Samantha's only friends were characters in books, but her real life takes an extraordinary turn when a mysterious "Mr. Knightley" offers her a full journalism scholarship—on the condition that she write to him regularly. Will their long-distance friendship unlock her heart?

Sam is, to say the least, bookish. An English major of the highest order, her diet has always been Austen, Dickens, and Shakespeare. The problem

...

“Refreshing.... Asks urgent questions about female ambition. Fans of Lab Girl have found a worthy successor.”—Real Simple

A powerful debut novel—a wonderfully engaging infusion of Lab Girl, The Assistants, and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine—that pits the ambition of scientific discovery against the siren call of love.

Emily Apell

...

An English grad student struggling with her dissertation about the intellectual history of inspiration desperately searches for a perfect case study to anchor her thesis, only to find it in the unlikeliest of places.

"Jessica James is broke and counting down the days until she can defend her philosophy thesis. Desperate to get out of her grubby attic digs, she and her friends break into her professor's office... only to find her adviser dead in the tub. Scoping the crime scene for clues, she leaves evidence that makes her both a suspect and a target. Suspecting the school's Russian janitor of doing more than sweeping the floors, Jessica mounts an investigation...

"Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a rare book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues -- a bee, a key, and a sword -- that lead...

Three men are found dead in the locked second-floor office of a Honolulu building, with no sign of struggle except for the ultrafine, razor-sharp cuts covering their bodies. The only clue left behind is a tiny bladed robot, nearly invisible to the human eye. In the lush forests of Oahu, groundbreaking technology has ushered in a revolutionary era of biological prospecting. Trillions of microorganisms, tens of thousands of bacteria species, are being...