Long before Amir taught Eleanora the harder truths of life, he learned them himself, as he fell in love with her mother. CONSTANTINOPLE, 1845 Amir Qureshi knew his life would never be the same the day he met Naděžda Ollerton-Cerná, much to his chagrin. With her sharp wit and brazen charm, Naděžda is as infuriating as she is irresistible, and Amir cannot stop himself from falling in love with her—even though they can never be together. As an ally to the Order of the Crystal Daggers, under the command of Naděžda’s indomitable mother, Amir knows there is no place for love in the life of a spy. When they are sent to Constantinople to investigate a missing shipment of weapons, Naděžda’s life is endangered, and Amir races to save her, knowing he cannot deny his heart any longer. But Amir is not the only one who is keeping secrets ... FROM THE BOOK: “Miss Eleanor.” The desperation in his voice was only matched by his irritation, and the moment he said anything, Amir feared he had inadvertently given himself away. The sapphire eyes he had come to both love and hate twinkled mischievously at him. “Why, Mr. Qureshi, I do believe you’re quite flustered. Especially if you’re going to use your manners. Where are those mongrel ways of yours? I might mistake you for a real gentleman with such a formal tone.” Her lyrical, teasing voice did nothing to lighten his mood; rather, it plucked at his heartstrings with a bittersweet twang, and Amir had to force himself to remain still as he stared down at her. It would do nothing for his case if he showed any further sign of compromise, especially now that his partner sensed his weakness. “It is only proper I address you as such, Miss Eleanor,” Amir said, keeping his voice stripped of all his conflicting emotions. “Your mother, Her Grace, would be the first to agree with me.” At the mention of her mother, her gaze only grew bolder. “We both know my mother’s favorite thing in the world is being a hypocrite,” she said, crossing her arms and tapping her toe. “Call me Naděžda, as I’ve told you to before several times now.” Inwardly, Amir groaned. He should have known better than to say anything. If there was anything Eleanor Naděžda Ollerton-Cerná excelled at—and there was plenty—it was arguing with him. And while there was enough wrong with that in itself, it unnerved him how often he found himself losing those arguments. “Miss Eleanor, propriety demands—” “Is this my punishment, after all these years, to have you give me the same lecture I gave you when we first met, Amir?” Naděžda asked, arching her brow as she pouted. Amir hated how he stared at her mouth. His Abba had always been so concerned about him looking into a woman’s eyes that Amir never realized how sinful looking at a woman’s lips could be. Even beneath her yashmak, the transparent veil worn by women on the streets of Constantinople, seeing Naděžda stick out her bottom lip was like watching a rose bloom under misty moonlight. FROM THE AUTHOR: Night of Blood and Beauty is a companion novella to The Order of the Crystal Daggers, a historical spy romance series. WHAT REVIEWERS ARE SAYING: "Definitely a must read for fans of this series!" ~ Laura A. Grace, Unicorn Quester Book Reviews

While working on a project translating letters from sixteenth-century Prague, high school senior Nora Kane discovers her best friend murdered with her boyfriend the apparent killer and is caught up in a dangerous web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all searching for a mysterious ancient device purported to allow direct communication with God.

*WINNER OF THE 2021 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE* *ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2021* Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction Shortlisted for the 2022 DUBLIN Literary Award "Astonishingly good." —Lily Meyer, NPR "So incantatory and visceral I don’t think I’ll ever forget it." —Ali Smith, The Guardian | Best Books of 2020 One of The Wall Street Journal's 11 best books of the fall | One of The A.V. Club's fifteen best books of 2020 |A Sunday Times best book of the year Selected by students across France to win the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, David Diop’s English-language, historical fiction debut At Night All Blood is Black is a “powerful, hypnotic, and dark novel” (Livres Hebdo) of terror and transformation in the trenches of the First World War. Alfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who, never before having left his village, finds himself fighting as a so-called “Chocolat” soldier with the French army during World War I. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man’s Land. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa’s mind as he comes to see this refusal as a cruel moment of cowardice. Anxious to avenge the death of his friend and find forgiveness for himself, he begins a macabre ritual: every night he sneaks across enemy lines to find and murder a blue-eyed German soldier, and every night he returns to base, unharmed, with the German’s severed hand. At first his comrades look at Alfa’s deeds with admiration, but soon rumors begin to circulate that this super soldier isn’t a hero, but a sorcerer, a soul-eater. Plans are hatched to get Alfa away from the front, and to separate him from his growing collection of hands, but how does one reason with a demon, and how far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend? Peppered with bullets and black magic, this remarkable novel fills in a forgotten chapter in the history of World War I. Blending oral storytelling traditions with the gritty, day-to-day, journalistic horror of life in the trenches, David Diop's At Night All Blood is Black is a dazzling tale of a man’s descent into madness.

By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched only by its brutality and corruption. When Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys his way into the papacy, he is defined not just by his wealth, charisma and power, but by his blood: a Spanish Pope in a city run by Italians. If he is to succeed, he must use his Machiavellian son and innocent daughter. Stripping away the myths around the Borgias, Blood & Beauty breathes life into the astonishing family of Alexander VI and celebrates the raw power of history itself: compelling, complex, and relentless.

“[A] sophisticated and intelligent high fantasy epic.”—Publishers Weekly The legendary Briar King has awakened, spreading madness and destruction across a land devastated by a royal family’s fall from power through treachery and dark magic. Half-remembered prophecies may point to the young princess Anne Dare, rightful heir to the throne of Crotheny, as the world’s only hope. But a mysterious assassin stalks her, so skilled that even Anne’s friend and protector Cazio cannot stand against him, nor can her sworn defender, the young knight Neil MeqVren. Though Anne herself is the conduit of fearsome powers beyond her understanding and control, it is time for girl to become woman, princess to become queen. Anne must stop running and instead march at the head of an army to take back her kingdom . . . or die trying. Praise for The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone “A graceful, artful tale . . . a snare ofterse imagery and compelling characters that grips tightly and never lets up.”—Elizabeth Haydon, author of The Assassin King, on The Briar King “There is adventure and intrigue, swordplay anddark sorcery aplenty.”—Realms of Fantasy, on The Charnel Prince

Not all legends are born of lies ... Bjorn Kyvansson was never supposed to outlive his brother. After his older brother Sterlig dies on the mysterious island of Eydis, it falls to Bjorn to avenge his brother. But Bjorn, along with his abusive father and his anxious mother, is content to suffer with his lot in life. That is, until Arja Freydottir, Sterlig's beloved, decides she wants to go to Eydis. Bjorn reluctantly agrees to accompany her, knowing he has no right to Arja, as Sterlig's intended bride, no matter how much he loves her himself. But as Bjorn and Arja spend time together preparing to face the dragon of Eydis, it becomes clear that it is not a matter of honor keeping them apart, but the truth. From award-winning, genre-hopping author C.S. Johnson, The Legend of Eydis is a standalone story that blends history, fantasy, romance, and adventure with Vikings, dragons, demons, and a captured princess.

25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION • From the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road: an epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, brilliantly subverting the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, Blood Meridian traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving. Look for Cormac McCarthy's latest bestselling novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.