Books published by Random House Publishing Group

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *;Theauthor of The Aviator's Wife returns with a triumphant new novel about New York's ';Swans' of the 1950sand the scandalous, headline-making, and enthralling friendship between literary legend Truman Capote and peerless socialite Babe Paley.People's Book of the Week *;USA Today's #1 ';New and Noteworthy' Book *;Entertainment Weekly's Must List *; LibraryReads Top Ten Pick Of all the glamorous stars of New York high society, none blazes brighter than Babe Paley. Her flawless face regularly graces the pages of Vogue, and she is celebrated and adored for her ineffable style and exquisite taste, especially among her friendsthe alluring socialite Swans Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, and Pamela Churchill. By all appearances, Babe has it all: money, beauty, glamour, jewels, influential friends, a prestigious husband, and gorgeous homes. But beneath this elegantly composed exterior dwells a passionate womana woman desperately longing for true love and connection. Enter Truman Capote. This diminutive golden-haired genius with a larger-than-life personality explodes onto the scene, setting Babe and her circle of Swans aflutter. Through Babe, Truman gains an unlikely entree into the enviable lives of Manhattan's elite, along with unparalleled access to the scandal and gossip of Babe's powerful circle. Sure of the loyalty of the man she calls ';True Heart,' Babe never imagines the destruction Truman will leave in his wake. But once a storyteller, always a storytellereven when the stories aren't his to tell. Truman's fame is at its peak when such notable celebrities as Frank and Mia Sinatra, Lauren Bacall, and Rose Kennedy converge on his glittering Black and White Ball. But all too soon, he'll ignite a literary scandal whose repercussions echo through the years. The Swans of Fifth Avenue will seduce and startle readers as it opens the door onto one of America's most sumptuous eras.Praise for The Swans of Fifth Avenue';Exceptional storytelling . . . teeming with scandal, gossip and excitement.'Harper's Bazaar ';This moving fictionalization brings the whole cast of characters back to vivid life. Gossipy and fun, it's also a nuanced look at the beauty and cruelty of a rarefied, bygone world.'People';The era and the sordid details come back to life in this jewel of a novel.'O: The Oprah Magazine

"For more than a decade, Nate DiMeo has brought the big and small of American history to life in The Memory Palace, a podcast of crystalline short stories that are all completely true. In this beautifully designed collection, where DiMeo takes advantage of the visual form of a book by creating striking juxtapositions between images and text, he gathers the best of the show and adds brand-new stories exclusive to the book, which especially take their inspiration from photographs and the emergence of photography. The collection adds up to a unique take on the past that asks what gets to count as history in the first place, draws deep meaning from forgotten lives, and often dives into past crazes and the sometimes humorous and sometimes devastating fact that what or who is popular in one moment can become a barely remembered curiosity in the next. He resurrects stories that deserve to be memorialized, like that of the Surfmen of the Outer Banks who saved countless sailors' lives and the workers who risked theirs daily to dig the base of the Brooklyn Bridge"--

"Ilse Lund is a French translator who lives in a beach house on stilts set on a remote spit of land off the west coast of Greenland. Restless from from the predictability of life in her quaint cottage and her isolated world circumscribed by the sea, Ilse convinces her French publisher to pay for a trip to the country whose language she translates but has never visited--France. Her mission: to translate the verses of an elderly Provenðcal poet known as "the last living troubadour of Provence." Settling into the poet's medieval village of Beau Riviere, perched atop the rocky slopes of the French Alps, Ilse falls under the hypnotic spell of the Provenðcal way of life--and of the free-associating, charming, French poet. As she soaks up the sensuous warm air, the vibrant spring colors, and the dulcet sounds of the Provenðcal dialect, a daily rhythm develops, word-by-word, between the poet and his translator. Their warm camaraderie is disturbed, however, when the poet's son shows up. Though he has a fiancâee back in Paris, he turns his full attention on Ilse, and suddenly she is forced to learn another language, one her translation skills have not prepared her to decode. Questioning where and with whom her future lies, Ilse fears she has lost sight of her true North"--

"At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen in popular minds as the greatest of American presidents--a remote icon--or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This ... portrait gives us a very human Lincoln--an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment was essential to the story of justice in America. Here is the Lincoln who, as a boy, was steeped in the sermons of emancipation by Baptist preachers; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him light to see the right. This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination at Ford's Theater on Good Friday 1865: his rise, his self-education through reading, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end"--

"Cam Walker goes head-to-head with the villains who have been after Futureland from the start."--

