Dark, biting and laugh-out-loud funny, BEST OFFER WINS is a propulsive debut and a razor-sharp exploration of class, ambition and the modern housing crisis.

Dark, biting and laugh-out-loud funny, BEST OFFER WINS is a propulsive debut and a razor-sharp exploration of class, ambition and the modern housing crisis.

An insanely competitive housing market. A desperate buyer on the edge. In Marisa Kashino’s darkly humorous debut novel, BEST OFFER WINS, the white picket fence becomes the ultimate symbol of success --- and obsession. How far would you go for the house of your dreams?

Eighteen months and 11 lost bidding wars into house-hunting in the overheated Washington, DC suburbs, 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake gets a tip about the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood, slated to come up for sale in one month. Desperate to escape the cramped apartment she shares with her husband, Ian --- and, in turn, get their marriage, plan to have a baby, and whole life back on track --- Margo becomes obsessed with buying the house before it’s publicly listed and the masses descend (with unbeatable, all-cash offers in hand).

A little stalking? Harmless. A bit of trespassing? Necessary. As Margo infiltrates the homeowners’ lives, her tactics grow increasingly unhinged --- but just when she thinks she’s won them over, she hits a snag in her plan. Undeterred, Margo will prove again and again that there’s no boundary she won’t cross to seize the dream life she’s been chasing. The most unsettling part? You’ll root for her, even as you gasp in disbelief.

Dark, biting and laugh-out-loud funny, BEST OFFER WINS is a propulsive debut and a razor-sharp exploration of class, ambition and the modern housing crisis.

CANTICLE is a masterful debut novel following a spirited young woman’s explorations of faith, agency and love in 13th-century Bruges.

CANTICLE is a masterful debut novel following a spirited young woman’s explorations of faith, agency and love in 13th-century Bruges.

A masterful debut novel following a spirited young woman’s explorations of faith, agency and love in 13th-century Bruges.

Aleys is 16 years old and prone to religious visions. She and her only friend, Finn, have been learning Latin together in secret. But just as she thinks their connection might become something more, everything unravels. When her father promises her in marriage to a merchant she doesn’t love, she runs away from home, finding shelter among the beguines, a fiercely independent community of religious women who refuse to answer to the Church.

Among these hardworking and strong-willed women, Aleys glimpses for the first time the joys of belonging: a life of song, meaning and friendship in the markets and along the canals of Bruges. But forces both mystical and political are at work. Illegal translations of scripture, the women’s independence, and a sudden rash of miracles all draw the attention of an ambitious bishop --- and bring Aleys and those around her into ever-increasing danger, a danger that will push Aleys to a new understanding of love and sacrifice.

Grounded in the little-told stories of medieval women --- mystics, saints, anchoresses and beguines --- and introducing a major new talent, CANTICLE is a luminous work of historical fiction, vividly evoking a world on the verge of transformation.

A young woman must shake off a family curse and the widely held belief that she is the reincarnation of her dead cousin in this wickedly funny, brilliantly perceptive novel about love, female rivalry and superstition.

A young woman must shake off a family curse and the widely held belief that she is the reincarnation of her dead cousin in this wickedly funny, brilliantly perceptive novel about love, female rivalry and superstition.

A young woman must shake off a family curse and the widely held belief that she is the reincarnation of her dead cousin in this wickedly funny, brilliantly perceptive novel about love, female rivalry and superstition from the author of the smash hit MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER.

When Ebun gives birth to her daughter, Eniiyi, on the day they bury her cousin, Monife, there is no denying the startling resemblance between the child and the dead woman. So begins the belief, fostered and fanned by the entire family, that Eniiyi is the actual reincarnation of Monife, fated to follow in her footsteps in all ways, including that tragic end.

There is also the matter of the family curse: “No man will call your house his home. And if they try, they will not have peace...” which has been handed down from generation to generation, breaking hearts and causing three generations of abandoned Falodun women to live under the same roof.

When Eniiyi falls in love with the handsome boy she saves from drowning, she can no longer run from her family’s history. As several women in her family have done before, she ill-advisedly seeks answers in older, darker spiritual corners of Lagos, demanding solutions. Is she destined to live out the habitual story of love and heartbreak? Or can she break the pattern once and for all, not only avoiding the spiral that led Monife to her lonely death, but liberating herself from all the family secrets and unspoken traumas that have dogged her steps since before she could remember?

CURSED DAUGHTERS is a brilliant cocktail of modernity and superstition, vibrant humor and hard-won wisdom, romantic love and familial obligation. With its unforgettable cast of characters, it asks us what it means to be given a second chance and how to live both wisely and well with what we’ve been given.