If your curious kid can’t get enough puzzles, these books are for you. Each one is full of brain-teasing, mind-bending fun that will engage mystery lovers of all ages. Nothing is more satisfying and confidence building than finding the answer to a tricky problem, so give your young reader the gift of ultimate entertainment and hours of fun that they can do on their own or with the whole family!

It’s November! Time to stack your TBR with ebook deals starting at just $1.99, for those perfect fall nights. Make sure to check out our Black Friday – Cyber Monday deals. Get them while they last!

Take your first look at the cover for Level: Unknown (US) by David Dalglish, the first installment in a new epic LitRPG adventure series coming January 2025!

The magical world of Yensere holds the key to saving humanity from a horrific apocalypse. Too bad Nick can only get there in his dreams. 

When an ancient alien artifact chooses research cadet Nick to explore the world stored within it—a place full of forgotten empires, heroes with strange powers, and monstrous creatures that he is automatically transported to when he sleeps—he finds he has no choice but to grow stronger within the realm of Yensere to uncover its mysteries. 

But Yensere isn’t all fun exploration. In this land guided by statistics and levels, Nick is seen as a demonic threat by its diseased inhabitants and always killed on-sight. When he dies in Yensere, he awakens in his bed upon the research station, his body in a state of panic; when he sleeps again, Yensere drags him back for another life…and another death. 

Nick can only keep this up for so long before he dies for real. But there’s a good chance Yensere holds the key to saving humanity from a terrible fate, and so he ventures on, getting stronger and stronger with each new enemy defeated. And there are a LOT of enemies to defeat…

About the series: Join Nick as he adventures through the incredible world of Yensere in this progression fantasy isekai. Featuring multiple POVs, traditional LitRPG elements, magic and fantasy weaponry combat, friendships, light romance, and sarcastic robot guides, this is the perfect series for anyone wishing they could explore the galaxy and fight terrifying liches at the same time. 

Also by David Dalglish

Take your first look at the cover for The Last Soul Among Wolves (US | UK) by Melissa Caruso, the second installment in The Echo Archives series, coming August 2025!

The Last Soul Among Wolves is the brilliant second installment in Melissa Caruso's Echo Archives series, a whip-smart adventure fantasy featuring cursed relics, sapphic romance, and a magical murder mystery. 

Kem just wants to enjoy the company of her newborn daughter, but she can't say no when her best friend Jaycel requests her company at the funeral of old lady Lovegrace. At first, she's distracted by an unexpected reunion with her childhood friends, and the presence of Rika Nonesuch, professional thief—and her girlfriend. But things quickly take a turn when the will is read.  

Three cursed relics: A magical mirror. A book stained bloody with names. A lantern emitting a strange glow. 

The rules: Every two nights, someone will die. 

Only one will survive, with a wish as their ultimate prize. 

Kem and Rika must race against the clock to save her friends. But this game is full of old secrets and new schemes, and the harder Kem and Rika try to wrest themselves free, the more entangled they become in this dangerous web of lies. 

Also by Melissa Caruso

The Echo Archives

The Last Hour Between Worlds (US | UK)

Rooks and Ruin

The Obsidian Tower (US | UK)

The Quicksilver Court (US | UK)

The Ivory Tomb (US | UK)

Swords and Fire

The Tethered Mage (US | UK)

The Defiant Heir (US | UK)

The Unbound Empire (US | UK)

New Release

Discover More from Your Region

James Linney Named CFO of Distribution at Hachette UK and Hachette Book Group 

NEW YORK (November 20, 2024) — Russell Evans has been named Director of Business Development for Hachette UK Distribution and Hachette Book Group US Distribution (HBGUS Distribution), it was announced today by Matt Wright, CEO of Hachette UK Distribution and HBGUS Distribution. Evans will be responsible for developing client services at Hachette UK and HBGUS Distribution and attracting new client publishers for both territories. James Linney will take on the new role of CFO of Distribution for Hachette UK and Hachette Book Group. 

Evans previously served as Business Development Director of Hachette UK Distribution and Linney as its Finance Director. Evans and Linney have been instrumental in the success of Hachette UK Distribution over the last three years, and both will report into Wright. Together with Wright, Evans and Linney will collaborate with local management teams in both countries to improve service and grow the business internationally. 

Todd McGarity, VP, Corporate Business Development & Strategy, will continue to support and develop US client business and work closely with Evans, while continuing to report to Richard Kitson, Deputy CEO for Hachette Book Group and Hachette UK. 

HBGUS Distribution draws together all order management, fulfilment, and cash collection activities in the US for Hachette Book Group and its third-party client publishers, which represent 50 percent of the business. Services for client publishers are performed by the warehouse operations based in Indiana, the Fulfilment team based in both Indiana and Boston and supported by the Credit Control and Client Accounting teams based in Boston. 

Hachette UK Distribution is a division of Hachette UK and provides leading-edge fulfilment and warehousing services to over twenty publishers, specializing in a wide variety of sectors including trade, illustrated, educational, academic, professional, schools and children’s books. With over 65 million units dispatched annually, it delivers books and other media worldwide to customers from its state-of-the-art facility at the Hely Hutchinson Centre (HHC). 

About Hachette Book Group 

Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a leading US general-interest book publisher made up of dozens of esteemed imprints within the publishing groups Basic Books Group, Grand Central Publishing Group, Hachette Audio, Little, Brown and Company, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Orbit, and Workman Running Press Group. We also provide custom distribution, fulfillment, and sales services to other publishing companies. Our books and authors have received the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Caldecott Medal, Newbery Medal, Booker Prize, Nobel Peace Prize and other major honors. We are committed to diversity in our company and our publishing programs, and to fostering a culture of inclusion for all our employees and authors. We are proud to be part of Hachette Livre, the world’s third-largest trade and educational publisher. Visit hachettebookgroup.com to learn more about HBG imprints. For updated news follow HBG on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X.com, and YouTube. 

About Hachette UK 

Our mission at Hachette UK is to make it easy for everyone to discover new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment and opportunity. 

We are one of the UK’s largest publishing groups, with 12 autonomous divisions and over 50 imprints with a rich and diverse history. We are the market leader in e-books and publish a range of bestsellers in audio format, the fastest growing part of our business. Our award-winning adult publishing divisions are Little, Brown, Orion, John Murray Press, Dialogue Books, Hodder & Stoughton, Headline, Quercus, Bookouture and Octopus. Hachette Children’s Group publishes a diverse range of books for children of all ages and Hodder Education is a market leader in resources for both primary and secondary schools. In 2022, we welcomed Paperblanks, the second-largest premium stationery brand in the world, to our group. 

We have offices around the UK, including our headquarters in London and the Hely Hutchinson Centre (HHC) for distribution in Didcot. We have subsidiaries in several other regions, including Australia, India, Ireland, Jamaica and New Zealand. 

US Press Contact: Gabrielle Gambrell Gabrielle.Gambrell@hbgusa.com 

UK Press Contact: Chloë Johnson-Hill Chloe.Johnson-Hill@hachette.co.uk 

Whether you’re shopping for the foodie in your life or trying to take the guesswork out of your holiday menu planning, these award-winning and best-selling cookbooks have got you covered.

PlantYou: Scrappy Cooking

by Carleigh Bodrug

Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller

Save money, reduce food waste, and eat healthier than you ever have before with this highly anticipated cookbook from New York Times bestselling author and social media sensation, Carleigh Bodrug. 

Spinning off of Bodrug’s wildly popular Scrappy Cooking social media series, the cookbook is packed with over 150+ whole-food, plant-based recipes that show the reader how to make the most of the food they have in their fridge and pantry with easy and approachable vegan recipes anyone can make.
 
Transform radish tops into pesto, broccoli stems into summer rolls and wilting greens into smoothie cubes… But that’s not all. The book will equip readers with not only the tools to make the most of their scraps, but use up just about any vegetable, grain or bean from their fridge and pantry in the flexible Kitchen Raid Recipes, or cross reference commonly wasted foods like stale bread from a “Got This, Make That” index so these items can be used up in the easiest and most delicious way possible. 
 
Scrappy Cooking not only puts the focus on eating a diet that’s more conscious for our environment (and our wallets) but our health as well. Every recipe in the book is vegan, almost entirely oil free, and focuses on whole, plant-based foods that are good for our bodies and the planet. Get ready for recipes like The Whole Darn Squash (Pasta), Skillet Lasagna, One Pan Orzo Casserole, Vodka Penne With Broccolini, Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce, Chickpea Pot Pie, Orange Peel Chickn’, Loaded Tortilla Bowls, Sheet Pan Tacos with Carrot Top Chimichurri, Rebel “Ribs”, Veggie Masala Burgers, Palak “Paneer”, Vegan Meaty Hand Pies, We-Got-the-Beet Chips, Pickle-Mania Chips, Cornmeal Biscuits, Bang Bang Broccoli-cious Steaks…and more!

Price

$32.00

Price

$41.00 CAD

Format

Hardcover

1. ebook

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around April 2, 2024. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Also available from:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Books-A-Million
• Bookshop
• Target
• Walmart

PlantYou

by Carleigh Bodrug

Foreword by Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, MD

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Plant-based eating doesn’t have to be complicated! The delicious recipes in this easy-to-follow cookbook are guaranteed to keep you inspired and motivated.

Enter PlantYou, the ridiculously easy plant-based, oil-free cookbook with over 140+ healthy vegan recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, cheese sauces, salad dressings, dessert and more!

In her eagerly anticipated debut cookbook, Carleigh Bodrug, the Founder of the wildly popular social media community PlantYou, provides readers with the ultimate full color guidebook that makes plant-based meal planning, grocery shopping and cooking a breeze. With every single recipe, you will find a visual infographic marking the ingredients you need, making it easy to shop, determine portion sizes, and dive into the delicious and nutritious dishes.

Get ready for mouthwatering dishes like Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Breakfast Cookies, Best Ever Cauli Wings, and the Big BOSS Burrito that you simply won’t believe are made from plants. 

“An instant kitchen classic…In your quest to find delicious food that also promotes health, both human health and the health of the planet and the animals we share our world with, you’ve come to the right place.” 
—from the foreword by Dr. Will Bulsiewicz

Price

$30.00

Price

$38.00 CAD

Format

Hardcover

1. ebook

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around February 15, 2022. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Also available from:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Books-A-Million
• Bookshop
• Target
• Walmart

Al Roker’s Recipes to Live By

by Al Roker

by Courtney Roker Laga

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Barnes & Nobles Most Anticipated Comfort Food Books
The Root’s Books By Black Authors We Can’t Wait to Read

TODAY Show cohost and America’s favorite weatherman, Al Roker, and his daughter, Courtney Roker Laga, welcome us into their kitchen in this cookbook featuring generations-long family favorites for every meal.

Al Roker and his daughter, Courtney Roker Laga, welcome you into their home, where a good conversation or a needed dose of laughter always starts with something great to eat.

100 original and kitchen-tested dishes for every occasion, including

• Sunrise Burritos
• Shrimp and Grits with Bell Peppers and Bacon 
• Smothered Chicken 
• Coffee- and Spice-Rubbed Pork Chops
• Christmas Morning Cinnamon Rolls
• Bourbon Apple Pie Milkshakes 
• Tuscan Polenta 
• Silky Cauliflower Puree 
• Lemon Meringue Crumb Crust Pie

Stunning dishes in this book will inspire you to start cooking memory-making meals. Full of cheerful family photos and Al’s frank, witty opinions on food and cooking, Al Roker’s Recipes to Live By is sure to become the most well-thumbed cookbook on your shelf, whether you’re a beginner home cook or a seasoned chef.

Price

$35.00

Price

$45.00 CAD

Format

Hardcover

1. ebook

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around October 15, 2024. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Also available from:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Books-A-Million
• Bookshop
• Target
• Walmart

Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky

by Lois Ellen Frank, PhD

This enriching cookbook celebrates eight important plants Native Americans introduced to the rest of the world: corn, beans, squash, chile, tomato, potato, vanilla, and cacao—with more than 100 recipes.

When these eight Native American plants crossed the ocean after 1492, the world’s cuisines were changed forever. In Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky, James Beard Award-winning author and chef Lois Ellen Frank introduces the splendor and importance of this Native culinary history and pairs it with delicious, modern, plant-based recipes using Native American ingredients. Along with Native American culinary advisor Walter Whitewater, Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky shares more than 100 nutritious, plant‑based recipes organized by each of the foundational ingredients in Native American cuisine as well as a necessary discussion of food sovereignty and sustainability.
 
 A delicious, enlightening celebration of Indigenous foods and Southwestern flavors, Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky shares recipes for dishes such as Blue Corn Hotcakes with Prickly Pear Syrup, Three Sisters Stew, and Green Chile Enchilada Lasagna, as well as essential basics like Corn Masa, Red and Green Chile Sauces, and Cacao Spice Rub. The “Magic 8” ingredients share the page—and plate—to create recipes that will transform your world.

Price

$30.00

Price

$38.00 CAD

Format

Hardcover

1. ebook

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around August 29, 2023. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Also available from:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Books-A-Million
• Bookshop
• Target
• Walmart

Simple Goodness

by Makini Howell

From a beloved plant-based chef and restaurater, a cookbook full of easy to follow vegan recipes–every bite is bursting with flavor!

Welcome to flavor, comfort, and simplicity! Makini Howell shares 125 recipes full of the simply good ingredients you can find in your kitchen. Whether you’re sharing a meal with your loved ones or packing a lunch for your kids, Simple Goodness offers a wide range of plant-based dishes for every time of day, including:

-Baba’s Morning Quinoa
-Calamari Lettuce Wraps
-Chipotle Plant-Beef and Bean Tostadas
-BBQ Tofu Steaks with Roasted Yams
-Sweet Georgia Peach Pie
-And so much more!

Filled with recipes you can make straight from your pantry or fridge, Simple Goodness is a celebration of all of the versatility and deliciousness eating plants has to offer.

Price

$32.00

Price

$41.00 CAD

Format

Hardcover

1. ebook

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around December 3, 2024. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Also available from:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Books-A-Million
• Bookshop
• Target
• Walmart

Bismillah, Let's Eat!

by Zehra Allibhai

Welcome to Zehra’s kitchen, where good food, family, and nutrition meet!
Muslims from all around the world start each meal by saying “Bismillah” which means “I begin in the name of God”. Similar to the practice of saying grace before you eat, it is like a short practice of gratitude. In her first cookbook, beloved Toronto-based hijabi fitness influencer and coach Zehra Allibhai welcomes everyone to her table, sharing a new way to think about family food. Zehra’s own cooking evolution started in the kitchen with her Indian Kenyan family, expanded through culinary adventures with her husband, and grew again as a mother and fitness influencer. Her style of cooking is flavorful, accessible, wholesome–and above all–meant to be shared with joy. From her healthy spin on traditional dishes such as shakshuka and chaat to sumac chicken and lamb karahi, her renowned hearty salads, and treats such as the perfect one-bowl chocolate cake, Zehra makes being in the kitchen fun, easy—and incredibly delicious! With more than 130 recipes for every meal, and a healthy Ramadan guide for those who observe, Bismillah is a go-to for everyday dishes to satisfy the whole family.

