NYT Fiction Bestsellers

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The Red Winter

A LibraryReads pick! An Indie next pick!

DELUXE EDITION—the hardcover edition of The Red Winter features beautiful red sprayed edges!

A devastating love story. A bewitching twist on history. A blood-drenched hunt for purpose, power, and redemption. 

In 1785, Professor Sebastian Grave receives the news he fears most: the terrible Beast of Gévaudan has returned, and the French countryside runs red in its wake. 

Sebastian knows the Beast. A monster-slayer with centuries of experience, he joined the hunt for the creature twenty years ago and watched it slaughter its way through a long and bloody winter. Even with the help of his indwelling demon, Sarmodel – who takes payment in living hearts – it nearly cost him his life to bring the monster down.

Now, two decades later, Sebastian has been recalled to the hunt by Antoine Avenel d’Ocerne, an estranged lover who shares a dark history with the Beast and a terrible secret with Sebastian. Drawn by both the chance to finish the Beast for good and the promise of a reconciliation with Antoine, Sebastian cannot refuse. 

But Gévaudan is not as he remembers it, and Sebastian’s unfinished business is everywhere he looks. Years of misery have driven the people to desperation, and France teeters on the edge of revolution. Sebastian’s arcane activities – not to mention his demonic counterpart – have also attracted the inquisitorial eye of the French clergy. And the Beast is poised to close his jaws around them all and plunge the continent into war. 

Debut author Cameron Sullivan tears the heart out of history with this darkly entertaining retelling of the hunt for the Beast of Gévaudan. Lifting the veil on the hidden world behind our own, it reimagines the story of Europe, from Imperial Rome to Saint Jehanne d’Arc, the madness of Gilles de Rais and the first flickers of the French Revolution.

“An absolute feast of a book: rich, red, sinfully delicious. I've rarely been this satisfied—or this hungry for more.” —Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of Starling House

“So bloody good. The Red Winter is absolute ripper entertainment—miss it at your peril!” —Shelley Parker-Chan, bestselling author of She Who Became the Sun

“A gorgeous tangle of history and fresh-made myth. You'll eat this one up.” —Cassandra Khaw, bestselling author of Nothing But Blackened Teeth

“Charming, haunting, ambitious, and a great deal of fun.” —T. Kingfisher, New York Times bestselling author of A Sorceress Comes to Call

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Heart the Lover

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME Magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Harper's Baazar, NPR, Vogue, Oprah Daily, People Magazine, USA TODAY, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Kirkus Review, BookPage, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, PEN America, Chicago Public Library

"Lily King has written another masterpiece. This book overflows with her brilliance and her heart. We are so lucky." --Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow

From the New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers comes a magnificent and intimate new novel of desire, friendship, and the lasting impact of first love

You knew I'd write a book about you someday.

Our narrator understands good love stories--their secrets and subtext, their highs and free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the simple rules.

In the fall of her senior year of college, she meets two star students from her 17th-Century Lit class: Sam and Yash. Best friends living off campus in the elegant house of a professor on sabbatical, the boys invite her into their intoxicating world of academic fervor, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. They nickname her Jordan, and she quickly discovers the pleasures of friendship, love and her own intellectual ambition. But youthful passion is unpredictable, and soon she finds herself at the center of a charged and intricate triangle. As graduation comes and goes, choices made will alter these three lives forever.

Decades later, the vulnerable days of Jordan's youth seem comfortably behind her. But when a surprise visit and unexpected news bring the past crashing into the present, she returns to a world she left behind and must confront the decisions and deceptions of her younger self.

Written with the superb wit and emotional sensitivity fans and critics of Lily King have come to adore, Heart the Lover is a deeply moving love story that celebrates literature, forgiveness, and the transformative bonds that shape our lives. Wise, unforgettable, and with a delightful connective thread to Writers & Lovers, this is King at her very best, affirming her as a masterful chronicler of the human experience and one of the finest novelists at work today.

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Vigil

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “After his spectacular Lincoln in the Bardo, Saunders returns . . . with a new novel even more spectacular than the last.”—Los Angeles Times

A “daring” (Time) novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling, Booker Prize–winning author of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain and Tenth of December, taking place at the bedside of an oil company CEO in the twilight hours of his life as he is ferried from this world into the next

“Vibrant, fiendishly clever . . . Vigil is pure Saunders: the death of empathy, he insists, is greatly exaggerated.”—The Boston Globe 

Not for the first time, Jill “Doll” Blaine finds herself hurtling toward earth, reconstituting as she falls, right down to her favorite black pumps. She plummets towards her newest charge, yet another soul she must usher into the afterlife, and lands headfirst in the circular drive of his ornate mansion.

She has performed this sacred duty 343 times since her own death. Her charges, as a rule, have been greatly comforted in their final moments. But this charge, she soon discovers, isn’t like the others. The powerful K. J. Boone will not be consoled, because he has nothing to regret. He lived a big, bold, epic life, and the world is better for it. Isn’t it?

