Collection: Adult

Shirley Jackson's beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family's dark secret

Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate. This edition features a new introduction by Jonathan Lethem.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

An instant New York Times bestseller

From the globally-recognized personal finance educator and social media star behind Her First $100K, an inclusive guide to all things money--from managing debt to investing and voting with your dollars

Tori Dunlap was always good with money. As a kid, she watched her prudent parents balance their checkbook every month and learned to save for musical tickets by gathering pennies in an Altoids tin. But she quickly discovered that her experience with money was pretty unusual, especially among her female friends.

It wasn't our fault. Investigating this financial literacy and wealth gap, Tori found that girls are significantly less likely to receive a holistic financial education; we're taught to restrain our spending, while boys are taught about investing and rewarded for pursuing wealth. In adulthood, women are hounded by the unfounded stereotype of the frivolous spenders whose lattes are to blame for the wealth gap. And when something like, say, a global pandemic happens, we're the first to have jobs cut and the last to re-enter the workforce. It's no wonder money is a source of anxiety and a barrier to equality for so many of us.

But what if money didn't mean restriction, and instead, choice? The ability to luxuriously travel, quit toxic jobs, donate to important organizations, retire early? The freedom to live the life you want, and change the world while you do it?

Tori founded Her First $100K to teach women to overcome the unique obstacles standing in the way of their financial freedom. In Financial Feminist, she distills the principles of her shame- and judgment-free approach to paying off debt, figuring out your value categories to spend mindfully, saving money without monk-like deprivation, and investing in order to spend your retirement tanning in Tulum.

You will learn:

- Exercises to help you understand your current relationship with money, figure out what you want to change, and how to make that happen

- How to decide on your investment goal, and discover the three steps to meeting it

- Learn how to source the data you need to negotiate the money you deserve

Featuring journaling prompts, deep-dives into the invisible aspects of the financial landscape, and interviews with experts on everything money--from predatory credit card companies to the racial wealth gap and voting with your dollars--Financial Feminist is the ultimate guide to making your money work harder for you (rather than the other way around.)

Have there been times during a chess game when you have calculated a position for half an hour, only to find out that most of what you were thinking about was of little use? If you have not, maybe the only way to improve your calculation is to upgrade your processor. But if you are human, then this book will offer you practical advice and an effective training plan to think differently and make decisions far more efficiently. In Calculation thinking methods such as Candidates, Combinations, Prophylaxis, Comparison, Elimination, Intermediate Moves, Imagination and Traps are explained to the reader, and ownership of them is offered through a carefully selected series of exercises.

"There is no shortcut to the grandmaster title, but there is a well-known route that many people have walked over the years. Jacob offers to guide you on part of this journey and I hope you will take him up on the offer." From the foreword by Boris Gelfand

It is a known fact that the queens who refuse their destiny are haunted. Rejection turns itself inward, a bullet to the heart of said queen, and unleashes, per Travesti Lore, a river of curses.

Cloistered in a dreary Bogotá apartment, Ignacio's light has dimmed, leaving his teenage daughter, Valentina, to raise herself in the wake of her mother Alma's death. Lonely and love-starved, Valentina aches to discover the details of her mother's drowning, and for her father to snap out of his depression. But Ignacio can't. He spends listless afternoons smoking cigarettes in long blonde wigs, telenovelas humming in the background, haunted not only by matrimonial guilt, but by memories of a young man he once loved and betrayed.

From Ignacio's tragic past emerges the luminous queen of Bogotá's queer underground, Mamadora Eléctrica, the wise travesti who he first met under the silvery lights of Club Aquario when he was just a shy country boy. With Alma gone, Mamadora steps in as a mother figure to Valentina the way she once did for the girl's father. But as an expert in Travesti Lore, she fears the worst: that Ignacio's self-destruction may have unleashed a curse on them all.

From "a writer who is grinding their own colors" (Dwight Garner, New York Times), Pretend You're Dead and I Carry You is a profound and richly imagined story about coming undone.

This tender, elegant debut examines the struggle of holding a family together when secrets threaten to unravel it.

