May is a carefree girl who likes nothing better than singing along to the Spice Girls, roller blading and eating cheese on toast with her friends. But then May’s family moves to a new town and May’s world is turned upside down. Out of the blue, an imaginary friend Anna comes along to help May out of her predicament, but Anna’s ‘solutions’ only isolate May from her family and lead her into unhealthy habits. Author Maddy Tyers knows only too well the pressures faced by children who become overly concerned about their body image and how they are regarded by their peers. Her story encourages children to feel positive about their body image and to accept the love and support offered them by understanding family and friends in times of crisis. The Butterfly Foundation, which is dedicated to helping children overcome eating disorders, is very supportive of the lessons to be gained from this important book. Highly recommended for parents, teachers and health professionals. According to the Butterfly Foundation, over a million Australians are currently experiencing an eating disorder, and less than a quarter of them are getting treatment or support. When Anna Came to Stay centres on a happy young girl called May who falls into heeding advice from her imaginary friend, Anna. Her plight is followed by the family who no longer recognise their daughter and hatch a plan to rescue May from the clutches of Anna. The book will open conversations around eating disorders and how they impact every area of a person’s life. Recognising the signs will help schools and families seek help before the disorder progresses further. The emotions are beautifully captured in a mix of mediums including watercolour and pencil by illustrator Siobhan Skipworth. – Veronica Chapman, TeachEzy Be true to yourself is the message of this book. With its cheerful illustrations, it tells how the support of family helps May get over a damaging obsession, in the form of demanding visitor, Anna. This allows May to slowly build self-esteem as she begins to believe in herself again. A sober but important message. – Libby Hathorn, author, poet, librettist

A young girl forced to work in a Queens sweatshop calls child services on her mother in this powerful debut memoir about labor and self-worth that traces a Chinese immigrant's journey to an American future. As a teen, Anna Qu is sent by her mother to work in her family's garment factory in Queens. At home, she is treated as a maid and suffers punishment for doing her homework at night. Her mother wants to teach her a lesson: she is Chinese, not American, and such is their tough path in their new country. But instead of acquiescing, Qu alerts the Office of Children and Family Services, an act with consequences that impact the rest of her life. Nearly twenty years later, estranged from her mother and working at a Manhattan start-up, Qu requests her OCFS report. When it arrives, key details are wrong. Faced with this false narrative, and on the brink of losing her job as the once-shiny start-up collapses, Qu looks once more at her life's truths, from abandonment to an abusive family to seeking dignity and meaning in work. Traveling from Wenzhou to Xi'an to New York, Made in China is a fierce memoir unafraid to ask thorny questions about trauma and survival in immigrant families, the meaning of work, and the costs of immigration.

Alone, the beautiful young Anna immigrated to America from an Island in the North Sea at 16, running from cruelty. Honor forced her to leave her fiancée in New York, and she found herself running again, this time from love. Working her way across America she brought her work ethic and her own style of integrity and love wherever she went. In Dakota Anna found love again, but with it and her life there came an abundance of hardship, sometimes taking her faith and courage close to the breaking point. This novel follows the true life story of Anna, starting where Honoring Anna left off. Life on their prairie homestead was often harsh and the country and it’s perils were often unyielding, but it also had its heartwarming and rewarding moments and triumphs. Honoring Anna, The Winds of Time takes the reader through the Dirty Thirties, The Great Depression, the year of the wolves, WWII, and homesteading hardships like none other ever written, through the eyes of those that experienced it. It is a piece of American history that will make you cry one minute and stand up and cheer the next, and will inspire you to reach for the levels of courage and honor that these amazing immigrants possessed.

A globe-spanning thriller of love and betrayal about a mysterious first lady with an explosive secret. Paris, 1974. Lara Orlov and her family arrive from Moscow at the height of the Cold War, thanks to her father’s position as a diplomat. The years pass, and Lara becomes more and more enamored with the City of Lights. As a teenager in Paris, she falls deeply in love with a fellow Russian expat: the passionate, intellectual Sasha, who opens her eyes to the ills of the Soviet Union. Decades later and across the globe, journalist Sofie Morse is taking some much-needed time off after several chaotic years covering Washington politics. But when she gets a call from the office of First Lady Lara Caine, her curiosity is piqued. Sofie, like the rest of the world, knows little about Lara—only that she was born in Soviet Russia and raised in Paris before marrying Henry Caine, the brash future president. After decades of silence, Lara is finally ready to speak candidly about her past: about her father’s work for the KGB and about her ill-fated relationship with Sasha—which may be long in the past, but which could have explosive ramifications for the future. As Sofie begins to write Lara’s biography, she can’t help but wonder: Why is Lara revealing such sensitive information? And why now? Caught in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, both Lara and Sofie must ask themselves what really matters—and confront their own power to upend the global political order.

Ghost-hunter Cas Lowood returns to find out what happened to Anna Dressed in Blood.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER​ ONE OF TIME’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR Sex and the City meets Bad Blood and Catch Me if You Can in the astonishing true story of Anna Delvey, a young con artist posing as an heiress in New York City—as told by the former Vanity Fair photo editor who got seduced by her friendship and then scammed out of more than $62,000. Rachel DeLoache Williams’s new friend Anna Delvey, a self-proclaimed German heiress, was worldly and ambitious. She was also generous—picking up the tab for lavish dinners at Le Coucou, infrared sauna sessions at HigherDOSE, drinks at the 11 Howard Library bar, and regular workout sessions with a celebrity personal trainer. When Anna proposed an all-expenses-paid trip to Marrakech at the five-star La Mamounia hotel, Rachel jumped at the chance. But when Anna’s credit cards mysteriously stopped working, the dream vacation quickly took a dark turn. Anna asked Rachel to begin fronting costs—first for flights, then meals and shopping, and, finally, for their $7,500-per-night private villa. Before Rachel knew it, more than $62,000 had been charged to her credit cards. Anna swore she would reimburse Rachel the moment they returned to New York. Back in Manhattan, the repayment never materialized, and a shocking pattern of deception emerged. Rachel learned that Anna had left a trail of deceit—and unpaid bills—wherever she’d been. Mortified, Rachel contacted the district attorney, and in a stunning turn of events, found herself helping to bring down one of the city’s most notorious con artists. With breathless pacing and in-depth reporting from the person who experienced it firsthand, My Friend Anna is an unforgettable true story of “glamour, greed, lust for power” (The New York Times), and female friendship.

A family finds a way to preserve the feeling of Christmas into the new year by filling a basket with the pine needles from the Christmas tree.