In A Jewish Mother from Berlin, Martha Jadassohn's seemingly conventional life plunges into chaos after a brutal attack on her only child. As Martha assumes the self-imposed mission of combing Berlin for the man who raped five-year-old Ursa, she encounters Berlin's staid and seamy sides - a world peopled with working-class weekend gardeners, middle-class cultural snobs, transvestites, a former Spanish dancer turned hostess with a secret, and a Jewish lawyer who clings rigidly to the rule of law. During her harrowing quest, Martha becomes obsessed with a handsome, shallow "Aryan" type in a relationship that intensifies her solitude and alienation. Kolmar peels away the layers of Martha's outward restraint to bare the soul of a woman slowly shattered by a callous society in which Jews are outcasts and women preyed upon. Another heroine on a quest for love and self-expression propels the lyrical novella Susanna, a finely wrought psychological portrait of an outsider. The ethereally beautiful Susanna sets out on a tragic search for her lost lover, only to find herself floundering in a world where everyone's perceptions clash with her own.

In 2005, celebrated novelist Francisco Goldman married a beautiful young writer named Aura Estrada in a romantic Mexican hacienda. The month before their second anniversary, during a long-awaited holiday, Aura broke her neck while body surfing. Francisco, blamed for Aura's death by her family and blaming himself, wanted to die, too. Instead, he wrote Say Her Name , a novel chronicling his great love and unspeakable loss, tracking the stages of grief when pure love gives way to bottomless pain. Suddenly a widower, Goldman collects everything he can about his wife, hungry to keep Aura alive with every memory. From her childhood and university days in Mexico City with her fiercely devoted mother to her studies at Columbia University, through their newlywed years in New York City and travels to Mexico and Europe--and always through the prism of her gifted writings--Goldman seeks her essence and grieves her loss. Humor leavens the pain as he lives through the madness of grief and creates a living portrait of a love as joyous as it is deep and profound. Say Her Name is a love story, a bold inquiry into destiny and accountability, and a tribute to Aura, who she was and who she would've been.

When twelve-year-old Arcady is sent to a children's home after his parents are declared enemies of the state in Soviet Russia, soccer becomes a way to secure extra rations, respect, and protection but it may also be his way out if he can believe in and love another person--and himself.

.Tracee is a runaway bride and kleptomaniac. Lana's an audacious beauty and a recovering alcoholic. Rita is a holy-roller minister's wife, desperate to escape her marriage and discover whether she actually has a mind of her own. One warm summer's night, these three women go on the lam together. Their car breaks down on a rural highway in North Carolina and they're forced to seek shelter in a seemingly abandoned nightclub. Which is where they meet Marcel. And soon everything changes. Marcel, you see, is a lion, a retired circus performer stuck in a cage in this godforsaken roadhouse. And through admiration - one might even say love - for Marcel, our heroines find a way to confront their complicated pasts and fight for the strange, embracing relationships they've formed out in the middle of nowhere. They ultimately navigate their way back to their own hearts - and ours. Written with the deftness, humor, and sparkling wit that have marked her books, plays, and movies, Delia Ephron's The Lion Is In is an unforgettable story of friendship, courage, love - and learning to salsa with the king of the jungle.

Yearning for a life of the mind, Ruth Puttermesser finds herself mired in the lowest circles of city bureaucracy. Her love life hopeless, her fantasies more influential than wan reality, she nevertheless turns out to be the best mayor New York City has ever elected. Soon enough, though, paradise gained becomes paradise lost, and--even for a wistful visionary like Puttermesser--the problem of disappointment remains unresolved.

Bestselling author Ben Elton delivers a heart-stopping thriller and a killer comic romance. With old friends like these, who needs enemies? It's a question, short, mild mannered detective Edward Newson is forced to ask himself having, in romantic desperation, logged on to the Friends Reunited website searching for the girlfriends of his youth. Newson is not the only member of the Class of '86 who has been raking over the ashes of the past. As his old class begins to reassemble in cyberspace, the years slip away and old feuds and passions burn hot once more. Meanwhile, back in the present, Newson's life is no less complicated. He is secretly in love with Natasha, his lovely but very attached sergeant, while comprehensively failing to solve a series of baffling and peculiarly gruesome murders. A school reunion is planned and as history begins to repeat itself, the past crashes headlong into the present. Neither will ever be the same again. "From the Trade Paperback edition.