"When four strangers rent bargain-basement rooms in an old hotel near the beach, they embark on the summer of their lives. First there's Ariel Spencer, who has big dreams of becoming a writer and is looking for inspiration in Nantucket's high society. Her new friend Sheila Murphy is a good Catholic girl from Ohio whose desire for adventure is often shadowed by her apprehension. Then there's small-town Missourian Wyatt Smith-who's immediately taken with Ariel. The last of the four, Nick Volkov, is looking to make a name for himself and have a blast along the way. Despite their differences, the four bond over Wednesday night dinners, trips to the beach, and all that Nantucket has to offer. But venturing out on their own for the first time, with all its adventure and risks, could change the course of their future ... Twenty-six years after that amazing summer, Ariel, Sheila, Wyatt, and Nick come together again at the hotel where they first met. Now it's called The Lighthouse and Nick owns the entire operation with his wife and daughter. Ariel and Wyatt, married for decades, arrive with their son, and Sheila's back too, with her daughter by her side. Life hasn't exactly worked out the way they had all hoped. Ariel's dreams have since faded and been pushed aside, but she's determined to rediscover the passion she once had. Nick has the money and reputation of a successful businessman, but is it everything he had hoped for? And Sheila has never been able to shake the secret she's kept since that summer. Being back together again at last will mean confronting the past and finding themselves again. Meanwhile, the next generation discovers Nantucket, exploring the island together, experiencing love and heartbreak, and forging lifelong bonds just as their parents did all those years ago. It's sure to be one unforgettable reunion."--Page 4 of cover.

A savvy former street child working at a law office in Mumbai fights for redemption and a chance to live life on her own terms in this “smart, haunting, and compulsively readable” (Amy Jones, author of We’re All in This Together) debut novel about fortune and survival.  “A heartbreaking yet hopeful story about the resilience of the human spirit in the face of insurmountable odds.”—Etaf Rum, New York Times bestselling author of A Woman Is No ManWith a sharp wit and sharper tongue, twenty-three-year old Rakhi Kumar is nobody’s fool. Sure, she lives alone in a slum and works as a lowly office assistant for the renowned lawyer, Gauri Verma, who gave her a fresh start. But she’s come a long way from her childhood on the streets of Mumbai. Most important, she’s busy enough to distract herself from the nightmares of a grisly childhood incident that led to the disappearance of her best friend. Fiercely intelligent, Rakhi could be doing so much more than making chai, but she allows herself to be underestimated by her colleagues at Justice For All, Gauri’s cash-strapped rights law office. These days, it’s becoming harder for Rakhi to keep her head down as Gauri desperately tries to save her organization by recruiting former Bollywood actress and infamous nineties “thong girl,” Rubina Mansoor, to be their celebrity ambassador. But not all money is good money. Convincing Gauri to make increasingly brash moves, Rubina demands an internship for a young family friend, Harvard-bound graduate student, Alex Lalwani-Diamond. An ambitious, naïve rich kid with a savior complex, Alex persuades Rakhi to show him “the real India.” In exchange, he’ll do something to further Rakhi’s dreams, in a transaction that seems harmless, at first. As old guilt and new aspirations collide, everything Rakhi once knew to be true is set ablaze. And as the stakes mount, she will come face-to-face with the difficult choices and moral compromises one must make in pursuit of self-preservation, and ultimately, survival. Such Big Dreams is a moving, smart, and arrestingly clever look at the cost of reclaiming one’s story.

"Abby Hanlon’s Dory Fantasmagory series is some of the best children’s literature in years." —New York MagazineThe wildly popular, ever hilarious Dory Fantasmagory series is back for a sixth adventure, with Dory turning separation anxiety into a ghostly, goofy escapade.When Dory loses track of her mom in the hardware store, it leads to a touch of separation anxiety. Dory suspects her mom will soon sail off on a ship across the world to eat cake and play kickball and never return. These are big feelings, and Dory knows what to do: She throws a sheet over her head and haunts her family everywhere they go so they can't leave her, much to the annoyance of her brother and sister. Then Dory’s longtime nemesis Mrs. Gobble Gracker reappears, wearing a wedding dress, and Dory’s mom makes an announcement that leaves not just Dory reeling but her siblings too. Maybe a haunting is exactly what's needed to get this family back to normal.In her sixth book, Dory delivers hoots and oopses on every page, entangling her friends—real and imaginary—in fabulous plots that sometimes take even Dory herself by delightful surprise.

