In September 2022, the unthinkable happened: 19-year-old American chess prodigy Hans Niemann defeated world champion Magnus Carlsen in a stunning face-to-face match. Within days, Carlsen accused Niemann of cheating --- a bombshell allegation that rocked the chess world. As the scandal spiraled, Chess.com --- the dominant force in online chess --- launched a high-stakes investigation igniting a global media firestorm. But CHECKMATE is about more than a cheating scandal. It’s the story of a teenager willing to risk everything to rise to the top; a reclusive genius suddenly fighting to protect his legacy; and a centuries-old game transforming into a billion-dollar industry fueled by streaming, sponsorships and Silicon Valley power players.

Marion has stolen money from the Manhattan ad agency where she works in a desperate bid to help her sister escape an abusive marriage, but the bus breaks down before she can make it to Saratoga Springs. The only place with vacancies is an old set of cabins on the outskirts of town. She ends up chatting with Norm, the young innkeeper who's a touch hung-up on his elderly mother. Back in her room, she steps into the shower when the curtain is pulled back. Norm Billings is there with a knife. He raises his arm to strike, but before he does, Marion knees him, grabs the knife, and stabs the life out of him. Now she's covered in blood, and she's a woman on the run. Where will she go? How will she save both herself and her sister? And what mysteries will she uncover as she does?

Emily Brontë (1818–1848) was only 27 years old when she began work on one of the most important novels in the English language. Two years later in 1847, she completed WUTHERING HEIGHTS. It took the world almost a century to catch up to Brontë’s masterpiece, and it has taken even longer to know Brontë --- an elusive figure, with a ghostly legacy provoked by her early death and the loss (and likely destruction) of almost all her personal papers. Drawing on formerly inaccessible notebooks and manuscripts, THIS DARK NIGHT constructs a portrait of Brontë, her famous writing sisters Charlotte and Anne, and the effect of their sisters’ and mother’s tragic deaths. 

1933. America was still reeling from the crash. Optimism was fading --- and baseball was in trouble, too. Owners slashed budgets, and fans stayed home. The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt offered hope, but just days before his inauguration, five shots rang out --- missing the president-elect, killing the mayor of Chicago, and setting in motion a chain of events that eventually would bring together the world’s best ballplayers for the first All-Star Game. At a moment when some feared the national pastime would not survive the decade, Chicago would host the ballgame as the highlight of the 1933 World’s Fair. The city hoped to shed its reputation as a haven for gamblers and gangsters and help restore America’s standing on the world stage. But dark clouds were gathering abroad.

Anne of Brittany was a child when France invaded and drove her royal father to his death. Now she is the sovereign duchess of an occupied realm, and France means to crown their conquest by marrying her to their king. Such an alliance would put her title, her lands and her body forever in the hands of her enemies. Anne’s only hope of resisting conquest is another alliance sealed with marriage, so she arranges a daring last gambit: a secret betrothal to Charles of France’s greatest rival. The forest of Brocéliande was once the haunt of Merlin the Enchanter and the long-lost faerie queen. But magic is long gone from Broceliande, except for the occasional sight of a unicorn. While pretending compliance with France, Anne plans a unicorn hunt in Brocéliande. It’s a diversion so she can wed in secret. Or so she thinks.

Tasked with hunting down arcane artifacts for the council of immortal peris, Amina al-Sirafi can savor the occasional rollicking adventure on the high seas with her cherished criminal companions while still returning home to raise her beloved daughter, Marjana. But when Raksh, the spirit of discord with whom she is reluctantly wed, provokes the council’s wrath, Amina is charged with a seemingly impossible quest: steal a spindle capable of rewriting fate from a mysterious sorceress on an island no one can escape. Forced to leave Marjana, Amina finds her mission almost immediately thrown into peril. But deadly storms, an erratic poison mistress and old enemies are the least of her worries. For the peris’ story is unraveling, hinting at a far deadlier game whose rules Amina must swiftly puzzle out.

Reyna Grande interrogates how living between two nations, two languages and two identities has shaped the woman, mother and writer she has become. Moving from the legacy of violence in her hometown of Iguala, Mexico, to a bittersweet family vacation in Europe spent reconciling her own impoverished past with her children’s world of abundance, she uncovers startling truths about the nature of survival. Whether being racially profiled in the Arizona borderlands or finding unexpected wisdom from the slugs in her garden, Grande unflinchingly asks: How do we bridge the gap between who we were and who we have become? How do we turn pain into power? When memory threatens to define us, how can we use story to heal while still honoring our boundaries?

It’s December 24, 1979, just before closing at Baker-Taylor’s discount department store, and Fran (née Baker) is surveying her domain. Her husband, Fred, is charming customers in the front of the store. The older Taylor kids are on register, while the younger ones’ chaos is contained to the stockroom. All is right in the world as the new decade approaches. With four healthy children and financial stability their own parents could have only dreamed of, Fred and Fran are the picture of the American Dream --- with a successful chain of family-owned stores built on years of hard work and long hours. Underneath the surface, however, the business is changing at a breakneck pace, and each member of the family is struggling to keep up.

Ten years ago, a bestselling, critically acclaimed literary author disappeared without a trace…and without a final novel. In recent days, that missing manuscript has surfaced. However, it’s not another genius work of literary fiction, but an espionage novel full of all-too-stereotypical spycraft and James Bond-like twists. His former publisher has asked the author’s best friend --- and fellow author named C.B. Everett --- to annotate the novel with details from real life to give the strange novel context within his larger oeuvre. But as C.B. reads, he finds that the espionage thriller is filled with references to events and people who feel a little too familiar. Soon he’s wondering if the novel might in fact be a key to his missing friend’s disappearance.

After a failed relationship and an unsettled teaching career, Sara Barlow returns to her childhood home in Arlington, Virginia, hoping for a fresh start. But when she applies for a job at her old high school, she spots in the gymnasium the man she suspects was involved in a classmate’s violent death a decade earlier. Haunted by the past, Sara confronts the memories she’s spent years trying to suppress: her sister Suzanne’s fatal car crash, her secret summer with the reckless Devlin Barrie, and the anonymous 911 call she made after witnessing what she believes was a murder. As the construction of Interstate 66 physically fractures her community, Sara grapples with emotional fault lines of her own --- guilt, silence and buried truth.

West Point cadet Brooks Jenson is only months away from graduation, and he does not expect anything to block his path to a productive career in the Army. But when he finds fellow cadet Jed Figueroa murdered, everything takes a turn for the worst. Brooks is a witness who becomes a suspect as the investigation continues. As Brooks struggles through his classes and every other aspect of cadet life, he leans on friends, family and professors for support --- especially Colonel Zac Madison, a heroine of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who now teaches at West Point. As the investigation into Jed’s death takes one startling turn after another, Brooks must find his footing if he wants to finish West Point alive.