Mariner Books

A Lady's Guide to Selling Out: A Razor-Sharp Examination of Modern Success

Navigating the Crossroads of Ambition and Integrity

**A Lady's Guide to Selling Out** is a compelling debut novel that delves into the complexities of ambition and self-discovery in the 21st century. Casey Pendergast, a 28-year-old advertising executive, finds herself at a crossroads. Despite her high-paying job and luxurious lifestyle, she can't shake the feeling that she's traded her dreams for material success. Her best friend Susan, a staunch advocate for authenticity, labels her a "sellout," leaving Casey grappling with her own identity.

The Price of Compromise: A Journey Through Corporate Capitalism

Casey's latest assignment – luring acclaimed authors into content creation for corporations – throws her into a whirlwind journey across America. She finds herself questioning the very principles she holds dear as she witnesses these literary icons readily compromising their integrity for financial gain. This journey forces Casey to confront her own beliefs about success and the true cost of selling out.

A Love Story Amidst the Hustle

As Casey navigates this complex world of corporate ambition, she falls for one of the authors she's trying to recruit. This unexpected romance adds a layer of emotional depth to the story, highlighting the challenges of balancing personal desires with professional goals.

A Witty and Timely Exploration of Modern Dilemmas

**A Lady's Guide to Selling Out** is more than just a coming-of-age story; it's a sharp and insightful commentary on the cultural landscape we inhabit. The novel skillfully blends humor and wit with poignant observations on the pressures of modern society, offering a fresh perspective on career choices, personal values, and the elusive pursuit of success.

A Review for the Modern Reader

This debut novel is a must-read for anyone who has ever questioned the path they've chosen or wrestled with the idea of selling out. With its relatable characters, sharp dialogue, and thoughtful exploration of contemporary issues, **A Lady's Guide to Selling Out** will resonate with readers who are navigating the complexities of career, love, and personal fulfillment in today's world. It's a reminder that success can be defined on our own terms, even if it means challenging the status quo and embracing a path less traveled.

<p>The Essex Serpent [TV Tie-in]</p>

<p>NOW AN APPLE TV+ SERIES</p>

<p>A Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction * Winner of the British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year and overall Book of the Year *A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of The Year * Waterstones Book of the Year * Costa Book Award Finalist</p>

<p>“A novel of almost insolent ambition—lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden gate...it’s part ghost story and part natural history lesson, part romance and part feminist parable. I found it so transporting that 48 hours after completing it, I was still resentful to be back home.” —New York Times</p>

<p>London, 1893. When Cora Seaborne’s brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was an unhappy one, and she never suited the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space, she leaves the metropolis for coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive eleven-year-old son, Francis, and the boy’s nanny, Martha, her fiercely protective friend.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Once there, they hear rumors that after nearly three hundred years, the mythical Essex Serpent, a fearsome creature that once roamed the marshes, has returned. When a young man is mysteriously killed on New Year’s Eve, the community’s dread transforms to terror. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist with no patience for religion or superstition, is immediately enthralled, certain that what locals think is a magical sea beast may be a previously undiscovered species.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Eager to investigate, she is introduced to parish vicar William Ransome, who is equally suspicious of the rumors but for different reasons: a man of faith, he is convinced the alarming reports are caused by moral panic, a flight from the correct and righteous path. As Cora and William attempt to discover the truth about the Essex Serpent’s existence, these seeming opposites find themselves inexorably drawn together in an intense relationship that will change both of them in ways entirely unexpected. And as they search for answers, Cora’s London past follows her to the coast, with striking consequences.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Told with exquisite grace and intelligence, The Essex Serpent masterfully explores questions of science and religion, skepticism and faith, but it is most of all a celebration of love, and the many different—and surprising—guises it can take.</p>

<p>Interstellar - The Search For Extraterrestrial Life And Our Future In The Stars</p>

<p>“The world's leading alien hunter” —New York Times Magazine</p>

<p>From acclaimed Harvard astrophysicist and bestselling author of Extraterrestrial comes a mind-expanding new book explaining why becoming an interstellar species is imperative for humanity’s survival and detailing a game plan for how we can settle among the stars.</p>

<p>In the New York Times bestseller Extraterrestrial, Avi Loeb, the longest serving Chair of Harvard’s Astronomy Department,presented a theory that shook the scientific community: our solar system, Loeb claimed, had likely been visited by a piece of advanced alien technology from a distant star. This provocative and persuasive argument opened millions of minds internationally to the vast possibilities of our universe and the existence of intelligent life beyond Earth. But a crucial question remained: now that we are aware of the existence of extraterrestrial life, what do we do next? How do we prepare ourselves for interaction with interstellar extraterrestrial civilization? How can our species become interstellar?</p>

<p>Now Loeb tackles these questions in a revelatory, powerful call to arms that reimagines the idea of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Dismantling our science-fiction fueled visions of a human and alien life encounter, Interstellar provides a realistic and practical blueprint for how such an interaction might actually occur, resetting our cultural understanding and expectation of what it means to identify an extraterrestrial object. From awe-inspiring searches for extraterrestrial technology, to the heated debate of the existence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, Loeb provides a thrilling, front-row view of the monumental progress in science and technology currently preparing us for contact. He also lays out the profound implications of becoming—or not becoming—interstellar; in an urgent, eloquent appeal for more proactive engagement with the world beyond ours, he powerfully contends why we must seek out other life forms, and in the process, choose who and what we are within the universe.</p>

