Books published by Penguin Publishing Group

Includes a reader's guide and an excerpt from The love con.

"Louise Lloyd is finally living the quiet life she'd longed for, working in a parfumerie by day and spending time with her new friends every night at the Aquarius club in Paris. When a desperate mother asks for help locating her artist daughter, Louise initially refuses, [in order] to keep her hard-won but fragile peace intact. But the woman comes with a letter of introduction from an old friend in Harlem, and Louise realizes she has no choice but to do what she can to find the missing young woman. The woman's daughter, Iris Wright, is part of an elite social circle. Louise soon finds herself drawn into a world of privilege and ice-cold ambition--a young group of artists who will do anything to get ahead--but would they murder one of their own?"--

From the acclaimed author of When Never Comes comes a novel about the pull of the past and the power of love. As offseason begins on the Outer Banks, a storm makes landfall, and three unlikely strangers are drawn together… Five years ago, Lane Kramer moved to Starry Point, North Carolina, certain the quaint island village was the place to start anew. Now the owner of a charming seaside inn, she's set aside her dreams of being a novelist and of finding love again. When English professor Michael Forrester appears on Lane's doorstep in the middle of a storm, he claims he's only seeking a quiet place to write his book. Yet he seems eerily familiar with the island, leaving Lane wondering if he is quite what he appears. Meanwhile, Mary Quinn has become a common sight, appearing each morning on the dunes behind the inn, to stare wistfully out to sea. Lane is surprised to find a friendship developing with the older woman, who possesses a unique brand of wisdom, despite her tenuous grip on reality. As Lane slowly unravels Mary's story and a fragile relationship between Lane and Michael blooms, Lane realizes the three share a common bond. But when a decades-old secret suddenly casts its shadow over them, Lane must choose between protecting her heart and fighting for the life-and the love-she wants. Conversation Guide Included

When a young woman returns to North Carolina after a thirty-year absence, she finds that the once grand tobacco plantation she called home holds more secrets than she ever imagined.Though Peak Plantation has been in her family for generations, Leslie Nichols can’t wait to rid herself of the farm left to her by her estranged grandmother Maggie—and with it the disturbing memories of her mother’s death, her father’s disgrace, and her unhappy childhood. But Leslie isn’t the only one with a claim to Peak.Jay Davenport, Peak’s reclusive caretaker, has his own reasons for holding onto the land bequeathed to him by Leslie’s grandmother. Before she died, Maggie hinted at a terrible secret surrounding Adele Laveau, a lady’s maid who came to Peak during the 1930s and died under mysterious circumstances. Jay is haunted by Maggie’s story, yet the truth eludes him—until Leslie uncovers a cryptically marked grave on the property.As they delve into the mystery of Adele’s death, Leslie and Jay discover shocking secrets that extend deep into the roots of Leslie’s family tree—secrets that have the power to alter her life forever.

"Georgie ... impatiently awaits the birth of her baby. But she has plenty to occupy her: her new chef Pierre has arrived from Paris, and Sir Hubert, who owns Eynsleigh, is back from his latest expedition. It's time for Georgie to throw her first house party to celebrate his return and show off her new chef. ... Sir Mortimer Mordred--famous author of creepy Gothic horror novels--is one of the guests. He recently purchased a nearby Elizabethan manor nearby because it has a famous poison garden. After the dinner, Sir Mortimer approaches Georgie and asks to borrow her new chef for his upcoming party. ... Shockingly, just after the banquet several of the guests become sick. And one dies, apparently poisoned by berries from the garden. But how could this be when they all ate the same meal and the same delectable dessert?"--

"Holly Miller is looking forward to finally taking a few days to relax. Enjoying an early morning on her terrace, she spots an unfamiliar reddish-gold pooch across the lake. She's intrigued, but never expects to find the very same dog smiling at her in bed when she wakes up the next morning! Trixie and Twinkletoes appear to accept this cute stranger, but Holly doesn't know to whom he belongs. Oma thinks the dog looks familiar, and it turns out the wayward pooch belongs to Holly's cousin Josh. Holly knew her cousin well as a child, but she hasn't seen him in over a decade. He's camping with his girlfriend across the lake. Holly returns the cute dog to Josh's campsite twice, but the second time, Josh and his girlfriend are nowhere to be found. Instead, a guest of the Sugar Maple Inn is dead in their tent. Now it's up to Holly and Trixie to suss out a sneaky killer"--

