The Harper & Forister Library

When former Pumpkin Queen Lena Prescott returns to Maplewick for the town’s centennial Harvest Festival, she expects pumpkins, bakery gossip, awkward reunions, and a few uncomfortable reminders of the life she left behind. She doesn’t expect a dead former Pumpkin Queen. The victim had been asking questions about 1975—the one year mysteriously missing from Maplewick’s century-old Pumpkin Queen tradition. Soon Lena discovers missing photographs, incomplete records, and a trail of half-truths stretching back fifty years. Someone didn’t simply forget Maplewick’s past. Someone edited it. With her former best friend reluctantly helping her dig, her grandmother clearly hiding more than she wants to admit, and Wesley Hollis—the almost-love Lena left behind—making it increasingly difficult to remember why leaving was supposed to be the easy part, Lena starts pulling at the threads of a secret Maplewick has protected for decades. But the closer she gets to the truth, the clearer one thing becomes: the woman who died knew exactly what happened in 1975. And someone was determined to make sure the truth stayed buried. Welcome to Maplewick. The cider is hot, the leaves are gorgeous, and the town has been keeping one hell of a secret.

After her restaurant fails and her engagement falls apart, pastry chef Maggie Sutton returns to the coastal town of Bayberry, Maine, intending to do one thing: settle her late mother’s affairs and leave. Then she walks back into Sugar & Slice. The bakery still carries traces of Rose everywhere—from her handwritten recipes to the enormous black cat who seems to have appointed himself Maggie’s new roommate. Against her better judgment, Maggie reopens the shop and begins wondering whether coming home might not be the temporary stop she planned. Until longtime local baker Vivian Crewe turns up dead. Vivian was Rose’s friend, rival, and keeper of more than a few Bayberry secrets. When Maggie finds herself tangled in the investigation, she starts asking questions of her own—and discovers that Vivian’s death may be only one piece of a much older puzzle. Because before Rose died, she was looking into something on Harbor Lane. Old property records. Familiar names. Questions she never explained. And someone in Bayberry may know exactly what she found. With a sharp-eyed best friend, a bakery that refuses to run itself, one opinionated cat, and a town where everyone knows everyone’s business—except the things that actually matter—Maggie must uncover who wanted Vivian dead before another secret gets buried for good.

Cleo McKenna left Bellweather fifteen years ago with no intention of ever looking back. She built a life in Chicago, a career she loves, and enough distance from the girl she used to be—the awkward teenager whose very public crush on Ryan Hayes became one of high school’s favorite jokes. Then her grandmother needs help, and Cleo finds herself back behind the counter at McKenna’s candy shop just in time for Bellweather’s month-long Halloween festivities. Unfortunately, the coffee shop next door belongs to Ryan. He’s still unfairly handsome. Still impossible to ignore. But the teenage boy Cleo remembers isn’t quite the man standing in front of her now. This Ryan brings her coffee exactly the way she likes it. Helps without being asked. Listens when she speaks. And when their shops are paired together for Bellweather’s fiercely competitive Harvest Cup, avoiding him becomes impossible. Between haunted hayrides, disastrous corn mazes, Halloween contests, meddling townspeople, and kisses Cleo absolutely did not plan on having, the line between old resentment and something dangerously real begins to disappear. But October has an expiration date. Cleo has a career waiting for her in Chicago. Ryan has a life firmly rooted in Bellweather. And no matter how much has changed, fifteen years of hurt can’t be erased by a few perfect kisses. Because falling for your old high-school crush is complicated. Falling for the boy who helped break your heart? That might be downright terrifying.

Charlotte “Charlie” Whitman has a corner office, a closet bigger than most apartments, and absolutely no intention of leaving Manhattan. Then her late grandmother’s will lands a curveball: Charlie inherits The Maple Kiss Café in a town she hasn’t set foot in since childhood — on one maddening condition. Live in Harvest Hollow for thirty days before she’s allowed to sell. A month in a town with cobblestone streets and no cell service. How hard could it be? Harder than she budgeted for. There’s a vintage espresso machine she can’t quite master, a trio of town busybodies who run a betting pool on her, an eighteen-pound cat who has decided she belongs to him, and Jack Harding — the gruff single dad who keeps fixing things she never asked him to fix and saying three words where ten would do. As the leaves turn and the days run down, Charlie stops counting the days until she can leave and starts dreading the one when she’ll have to. But just as Harvest Hollow begins to feel like home, the past comes knocking — and Charlie has to decide whether doing the right thing means walking away from the first place that ever felt like hers. Warm, witty, and dusted with cinnamon, The Maple Kiss Café is a cozy autumn romance for anyone who’s ever suspected the life they didn’t plan might be the one they were meant to have.