<p>Combining cutting edge science, physics, and philosophy, Interstellar revolutionizes the approach to our search for extraterrestrial life and our preparation for its discovery. In this eye-opening, necessary look at our future, Avi Loeb artfully and expertly raises some of the most important questions facing us as humans, and proves, once again, that scientific curiosity is the key to our survival.</p>

<p>Circa</p>

<p>For fans of The Burning Girl by Claire Messud and Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi, a stunning, gut-punch of a novel that follows a young Indian American woman who, in the wake of tragedy, must navigate her family's expectations as she grapples with a complicated love and loss.</p>

<p>On the cusp of her eighteenth birthday, Heera and her best friends, siblings Marie and Marco, tease the fun out of life in Raleigh, North Carolina, with acts of rebellion and delinquency. They paint the town’s water towers with red anarchy symbols and hang out at the local bus station to pickpocket money for their Great Escape to New York. But no matter how much Heera defies her strict upbringing, she’s always avoided any real danger—until one devastating night changes everything.</p>

<p>In its wake, Marco reinvents himself as Crash and spends his days womanizing and burning through a string of jobs. Meanwhile, Heera’s dream to go to college in New York is suddenly upended. Over the years, Heera’s and Crash’s paths cross and recross on a journey of dreams, desires, jealousies, and betrayals.</p>

<p>Heart-wrenching, darkly funny, and buoyed by gorgeous prose, Circa is at once an irresistible love story and a portrait of a young woman torn between duty and her own survival, between obligation and freedom.</p>

<p>An Unlasting Home</p>

<p>"So fresh and unsettling that it will enchant you from the first page and linger for days after reading...Its epic family saga style echoes that of Hala Alyan’s Salt Houses and The Arsonists’ City, Ayad Akhtar’s Homeland Elegies, and Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko." -- Los Angeles Review of Books</p>

<p>In 2013, Sara is a philosophy professor at Kuwait University, having returned to Kuwait from Berkeley in the wake of her mother’s sudden death eleven years earlier. Her main companions are her grandmother’s talking parrot, Bebe Mitu; the family cook, Aasif; and Maria, her childhood ayah and the one person who has always been there for her. Sara’s relationship with Kuwait is complicated; it is a country she always thought she would leave, and a country she recognizes less and less, and yet a certain inertia keeps her there. But when teaching Nietzsche in her Intro to Philosophy course leads to an accusation of blasphemy, which carries with it the threat of execution, Sara realizes she must reconcile her feelings and her place in the world once and for all.</p>

<p>Interspersed with Sara’s narrative are the stories of her grandmothers: beautiful and stubborn Yasmine, who marries the son of the Pasha of Basra and lives to regret it, and Lulwa, born poor in the old town of Kuwait, swept off her feet to an estate in India by the son of a successful merchant family; and her two mothers: Noura, who dreams of building a life in America and helping to shape its Mid-East policies, and Maria, who leaves her own children behind in Pune to raise Sara and her brother Karim and, in so doing, transforms many lives.</p>

<p>Ranging from the 1920s to the near present, An Unlasting Home traces Kuwait’s rise from a pearl-diving backwater to its reign as a thriving cosmopolitan city to the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion. At once intimate and sweeping, personal and political, it is an unforgettable epic and a spellbinding family saga.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Slime: How Algae Created Us, Plague Us, and Just Might Save Us</p>

<p>“No organisms are more important to life as we know it than algae. In Slime, Ruth Kassinger gives this underappreciated group its due.” — Elizabeth Kolbert</p>

<p>Say “algae” and most people think of pond scum. What they don’t know is that without algae, none of us would exist.</p>

<p>There are as many algae on Earth as stars in the universe, and they have been essential to life on our planet for eons. Algae created the Earth we know today, with its oxygen-rich atmosphere, abundant oceans, and coral reefs. Crude oil is made of dead algae, and algae are the ancestors of all plants. Today, seaweed production is a multibillion-dollar industry, with algae hard at work to make your sushi, chocolate milk, beer, paint, toothpaste, shampoo, and so much more.</p>

<p>In Slime we’ll meet the algae innovators working toward a sustainable future: from seaweed farmers in South Korea, to scientists using it to clean the dead zones in our waterways, to the entrepreneurs fighting to bring algae fuel and plastics to market.</p>

<p>With a multitude of lively, surprising science and history, Ruth Kassinger takes readers on an around-the-world, behind-the-scenes, and into-the-kitchen tour. Whether you thought algae was just the gunk in your fish tank or you eat seaweed with your oatmeal, Slime will delight and amaze with its stories of the good, the bad, and the up-and-coming.</p>

<p>Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect</p>

<p>From the bestselling author of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, a fiendishly fun locked room (train) murder mystery that "offers a tip of the hat to the great Agatha Christie novel while at the same time being a modern reinvention of it" (Nita Prose) -- perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Anthony Horowitz</p>

<p>When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.</p>

<p>The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:</p>

<p>the debut writer (me!)</p>

<p>the forensic science writer</p>

<p>the blockbuster writer</p>

<p>the legal thriller writer</p>

<p>the literary writer</p>

<p>the psychological suspense writer</p>

<p>But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.</p>

<p>Of course, we should also know how to commit one.</p>

<p>How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?</p>