"Both a book of demons and a book of uncommon grace; an instant classic in the queer canon. Davin Malasarn is an exquisite writer of the heart."--Justin Torres, author of Blackouts

Sisters Manda and Siripon have been divided by continents for years, estranged since their parents decided to send just one of their daughters from Phet Buri to America--the foreign land they call "the Outer Country." As the eldest, Manda assumed she would be the first to go. When their parents chose Siripon, the more obedient second daughter, the decision sparked a lifetime of rivalry.

The birth of Siripon's son brings the sisters back together. Despite the disorientation of Los Angeles and the difficulty of sharing her sister's home, Manda becomes a second mother to Ben, a precocious only child who fills her with fierce joy. But as Ben grows increasingly effeminate, her joy transforms to fear. Believing that the spirit of a dead girl has possessed her beloved nephew--and that her sister won't do anything to fix matters--Manda and Ben's father, Kamron, secretly arrange a Buddhist exorcism. The ceremony sets off a decade of anxiety-induced illness and bullying, even as the ritual burrows beyond Ben's memory.

For Ben to grow into his authentic self, he must accept his queerness and confront the scars of his past. He attempts to navigate his family's tense relationships and live amidst the damage. But how long can they all go on before the truths are uncovered?

From the mangrove forests of Thailand to a modest stucco house in Los Angeles to the sandstone quadrangles of Stanford, The Outer Country is at once epic and intimate in scope, a breathtaking journey across cultures and generations.

Pride, prejudice, and...lessons in love?

Jane Austen meets My Fair Lady in this joyful, clever opposites-attract Sapphic romance featuring Caroline Bingley and Darcy's younger sister, Georgiana.

Being snubbed by Mr Darcy--passed over for Elizabeth Bennet, no less--is humiliating.

Being told she's arrogant and unkind, and that if she doesn't mend her ways, she might never find love...that's simply preposterous. Isn't it?

Feeling the sting of Darcy's rejection, Caroline Bingley does what any self-respecting woman of means would do: she hatches a plan. Get Georgiana Darcy, the epitome of grace and sweetness, to teach Caroline how to be perfect like her.

But Caroline's transformation from status-hungry socialite to proper marriage material won't be easy. She must be charming, and even worse... she must be kind. And Georgiana herself isn't so sure about playing fairy godmother. Beneath Miss Darcy's polished facade lies an entirely different set of struggles.

As the two grow closer, Caroline discovers she's less interested in securing a man, and more intrigued by the woman helping her to reform her character. Before long, their lessons in finding love and acceptance blossom into something completely unexpected...

"McLeod takes the archetypal Austen mean girl and gives her a soul, a journey, and a voice.... The Miseducation of Caroline Bingley warms the heart like a great cup of tea, and proves that everyone deserves love, even the sharpest among us." --Emma R. Alban, USA Today bestselling author of Don't Want You Like a Best Friend

"A hilarious and worthy addition to the new canon of Austen reimaginings. If you love to yearn, you'll love this!" --TJ Alexander, USA Today bestselling author of A Gentleman's Gentleman

The Austentatious Series
- Book 1: The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet
- Book 2: The Miseducation of Caroline Bingley

A powerful Siren must face the monster threatening her home, even if it means risking everything--including the king she's grown to love--in this dark and romantic follow-up to In the Veins of the Drowning.

The realm has a new queen ... and a new monster.

Imogen Nel, a powerful Siren, can no longer hide her monstrous abilities. She has claimed her ancestral crown and new grotesque magic, and now the corrupted bond she shares with the ancient deity Eusia is stronger than ever. Though Imogen is determined to sever it, doing so is no easy feat. The threat of war looms. Shifting alliances, a hunger for magic, and her feelings for Theodore, King of Varya, attempt to thwart her at every turn.

Meanwhile, Theodore is battling the strain of his own crown and commitments. When Imogen suddenly appears on his ship, every dutiful resolution he's ever made threatens to snap. As they draw nearer to ending Eusia, lurking dangers and their perilous desire for one another prove nearly insurmountable.

Will the chaos, ruin, and death that Imogen was prophesied to usher into the realm be the end of all things, or the beginning?

You're probably in a cult. You just don't know it yet.

In The Culting of America, cult survivor, military veteran, and bestselling author of Uncultured, Daniella Mestyanek Young delivers a gripping investigation into the hidden structures of power and control that shape our lives. Raised in the notorious sex cult the Children of God, Daniella escaped to America as a teenager--only to find herself drawn into another high-control institution: the U.S. Army. Years later, as a Harvard-trained expert in organizational psychology, she began asking a radical question:

What if we're all in cults?