Price

$35.00

Price

$45.00 CAD

Format

Hardcover

1. ebook

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around October 1, 2024. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Also available from:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Books-A-Million
• Bookshop
• Target
• Walmart

Take your first look at the cover for The Last Vigilant (US | UK) by Mark Latham, the first installment in the Kingdom of Oak and Steel series, coming June 2025!

Set in a world where magic is forgotten, monsters lurk in the dark woods, and honorable soldiers are few, this utterly gripping epic fantasy tells the story of two flawed humans, an out-of-practice wizard and a hot-headed sargent, who are thrust into the heart of a mystery that threatens to unravel their kingdom’s fragile peace. 

Shunned by the soldiers he commands, haunted by past tragedies, Sargent Holt Hawley is a broken man. But the child of a powerful ally has gone missing, and war between once peaceful nations is on the horizon. So, he and his squad have been sent to find a myth: a Vigilant. They are a rumored last survivor of an ancient and powerful order capable of performing acts of magic and finding the lost. But the Vigilants disappeared decades ago. No one truly expects Hawley to succeed. 

When he is forced to abandon his men, he stumbles upon a woman who claims to be the Last Vigilant. Enelda Drake is wizened and out of practice, and she seems a far cry from the heroes of legend. But they will need her powers, and each other, to survive. For nothing in the town of Scarfell is as it seems. Corrupt soldiers and calculating politicians thwart their efforts at every turn. 

And there are dark whispers on the wind threatening the arrival of an ancient and powerful enemy. The Last Vigilant is not the only myth returning from the dead. 

Dear custodian of a newly initiated member of the library, please read the following to your charge:

So, you have your first library card, now what? Well, obviously you should start by developing a very clever plan with lots of unnecessary details for how you’re going to spend the night at the library—who knows what all those books get up to when you’re not around. And, of course, you’ll need to start your TBR (to-be-read) list—however, young reader, be warned: this list will haunt you till the end of time!

But, if I were to offer you some “practical” and “sensible” advice, I guess I would say you should start by borrowing some books. And because those books are coming from the library, it seems only right that you should borrow books that are about books—books about libraries and bookstores and book worlds and the worlds within books. I know, it’s all a bit meta (guardian, please explain “meta” to whomever you are reading this aloud to). My thinking is, with all these books about books, that it’s good to know what you’re getting yourself into. And look, finding the right books can be an immensely overwhelming task, but that’s why I’m here to help with a wonderful list of tales for you to check out right now! And if you don’t like my suggestions, then go ask your new librarian for some recommendations instead. (I’m sure you’ll find, however, that our suggestions are quite similar because both your librarian and I have excellent taste).

Gifts for Every Region

Discover More

 New York – November 18, 2024 – Barnes & Noble announces today the sale of Sterling Publishing Co. Inc. to Hachette Book Group. The publisher was acquired by Barnes & Noble in 2003 and now includes adult imprints Union Square & Co., Puzzlewright Press, Sterling Ethos and Spark Notes, as well the children’s imprints Union Square Kids and Boxer Books; and the gift and stationery publishers Knock Knock and Em & Friends. It is the publisher of New York Times bestselling author/illustrator Mo Willems, recent New York Times bestselling authors Caroline Chambers and Dan Pelosi, and acclaimed authors Melissa Blair, L.S. Stratton, and Dusti Bowling, among others, as well as a dynamic program of literary classics. Sterling has been led by Emily Meehan since 2021 who oversaw the rebranding in January 2022 to Union Square & Co., influenced by its New York City’s Union Square Park headquarters. The company will remain under the leadership of Emily, who will report into Ben Sevier, President and Publisher of the Grand Central Publishing Group, a division of Hachette Book Group. All Sterling Publishing Co. Inc.’s staff, publishing assets and trademarks will transfer to Hachette Book Group. 

“Union Square has been a tremendous success under Emily’s guidance. She and her team have transformed its publishing and, we began to realize, also to outgrow the infrastructure of a bookseller,” said James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble. “Union Square will enjoy under Hachette the resources of a great publisher. As booksellers, we look forward to continuing our close relationship with Union Square and to its continued success.” Union Square & Co.’s mission is to publish books and products with a point of view. Dedicated to talent-driven publishing for adults and children, Union Square & Co. has been known to promote excellence in contemporary book publishing by providing best-in-class editorial and design with the highest quality production, sales, and marketing. 

“I couldn’t be happier to welcome Sterling Publishing Co. Inc. and Union Square & Co. to Hachette. When we make an acquisition, we want to be sure that we can learn a lot from the company, and that we can add value to them with our ability to reach readers internationally. Both criteria are absolutely met in this case,” said David Shelley, CEO, Hachette Book Group. “Union Square is an extremely innovative and dynamic publishing house that has seen great growth in recent years, and I can’t wait to help get their authors’ work to even more readers around the world.” 

About Barnes & Noble, Inc. 

Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest retail bookseller in the United States. The Company has more than 640 bookstores across the United States, as well as its online bookstore at bn.com, the Nook Digital business which offers both e-books and an audio book subscriptions service, the SparkNotes educational service, stationery and gift retailer Paper Source, and the publisher Union Square & Co. General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be found on the Company’s website at www.bn.com. 

All B&N press, media inquiries and interview requests can be directed to prelations@bn.com 

About Hachette Book Group: 

Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a leading U.S. general-interest book publisher made up of dozens of esteemed imprints within the publishing groups Basic Books Group, Grand Central Publishing Group, Hachette Audio, Little, Brown and Company, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Orbit, and Workman Running Press Group. We also provide custom distribution, fulfillment, and sales services to other publishing companies. 

Our books and authors have received the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Caldecott Medal, Newbery Medal, Booker Prize, Nobel Peace Prize and other major honors. 

We are committed to diversity in our company and our publishing programs, and to fostering a culture of inclusion for all our employees and authors. We are proud to be part of Hachette Livre, the world’s third-largest trade and educational publisher. 

Visit hachettebookgroup.com to learn more about HBG imprints. For updated news follow HBG on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X.com, and YouTube. 

Hachette Book Group Press Contact: 

Gabrielle Gambrell gabrielle.gambrell@hbgusa.com 

If you loved the magical world of Wicked, you might be eager to dive into more stories that unite literature and Broadway musicals. There are plenty of novels that represent the true nature of theatrical storytelling. Here are some must-reads to enjoy this season!

More Reading

Emina Cekovic is a recent college graduate from The City College of New York with a degree in Communications, specializing in AD/PR. She is a freelance blog writer for Novel Suspects and Hachette Book Group.

📚🍂 Crunchy leaves, cozy sweaters, and the magic of autumn — it's the perfect time for families to cozy up to the season! From pumpkin adventures to tales of harvest-time wonder, these family-friendly books will warm your hearts as much as a mug of hot apple cider. 🍎🍁

featured activities

Tinkering Teaching Tips

Jazz & Tea Break Recipe

Click images to download the activities.

30 years of brain quest!

Stimulate the mind in a fun, approachable way. Celebrate 30 years of Brain Quest: check out the new look, new products, and new packaging with the same A+ content!

blog posts and articles

MORE FAMILY READS POSTS AND ACTIVITIES!

• January 27, 2025 / 7:00PM EDT

  Symphony Space (in-partnership with B&N)

  Beloved musician Neko Case launches her memoir in conversation with Samantha Bee.

  Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, 2537 Broadway, New York, NY 10025

  More Information

• January 28, 2025 / 7:00PM EDT

  Books Are Magic (off-site event at the First Unitarian Congregational Society)

  Beloved musician Neko Case discusses her new memoir.

  119 Pierrepont St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

  More Information

• January 29, 2025 / 7:30PM EDT

  Princeton Library/McCarter Center (in-partnership with Labyrinth Books)

  An Evening with Neko Case – an author event presented in association with Labyrinth Books and Princeton Public Library.

  Berlind Theatre, 91 University Place, Princeton, NJ 08540

  More Information

• January 30, 2025 / 7:00PM EDT

  Sixth & I

  Beloved musician Neko Case discusses her new memoir in conversation with Hanna Rosin.

  600 I Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001

  More Information

• January 31, 2025 / 8:00PM CDT

  OZ Arts (in-partnership with Parnassus Books)

  Neko Case, author of The Harder I Fight the More I Love You, in conversation with Ann Powers.

  6172 Cockrill Bend Circle, Nashville. TN

  More Information

• February 1, 2025 / 7:00PM EDT

  The Tara (in-partnership with A Cappella Books)

  An evening with Neko Case at The Tara – THE HARDER I FIGHT THE MORE I LOVE YOU book talk and signing.

  2345 Cheshire Bridge Rd NE, Atlanta, GA 30324

  More Information

• February 3, 2025 / 7:00PM EDT

  Toronto Public Library

  Grammy-nominated musician Neko Case discusses her heartbreaking and funny new memoir.

  789 Yonge St 2nd floor, Toronto, ON Canada

  More Information

• February 4, 2025 / 7:00PM CDT

  The Studebaker Theater (in-partnership with Exile in Bookville)

  Neko Case will take the Studebaker Theater stage to discuss her new book, The Harder I Fight the More I Love You: A Memoir.

  410 South Michigan Avenue Fine Arts Building, Chicago, IL 60605

  More Information

• February 5, 2025 / 7:30PM PDT

  Town Hall Seattle (in-partnership with Elliott Bay Books)

  Grammy-nominated musician Neko Case discusses her new memoir.

  The Great Hall, 1119 8th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101

  More Information

• February 6, 2025 / 7:30PM PDT

  Revolution Hall (in-partnership with Powell’s Books)

  Beloved musician Neko Case discusses her new memoir in conversation with Tucker Martine.

  1300 SE Stark St, Portland, OR 97214

  More Information

• February 7, 2025 / 7:00PM PDT

  The Rio Theater (in-partnership with Bookshop Santa Cruz)

  Bookshop Santa Cruz presents: Neko Case | THE HARDER I FIGHT THE MORE I LOVE YOU.

  1205 Soquel Ave, Santa Cruz, CA 95062

  More Information

• February 8, 2025 / 7:30PM PDT

  Sidney Goldstein Theatre (City Arts & Lectures in-partnership with Books, Inc.)

  Beloved musician Neko Case discusses her new memoir in conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib.

  275 Hayes St, San Francisco, CA 94102

  More Information

• February 9, 2025 / 4:00PM PDT

  First Congregational Church (Writers Bloc Presents in partnership with Book Soup)

  Writers Bloc and Book Soup Present Neko Case.

  540 S Commonwealth Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90020

  More Information

While the thought of being your own boss in Italy may sound exciting, the reality is that most of the foreigners you run into here are working for someone else. They are often found teaching English, translating, designing web pages, working in marketing or public relations, consulting for a multinational, teaching at a university, writing for a newspaper or magazine, or working with a governmental organization.

Fortunately for those Anglophones without an illustrious career behind them already, the very act of speaking perfect English lends one a certain credibility. Italians may be suspicious of U.S. foreign policy and not particularly fond of U.S. food and fashion, but they do regularly defer to U.S. business sense.

Also, employers admire the professional habits cultivated in the United States. When compared to European workers nursed on labor-friendly hiring laws, prospective North American employees have a leg up on the competition, as they come from a culture where efficiency is king and are accustomed to the kind of laissez-faire capitalism where hiring and firing are quick and easy processes.

Even the most venerated institutions of traditional Italian sectors often have a native English-speaker in their top brass. But unless you have outstanding contacts or credentials, or else were sent to Italy by your U.S. company, chances are that you will have to start the way most expats did: translating or teaching English while scouring the Help Wanted ads for something that fits your background more closely. (Then again, many people feel that they were cut out for teaching or translating and build it into a career.)

In Rome, a good place to start looking is an expat magazine called Wanted in Rome. It has classified ads for short-term or longterm apartment rentals and a list of jobs for native English-speakers. Its counterpart in Milan is Easy Milano.

The Monster board has an Italian site focused on an international crowd, while for Italians, the most popular venue is Corriere Lavoro.

A second possibility for those starting off is to go to a temp agency. The best known in Italy is Adecco, where candidates can upload their résumés and await a temporary assignment, which often turns into a full-time position. As lifetime contracts are on the wane in Italy, these stopgap measures have become more useful for employers. The disadvantage for foreigners, however, is that the employers are quite unlikely to undertake the hassle of getting you the necessary paperwork for what is supposed to be a short-term position.

The best bet is to spend the first few months making personal contacts while earning some money on the side. Fresh off the plane, young travelers can usually expect to find immediate employment at a bar, guiding tours, or working as a nanny, while those with some experience might land a job doing public relations, marketing, or web design for an international company.

The fashion industry is particularly fond of hiring internationals to work in showrooms, especially if they are young, attractive women: Remember that most Europeans do not see anything wrong with what North Americans might deem overt sexism and ageism. In a classified ad for a receptionist, for example, it is common practice in Italy to require that the applicant be “a friendly girl between the ages of 23 and 27.”

Landing a Job in Italy

First of all, you'll need a work visa for legal employment in Italy.

A résumé in Italy includes the candidate’s gender, date of birth, marital status, and almost always a photo. They are longer than the average U.S. CV (two pages at least) and will include the type of high school attended and the score received at college graduation.

As the taste for things American grows in Italian business, a résumé that focuses on what the candidate accomplished at various jobs and internships will be viewed more favorably. But don’t expect a pure meritocracy: A personal contact will always beat an ace of a different suit.

When interviewing or sending a cover letter, be as respectful and professional as possible, as nothing turns off a prospective employer in Italy more than excessive informality. Needless to say, you should always use the lei form, and always address your interviewer as dottore or dottoressa, titles that assume they have graduated from college. Even for low-level and mid-level positions, the interview process will likely take a few weeks. Most of that time will be spent negotiating the salary and the type of contract that would be offered.

The relative relaxation of labor laws over the years has given rise to freelance or short-term contracts, where the hours an employee puts in are less important than the work accomplished. One example is the collaborazione a progetto, or “Co.Co.Pro” contracts, a “per-project” contract. It is a legal hybrid between freelance and full-time work, releasing the employer from certain payments and responsibilities. In general, though, the majority of contracts are full-time, complete with the union-guaranteed benefits.

