HTP Fall Reads Blog Tour Promo Post: The Weekend Retreat by Tara Laskowski

Every year, the illustrious Van Ness siblings, heirs to a copper fortune, gather at their lush winery estate for a joint birthday celebration. It's a tradition they've followed nearly all their lives, and now they are back with their significant others for a much-needed weekend of rest and relaxation, away from the public spotlight.

With lavish comforts, gorgeous scenery, and indulgent drinking, the trip should be the perfect escape. But it soon becomes clear that even a remote idyllic getaway can’t keep out the problems simmering in each of their lives. As old tensions are reignited, the three couples are pushed to the edge. Will their secrets destroy them, or will they destroy each other first? And who’s been watching them from beyond the vineyard gates?

When a torrential rainstorm hits, plunging them into darkness, the answers prove all too deadly…

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W-JKA BREAKING NEWS



Tragedy strikes at Van Ness Winery




SUNDAY, October 15—Multiple people have been reported dead at the Van Ness Winery after an altercation late Saturday night, our Eyewitness Team reports. Police were dispatched around 1:00 a.m. on Sunday morning after a 9-1-1 call from the estate’s main house, but they were delayed hours getting to the scene because of the torrential rainstorm that flooded Rte. 8 and many of the small roads leading up to the winery.

Our news team is on-site but has not been able to verify details with officials, who are still investigating the scene. It appears the damaged substation in Parnell affected power to the estate as well as a number of neighboring homes and businesses in the Finger Lakes area.

This tragedy is the latest to befall the Van Ness family, whose matriarch, investor and philanthropist Katrina Van Ness, died earlier this year of pancreatic cancer at the age of sixty-eight.

The Van Ness winery, known for producing high-quality, award-winning wines, has been owned by the Van Ness family for several generations. The family started the business in the 1950s, after selling their Arizona-based copper mining company founded by Benson Van Ness. The 985- acre winery and estate is now managed by the Van Ness siblings, who live full-time in New York City. Their family investment office owns interests in multiple different real estate holdings and industrial and manufacturing enterprises. The siblings are believed to have been visiting the estate for the weekend for a family celebration.

We will report more as details are confirmed.





THURSDAY

Two Days before the Party

LAUREN




Ever since Zach told me about The Weekend, it’s all I’ve been able to focus on. Most people would naturally be at least a little nervous to meet their significant other’s family for the first time.

But most people aren’t dating a Van Ness.

“Earth to Lauren.” Zach snaps his fingers, grinning over at me. He left work early to get on the road sooner and didn’t have time to change, so he’s still wearing his suit, purple tie slightly askew but knotted even after hours of driving.

“Sorry,” I say, tugging the ends of my hair. “Zoning out.”

“You look like I’m driving you to your death,” he says, then grabs my hand and squeezes. “Don’t worry. I promise it’ll be fun. Even if my family’s there.”

All I can see out my window are trees and fields and cows, my cell phone bars ticking steadily down. We must be close. Zach is taking care on the steep, curvy roads. One bad turn could send our car into a deep ditch or crashing into a thick tree trunk.

It’s so beautiful up there, my best friend Maisie said when I told her about the invitation. She had that wicked look in her eye. All the rolling hills. A vineyard. Starry sky. Super romantic. Perfect place to propose. My stomach flips at the thought, and I breathe in deep. This weekend is not about us. It’s a birthday party for Zach’s older siblings, Harper and Richard, the twins, an annual tradition to celebrate at the family’s winery. I can’t get ahead of myself.

We drive up a winding gravel road, through patches of dense trees. Taller ones have already gone barren for the winter, but some of the smaller trees arch over the road, their branches meeting and entangling like fingers, blotting out the remaining light.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now approaching the famous Van Ness estate,” Zach says in a booming voice as the car’s headlights flick on. “Please, no photographs, and keep all hands and feet inside the moving vehicle at all times.”

Zach had told me the estate was large—a thousand acres— but I didn’t grasp what that meant until the tunnel of trees ends and the view opens to a sprawling expanse of green fields and rolling hills, stretching endlessly against the purple-hued sky. We cross a small stone bridge that extends over a stream, then bump along a rocky road. The vineyards creep closer to us now, eerie in their precise organization, each plant in a perfect row. We’re inching toward winter, and all the grapes must have already been picked for the season, pressed and bottled, because the vines are bare and withered.

When I first moved to New York and waited tables at an Italian restaurant, we served the Van Ness wine. I remember those dark purple labels, the name stamped big and bold on the front. A brand that said, We are too good for you. But Zach is nothing like that, like the Van Nesses you read about online. Sometimes I forget he’s part of that family in the day-to-day rhythm of our lives. He doesn’t talk about them much, offers the scantest of information, or cracks a joke, or completely changes the subject when I bring them up. All I know of them is from the press, fleeting and superficial, like the pages of a glossy magazine, but hazy enough that I can imagine slicing open my finger on the sharp edges if I’m not careful.

“Tell me about them,” I say now, when there’s no evading the topic.

He glances over at me. “My family? What more do you need to know?”

“I don’t know. How can I win them over so they all love me forever and ever?” I say, trying to hide my nerves.

He laughs. “They’re impossible to win over.”

“Oh perfect,” I say. “That makes it easy then.”

“Nah, they aren’t that bad. They’re…particular is all.”

We head up a slight incline. To the right, there’s a gravel path marked Private—Staff Only. We pass it and stop in front of a large metal gate. Zach rolls down his window, fetches a key card from the glove compartment. “We had this installed years ago for extra security,” he says. Once the machine reads his card, the gates swing open soundlessly. I turn to watch them rotate back and slam into place.

As we round a corner, I finally catch a glimpse of the house, a stone mansion, stoic on the hill. The long driveway curves up to an overhang in front, flanked by a series of round potted trees.

“Here we are,” says Zach as we pull up. He shuts off the car, taps the digital clock on the dashboard. “And on time for dinner, too. Elle will be pleased.”

My stomach does another flip.

Breathe deep.

Project confidence.

They’re going to love you.

I get out. The air is chilly—it’s dropped at least ten degrees since we left the city. I wrap my arms across my body.

The massive wooden front door opens, and an older man walks out, gray hair and beard, a deep purple polo shirt with the Van Ness logo stitched on the pocket, two flutes of sparkling wine in his hands.

“Bill! You are the man.” Zach trades him the keys to the car for the glasses. “Lauren, Bill and his wife Linnet have been taking care of the estate—and us—since I was a snotty-nosed kid.”

As Bill heads for the trunk to unload our baggage, I survey the house. My eyes follow the three short steps up to a wide entryway with pillars, to the archway above the door, and then outward to the wings on either side. Greenery climbs up the stonework between the windows, and I imagine Bill must trim it often to keep it so nice. I touch a pillar next to me and feel its cool smoothness.

“Where’s everyone else?” Zach asks Bill. For him, this is business as usual. I doubt he even notices the grandness anymore.

“Oh, they’re around,” he says. “Miss Elle says dinner at 6:30, and you can all meet in the library.”

I smooth down the gold silk top Zach picked out for me, hugging and hiding in all the right places, like expensive clothes do. What would my parents say if they saw me? They would never guess I’d be weekending with a famous family like this. They never thought I’d make it in New York, thought I’d come crawling back begging to return to my night shift writing obituaries at our small-town paper.

But I’m never going back.

I take a sip of the sparkling wine. The bubbles pop, cold and hard against the back of my throat.





