Good-hearted Walter is convinced that all women, like his mother and sister, sacrifice their hopes and desires for the men in their lives. An aging bachelor, Walter is still looking for that perfectly pure woman whom he can rescue from the inevitable corruption of men. He thinks he's found her. Many years his junior, Louise is sweet, and more important, innocent. All is bliss in their young marriage, as they live equally and happily in their North Carolina farmhouse. But when Louise's past resurfaces in the form of a sleazy, manipulative ex-boyfriend, will Walter's faith in his new wife survive the shock, or will Louise fall victim to the enduring plan for women? Writing about women and men with brutal, unflinching honesty, Lawrence Naumoff strikes a nerve in this tale of illusory love. A novel about the failure of the sexual revolution, A Plan for Women is "a thoughtful story written in a style both crisp and clever" (Kirkus Reviews).

What It Takes to Get to Vegas has been described by The Arizona Republic as "a juicy tale of ambition, passion and grit that is as much fun to read as a good trash talk session with your best friend."

Growing up among the championship hopefuls and alleyway gladiators of East L.A., Rita Zapata sees in boxing a ticket to something better. At eighteen, she's earned the title "Queen of the Streetfighters." Then she meets Billy, an enigmatic, intense fighter from Mexico, who begins systematically clawing his way to the top. Their passionate connection gives Rita two things she's never had: real love, and respect in the neighborhood. From the alleys off Cesar Chavez Avenue to the carpeted suites of Caesars Palace, Rita learns exactly what it takes to get to Vegas, as Billy turns out to be the best thing that has ever happened to her—and the worst. In exuberant prose sparkling with wicked wit, Yxta Maya Murray has given us a sass-talking, big-hearted heroine with a story we will not soon forget.

There is a legend of the New World that has endured for centuries: the strange, tragic tale of a King, a Witch . . . and a blue gem of intoxicating beauty said to grant extraordinary power to whoever possesses it. Archaeologist Juana Sanchez, convinced that she's discovered the key to unlocking the mystery of the fabled Queen Jade, ventures into the Central American jungle alone—just ahead of the relentless pounding fury of Hurricane Mitch. When the terrible storm is over, Juana is gone, and an ancient, long-buried jade mine has been uncovered in the mountains of Guatemala, giving new hope to all obsessed seekers of the legendary stone. But it is a different obsession that plunges Juana's daughter—scholar and bookseller Lola Sanchez—into the remarkable adventure of a lifetime. For only by following the Queen Jade's perilous, cursed trail can Lola hope to find her vanished mother . . . if it isn't already too late.

One look at the centuries-old document she receives from a mysterious stranger is all it takes to plunge Lola Sanchez—a brilliant bibliophile and owner of the Red Lion bookshop—into the adventure of an already adventurous lifetime. The ancient writings tell of a stolen fortune in Montezuma's gold—and of the thief's transformation from conquistatore to alchemist . . . to werewolf. Riches beyond imagining possibly await the stalwart globe-trotter who can solve the intricate riddles hidden in the artifact's crumbling pages. But a deadly curse is buried there as well. On a dangerous quest through the dark shadows of history, Lola and her dashing companion, Eric, will have to unravel the twisted strands of her own family's fantastical past—and stay a step ahead of the villainous treasure hunters who would eagerly kill for the secrets she possesses and the Aztec gold she seeks.

From Yannick Murphy, award-winning author of The Call, comes a fast-paced story of murder, adultery, parenthood, and romance, involving a girls’ swim team, their morally flawed parents, and a killer who swims in their midst.

At a swim meet in their quiet New England town, Annie watches as her daughters glide through the water. Her thoughts drift lazily from whether she fed her daughters enough carbs that morning to why her husband doesn't kiss her anymore, to Paul, a swim-team parent, who's taken notice of her and seems to embody everything she's beginning to think her life is missing.

In her haunting first novel, Yannick Murphy surveys the landscape of imperialism through the unflinching gaze of an adolescent girl. Set in Indochina in the 1940s—well before American intervention—in the territory that is now Vietnam, it is narrated by the clear-eyed Tian, daughter of a French mother and Chinese father, who is taken prisoner when the Japanese invade Shanghai. The camp is a nightmarish place, where horror sometimes slips surrealistically into comedy as the prisoners watch for liberators to cross the sea of trees that separates them from freedom. Here it is women who become Tian's first allies, especially her passionate young mother and wily amah, who instill pluck, pragmatism, and an unbending will to survive. In a voice that rings with the startling frankness of youth, The Sea of Trees combines imagery both raw and beautiful. Based on stories from the author's own family history and laced with Chinese folklore.

The warm, wry, and patient voice of a veterinarian father tells the heartfelt story of his young New England family enduring a moving trial of loyalty, hope, and faith after they are confronted with an unthinkable crisis. Acclaimed author Yannick Murphy’s intimate narrative style and lovely prose will enthrall readers of Rivka Galchen, Padgett Powell, and Murphy’s own Signed, Mata Hari. The Call is a “triumph of quiet humor and understated beauty” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) from an author that The New York Times Book Review calls “an extraordinarily gifted fabulist.”

In the cold October of 1917 Margaretha Zelle, better known as Mata Hari, sits in a prison cell in Paris awaiting trial on charges of espionage. The penalty is death by firing squad. As she waits, burdened by a secret guilt, Mata Hari tells stories, Scheherazade-like, to buy back her life from her interrogators. From a bleak childhood in the Netherlands, through a loveless marriage to a Dutch naval officer, Margaretha is transported to the forbidden sensual pleasures of Indonesia. In the chill of her prison cell she spins tales of rosewater baths, native lovers, and Javanese jungles, evoking the magical world that sustained her even as her family crumbled. And then, in flight from her husband, Margaretha reinvents herself: she becomes an artist's model, circus rider, and finally the temple dancer Mata Hari, dressed in veils, admired by Diaghilev, performing for the crowned heads of Europe. Through all her transformations, her life's fatal questions—was she a traitor, and if so, why?—burns ever brighter.

Set mainly in California's Central Valley, Manuel Muñoz's first collection of stories goes beyond the traditional family myths and narratives of Chicano literature and explores, instead, the constant struggle of characters against their physical and personal surroundings. Usually depicted as the lush and green world of rural quiet and tranquility, the Valley becomes the backdrop for the difficulties these characters confront as they try to maintain hope and independence in the face of isolation.

In the title story, a teenage boy learns the consequences of succumbing to the lure of a town outsider; in "Campo," a young farm worker frantically attempts to hide his supervision of a huddle of children from the town police, only to have another young man come to his unexpected rescue; in "The Unimportant Lila Parr," a father must expose his own secrets after his son is found murdered in a highway motel. From conflicts of family and sexuality to the pain of loss and memory, the characters in Zigzagger seek to reconcile themselves with the rural towns of their upbringing—a place that, by nature, is bordered by loneliness.

From Thylias Moss, one of America's most innovative poets, comes Tokyo Butter, perhaps her most innovative book to date. Inventing new poetics as she goes, Moss applies her exhilarating capacity for language to a synthesis of the personal, the historical, and the cultural. She searches for vestiges of Deirdre, a beloved cousin who has left the living; for hints of Cindy Song, a college student missing since 2001; and for manifestations of her true self in the archaic wings of science. Moss' imagination is, as always, ravenous, interrogative—but in Tokyo Butter there is an urgency amidst the jagged, beautiful verse that has become her trademark.