Because Italy is a land of small- and medium-sized family firms, pockets are not as deep as in big U.S. corporations. Balanced with the lower cost of living in Italy, somewhere near 80 percent of that in the United States, your salary will appear exceedingly slim at first. Pay for many professions is based on a national schedule known as the tabelle professionali. Entry-level workers receive the minimum wage of a given category, and unionized professionals can expect a raise every two years. Your salary is paid by the month and accompanied by a receipt outlining how much has been taken out for taxes, social security, health benefits, and any extra days off not granted in your contract.

Benefits

For starters, you can expect 12 national holidays and at least four weeks of vacation, often five or six, depending on your contract. Many people end up taking off two weeks around Christmas and most of the month of August. Italian cities traditionally close down in August, although this is slowly changing. More companies have decided to spread out their employees’ vacations to alleviate the frustration of international clients. (It also means less summer traffic on highways and fully booked resorts.) If you don’t use up all four or five weeks in a year, you can theoretically carry over your vacation days into the next year, though many companies require you to periodically go on vacation to make bookkeeping easier.

There are 12 bank holidays nationwide, and each city also gets its patron saint’s day off. Romans, for example, celebrate Saints Peter and Paul (June 29), while workers in Milan get Saint Ambrose’s day off (December 7). If a saint’s day or national holiday falls on a Friday or Monday, workers naturally get a three-day weekend. Even better, if it falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, it generally becomes a ponte (bridge)—a four-day weekend. For Romans, it means a fortuitous beach holiday, while Saint Ambrose marks the beginning of ski season for the Milanese.

Maternity entails five months of paid leave, spread out on either side of giving birth. Women on maternity leave receive 80 percent of their salary. Furthermore, they can request an additional six months off at 30 percent pay and be guaranteed their jobs when they want to return to work. It is not uncommon for a woman to file for extra sick days above and beyond those nine months. Like any other sick day in Italy, it needs to be backed up by a doctor’s note. A company can send a state inspector to the person’s home as well, to make sure that it is not just an excuse to go shopping.

In general, employees are allowed 180 days of paid sick leave. Above and beyond that, the matter is referred to the pensions office, as the person is considered disabled. Either way, Italians don’t need to worry too much about staying healthy in order to keep their salaries.

Indeed, job security is so solid in Italy that companies must prove a “just cause” bordering on an egregious breach, such as breaking the law, in order to fire somebody. Countless lawsuits—or even the threat thereof—have resulted in a fired employee’s reinstatement. One such high-profile case involved baggage handlers at an airport in Milan. They were caught on videotape stealing valuables such as cash and jewels from passengers’ luggage, were found guilty in court, but never fired.

In fact, it is nearly impossible to terminate an employee’s lifetime contract, as even the “justified motive” of downsizing has to be cleared with the unions first. Most companies prefer to just brush the worker aside by keeping up salary payments but not requiring his or her presence at work.

Working In Nero

It is no wonder, then, that many Italian companies prefer to take the illegal route and pay their employees in nero (under the table). Figures from the Italian Institute of Economic and Social Research (IRES) in 2009 pinned the underground economy at about 15 percent of the GDP, while police stings nationwide regularly reveal that about half of the companies probed are paying employees under the table, 10 percent of whom are foreigners according to IRES. That makes Italy one of the worst offenders in Western Europe, and the real numbers are probably even higher. Large companies periodically hold “appreciation days” for local law enforcement communities, inviting them to sample the goods, ostensibly in return for lenient inspections.

The lack of an outcry against laws that engender such behavior means that things aren’t likely to change soon. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who ran on an antiestablishment platform, was only codifying a time-honored tradition when he decriminalized false accounting. Cooking the books has always been seen in Italy as a necessary evil in the face of an oppressive state. It remains to be seen whether that law will be revisited now that Berlusconi has faded from public life.

While working under the table may be a tempting offer in order to avoid the hassle of never-ending Italian paperwork, the truth is that an employee has little to gain by taking such a risk. “Freelancers,” as they are euphemistically known, do not have access to the extensive health care that full-time contracts provide, nor will they receive social security payments when they retire.

It’s not altogether different from the situation in the United States, with one important exception: Italians depend almost exclusively on state pensions for their retirement. The concept of the private retirement fund is only slowly catching on, and frankly, it’s hard to save for your golden years when your pretax income is only €1,250 a month.

Related Travel Guides

Pin It for Later

This promotion is not currently available.

Plus a Grammarly Pro subscription, a set of writing dice, and a ballpoint pen set!

Looking for the Perfect Present?
Shop our Holiday Gift Guide!

Games Untold is finally in the world, and if you’re anything like me you flew through this installment, winding up in a pretty vicious book hangover! But never fear, my lovely bookworms! We here at the NOVL have the perfect cure for book hangovers – hair of the dog! That’s right, you need to jump into a new book STAT!! So here are some of the best books to help get you out of that Games Untold book hangover!

Little White Lies

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes 

What’s better than one Jennifer Lynn Barnes series? Two! The Debutantes series is full of the same JLB-style high-stakes twisty plot, but with a bit more well, bless your heart! When Sawyer Taft is swept up into the world of high-society debutantes by her estranged grandmother, she’s seeking an answer to the biggest mystery in her life – her father’s identity. But Sawyer’s family isn’t the only one with skeletons in their closets. 

Buy Now

Goodreads

A Pretty Implausible Premise

by Karen Rivers

If your favorite story from Games Untold is “The Same Backward as Forward,” this is the book for you! This love-at-first-sight story about two teens dealing with trauma and family instability will make you believe in love… and maybe just break your heart. 

Buy Now

Goodreads

Emmett

by L. C. Rosen

Emmett is the perfect mix of light-hearted romance, comedy-of-errors style humor, and just a dash of touching coming-of-age drama perfect if you’re looking for something in the vein of “Five Times Xander Tackled Someone (and One Time He Didn’t)! Plus it a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma, and as a major Austen nerd who takes her re-tellings very seriously, I can promise you this one is absolutely pitch-perfect!

Buy Now

Goodreads

Heiress Takes All

by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

If you’re looking for more high-stakes high-society drama, look no further than Heiress Takes All! Full of scheming, double-crosses, and glitzy billionaire glamor, this book features a revenge heist taking place during the wedding of the decade led by the daughter of the groom! Plus we’ve got a second-chance romance in the works!

Buy Now

Goodreads

Royal Heirs Academy

by Lindsey Duga 

Four teens, one glamorous boarding school, and a crown for the taking? Count me in! If you’re looking for more of that Inheritance Games-style drama, this spectacle of royal intrigue, back-stabbing, and pitch-perfectly romantic love triangles is for you! Set at an ultra-elite boarding school (based on a very real school in Wales), Royal Heirs Academy follows four heirs to a fictional European nation, and their fight for the crown!

Buy Now

Goodreads

Up All Night

edited by Laura Silverman

If you found the short-story format of Games Untold refreshing, you will adore Up All Night, a collection of romantic tales that take place between sunset and sunrise! It’s got twisty mysteries, time-slip tales, and of course romance!!

Buy Now

Goodreads

The Inheritance Games

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes 

That’s right, I’m telling you to jump back into the book that started you on this path. Why? Because a reread of The Inheritance Games is always a good idea. And how fun will it be to see where Avery and the Hawthorne brothers all began after seeing where they all wind up? At least… for now!

Buy Now

Goodreads

The Lying Woods

by Ashley Elston

If you love Games Untold for the mysteries solved (and new mysteries uncovered), you’ll love The Lying Woods! When Owen Foster learns his silver-spoon life has been funded by stolen money, he’s forced to return to his hometown to finish senior year, where everyone despises him for what his father did. Owen is determined to get to the bottom of what really happened, but will his hunt for the truth lead him to uncover secrets better left buried?

Buy Now

Goodreads

Pre-order your copy of BLACK GIRLS BREATHING by Jasmine Marie at one of these participating bookstores to receive a bookmark featuring an inspiring affirmation and a signed bookplate.

Click here to preorder from 44th and 3rd Bookseller.

Click here to preorder from Cafe Con Libros.

Promo start date: November 18, 2024 at 12:00am ET. Promo end date: December 16 at 11:59pm ET. Preorders must be made through one of the two above booksellers to be eligible for bonus items.

Black Girls Breathing

by Jasmine Marie

Harness the power of breathwork with this compassionate, healing guide for Black women.
 
As a Black woman, Jasmine Marie knows the impact that intergenerational trauma and systemic racism have had—and continue to have—on her community. Those experiences, along with her own journey through chronic stress, are why she created black girls breathing®, a movement dedicated to helping Black women understand the power of the mind‑body connection and its impact on their holistic health, one breath at a time.  
    In Black Girls Breathing, Jasmine Marie offers you the power of breathwork, and the revolutionary nature of slowing down and turning inward. With each intentional breath, you’ll learn how to sink deeper into your body to begin to undo the trauma that’s long been stored. Sharing exercises from her unique somatic philosophies proven by data and utilized by tens of thousands of participants to date, Jasmine Marie will also help you:

• Connect more fully to your body
• Give yourself permission to rest
• Heal the chronic stress you carry in your body and nervous system
• Address emotional pain
• Rebuild your sense of self and your community

This is a long-overdue resource for every Strong Black Woman—the woman ready to break cycles of trauma, heal the internalized beliefs of perfectionism and conditional self‑worth, and follow the wisdom of her inner voice.

Price

$30.00

Price

$39.00 CAD

Format

Hardcover

1. ebook
2. Audiobook Download (Unabridged)

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around December 17, 2024. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Also available from:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Books-A-Million
• Bookshop
• Target
• Walmart

LA Premiere Entry Form

Can you think of a better gift than the gift of love? We have all the steamy and swoon-worthy recommendations to give to the romantic in your life. These books will have you waiting under the mistletoe for a magical kiss.

If you have a life-long-learner on your gift list, someone who’s always recounting the last podcast they listened to or article they read, these inventive and fascinating nonfiction picks including hidden histories, mind-blowing science, and incisive social commentary are sure to keep them turning pages, even during the holiday party.

These reads are the perfect gift for the person who almost exclusively watches documentaries. From true crime to heartwarming memoirs, these nonfiction reads are so great, you won't mind when your loved one recaps the whole thing for you.

What do you get the person who watches and listens to everything? A book that offers a behind-the-scenes pass to their favorite musician or their favorite TV hosts recipes! From The Grateful Dead to the history of hip-hop and everything in between, we've got you covered with these music & pop culture picks.

Give your loved ones (or yourself!) the gift of self-care this holiday season with these inspiring reads that will help you live your best life amidst the hectic holiday season, and maybe even get a head start on those 2024 resolutions.

If you know someone whose holiday plans include binge-watching Murder, She Wrote, obsessively listening to true crime podcasts, and hosting murder mystery-themed gift exchange parties, these thrilling reads will have you killing the gifting game.

Know anyone who loves to escape reality? Give them the gift of fiction! With these reads they can experience a hybrid-horror romance, a misadventure with a dead man, a stunning collection of poems and so much more.

We are so thrilled to have acquired a new historical fantasy duology by M.A. Carrick, inspired by the Fae and set within the remarkable backdrop of the Spanish Golden Age! The enthralling first novel in The Sea Beyond duology will be published in Summer 2026.

In an alternate Spanish Golden Age, where the map becomes the territory and mapmakers are the architects of reality, the Council of the Sea Beyond has risen to unrivaled power, exploiting the world’s most precious resources for their own gain.

Determined to discover how cosmographers pin down the islands of the Otherworld, Estevan seeks power with the Council of the Sea Beyond—but he risks the exposure of his own secrets, too. For he is a changeling, a faerie masquerading as a mortal. And for a faerie to enter the mortal world like that, a child must go the other way…

The Hungry Girl, the nameless human daughter whose place he took, has grown up opposite her “brother.” Lost among the fae and desperate to find some purpose for her pitiful existence, she leaps at the chance to help a group of Spanish explorers in the Sea Beyond…only to be horrified at the atrocities they commit.

Soon the unlikely siblings will need to overcome their rivalry–because only together can they bring down Spain’s worlds-spanning empire and save the homes they have come to love.

While you wait, now is the perfect time to binge-read the sumptuous Rook & Rose trilogy (which begins with The Mask of Mirrors). All three books are available!

M. A. Carrick is the joint pen name of Marie Brennan (author of the Memoirs of Lady Trent) and Alyc Helms (author of the Adventures of Mr. Mystic). The two met in 2000 on an archaeological dig in Wales and Ireland, including a stint in the town of Carrickmacross, and have built their friendship through two decades of anthropology, writing, and gaming. They live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Eddie Schneider at JABberwocky Literary Agency and Cameron McClure at Donald Maass Literary Agency sold World English rights for a duology to Orbit US Associate Editor Tiana Coven and Orbit UK Editorial Director Jenni Hill has acquired UK rights for Orbit UK.

Also by M. A Carrick

Rook & Rose

The Mask of Mirrors
(US | UK)

The Liar's Knot
(US | UK)

Labyrinth's Heart
(US | UK)

2025 Calendar Brochure

As a shy child, books were crucial to help me get over school day jitters and soccer game butterflies. I read stories of characters going through trials, (from tying shoes to scaling mountains) and realized that EVERYONE gets nervous!!! Feeling those nerves, and doing it anyway, is the definition of bravery! And once you do something the first time, it will get easier and easier. You may surprise yourself!

SO, calling all brave bears, heroic hippos, and valiant… vultures! Your mission is to spread bravery far and wide. OH, and one more fact about being brave—it’s definitely easier if you have a friend, furry, feathered, scaly, or otherwise! :)

ONWARD!!

Two New Imprints, Basic Venture and Basic Liberty, Added to Award-Winning Roster

NEW YORK (Nov. 7, 2024) — Today, Hachette Book Group CEO David Shelley announced the promotion of Lara Heimert to President and Publisher of the Basic Books Group. Under Heimert’s robust and innovative leadership, the Basic Books Group expanded its catalog, earning itself a reputation for high-quality nonfiction that resonates with a diverse readership. The announcement welcomes two new imprints that Heimert recently created within the Basic Books Group—Basic Venture and Basic Liberty.

“The Basic Books Group has seen fantastic growth and success in recent years. They know their readership incredibly well and are able to serve their desire for serious non-fiction publishing by the leading authors in their fields across a range of different topics,” said Shelley. “Lara has grown and steered the group with incredible vision and precision; her promotion, and the investments we’re making with the two new imprints and other promotions and hires, are testament to the further potential for growth we see in this space and with this skilled team.”

Basic Venture, a new business and economics imprint, will build off PublicAffairs’ two decades of excellence in business publishing. Along with the Basic Books Group’s commitment to publishing books by leading experts, Basic Venture is dedicated to helping individuals and organizations who want to change the way they do business. The imprint will be led by Editorial Director Colleen Lawrie and Executive Editor Emily Taber.