Excerpted from The Weekend Retreat by Tara Laskowski, Copyright © 2023 by Tara Laskowski. Published by Graydon House

About the Author

Photo Credit: Ron Aira

TARA LASKOWSKI is the author of The Mother Next Door and One Night Gone, which won an Agatha Award, Macavity Award, and Anthony Award, and was a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, Left Coast Crime Award, Strand Critics' Award, and Library of Virginia Literary Award. She is also the author of two short story collections, Modern Manners for Your Inner Demons and Bystanders, has published stories in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Mid-American Review, among others, and is the former editor of SmokeLong Quarterly. Tara earned a BA in English from Susquehanna University and an MFA from George Mason University and currently lives in Virginia. Find her on Twitter and Instagram, @TaraLWrites.

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Promo Post: Two Dead Wives by Adele Parks

Lost. Missing. Murdered? How do you find a woman who didn’t exist?

It's a case that has gripped a nation: A woman with a shocking secret is missing, presumed dead. And her two husbands are suspects in her murder.

DCI Clements knows the dark side of human nature and that love can make people do treacherous things. You can’t presume anything when it comes to crimes of the heart. Until a body is found, this scandalous and sad case remains wide open.

Stacie Jones lives a quiet life in a small village, nursed by her father as she recovers from illness, and shielded from any news of the outside world. But their reclusive life is about to be shattered.

How are these families linked, and can any of them ever rebuild their lives in the wake of tragedy?

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1

DC CLEMENTS



There is no body. A fact DC Clements finds both a problem and a tremulous, tantalizing possibility. She’s not a woman in­clined to irrational hope, or even excessive hope. Any damned hope, really. At least, not usually.

Kylie Gillingham is probably dead.

The forty-three-year-old woman has been missing nearly two weeks. Ninety-seven percent of the 180,000 people a year who are reported missing are found within a week, dead or alive. She hasn’t been spotted by members of the public, or picked up on CCTV; her bank, phone and email accounts haven’t been touched. She has social media registered under her married name, Kai Janssen; they’ve lain dormant. No perky pictures of carefully arranged books, lattes, Negronis or peo­nies. Kylie Gillingham hasn’t returned to either of her homes. Statistically, it’s looking very bad.

Experience would also suggest this sort of situation has to end terribly. When a wife disappears, all eyes turn on the husband. In this case, there is not one but two raging husbands left behind. Both men once loved the missing woman very much. Love is just a shiver away from hate.

The evidence does not conclusively indicate murder. There is no body. But a violent abduction is a reasonable proposition—police-speak, disciplined by protocol. Kidnap and abuse, possi­ble torture is likely—woman-speak, fired by indignation. They know Kylie Gillingham was kept in a room in an uninhabited apartment just floors below the one she lived in with husband number two, Daan Janssen. That’s not a coincidence. There is a hole in the wall of that room; most likely Kylie punched or kicked it. The debris created was flung through a window into the street, probably in order to attract attention. Her efforts failed. Fingerprints place her in the room; it’s unlikely she was simply hanging out or even hiding out, as there is evidence to suggest she was chained to the radiator.

Yet despite all this, the usually clear, logical, reasonable Cle­ments wants to ignore statistics, experience and even evidence that suggests the abduction ended in fatal violence. She wants to hope.

There just might be some way, somehow, that Kylie—enigma, bigamist—escaped from that sordid room and is alive. She might be in hiding. She is technically a criminal, after all; she might be hiding from the law. She can hardly go home. She will know by now that her life of duplicity is exposed. She will know her husbands are incensed. Baying for blood. She has three largely uninterested half brothers on her father’s side, and a mother who lives in Australia. None of them give Clements a sense that they are helping or protecting Kylie. She will know who abducted her. If alive, she must be terrified.

Clements’ junior partner, Constable Tanner, burly and blunt as usual, scoffs at the idea that she escaped. He’s waiting for a body; he’d settle for a confession. It’s been four days now since Daan Janssen left the country. “Skipped justice,” as Tanner in­sists on saying. But the constable is wet behind the ears. He still thinks murder is glamorous and career-enhancing. Clements tries to remember: did she ever think that way? She’s been a po­lice officer for nearly fifteen years; she joined the force straight out of university, a few years younger than Tanner is now, but no, she can’t remember a time when she thought murder was glamorous.

“He hasn’t skipped justice. We’re talking to him and his lawyers,” she points out with what feels like the last bit of her taut patience.

“You’re being pedantic.”

“I’m being accurate.”

“But you’re talking to him through bloody Microsoft Teams,” says Tanner dismissively. “What the hell is that?”

“The future.” Clements sighs. She ought to be offended by the uppity tone of the junior police officer. It’s disrespect­ful. She’s the detective constable. She would be offended if she had the energy, but she doesn’t have any to spare. It’s all fo­cused on the case. On Kylie Gillingham. She needs to remain clear-sighted, analytical. They need to examine the facts, the evidence, over and over again. To be fair, Constable Tanner is focused too, but his focus manifests in frenetic frustration. She tries to keep him on track. “Look, lockdown means Daan Janssen isn’t coming back to the UK for questioning any time soon. Even if there wasn’t a strange new world to negotiate, we couldn’t force him to come to us, not without arresting him, and I can’t do that yet.”

Tanner knocks his knuckles against her desk as though he is rapping on a door, asking to be let in, demanding attention. “But all the evidence—”

“Is circumstantial.” Tanner knows this; he just can’t quite ac­cept it. He feels the finish line is in sight, but he can’t cross it, and it frustrates him. Disappoints him. He wants the world to be clear-cut. He wants crimes to be punished, bad men behind bars, a safer realm. He doesn’t want some posh twat flashing his passport and wallet, hopping on a plane to his family man­sion in the Netherlands and getting away with it. Daan Janssen’s good looks and air of entitlement offend Tanner. Clements un­derstands all that. She understands it but has never allowed per­sonal bias and preferences to cloud her investigating procedures.

“We found her phones in his flat!” Tanner insists.

“Kylie could have put them there herself,” counters Clem­ents. “She did live there with him as his wife.”

“And we found the receipt for the cable ties and the bucket from the room she was held in.”

“We found a receipt. The annual number of cable ties pro­duced is about a hundred billion. A lot of people buy cable ties. Very few of them to bind their wives to radiators. Janssen might have wanted to neaten up his computer and charger cords. He lives in a minimalist house. That’s what any lawyer worth their salt will argue.” Clements rolls her head from left to right; her neck clicks like castanets.

“His fingerprints are on the food packets.”

“Which means he touched those protein bars. That’s all they prove. Not that he took them into the room. Not that he was ever in the room.”

Exasperated, Tanner demands, “Well how else did they get there? They didn’t fly in through the bloody window, did they?” Clements understands he’s not just excitable, he cares. He wants this resolved. She likes him for it, even if he’s clumsy in his declarations. It makes her want to soothe him; offer him guarantees and reassurances that she doesn’t even believe in. She doesn’t soothe or reassure, because she has to stay professional, focused. The devil is in the detail. She just has to stay sharp, be smarter than the criminal. That’s what she believes. “She might have brought them in from their home. He might have touched them in their flat. That’s what a lawyer will argue.”

“He did it all right, no doubt about it,” asserts Tanner with a steely certainty.

