Books published by Random House Publishing Group

"The holidays are fast approaching, and the Belvedere siblings are a mess. Liz, Hollywood showrunner and responsible eldest, has no idea how to follow up her hit show's first season, or how to deal with her big fat crush on its star, Violet Grace. Birdie turned her chronic middle child syndrome into a career as a stand-up comic, but since she spends more time wooing women than working on new material, she's facing one-hit wonder status, especially once she gets axed by her manager. And Rafi, sensitive romantic and the baby golden boy, proposes to his coworker girlfriend in front of his entire company, only to be turned down by the woman he thought was the love of his life. Born to three different fathers, the three adult children share one mother: famed actress and singer Babs Belvedere. Seeking direction and holiday cheer, all three siblings head up to their mother's house in the Catskills, determined to swear off love and focus on themselves and their work. But the spirit of the season seems to have different plans for them, and their best intentions are quickly derailed in the most delightful and festive of ways"--

The Positive Power series introduce self-esteem and empathy to young readers. I Am Powerful is a fun and encouraging Step 2 Step Into Reading about believing in yourself!Even a young kid can make a difference in their community! I Am Powerful follows a young girl as she learns to trust in her abilities. In this installment of the Positive Power early reader series, children will learn the affirmation "I am powerful" through an encouraging story of self-confidence, self-empowerment and activism.Step 2 Readers use basic vocabulary and short sentences to tell simple stories, for children who recognize familiar words and can sound out new words with help. Rhyme and rhythmic text paired with picture clues help children decode the story.

"An eye-wateringly expensive watch is found discarded on the land days prior to a dead body turning up. "Sister" Jane Arnold sets out to find the connection between the two, with a little help from her friend-both two legged and four-in this transportive mystery from New York Times bestselling author Rita Mae Brown"--

A mesmerizing novel of deception and betrayal from the acclaimed author of Wartime Lies and About Schmidt.John North, a prize-winning American writer, is suddenly beset by dark suspicions about the real value of his work. Over endless hours and bottles of whiskey consumed in a mysterious café called L'Entre Deux Mondes, he recounts, in counterpoint to his doubts, the one story he has never told before, perhaps the only important one he will ever tell. North's chosen interlocutor-who could be his doppelgänger-is transfixed by the revelations and becomes the narrator of North's tale. North has always been faithful to his wife, Lydia, but when one of his novels achieves a special success, he allows himself a dalliance with Léa, a starstruck young journalist. Coolly planning to make sure that his life with Lydia will not be disturbed, North is taken off guard when Léa becomes obsessed with him and he with her elaborate erotic games. As the hypnotic and serpentine confession unfurls, we gradually discover the extraordinary lengths to which North has gone to indulge a powerful desire for self-destruction. Shipwreck is a daring parable of the contradictory impulses that can rend a single soul-narcissism and self-loathing, refinement and lust.

Join a young girl and her dog in this Step 2 reader as they joyfully prepare to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights! Perfect for readers ages 4-6.Raina is excited to celebrate Diwali, a Hindu holiday that symbolizes the victory of light over darkness. Along with her family and her best friend, Lion (a little dog with a big sweet tooth!), Raina helps prepare for the celebration. She decorates the house with clay lamps called diyas, makes beautiful rangoli designs with sand, watches colorful fireworks, and shares sweet treats with Lion. It’s a Diwali to remember!Step 2 Readers use basic vocabulary and short sentences to tell simple stories, for children who recognize familiar words and can sound out new words with help. Rhyme and rhythmic text paired with picture clues help children decode the story.

"When the magic tree house returns it whisks Jack and Annie away to the Galapagos Islands where they become World Turtle Experts and must save a tortoise in danger of an erupting volcano"--

A young ace must unmask a modern-day Robin Hood in this original graphic novel set in George R. R. Martin's shared-world universe, Wild Cards.An alien virus ravages the world, with effects as random as a hand of cards. Those infected either draw the black queen and die, draw an ace and receive superpowers, or draw the joker and become bizarrely mutated.Rosa Garza—an ace whose powers center around her family's lotería deck—has arrived in New York City to help her dying grandmother. But what should have been a quiet time of recovery is instead interrupted by a series of eccentric robberies perpetrated by a mysterious ace known only as Professor Daedalus, who has the power to create and animate impossible automatons. And these automatons are stealing from the rich to give to the poor and needy—in particular, to the underfunded clinic where Rosa's abuela is being treated. With police scrutiny falling hard on her, Rosa must discover Daedalus's identity and halt his crime spree before she herself is arrested—or becomes the automatons' next victim.