Heimert also announced that Thomas Spence has joined Hachette Book Group to lead Basic Liberty, a new conservative imprint that will publish serious works of cultural, social, and political analysis by conservative writers of original thought. He is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Institute, holds a JD from the University of Chicago, a Master of Arts in Medieval Studies from Harvard University, and formerly served as the President and Publisher of Regnery.  Basic Liberty will represent a wide range of conservative perspectives, focusing on topics of enduring interest rather than transitory political concerns.

Additionally, Brian Distelberg is being promoted to Vice President, Associate Publisher of the Basic Books Group, adding to his current title of Editor in Chief, Basic Books. In this role, Distelberg will oversee the editorial direction of Basic Venture alongside Basic Books, Seal Press, and  PublicAffairs (including the hiring of a new Editorial Director for the PublicAffairs imprint). Heimert will oversee the editorial direction of Bold Type Books and Basic Liberty.

“I am grateful to David Shelley for his support as we reimagine the Basic Books Group. As I have learned from working at Basic Books for 20 years, imprints with strong focus and category dominance are destined to succeed,” said Heimert. “In Thomas, Colleen, and Emily, we have editors with deep expertise in their respective areas of acquisition. And in Brian, we have a leader whose intellectual rigor and high standards for excellence will help me steer all six of the imprints towards greater success and profitability.”

Heimert joined Basic Books in 2005 from Yale University Press, and later became Vice President and Publisher of the imprint in 2012.  In 2019, Heimert went on to lead Seal Press; in 2023, she became Senior Vice President and Publisher of the Basic Books Group, responsible for PublicAffairs and Bold Type Books. As an accomplished editor, she has published numerous award-winning and best-selling books. Heimert is responsible for elevating the group's profile within the literary community and supporting Hachette Book Group’s mission of publishing books that allow people to discover new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment, and opportunity. Her leadership has brought Basic Books Group many esteemed awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, the LA Times Book Prize, and the Wolfson Prize.

About Basic Books Group:
The Basic Books Group is dedicated to making the world smarter by publishing works of serious non-fiction by expert authors. The group includes Basic Books, Seal Press, PublicAffairs, Bold Type Books, Basic Venture, and Basic Liberty.

Since its founding in 1950, Basic Books has shaped public debate by publishing award-winning books in history, science, politics, biography, and psychology.  Seal Press, founded in 1976, publishes enduring works of feminist non-fiction. For over 25 years, PublicAffairs has  published books at the heart of the national and global conversation — books that inform, advocate, educate, debunk, and speak truth to power. For two decades, Bold Type Books has aimed to challenge power through narrative by publishing works of urgent and ambitious journalism. Created in 2024, Basic Venture publishes experts at the heart of the national and global conversation in business and economics. Basic Liberty is dedicated to publishing serious works of cultural, social, and political analysis by conservative intellectuals. As a whole, the Basic Books Group is dedicated to the proposition that ideas matter.

About Hachette Book Group: 
Hachette Book Group (HBG) is a leading U.S. general-interest book publisher made up of dozens of esteemed imprints within the publishing groups Basic Books Group, Grand Central Publishing Group, Hachette Audio, Little, Brown and Company, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Orbit, and Workman Running Press Group. We also provide custom distribution, fulfillment, and sales services to other publishing companies.  

Our books and authors have received the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Caldecott Medal, Newbery Medal, Booker Prize, Nobel Peace Prize and other major honors.

We are committed to diversity in our company and our publishing programs, and to fostering a culture of inclusion for all our employees and authors. We are proud to be part of Hachette Livre, the world’s third-largest trade and educational publisher.

Visit hachettebookgroup.com to learn more about HBG imprints. For updated news follow HBG on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X.com, and YouTube

Press Contact:
Gabrielle Gambrell, Chief Communications Officer, Gabrielle.Gambrell@hbgusa.com

Take your first look at the cover for The Damned King (US | UK) by Justin Lee Anderson, the next installment in The Eidyn Saga, coming August 2025!

The revolution continues in the thrilling third novel of Justin Lee Anderson’s epic Eidyn Saga, perfect for fans of Anthony Ryan and David Gemmell.

The eternal light keeping demons at bay has been extinguished and Eidyn’s last bastion is under brutal siege. Aranok and his allies draw the final battle lines as the war for the kingdom nears its end. With death threatening from every shadow and truth itself at stake, Eidyn’s defenders must put aside their grudges and come together. But is it possible to save everyone when some prefer the lie?

Also by Justin Lee Anderson

The Eidyn Saga

The Lost War
(US | UK)

The Bitter Crown
(US | UK)

Red Sonja, the iconic, fiery, she-devil with a sword, is reinvented for a new generation of readers in this action-packed epic fantasy by legendary comic book writer Gail Simone.

Read an excerpt of Red Sonja: Consumed, on sale November 19th, below!

1

THEY REMINDED HER OF DRAGON WINGS

So, she went from being the child of a village, loved and nurtured by all, to being a child of nothing and no one, with a swiftness that left scars so deep they might never heal. Every meal was a plan, then a risk, then a danger. Every slumber a sign to the forest’s predators . . . an alert in the scent of musk or urine to come and devour the child as she slept in the branches of the tallest tree she could find, an oak that had seen six centuries and offered little in the way of shelter or comfort.

The first nights after everything she had ever known was burned to ash, she sang quietly to herself in the tree’s unlovely limbs, bits of a lullaby her mother had sung nightly before bed. She didn’t remember all the words and would replace them with a tuneless, dead-eyed hum, more artifact than comfort. A fossil of an age that seemed only the fanciful dream of a drowning heart.

She would think of her mother, bone and burned sinew that she had buried along with everyone she had ever known. At ten summers, she had become her people’s last undertaker.

Pilatius III, The Song of Sonja, the She-Devil

OUTSIDE THE BORDERS OF TURAN, THE HYBORIAN AGE

Sonja was behind schedule.

To be fair, “schedule” was plainly too fine a word for the heedless, headlong sequence of events she’d set in motion in those cold predawn hours. Even calling it a plan at all was a bit grandiose for what was a messy, unkind affair even by her low standards.

The She-​Devil was on the run.

She had not had time to dress properly. Her preference was warmer climes and few encumbrances, her light furs and sparse ring mail making her underdressed for a morning with temperatures just above freezing. Her tan had faded, making her skin paler than she liked, for both practical and aesthetic reasons. A hunter hunted best when difficult to spot.

Further, she had left with an urgency that saw her take only a few items aside from her horse and blankets. A bow (not the double-​curved bow of her homeland, sadly), a nearly empty quiver, a sword, and a few scattered items in her kit roll. Not for the first time, she cursed her impetuous nature. She had seen her opportunity and seized it, consequences be damned. No food, no water, and most painfully now, no alcohol.

She had left a warm, generously occupied camp bed covered in silken sheets for three small, scratchy horse blankets and a trail only another hunter could follow. In almost any other scenario, she’d be safe; she’d be on her way.

And she’d be rich.

Unfortunately, she was none of those things. Not yet. Because the Wolf Pack on her trail was led by a hunter whose skills were nearly equal to her own and whose rage would be intractable, even if, as Sonja had to reluctantly admit, it was also clearly justifiable.

She’d stolen from a queen. A queen who missed no trail sign, no matter how insignificant. And to add insult to an already festering injury, that queen had been the owner of that silken camp bed and the warm, lush body within. She allowed herself one regretfully sentimental moment as she brushed her fingers across the gold asp-​shaped circlet on her left upper arm. It would fetch a ransom from the right vendor, preferably someone with few ethics and many coins. There was already a generous, if sometimes murderous, potential buyer.

But that was a problem for tomorrow.

Her horse, whom she’d named Sunder after the manner with which he demolished his feed at every meal, snorted in disapproval—whether at the tight grading of the steep hill trail they were ascending or at Sonja’s affairs of the heart, only mount and rider could comprehend.

“Look, I never said I was tactful,” Sonja said defensively, to no response at all from the horse.

The trail narrowed further as they crested the hill’s final grade, surrounded by ominously tall eucalyptus trees, their leaves providing nearly enough cover to block out the coming dawn. In a fortuitous bit of unexpected timing, the greenery gave way at the same moment the sun’s light finally hit the clearing at the hill’s summit.

And for the second time upon seeing what was planted there, Sonja’s breath caught in her chest.

“Mitra’s fist,” she exclaimed. Most of her vulgarities were barroom earned, but in rare moments, only her father’s favorite oath seemed to fit, even if the exact meaning of it was beyond her. Sonja dismounted, gesturing the hardy Sunder to stay.

In the center of the glade, hidden to the outside world, was a stone tower, not unlike the turrets and parapets she’d seen on fortresses and castles throughout Hyboria. It was the sails that elevated her heart rate, the four beautiful multicolored sails spiraling in the gentle breeze. She caught her breath just as she had the day it had been first revealed.

“It is called a windmill,” Queen Ysidra had said, whispering, as if imparting a secret so delicate that volume could destroy it. The queen was lovely, dark and imposing, but carried her responsibilities like the heavy load they were, and Sonja had never seen her so delighted.

“I . . . Give me a moment,” Sonja had gasped. She’d seen works of art before, primarily of gods and heroes carved in stone, and she had been entirely unmoved. They looked unlike any of the bloody battles she herself had experienced firsthand, with their theatrical posing. The slavering demons of this religion or that had left her thinking only of the madness of artists and zealots, two classes she did her best to avoid.

But this “windmill” was different, elevated somehow, inspired by divinity, perhaps. The sails were dyed in bright splashes of color, some of which she had never seen before. Beautiful but arcane calligraphy walked up the edge of each huge swath of fabric, doubtlessly uttering majestic poetry to whatever blessed soul could read it. She loved it and she feared it instantly, her gut churning with emotions she lacked the vocabulary to express.

They reminded her of dragon wings, and she had never seen anything crafted by the hand of man that was so moving and, to her uneducated eye, unknowable.

“But who . . . who built this? What is its purpose?” she asked, unaware that Ysidra had been watching her reaction, grinning at her lover’s response.

“The people are gone. Plague,” Ysidra said flatly, as if discussing the weather. Death was not fetishized in her tribe; Turanian they had once been, and so remained in their hearts. You lived, you died, and nothing of substance was ever gained by mourning. “Come, I’ll show you.”

They entered the needle’s interior through a wooden door, the lock of which had been broken off at some great effort. The clan that had built this wonder had taken pains to keep its secrets unshared, but now its treasure was protected only by the height of the surrounding forest. Meticulous markings on the circular walls seemed to indicate fastidious recordkeeping, but was only gibberish to the Hyrkanian.

Sonja was afraid of no man or beast. But she was superstitious. And she felt ghosts around her as they entered, as if she were herself a violation, trespassing in a tomb.

In the center of the interior, a great flat-​chiseled stone disc rotated, at the behest of a vertical wheel and a central rotating wooden pole that Sonja could barely have gotten her arms around, had she braved the vertigo to do so. There were other discs, with carefully aligned teeth. Sonja was no scholar. But she had a keen grasp of cause and effect, and she immediately understood how these gears coalesced from form to function. Ysidra’s most learned men were still taking notes and drawing sketches, months after the spire’s discovery. Sonja had lapped them in comprehension after just moments. She was frankly smitten.

Ysidra was clearly delighted by Sonja’s rapt attention. “You see, they would separate the chaff from the grain. Grist, it is named. Then this is placed on this stone tablet, and the wheel—”

“—crushes the grain. To make meal. I’ve seen it done with mules as its engine.”

“Yes. Yes. Do you understand what this could mean, Sonja, my love?”

For the first time since entering the glade at Ysidra’s side, Sonja turned to look at the Queen of Nomads, acutely sensing the urgency in Ysidra’s voice. The light through the small windows in the spire’s walls glinted off the asp circlet on the queen’s arm.

Ysidra smiled, the expression all the more beautiful for its rarity.

Her dark eyes and long braided hair were arresting, her face framed by brilliantly colored ribbons cunningly woven into her braids. Red and green, with gold threads at the knots that intersected them. She glowed, in a way Sonja had never witnessed, even during intimacy.

Sonja had felt the queen’s hands all over her and knew that the calluses and scars were hard earned, the ransom for a life hard fought for poor reward. The seamstresses of her tribe were famous, not just for the multicolored patterns of their meticulous designs but also for their cleverness and their artistry of deceit. Ysidra’s tunic alone pocketed two blades in the soft lining and several jewels in the beadwork, which, true to her tribe’s nature, formed the pattern of a gray wolf.

The queen blushed. Despite her position, or perhaps because of it, she had no experience conversing plainly from the heart, and she braced herself to speak as if preparing to leap from an ocean cliff to the water far below.

“It means an end to fruitless toil, Devil. It means bounty and trade. It means no more thievery, no more slavery simply to lift hand to mouth. It means, Green Eyes, that after three hundred years of exile and living in a saddle, my people will have a home.”

Sonja blinked. She was not one for thoughts of tomorrow, when today could be so nakedly precarious. But she knew how much it meant to the dark-​haired woman. Her tribe had been cast from its homeland of Turan for crimes long forgotten, a penance that could never be fully paid.

The queen took Sonja’s hand in both of her own. “And you could rule by my side, a wanderer no more. Can you not see the trail, Sonja? To put down our swords? To drink like camels, to bed like rabbits, to eat like pigs? To have roots, Sonja. Roots, beloved.”

Sonja merely stared. This was a proposal not without appeal. She turned again to the wonder in front of her, each turn of the sails seeming to bring new emotions.

* * *

She awoke from her memory to a familiar roar.

“Devil.”

The name was growled with malice by a guttural voice she recognized as Ysidra’s. She turned to see the Wolf Pack, the queen’s elite guards, flanking their queen, two on each side, bows across their backs, each carrying a black sword. Sonja had once seen Ysidra kill a cherished horse who had broken both forelegs in a ditch hidden by tall grass. Her eyes had gone expressionless and faraway. It was simply an unpleasant task that needed doing.

In stark contrast, the queen’s eyes now blazed with a rage that was almost luminescent.

Each Wolf rider wore a short beard braided in two and made no sound, out of respect for Ysidra’s position. They had been trained from birth to emulate the wolf, to protect one another, and to hunt with precision. They would not waste their arrows. Sonja thought she recognized two of them; Raganus she knew. Festrel was another, perhaps? The rest she’d never bothered to know.

The queen pointed her sword, kept black by clever use of a forge’s flame and scrawled with runes of bloody deeds to its very tip, at Sonja. “You are a thief and a liar. You will give me the Asp and return to our camp for scourging and execution, dog.”

Sonja paused, as if considering the merits of this offer. “Am I not granted a hearing?”