Clements knows that there is always doubt. A flicker, like a wick almost lit, then instantly snuffed. Nothing is certain in this world. That’s why people like her are so important; people who know about ambiguity yet carry on regardless, carry on asking questions, finding answers. Dig, push, probe. That is her job. For a conviction to be secured in a court of law, things must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. It isn’t easy to do. Barris­ters are brilliant, wily. Jurors can be insecure, overwhelmed. Defendants might lie, cheat. The evidence so far is essentially fragile and hypothetical.

“I said, didn’t I. Right at the beginning, I said it’s always the husband that’s done it,” Tanner continues excitedly. He did say as much, yes. However, he was talking about Husband Num­ber 1, Mark Fletcher, at that point, if Clements’ memory serves her correctly, which it always does. And even if her memory one day fails to be the reliable machine that it currently is, she takes notes—meticulous notes—so she always has those to rely on. Yes, Tanner said it was the husband, but this case has been about which husband. Daan Janssen, married to Kai: dedicated daughter to a sick mother, classy dresser and sexy wife. Or Mark Fletcher, husband to Leigh: devoted stepmother, consci­entious management consultant and happy wife? Kai. Leigh. Kylie. Kylie Gillingham, the bigamist, had been hiding in plain sight. But now she is gone. Vanished.

“The case against Janssen is gathering momentum,” says Clements, carefully.

“Because Kylie was held captive in his apartment block.”

“Yes.”

“Which is right on the river, easy way to lose a body.”

She winces at this thought but stays on track. “Obviously Mark Fletcher has motive too. A good lawyer trying to cast doubt on Janssen’s guilt might argue that Fletcher knew about the other husband and followed his wife to her second home.”

Tanner is bright, fast; he chases her line of thought. He knows the way defense lawyers create murky waters. “Fletcher could have confronted Kylie somewhere in the apartment block.”

“A row. A violent moment of fury,” adds Clements. “He knocks her out cold. Then finds an uninhabited apartment and impetuously stashes her there.”

Tanner is determined to stick to his theory that Janssen is the guilty man. “Sounds far-fetched. How did he break in? This thing seems more planned.”

“I agree, but the point is, either husband could have discov­ered the infidelity, then, furious, humiliated and ruthless, im­prisoned her. They’d have wanted to scare and punish, reassert control, show her who was boss.” They know this much, but they do not know what happened next. Was she killed in that room? If so, where is the body hidden? “And you know we can’t limit this investigation to just the two husbands. There are other suspects,” she adds.

Tanner flops into his chair, holds up a hand and starts to count off the suspects on his fingers. “Oli, Kylie’s teen stepson. He has the body and strength of a man…”

Clements finishes his thought. “But the emotions and irra­tionality of a child. He didn’t know his stepmum was a biga­mist, but he did know she was having an affair. It’s possible he did something rash. Something extreme that is hard to come back from.”

“Then there’s the creepy concierge in the swanky apart­ment block.”

“Alfonzo.”

“Yeah, he might be our culprit.”

Clements considers it. “He has access to all the flats, the back stairs, the CCTV.”

“He’s already admitted that he deleted the CCTV from the day Kylie was abducted. He said that footage isn’t kept more than twenty-four hours unless an incident of some kind is re­ported. Apparently the residents insist on this for privacy. It might be true. It might be just convenient.”

Clements nods. “And then there’s Fiona Phillipson. The best friend.”

“Bloody hell. We have more suspects than an Agatha Chris­tie novel,” says Tanner with a laugh that is designed to hide how overwhelmed and irritated he feels. His nose squashed up against shadowy injustice, cruel violence and deception.

“Right.”

“I still think the husband did it.”

“Which one?”

“Crap. Round and round in circles we go.” He scratches his head aggressively. “Do you want me to order in pizza? It’s going to be a long night.”

“Is anyone still doing deliveries? I don’t think they are,” points out Clements. “You know, lockdown.”

“Crap,” he says again, and then rallies. “Crisps and choco­late from the vending machine then. We’ll need something to sustain us while we work out where Kylie is.”

Clements smiles to herself. It’s the first time in a long time that Tanner has referred to Kylie by name, not as “her” or “the bigamist” or, worse, “the body.” It feels like an acceptance of a possibility that she might be somewhere. Somewhere other than dead and gone.

Did she somehow, against the odds, escape? Is Kylie Gilling­ham—the woman who dared to defy convention, the woman who would not accept limits and laughed in the face of con­formity—still out there, somehow just being?

God, Clements hopes so.

Excerpted from Two Dead Wives by Adele Parks. Copyright © 2023 by Adele Parks. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Teesside University (2021)

Adele Parks was born in North Yorkshire. She is the author of twenty-one bestselling novels. Over four million UK copies of her work have been sold, and her books have been translated into thirty-one different languages. Adele’s recent Sunday Times number one bestsellers Lies, Lies, Lies and Just My Luck were short-listed for the British Book Awards and have been optioned for development for TV. She is an ambassador of the National Literacy Trust and The Reading Agency, two charities that promote literacy in the UK. She is a judge for the Costa Book Awards. Adele has lived in Botswana, Italy and London and is now settled in Guildford, Surrey. In 2022 she was awarded an MBE for services to literature.

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HTP Fall Reads Blog Tour Promo Post: The Vacation by John Marrs

How far would you run to escape your past?

Venice Beach, Los Angeles. A paradise on earth. Tourists flock to the golden coast and the promise of Hollywood. But for eight strangers at a beach-front hostel, there is far more on their minds than an extended vacation. All of them are running from something. And they all have secrets they’d kill to keep…

This holiday-set read is a compulsive and addictive thriller, perfect for fans of T.M. Logan.

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PROLOGUE


Venice Beach, Los Angeles


“That’s her,” the driver yelled to the three men waiting in the rear of the transit van.

He pointed a gloved finger in the direction of a slender woman walking along the sidewalk up ahead.

“You sure?” a gruff voice asked. “It’s pretty dark out there.”

The driver was very sure. He’d watched carefully as his target walked with purpose in her high heels. He recalled her appearance an hour earlier as she made her way up a stainless-steel pole before slowly, seductively descending.

“Yeah, man,” he replied. “You don’t forget a pretty little ass like that in a hurry, even from this distance.”

He was confident their mark was completely oblivious to her impending fate. She stopped suddenly, searching for something that was seemingly wedged in her clutch bag; the streetlamps and neon shop signs illuminated the glitter in her hair. The driver lifted his foot slightly from the accelerator and dipped the headlights as he continued to stalk his prey. Meanwhile, his colleagues slipped black balaclavas over their heads and adjusted their bodies into position—one knelt with his hand gripping the door lever, ready to open it on command; another held plastic restraints, and the third clasped a hunting knife with a serrated blade.

“Ready?” the driver asked. They grunted in unison.

The van sped up, but not so fast as to throw the hunters from the positions they’d rehearsed earlier that day. Then, as it pulled up alongside the woman, the door flew open and the first of her assailants sprang out.

The man with the restraints was the first to reel backward into the vehicle as a bullet from her revolver tore its way through his shoulder blade, taking fragments of collarbone with it.

For a split second, the flash from the gun’s muzzle illuminated the van’s interior as she pinpointed two more would-be assailants poised to drag her inside. Twice more she pulled the trigger; twice more she heard the men screaming. The driver remained rooted to his seat, baffled by how off-kilter their mission had suddenly gone. They had been so confident of its success that there was no Plan B.

“Go, man, go!” yelled a desperate voice as another bullet found its target.