Josephine “Jo” Fairweather has spent six years building a life too carefully contained to break. At Gatsby’s Attic—her cozy book café in the heart of Amberlyn—the coffee is strong, the pastries have ridiculous names, and the fat gray cat behind the register judges everyone equally. Jo’s magic is just as dependable: quiet, practical, and safely tucked into cups of tea and well-loved books. Then Graham Bennett comes home. He’s steadier, more handsome, and still remembers exactly how Jo takes her coffee—and what her magic looks like when she’s trying not to feel something. Soon, mugs are dancing, romance novels are recommending themselves, and Jo’s carefully suppressed magic is spilling into every corner of town. But Graham’s return threatens to uncover something far more dangerous than a few runaway spells: the vision Jo had six years ago—and the fear that drove her to break both their hearts. With Amberlyn’s Harvest Festival approaching, Jo must decide whether the future she once saw was truly fate…or whether fear has been writing her story all along. Because some loves deserve more than a second chance. They deserve a different ending.

Molly Andrews is freshly single, slightly drunk, and one impulsive click away from the worst decision of her life. When a misleading online listing lands her in Hollow Creek, Tennessee — population: small, gossip: enormous — she expects cucumber water and hot stone massages. Instead, she gets a flat tire, a psychotic rooster named Walter, and Beau Carter. Beau is stubborn, impossibly built, and wants nothing to do with her. He’s been closed off since the day a woman walked away from him at the altar in front of the entire town. He doesn’t trust easy. He doesn’t let people in. And he definitely doesn’t need a city girl in designer heels turning his farm upside down. But Molly doesn’t flinch. She cooks her way into his grandmother’s good graces, names his livestock, and chips away at his walls one biscuit at a time. And somewhere between the bourbon on the porch and the rain on her cheek, Beau starts to feel something he swore he’d never feel again. Then Molly’s past shows up uninvited. And the man who was afraid to love does the one thing guaranteed to destroy what they’ve built — he uses her deepest fear as a weapon. Now they’re in the same small town and a million miles apart. And the only thing harder than falling in love is admitting you were wrong.

Holly Vance came to Willow Falls for one reason: photograph the town’s famous Twelve Days of Christmas festival, finish the assignment, and get back to Chicago. She wasn’t planning on Jack Mercer. Jack is a carpenter, volunteer firefighter, devoted single dad, and the last person looking for another chance at love. But between snow-covered streets, terrible coffee, gingerbread disasters, candlelight caroling, and his seven-year-old daughter Daisy, Holly finds herself getting pulled further into the life of a town that refuses to let anyone remain an outsider for long. Then Holly discovers that Willow Falls’ beloved Community Center—the heart of generations of Christmas memories—may be lost to a developer determined to turn history into profit. As Holly and Jack join the town’s fight to save it, old records, forgotten letters, and a decades-old promise begin to surface. And the closer Holly gets to the truth, the harder it becomes to ignore another one: She may have come to Willow Falls to photograph the story. But somewhere along the way, she became part of it.

Audrey Vance came to Blackwood Falls for a fresh start—a quiet university job, a cottage beside the woods, and a safe place to raise her daughter. Professor Evander Graves was never part of the plan. Brilliant, secretive, and impossible to ignore, Evander disappears whenever the moon grows full—and sometimes returns bleeding. Then Audrey uncovers a century-old covenant buried in the university archives, altered property lines, and records suggesting Blackwood’s oldest legends may be more than folklore. Something is hunting in the forest. Something about Evander is impossible. And the closer Audrey gets to the truth, the harder it becomes to ignore the dangerous pull between them.

