sister of Mine is a powerhouse debut perfect for fans of psychological thrillers and domestic suspense such as Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies and Shari Lapena's The Couple Next Door. 'A solid psychological study of the relationship between siblings [...] the tension arises as much from the careful peeling away of the two girls' characters as it does from the mystery itself' - DAILY MAIL 'A twisty, claustrophobic nail-biter' - ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY 'Beautifully written, tense and real' - ANN CLEEVES

Shae-Lynn Penrose drives a cab in a town where no one needs a cab—but plenty of people need rides. A former police officer with a closet full of miniskirts, a recklessly sharp tongue, and a tendency to deal with men by either beating them up or taking them to bed, she has spent years carving out a life for herself and her son in Jolly Mount, Pennsylvania, the tiny coal-mining town where she grew up. Two years ago, five of Shae-Lynn’s miner friends were catapulted to media stardom when they were rescued after surviving four days trapped in a mine. As the men struggle to come to terms with the nightmarish memories of their ordeal, along with the fallout of their short- lived celebrity, Shae-Lynn finds herself facing harsh realities and reliving bad dreams of her own, including her relationship with her brutal father, her conflicted passion for one of the miners, and the hidden identity of the man who fathered her son. When the younger sister she thought was dead arrives on her doorstep, followed closely by a gun-wielding Russian gangster, a shady New York lawyer, and a desperate Connecticut housewife, Shae-Lynn is forced to grapple with the horrible truth she discovers about the life her sister’s been living, and with one ominous question: Will her return result in a monstrous act of greed or one of sacrifice? Tawni O’Dell’s trademark blend of black humor, tenderness, and a keen sense of place is evident once again as Shae-Lynn takes on past demons and all-too-present dangers.

Sherlock meets Veronica Mars meets Ferris Bueller's Day Off in this story of a wisecracking girl who meets a weird but brilliant boy and their roller-coaster of a semester that's one part awkward, three parts thrilling, and five parts awesome. When Philip Digby first shows up on her doorstep, Zoe Webster is not impressed. He's rude and he treats her like a book he's already read and knows the ending to. But before she knows it, Digby—annoying, brilliant and somehow...attractive? Digby—has dragged her into a series of hilarious and dangerous situations all related to an investigation into the kidnapping of a local teenage girl. A kidnapping that may be connected to the tragic disappearance of his own sister eight years ago. When it comes to Digby, Zoe just can't say no. Digby gets her, even though she barely gets herself. But is Digby a hero, or is his manic quest an indication of a desperate attempt to repair his broken family and exercise his own obsessive compulsive tendencies? A romance where the leading man is decidedly unromantic, a crime novel where catching the crook isn't the only hook, a friendship story where they aren't even sure they like each other—this is a contemporary debut with razor-sharp dialogue, ridiculously funny action, and the most charismatic dynamic duo you've ever met.

Full of sentimental and heartwarming writings that characterize the special bond between sisters, Sister of Mine makes a beautiful keepsake for every woman who is a sister. The volume includes letters, poetry, essays, and quotes from a variety of authors.

"Adelaide Mannheim and her slave Rachel share a shameful secret. Adelaide's father, a Jewish planter in Cass County, Georgia, is Rachel's father, too. Adelaide marries neighboring planter Henry Kaltenbach, a Jew deeply troubled by slavery, and watches with a wary eye as her husband treats all of his slaves--including Rachel---with kindness. As the country's conflict over slavery looms ever larger, Henry and Rachel fall in love, and as the United States is rent by the Civil War, the lives of mistress and slave are torn apart. When the war brings destruction and Emancipation, can these two women, made kin by slavery, free themselves of the past to truly become sisters?"--

Grace and Susannah have grown up to be as opposite as sisters can be. Grace is smart, successful, and happily married—but the one thing missing from her seemingly perfect life is the baby she’s unable to conceive. Beautiful Susannah is like a car crash in motion: Always in trouble, she’s been estranged from the family since abandoning her two sons from a disastrous early marriage. When their mother falls suddenly and seriously ill, Grace reluctantly calls Susannah back home. As the two sisters try to repair their relationship, Grace realizes that Susannah might be the answer to her prayers: Her sister is willing to be her surrogate, to give birth to Grace’s longed-for baby. But when Susannah makes a reckless choice that threatens her life and the baby’s, how far will Grace go to save her sister if it means losing the one thing she wants most?

ONE OF PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S BEST NEW BOOKS “A searing and intimate memoir about love turned deadly.” —The BBC “An intimate illumination of sisterhood and loss.” —People When Sheila Kohler was thirty-seven, she received the heart-stopping news that her sister Maxine, only two years older, was killed when her husband drove them off a deserted road in Johannesburg. Stunned by the news, she immediately flew back to the country where she was born, determined to find answers and forced to reckon with his history of violence and the lingering effects of their most unusual childhood—one marked by death and the misguided love of their mother. In her signature spare and incisive prose, Sheila Kohler recounts the lives she and her sister led. Flashing back to their storybook childhood at the family estate, Crossways, Kohler tells of the death of her father when she and Maxine were girls, which led to the family abandoning their house and the girls being raised by their mother, at turns distant and suffocating. We follow them to the cloistered Anglican boarding school where they first learn of separation and later their studies in Rome and Paris where they plan grand lives for themselves—lives that are interrupted when both marry young and discover they have made poor choices. Kohler evokes the bond between sisters and shows how that bond changes but never breaks, even after death. “A beautiful and disturbing memoir of a beloved sister who died at the age of thirty-nine in circumstances that strongly suggest murder. . . . Highly recommended.” —Joyce Carol Oates