In The Winter Vault, award-winning poet and novelist Anne Michaels crafts a love story of extraordinary depth and complexity, juxtaposing historic dislocations with the most intimate moments of individual lives. In 1964, a newly married Canadian couple settles into a Nile River houseboat moored below the towering figures of Abu Simbel. Avery is one of the engineers responsible for moving the temple above the rapidly rising waters of the Aswan Dam. At the edge of a world about to be lost forever, Avery and and his new wife Jean begin to create their own world. But it will not be enough to bind them when tragedy strikes and they go back to separate lives in Toronto. There Jean meets Lucjan, a Polish artist whose haunting stories of his shattered childhood in occupied Warsaw draw her further away from Avery. But, in time, he will also show her the way back to consolation and forgiveness.

Do you love the sound of a peg leg stomping across a quarterdeck? Or maybe you prefer a parrot on your arm, a strong wind at your back? Adventure, treasure, intrigue, humor, romance, danger — and, yes, plunder! Oh, the Devil does love a pirate — and so do readers everywhere! Swashbuckling from the past into the future and space itself, Fast Ships, Black Sails, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, presents an incredibly entertaining volume of original stories guaranteed to make you walk and talk like a pirate. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

In the tradition of Ready Player One and The Matrix, New York Times bestseller Andrew Klavan's MindWar is a complex thriller about a seemingly ordinary teenager who discovers a hidden gift--a gift that could make him a hero . . . or cost him everything. New High Score! New Record Time! Rick nodded with grim satisfaction. He laid the game controller aside on the sofa and reached for his crutches. Rick Dial was the best quarterback Putnam Hills High School had ever seen. Unflappable. Unstoppable. Number 12. But when a car accident left him crippled, Rick's life as he knew it ended. He disavowed his triumphant past. He ignored his girlfriend. He disappeared into his bedroom--and into the glowing video screen. But Rick's uncanny gaming skills have attracted attention. Dangerous attention. Government agents have uncovered a potentially devastating cyber-threat: a Russian genius has created a digital reality called the Realm, from which he can enter, control, and disrupt American computer systems . . . from transportation to defense. The agents want Rick, quick-thinking quarterback and gaming master, to enter the Realm and stop the madman--before he sends America into chaos. Entering the Realm will give Rick what he thought he'd never have again: a body as strong and fast as it was before the accident. But this is no game, there are no extra lives, and what happens to Rick in the Realm happens to Rick's body in reality. Even after Rick agrees to help, he can't shake the sense that he's being kept in the dark. Why would a government agency act so aggressively? Can anyone inside the Realm be trusted? How many others have entered before him . . . and failed to return? "Edgar Award-winning Klavan's well-orchestrated fantasy thriller features . . . an imaginative mix of gaming action with real-life stakes. With just the right cliff-hanger ending, this trilogy opener shows promise." --Booklist Readers love MindWar's creative worldbuilding, high-stakes virtual reality battleground, relatable protagonist, and themes of morality, inner strength, redemption after personal failure, and good vs. evil.