Every queen of Veyr must marry the preserved corpse of the kingdom’s first king before she can wear the crown. For eight hundred years, the ritual has been nothing more than tradition. Until Vespera Vale kneels beside the Dead King, spills her blood, speaks the vows—and he opens his eyes. Severin remembers dying. He remembers betrayal. And most dangerously of all, he remembers the woman who killed him. She had Vespera’s face. Now bound by ancient magic to a king who should have stayed dead, Vespera must uncover the truth buried beneath centuries of corrupted history before something far older begins erasing names, memories, and entire lives from existence. But the deeper she digs, the more dangerous the truth becomes. Because Severin was never just a dead king. Vespera was never just a bride. And the ritual that bound them may be the only thing standing between their kingdom and the darkness beneath it.

Two centuries later, Sera is cutting her way through the demon underworld of Manhattan with a blade and a list of names. Every kill is a message. Every body is a promise. And the ancient demon who made her will hear them all before she is done. Kael Vasareth is Bloodborn aristocracy — cold, arrogant, and the most lethal hunter the Crimson Tribunal has ever produced. He is sent to find the rogue Forged demon destabilizing their empire and put her down. He expects a simple kill. He is not prepared for her. Something in his blood recognizes something in hers — ancient, forbidden, a pull neither of them can explain or resist. What begins as a hunt becomes an obsession. What begins as enemies becomes something far more dangerous. And the deeper Sera cuts into the demon who made her, the closer she gets to a secret that could bring the entire Tribunal to its knees. She does not seek redemption. She seeks retribution. And she will burn it all to ash to get it.

Piper Sterling has spent years becoming the woman every other woman in Hallowell, Georgia wants to be — the right name, the right ring, the right man waiting at the end of the aisle. Carter Vance is everything her world prizes. The match is flawless. The whole county is watching. Then the groom collapses before the vows are finished. By nightfall the gates are locked, the guests are being questioned, and a quiet detective with a gold shield is asking everyone the same thing: who got to Carter last? Paige Whitfield has an answer she can never give. She has been the bride’s best friend since childhood — the girl in the corner of every photograph, the one no one really looks at. She has also been sleeping with the groom for three months. Now Carter is dead, his handprint is bruised into her wrist, and every true thing she could say to clear herself only pulls the knot tighter. One of these women is grieving. One of them is performing. And by the time you understand which is which, you’ll already have spent the whole book feeling sorry for the wrong one. Told in two voices circling the same ruined afternoon, Something Borrowed, Something Dead is a domestic thriller about the violence that hides under good manners — and the patient, smiling women who learn to use it.

The woman seen leaving that night was never convicted. And the truth was buried with the dead. Estate archivist Madeline Bennett expects nothing more than a difficult inventory job when she is hired to catalog the contents of the long-shuttered mansion before it is sold. Then she finds the photograph. Six people stand on the steps of Willow House. Five are Ashbys. The sixth is a teenage girl whose name has been violently scratched from the back. And she looks exactly like Madeline. What begins as a question of identity pulls Madeline into the history her family never told her—old photographs, missing records, a forgotten girl, and a woman who has spent more than half a century refusing to explain what happened the night Willow House burned. The closer Madeline gets to the truth, the more impossible one question becomes to ignore: Who was her mother before she became her mother?

Colette Whitmore arrives at her late husband’s bayou estate eleven days after his death — dry-eyed, practical, expecting paperwork and an empty house. What she finds is a house that breathes in the dark. The housekeeper warns her not to walk the halls after midnight. The bayou rises a little higher every morning until the road floods, the bridge disappears, and Blackmere becomes an island. And in the locked study, beneath a sheaf of blank paper, is a ledger dating back to 1791 — recording in careful handwriting every soul surrendered to the water. Her husband chose her deliberately. No family. No one who would come asking. The debt he spent a lifetime building is now hers. She is not the first. Three women came before her — Rosalie, Margaux, Hazel — each brought to Blackmere as a wife, each taken before she understood what was happening. They are still here, still waiting, pressing against every mirror and dark surface trying to warn the woman who came next. Colette is the first one to listen. With the ledger, the confession of a guilt-ridden priest, and an uneasy alliance with the housekeeper who has spent sixty years keeping the names of the dead, Colette begins to understand the nature of the debt — and the only payment that would truly close it. The question is not whether she can escape. The question is whether she wants to.

