AN AMAZON BEST OF THE MONTH SELECTION"A fresh, remarkable story of Auschwitz on the 75th anniversary of its liberation. An uplifting story of the herculean strength of young girls in a staggeringly harrowing situation." —Kirkus "Intimate, harrowing... This careful, sympathetic history illuminates an incomprehensible human tragedy." —Publishers WeeklyOn March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women—many of them teenagers—were sent to Auschwitz. Their government paid 500 Reich Marks (about $200) apiece for the Nazis to take them as slave labor. Of those 999...

New Year's Eve: Long Island detectives Devon Halsey and Lochwood Brennen, secret lovers, are thrust into mayhem by the grisly murder of Devon's best friend. What has haunted Devon for years begins to take shape, and as she dissects the file, she learns that the carvings in the victims' bodies are actually Koans—unanswerable questions that must be meditated upon in order to reach enlightenment.Heather Dune Macadam is a professor at Suffolk County Community College and a former dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company. She is the author of Rena's Promise, a nonfiction memoir about Auschwitz, which was nominated for a National Book Award. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek and the New York Times Sunday Magazine.