From Morris Award finalist Sonia Patel comes a sharply written YA about a girl grappling with a dark, painful secret from her past, perfect for fans of All My Rage and The Way I Used to Be.It’s eighteen-year-old Gita Desai’s first year at Stanford, and the fact that she’s here and not already married off by her traditional Gujarati parents is a miracle. She’s determined to death-grip her good-girl, model student rep all the way to med school, which means no social life or standing out in any way. Should be easy: If there’s one thing she’s learned from her family, it’s how to chup-re—to “shut up,” fade into the background. But when childhood memories of her aunt’s desertion and her then-uncle’s best friend resurface, Gita ends up ditching the books night after night in favor of partying and hooking up with strangers. Still, nothing can stop the little voice growing louder and louder inside her that says something is wrong. . . . And the only way she can burst forward is to stop shutting up about the past.“Funny, messy, gut-wrenching.”—Kirkus Reviews

Learning to ask for help is hard, but living with no help is harder as these two friends find out in this middle grade novel that Publishers Weekly calls, "A feel-good story with Hallmark Christmas movie vibes"As Christmas and the new year inch closer, so do Ronny and Jo's anxieties. Because Ronny needs $878 by January 4th to keep his family's only car from getting taken by the bank. Ever since a workplace injury disabled his dad and forced the family to move from their home into the apartment complex across the street, Ronny’s had a crash course in repossession. His best friend Josefina Ramos is also counting down until the start of January when her life could change forever—that’s when she has her big cello audition at the prestigious music academy Maple Hill. Except she can’t play a solo performance without something disastrous happening and no one seems to hear her when she talks about how nervous she is.As the countdown to the new year rolls ahead, Ronny and Jo learn what can happen to best-laid plans and how to depend on one another and their community when things get tough.

A D.C. philanthropist suspects that her seemingly perfect employee is secretly plotting to steal her husband, her reputation—even her life—in this seductive novel of psychological suspense from the internationally bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish.“A deadly cocktail of medical mystery, family drama, and psychological suspense.”—Chandler Baker, New York Times bestselling author of Whisper NetworkIn this town, anyone is replaceable. . . . After a tragic chain of events led to the deaths of their spouses two years ago, D.C. philanthropist Sloane Chase and Senator Whit Montgomery are finally starting to move on. The horrifying ordeal drew them together, and now they’re ready to settle down again—with each other. As Sloane returns to the world of White House dinners and political small talk, this time with her new husband, she’s also preparing for an upcoming hip replacement—the latest reminder of the lupus she’s managed since her twenties. With their hectic schedules, they decide that hiring a home health aide will give Sloane the support and independence she needs postsurgery. And they find the perfect fit in Athena Karras. Seemingly a godsend, Athena tends to Sloane and even helps her run her charitable foundation. But Sloane slowly begins to deteriorate—a complication, Athena explains, of Sloane’s lupus. As weeks go by, Sloane becomes sicker, and her uncertainty quickly turns to paranoia as she begins to suspect the worst. Why is Athena asking her so many probing questions about her foundation—as well as about her past? And could Sloane be imagining the sultry looks between Athena and her new husband?Riveting, fast-paced, and full of unbelievable twists, The Senator’s Wife is a psychological thriller that upends the private lives of those who walk the halls of power. Because when you have it all, you have everything to lose.

"A girl's Halloween tradition gets upended and she turns to her New York City neighbors to find other ways to celebrate"--

Siblings celebrate Halloween by going trick-or-treating.

A ballerina at the height of her powers becomes consumed with finding her missing brother in this “striking debut” (Oprah Daily).“A compelling novel about the spiritual and bodily costs of the dogged pursuit of art.”—Raven Leilani, author of LusterLONGLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION • LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARDAt twenty-two years old, Cece Cordell reaches the pinnacle of her career as a ballet dancer when she’s promoted to principal at the New York City Ballet. She’s instantly catapulted into celebrity, heralded for her “inspirational” role as the first Black ballerina in the famed company’s history. Even as she celebrates the achievement of a lifelong dream, Cece remains haunted by the feeling that she doesn’t belong. As she waits for some feeling of rightness that doesn’t arrive, she begins to unravel the loose threads of her past—an absent father, a pragmatic mother who dismisses Cece’s ambitions, and a missing older brother who stoked her childhood love of ballet but disappeared to deal with his own demons.Soon after her promotion, Cece is faced with a choice that has the potential to derail her career and shatter the life she’s cultivated for herself, sending her on a pilgrimage to both find her brother and reclaim the parts of herself lost in the grinding machinery of the traditional ballet world.Written with spellbinding beauty and ballet’s precise structure, Dances centers around women, art, and power, and how we come to define freedom for ourselves.