Tires squealed as the van lurched forward, veering across the median and then crisscrossing back toward the sidewalk.

A combination of adrenaline and fury propelled the woman to kick off her heels and run after it, firing twice more and shattering its rear windshield. The vehicle clipped an LA Times newsstand, hurling newspapers into the air; they fell like large chunks of confetti.

She fired one last time, but the van had already corrected itself and sped off out of range. Then she watched in horror as that final shot sent a stranger up ahead, carrying a backpack, sprawling face forward onto the pavement.

Time froze as the consequences of her last reckless bullet resonated.

She had just killed an innocent tourist.


Excerpted from The Vacation. Copyright © 2023 by John Marrs. Published by Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Robert Gershinson

John Marrs is an author and former journalist based in London and Northamptonshire. After spending his career interviewing celebrities from the worlds of television, film and music for numerous national newspapers and magazines, he is now a full-time author. His books include No1 bestseller and Netflix series The One, The Passengers, award winning What Lies Between Us and The Good Samaritan. Follow him at www.johnmarrsauthor.co.uk , on Twitter @johnmarrs1, on Instagram @johnmarrs.author and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/johnmarrsauthor.

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HTP Fall Reads Blog Tour Promo Post: The Roaring Days of Zora Lily by Noelle Salazar

Set during a period of rapid social and technological change, The Roaring Days of Zora Lily follows a struggling young seamstress from her long nights sewing costumes in the smoke-filled speakeasies of Seattle to designing gowns for Hollywood’s biggest starlets.

2023, The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History: A costume conservator is preparing an exhibition featuring movie costumes from the 1920s to present day. As she gingerly places a gown once worn by Greta Garbo on a mannequin, she discovers another name hidden beneath the designer's label, leaving her to wonder—who is Zora Lily?

1924, Seattle: Poverty-stricken Zora Hough spends her days looking after her younger siblings while sewing up holes and fixing hems for clients to bring in extra money, working her fingers to the bone just to survive. But at night, as she lies in the bed she shares with one of her three sisters, she secretly dreams of becoming a designer like Coco Chanel and Jeanne Lanvin.

When her best friend gets a job dancing in a club downtown, Zora is lured in by her stories of music, glittering dresses and boys. She follows her friend to the underground speakeasies that are at once exciting and frightening—with smoke hanging in the air, alcohol flowing despite Prohibition, couples dancing in a way that makes Zora blush and a handsome businessman named Harley. It’s a world she has only ever imagined, and one with connections that could lead her to the life she's always dreamed of. But as Zora's ambition is challenged by tragedy and duty to her family, she'll learn that dreams come with a cost.

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Washington, DC, 2023



The fluorescent lights blinked on in a domino effect, one after the other, a faint buzzing sound filling the room as I stood squinting in the unnatural light.

I inhaled, taking in my small slice of heaven within the storied walls of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The long room with its high ceiling, soothing taupe walls, and wood floors—weathered in spots from years of conservators standing and pacing as they labored over the works of great minds—brought a sense of peace as soon as I stepped inside.

The museum had been my happy place since I was a little girl, when my mother would walk with me from our baby blue–painted row house on Capitol Hill, her slender fingers wrapped around my pudgy ones. We’d wander past sprawling parks, melancholy monuments documenting history, to the austere but magical facade housing wonders my six-year-old eyes could barely comprehend. By the age of eight I knew all the regular exhibits like the back of my hand, and waited anxiously for the monthly newsletter that arrived in our mailbox, telling us what traveling exhibits we could expect next. It was one such exhibit, a gallery of gowns worn by British royalty, that had burrowed itself inside me in such a way that a dream was born.

“I’m going to work here one day,” I’d told my mother, pushing back a strand of dirty-blond hair as I stared up at a jewel-colored gown once worn by Queen Elizabeth the Second.

I was twelve.

I wanted to exist within these walls. It was my church, and I believed in its teachings wholeheartedly. I had drunk the water. Read the great books. And prayed to the gods of knowledge and creativity. I wanted to be part of whatever it took to bring history to life for others. And for the past nine years…that’s exactly what I’d done.

I stared at the scene sprawled out before me.

“Sanctuary,” I whispered, tucking a blond-highlighted strand of hair behind my ear.

Gleaming table after gleaming table sat covered in silk, satin, lace, and velvet. Gowns and dresses and blouses previously only seen on movie screens and in photographs now lay delicately in wait of tending to, their sparkle and sinew in contrast to the stark lights and tepid surroundings. Mannequins, my constant companions, stood at the ready, waiting for their moment.

Thread in every color imaginable, like a rainbow of rotund spool soldiers on a rolling rack, waited to be chosen. Needles in pincushions, strips of bias tape, shimmering appliqués, ribbons, seam rippers, clear drawers filled with buttons and clasps and snaps, and boxes upon boxes of straight pins, their colorful heads a happy bouquet of tiny plastic globes, were scattered across every surface, peeking from where they’d fallen to the f loor, rolled beneath furniture, and stuck—I bent to pull a pink-headed pin from the rug beneath my feet—in a variety of inconvenient places.

The door clicked open behind me and I smiled.

“Good morning, Sylvia,” a familiar voice said.

“Morning, Lu,” I said to the one member of my team who, like me, couldn’t wait to get to work.

Every day, my friend and fellow fashion-obsessed cohort, Lu Huang, and I arrived within minutes of one another, and a full half hour before anyone else. Working as conservators for the museum was a coveted get for us. A dream job that every morning caused us to rush from our respective homes, grabbing an insufficient breakfast on our way out the door, and wondering hours later why we were so hungry. We lost track of time constantly, surviving on coffee and bags of chips from the vending machine, and leaving friends and family waiting on us as we turned up late to holiday parties, dinners, and events we’d implored others to attend but couldn’t possibly get to on time, and having forgotten to blend the concealer we’d hurriedly dotted on in the train, with paint under our nails and bits of thread or glue on our jacket cuffs.

In Lu I’d found not only the perfect work companion, but a kindred spirit. Over the nine years we’d worked together, we’d enjoyed laughing over our shared love of no-nonsense ponytails, and waxing poetic about old films and vintage fashion. We sat in her living room or mine, rewatching the movies that had shaped us and sharing stories of our schoolgirl walls plastered with images of iconic women of the silver screen, while our schoolmates favored posters of half-clothed men. So, when the idea for the newest exhibit started floating around our superiors’ offices upstairs, we’d spent many a night poring over which films we’d choose if asked, and then deliberated, scrapped, and chose again until we had the perfect array.

Out of curiosity, we began to inquire with movie studios about the costumes we’d be interested in displaying, running into new obstacles with each call we made. Several times we chose a beloved film only to find half the costumes had been lost in a fire, were part of a decades-long legal battle, or were just plain lost—a travesty over which we consoled ourselves with a huge plate of nachos and a pitcher of margaritas. Eventually, the decisions about which movies to include boiled down to three simple things: Where were the costumes we’d need? Would they be available to us for the time required? And what kind of shape were they in?

Once we’d gotten the green light that the exhibit was on, we finalized our list, made the calls, gathered confirmations, and began the design for the wing the costumes would be shown in. And then we waited, barely able to contain ourselves as one by one the garments that would be featured in The Hollywood Glamour Exhibition arrived.