"From the bestselling master espionage writer, hailed by Vince Flynn as "the best in the business," comes a riveting novel about the French Resistance in Nazi-occupied Paris. Paris, 1941. The City of Light, occupied by the Nazis, is dark and silent at night. Streetlamps are painted blue and apartment windows draped or shuttered in the blackout ordered by the Germans. But when the clouds part, the silvery moonlight defies authority, and so does a leader of the French Resistance, known as Mathieu. In Paris and in the farmhouses, barns, and churches of the French countryside, small groups of ordinary men and women are determined to take down the occupying forces of Adolf Hitler. Mathieu leads one such Resistance cell, helping downed British airmen escape back to England. This suspenseful, fast-paced thriller by the author whom Vince Flynn calls "the most talented espionage novelist of our generation" captures this dangerous time as no one ever has before. Alan Furst brings Paris and occupied France to life, along with courageous citizens who outmaneuver collaborators, informers, blackmailers, and spies, risking everything to fulfill perilous clandestine missions. Aiding Mathieu as part of his covert network are Lisette, a seventeen-year-old student and courier; Max de Lyon, an arms dealer turned nightclub owner; Chantal, a woman of class and confidence; Daniel, a Jewish teacher fueled by revenge; Joëlle, who falls in love with Mathieu; and Annemarie, a willful aristocrat with deep roots in France, and a desire to act. As the German military police heighten surveillance, Mathieu and his team face a new threat, dispatched by the Reich to destroy them all. Shot through with the author's trademark fine writing, breathtaking suspense, and intense scenes of seduction and passion, Alan Furst's A Hero of France is at once one of the finest novels written about the French Resistance and the most gripping novel yet by the living master of the spy thriller. Praise for Alan Furst "Furst never stops astounding me."--Tom Hanks "Suspenseful and sophisticated. No espionage author, it seems, is better at summoning the shifting moods and emotional atmosphere of Europe before the start of World War II than Alan Furst."--The Wall Street Journal "Though set in a specific place and time, Furst's books are like Chopin's nocturnes: timeless, transcendent, universal. One does not so much read them as fall under their spell."--Los Angeles Times "[Furst] remains at the top of his game."--The New York Times "A grandmaster of the historical espionage genre."--The Boston Globe"--

After the publication of her best-selling book To Begin Again, Naomi Levy received a flood of feedback from readers telling her how much the prayers in it had helped and moved them. Many urged her to publish a collection of her prayers—and now she has. In a time when we all need inspiration, comfort, and connection, Talking to God will help us reclaim prayer as an integral part of our lives, making it as natural and uninhibited as talking to our loved ones. Prayer is essential to the lives of millions, but many of us are searching for ways to supplement traditional prayers with ones that are less formal and more intimate. Written in a simple and direct style, the prayers in this book—and the wonderful stories that accompany them—are for people of all faiths, and for all occasions large and small. Naomi Levy’s personal prayers address the anxieties and roadblocks we all face in contemporary life. There are prayers for facing a new day, realizing one’s potential at work, celebrating an anniversary or birthday, and going to sleep at night. And there are prayers for the more profound occurrences in life—love and marriage, pregnancy and childbirth, illness, loss, and death. Rabbi Levy’s words, imbued with grace and empathy, touch on the entire range of human experience. Many of us will recognize ourselves in her prayers and stories and will be comforted by them, as well as challenged and uplifted. Perhaps most important, they are stepping-stones for us to go on and create our own prayers, to find meaning in our own lives, and to begin or renew our own relationships with God. From the Hardcover edition.

A teacher at a girls' school in Edinburgh, Scotland, Miss Jean Brodie was a woman of ideas, wit, and charm who had a lover. The students she chose as her special friends were called the "Brodie set." One of them would betray her.

"In July 1913, twenty-five-year-old Annie Clements had seen enough of the world to know that it was unfair. She's spent her whole life in the coal-mining town of Calumet, Michigan where men risk their lives for meager salaries--and had barely enough to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. The women labor in the houses of the elite, and send their husbands and sons deep underground each day, dreading the fateful call of the company man telling them their loved ones aren't coming home. When Annie decides to stand up for herself, and the entire town of Calumet, nearly everyone believes she may have taken on more than she is prepared to handle"--

Sally Farber has everything a 40-year-old New Yorker could want: a loving doctor husband; two healthy, adorable daughters; great friends; and a charming book editor who used to be her lover and still calls her Cookie. Sally's fourth book is The History of Happiness, and there's the rub. The deeper she digs, the more elusive a definition of happiness becomes, and the more bedeviled she is by the guilty certainty that she isn't as happy as she should be.

