A stunning debut memoir about love, loss, and the Vietnamese immigrant experience in the American South.

In 1997, Thao Hà’s first love took the rap for a drive-by shooting and was sentenced to sixty years in the infamous Beto Unit, the most violent maximum-security prison in Texas. His name was Vu, and like Thao, he was a Vietnamese refugee in Houston’s Little Saigon neighborhood. Though steeped in Viet Pride, neither of them remembered the country they’d been evacuated from as infants. What they did know were the Vietnamese street gangs that ran wild in Houston. By her early twenties Thao had been arrested for theft, had transported a fugitive across county lines, and had been shot as a bystander in a pool-hall fracas turned violent.

After Vu’s sentence and her near-death experience, Thao parted ways with both Vu and gang life. She got serious about school and majored in sociology under the mentorship of an inspiring professor. She earned a PhD and secured a tenured professorship at Mira Costa College in Oceanside, California.

But as William Faulkner famously said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

The decades of her professional success brought marriages, divorces, failed relationships, and family trauma. But like an inextinguishable flame in the distance, the memory of Vu always beckoned to her. As she worked with a program that helped formerly incarcerated people gain access to education, she wrestled with whether to reconnect with him. After finding a box of old letters from Vu during a move, she took the plunge and wrote to him. The letters progressed to phone calls and prison visits, and Thao recognized that she was still in love with him.

But three years after they reconnected, their rekindled love story was cut tragically short.

Offering a counter narrative to the typical immigrant’s story, Thao Hà deftly uses her sociology background to explore refugee trauma and prison injustice, demonstrating the impact of unconditional love when navigating the dehumanizing system of mass incarceration. In this stunning debut, she shares her story of reckless youth, love reclaimed and tragically lost, and the power of words to transcend boundaries with unflinching honesty, insight, and conviction.

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In a nation divided by war and a family divided by circumstance, can the bonds of home endure?

In Tahlequah, George and Ellie Massey face an uncertain future as their children begin choosing paths of their own. Junior returns home carrying painful memories of his wartime imprisonment, struggling to find his place in a world that no longer feels quite the same. Jenny reunites with the man she has loved for years and begins building a future beyond the Cherokee Nation. Meanwhile, Hopson wrestles with questions of identity, belonging, and what it means to stand up for his people.

As the country struggles to recover from war, the Cherokee Nation faces its own divisions and uncertain future. Each member of the Massey family must decide what matters most, even when those decisions threaten to take them far from one another.

Through hardship, changing loyalties, and the challenges of starting over, George and Ellie hold on to their faith and the hope that the family they raised will not be lost to the roads their children choose.

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The only survivor of a killing spree must face her past when a copycat killer comes to town in this gripping thriller, perfect for fans of SCREAM and Holly Jackson.

Liliana “Lili” Garza hasn’t had a single moment of peace since her best friends were murdered at a graduation. A year later, Lili is barely scraping by. Now that her own high school graduation is fast approaching, reminders of the massacre are all around her, with news stories commemorating the anniversary of the Gatzville graduate murders and a town that refuses to let her forget.

But when one of Lili’s classmates is found dead at a party exactly one year after that horrific night—killed by the same injuries that Lili herself had survived—Lili realizes that someone is trying to recreate the past—and this time, they might not let her escape. To stay alive—again—Lili must confront the ghosts of her past to find out who is coming for her, even if it means unearthing the painful memories she has buried deep down inside.

A tense thriller about the scars that trauma leaves – and the lengths we will go to survive, despite the odds stacked against us – this is a powerful YA novel that will stay with you long after the final page.

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In this darkly funny and irreverent memoir, the daughter of a mail-order bride unpacks her undocumented childhood in America.

Growing up undocumented in Houston, Texas, Katya Suvorova learned that keeping her family together meant dodging the police, enduring her mother’s many husbands, and babysitting her younger sister instead of finishing the third grade.

Her understanding of her life shifted dramatically at seventeen, when Katya discovered her mother’s advertisement in a forgotten Eastern European mail-order bride catalog from the 1990s. As she grew older, Katya came to better understand what her mother had risked when she smuggled herself and her then three-year-old daughter from Russia into the US.

