An ingenious code hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci. A desperate race through the cathedrals and castles of Europe. An astonishing truth concealed for centuries . . . unveiled at last. While in Paris, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is awakened by a phone call in the dead of the night. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, his body covered in baffling symbols. As Langdon and gifted French cryptologist Sophie Neveu sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci—clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. Even more startling, the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion—a secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci—and he guarded a breathtaking historical secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle—while avoiding the faceless adversary who shadows their every move—the explosive, ancient truth will be lost forever.

The Freeze-Dried Groom is one of the nine stories in Margaret Atwood's fantastic new collection Stone Mattress. A collection of highly imaginative short pieces that speak to our times with deadly accuracy. Vintage Atwood creativity, intelligence, and humor: think Alias Grace. Margaret Atwood turns to short fiction for the first time since her 2006 collection, Moral Disorder, with nine tales of acute psychological insight and turbulent relationships bringing to mind her award-winning 1996 novel, Alias Grace. A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband in "Alphinland," the first of three loosely linked stories about the romantic geometries of a group of writers and artists. In "The Freeze-Dried Groom," a man who bids on an auctioned storage space has a surprise. In "Lusus Naturae," a woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire. In "Torching the Dusties," an elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. And in "Stone Mattress," a long-ago crime is avenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite. In these nine tales, Margaret Atwood is at the top of her darkly humorous and seriously playful game.

This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers. For readers of "Oryx and Crake," nothing will ever look the same again. The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece together what has taken place, the narrative shifts to decades earlier. How did everything fall apart so quickly? Why is he left with nothing but his haunting memories? Alone except for the green-eyed Children of Crake, who think of him as a kind of monster, he explores the answers to these questions in the double journey he takes - into his own past, and back to Crake's high-tech bubble-dome, where the Paradice Project unfolded and the world came to grief. With breathtaking command of her shocking material, and with her customary sharp wit and dark humour, Atwood projects us into an outlandish yet wholly believable realm populated by characters who will continue to inhabit our dreams long after the last chapter.

When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she knows it isn’t love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her. Never ask about the past. Don’t expect a future. They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all. Hearts get infiltrated. Promises get broken. Rules get shattered. Love gets ugly. ---- Ugly Love by bestselling author Colleen Hoover will release Tuesday August 5, 2014. Colleen Hoover is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Slammed, Point of Retreat, This Girl, Hopeless, Losing Hope, Maybe Someday, and Finding Cinderella. She lives in Texas with her husband and their three boys. Please visit ColleenHoover.com.

Wattpad Editors' Choice, Winner of the 2020 Fiction Awards (for Best Plot Twist) and 2020 Mafia Romance of the Year. A chance encounter with an enigmatic Russian oligarch turns a young woman into the target of a criminal empire. Caught in a web of deceit, greed, and betrayal that stretches from the depths of Russia's gangland to the Kremlin's gilded halls, she is forced to forge a perilous alliance with an unlikely protector. From London to Moscow, this thrilling, sensual, and richly textured story transports the reader to the heart of a mafia empire - perfect for fans of dark romance and spine-tingling suspense. Originally published under the title "Russian Gambit". Genres: spy fiction | espionage thriller | political thriller | spy thriller | mafia romance | mafia thriller | romantic suspense | mystery Featured on: Wattpad Picks / Wattpad Editors' Choice Wattpad General Fiction @generalfiction Wattpad Dangerous Love @dangerouslove Wattpad Action @action Wattpad Ambassadors UK @AmbassadorsUK Wattpad Romance @Romance Wattpad Psychological Novel @PsychologicalNovel Mafia Community @MafiaCommunity Mafia Book Picks Mafia Community @MafiaCommunity Mafia Book of the Year Awards: Fiction Award for Best Plot Twist Mafia Community " Mafia Book of the Year " award