Camille Alcott had been doing so well at that. Thirty-four, single, and the proud owner of a bakery and a judgmental cat named Winston, Camille has made peace with the fact that good men don’t just appear at your door holding a single dahlia and knowing exactly which question to ask. And then Reid Asher does exactly that — charming her aunt in twenty minutes flat, winning over Winston in ten, and making Camille feel, for the first time in years, like someone is finally paying the right kind of attention. He remembers everything. He says all the right things. He is, by every measure, the perfect match. Until a stranger in a coffee shop goes completely still at the sight of his photograph — and tells Camille his name isn’t Reid. “Three women. Same matchmaking service. Same man. Same ending. And I was number four.” Now Camille is living a double life — sharing a bed with a man she’s investigating, smiling over dinners she can barely taste, performing the version of herself he built from her own answers on a questionnaire. Somewhere in his laptop is a file with her name on it, next to the names of women who went to a cabin and never came back. The question isn’t whether Reid is dangerous. The question is whether Camille can stay close enough to prove it — before she becomes the next name no one can explain.

Seventeen-year-old Lily Doyle was the golden sun of Blackbird Lake until the night she walked into the pines and vanished. Twenty years later, her disappearance remains an unhealed scar—and the reason Kate Ellery left Michigan to become one of Chicago’s sharpest homicide detectives. Kate prefers crime scenes she can solve with ballistics and hard evidence, far away from ghosts that can’t be put to rest. Then Maddie Sorensen—a podcaster asking dangerous questions about Lily’s final hours—disappears overnight. Dragged back into the web of her childhood home, Kate finds herself teamed up with Sheriff Cole Hendrix. Cole is calm where Kate is hyper-controlled, watchful where she is fiercely defensive. As they work side-by-side, the long-buried attraction between them explodes into a passionate, undeniable spark. But as old friend groups turn defensive and powerful town figures close ranks, Kate and Cole realize they aren’t just hunting for a missing woman—they’re hunting a predator who has lived among them in plain sight for two decades.

The Marginalia Society has spent years meeting in secret beneath an old library, reading the kinds of books most people would never believe were real. Then they find a manuscript that describes them. Not vaguely. By name. It knows their secrets. It predicts their choices. And buried in its unfinished pages are five endings no one wants to reach. When one of the women makes a different choice, the manuscript rewrites itself. So does reality. Now Audra, Cece, Frankie, Colette, and Beatrix are trapped in a story that changes whenever they do. Every attempt to outmaneuver it leaves new scars in the record—altered memories, shifting evidence, impossible versions of events that almost happened. And the deeper they dig, the worse the truth becomes. The manuscript is tied to a deadly library fire from twenty-four years ago, a woman who never stopped grieving her daughter, and a plan to rewrite one terrible moment in history no matter who has to pay for it. Because the five women were never chosen to read the ending. They were chosen to make it possible. Now the final page is getting closer. And if the story closes the way it was written, they may not survive long enough to change it.

The Hale family is already carrying more than they can survive. Dan has a secret he refuses to confess. His teenage son, Ethan, knows more than anyone realizes. Valerie is trying to hold their family together, and seven-year-old Ollie still believes Christmas might somehow make everything right. Then, on December first, an antique wooden Advent calendar appears in their home. No card. No explanation. No way to get rid of it. At midnight, the first tiny door opens by itself. What waits behind it is impossible. And every night after that, another door opens. A missing dog. A severed finger. Grave dirt. A brass key with no known lock. Objects that know things about the Hale family no stranger should know. Soon the house itself refuses to let them leave. Worse, their bodies are beginning to change. As Christmas draws closer and the final unopened door approaches, Dan becomes convinced the calendar is connected to the terrible thing he did months ago—the secret his family has been slowly breaking beneath. But the calendar isn’t asking for an apology. It isn’t offering forgiveness. And whatever waits behind Door Twenty-Four has been waiting much longer than the Hale family has been afraid.