When your parents sacrifice their lives so yours can be better, to whom do you owe your future?

Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter explores difficult questions and stories both shocking and hilarious across Katya’s childhood through to an adulthood estranged from the woman who sacrificed everything for her. Her sharp, dry wit engages readers in a deeply relatable take on the experience of being a child of immigrants and unraveling a landscape of family secrets and lies, sharing her unique story of being the undocumented daughter of a mail-order bride.

Story Locale: Cedar Rapids, IA; Houston, TX; Crete, Greece; Seattle, WA

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Five-year-old Abby is losing her battle with leukemia. Her only hope is a newly developed treatment her mother, Celeste, can’t afford, and their insurance won’t cover.

After escaping a brief, abusive marriage to a drug dealer, Celeste Barr vowed never to marry again. With Abby’s life hanging in the balance, she signs up for the therapy, trusting that God will make a way.

Still grieving the wife he lost to cancer, Hunter Harrington believes his dreams of family died with her, until he meets Celeste and Abby. Out of a growing conviction that God has brought them into each other’s lives for a reason, he offers an extraordinary solution: marry him, and Abby will qualify immediately for the coverage she desperately needs.

As hope begins to replace despair, a marriage born of necessity slowly unfolds into love. But danger closes in. Celeste’s violent ex-husband is watching, and his return threatens everything they’ve begun to build.

Can their faith, trust, and growing love protect the family they’ve become—for the love of a child?

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James Beard Award–winning author Michael Ruhlman delivers a father-son road-trip story about grief, second chances, and discovering that home might not be a place you left behind—but a person you’re just getting to know, one meal at a time.

Junior year was supposed to be Miles’s escape plan—survive one year in Cleveland with Jake, the dad he barely knows, then get back to his real life in New York.

But that was before he got suspended. Before his mom died and left a hole nothing can fill. Before Jake’s art house theater started facing closure—and before Jake dragged him on a half-baked quest across Spain to track down a film director who may or may not want to be found.

Between wrong turns and cryptic clues through Madrid, Toledo, and Seville, they find themselves at wobbly tables in tapas bars, sharing plates of jamon and squid, talking in ways they never have before. Something unexpected happens over bocadillos and café con leche: Miles stops seeing Jake as the dad who left, and starts seeing him as the person who stayed.

Story Locale: Cleveland to Spain (Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Cordoba, Seville, Cadiz, Gibraltar, and more)

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Abandoned by her mother in New York, sixteen-year-old Geraldine falls under the influence of three women, each seeking to form her in their image, in this “wildly perceptive” (Stefan Merrill Block, New York Times bestselling author of Homeschooled) coming-of-age story from the bestselling author of Alice Sadie Celine.

For Gerry, growing up on the road has always been her mother and her, locked in dysfunction. Homeschooled, she hasn’t learned much math. Instead, her mother has taught her how to spend the day at a motel’s swimming pool without being a guest and how to dodge paying extra for the chicken on a Caesar salad.

Gerry learns how to pass and adapt, but when she is abandoned in the city, she finds herself in the care of three very different women, each intent on shaping her into competing and incompatible selves. First, there is her mother’s old college friend Bonnie, who lives in a world of country clubs and chintzy domesticity. Then there is Nell, her mother’s estranged sister and a successful artist, who insists on ambition and self-invention. And finally Finley, an old-money socialite, who ushers Gerry into a rarefied world of Manhattan privilege.

A coming-of-age story that explores unconventional forms of motherhood and caretaking, Heavy Cream is both a charming comedy of manners and a deeply probing look at the complexities of love, mental illness, and inheritance, and one young woman’s eccentric path to self-hood.

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Inspired by true events, Christy Hall of Fame author Cathy Gohlke delivers a powerful new historical novel weaving together the discovery of insulin—a breakthrough that revolutionized modern medicine—and one woman’s brave fight to cling to her family and hope against unspeakable odds.

