Ladybugs play an important role in our world as eco-friendly pest controllers and plant pollinators—and they bring us good luck, according to lore. This Czech import opens as spring rolls in and a “loveliness” of seven-spot ladybugs wake from their winter slumber and stretch. One of them, Mariella, launches into an account of one year […]
Mina Murray lives with her yoga teacher mother in London, Georgia, a touristy town built around an impressive mythology of vampires, human sacrifice, and a snake-filled lake. With best friend Jackie Seward, she creates the Lore Club to investigate London’s idiosyncrasies. The club members discover a pattern of sinkholes appearing before people go missing. Mina […]
Hannah “Cookie” Cooke is a New England–based interior designer whose two specialties are constructing painstaking scale models of crime scenes like the Lizzie Borden house, which doesn’t pay much, and restoring upscale houses, which pays a lot more. Her business, the Ministry of the Interior, gets a commission from neurosurgeon Chuck Halsey and his wife, […]
For many fans, the consensus “big three” rappers are J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, and Drake, distinct artists from different backgrounds and with a history of collaboration. And, more infamously, feuding: Beef entangling all three consumed much of 2024, culminating in Lamar’s savage Drake diss track, “Not Like Us,” which won him a Song of the […]
Stoffel was shaken by his breakup with Warboy, who’d been both a lover and a best friend. Not long after, someone offered to sublet Luke’s New York apartment (via an Airbnb app) for an entire month; the author, seeing this as a chance to escape, used the money to fly out to Laos, a country […]
Holly Kilgour, a former model, is newly divorced and enjoying the freedom that comes with finally living life on her own terms. Her 26-year-old son, Austin, attends medical school, and she now embraces a future in which her life is no longer centered on taking care of others. Her newfound confidence is tested when Austin […]
As Lucy Cooper delivers the eulogy at her father’s funeral on Winthrop Island, a Northeast vacation spot where her dad lived year-round, she can’t believe he’s gone. It’s been years since she’s seen him, both because of her relocation to Europe and her dad’s embarrassing obsession with chasing pirate treasure. Lucy is surprised to discover […]
Ezekiel is an artificial intelligence aboard the spaceship Delphi; the rest of the crew consists almost entirely of humanoid androids from the Solarian civilization. Their mission is to seek out other intelligent lifeforms throughout the galaxy, attempt to contact them, and learn more about them (“Our mission is to learn,” notes Hero, the ship’s captain). […]
“I want to know that I have affected people for eternity. I matter 10 billion years from now.” Thus said the normally retiring David Green, founder of Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby. The location is no accident, for Oklahoma has long been home to countless fundamentalist congregations and businesses, a font of support for Christian nationalism. Privately […]
Roxie Mitchell loves beating up guys at the gym and going on wild adventures. She doesn’t believe in love, but she does believe in romance—at least as it’s concocted by her favorite author. A chance encounter with a mysterious panhandler and a meet-cute at the library make her wonder if her offhand wish to be […]