Do ideas of war and enemies hold a people together? Is a culture of conflict too seductive not to be irresistible? These are the questions Cathy Malkasian explores in her second graphic novel,Temperance. Malkasian creates, as she did in the critically acclaimed Percy Gloom, a fully realized, multi-layered world, inhabited by vividly realized characters. After a brutal injury in battle, Lester has no memory of his prior life. For the next thirty years his wife does everything to keep him from remembering―and re-constructing―a society, Blessedbowl, that elevates him as a hero. Blessedbowl is a cultural convergence of lies, memories, stories, and beliefs. Its people thrive on ideas of persecution, exceptionality, and enemies, convinced that war lurks just outside their walls. They have come to depend on Lester, their greatest war hero, to lead the charge once the Final Battle begins. Malkasian creates a densely textured social context, masterfully conveying the idiosyncratic physical domain with its spiraling structures and quasi-medieval architecture along with intimate yet plastic portraits of her characters in a rich, tonal pencil line. Temperance is a galvanizing work of empathy and violence by one of today’s the most thoughtful and accomplished cartoonists.

It's a summer of record-breaking heat in Charlotte, North Carolina and Dr Temperance Brennan is looking forward to her first vacation in years. She's almost out the door when the bones start appearing. First there's the newborn skeleton found in a wood stove. Who put the baby there? The mother, hardly more than a child herself, has disappeared. Next, a small plane flies into a rock face on a sunny afternoon. Both pilot and passenger are burned beyond recognition, their bodies covered with a strange black substance. What could it be? What sinister mission might the two have been on? Most puzzling is a cache of bones unearthed in a remote corner of the county. Some animal, some human, the bones are enough to keep Tempe busy for a long time. All the pieces of the mystery seem to lead back to an isolated farm. But what happened there and who will be the next victim? Tempe must find the answers by teasing secrets from the bones - if only she can decipher them in time ... A superb new thriller from the number one bestselling author of Grave Secrets.

When innocent blood is spilled, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan deciphers the shattering truth it holds in this exciting thriller from New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs. Nine-year-old Emily Anne Toussaint is fatally shot on a Montreal street. A North Carolina teenager disappears from her home, and parts of her skeleton are found hundreds of miles away. These shocking deaths propel Tempe Brennan from north to south, and deep into a shattering investigation inside the bizarre culture of outlaw motorcycle gangs—where one misstep could bring disaster for herself or someone she loves. From blood-splatter patterns and ground-penetrating radar to bone-sample analysis, Deadly Decisions triumphantly combines the authenticity of a world-class forensic professional with the narrative power of a brilliant crime-writing star.

In this funny romantic series, the Shackleford sisters descend on a Regency society that don't know what's hit them.......Reverend Augustus Shackleford's mission in life (aside from ensuring the collection box was suitably full every Sunday) was to secure advantageous marriages for each of his eight daughters. A tall order, given the fact that in the Reverend's opinion they didn't possess a single ladylike bone in the eight bodies they had between them. Quite where he would find a wealthy titled gentleman bottle headed enough to take any of them on remained a mystery and indeed was likely to test even his legendary resourcefulness. ....Grievously wounded at the Battle of Trafalgar, Nicholas Sinclair was only recently returned to Blackmore after receiving news of his estranged father's unexpected death. After an absence of twenty years, the new Duke was well aware it was his duty to marry and produce an heir as quickly as possible. However, tormented by recurring nightmares after his horrific experiences during the battle, Nicholas had no taste to brave the ton's marriage mart in search of a docile obedient wife. ....Never in his wildest dreams did Reverend Shackleford envisage receiving an offer for his eldest daughter from the newly appointed Duke of Blackmore. Of course, the Reverend was well aware he was fudging it a bit in describing Grace as respectful, meek or dutiful, nevertheless, he could never have imagined that his eldest daughter's unruliness might end up ruining them all....

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs’s twentieth “brilliant” (Louise Penny) thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, whose examinations of unidentified bodies ignite a terrifying series of events. “This is A-game Reichs, with crisp prose, sharp dialogue, and plenty of suspense” (Booklist). On the way to hurricane-ravaged Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast, Tempe receives a call from the Charleston coroner. The storm has tossed ashore a medical waste container. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic and bound with electrical wire. Tempe recognizes many of the details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Quebec fifteen years earlier. With a growing sense of foreboding, she travels to Montreal to gather evidence. Meanwhile, health authorities in South Carolina become increasingly alarmed as a human flesh-eating contagion spreads. So focused is Tempe on identifying the container victims that, initially, she doesn’t register how their murders and the pestilence may be related. But she does recognize one unsettling fact. Someone is protecting a dark secret—and willing to do anything to keep it hidden. An absorbing look at the sinister uses to which genetics can be put and featuring a cascade of ever-more-shocking revelations, The Bone Code is “a murder mystery story that races across America at the speed of fright” (James Patterson).

"When former marshal Oscar Schiller investigates the violent slaying of Temperance Moon, the legendary female outlaw, he rides straight into a web of jealousy, blackmail, and deceit." --Amazon.com.

A magical bloodline. A family curse. Can Connie break the spell before it shatters her future? A bewitching novel of a New England history professor who must race against time to free her family from a curse, by Katherine Howe, New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. Connie Goodwin is an expert on America’s fractured past with witchcraft. A young, tenure-track professor in Boston, she’s earned career success by studying the history of magic in colonial America—especially women’s home recipes and medicines—and by exposing society's threats against women fluent in those skills. But beyond her studies, Connie harbors a secret: She is the direct descendant of a woman tried as a witch in Salem, an ancestor whose abilities were far more magical than the historical record shows. When a hint from her mother and clues from her research lead Connie to the shocking realization that her partner’s life is in danger, she must race to solve the mystery behind a hundreds’-years-long deadly curse. Flashing back through American history to the lives of certain supernaturally gifted women, The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs affectingly reveals not only the special bond that unites one particular matriarchal line, but also explores the many challenges to women’s survival across the decades—and the risks some women are forced to take to protect what they love most.