Ysidra sneered. “After the execution. That is our custom.”

“I must say, that seems a bit unfair to the accused, Ysidra.”

The queen’s horse reared, its hooves sparking against the rocky path of the clearing. “The accused stole the heart of me and the heart of my tribe. You left on the day of our union!”

Sonja winced . . . Both the charges were true. But she also saw the riders of the Wolf Pack quickly glance at one another, taking measure not just of their prey but of their mistress. In Ysidra’s tribe, leadership came from neither combat nor heredity, but a complicated concept the Devil could barely wrap her head around.

They voted. Each person— man, woman, and child alike— put a name on a polished piece of wood, and those marks were tallied and a monarch chosen. At any time, a queen or king could be challenged and overthrown. It was the most unimaginable folly to Sonja, but even she had enough manners not to mention it.

The one stickler in this arrangement was that the new king or queen could, in an effort to prevent future elections, simply declare the previous leader a traitor and execute them. It had a quieting effect upon loyalists to the previous crown. Sonja saw the Wolf Pack riders noting their queen’s ire, witnesses to her humiliation.

To bed a comely foreigner was one thing; to propose to a thief—that was something else again. What Sonja felt for Ysidra wasn’t love. She wasn’t sure she had ever felt such a thing. She was more familiar with sex than sonnets. But Ysidra was walking a razor’s edge with her own guardsmen’s loyalty and either didn’t know or didn’t care.

Sonja looked right into the queen’s eyes. “Ysidra, look at me. I have never had a home. Do I appear to you to be anyone’s bride? I’d ruin the both of us, velvet cage or not.”

Ysidra looked down on her, unmoved. “I’ll hear no more of your liar’s tongue, Hyrkanian. There is still to be a ceremony. It’s just that you’ll deem it less festive by far.”

The riders smiled at this. Here was a queen to follow, who put her people above her loins.

Sonja sighed. “I don’t know why so many of my bedmates, high and low, seem to want to kill me immediately after communion. It’s very poor manners, if you ask me.” She drew her sword. “Come on, then.”

The Wolf Pack began to move forward on their horses, each holding their sword aloft, not yet committing to the challenge. From the ground, Sonja felt she might be able to defeat two at best. Four, never. And the queen herself was more dangerous than all of them together.

The queen held up her free hand, palm facing outward. “Hold. First, Devil, order your mount to stay. I know how you fight. Order him, and he lives.”

Sonja cursed under her breath and let out an exaggerated sigh.

Without turning around, her back to the hulking animal, she held up two fingers and said the word “Asami,” the Turanian word for “wait.” Her eyes never moved from the queen as the Wolf Pack moved closer toward her. They focused on her with the intensity of the wolf they took as their totem. They were fierce, but they were hunters, not fighters.

Ysidra’s blade hesitated. “Why do you smile, Devil? You cannot win this fight, and you can’t outrun my Wolves. Why do you smile?”

Sonja looked up, a terrifying grin on her pale face, eyes blazing. She lowered the two fingers on her upraised hand, making a fist.

The queen’s eyes opened wide, too late.

“Because my horse doesn’t speak Turanian.”

The riders looked up, to no purchase whatsoever, as Sonja’s warhorse ran into them headlong, with a lust for fighting none of them had witnessed in a lifetime of horsecraft. Two were dismounted immediately, and the remaining two found their own mounts kicking and bucking in unexpected terror.

Sunder often left that impression when of a surly disposition.

Sonja kicked one of the soldiers brutally in the ribs, cracking three and taking whatever breath he had remaining completely out of his reach. The second fallen man was met with a crashing blow from the hilt of Sonja’s sword. The remaining riders were attempting to control their mounts when Sonja’s horse began to lay into them with his front hooves.

Sonja smiled. The Turanians were fine riders, and she wouldn’t fault them.

But they weren’t Hyrkanian.

She grabbed the first dismounted rider roughly, his braided beard in her clenched fist. Smiling, she sliced his flesh under the arm, a shallow wound that nevertheless produced a copious stream of hot blood across the frosted grass.

Sonja leapt on the back of her horse, slashing across the leather armor of the closest Pack rider, who was still gaining his balance.

Ysidra swung her sword at Sonja’s neck, a killing blow Sonja barely blocked . . . On a steadier steed, the queen would have killed her, like the horse with the sickly, broken legs. Perhaps with a little joy in the doing this time.

Sonja smashed the flat of her sword against the queen’s shoulder, at just the tipping point to knock the dark-​haired woman out of her saddle. The woman landed hard on the ground, her foot still tangled in one rope stirrup. The riders, even the wounded, seemed to share an audible gasp. To die in combat was wholly noble in their eyes. To be humiliated was unforgivable. Sonja looked down at the queen, not without pity, but still altogether irked at the threat of death . . .

“Hold,” Sonja shouted. “You have a badly injured warrior, Queen. If you get him back to camp, he will live. Or you can follow me. You can’t do both.”

Ysidra stood, holding up her sword. “Death was a mercy, Devil. I’ll find you. I will find you if you bury yourself in the ground like the worm you are.”

Sonja smiled; she couldn’t help it. Freedom and wealth called, and death had been denied once again, its thirst unquenched.

“Ysidra, you worship the wolf and you love a devil. At some point, surely you must begin to question your choices in life?”

Sonja rode away down the hillside, and though it pained her to miss the sun’s rays on the spire behind, she did not look back.

Can't get enough of Red Sonja? Red Sonja: Consumed hits shelves on November 19th!"

Makes 1 large flan

200 g (1 c) granulated sugar
15 g (1 Tbsp) water
3 whole eggs plus 3 large egg yolks
One 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
One 12-oz can evaporated milk
100 g (⅓ c + 1½ Tbsp) coconut milk
5 g (1 tsp) vanilla extract
2 g (½ tsp) kosher salt
15 g (1 Tbsp) rum

Preheat the oven to 300°F.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, add the sugar and water and cook until it begins to brown, about 5 minutes. Stir lightly and allow the caramel to form and thicken. Once thick and deep brown, remove from the heat and coat a baking pan with the caramel. Make sure to cover the sides as well.

In a medium mixing bowl, add the eggs and egg yolks and whisk lightly in one direction. Set aside.

Prepare a large vessel (big enough to fit your baking pan) with boiling water. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, add the condensed milk, evaporated milk, coconut milk, vanilla, salt, and rum and stir until the mixture reaches 170°F, about 5 minutes.

Remove the milk mixture from the heat and temper the eggs and milk carefully. Once the mixture has been fully combined, pour into the baking pan over the caramel. Place the baking pan into the vessel with boiling water and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes, or until it has begun to set and the center of the custard jiggles slightly. Remove from the oven and let cool at room temperature for 20 minutes, then cover the baking pan with plastic wrap and transfer to the fridge overnight before serving.

It is odd how some stereotypes never really ring true to form, and yet others are spot on. Certainly the stereotype of the British loving tea is very apt. Nearly everyone here drinks black tea, and for some it can be an important ritual requiring the teapot to be preheated and putting the milk in first (never the other way around). In times of crisis or sorrow, the British often seek some solace in a cup of tea. The comforting rituals of filling the kettle and finding the mugs, as well as the resulting warm mugs to grasp, somehow help to calm frayed nerves and console both the maker and the recipient.

What I find fascinating about the British affinity with a cup of tea is that it is so pervasive: You immediately offer it to visiting friends if it’s during the day (a glass of something stronger may be more appropriate in the evening). Tea isn’t just for social visits—even contractors that have come to do some building work are offered a cup of tea (they usually take “builder’s tea,” a strong tea with several sugars). As you’d expect there are numerous nicknames for a mug of tea, with a “cuppa” (which sounds like “cupper”) probably the most common, though it is also referred to as a “brew” or “brew up.” The London slang for tea is “Rosie” or “Rosie Lee,” so you have a “nice cup of Rosie.”

Wherever you are, be it shopping or at a gallery, even at work or a university, come 3pm-3:30pm people may well disappear to get a quick cup of tea and snack before returning to their tasks. These days they may well be drinking a latte or herbal tea rather than black tea, but they will still take a short afternoon break with a warm drink for refreshment. This is most evident when you are out shopping, for example, and suddenly see the lines at coffee shops dramatically increase.

You should also be aware that the word “tea” can also imply a meal. In particular, people from the north of England use the term “tea” or “teatime” to refer to their main evening meal. My ignorance about “tea” being used to refer to an early evening meal caused me no end of confusion when my children were young and visiting friends. They would be invited around for a play-date and “tea,” which I assumed meant I’d be offered a cup of tea when I arrived to pick them up. In fact, my children had been given their dinner as part of the visit, making the one I had planned at home redundant. The best advice is to listen closely to see if the invitation is for “a cup of tea” or “tea,” and just ask if you are confused (after all, you are a foreigner).

Adding to the confusion of “tea” as a meal are the numerous cream teas (with jam, clotted cream, and scones) and afternoon teas (with cakes and light sandwiches) that are offered at hotels, cafés, and restaurants all around Britain. Going for afternoon tea has gained in popularity in recent years as both business meetings and social get-togethers are sometimes held over a pot of tea and some cake.

Related Travel Guide

Pin It for Later

Time to stack your TBR for the holidays with these December ebook deals starting at just $1.99. Get them while they last!

Take your first look at the cover for A Mother's Guide to the Apocalypse (US) by Hollie Overton, a new standalone domestic thriller coming August 2025!

If you knew the world was ending, what would you sacrifice to protect your children? What would you want them to know both about yourself and survival? What secrets would you want to stay buried? With an innovative structure where survival guide meets domestic thriller, A Mother's Guide to the Apocalypse explores what happens when the unshakable bonds of family are put to the ultimate test.

For Olivia Clark, the summer of 2024, was the beginning of the end. After defending her toddler triplets from a violent intruder she becomes obsessed with doomsday prepping, hoping to protect her children from an increasingly unstable world. Olivia's husband, Sam, insists she's being irrational, but she finds solace in an online community of preppers who confirm her fear: the world is ending. Then one day Olivia is one of thousands of people swept away in a flash flood that wiped out half of Los Angeles.

Or that’s the story Sam tells his children.

Twenty years later, the Clark triplets uncover a box of their mother's belongings that calls Sam's story into question. Reeling from their father's betrayal, the sisters connect with one of their mother's friends and return to California to uncover Olivia's true fate. Confronted by a world unlike anything they’ve ever known, where no one quite seems to be telling the truth, the sisters find themselves struggling with questions about the the father who raised them and the mother who may have abandoned them, all while trying to hold onto the only constant in their lives—each other.

Soil by Camille Dungy

Recipes for Respect: African American Meals and Meaning by Rafia Zafar

Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture by Gabe Brown

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams

The Flower Hunter by Lucy Hunter

On my living room couch in the company of my plants.

Where do I start. I have always written my thoughts on my blog and have always sought out books on gardening by everyday people who look like me. It was like a needle in a haystack. Even when I joined Garden Writers there was really no representation except for my friend Abra Lee. I have always wanted to be a part of change and uplift those in this industry and more. I started writing a novel, however when one of my Garden Writer Associates mentioned she wanted to see if I was interested in writing a book about Black flower farmers, I jumped at this opportunity, and it morphed into a broader conversation about florists, floral designers, and flower farmers. We are not a monolith, and I am grateful to have written this book to uplift others who might be answering the call of flowers. I am grateful to Timber Press for noticing this book and helping us continue this conversation which is long overdue.

Informative, readable, inspirational.

I am not a perfect person, so my writing is from my heart. Waiting to write the words at the perfect time often leads to me not writing. I am at a point in my life where I need to speak on behalf of myself and other African Americans truthfully, even if my voice shakes. If it makes room for us to get noticed and opportunities become more available, then it is worth it. I would like to have equitable opportunities to share my voice as well as the unheard voices of other African Americans in horticulture. While we may not be perfect, representation is real and appreciated.

Jamaica Kincaid.

Eggplant Stacks made by me.

Anything by Teddy Swims.

Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey

Paula Sutton raises the bar on what is possible as a woman of color living her dreams.

Nancy Drew Mysteries, Encyclopedia Britannica, all my Dad’s gardening books, Moby Dick.

Gardeners’ World, Central Texas Gardener, Epic Gardening.

A novel about saving the land.

Sagittarius – totally correct!

The Color Purple.

Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs & Juice by Toni Tipton Martin.

Emily Bryce from The Victory Garden by Rhys Bowen. I would want to take Emily to see beautiful gardens all over England so she could add to the gardens she tended in Devonshire.

To write a New York Times best-selling book on African American Garden Clubs.

Insects that will herald the apocalypse, American values brought to life in a vividly illustrated book, sizzling tales of romance for fans of Netflix’s Bridgerton, and more. Here's what books you need to check out this November.

This sweeping epic fantasy brings the acclaimed Burning Kingdoms trilogy to a heart–stopping close, as an ancient magic returns to Ahiranya and threatens its very foundations, Empress Malini and priestess Priya will stop at nothing to save their kingdoms—even if it means they must destroy each other.

Read the first four chapters of The Lotus Empire, on sale November 12, below!

PROLOGUE

This was her last hope.

The monsoon rain was pouring. The woman rode through it on horseback, without the cover of a parasol, letting the water soak her through. The trees of the forest loomed around her, black in the fading light.

She missed, with a sudden and knife-sharp grief, the flower gardens of home. White jasmine and needle-flower, and her pink roses. There were no trees to loom over her there, and no parched battlefields underfoot, seeded with nothing but dead flesh to draw scavenging birds.

The only flowers she had seen in months had been on the skin of her enemies. The yaksa who had killed her father had been flower-haired—a glowing, smiling girl-like thing with pits for teeth and arms sharpened to fine points. She had skewered him through, and laughed as she did it.

The woman shuddered at the memory, and shuddered again from the cold. She should have traveled in a chariot instead, but she loathed to be contained.

The monastery loomed out of the darkness ahead of her. Its gray stone shone silver in the shafts of dull light that broke through the trees.

Her army halted as the priest emerged, and bowed, and offered to lead her to the lake. She dismounted and followed him, boots heavy on the wet soil.

She thought of her sons. Her eldest three boys, at war. Her youngest, still in the care of a wet nurse. She wondered if she would see them again. Sikander, her oldest, had promised to meet her on the road from Alor with news from home. She had carried sweets for him just in case. Dried mango. It was the fresh he loved the most, but that she couldn’t easily provide. They’d burned all the orchards in Harsinghar to keep the yaksa at bay.

The lake was black. Although the rain fell fiercely, the lake was untouched, a disc of glossy stillness.

She kneeled by its side. Her salwar kameez grew wetter at the knees.

“Look,” the priest said. “Gaze into the water. Pray for the nameless to speak.”

She looked. The darkness showed her nothing. Nothing for a long time, as she shivered and the night drew in.