"After a particularly brutal breakup, Cassidy Sutton has had it with dating. So when her grandmother gives her a 1950's dating guide entitled 125 Tips to Hook a Husband, she decides to turn the retro advice into an ironic "What not to do" article for Siren, the popular online women's publication she writes for. And who better to secretly test the old-fashioned tips on than Jack Bradford, chauvinistic creator of rival men's site Brawler? She'll write an article that will entertain female readers everywhere and embarrass their sexist nemesis at the same time. Two birds, one stone. But her perfect plan soon proves to be anything but. Those vintage courtship tips Cassidy was so quick to poke fun at? They actually seem to work, calling her most closely-held beliefs into question. Even worse? Jack isn't falling for any of her tricks-and it's not long before their 'fake' relationship starts to feel like the realest one of her life. As her cat and mouse game starts to spiral out of control, Cassidy has to decide if she's playing to win, or if she's willing to lose it all for love"--

“This is not your grandma’s fairy tale… Brilliant.” —The Washington Post “The Force of Such Beauty grips with the strength of an Olympian and holds it with the endurance of a marathoner … [to] an ending that actually caught my breath, not once, but twice in quick succession.”—The Associated Press   One sunny afternoon in an idyllic kingdom by the sea, a princess named Caroline pretends to sleep. When her keepers strike up a card game, Caroline sneaks into her maid’s car, turns the key, and drives right out of the palace. Alone for the first time in years, she gets on the next flight—only to land in the waiting arms of her guards. As she’s forcibly escorted back to her marble prison, something in Caroline breaks for good. It’s not her first failed attempt, and it won’t be her last. Caroline suspects that she’ll never escape. But she might find a way to be free.   Barbara Bourland’s stunning third novel, a phantasmagorical fable of love and marriage, is her most ambitious and inventive book to date. Inspired by the alleged escape attempts of real-life princesses, The Force of Such Beauty is both the story of an idealistic young woman trapped by a corrupt promise, and a deeply moving reminder that power structures around the world ultimately rest on the subjugation of women’s bodies.   “A fascinating novel about bodies, the way we use them, and the way we break them. It’s one of several works to come out this year concerned with the appropriation of female beauty by powerful men, and examines a harsh choice in the lives of women dubbed desirable by the patriarchal state: do you participate, or do you say no?…Bourland is skilled at finding the noir in the everyday, and illustrating the mechanisms of control that keep us in our place.”—Crime Reads, Best Books of the Year (So Far)

Includes an excerpt from Guilt and Ginataan.

"In this celebration of the comfort and community to be found in a warm, well-made cup of chai, Kevin Wilson offers readers his famous chai recipes alongside meditations on how to live a simple yet full life. Dubbed "the CEO of Chai" by Bon Appâetit magazine, Kevin Wilson is an expert on all things chai. When Wilson was a teenager, his family in Sri Lanka applied to come to America, but his was the only visa approved. A world away from his country and so many of his loved ones, he stayed connected to his culture and his family through chai. One day Wilson made a TikTok about how to make the perfect cup of chai-carefully crushing cardamom, cloves, peppercorns, and cinnamon bark, boiling them in milk, adding tea leaves, and stirring until he saw what he describes as "the color of a happy brown boy." The video went viral and earned Wilson many fans who come for the useful guidance on how to make chai but stay for his wise meditations on how the perfect "cuppa" can soothe and sustain us-even in the most trying of times. In this book, Wilson shares his most popular recipes and introduces readers to making chai as a spiritual practice that involves patience and attunement to meld just the right combination of spices. In The Way of Chai Wilson beautifully describes how something as simple as a well-made cup of tea can bring us solace amid our struggles. While a steaming cup of chai can't solve everything, it can help us tap into the power of patience, clarity, and intention"--

"Two sisters roll up their sleeves to run a dilapidated beach-town inn but must learn to work with the current tenants in this deliciously spicy reimagining of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility by Nikki Payne. Nora needs a reinvention fast. But where can you go when the entire internet knows your face? (And ass... but Nora tries not to talk about that.) After discovering at her father's funeral that she and her sister, Yanne, have lived their entire lives as his secret second family, everything they had is gone. Well, there is one thing left-a dilapidated beach house on its way to foreclosure in Maine. All Nora has to do is pay back the foreclosure loan in nine months and she can start over. She needs the do-over after her ex leaked their sex tape and Nora's O-face became the internet's favorite meme. She decamps for coastal Maine with her sister, but they haven't even knocked the traveling dust off last season's designer boots when the first problem pops up: a squatter who has claimed their property as his own-and is hotter than the local lobster boil. From the moment Ennis 'Bear' Freeman sees these two city sisters, he knows they won't last here. But that doesn't mean he can't fix his struggling ecotourism business with the money they supply to revamp the inn. As an Indigenous person native to Maine, Ennis has every reason not to trust another outsider claiming land they have no rights to. He has his own secrets, ones that threaten to destroy his business and his reputation. But as they work side by side, he's afraid Nora may be the key to more than just his financial happiness. His best course of action? Stay away. But that's easier said than done..."--

"... budding chocolatier Becca Ransom must solve a murder before she meets a sticky end."--Provided by publisher.