"A story of pain, injustice, love, resistance, and hope, this glorious book will lodge inside you and make you feel everything.” —Helena Fox, award-winning author of How It Feels to FloatNow in paperback, a queer, YA Handmaid's Tale meets Never Let Me Go about a dystopian society bent on relentless conformity, and the struggle of one girl to save herself and those she loves from a life of lies.Everyone hopes for a letter—to attend the Estuary, the Glades, the Meadows. These are the special places where only the best and brightest go to burn even brighter. When Eleanor is accepted at the Meadows, it means escape from her hardscrabble life by the sea, in a country ravaged by climate disaster. But despite its luminous facilities, endless fields, and pretty things, the Meadows keeps dark secrets: its purpose is to reform students, to condition them against their attractions, to show them that one way of life is the only way to survive. And maybe Eleanor would believe them, except then she meets Rose.Five years later, Eleanor and her friends seem free of the Meadows, changed but not as they’d hoped. Eleanor is an adjudicator, her job to ensure her former classmates don’t stray from the lives they’ve been trained to live. But Eleanor can’t escape her past . . . or thoughts of the girl she once loved. As secrets unfurl, Eleanor must wage a dangerous battle for her own identity and the truth of what happened to the girl she lost, knowing, if she’s not careful, Rose’s fate could be her own.A raw and timely masterwork of speculative fiction, The Meadows will sink its roots into you. This is a novel for our times and for always—not to be missed.

Handsome, kind, and unassuming, Mr. Gray seemed the answer to Deborah Weyman's prayers. For once she accepted the position he offered, she would finally be safe from the notorious Lord Kendal, a man she had good reason to believe had murdered her former employer -- and was now after her. But there were certain things about Mr. Gray that Deborah should have noticed: the breadth of his shoulders, the steel in his voice, the gleam in his uncommonly blue eyes -- things that might have warned her that Mr. Gray was no savior, but a very dangerous man....Too tempting to resist...Though she posed as a dowdy schoolteacher, Lord Kendal saw right through her disguise to the treacherous beauty beneath. Now, convinced that she alone can tell him the truth about Lord Barrington's murder -- and the whereabouts of Barrington's young son -- he coolly masquerades as the innocuous Mr. Gray. And only when it's too late for Deborah to run will she learn what it means to be at his mercy -- and powerless to resist his seduction....

"By day, AWOL Navy SEAL Finn is hiding out on Vieques, a tiny island paradise off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico, living in a spare room behind a seafood restaurant owned by a blind local. By night he scours the dark web, hunting for the rogue officer responsible for the crimes he is accused of committing. But Finn's world is about to be turned upside down by a new nightmare, when his employer's two grandchildren go missing. To find them, he'll have to infiltrate the island's dangerous criminal underbelly and expose a shadowy crime network known as La Empresa--even if it means exposing himself in the process."--

A woman’s second act on the island of Nantucket delivers much more than she expected in this captivating novel by New York Times bestselling author Nancy Thayer.“A beautiful, hope-filled, heartwarming story about new beginnings and second chances.”—RaeAnne Thayne, author of The Cafe at Beach EndHeather Willette has a good life in Concord, Massachusetts. But when her marriage fizzles out, Heather has to decide what sort of life to live next. Ready to seek out her own happiness and discover herself again, Heather decides to leave her husband and rent a cottage on Nantucket. And her plan is going perfectly—until her son, Ross, announces he’s moving to Nantucket to work at his girlfriend’s family’s construction business instead of going back home to work with his own father, like he'd promised. Worst of all for Heather, this means having to get along with her. Kailee Essex is thrilled that Ross is willing to move to her hometown. She has big hopes for their happily ever after, especially now that her parents are finally showing interest in her career. She’s less thrilled, however, about his mother living nearby. Kailee has clashed with Heather since the day they met. But anything is possible in the summer sun and sea breezes of Nantucket—even reconciliation. And when change comes sooner than either Heather or Kailee expect, they must learn to overcome their differences to fight for the future they want. With All the Days of Summer, beloved storyteller Nancy Thayer delivers a moving novel that explores the complexity of family and the unexpected ways fate can guide you forward.

In this bold collection of hard-hitting urban erotic quickies, Noire, the undisputed Queen of Urban Erotica, brings you eleven authors who explore, without apology or restraint, street sagas of sexual pleasure.Boasting an all-star lineup of some of today's hottest authors-and sprinkled with heat from some fresh new talent too-this collection from Noire thoroughly lives up to her credo of giving her fans just what they like: street drama with a sheet-drenching erotic twist. Here you'll find sexy tales from fan favorites K'wan, Joy, Thomas Long, Jamise L. Dames, Andrea Blackstone, Gerald Malcom, Euftis Emory, Kweli Walker, and Erick Gray, along with two hot new voices: Aretha Temple and Plea$ure. Noire even supplies her own juicy addition to the hard-body lineup.So beware: The heat and the drama between these pages are not fairy tales for the desperate housewife. Ride hard with Noire as her authors get their grind on and take it to the limits in From the Streets to the Sheets.