"A moving memoir by a survivor of anti-Muslim violence in contemporary India that delicately weaves political and family histories in a tribute to India's vibrant multiethnic society and the resilience of its women and minorities, especially in the face of growing religious extremism. In 2002, Zara Chowdhary was sixteen years old and living with her family in Ahmedabad, one of India's fastest-growing metropolises, when a gruesome anti-Muslim pogrom upended her world. Instead of taking her school exams, she is put under a three-month lockdown with thousands of others, fearing for their community and their lives. The chief minister in the state at the time Narendra Modi, accused of fomenting anti-Muslim violence, would become prime minister of India and lead a government committed to eroding the rights of India's 220 million Muslims. In The Lucky Ones, Chowdhary weaves the past and the present of her multigenerational Muslim family, juxtaposing the horrific violence of rising fascistic forces on the streets with the more mundane violence of patriarchal Indian joint families at the dinner table. Through the stories of sisters, daughters, and mothers raising each other, Chowdhary shows how women hold this world together with their ability to forgive, find laughter, and offer grace even as the world they know, and their place in it, is falling apart. With lyrical clarity and intimacy, The Lucky Ones is a poetic remembrance of how a country's promise of a multi-ethnic secular democracy can so easily dissolve and descend into extremism. Chowdhary's story is a protest against the erasure of India's Muslims, a testimony of a lost girlhood, and a testament to her family and country's entwined lives"--

"A child discovers that there is no single right thing to do when someone is sad or grieving"--

"A small-town bartender juggles motherhood and a sexual awakening in this heartwarming queer friends-to-lovers romance"--

One woman fights to hold on to her friends, her family, and all that she holds dear as a brewing conflict divides her small-town Georgia community in this powerful novel from the author of The Sweet Taste of Muscadines.“This book is a treasure. Pamela Terry writes with a poet’s ear and a wicked sense of comic timing.”—Nationally bestselling author Barbara O’NealOn the morning after Harry Cline’s funeral, a rare ice storm hits the town of Wesleyan, Georgia. The community wakes up to find its controversial statue of Confederate general Henry Benning destroyed—and not by the weather. Half the town had wanted to remove the statue; the other half had wanted to preserve it. Now that the matter has been taken out of their hands, the town’s long-simmering tensions are laid bare.  Without Harry beside her, Marietta is left to question many of her preconceived ideas about her friends and family. Her childhood friend, Butter, has come to her aid in ways Marietta never expected or asked for. Her sister-in-law, Glinda, is behaving completely out of character, and her brother, Macon, the top defense attorney in the Southeast, is determined to find those responsible for the damage to the statue and protect the legacy of Old Man Griffin, the owner of the park where it once stood. Marietta longs to salvage these connections, but the world is changing and the divides can no longer be ignored. With a cast of compassionate, relatable characters, When the Moon Turns Blue is a poignant and timely novel about family, friendship, and what can happen when we discover that we don’t particularly like the people we love.

EDGAR AWARD FINALIST • “A true-crime masterpiece written by a cold-case-cracking master.”—John Douglas, New York Times bestselling co-author of Mindhunter“Barbara Rae-Venter isn’t just the genealogy expert who helped capture the Golden State Killer—she’s an unsung hero who has given murdered women and children their faces and names back.”—Maureen Callahan, New York Times bestselling author of American Predator “Echoes the dedication displayed by such fictional police detectives as California novelist Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch.”—The Wall Street Journal For twelve years the Golden State Killer terrorized California, stalking victims and killing without remorse. Then he simply disappeared, for the next forty-four years, until an amateur DNA sleuth opened her laptop. In I Know Who You Are, Barbara Rae-Venter reveals how she went from researching her family history as a retiree to hunting for a notorious serial killer—and how she became the nation’s leading authority on investigative genetic genealogy, the most dazzling new crime-fighting weapon to appear in decades. Rae-Venter shares haunting, often thrilling accounts of how she helped solve some of America’s most chilling cold cases in the span of just three years, frequently starting with little more than a DNA sample. She brings readers inside her unique “grasshopper mind” as she pores through obituaries, marriage records, and old newspaper articles. Readers join in on urgent calls with sheriffs, FBI agents, and district attorneys as she details the struggle to obtain usable crime scene DNA samples, until, finally, a critical piece of the puzzle clicks into place. I Know Who You Are captures both the exhilaration of these discoveries and the deep-rooted emotions that linger around cold cases. It is a story of relentless curiosity and reinvention, and of human beings striving to answer the most elemental questions about themselves: What defines identity? Where do we belong? And are we truly who we think we are?