She had been foolish to come here. What could she see that a priest of the nameless could not? There were no answers to this war. They would fight the yaksa until their last breaths, and they would be defeated. There was no hope anymore.

Something flickered in the darkness. She leaned closer.

It grew. First, an ember. Then a lamp. Then a blazing fire, swallowing up the water, swirling in screaming light.

Let me in, the fire said. And the woman said, without hesitation, Yes.

The fire was gone. The lake was black again.

“My lady,” the priest said hesitantly. “Have you returned to yourself?”

He had seen nothing. She pressed her tongue to her teeth. Searched for her voice.

“Yes.”

“Did the nameless speak?” the priest asked, eager and terrified.

She raised her head. Her vision swam, golden as fire. Despite the rain she felt suddenly warm—lit like a lantern from within.

Not the nameless, she thought. But it did not matter. They were saved.

“I know how to kill the yaksa,” Divyanshi said.

1

PRIYA

On the first day, they made her kneel.

There, at the base of the Hirana, on soil laden with flowers, she lowered herself down. Her clothes were already filthy from her long journey. It didn’t matter that the ground made her filthier. The yaksa with her brother’s face had told her to kneel, so she had.

He bowed over her. Leaves surrounded her. It was like being beneath the boughs of a great tree.

“Priya,” he said. “Wait here. Will you wait?”

What else could she do? She had come here, hadn’t she? If a yaksa wanted her to kneel, she would. If they wanted her to walk again—walk and walk until her feet bled and she reached the edge of the world, and beyond—then she would. What else could she do but obey?

She was so impossibly tired.

“Yes,” she said thinly. “I will.”

The shadows of his leaves, points of cool darkness on her skin, rustled. They drifted away, leaving her in bare sunlight.

She was alone now, in silence, but the green was a cry in her ears: the susurration of growing things. The sharp, sap-bright crack of things rising from the soil, gasping for sunlight. All of Ahiranya, under her knees, inside her, around her.

Someone was approaching.

She raised her head again. But this figure did not tower over her. This ghost was small, slight—no more than a boy. Silvery, flat eyes. Soft petals flowering from his shoulders.

“Nandi?” Her mouth shaped his name without her say-so. Her little temple brother. A memory struck her like a clear bell: Nandi laughing, cheeks dimpled.

Nandi, lying dead on the ground in a burning room.

This Nandi smiled. Too many sharp teeth.

She touched the ground beneath him. Green things were growing beneath his bare feet. The world at this angle was all vibrant soil and falling leaves the color of moonlight. He curled his toes, and she heard the click of wood.

“You’re not Nandi,” she said. “I am sorry.” She bowed, or tried to bow, in the way she’d always done before the effigies of the yaksa, with her forehead pressed to the ground and her hands beneath her. But her body had other ideas, and took that moment to collapse. Mouth full of dirt.

Hands on her upper arms. Lifting her back to her knees. The yaksa wearing Ashok’s face was holding her up.

“You’re tired,” Nandi said. “Come with us.”

“Where is Bhumika?”

“Come with us,” he said again, and it was not a gentle urging any longer. It was an order. And because it was an order, her body obeyed. She rose, until she was standing. Walking.

She followed the two yaksa to the Hirana. There, in front of her, were familiar carvings. Familiar stone, weathered and ancient. She felt an ache: a pang like homesickness or homecoming.

Nandi touched a hand to the stone and it shifted, parting to open a way for them. The tunnel ahead was dark, but it called to her. She heard a song inside it.

My sapling.

Into the darkness she went. She walked, and walked, and the darkness opened—softened by blue light. And there before her were the deathless waters, and before it three more figures. Against the light behind them they were faceless, fleshless. No more than shadow.

A sudden fear gripped her heart like a fist. A yaksa would step forward wearing Bhumika’s face. Bhumika, hollowed out, with flowering eyes and wooden smile, Bhumika gone—

Then one stepped forward, and it was Sanjana.

It was better. Terrible, but better, and when Sanjana told her to kneel again Priya did so without complaint, with something almost like thankfulness.

Elder Chandni and Elder Sendhil followed, and for a brief moment Priya wondered, wildly, whether she had died. How could she be meeting the dead if she were still alive?

“Priya,” Sanjana said softly. She stepped behind Priya and took hold of her hair, her touch nearly tender. She gathered it up in her hands. “You’re home.”

She felt Sanjana’s fingertips move up to her scalp—ten points of sharp touch, ten seeds ready to take root.

“Why am I here?” Priya asked. “Yaksa, ancient ones—why here, by the deathless waters? I’d do better resting in a bed.”

There was something like laughter—rustling, rippling.

“Your soul needs rest,” the yaksa who was not Sendhil said. “More than your body.”

The one wearing Ashok’s face kneeled before her.

“You carry something precious within you,” he told her, his voice hushed. He grasped her hands, turning them over. The bluish light of the deathless waters reflected on her skin, turning the brown of her palms soft gray. “We want to protect you.”

She felt the sangam pour over her—cosmic and rippling, mingling with the light of the deathless waters before her. She breathed out, only half knowing her lungs, and felt Sanjana’s nails press deeper against her scalp, points of grounding, points of pain.

Is this healing? Priya thought. Is this rest? It certainly didn’t feel like it. But she had stabbed Malini and watched the terror and betrayal fill her eyes. She had left Sima behind. And Bhumika—wherever Bhumika was—could not help her.

“Rest,” Nandi urged again. And Priya...

Priya closed her eyes.

* * *

On the second day, she dreamt.

She was in the sangam. Wholly, deeply, immersed in rivers of green and gold and blood red. And they were around her, the yaksa. All five of them, all utterly inhuman. Fish-scaled, flowereyed, lichen-fleshed—river water oozing from their skin, and pearly sap adorning their finger bones. She loved them, a little, or perhaps entirely. She’d worshipped them all her life, after all. But she feared them too, and that was bitter, a sharp thorn under her tongue.

Are you hollow? the yaksa asked. Are you ours, wholly and utterly?

Are you hers?

Yes, she told them. Yes and yes. She had cut out her heart, after all. If they could see her soul, then surely they could see that. Her ribs of wood, and no human heart within them.

They picked at her. Picked her apart. They asked her again, and again.

Can you be trusted?

Will you stay? Will you serve?

Yes.

She isn’t enough. She isn’t ready. She isn’t strong enough.

Words not meant for her that darted through her anyway; silvery arrows, piercing her.

Will you be what you need to be? Will you reach for her? Can you find her? Can you break your bones, your heart, your mind in her service? Can you yield?

Yield to it, Priya. Beloved. Yield.

Yes, and yes, and yes, and yes—

On the third day, she stopped counting.

Someone pressed water to her mouth. She drank.

She slept. She dreamt of the war: the churn of chariot wheels, and the Saketan warriors around her racing forward on their horses, and Sima holding up a shield to protect her.

More water. Pangs of hunger through her belly.

She was walking into the imperial court. She was sliding a knife between Malini’s ribs. She was kissing Malini—kissing her even though she hadn’t kissed Malini when she’d stabbed her. Kisses that tasted of blood, salt. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Hate me, you can hate me.

Hate me and live.

She woke. Back in her own body, breathing and aching, sprawled in the dirt. There were flowers growing from her wrists, burrowing their heads into the soil. The yaksa were still there. She could feel them, even before she caught sight of them; kneeling as she had kneeled, as if they were tending to her, worshipping her.

She was dizzy with hunger. Her body hurt.

“Where is Bhumika?” Her voice cracked. “Where is my sister?”

Silence.

“Padma, then,” Priya said, when no answer came. “Where is she?” She rose up on her elbows, dislodging growing things—feeling the soil under her thrum at her presence. “I came back for my family,” Priya went on. “For my people. If you won’t tell me about Bhumika, then at least tell me her child is safe.”

“You think we would hurt a child?” Ashok—not Ashok—asked. But there was something assessing in the fathomless liquid of his eyes, in the leaf-rustle rasp of his voice.

“I think I know what nature does,” Priya replied slowly. And what were the yaksa, if not nature? “And I know how I was raised. And I know... what was asked of me.”

“Do you think,” Sanjana asked, “that you have the right to ask?”

“I am an elder,” Priya said. “I am thrice-born. Who else can ask, if not me?”

They said nothing, but the silence was weighty. There was a question inside it. It reminded her of her childhood—of her elders teaching her. They were waiting for her to fill the silence herself; to give a proper answer.

“That’s what an elder should be,” she went on, her throat sore. “The one who can ask. Not just—a worshipper. If I am wrong, yaksa, then I am—sorry.”

Elder Chandni—or the yaksa who mimicked her—leaned forward. Her dark hair was shining with water.

“Your sister ran,” Elder Chandni said. “From her duties. From her purpose, in cowardice.”

Lie. Bhumika would never have run. But as ground down as Priya was, she knew better than to say it.

“Did you kill her for it?” Priya asked. Her voice trembled. She couldn’t help it.

“No,” the yaksa wearing Ashok’s face said. His eyes were fixed on the distance—on nothing, and everything. “We did not.”

Was that a lie, too? She had not seen Bhumika in the sangam in so long.

She bowed to the earth again. Flowers against her face, the smell of petrichor seeping against her lips.

“Yaksa,” she said. “I’m only mortal. Let me go. You’ve seen enough of my soul. My body needs to rest, too. To eat and to rest.” And I need to find my sister.

“How long,” the yaksa asked, “do you think you have been here?”

She turned her head, looking at him, then through him, at the rivulets of shining blue water, working their way down the stone wall. How long had the water run, bleeding like light in that same pattern, for the stone to scar as it had?

“I don’t know,” she said dully.

“If you were simply human,” Sendhil murmured, “you would be dead.”

She traced her lips with her tongue. It almost felt unnatural: tasting the salt of her skin, feeling the parched dryness of her mouth. Simply human. What was she meant to do with those words? She knew she wasn’t simply human.

But she was human enough to be thirsty. Her knees hurt. And for all they’d been picking her apart from the soul upward, every shadowy root-and-spirit thread of her, she was more than her soul in the sangam. More than the sap under her skin. There was blood and flesh in her yet.

“You have my heart,” said Priya. “Mani Ara has my heart. And you’ve seen everything of me that matters. Let me leave here. Let me serve you properly.”

“And what service must you provide to us?” Elder Chandni prompted.

A flash of memory. Malini’s betrayed eyes. A thorn blade. The feel of blood and flesh. She knew what Malini would do.

“There’s going to be a war,” Priya said. “The Parijatdvipans—they’ll come. And you will need me. I’ll serve. Just as the elders served in the Age of Flowers.”

She raised her head, and saw as Chandni’s mouth shaped a slow smile.

“Let me out, yaksa,” Priya said. “So I can do the work you need from me.”

She almost asked again. But she bit down on her tongue instead. Begging wouldn’t get her anywhere. The yaksa would not respond to pleading. She’d learned a little more about them, in the time they had spent rummaging through her skin. She waited. Waited.

“Resting has fashioned something useful out of you,” Chandni said indulgently. “Go, then, Elder Priya. Tend to your flesh. And then we will prepare for our war.”

2

MALINI

Every night she returned to the court of the imperial mahal. She could not help it. Her dreams carried her there.

Every night was the same. Blue stone beneath her, the light of an unseen moon veiling the white marble, the pale sandstone, in waterdeep shades. The gold of a fire ahead of her, blooming into flowers. Marigolds and ashoka and roses of bloody red, tumbling from the flames to her feet. And there, waiting for her, always: Priya.

Priya with leaves falling softly from her tangled hair. Priya, weeping—tracks of fire glittering on her cheeks.

Priya sliding a knife through Malini’s ribs.

Malini woke, as she always did, with a sharp pain burrowing its way through her chest. She kept her eyes closed for a long moment, then rose to her feet. Removed her blouse with careful fingers. Pressed her fingertips to her own skin.

Smooth flesh first, and then the scars: the roughness of them, ugly beneath her fingers, a rope of hurt flesh knotted anew.

Touching the scars reminded her the knife was gone. Priya was gone. There was no reason at all for the pain.

She lay back down. Chest throbbing. A door open in her skull, a fire and a knife at the end of it.

The sun rose on the day of Aditya’s funeral. She’d half expected that it would not.

The sky was still rose-pale when maids dragged buckets of fireheated water into the marble bathing room, pouring them into the bath. Malini followed after them, slow-footed, heavy-hearted.

She lowered herself into the deep well of the bath, the water scalding around her, so hot it made her skin sting and ache. She closed her eyes, breathing the steam in as one maid poured oil into the water and another gathered up her hair, working through the tangles with an ivory comb and jasmine oil.

The maids moved silently. The smell of flower attar, even diluted, was nearly overpowering. But even so, when Malini rose out of the pool, she dipped her hand into the jug still held in a maid’s waiting hands and pressed the fragrant oil behind her ear.

She knew how strong a pyre smelled. Better to smell flowers than fire, if she had the choice.

A drying cloth was wrapped around her body, her hair carefully daubed dry and then bound into a braid. No flowers in her hair today. No jewels at her wrists or her nose, her ears or throat. The sari that the maids wound around her body was pure mourning white.

Her chest ached as she moved at her maids’ gentle urging. Pulled and tugged, the tight, scarred skin resisted her movements. The pain was all the greater because she refused to distract herself from it. Instead, she focused resolutely on her own body: the sweat already threatening to rise to her skin, the fading heat of the water, the scent of jasmine, and the ever-present ache within her ribs.

Funerals were meant to be performed as soon after a death as possible: the body burned, prayers made, mourning begun. But Aditya’s funeral was no normal funeral. He had sacrificed himself for the empire. In the heart of a fort in Saketa, he had chosen to die.

Aditya had burned as the mothers burned. Aditya had smiled, or so people said—smiled and made the warriors around him vow to serve her, before the flames had consumed him whole.

Empress Malini, one of those warriors had said, head bowed. In death, he gave you an everlasting crown.

She let out a shuddering breath, tears threatening at her eyes. One of her maids made a high-pitched sound, resonant sympathy, her hands fluttering. She settled on adjusting Malini’s pallu.

Strange to cry, when her heart felt so leaden inside her. Sometimes grief was pain, and sometimes it was simply absence—the wound in the shape of things that could not be felt or touched or comprehended.

A figure entered. Malini turned and saw Lata standing in the doorway, white-garbed and solemn.

“It’s time,” Lata said.

In the first hall stood Deepa and Raziya, and a whole throng of highborn dressed in uniform white. Some were already weeping. But Raziya was dry-eyed. She met Malini’s eyes for a moment, then bowed—one sweeping movement mimicked in a ripple by the women around her.

Malini waited until they rose from their bows. The leaden feeling had spread from her heart to the rest of her body. She was not sure she could move her legs. But she had to. There was no alternative.

