Non-Fiction, Charlotte Stein, & More

Simply Unforgettable

New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh invites us into an intoxicating world — a select academy for young ladies — and introduces two unlikely lovers: a truly marvelous heroine, music teacher Frances Allard, and the man who seduces her with a passion no woman could possibly forget …

They meet in a ferocious snowstorm. She is a young teacher with a secret past. He is the black-caped stranger who comes to her rescue. Stranded together in a country inn, Lucius Marshall and Frances Allard share a night of glorious, unforgettable passion. But Frances knows her place. Due to begin her teaching position at Miss Martin’s School in Bath, Frances must try to forget that one extraordinary night. But when fate once again throws them together, Lucius’s passionate, single-minded pursuit will force Frances to give up all her secrets — except one — to win the heart of the man she already loves.

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My Big Fat Fake Marriage

A fake marriage at a writer’s retreat goes awry when two people fall in love for real in Charlotte Stein’s next sexy and laugh out loud novel!

Connie Evans has always distrusted nice guys. In her experience, they’re just waiting to reveal some horrible secret. And then she meets big, adorable, Henry Samuel Beckett—lover of bow ties, sweet as a superhero who wears his underpants over his tights, and so cheery she struggles to believe he’s real.

Until Henry Samuel Beckett—or Beck, as he’s known to most—tells her what truly lurks underneath his sunny surface. He’s been single all his life. But somehow seems to have told everyone he works with that he’s married. And when Connie can’t help defending him, she ends up being the wife he doesn’t have.

And now they’re on a writing retreat together, surrounded by people convinced this can’t be real, both of them sure that those people are right. Until they have to share their first kiss, their first touch, their first time in only one bed. Side by side, every night, as the simmering tension builds…something has to give.

The only question for Connie is—could it be her heart?

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Murder on Sex Island

A sexy reality show. A missing contestant. A one-of-a-kind detective.

“Bless Jo Firestone’s quiet, mad genius. . . . Hilarious and completely brilliant, [a] bloodstained love-letter to reality-dating television.”—Vulture

When a cast member goes missing from the hit reality show Sex Island, producers hire detective Luella van Horn to go undercover as a contestant and solve the case. What the producers don’t know is that the enigmatic Luella van Horn is actually a woman named Marie Jones, a divorced ex–social worker from Staten Island attempting to lead a double life as a private eye. The local press couldn’t get enough of Luella . . . until she horribly bungled her last case and a murderer went free.

Unable to resist the opportunity to be a part of her favorite trashy TV show, travel to a remote island, and embark on a journey for redemption, Marie-as-Luella takes the case. But the more she learns about Sex Island’s dark underbelly, the harder it gets to make it out alive. She encounters shady producers, sleazy directors, contestants willing to do whatever it takes to win the $100,000 grand prize—and the dead body of the show’s missing fan-favorite in her bathtub.

Will she find the killer? Will she find herself? Will she find . . . love?

Find out now, in Sex Island’s most dramatic season yet.

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Lab Girl

An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime friendship; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see the natural world

Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she’s studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book is a revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also so much more.

Lab Girl is a book about work, love, and the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren’s remarkable stories: about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom’s labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work done “with both the heart and the hands”; and about the inevitable disappointments, but also the triumphs and exhilarating discoveries, of scientific work.

Yet at the core of this book is the story of a relationship Jahren forged with a brilliant, wounded man named Bill, who becomes her lab partner and best friend. Their sometimes rogue adventures in science take them from the Midwest across the United States and back again, over the Atlantic to the ever-light skies of the North Pole and to tropical Hawaii, where she and her lab currently make their home.

Jahren’s probing look at plants, her astonishing tenacity of spirit, and her acute insights on nature enliven every page of this extraordinary book. Lab Girl opens your eyes to the beautiful, sophisticated mechanisms within every leaf, blade of grass, and flower petal. Here is an eloquent demonstration of what can happen when you find the stamina, passion, and sense of sacrifice needed to make a life out of what you truly love, as you discover along the way the person you were meant to be.

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