We chose two movies per decade, going back one hundred years to the 1920s. Every piece that had been worn by the female lead was sent to us from studios, museums, or estates. Once in our possession, my job as costume curator, along with my staff of seven, was to remove each gown or outfit from its protective garment bags or boxes, and go over it with a fine-tooth comb, looking for tears, stains, missing buttons, and the like. We’d been working for months. Some of the more intricate gowns needed extensive rebeading or sequin replacement, and many of the older pieces needing patching inside to hold the outside fabric together. In two cases we’d had to sew exact replicas of the linings, and then carefully fit them inside the original, giving it something to cling to, extending its life.

A pantsuit from the forties had lost an outside pocket and matching the fabric had been hell. The brim of an iconic straw hat that belonged to another outfit had been scorched by a cigarette and needed to be patched. Each garment presented its own set of unique problems, and we were giddy as we worked to solve each puzzle.

With our intention for each item to be viewed from all sides, it was crucial they looked as flawless as possible. Thankfully, my team were experts in their field, and excited at the opportunity to handle costumes worn by some of the most famous women in film history.

“Can’t believe we’re down to the final film,” Lu said, running a finger over a strip of fringe hanging from a black evening gown. “I think this batch is my favorite.”

I nodded, taking in the room of costumes from the 1928 film The Star. Each piece had been worn by the iconic Greta Garbo and was the epitome of elegance and class. And a notable diversion from the designer’s usual style.

“It’s so odd Cleménte changed her MO for this one film,” I said, tilting my head as I took in the distinct wide neckline featured in each of the eight pieces. Even a blouse and jacket had been designed to show off the actress’s collarbones. The pieces were alluring, but Cleménte had always been known for a more modest style.

Michele Cleménte had been a well-known designer in the ’20s and ’30s, her signature style demure, with higher necklines and longer hems. But for this movie, she’d completely diverged.

“It is strange,” Lu said, frowning. “The studio must’ve wanted something exact.”

“Then why hire her?” I asked. “Not that she didn’t do a lovely job. The clothing is exquisite. I’d wear them all now.”

“And look fab doing it.”

I felt myself blush with pleasure at the compliment. Being tall and willowy had its advantages. Unfortunately for me, I had neither the opportunity nor the bank account to wear clothes as fine as the ones before us.

“Thanks, Lu,” I said, bending to peer closer at the large white beaded star on the white satin gown that was to be the centerpiece for the entire show.

Aside from the star, the rest of the fabric had been left unadorned, letting the beaded element shine before one’s eye went to the skirt, which fell in soft overlapping layers to the floor. It was a stunning piece of art. But a confusing one. Because it

had no resemblance to any piece ever sewn before by Cleménte. At least not any piece I’d seen in my years of studying the different famous designers. It didn’t have her specific way of hand sewing or her distinctive technique of tying off a knot, or even her tendency toward geometric shapes. But it was the neckline that really threw me off. Cleménte had preferred to leave a lot to the imagination. It was her calling card during a time when everyone else was showing more skin. And yet for these, she’d completely gone off-script.

The rest of the crew arrived at nine on the dot and the quiet of the room rose to a dull roar as individual desk lights were turned on, loupes donned to scrutinize the tiniest details, and we all began to sew, glue, and chat our way through the day.

“Syl?”

I glanced up and winced as my back protested from having been bent over a table for the past hour. Lu stood, her coat over her arm, by the door. Everyone else had vanished.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Nearly seven.”

“Shit. How does that always happen?” I pulled the loupes from my head.

“You happen to be in love with a dress,” Lu said. “That’s how.”

“Story of my life.”

“Explains so much.”

“Does it?”

“I mean, it definitely explains why you haven’t had a date with a real live human in a while. Only—” She gestured to the mannequin beside me.

We laughed. She wasn’t wrong.

Lu was the only person who truly understood me. The only person besides my sister who I’d ever allowed to see inside my guest room closet where dozens of scavenged vintage dresses, trousers, jackets, and hats hung, waiting to be delicately cared for like the ones I lovingly handled at work.

“You gonna stay?” Lu asked, watching me as I looked back at the dress spread out before me.

I rubbed my eyes and stared at the tiny white beads I’d been replacing. We’d named the dress The Diaphanous Star, and I’d been carefully sewing on one bead at a time for the past two hours. It was a delicate task as the fabric they clung to was nearly one hundred years old. I had to work slowly and thoughtfully to keep from shredding it.

“Yeah,” I said, rotating my head. “I want to get this star done. How’d you do today?”

I glanced over at the black evening gown she was working on.

“I’m close,” she said. “You can barely see the snag in the back now, and I should be able to replace the bit of fringe that’s missing tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” I said, reaching over to wake my laptop and clicking on the calendar. “We are ahead of schedule, which bodes well should we have any catastrophes.”

Lu knocked a small wooden box holding scissors inside it.

“Don’t jinx us,” she said and then waved. “See you B and E.”

“See you B and E,” I said.

B and E. Bright and early. We’d made it up one day after the youngest woman in our group rattled off a bunch of acronyms as if the rest of us should know what they mean. We used it constantly. She didn’t think it was amusing. This of course made it that much funnier.

I pulled my loupes back down and resumed placing the beads that formed the shimmering star. Thirty minutes later I sat up, set the magnifying glasses on the table, and arched my back in a well-deserved stretch.

“Okay, you,” I said to the dress. “Time to get you on a mannequin.”

Sliding my arms beneath the gown, I lifted it carefully and carried it to the far end of the table where a mannequin with roughly Greta Garbo’s 1927 torso measurements stood in wait,

minus its arms which would be attached once I got the dress on it.

Unfortunately, the wide neckline made it hard to secure.

“You’re pretty,” I muttered, trying to keep the dress from slipping to the floor while I reached for one of the arms. “But a pain in my ass.”

I clicked an arm into place, moving the capped sleeve over the seam where the appendage attached to the shoulder, and making sure the hand was resting just right on the mannequin’s hip. Satisfied, I reached for the other arm and did the same on the other side.

“Not bad, headless Garbo,” I said, straightening the gown and smiling at the beaded star glimmering under the lights.

I grabbed my notepad and made my way around the dress, writing down problems that still needed to be addressed. Loose threads, the unraveling second tier of the skirt, and a bit of fabric that looked like it had rubbed against something and was scuffed. There was a stain on the hem in back, and one of the capped sleeves sagged, leading me to investigate and find a spot inside where the elastic was stretched out of shape.

My eyes moved along every inch of fabric, bead, and thread, my fingers scribbling notes as I took in what was easier to see with the dress hanging rather than sprawled on a tabletop. As I scrutinized the neckline in back, I noticed the tag was exposed and reached up to tuck it in. But as I pulled the material back, the tag fluttered to the floor.

With a sigh, I bent to pick it up. I could leave the fix until morning, but as I had nothing but an empty apartment waiting for me, I began the task of detaching the arms of the mannequin and sliding the dress back off and onto the table.

“Always something with you ladies,” I said, grabbing a needle and thread. “Can’t complain, I guess. Hottest date I’ve had in a while.”

But as I turned my attention to the spot the tag had fallen

from, I frowned and pulled the dress closer, peering at a small, elegant stitch no longer than the length of the tag that had covered it.

“Is that…”

I grabbed my loupes and looked again, the stitching now magnified and leaving zero doubt that beneath the tag, in white thread and a beautiful freehand stitch, was a name—and it wasn’t Cleménte’s.

Sitting back, I removed my glasses and stared at the gorgeous dress with its beautiful wide neckline and capped sleeves, the beaded star, the tiered skirt that was so unlike Cleménte in style, and wondered aloud to the empty room—

“Who the hell is Zora Lily?”