Vigil transports us, careening, through the wild final evening of a complicated man. Visitors begin to arrive (worldly and otherworldly, alive and dead), clamoring for a reckoning. Birds swarm the dying man’s room; a black calf grazes on the love seat; a man from a distant, drought-ravaged village materializes; two oil-business cronies from decades past show up with chilling plans for Boone’s postdeath future.

With the wisdom, playfulness, and explosive imagination we’ve come to expect, George Saunders takes on the gravest issues of our time—the menace of corporate greed, the toll of capitalism, the environmental perils of progress—and, in the process, spins a tale that encompasses life and death, good and evil, and the thorny question of absolution.

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Brawler

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Groff is one of this country’s most successful and versatile literary figures.”—New York Times

“Required reading.”—Los Angeles Times

“A knockout.”—Minnesota Star Tribune

A stunning, fierce collection from a master of the short story and one of the most important writers of our time

Read alone, each story in Lauren Groff’s electric collection is an individual triumph, bold, agile, and packed with power. Read together, they hum in exhilarating resonance. Ranging from the 1950s to the present day and moving across age, class, and region -- from New England to Florida to California -- these nine stories reflect and expand upon a shared theme: the ceaseless battle between humans’ dark and light angels.

“In every human there is both an animal and a god wrestling unto death,“ one character tells us. Among those we see caught in this match are a young woman suddenly responsible for her disabled sibling, a hot-tempered high school swimmer in need of an adult, a mother blinded by the loss of her family, and a banking scion endowed with a different kind of inheritance. Motivated by love, impeded by the double edges of other peoples’ good intentions, they try to do the right thing for as long as they can.

Precise, surprising, and provocative, anchored by profound insight into human nature, Brawler reveals the repeated, sometimes heartbreaking turning points between love and fear, compassion and violence, reason and instinct, altruism and what it takes to survive.

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The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Welcome to the Iron Tangle! Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, have to team up with other contestants not just to survive, but to solve a deadly puzzle in this third, mind-twisting novel in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series—now with bonus material exclusive to this print edition.

Earth has been transformed into the set of the galaxy’s most watched game show: Dungeon Crawler World, a nightmarish, multilevel, video game–like dungeon filled with traps, monsters, and mind-bending puzzles. Carl and Donut have survived so far, but this fourth level is unlike anything they could imagine. The Iron Tangle: an impossibly complicated subway system tied together into a knot of trains of all kinds, from classic steam engines to sleek modern cars. Up is down. Down is up. Close is far. The cars are filled with monsters, the railway stations aren’t always what they seem, and the exit is perpetually just a few stops away.

The top ten list is populated, and Carl and Donut have made it. But that popularity comes with a price. They each now have a bounty on their head. They must work with other crawlers to solve the puzzle of the floor, but how can they do that when they don’t know who to trust? The secret to unraveling it all may be hidden in the pages of a seemingly useless book.

Welcome, Crawlers. Welcome to the fourth floor of the dungeon.


Includes part three of the exclusive bonus story “Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret.”

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Kin: Oprah's Book Club

OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER •
A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage—Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy.

“Tayari Jones’s storytelling washed over me like a trip back home. . . . Kin is a masterpiece of a novel that will live with you long after you turn the last page.” —Oprah Winfrey

Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration, and inequality. Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.

A novel about mothers and daughters, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in contemporary fiction.

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Worse than a Lie

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this gripping thriller, truth and justice are called into question when a Black man is gunned down in cold blood—the first novel in a riveting series from renowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump.

“A sensationally good crime and legal thriller . . . This is exactly what a book should be.”—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of the Reacher series

It’s the night of November 4, 2008. America’s first Black president has just been elected. And fifty-three-year-old Hollis Montrose—a Black ex–police officer from the suburbs of Chicago—has become the latest victim of a brutal attack. As the result of a traffic stop gone wrong, Hollis is shot ten times in cold blood, by four white men who could have been his colleagues back in his police days.

Beau Lee Cooper was born serious, as if on an urgent mission with little time to waste. Raised in the tumultuous world of 1970s Texas, he always dreamed of becoming a lawyer and fighting for what’s right, ever since he was a little boy reading To Kill a Mockingbird. And now, ten years into running his own law firm with his best friend and partner in crime, Nelson “Nellie” Rivers, and his suave right-hand-man, Brent “Cape” Capers, he feels he’s finally making a difference. When Beau Lee learns about Hollis’s situation, he’s determined to help.

Miraculously, Hollis survives the encounter, but the Chicago police department has already spun the narrative in its favor, and Hollis is given a wrongful prison sentence with an unreasonable bail. What really happened that night the car was pulled over? Was it random or was Hollis targeted? Beau Lee knows he’s treading in dangerous waters, and finding evidence of the truth will be his biggest challenge yet, but with troubling powers at play, one innocent man’s life hangs in the balance.

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Crown of War and Shadow

DELUXE EDITION―featuring gorgeous stenciled edges, a foil case stamp, a detailed map, and designed endpapers!