One step, then another. Another. And her court of women followed her, skirts whispering, a rustle like birds seeking flight.

She walked from her chambers, out, out.

And there, waiting for her, was a sea of highborn men. Her lords and kings. The rulers of her empire.

They bowed, too.

Through the throng of them, the High Priest emerged. Hemanth was the head of the priesthood that served the mothers of flame, and by extension served her. He was meant to be her spiritual advisor, by stature and standing.

But he was also the man who made Chandra into what Chandra had been. He was also the man who had burned women. The man who had almost burned her.

“Empress,” Hemanth said. She could not read his expression. But she counted the new lines of grief and tension around his mouth. Noted the redness of his eyes. He was suffering, at least, and that pleased her. “Prince Aditya’s soul awaits our prayers.”

Distantly, through the high windows and from remote corridors, she could hear weeping and song. Prayer and music, and the beating of mourning drums. Would the mourning have been so ostentatious if the rot was not flowering across the empire, if rumors of the yaksa rising and walking once more had not begun to spread? People needed something to have faith in.

“High Priest,” she said, loud enough for the waiting men to hear her. Her voice was clear as a bell. “Show us how to revere him.”

Chandra’s funeral had not been like this. It had been swift, and small. Ignoble. No one had been willing to burn his corpse during her sickness, and by the time she had recovered from her wound his body had rotted. Even the flowers and perfumes laid on his pyre, and the attar of roses dashed from small silver filigree jugs by the priests onto his remains, had not been enough to cover the smell. So there had been no public display of mourning for the people of Harsinghar to wail or cheer over. Instead, there had only been members of her council and the priests, and Malini herself. And the corpse, of course, swathed in white cloth to conceal its decay.

But for Aditya’s funeral there was weeping and wailing. The people of Harsinghar had left sheaves of flowers outside the mahal’s walls. And Aditya’s funeral pyre—with no corpse to burn—was heaped with garlands. Pink, red; the rich, profuse gold of marigolds; the delicate white, too, of needle-flower.

She kneeled, prostrating herself before the bodiless pyre. All the people around her followed suit, and their prayers were a roar like waves, a billowing storm in her ears. Their grief was so ostentatious it was more akin to a celebration: of death, of sacrifice, of the faith of the mothers.

Of Aditya. Not as she had known him—not her brother, with all his infuriating flaws, his gentle eyes, his unbending morality—but as the immortal thing he’d become. Not a mother of flame, but a son of one—dying for Malini’s empire, Malini’s throne, Malini’s fate.

She could not complain, could she? By the time she’d clawed her way from her sickbed, his tale had fused with her own, nourished her power even when sickness should have leached authority away from her. So empress she continued to be, crowned anew in the flames of his death.

She closed her eyes as Hemanth spoke his name.

Prince Aditya.

She couldn’t remember the last thing she had said to him. She’d searched her memory, racked it. But the more she thought about it, the less she could recall: the more the memory writhed and twisted, evading her. Her mind, punishing her, or showing her compassion.

Malini opened her eyes, blinked as Aditya’s face wavered before her swimming gaze.

Hemanth had fallen silent. He stepped forward and, with reverence, lit the pyre.

As the flames caught and rose, the sound of prayers rose with them.

The jasmine oil was a mistake. She realized that now. She could smell nothing but flowers: rotting flowers, burning flowers, flowers turning to smoke and flowers on her own skin, and the absence of burning flesh was almost more awful than the presence of it. Her stomach roiled. She almost wavered where she sat; almost slipped like all her bones had melted and she was nothing but wilting flesh. She felt the possibility of it like nausea, vertigo, and held it—somehow—at bay.

Maybe she was slipping. Losing her grasp on herself, on authority; maybe she was unraveling.

She hunched forward. A tear slipped free. That was fine. A little grief. A respectable amount of grief. A grief like worship. That could be allowed. That could—perhaps—be a necessity.

After the prayers ended she felt Lata’s hand on one arm and Raziya’s on the other. They raised her up. She found her feet and moved, the crowd moving with her.

She walked from the court to a veranda overlooking the city. The sky was painfully blue above her, and her skirt began to billow, caught in a sweet breeze.

She looked out at the city. At its people, so many of them that she could not discern individual faces, only the movement and sway of bodies, all palely dressed, exultant and mourning and joyous in their grieving under the rise of the beating sun.

Empress Malini. Mother Malini. Empress, Empress, Empress.

She felt the tale settle around her, written in smoke and in death.

And her ribs still burned, and burned, and burned.

3

RAO

“There will be war, of course.”

The snap of a flask. Liquor being poured. The scent of it was sharp—iron-rich, so close to blood that Rao could only turn his face from it and stare at one of the lamps along the wall. The flame inside it flickered orange and yellow.

A flame could burn blue, if it burned hot enough. Rao knew that now.

He kept silent as another voice muttered, and then another. War, yes. There would be war. The Ahiranyi had sent an assassin, after all, to murder Parijatdvipa’s holy empress. There would have to be vengeance. No—justice. The Ahiranyi would learn Parijatdvipa’s strength once more.

An assassin. The word rattled strangely in Rao’s head.

Priya had saved them all at the Veri river. She’d fought for them, nearly died for them. He’d dragged her flower-riven body from the riverbed himself. Without her the empress would have no throne at all.

But there was no denying that she had stabbed Malini, in the end.

“…impassable borders,” another man was murmuring. Rao turned his head, following the voice. One of the Srugani. Rao did not recognize him, and had no interest in recognizing him, but he noted the sweat on the man’s forehead and the tension in his jaw with a disinterested eye, just for the sake of something to do apart from thinking of flame, and flame, and flame. “We sent warriors to Ahiranya, but the trees consumed them. Like teeth in the maw of a beast. You will not believe me, my brothers, but if I were asked to choose between the jaws of a tiger or Ahiranya’s forest...” He shook his head. “I would choose the tiger,” he said heavily.

I believe it, Rao thought. He’d seen what Ahiranya’s forest was like firsthand. He’d seen what the rot could do to a body.

He said nothing. The highborn around him shifted uneasily on their bolster pillows. There was a clink, as more liquor was opened and shared.

Mourning meant no liquor, no gambling, no sex until the ritual of grieving was done. The empress and her court of loyal women prayed still by the smoking ashes of flowers. He hadn’t gone to the funeral—he would rather have cut out his own eyes than watch an empty pyre burn in Aditya’s name—but he’d heard florid descriptions of Malini’s noble misery as she kneeled by the flowers, and her gray face, and her white grief clothes, bleached like sun-touched bones. A perfect mourner. She had to be cajoled to even eat.

And yet here were her men in a dark room with the shutters closed and the curtains drawn and candles burning, drinking their way through the finest liquors in Parijat and eating their fill as they pondered the doom ahead of them.

“The priests claim the yaksa will return,” a young Parijati noble said. His voice trembled a little.

A murmur of unease. One man laughed.

“Impossible,” he said.

“If the priests say it, then it must be so,” another man said. There was a ripple of disagreement.

The yaksa are returning, Rao thought. He’d seen a yaksa’s severed arm, a relic of the Age of Flowers, blooming with new life. He’d seen a vision from the nameless god in a pool of water. A coming. An inevitable coming.

He’d seen Aditya’s eyes when Rao had shown him the severed arm. He’d seen the moment when Aditya had made his choice: when Aditya had decided the nameless had a purpose for him, that it was time to burn—

Rao stood abruptly, knocking over a cup of wine in the process. The man next to him swore as it pooled messily on his lap.

“Apologies,” Rao said shortly. The man opened his mouth to say something—but when he met Rao’s eyes, it abruptly snapped shut.

Rao turned and left the room. No one made any effort to stop him.

For days, Rao had been possessed by a vague but urgent desire to vanish into the anonymity of a pleasure house and drown himself in a vat of cheap wine surrounded by strangers, but the time he’d spent in the presence of his fellow highborn had made clear to him that he wasn’t fit for company.

That was fine. He’d be alone instead. He bribed one of the guards for drink and kept on walking.

There were a few low-roofed chambers overlooking a garden of lotus ponds. He climbed up to the lowest of them, swinging up one-armed, his other arm cradling three flasks of arrack—his least favorite liquor. As soon as his legs were on firm roof-stone, he pried open a flask and set the rim to his lips. Bitter, fiery liquor burned against the roof of his mouth. He swallowed fast, letting the fire run right through him.

He wanted to drink until he couldn’t feel his own skin; until he was a blank, buzzing, nauseated void of a man, all the grief scooped out of him.

Another swig. And two, and three. He leaned back on his elbows and stared out at Harsinghar.

From here, the city was a night sky laid out on the earth, dark and formless and flecked here and there with light. It looked almost peaceful. From here, he couldn’t see the mourners still crying and praying outside the walls of the mahal. He couldn’t hear them, either. It was a relief to hear nothing but the wind—to feel nothing but liquor and the sharp bite of the night’s breeze against his face, turned up at the sky.

But, ah. If he could still feel his face, well—then he had more drinking to do.

So he drank more, until even the darkness had softened. When he heard a clatter—and felt a stone bash sharply against his leg—he swore with surprise, and the flask slipped from his drink-dulled grip. It rolled, spilling all the arrack left in it, which wasn’t much.

“Rao?” a voice called. “It’s me.”

“Lata?” He sat up. “Why did you throw that? Come up.”

“I can’t climb to you,” she replied, voice small in the dark—small and far away. “I’ve already tried. Didn’t you hear me?”

“No,” he said. Slurred, more like. “But I’ve had a great deal to drink. I’d climb down to you, but I’d probably break my neck.”

He didn’t have to hear her to know she was sighing and shaking her head, that her forehead had creased a little, the way it did when she was lost in thought or thoroughly vexed.

“I didn’t see you at the funeral,” she said.

A punch of grief through his chest. The funeral. The funeral.

“Did Malini notice?” Rao asked.

“No. The empress was… distracted.”

He could hear the thread of worry in Lata’s voice. Malini did not miss things. But Aditya’s death, and the actions of Elder Priya, had changed her. She’s wounded, Lata had said to him once. Not just in the flesh. Somewhere deep within her, where no physician can heal her.

Rao had understood. He knew how that felt.

“Good,” he said. He thought about opening the next flask, but something like panic bubbled through him. His hands were shaking. “I should have come,” he said. “But I... Lata. I didn’t need to see Aditya burn. I already—”

“Rao,” she said. Her voice was thick. “I know.”

Suddenly he was tired of not seeing her face, of being alone on that roof with a vile drink he didn’t even like. He slid to the edge and jumped down. He tumbled, his elbows catching the stone, face pressed to the ground. He watched Lata hurry toward him, her sari skirt a blue shadow against the grass. She grasped him by the shoulder.

“Get up,” she said. “What did you drink?”

“Arrack,” he said.

Another sigh. “Can you get up on your own, or do I need to find guards to help me?”

He insisted he could get up, and between them they managed to haul him to his feet. He leaned a little of his weight on her shoulder, and the two of them stumbled through the lotus garden into the corridors of the mahal.

“You’re too heavy for this,” she said after a few minutes. “Use the wall for support instead.”

“Should have thrown me into the pond,” he muttered, as he let her go and grasped a lantern sconce. “That would have woken me up.”

“Or drowned you.”

That wouldn’t have been so bad, he thought. But thank the nameless, he had the sense not to say it.

Usually there were curtains covering the doors that led off the corridors of the mahal—expansive silk things in peacock green and lustrous blue, shot through with gemstones and silver thread. It took his dazed eyes a moment to register that all the curtains had been replaced with plain white cloth that hung heavy, too thick to billow with the soft night winds. He grasped one curtain in his hands. Felt its weight.

“Do you think,” he heard himself say, as if from a distance, “that anyone really mourns him?”

“Of course they do,” Lata said from somewhere behind him. “The empress does.”

He swallowed, his throat unaccountably aching. Grasped the cloth tighter.

“Yes,” he said. “She does.”

He felt her hand on his upper arm. A light touch. Then a man’s voice, from the gloom ahead of them.

“Prince Rao,” the voice said. Heavy footsteps followed it. “I...”

The voice trailed off as the man emerged into the lamplight. Romesh was one of Low Prince Ashutosh’s men—his high-collared, long-sleeved tunic, marked with Ashutosh’s liegemarks, hid the leaves of rot at his arms and his throat. His eyes darted from Lata to Rao—from the empress’s advisor to one of her generals—and then he bowed and said, “I’ll take my leave.”

“No,” Lata said. “Please, take him. I’m afraid he’s had too much to drink.” She stepped away from Rao, walking swiftly toward Romesh—and then beyond him. “Take him to his chambers,” she urged. “Prince Rao must rest. The empress will have need of him soon. There is much work to do.”

Work. War, he supposed, was indeed work.

Romesh nodded his head in acknowledgment, then deferentially took Rao by the arm. They walked together in silence for a long moment.

Rao’s head was not exactly beginning to clear, but the worst of his dizziness had shifted.

“You were looking for me,” he said eventually.

“Perhaps when you’re less in your cups, my lord,” Romesh said gruffly.

“You want to speak to me? You’ll find no better time. We’re alone, after all.” Silence—just their footsteps, the crackle and spit of the lanterns. “You’re nervous,” Rao said. “You sought me out. So speak. Tell me what you want.”

He turned his head, lights blurring around him. Romesh’s jaw was set, his expression conflicted. Then he said, “The Ahiranyi woman. The—good one. She’s your prisoner?”

It took a long moment for Rao to understand what he meant. The good one. “Sima?”

Romesh nodded curtly.

“Me and the other men—we want to know how she is.”

“She’s caused no trouble.” She really hadn’t. All through the war, she’d been firm and determined. She’d waded into deep, corpse-infested water to save Priya. But ever since—ever since everything—she’d been gray and silent. When he’d arranged her safe chambers and promised her safety, she’d only nodded and murmured her thanks, and turned her face to the wall.

And Rao had... simply let her.

“She’s proved herself trustworthy,” Romesh muttered. “She was good in the war. She fought hard. My lord, if you’ll let me speak plain—she’s not responsible for the actions of the other one.” A pause, and then he said, almost reluctantly, “I liked them both. But the other one... she made her choices.”

Everyone knew what Priya had done. A thorn knife. A dead priest. Stone cracked through with flowers, and Malini clutching her own bloodied chest, weeping as the blood spilled through her own fingers.

“Sima is safe,” Rao said. “Safe and well treated. I’ve vowed to protect her. That won’t change. You can tell your men I’ve made a promise I won’t break.”

In his own chambers, he forced himself to drink some water. He could only take a few mouthfuls.

His tongue was dry and his mouth tasted foul. His eyes had started to burn. He rubbed them, the prickling heat only growing stronger.