"American chef Georgia May Jackson has one goal--to run her own restaurant in Paris. After a grueling decade working in Parisian kitchens, she is on the cusp of success. But in one disastrous night, Georgia loses her sous-chef position, her French boyfriend, and her sense of taste! Renowned for her refined palate and daring use of bold flavors to create remarkable dishes, Georgia is devastated to discover her culinary gift has simply ... vanished. When she receives a surprising invitation from her estranged mother, Georgia flees to a small island near Seattle hoping the visit will help her regain her spark in the kitchen. There she tentatively reconnects with her mom, a free-spirited hippie eager to make up for her past mistakes. But there's something about the enigmatic island Georgia just can't piece together. Good luck charms keep appearing in the oddest places. Her neighbor is a puzzlingly antagonist (and annoyingly handsome) oyster farmer. And her mom keeps hinting at a mysterious family legacy. With the clock ticking and time running out to win her dream job in Paris, Georgia begins to unravel some astonishing secrets that make her wonder if the true recipe for a charmed life might look--and taste--very different than she ever imagined"--

"A thrilling psychological horror debut about a woman who is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes haunted, no matter the cost... You can survive anything. That's what Margaret tells herself when the walls of her house start to drip blood every September. She's learned how to live with it...and the other terrifying apparitions that have made the sprawling Victorian house she and her husband bought four years ago turn from a dream home into a living nightmare. But she can outlast all of it. Hal felt differently, though. Her husband couldn't take the hauntings anymore, and he left. But now he's not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine arrives, intent on looking for her missing father, convinced something grim has happened to him. With every desperate attempt Katherine makes at finding Hal, the hauntings at the September House grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep"--

"The ... story of a Black physician, her career in medicine, and the deep inequities that still exist in the U.S. healthcare system"--

When murder taints writer-in-residence Penelope Parish’s charming British bookshop, she must follow the clues to catch a killer before tempers boil over.   Penelope Parish thought she’d turned the page on her amateur sleuthing days but when the owner of Upper Chumley-on-Stokes’ proposed first high-end gourmet shop is poisoned, the American novelist starts to wonder if she and her quaint British town are in for another rewrite. It turns out that not everyone was a fan of Simeon Foster’s farm-sourced charcuterie and imported pastries—many of the locals were outraged by the potential new competition.   With a full menu of suspects on her hands, this just might be Penelope’s toughest case yet. Luckily, her friends at the Open Book are there to help with every twist of the poisoned pen.

"Opposites attract when a free-spirited American singer-songwriter with ADHD teams up with a charming Irishman to revitalize his family's pub. Raine Hart is used to the challenges of living with ADHD. It's why she ditched her life in Boston to busk around Europe as a traveling musician. No boss. No schedule. No one to disappoint but herself. But when a careless mistake in Ireland leaves her unable to perform, she sees no other option but to give up her nomadic life. Since inheriting the Local, Jack Dunne has wanted to make the pub his own. But the baggage of running a family business and the intrusive thoughts that stem from his OCD make changing things a challenge. Over a pint with handsome, tattooed Jack, Raine accidentally insults him and the pub. Instead of taking offense, Jack is impressed by her vision of what the pub could be and offers her a job bringing it to life. But when Raine and Jack develop feelings for one another their opposite lifestyles won't accommodate, it becomes clear the pub isn't the only thing that needs reinventing. As the end of their business collaboration draws near, they'll have to find a way past the limits they've placed on themselves or let go of a love that could last a lifetime"--

"Zambreno offers her most profound and affecting work yet: a candid chronicle of life as a mother of two young daughters in a moment of profound uncertainty about public health, climate change, and the future we can expect for our children. Moving through the seasons, returning often to parks and green spaces, Zambreno captures the isolation and exhaustion of being home with a baby and a small child, but also small and transcendent moments of beauty and joy. Inspired by writers and artists ranging from Natalia Ginzburg to Joseph Cornell, Yåuko Tsushima to Bernadette Mayer, Etel Adnan to David Wojnarowicz, The Light Room represents an impassioned appreciation of community and the commons, and an ecstatic engagement with the living world. How will our memories, and our children's, be affected by this time of profound disconnection? What does it mean to bring new life, and new work, into this moment of precarity and crisis? In The Light Room, Kate Zambreno offers a vision of how to live in ways that move away from disenchantment, and toward light and possibility"--