From THE ROARING DAYS OF ZORA LILY by Noelle Salazar. Copyright © 2023 by Noelle Salazar. Published by MIRA, an imprint of HarperCollins.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Noelle Salazar

Noelle Salazar was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, where she's been a Navy recruit, a medical assistant, an NFL cheerleader, and always a storyteller. As a novelist, she has done extensive research into the Women Airforce Service Pilots, interviewing vets and visiting the training facility—now a museum dedicated to the WASP—in Sweetwater, Texas. When she’s not writing, she can be found dodging raindrops and daydreaming of her next book. Her debut The Flight Girls, was an instant bestseller, a Forbes Hypable book of the month, and a BookBub Top Recommended book from readers. Her second novel, Angels of the Resistance: A Novel of Sisterhood and Courage in WWII was also published to wide praise including an Amazon Editors’ Fiction Pick of the Month. Noelle lives in Bothell, Washington with her family.

Social Links:

Author Website: https://www.noellesalazar.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noelle__salazar/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noellesalazar

Twitter: https://twitter.com/noelle_salazar

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18424925.Noelle_Salazar

HTP Fall Reads Blog Tour Promo Post: The Book Club Hotel by Sarah Morgan

This Christmas, USA Today bestselling author Sarah Morgan returns with another heartfelt exploration of change, the power of books to heal, and the enduring strength of female friendship. Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Jennifer Weiner.

With its historic charm and picture-perfect library, the Maple Sugar Inn is considered the winter destination. As the holidays approach, the inn is fully booked with guests looking for their dream vacation. But widowed far too young, and exhausted from juggling the hotel with being a dedicated single mom, Hattie Coleman dreams only of making it through the festive season.

But when Erica, Claudia and Anna—lifelong friends who seem to have it all—check in for a girlfriends’ book club holiday, it changes everything. Their close friendship and shared love of books have carried them through life's ups and downs. But Hattie can see they're also packing some major emotional baggage, and nothing prepares her for how deeply her own story is about to become entwined in theirs. In the span of a week over the most enchanting time of the year, can these four women come together to improve each other’s lives and make this the start of a whole new chapter?

Buy Links:

BookShop.org  |  Harlequin  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Books A Million  |  Amazon

Hattie

“Maple Sugar Inn, how may I help you?” Hattie answered the phone with a smile on her face because she’d discovered that it was impossible to sound defeated, moody or close to tears when you were smiling, and currently she was all those things.

“I’ve been planning a trip to Vermont in winter for years and then I spotted pictures of your inn on social media,” a woman gushed, “and it looks so cozy and welcoming. The type of place you can’t help but relax.”

It’s an illusion, Hattie thought. There was no relaxation to be had here; not for her, at any rate. Her head throbbed and her eyes pricked following another night without sleep. The head house­keeper was threatening to walk out and the executive chef had been late two nights running and she was worried tonight might be the third, which would be a disaster because they were fully booked. Chef Tucker had earned their restaurant that coveted star, and his confit of duck had been known to induce moans of ecstasy from diners, but there were days when Hattie would have traded that star for a chef with a more even temperament. His temper was so hot she sometimes wondered why he bothered switching on the grill. He could have yelled at the duck and it would have been thoroughly singed in the flames of his anger. He was being disrespectful and taking advantage of her. Hat­tie knew that, and she also knew she should probably fire him but Brent had chosen him, and firing him would have severed another thread from the past. Also, conflict drained her energy and right now she didn’t have enough of that to go around. It was simpler to placate him.

“I’m glad you’re impressed,” she said to the woman on the phone. “Can I make a reservation for you?”

“I hope so, but I’m very particular about the room. Can I tell you what I need?”

“Of course.” Bracing herself for a long and unachievable wish list, Hattie resisted the temptation to smack her forehead onto the desk. Instead, she reached for a pad of paper and pen that was always handy. “Go ahead.”

How bad could it be? A woman the week before had wanted to know if she could bring her pet rat with her on vacation—answer: no!—and a man the week before that had demanded that she turn down the sound of the river that ran outside his bedroom window because it was keeping him awake.

She went above and beyond in her attempts to satisfy the whims of guests but there were limits.

“I’d like the room to have a mountain view,” the woman said. “And a real fire would be a nice extra.”

“All our rooms have real fires,” Hattie said, “and the rooms at the back have wonderful views of the mountains. The ones at the front face the river.”

She relaxed slightly. So far, so straightforward.

“Mountains for me. Also, I’m particular about bedding. After all, we spend a third of our lives asleep so it’s important, don’t you agree?”

Hattie felt a twinge of envy. She definitely didn’t spend a third of her life asleep. With having a young child, owning an inn and grieving the loss of her husband, she barely slept at all. She dreamed of sleep but sadly, usually when she was awake.

“Bedding is important.” She said what was expected of her, which was what she’d been doing since the police had knocked on her door two years earlier to tell her that her beloved Brent had been killed instantly in a freak accident. A brick had fallen from a building as he’d been walking past on his way to the bank and struck him on the head.

It was mortifying to remember that her initial reaction had been to laugh—she’d been convinced it was a joke, be­cause normal people didn’t get killed by random bricks fall­ing from buildings, did they?—but then she’d realized they weren’t laughing and it probably wasn’t because they didn’t have a sense of humor.

She’d asked them if they were sure he was dead, and then had to apologize for questioning them because of course they were sure. How often did the police follow we’re sorry to have to tell you…with oops, we made a mistake.

After they’d repeated the bad news, she’d thanked them po­litely. Then she’d made them a cup of tea because she was a) half British and b) very much in shock.

When they’d drunk their tea and eaten two of her home­made cinnamon cookies, she’d shown them out as if they were treasured guests who had honored her with their presence, and not people who had just shattered her world in one short con­versation.

She’d stared at the closed door for a full five minutes after they’d left while she’d tried to process it. In a matter of min­utes her life had utterly changed, the future she’d planned with Brent stolen, her hopes crushed.

Even though two years had passed, there were still days when it felt unreal. Days when she still expected Brent to walk through the door with that bouncing stride of his, full of excite­ment because he’d had one of his brilliant ideas that he couldn’t wait to share with her.

I think we should get married…

I think we should start a family…

I think we should buy that historic inn we saw on our trip to Ver­mont…

They’d met in England during their final year of college and from the first moment she’d been swept away on the tide of Brent’s enthusiasm. After graduating, they’d both taken jobs in London but then two things had happened. Brent’s grand­mother had died, leaving him a generous sum of money, and they’d taken a trip to Vermont. They’d fallen in love with the place, and now here she was, a widow at the age of twenty-eight, raising their five-year-old child and managing the historic inn. Alone. Since she’d lost Brent she’d tried to keep every­thing going the way he’d wanted it, but that wasn’t proving easy. She worried that she wasn’t able to do this on her own. She worried that she was going to lose the inn. Most of all she worried that she wasn’t going to be enough for their daughter. Now Brent was gone she had to be two people—how could she be two people when most days she didn’t even feel whole?

She realized that while she’d been indulging in a moment of maudlin self-pity, the woman on the phone was still talking. “I’m sorry, could you say that again?”

“I’d like the bedsheets to be linen because I do struggle with overheating.”

“We have linen bedding, so that won’t be a problem.”

“And pink.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’d like the linen to be pink. I find I sleep better. White is too glaring and drab colors depress me.”

