A serial killer draws the Victorian courtesan and professional sleuth into 19th century London’s criminal underground in this historical mystery. London, 1863. Women in Waterloo are turning up dead, their sexual organs removed and mutilated. When a girl goes missing and the search proves fruitless, fears grow that the killer may have claimed another victim. With the police at a total loss, it falls to courtesan and professional detective, Heloise Chancey, to investigate. With the assistance of her friend and maid, Amah Li Leen, Heloise inches closer to the truth. But when Amah is implicated in the brutal plot, Heloise begins to question who she can trust. In times like these, even a woman acquainted with London’s dark side must be wary of what lurks in the shadows.

Think adolescence is hell? You have no idea... Welcome to Dante's Inferno, by way of The Breakfast Club, from the mind of American fiction's most brilliant troublemaker. "Death, like life, is what you make out of it." So says Madison, the whip-tongued 11-year-old narrator of Damned, Chuck Palahniuk's subversive homage to the young adult genre. Madison is abandoned at her Swiss boarding school over Christmas while her parents are off touting their new film projects and adopting more orphans. Over the holidays she dies of a marijuana overdose--and the next thing she knows, she's in Hell. This is the afterlife as only Chuck Palahniuk could imagine it: a twisted inferno inspired by both the most extreme and mundane of human evils, where The English Patient plays on repeat and roaming demons devour sinners limb by limb. However, underneath Madison's sad teenager affect there is still a child struggling to accept not only the events of her dysfunctional life, but also the truth about her death. For Madison, though, a more immediate source of comfort lies in the motley crew of young sinners she meets during her first days in Hell. With the help of Archer, Babette, Leonard, and Patterson, she learns to navigate Hell--and discovers that she'd rather be mortal and deluded and stupid with those she loves than perfect and alone.

" . . . a gripping read that reminds us why the preternatural is a dramatic field for our enjoyment and (dare we say it!) moral growth."-- Eleanor Nicholson, Editor, Ignatius Critical Editions: Dracula When a sixteen-year-old orphan vampire adopted by an order of nuns matures into her immortal, blood-sucking glory, all hell literally breaks loose. Yet with every rapturous taste of blood, Jennifer Carshaw cannot help but long for something even more exquisite: the capacity to experience true love. As she struggles to balance her murderous secret life with homework, cross-country practice, and her first boyfriend, Jennifer delves into the terrifying questions surrounding her inhuman existence, driven by the unexpectedly human need to understand why she is doomed to alife she never chose. Bridging the gap between the literary tradition of Bram Stoker's Dracula and the modern teen vampire romance made popular by the Twilight series, Jennifer the Damned reexamines the legendary monster as a conflicted and complex being. Jennifer is at once the quintessential vampire, embodying an unholy union of life and death; yet she is also asympathetic young woman full of spiritual anxieties, gifted with a limitless sense of ironic humor, and possessed of a beautifully persistenthope in the love she yearns for.

Instant New York Times and Indie Bestseller! New York Times bestselling author Renée Ahdieh returns with a sumptuous, sultry and romantic new series set in 19th century New Orleans where vampires hide in plain sight. In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans is a safe haven after she's forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent in the middle of the carnival season, Celine is quickly enraptured by the vibrant city, from its music to its fancy soirées and even its danger. She becomes embroiled in the city's glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of the group's enigmatic leader, Sébastien Saint Germain. When the body of one of the girls from the convent is found in Sébastien's own lair--the second dead girl to turn up in recent weeks--Celine battles her attraction to Sébastien and suspicions about his guilt along with the shame of her own horrible secret. After a third murder, New Orleans becomes gripped by the terror of a serial killer on the loose--one who has now set Celine in his sights. As the murderer stalks her, Celine finally takes matters into her own hands, only to find herself caught in the midst of an age-old feud between the darkest creatures of the night, where the price of forbidden love is her life. At once a sultry romance and a decadent, thrilling mystery, master storyteller Renée Ahdieh embarks on her most potent fantasy series yet.

When the Underworld burned, I thought that was the end. Turns out it was only the beginning. Lucifer’s death was a shot heard around the world. The sudden loss of magic turned the tides for the first time in over two decades. The humans are rallying. Rioting. It feels like the stirrings of war. As if that wasn’t enough, Bree isn’t the sister I remember—and her desire to return to Hell is creating more fires than I know how to put out. Things are changing. Lines are drawn. Everyone must choose a side. Even me. Sometimes the world needs a hero. In a city that’s already gone to hell in a hand basket, it might just need a demon. Note: Blood be Damned is book 3 of 4 in the COMPLETE Demons of New Chicago series. This story is an ADULT enemies-to-lovers urban fantasy romance.

The debut novel from Akashic’s new imprint, Punk Planet Books. Also check out the smash hits How the Hula Girl Sings, Tender as Hellfire, and The Boy Detective Fails. “A funny, hard-rocking first-person tale of teenage angst and discovery.” —Booklist “Captures the loose, fun, recklessness of midwestern punk.” —MTV.com Hairstyles of the Damned is an honest, true-life depiction of growing up punk on Chicago’s south side: a study in the demons of racial intolerance, Catholic school conformism, and class repression. It is the story of the riotous exploits of Brian, a high school burnout, and his best friend, Gretchen, a punk rock girl fond of brawling. Based on the actual events surrounding a Chicago high school’s segregated prom, this work of fiction unflinchingly pursues the truth in discovering what it means to be your own person.

Best known as the woman who “ran MGM,” Ida R. Koverman (1876–1954) served as talent scout, mentor, executive secretary, and confidant to American movie mogul Louis B. Mayer for twenty-five years. She Damn Near Ran the Studio: The Extraordinary Lives of Ida R. Koverman is the first full account of Koverman’s life and the true story of how she became a formidable politico and a creative powerhouse during Hollywood’s Golden Era. For nearly a century, Koverman’s legacy has largely rested on a mythical narrative while her more fascinating true-life story has remained an enduring mystery—until now. This story begins with Koverman’s early years in Ohio and the sensational national scandal that forced her escape to New York where she created a new identity and became a leader among a community of women. Her second incarnation came in California where she established herself as a hardcore political operative challenging the state’s progressive impulse. During the Roaring Twenties, she was a key architect of the Southland’s conservative female-centric partisan network that refashioned the course of state and national politics and put Herbert Hoover in the White House. As “the political boss of Los Angeles County,” she was the premiere matchmaker in the courtship between Hollywood and national partisan politics, which, as Mayer’s executive secretary, was epitomized by her third incarnation as “one of the most formidable women in Hollywood,” whose unparalleled power emanated from her unique perch inside the executive suite of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Free to adapt her managerial skills and political know-how on behalf of the studio, she quickly drew upon her artistic sensibilities as a talent scout, expanding MGM’s catalog of stars and her own influence on American popular culture. Recognized as “one of the invisible power centers in both MGM and the city of Los Angeles,” she nurtured the city’s burgeoning performing arts by fostering music and musicians and the public financing of them. As the “lioness” of MGM royalty, Ida Koverman was not just a naturalized citizen of the Hollywood kingdom; at times during her long reign, she “damn near ran the studio.”