A girl in a foreign country. A dangerous man. A journey across a stark and alien landscape. Three beautiful sisters with red hair from Dreamwood, Ohio. A magical rose-colored villa, where the girl discovers that everything she once believed was a mirage.

In Euphoria: Ten Maine Stories, Dave Patterson brings empathy, wisdom and humor to his depiction of life in the fictional Maine town of Euphoria, with its once thriving mill now closed and its once vibrant community now struggling with poverty, addiction and neglect. “Dave Patterson’s Euphoria, is a beautiful, often heartbreaking collection of stories. Each is vividly set in the same Maine town, but also in the deepest, most private recesses of the human heart. It will leave you breathless.” --Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls. “The characters who walk, drive, and fire dance their way through the town of Euphoria are achingly familiar, each striving, in their own way, to find connection and meaning. What makes this book such a joy to read is Patterson’s clear, abiding love for his characters and for the place they call home.” -- Shannon Bowring, author of the Dalton Novels trilogy.

Cordè is a courtesan-spy, trained to pull secrets from even the stiffest of lips. But when a prestigious assignment ends in a shocking death, she'll have to navigate her city's shadowy underbelly to find the culprit. Aelus is a warrior priest, devout in his faith, plagued by his own complicated lineage. Given one last chance to prove himself, he's sent to unravel the conspiracy threatening his order—a mission that puts him in Cordè's employ. Aelus's uptight personality and austere lifestyle clash with Cordè's free-spirited world of parties and indulgence, creating friction that breeds suspicion. However, they must put their animosity aside when they discover a bigger threat lurking beneath the streets—one that's stolen the power of the gods themselves. As the bodies pile up, Cordè and Aelus will be forced to choose: trust each other, or let the city burn.

Environmental journalist Alix Morris spends an eye-opening year getting to know these elusive, intelligent creatures, investigating the effects of their extraordinary return from the brink of extinction and how we can try to bring nature back into balance. It might be their large, strangely human eyes or their dog-like playfulness, but seals have long captured people’s interest and affection. Morris spends a year with these magnetic animals and brings them to life on the page as she learns about their intelligence, their relationships with each other, their ecosystems, and the changing climate. Morris also gets to know all of the competing interests in the intense debate about newly recovered seal populations in our coastal waters. This book is a rare look at what happens when conservation efforts actually work and a gripping adventure story of a journalist determined to understand seals and our relationship with them.