“J.R. Ward is a powerhouse in the genre and never disappoints!”--Rebecca Yarros, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author

"Absolutely unputdownable!"--Jennifer Armentrout, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author

Crown of War and Shadow is a brand new, sweeping, slow-burn romantasy from #1 New York Times bestseller J. R. Ward, perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas, Rebecca Yarros, and Jennifer Armentrout!

An outcast burdened with a curse. A mercenary out for himself. A kingdom that must be saved.

In the deep, dark, dead of night, passions rise, and empires fall...

The Fulcrum is failing, and demons are slipping into the mortal world.

No one is safe.

Especially not Sorrel. An orphan and an outcast within the walls of her small village because of her mystical abilities. She wants to survive...and find somewhere she can call her true home. But Fate has other plans.

Sorrel has been chosen. Cursed.

She must cross the Badlands to return the Queen's crown and convince the fearsome female to save their world from destruction.

Well aware she’s no brave hero, Sorrel makes a dangerous deal with Merc, a brooding, commanding mercenary known only by his unscrupulous profession.

The deal? A night in his bed that she will never forget, in exchange for her safe passage.

But Merc has secrets of his own, and even though desire runs hot between them, adventure, danger, and betrayal lurk around every corner.

Crown of War and Shadow is the first book in the Kingdoms of the Compass series.

Crown of War and Shadow
*Forced proximity/Only one bed
*Chosen mates
*Dark mercenary
*Who did this to you?
*Touch her and die
*I'll die for you
*Hidden magic

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The Devil's Bible

From celebrated New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry comes the latest Cotton Malone adventure, a tale of mystery and intrigue stretching back over four centuries.



Former Justice Department operative, Cotton Malone, is called to Sweden when the younger sister of King Wilhelm I is kidnapped. The ransom demand? Hand over an 800-year-old book, the Codex Gigas--the largest illuminated medieval manuscript in the world. Claimed as war loot from Bohemia in 1648, it's been kept in Stockholm for nearly 400 years. Along the way it also acquired another more mysterious moniker ... The Devil's Bible.



Now the Czech Republic wants the codex back, and Sweden has agreed to return it, but forces are at work to stop that deal from happening. The likely instigator? Russia. Who is also top of the list for possible kidnappers. It's up to Cotton and Cassiopeia Vitt to locate the king's sister, secure the codex, and thwart the Russians. Yet nothing is as it seems.



Trusted allies become hostile enemies. Long-standing enemies suddenly shift into partners. Making matters worse, an array of conflicting personalities re-emerge from Cotton's past, transforming an already chaotic international situation into something far more personal and deadly.



From the cobbled streets of Stockholm with its placid waterways and picturesque islands, to the hostile skies over the Baltic Sea, and finally onto a fabled 16th century Swedish warship, Cotton and Cassiopeia come face-to-face with the unthinkable--changing both of their lives forever.

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Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A woman who runs a cat rescue in 1920s Montréal turns to a grouchy but charming magician to help save her shelter in this heartwarming cozy fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of the Emily Wilde series.

“Absolutely magnificent! Full of cats and magic, this is the kind of book you want to instantly reread. I loved every character, every cat, and every moment with all my heart!”—Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop

Agnes Aubert leads a meticulously organized life, and she likes it that way. As the proudly type-A manager of a cat rescue charity, she has devoted her life to finding forever homes for stray cats.

Now it’s the shelter that needs a new home. And the only landlord who will rent a space to a cat rescue is a mysterious man called Havelock—who also happens to be the world’s most infamous magician, running an illegal magic shop out of his basement. Havelock is cantankerous and eccentric, but not not handsome, and no, Agnes absolutely does not feel anything but disdain for him. After all, rumors swirl about his shadowy past—including whispers that his dark magic once almost brought about the apocalypse.

Then one day a glamorous magician comes looking for Havelock, putting the magic shop—and the cat shelter—in jeopardy. To save the shelter, Agnes will have to team up with the magician who nearly ended the world . . . and may now be trying to steal her heart.

Havelock is everything Agnes thinks she doesn’t need in her life: chaos, mischief, and a little too much adventure. But as she gets to know him, she discovers that he’s more than the dark magician of legend, and that she may be ready for a little intrigue—and romance—in her life. After all, second chances aren’t just for rescue cats. . . .

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The Astral Library (Deluxe Limited Edition)

Pre-order now to receive the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION-- only available on the first printing while supplies last! The collector's hardcover features stenciled edges, illustrated endpapers, and jacket effects.

From New York Times bestselling author Kate Quinn comes a gorgeously written fantastical adventure which poses the question: Have you ever wished you could live inside a book? Welcome to the Astral Library, where books are not just objects, but doors to new worlds, new lives, and new futures.

Alexandria "Alix" Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives...inside their favorite books.

The Librarian takes a dazzled Alix under her wing, but before she can escape into the pages of her new life, a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped protect. Aided by a dashing costume-shop owner, Alix and the Librarian flee through the Regency drawing rooms of Jane Austen to the back alleys of Sherlock Holmes and the champagne-soaked parties of The Great Gatsby as danger draws inexorably closer. But who does their enemy really wish to destroy--Alix, the Librarian, or the Library itself?

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