Blending personal narrative, cultural critique, and deep research, Young--together with award-winning author Amy Reed--introduces the cultiness spectrum: a ten-part framework for identifying how coercive group behavior shows up in spaces we trust, from extremist sects to corporate offices, political movements, social media communities, and beyond.

You'll never look at group loyalty the same way again.

From the glamorized world of Playboy to the mission-driven violence of the military, from wellness culture to partisan politics, The Culting of America reveals how cultish dynamics aren't just surviving in modern life--they're thriving. And they're often hiding in plain sight.

With sharp analysis, wit, and unflinching honesty, The Culting of America is both a warning and a guide. It's for anyone who's ever felt trapped in a group they believed in, who's started to question the cost of belonging, or who's ready to reclaim their autonomy without giving up connection.

Because the question isn't "Am I in a cult?"

It's "What cults am I already in--and what will it cost to leave?"

"Casey Scieszka's debut novel is absolutely delicious, like Tuck Everlasting for grown-ups. The premise is so good--an immortal woman's search for the fountain of youth--that the writing, crisp and funny, feels like an extra treat. An excellent debut."--Emma Straub, bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow

"A small-town mystery with a dash of historical fiction and romance, this book is perfect for readers of V. E. Schwab's The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue." --Booklist

A propulsive and deeply moving novel about eternity and mortality that asks what it would mean to live forever.
Vera Van Valkenburgh hasn't been home in one hundred and eighty-eight years. But now Vera, forever twenty-six and able to heal from any wound, has returned to the Catskills. Whatever made her family immortal happened here, and if she can uncover it, maybe she can reverse it. After nearly two centuries--an endless sequence of unnoticed, meaningless lives and a soul-shaking incident in the desert--she longs to be released.
Posing as a newly arrived forest ranger, she quickly blends into the upstate community and learns of something curious and disturbing. A mysterious, well-funded company is snapping up local property, no matter how high the asking price. But when her brother, a fellow immortal shows up, accompanied by a woman whose face is incredibly familiar to Vera, the purpose for her return gets clouded and Vera is in a race against time to find out what has caused her condition before someone else does.
Blending the spectacular with the everyday in a tale filled with humor and warmth, The Fountain explores what gives life meaning and how our understandings of our histories shape--and cage--us.

From the author of Confessions of the Fox comes a novel in which a yenta on her deathbed gives an unrepentant account of all her failures--including her child.

"From one of our most fearless living novelists comes this extraordinary book. No half measures here, just big ideas and living characters and metafictional panache and surprise after heart-stopping surprise."--Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House

In a cluttered rent-controlled apartment in the middle of Manhattan, Barbara Rosenberg is terminally ill, high on opioids, and writing the story of her life. She has opinions about her smutty late husband, her career as the receptionist for a disreputable plastic surgeon, her glory days as an accomplished jazzerciser, and her failed aspirations to be a film noir actress. But what she really wants to talk about are unhinged thoughts on gender, Karl Marx, Zionism, and her two great disappointing loves: an estranged trans son and a long-lost best friend whose betrayal haunts Barbara still. As she descends further into delirium and illness, Barbara finds herself in a nightmare from which she cannot escape, and her circumstances put her on a crash course with these intimates--or are they avenging nemeses?--once again.

Part novel, part someone's mother's unauthorized memoir--all diatribe, gutter schtick, and deranged manifesto, Night Night Fawn is a ferociously candid account of intergenerational conflict.

From Cameron Reed, the acclaimed author of The Fortunate Fall, comes a soaring novel of queer hope and transformation, perfect for readers of Ann Leckie and Amal El-Mohtar.

On the planet Scythia, plants give birth to insects and trees can drag you to your death. Artificial monsters stalk the desert, and alien basket-men have wandered into town.

John Maraintha has been abandoned here, light-years from the peaceful forests that he loves.

The desert is harsh and the people in thrall to a barbaric custom called marriage.

He must find some way to make a life here.

But on Scythia, survival means transformation--and not everyone is willing to change.

From the "most talented writer of his generation" (The New York Times), a lightning flash of a novel that is at once a gripping emotional drama and a brilliant examination of the devices, digital and literary, we use to store--or to erase--our memories.

