Live Oak Charter Academy is the latest elixir to arrive in the valley. Drought cycles, crop yields, and market forces have left a trail of previous solutions: an army base, a state mental hospital, a shipping warehouse for an online retailer, a prison. And though the school is smaller in scale than previous efforts, it inspires bigger dreams, with a more fragile margin of error.Live Oak Charter Academy is the latest elixir to arrive in the valley. Drought cycles, crop yields, and market forces have left a trail of previous solutions: an army base, a state mental hospital, a shipping warehouse for an online retailer, and a prison. But the charter is about the future, and not just that of the children. The wealthiest board member sees a chance to leave a legacy that his children’s private school won’t allow him to forge, the principal a chance to set up his grown autistic son with a more independent life, the dedicated volunteer a chance to provide her daughters with an education she imagines is usually reserved for the affluent. And while the students may see it as just another school, their actions (and how their parents respond) pull them all in directions that threaten the charter and every dream attached to it.

For younger fans of Witchlings and Eva Evergreen comes a light-hearted and whimsical middle grade fantasy about a young girl who must save her witch aunt from an uncommonly voracious hat.Where dragons take flight, through the dark of the night. Where the fire ignites, you will find the light. Aunt Cauldroneyes is always looking into cauldrons. She's found everything from giggling moons to troll nose rings, but when she looks inside a purple cauldron one stormy night, she finds a girl with blue freckles. The old witch raises the girl and names her Spella. They live in Hungry Snout Forest in a crooked house with doors enchanted to smell like chocolate. In the attic full of floating fabric and biting buttons, Aunt Cauldroneyes teaches Spella how to make magical hats for creatures like unicorns and dragons, giants and goblins. When Spella turns eight, she receives an invitation to Dragon's Knob, a school for wand witchery and wizardry. But on...

High up in the Conrad Flats that loom bleakly over Acton, two future stars of the literary scene - or so they assume - are hard at work, tapping out words of wit and brilliance between ill-paid jobs writing captions for the Cat Calendar 1985 and blurbs for trashy novels with titles like Brothel of the Vampire. Just twenty-one but already well entrenched in a life eked out on dole payments, pints and dollops of porridge and pasta, Llewellyn and Cunningham don't have it too bad: a pub on the corner, a misdirected parental allowance, and the delightful company of Aoife, Llewellyn's model fiancée, mother of his young baby - and the woman of Cunningham's increasingly vivid dreams. Alan Warner's superb new novel sees the author of Morvern Callar at the top of his game.

From Margarita Montimore, the author of GMA Book Club pick and national bestseller Oona Out of Order, Acts of Violet is a dazzling and twisty new novel about a famous magician who disappears, leaving her sister to figure out what really happened.Nearly a decade ago, iconic magician Violet Volk performed her greatest trick yet: vanishing mid-act. Though she hasn't been seen since, her hold on the public hasn't wavered. While Violet sought out the spotlight, her sister Sasha, ever the responsible one, took over their mother's salon and built a quiet life for her daughter, Quinn. But Sasha can never seem to escape her sister's orbit or her memories of their unresolved, tumultuous relationship. Then there's Cameron Frank, determined to finally get his big break hosting a podcast devoted to all things Violet—though keeping his job hinges on an exclusive interview with Sasha, the last person who wants to talk to him. As the ten-year anniversary...

A battle lost. A daring escape. A long walk into obscurity. The ultimate failure…In the aftermath of the disastrous Battle of Culloden, a lonely figure takes flight with a small band of companions through the islands and mountains of the Hebrides. His name is Charles Edward Stuart: better known today as Bonnie Prince Charlie. He had come to the country to take the throne. Now he is leaving in exile and abject defeat.In prose that is by turns poetic, comic, macabre, haunting and humane, multi- award-winning author Alan Warner traces the frantic last journey through Scotland of a man who history will come to define for his failure.'Written in carefully crafted prose shot through with cleverly-deployed alliteration and assonance, this reimagining of Charles Edward Stuart’s escape from Culloden is a triumph' – Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman

"Sea Wife is a gripping tale of survival at sea—but that's just the beginning. Amity Gaige also manages, before she's done, to probe the underpinnings of romantic love, marriage, literary ambition, political inclinations in the Trump age, parenthood, and finally, the nature of survival itself in our broken world. Gaige is thrillingly talented, and her novel enchants."—Jennifer Egan"Sea Wife brilliantly breathes life not only into the perils of living at sea, but also into the fraught and hidden dangers of domesticity, motherhood, and marriage. What a smart, swift, and thrilling novel."—Lauren GroffFrom the highly acclaimed author of Schroder, a smart, sophisticated page literary page-turner about a young family who escape suburbia for a yearlong sailing trip that upends all of their lives.Juliet is failing to juggle motherhood and her stalled-out dissertation on confessional poetry when...

Porch Poems, by Texas poet Tracy Farr, is a playful collection of new poems that is best read while sitting on a porch.Porch Poems, by Texas poet Tracy Farr, is a playful collection of new poems inspired by simple things and events. Farr explores everything from fatherhood, to marriage, to music and the cowboy lifestyle, in a unique voice that is both fun and melodic. You could read this collection just about anywhere, but it's best read while sitting on a porch with a class of iced tea near at hand.