New York City, 1918. When schoolteacher Gwendolyn Armstrong learns of her sister’s worsening illness, she travels to Marion’s stately home to tutor her young niece and nephew, kept from school by the Spanish flu outbreak. Though the family lives in luxury, Gwen is wary of Marion’s sophisticated, often-absent husband, Russell, who once cast Gwen aside for her sister, leaving wounds that never fully healed.

As Marion’s health declines, a sense of foreboding settles over the family. Gwen observes strangers coming and going from Russell’s study at all hours, and her lingering distrust turns to suspicion that he is hiding something that could threaten the family’s safety and security. But when the deadly flu claims victims among the family and mansion staff, Gwen and her nephew, Alistair, are forced to accept terrible losses caused by the epidemic followed soon after by his own fatal diagnosis of juvenile diabetes.

When a compassionate doctor becomes both an advocate and friend, chasing down every promising medical development in the race for a cure, Gwen clings to each shred of hope. But as Russell’s clandestine dealings erupt into a shattering revelation, she must summon every ounce of courage she possesses. With Alistair’s life hanging in the balance, Gwen pleads for a faith she doesn’t yet possess, realizing she must surrender him to God and the possibility of a miracle that could save him and reshape her future in ways she never imagined.

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A mystery and coming-of-age drama set against the backdrop of an elite all-girls rowing club as they navigate first loves, first heartbreaks, and the bonds that form when winning isn’t the only thing on the line. Soon to be adapted for streaming by the producer of Pretty Little Liars!

For high-achieving Margaret Douglas, rowing is everything—her friends, her family, and her way into college. As a senior and varsity captain, she has made many sacrifices to get where she is. But after she mysteriously disappears for the summer, rumors swirl: Was Margaret at Olympic training? Rehab? Under house arrest?

Whatever happened, it clearly haunts her . . . and when she returns at the beginning of the season, Margaret discovers that the sisterhood she once knew has moved on without her.

Meanwhile, spunky freshman and new girl Jo Bryant is only rowing because of her father: former Olympian, Boston legend, and the person Jo blames for her parents’ divorce. Jo knows nothing about crew, or why Margaret’s return has everyone at the boathouse whispering, but she does know that Margaret is the only person who doesn’t treat her like a joke.

For both girls, the varsity team is a sisterhood earned in five a.m. wake-ups and blistered hands. But there are secrets and scandals waiting to surface—and with the biggest race of the year on the horizon, Margaret, Jo, and their teammates are about to find out just how deep those secrets go.

Story Locale: Boston

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From the author of the acclaimed and “riveting” (HuffPost) memoir Rabbit and star of BET’s The Ms. Pat Show, a heartfelt, raw, and hilarious new memoir about rising from strife to success, tackling obstacles, and celebrating your wins with a laugh.

“America is supposed to be the land of opportunity—where any poor kid can grow up to become a millionaire. That’s the story. But I’ma tell you how it really went down.”

Before she was the star of the Emmy-nominated smash sitcom The Ms. Pat Show, before the Netflix specials, sold-out tours, and her critically acclaimed memoir, Rabbit, Ms. Pat was a fifteen-year-old eighth-grade dropout raising two babies in one of Atlanta’s poorest neighborhoods. With no mentor, no road map, and no safety net, she wasn’t chasing the American Dream. She was told it wasn’t meant for people like her.

If you’d seen her back then, you wouldn’t have bet on a happy ending.

And yet…look at her now.

In Ms. American Dream, Ms. Pat picks up where Rabbit left off—chronicling the hard-fought climb from food stamps and Section 8 housing to television deals, Hollywood writers’ rooms, and a suburban life so comfortable her doghouse has its own built-in washer and dryer.

In a country where the rich get richer and regular folks are told to “work harder,” Ms. Pat learned the rules of a system that wasn’t built for her to win. She outmaneuvered caseworkers, bill collectors, con artists, and hustlers. She found her place in an industry where she was told she didn’t belong.

Raw, fearless, and laugh-out-loud funny, Ms. American Dream is not your average rags-to-riches Hollywood story—it’s a sharp, hilarious look at class, strategy, and reinvention.

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