The narrator of Ben Lerner's new novel has traveled to Providence, Rhode Island, where he is to conduct what will be the final published interview with Thomas, his ninety-year-old mentor and the father of his college friend Max. Thomas is a giant in the arts who seems to hail "from the future and the past simultaneously" and who "reenchants the air" when he speaks. But the narrator drops his smartphone in the hotel sink. He arrives at Thomas's house with no recording device, a fact he is mysteriously unable to confess.

What unfolds from this dreamlike circumstance is the unforgettable story of the triangle formed by Thomas, Max, and the narrator, and an exploration of fathers and sons, male friendship and rivalry, and the challenges of parenting in a burning world. One of the first great novels about the early days of COVID, it is also a brilliant meditation on those technologies that enrich or impoverish our connection to one another, that store or obliterate memory. Full of startling insight, but written with the intensity of a séance, Lerner shows us how the air is full of messages, full of ghosts. Ultimately Transcription demonstrates what only a work of fiction can record.

"Wolny gives us all the basics on paying off debt, getting impulse spending under control, socking away money for the future, investing and so forth, and he does it with a verve you don't usually find in personal finance books. . . . a fun, well-written primer on a subject that's usually a snooze." --The New York Times

From "the authority queer consumers need" (Daniel Reynolds, editor-in-chief of Out), Out magazine finance columnist Nick Wolny's fun, witty, and practical step-by-step guide to personal finance--a life-changing roadmap to financial independence for queer people to secure their futures in a challenging world.
When Nick Wolny became a personal finance editor, he noticed how often typical money advice clashed with the exuberance of queer culture. Once he dug deeper, Nick identified why certain financial obstacles hit queer people harder--and how behaviors of seeking out acceptance can have a major impact on our hearts, minds, and wallets. In Money Proud, Nick shares his financial expertise through a lavender lens to help you construct your roadmap to financial independence and personal prosperity
Written with smart humor and jam-packed with finance tips, Money Proud includes:

• The only money map you'll ever need to plan for your financial goals
• A guide for unlearning homophobic money advice you didn't realize you internalized
• Simple ways to make more money and control spending, without dulling your lifestyle
• Investment strategies to build your legacy and make your money work smarter for you--today
• Practical, stylish PSAs on life's many money-related to-dos, including how to make sense of your taxes, cultivate gayborhood-like community from anywhere, and create a purpose-driven and lucrative career

Honing in on the nuts and bolts of financial wellness, Money Proud includes illuminating data alongside powerful anecdotes from queer people who have successfully overcome their money obstacles. At a time when anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and queerphobic mudslinging dominate our culture, financial independence is the key to securing your future.
Living a life with pride means not only embracing who you are, but also cultivating practices that support who you want to become. And reading is fundamental!

The two-time Edgar Award-nominated author of ON A QUIET STREET and THE VACANCY IN ROOM 10, Seraphina Nova Glass, is back with TOO CLOSE TO HOME

Nothing in this idyllic community is quite what it seems...

Those lucky enough to live in the elite lakefront community of Cloverhill Lakes are drawn to it for its safety and top-notch school district. The moms meet for coffee at the park while their kids play, they're heavily involved in the PTA, and the summers are filled with chardonnay, brunch, sundresses, and backyard bonfires.

But everything changes when Regan Hoffman's car explodes at the annual Labor Day party. The wrong person is killed, but it was meant for her. As the carefully crafted walls of her community begin to crumble, Regan tries to keep it together--something made infinitely harder when she sees her dead husband...alive.

When a Cloverhill Lakes resident suddenly goes missing, dark secrets begin to surface from underneath the idyllic veneer of their beautiful community--and the truth threatens to destroy them all as Regan finds herself in a fight for her life.

Other thrillers from Seraphina to keep you up all night:

• Nothing Ever Happens Here
• The Vacancy in Room 10
• The Vanishing Hour
• On a Quiet Street
• Such a Good Wife
• Someone's Listening

Presents the story of Antonio Valli, a brilliant young Italian philosopher, who arrives to do a year's research at a university. He lodges with Dick Thompson, a successful middle-aged novelist, and his good looks and likeable character soon have Dick captivated. What follows is an ill-fated relationship that can only end in disaster.