He couldn’t rest tonight. Not after Aditya’s funeral. Not after an empty pyre had burned. Not when all he could remember was Aditya looking at him, tears bright and shining in his eyes.

What is a star?

Aditya, fire climbing over his skin. Aditya, in Rao’s hands and then not.

Distant fire—

He was walking before he consciously chose to do so. He was steadier now. Steady enough, at least, to walk in a moderately straight line. Corridors, and flickering lights, and the faces of bowing maids—and then—

“Let me in,” he said, and the soldiers protecting Sima’s chambers stepped aside and opened the doors, and let him pass.

Sima jumped to her feet when he entered. She’d been sitting on the floor cushions, but she straightened swiftly, brandishing something in her hands. There was a mirror behind her, great and silver, and in it he could see his own reflection—a wavering, insubstantial figure—and the tense lines of her back, ready for violence.

She met his eyes. Dropped whatever she’d been holding.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I came here so—late. I should have known—not. Not to do so. Was that a knife?”

She wasn’t supposed to have weapons. Even after Lata had asked him to look after her, he’d had to negotiate with Malini’s other advisors for custody of her. The Ahiranyi prisoner cannot have weapons. The Ahiranyi prisoner cannot leave her chambers. If the Ahiranyi prisoner seeks to break the rules of her imprisonment, then the price must be death.

“No,” she said, after a beat. Her voice was rough. “Just a clay bowl.”

Rao looked down. The clay was a shard. Jagged enough to cut.

“Just a bowl,” he agreed slowly.

Sima kept looking at him. She didn’t ask him why he was here, but he could read the question in her face.

“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly, “that I haven’t made your imprisonment more bearable. And I am sorry...” He trailed off, unable to find words.

“It’s not your fault,” she said thinly. “Priya made her decision. And I made mine.”

He still couldn’t quite believe she’d chosen this: to part from Priya. To ally herself with Parijatdvipa, even if it meant imprisonment and suspicion. If it hadn’t been for Lata, it could have meant Sima’s death. And he’d seen Sima and Priya together. They’d fought for each other. Nearly died for each other. How could they have wrenched apart so swiftly, so completely?

He rubbed his aching, stinging eyes. “I’ll do better,” he promised. “There are people here in Harsinghar who care about you, Sima. You’re not surrounded by enemies. Or—not only enemies. And if... if you want the company of friends... Or if...”

He was swaying. When had that begun?

“Rao!” Sima was shouting. He watched her mouth move, distantly aware, as his knees buckled.

He heard the doors bang open as the dark swallowed him.

A dream.

No. Not a dream. He knew this. He’d seen this before, in dark water. In Aditya’s eyes.

A vision.

The void surrounded him. Dark, vast and liquid. And then it bloomed.

Mountains. White snow. A slash in the stone, a wound, bloodletting. Blood the color of deep waters.

A coming. An inevitable coming.

A man holding out his palm. Aditya, smiling even as he wept.

Rao. Rao—

He opened his eyes.

His vision swam for a moment, then steadied. The two soldiers were holding Sima tight by the arms.

“Let her go,” he forced out. His words were rough and slurred, but the soldiers understood and set her free. He forced himself up onto his palms, his knees. His whole body was shaking, godstruck. “Didn’t you think—a physician—might be more useful to me? Than...?” He gestured vaguely at Sima, who was rubbing her arms, her expression tight.

“Sorry, my lord,” one soldier muttered, looking suitably ashamed. The other was already ducking out of the room—likely finally in search of some real help. Rao almost called out to summon him back. A vision was not an illness. No medicine could cure it.

But when he managed to get up to his knees, he heard Sima whisper his name.

He looked at Sima’s gray face, her horrified eyes. And then he looked beyond her, unable to meet that gaze.

He met his own in the mirror.

His eyes, in the silvery glass, were a smear of fiery gold.

4

BHUMIKA

She felt as if she were being carried along by water. Her body swayed out of her control. She could not find her breath easily and when she did, she cried out, begging for something or someone she’d lost. The ache of grief yawned open in her like a chasm, and the voice that shushed her, growing steadily more frantic, was not the one she sought.

Her head ached, a storm in the cup of her skull.

“Breathe,” the voice said. A man’s voice. The man begged her, “Tell me what hurts.”

I named her for a flower. I named her. I left her. I left her. I left her—

“Fever,” the man’s voice said. And then he made a noise that had no words but might have been a choked sob. “Shit,” he said. Then he cursed again. The world tipped as he did so, and she felt breath on her hair. The water in her ears sounded suddenly like a heartbeat.

She wasn’t being carried by water, she realized. It was flesh that guided her. Arms were cradling her. The wind roared, biting at her face. It hurt.

“Hold on,” he said. “Hold on, my lady.”

She held on. Even as the waters rose, as a storm tried to swallow her, she held on. Time passed and then she was still again, the whine of insects in her ears.

“Please.” She heard the man’s voice, ragged with exhaustion. “Auntie, I need help. My wife is sick.”

With great effort, she managed to peel open her eyes. Her vision was a half-moon, a soft blur of dusk-gray sky fading into black earth. A stooped figure stood ahead of them, framed by a door. Silver hair, a sari.

“You’re Ahiranyi,” the figure said warily.

The man shifted her in his arms.

“By birth,” he said. He sounded apologetic. Desperate. “But we moved to Srugna years ago, long before we wed. We were driven out from our village. Please, aunt. Don’t drive us away too.”

“What makes you think you’ll be welcome here?”

“Hope,” he said. “We’ve got no rot on us. I promise. Please.”

The woman told him, eventually, that they could sleep behind the house. The man thanked her.

She felt a shawl being drawn over her. Water at her lips. Hard ground at her back; something soft tucked beneath her head by warm hands. Then nothing, for a long time.

She drifted in and out of consciousness. Every time she rose out of the waters of sleep, she caught snatches of conversation, strange in her ears, tangles of nonsense.

“It’s a poor business.” The old woman’s anger was gone. Her voice held only pity. “Families split in two, parents separated from their children and their elderly by whatever evil has changed Ahiranya’s borders. Did you lose anyone?”

“Her brother and sister.” The familiar man’s voice. “I had no other family.”

A sigh. “Ahiranya is cursed. I am sorry for my caution, with you and your poor wife, but you understand—”

“I’m grateful.” A hand on her forehead. A thumb brushing back her sweat-damp hair. “Thank you.”

Sleep.

This time when she woke, the waters of her mind and her heart had settled around her. She’d been drowning, and now she was not. She could breathe. She wasn’t burning. She opened her eyes, which were gritty with sleep and sickness. It was night.

The man was sitting against the wall of the house, upright, legs crossed. He was asleep, a sword across his knees. She could hear his quiet breath. Inside the house a lamp was burning. In the grass and trees around them, she could hear a noise—a steady rhythmic dripping of water. She turned her head slowly.

There were people watching her. Water-drenched cloth was draped across their faces, tumbling in folds to the floor before them at their feet. They held bowls in their hands—bowls that streamed strange river water to the soil. Green water, gold, and red.

Their numbers shifted as she watched them—a dozen, then ten, then a blur of faces too vast for her to swiftly count. But she saw adults. Children.

“Who are you?” she whispered. Her voice came out a croak. She was thirsty, depleted.

Silence. Then, with a rustling sigh, one water-veiled girl stepped forward and kneeled. She held out her green bowl.

“Will you drink?”

She looked at that water. A strange sense came over her—a knowing. A part of her lay in the water swirling in that bowl: knowledge that her skull, already aching, storm-full, could not carry without help. If she drank, she would know something huge and terrible.

She reached out a hand—and the man stirred behind her. The figures were gone.

“How do you feel?” he asked. “Do you need water? Food?”

She stared up at him. Dark hair, a sharp jaw beneath the shadow of stubble. He looked tired.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I am Jeevan,” he said, voice low.

That wasn’t the name he had offered their helper.

“You are not my husband,” she said, lowering her voice to match his. She did not want to be overheard.

“No, my lady,” he said.

My lady. It jarred through her like a knock to the bone, so strange it barely resembled pain.

“If you have told these people you’re my husband, you must not call me that again,” she said. “What is my name?”

“Bhumika,” he said.

Bhumika. The name felt like nothing. It did not slot neatly into her heart. She did not know who Bhumika was.

“Call me that, then,” she said.

In the morning, the man swept their helper’s steps and washed them clean. He brought the older woman firewood and uttered a terse but heartfelt thanks. The woman had clearly softened to him.

“You have a good husband, my dear,” she said. “I hope you find a safe home together.”

“As do I,” said Bhumika.

Their helper clasped her hands. “I am sorry about your brother and sister,” she said sympathetically. “I’ll pray to the mothers that our empress will set them free from Ahiranya one day.”

Her head was pounding. She thought of the watchers in their veils.

“Thank you,” she replied. “I would not have survived without you.”

The man named Jeevan walked with her away from the forest, through undergrowth under the palely rising sun. He turned to her.

“Where will you go?”

She had someone to find.

She was a vessel for knowledge. She needed someone else to carry it. Someone who could see far; someone with the power to be heard.

In the swirl of knowledge inside her lay an image: a lake. A holy place that trained its people to listen to the voices beyond the mortal world. That was where a seeker had learned how to end the Age of Flowers and kill the yaksa long ago. A seeker would return there again.

She turned to the watchers who stood in the distance. The dirt road to them was shining like a river: a twining, beckoning thing. She pointed a hand toward them. Her mouth tasted of silt, of water-smooth stone. The taste of stolen knowledge.

“To Alor,” she said.

Take your first look at the cover for Six Wild Crowns (US | UK) by Holly Race, the first installment in Queens of Elben series, coming June 2025!

NO KING CAN RULE THEM ALL.

From a major new voice in epic fantasy, Six Wild Crowns is a breathtaking epic fantasy of dragons, courtly intrigue, sapphic yearning, and the wives of Henry VIII as you’ve never seen them before.

As tradition has it, the king of Elben must marry six queens and magically bind each of them to one of the island’s palaces or the kingdom will fall.

Clever, ambitious Boleyn is determined to be her beloved Henry’s favorite queen. She relishes the games at court and the political rivalries with his other wives. Seymour is the opposite—originally sent to Boleyn’s court as a reluctant spy and assassin, she ends up catching Henry’s eye and is forced into a loveless marriage with the king.

But when the two queens become the unlikeliest of things—friends and allies—the balance of power begins to shift. Together, they uncover a dark and deadly truth at the heart of the island’s magic. Boleyn and Seymour’s only hope of survival rests on uniting all six of the rival queens—but Henry will never let that happen.

Take your first look at the cover for Ambessa: Chosen of the Wolf (US | UK) by C. L. Clark coming February 2025!

Set in the blockbuster and award-winning universe of League of Legends: Arcane and written by award-winning author C. L. Clark, discover a thrilling epic fantasy novel where Ambessa Medarda truly learns what it means to be a Chosen of the Wolf.

Medarda over all.

Ambessa Medarda: Warrior, general, mother. She is a woman to be feared, and the Medardas are unrivaled in their pursuit of glory. She has led conquests and armies. She has slain legendary beasts. She has made grave sacrifices in her ascent up the ranks. And for this she was rewarded: She entered the realm of death and was granted a vision of herself upon the throne of the vast Noxian empire.

But before she can lead her empire, she must become head of her own clan. Yet the title is contested by her cousin and former confidante, Ta’Fik. He knows the bloody sins of Ambessa’s past. And he knows he cannot allow her to rise.

They will fight a war for the very soul of the Medardas.

But the war won’t be fought on battlefields alone. Ambessa’s daughter, Mel, can deftly break through the walls around anyone’s heart, and she’ll put her talents to use for her mother. Yet despite Mel’s strength, Ambessa sees only a child who lacks her killer instincts. Mel knows she can be the leader Ambessa wants her to be, if only she gives her time.

With her family betraying her, enemies closing in on all sides, and unseen forces moving in the shadows, every day proves more dangerous than the last. But Ambessa will not bow. She will burn the world down to claim her place in it.

Also by C. L. Clark

Magic of the Lost

The Unbroken
(US | UK)

The Faithless
(US | UK)

Perle Mesta was a force to be reckoned with. Dubbed the ‘hostess with the mostes,’ she was renowned for her world-class parties featuring politicians and celebrities during the 40s, 50s, and 60s. With the holiday season upon us, we’re sharing three top tips for the perfect party, inspired by Perle and Meryl Gordon’s new biography, The Woman Who Knew Everyone.  

Look beyond the “it” list for your guest list

Perle’s parties included a veritable Who’s Who of Washington insiders, but she also rubbed elbows with celebrities, fresh-faced newcomers, and even gossip columnists to join. Sending invitations to the unassuming Harry Truman and his family while he was left off other guest lists in Washington altered the trajectory of Perle’s life.  

If your guest list is just your group chat, try switching it up to keep things interesting. Don’t be afraid to branch out!

Keep them entertained

“Perle wanted her guests to unwind and enjoy themselves, to look forward to seeing new enter­tainers and surprise performers.” She enlisted singers, ventriloquists, and even her own guests to provide entertainment at her parties. Perle even became great friends with Ethel Merman after she played the famous host in the Irving Berlin musical  “Call Me Madam”.

Even if you’re not BFFs with Broadway Divas, make sure to at least have some music on during your party. As Perle told McCalls, it can “harmonize Republicans and Democrats.”

Throw a party with a purpose

Perle could throw a fun party, but she didn’t host just for fun. A pioneering supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, she was a prodigious Democratic fundraiser and rescued Harry Truman’s financially flailing 1948 campaign.  

The next time you bring a group together, try incorporating some of your shared passions and values. Ask guests for donations in lieu of a host gift,  or plan an evening of good food and good music around writing letters to politicians to advocate for a cause you believe in.

Take your first look at the cover for A Letter from the Lonesome Shore (US | UK) by Sylvie Cathrall, the final installment in The Sunken Archive duology, coming May 2025!

Dive into the charming conclusion to the Sunken Archive duology, a heart-warming magical academia fantasy filled with underwater cities, romance of manners and found family, perfect for fans of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries.

Former correspondents E. and Henerey, accustomed to loving each other from afar, did not anticipate continuing their courtship in an enigmatic underwater city. When their journey through the Structure in E.’s garden strands them in a peculiar society preoccupied with the pleasures and perils of knowledge, E. and Henerey come to accept—and, more surprisingly still, embrace—the fact that they may never return home.

A year and a half later, Sophy and Vyerin finally discover one of the elusive Entries that will help them seek their siblings. As the group’s efforts bring them closer to E. and Henerey, an ancient, cosmic threat also draws near…

Also by Sylvie Cathrall

The Sunken Archive

A Letter to the Luminous Deep (US | UK)