Pink.

“I’ll make a note.” She grabbed a notepad and scribbled Help followed by four exclamation marks. She might have writ­ten something ruder, but her daughter was a remarkably good reader and was given to demonstrating that skill wherever and whenever she could, so Hattie had learned to be mindful of what she wrote and left lying around. “Did you have a partic­ular date in mind?”

“Christmas. It’s the best time, isn’t it?”

Not for me, Hattie thought, as she checked the room occu­pancy. The first Christmas after Brent had died had been hid­eous, and last year hadn’t been much better. She’d wanted to burrow under the covers until it was all over, but instead, she’d been expected to inject festive joy into other people’s lives. And now it was the end of November again and Christmas was just weeks away.

Still, providing she didn’t lose any more staff, she’d no doubt find a way to muddle through. She’d survived it twice, and she’d survive it a third time.

“You’re in luck. We do still have a few rooms available, in­cluding one double facing the mountains. Would you like me to reserve that for you?”

“Is it a corner room? I do like more than one window.”

“It’s not a corner room, and there is only one window in this particular room, but it has wonderful views and a covered balcony.”

“There’s no way of getting a second window?”

“Sadly not.” What was she supposed to do? Knock a hole through the wall? “But I can send you a video of the room be­fore you make your choice if that would help.”

By the time she’d taken the woman’s email address, put a hold on the room for twenty-four hours and answered the rest of her questions, half an hour had passed.

When the woman finally ended the call, Hattie sighed. Christmas promised to be a nightmare. She made a note under the reservation. Pink sheets. Linen.

How would Brent handle it? It was a question she asked her­self a million times a day and she allowed herself to glance at one of the two photographs she kept on the desk. This one was of Brent swinging their daughter high in the air. Both were laughing. Sometimes, she’d discovered, remembering the best of times sustained you through the worst.



Excerpted from The Book Club Hotel by Sarah Morgan. Copyright © 2023 by Sarah Morgan. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Ev Sekkides

USA Today bestselling author Sarah Morgan writes lively, sexy contemporary stories for Harlequin. Romantic Times has described her as 'a magician with words' and nominated her books for their Reviewer's Choice Awards and their 'Top Pick' slot. In 2012 Sarah received the prestigious RITA® Award from the Romance Writers of America. She lives near London with her family.

Find out more at www.sararahmorgan.com

Social Links

Author Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter aka X  |  Instagram  |  Goodreads

HTP Fall Reads Blog Tour: What you are looking for is in the library by Michiko Aoyama

For fans of The Midnight Library and Before the Coffee Gets Cold, a charming Japanese novel about how the perfect book recommendation can change a readers’ life.

What are you looking for? is the question that Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi, poses to those who come to her for their next book. The list of recommendations she gives, however, always contains one unexpected addition that promises to give its the borrower the motivation they didn’t realize they needed to change their life.

Each visitor comes to the library from a different juncture in their career, family, or stage of life, from the restless sales attendant who feels stuck at her job, to the struggling working mother who dreams of being a magazine editor. The conversation that they have with Sayuri Komachi – and the surprise book she lends each of them – will have life-altering consequences.

With heartwarming charm and wisdom, What You Are Looking for is in the Library is a paean to the magic of libraries, friendship, and community, perfect for anyone who has ever found themselves at an impasse in their life and in need of a little inspiration.

Buy Links:

BookShop.org  |   Harlequin  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Books A Million  |  Amazon

Two days later, I’m standing outside the elementary school with my laptop in hand. I follow the directions from the Community House home page and walk along the school fence until I reach a narrow road. There it is: a two-story white building with a sign over the canopy at the entrance that says “Hatori Community House.”

I go through a glass door and see an old guy with bushy gray hair at the front desk. In the office behind him, a woman with a bandana sits at a desk writing something.

“Um, I’m here for the computer class,” I say to the old guy.

“Put your name down here. It’s in Meeting Room A.” He points at a folder on the countertop. A sheet of paper inside has a table with columns headed Name, Purpose of visit, Time of arrival and Time of departure.

Meeting Room A is on the ground floor. Going past the front desk to the lobby, I turn right and find it im­mediately. Through an open sliding door I can see two students sitting at long tables facing each other with their laptops open: a girl a bit older than me with soft wavy hair and an old guy with a square face.

The teacher turns out to be a woman, not a man. Ms. Gonno is probably in her fifties.

I go over and introduce myself. “Hello, my name is Tomoka Fujiki.”

She gives me a friendly smile. “Please, sit wherever you like.”

I choose to sit at the same table as the girl, but at the other end. She and the old guy are concentrating so hard on their own stuff they take no notice of me. I open up my laptop, which I’d already started up at home since I haven’t used it in ages and which took forever to boot. My fingers feel like bananas on the keyboard, probably because I only ever use a smartphone. I should probably do some practice in Word as well.

“Ms. Fujiki, you want to learn Excel, don’t you?” says Ms. Gonno, glancing down at my computer.

“Yes. But this computer doesn’t have Excel.”

She looks at my screen again and moves the mouse around a bit. “Yes it does. I’ll make a shortcut for you.”

A green icon with an X for Excel appears at the edge of the screen. No way! Excel has been hiding in my computer all along?

“I can see you’ve used Word, so I assume you have Office installed.”

I don’t have a clue what she’s talking about… But I did ask a friend at college to set up Word for me when I couldn’t figure it out for myself. Maybe that’s how it got in there. This is what happens when you leave stuff up to other people.

For the next two hours, I learn all about Excel. Ms. Gonno wanders between me and the other two but I get special attention, because I’m the newcomer, I suppose.

The most amazing thing I learn is how to perform addition by highlighting cells. Just press a key and bam! with one touch they all add up! It impresses me so much I can’t help cheering, which Ms. Gonno seems to find funny.

While practising as instructed, I overhear the conver­sation between Ms. Gonno and the other students. I get the impression they are regulars: the old guy is building a website about wildflowers, while the girl is setting up an online shop. I feel like such a waster. All the time I’ve been lazing around in my apartment doing noth­ing, not far away these two have been getting on with stuff—learning things! The more I think about it, the more pathetic it makes me feel.

When it’s nearly time to finish, Ms. Gonno says, “There’s no set textbook, but I’ll give you a list of rec­ommended titles. Don’t restrict yourself to these, though. Have a browse in a library or bookshop and see what you can find for yourself that’s easy to follow.” She holds up a computer guide and smiles. “You might like to look in the library here in Community House.”

Library. What a nice-sounding word. So comforting. I feel like I’m a student again. Library… “Am I allowed to borrow books?”

“Yes, anybody who lives in the ward can borrow up to six books for two weeks. I think that’s the rule.”

Then the old guy calls for help and Ms. Gonno goes over to him. I make a note of the recommended titles and leave.

~

The library is also on the ground floor. I pass two meeting rooms and a Japanese-style room at the back of the building beside a small kitchen. The door is wide open with a sign on the wall that says “Library.” Rows and rows of bookshelves fill an area about the size of a classroom. A counter to the left of the entrance is marked “Check­outs and Returns.” Near the front counter a petite girl in a dark-blue apron is arranging paperbacks on a shelf.

Feeling shy, I approach her. “Excuse me, where are the books on computers?”

Her head jerks up and she blushes. She has huge eyes and hair tied back in a ponytail that swings behind her. She looks young enough to still be at high school. Her name tag says “Nozomi Morinaga.”