"An award-winning journalist tells the inspiring story of her unlikely midlife journey to master the daunting sport of obstacle course racing-a powerful, science-based account of the change possible at any age when we push limits In her mid-forties, Gwendolyn Bounds attended a dinner party where someone asked a little girl: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" It struck Bounds: In middle age, no one asks you that anymore. So, she put the question to herself. The answer set her on an unexpected path of transformation from an unathletic office executive glued to her screens into a competitive age group medalist and world championship competitor in obstacle racing-a demanding military-style sport requiring speed, endurance, mobility and strength. What began as a simple goal to complete a single race grew into a profound five-year quest to reconcile the realities of growing older. In Not Too Late, Bounds explores how tackling something new and hard upended her expectations for middle age-while also helping the author reconcile regrets of her youth. Her story takes us from playgrounds and gyms where Bounds relearns childhood movements (swinging from monkey bars, climbing a rope) to far-flung Spartan Race courses where she masters running in difficult terrain and conquering challenges such as scaling tall walls, crawling under barbed wire, and carrying heavy loads of rocks up mountains. Through this equally beautiful and brutal sport, Bounds discovers potent tools to combat the mental and physical risks of aging as she makes her way from newbie to the podium. Bounds' journey offers inspiration and a roadmap for anyone craving more out of life. Woven through Not Too Late are insights from scientists, longevity doctors, philosophers, elite athletes, and performance experts on how to reimagine our limits and redefine who we think we are. Through Bounds' story, as she changes her body and mindset, we learn humans' potential to tap inner reserves, face deep-rooted fears, locate intrinsic motivation, and push the boundaries of what we ask of ourselves at any life stage. Ultimately, one message prevails: When unleashing our full potential, age can be a secret weapon"--

"Elise is out dancing the night before her graduation from college, hundreds of miles from home, when her younger sister Sophie calls to tell her that their mother has gone missing. They soon discover that she was arrested on her way home from work and deported to Säao Paulo, Brazil. Elise decides to return to her childhood home, Nantucket Island, for the first time in nearly three years to be with her sister and figure out how to bring their mother home. Desperate for an affordable place to live, Elise learns that her best friend from college, Sheba-a gregarious socialite and heir to the Play-Doh fortune-has inherited her grandfather's summer mansion on-island. Sheba offers for Elise and Sophie to move into the mansion's guest house. Elise meanwhile secures the same job she had in high school, monitoring a species of endangered birds that have laid eggs on a remote beach. But she finds herself confronted with the emotional and material conditions that have led her family to this fractured state"--

"Gray has only been in love once, but things fell apart when she and her ex realized they didn't want the same things out of life. With her twenty-ninth birthday approaching, Gray feels her biological clock ticking and is determined to meet someone, settle down, and build the loving, accepting family she's always wanted-and didn't grow up with. But having just moved to New Orleans for a new job working for a demanding boss, and with her last first date a decade in the past, Gray has no idea how to go about finding her future spouse. When her best friend Cherry suggests Gray look for answers from Madame Nouvelle Lune, an astrologer, Gray's skeptical. But she's also desperate. So when Madame encourages her to look to the stars, she finds herself in Cherry's kitchen, mapping out a plan: go on a date with someone of each sign before her birthday, when Saturn will make its first return to the same celestial alignment as her birth (a major turning point in every person's life, she's learned). As Gray moves through this quintessentially queer dating challenge while juggling her new job, she learns a lot about the Zodiac-and even more about her own needs, desires, and sense of adventure. Even when it begins to threaten everything she thinks she believes, Gray is determined to finish what she started while the planets are still on her side"--

Brother and Sister agree to watch little Honey Bear while Mama and Papa clean the attic. Can the cubs be trusted to keep an eye on their baby sister? Find out in this faith-based storybook starring the Berenstain Bears!While they are busy cleaning, Mama and Papa trust Brother and Sister to watch Honey Bear, the baby of the bunch. But when the cubs get distracted by their favorite film, Honey gets into a sticky mess! This Berenstain Bears Gifts of the Spirit storybook, created by Mike Berenstain, son of Stan and Jan Berenstain, features a soon-to-be classic story about being trustworthy!The Berenstain Bears Gifts of the Spirit series celebrates the joy of faith, family, and friends—values essential to a wholesome and fulfilling life!