A story of family... the Osbornes -- two sisters and a brother -- united by family ties but split apart by different dreams. Lara, the happy young wife, longs for the family that will make her life whole. Connie, wild and lovely, is more like her brother Eddy -- bright, ambitious, and ready to seize all that life has to offer. A story of choices... Connie is looking for wealth -- to make or to marry. Lara, staying behind in a small Ohio town, finds everything she cherishes threatened by fate and by her own blind commitment. And Eddy, as Wall Street's "wonder boy," can make millions... if he ruthlessly uses his family and friends. A story of marriages... Lara's held together by devotion, Connie's shattered by infidelity and betrayal, and Eddy's rocked by shame and prison. Torn by conflicting loyalties, they are a family caught in the tides of scandal... and swept toward a fate where dreams may end or be born again...

From the beloved author of fifteen bestsellers comes a stirring story of a deception that reaches across continents, oceans, and years. A prosperous family in Berlin cannot see what the future holds when they adopt an orphaned girl, Lore, instantly an older sister to their biological daughter, Caroline. As the story opens, it is 1939, and Caroline and Lore are young women, living amid the madness engulfing Europe. As their parents disappear into this madness, the two girls flee to Switzerland. What happens next will change both of their lives forever as a single act of duplicity reverberates through three generations even as they grasp for new hope and happiness in America. A story of family and lovers, betrayals real and imagined, Legacy of Silence will captivate readers from beginning to end. Belva Plain has crafted a remarkable tale, spanning the decades from the eve of World War II in Germany to the United States of today, that led The New York Times to proclaim her "in a class by herself."

With The World Is the Home of Love and Death, Harold Brodkey completes the extraordinary literary voyage that began with the publication of his first short story in The New Yorker in 1952. During the past four decades, Brodkey established himself as a modern master of short fiction. In The World Is the Home of Love and Death, Brodkey returns to themes he has treated so memorably in the past--the conformity and stupefying monotony of suburbia, the malevolence of cocktail-party conversation--bringing to them a new refinement and compression. In all of these stories, Brodkey proves that there has never been a more acute translator of the language of power, coercion, and, ultimately, love. It is altogether appropriate that Brodkey's final return to fiction should be to the short story, a form that he has influenced so profoundly.

In the spring of 1938 Elise Landau arrives at Tyneford, the great house on the bay. A bright young thing from Vienna forced to become a parlour-maid, she knows nothing about England, except that she won't like it. As servants polish silver and serve drinks on the lawn, Elise wears her mother's pearls beneath her uniform, and causes outrage by dancing with a boy called Kit. But war is coming and the world is changing. And Elise must change with it. At Tyneford she learns that you can be more than one person. And that you can love more than once.

War is coming to Europe. French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy, in Warsaw, the new military attaché, Colonel Jean-François Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war, is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal, and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of the city. At the same time, the handsome aristocrat finds himself in a passionate love affair with a Parisian woman of Polish heritage, a lawyer for the League of Nations. Risking his life, Colonel Mercier must work in the shadows, amid an extraordinary cast of venal characters, some known to Mercier as spies, some never to be revealed --

When Whiting Writers' Award winner Teddy Wayne published his critically acclaimed debut, "Kapitoil," it was hailed as "one of the best novels of [this] generation" by the "Boston Globe" and was shortlisted for a spate of national prizes. Jonathan Franzen wrote in "The Daily Beast" that "no other writer, as far as I know, has invented such a funny and compelling voice and story for [this type of character.]" Now, in "The Love Song of Jonny Valentine," Wayne turns his sharp wit, flawless narrative ventriloquism, and humane sensibility to our monstrous obsession with fame. Megastar Jonny Valentine, eleven-year-old icon of bubblegum pop, knows that the fans don't love him for who he is. The talented singer's image, voice, and even hairdo have been relentlessly packaged--by his L.A. label and his hard-partying manager-mother, Jane--into bite-size pabulum. But within the marketing machine, somewhere, Jonny is still a vulnerable little boy, perplexed by his budding sexuality and his heartthrob status, dependent on Jane, and endlessly searching for his absent father in Internet fan sites, lonely emails, and the crowds of faceless fans. Poignant, brilliant, and viciously funny, told through the eyes of one of the most unforgettable child narrators, this literary masterpiece explores with devastating insight and empathy the underbelly of success in 21st-century America. "The Love Song of Jonny Valentine "is a tour de force by a standout voice of his generation.