“Over here.” Still holding several paperbacks, Nozomi

Morinaga walks past a reading table and guides me to a large shelf against the wall. “If you need any recommen­dations, the librarian is in the reference corner.”

“Recommendations?”

“You tell her what you’re looking for, then she will do a search and give you recommendations.”

I can’t find any of the books Ms. Gonno recom­mended on the shelf. Maybe I should consult the li­brarian. Nozomi said she was at the back, so I make my way to the front desk, then look toward the rear. That’s when I notice a screen partition with a sign hanging from the ceiling that says “Reference.”

Heading over, I poke my head around the corner, and yikes! My eyes nearly jump out of their sockets. The librarian is huge… I mean, like, really huge. But huge as in big, not fat. She takes up the entire space be­tween the L-shaped counter and the partition. Her skin is super pale—you can’t even see where her chin ends and her neck begins—and she is wearing a beige apron over an off-white, loose-knit cardigan. She reminds me of a polar bear curled up in a cave for winter. Her hair is twisted into a small bun right on top of her head, and she has a cool kanzashi hairpin spiked through her bun with three white flower tassels hanging from it. She is looking down at something, but I can’t see what exactly.

The name tag around her neck says “Sayuri Komachi.” Cute name.

I edge a bit closer and clear my throat. Ms. Komachi’s eyes roll up to look at me, without moving any other part of her body. The whites of her eyes are enormous. She’s stabbing a needle at something the size of a Ping-Pong ball balanced on a mat the size of a handkerchief. What is she doing? Putting a jinx on someone? I almost scream out loud.

“Ah…it’s, ah…it’s okay,” I manage to squeak, but all I want to do is turn tail and get away as fast as possible.

“What are you looking for?”

Her voice…it’s so weird… It nails my feet to the floor. As if it has physically grabbed hold of me somehow. But there’s a warmth in it that wraps itself around me, mak­ing me feel safe and secure, even when it comes from that unsmiling face.

What am I looking for? I’m looking for… A reason to work, something I’m good at—stuff like that. But I don’t think that’s the kind of answer she expects. “Um, I’m looking for books on how to use a computer.”

Ms. Komachi pulls a dark-orange box closer. I rec­ognize the design of white flowers in a hexagon shape. It’s a box of Honeydome cookies. I love these. They’re dome-shaped, with a soft center, and made by Kuremi­yado, a company that specializes in Western-style con­fectionery. They’re not exactly gourmet, but just a little bit special and not something you can just pick up in a convenience store.

When she lifts the lid, I see a small pair of scissors and some needles. She must be using an empty box for her sewing things. Ms. Komachi puts away her needle and ball, then stares at me.

“What do you want to do on the computer?”

“Excel, to begin with. Enough to tick the boxes on a skills checklist.”

“Skills checklist,” Ms. Komachi repeats.

“I’m thinking I might register on a career-change site. I’m not that happy with my current job.”

“What do you do?”

“Nothing great. Just selling ladies clothes in a general department store.”

Ms. Komachi’s head tilts to one side. The flower tas­sels on her hairpin shake and sparkle.

“Is being a sales assistant in a department store really not such a great job?”

I don’t know what to say. Ms. Komachi waits patiently for my reply.

“Well, I mean… Anybody can do it. It’s not like it was my dream job or anything I desperately wanted to do. I just kind of fell into it. But I live on my own, so I have to work to support myself.”

“You managed to find employment, you go to work every day and you can feed yourself. That’s a fine achievement.”

Nobody’s ever summed up my life in this way before. Her answer makes me want to cry. It’s as if she sees me, just as I am.

“But all I do to feed myself is buy stuff from the con­venience store,” I blurt out clumsily, though I know that’s not what she really means by “feed yourself.”

Ms. Komachi’s head tilts to the other side. “Well, the motive doesn’t matter so much as wanting to learn some­thing new. That’s a good attitude to have.”

She turns to the computer, places both hands on the keyboard and pauses. Then she begins typing, at amaz­ing speed! Shoo‑tatatatata! Her fingers move in a blur and I nearly fall over myself in surprise.

Ta! She gives one final tap, then delicately lifts her wrists from the keyboard. Next moment, the printer springs into action.

“These should be suitable for a beginner on Excel.” Ms. Komachi hands me the sheet. A Step-by-Step Guide to Word and Excel, Excel for Beginners, Excel: Fast Efficient Notebooks, A Simple Introduction to Office. Then I notice, right at the bottom, a title that stands out.

Guri and Gura? I stare at the words. The kids’ picture book about two field mice, Guri and Gura?

“Oh, and this too.” Ms. Komachi swivels on her chair slightly as she reaches below the counter. I lean forward a bit more to sneak a look and see a wooden cabinet with five drawers. She opens the top one, which seems to be stuffed with soft, colorful objects, picks one out and hands it to me. “Here you are—this is for you.”

Automatically I hold out my palm and Ms. Komachi drops a lightweight object on to it. It is round and black, about the size of a large watch face and with a straight bit poking out. A frying pan?

The object in my hand is a felted frying pan with a tiny round clasp on the handle.

“Um, what’s this?”

“A bonus gift.”

“Bonus gift?”

“Yes, something fun, to go with the books.”

I stare at the frying pan…er, bonus gift. It is sort of cute.

Ms. Komachi opens the Honeydome box and takes out her needle and ball again. “Have you ever tried felt­ing?”

“No. I’ve seen it on Twitter and stuff, though.”

She holds up her needle for me to see. The top is bent at a right angle for holding it, while the tip at the end has several tiny hooks sticking out.

“Felting is mysterious,” she says. “All you do is keep poking the needle at a ball of wool and it turns into a three-dimensional shape. You might think that you are simply poking randomly, and the strands are all tangled together, but there is a shape within that the needle will reveal.” She jabs roughly at the ball again.

There has to be a ton of felted things inside that drawer. Are they all bonus gifts to give away? But her attention is now completely focused on her hands, as if to say My job here as librarian is done.

When I return to the shelf of computer books, I find the recommended titles and choose two that seem easy enough to understand. But what about Guri and Gura? Maybe I should get that too. I read it many times when I was in kindergarten. I think I remember my mother reading it to me too. Why would Ms. Komachi recom­mend this book? Did she make a mistake?

The children’s picture books are in a space next to the window sectioned off by low bookshelves. It’s a shoes-off area covered with interlocking rubber floor mat tiles. When I enter and find myself surrounded by lots of cute picture books, I feel peaceful all of a sudden. Calmer, and more relaxed. There are three copies of Guri and Gura. I guess the library keeps multiple copies because it’s such a classic. Maybe I will borrow it… I mean, it’s free, isn’t it?

So I take my two computer books and Guri and Gura over to Nozomi at the checkout counter, show my health-insurance card as ID to apply for a borrower’s card, and check out the books.



Excerpted from What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama. Copyright © 2023 by Michiko Aoyama. Translation from the Japanese copyright © Alison Watts 2022 Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

About the Author

Born in 1970 in Aichi prefecture, and currently living in Yokohama, Michiko Aoyama worked for two years as a reporter for a Japanese newspaper in Sydney after graduating from university. After her return to Tokyo, she started to work as a magazine editor at a publishing house before turning to full time writing. Her work has won the 1st Miyazakimoto Prize, the 13th Tenryu Literary Prize, and has been a runner up of the 2021 Japan Booksellers Awards. This is her English-language debut.

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