Adult

Katie Vaughn has been burned by love in the past. Now she may be lighting her career on fire. She has two choices: wait to get laid off from her job as a video producer, or, at her coworker Cole’s request, take a career-making gig profiling Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Key West. The catch? Katie is not exactly qualified. She can’t swim --- but pretends that she can. Plus, Cole and Hutch are brothers. And they don’t get along. As Katie gets entangled with Hutch (the most scientifically good-looking man she has ever seen…but maybe a bit of a love hater), along with his colorful aunt Rue and his rescue Great Dane, she gets trapped in a lie. Or two. Swim lessons, helicopter flights, conga lines, drinking contests, hurricanes and stolen kisses ensue --- along with chances to tell the truth, face old fears, and be truly brave at last.

Marguerite Gray is a lifestyle icon known for her garden parties, high-end business ventures, and being the muse behind the famous Serge Kuhnert painting, Marguerite by the Lake. For the last few years, Phoenix has been the gardener on the famed Rosecliff grounds, home of the Gray family: Marguerite and her husband, Geoffrey. When a storm threatens the launch party for Marguerite’s latest book, it’s Phoenix who spots the danger to the guests and rushes to Geoffrey’s side to save him from a falling tree. She senses the danger of being drawn deeper into their lives, but she becomes embroiled in an affair that could destroy her career. But soon after the affair begins, Marguerite falls to her death, from the same high point at Rosecliff where she posed for Marguerite by the Lake. Now Phoenix has another secret, one that haunts her even as Geoffrey invites her to move into the manor with him.

After slipping 150 years into the past, modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson has embraced her new life in Victorian Scotland as housemaid Catriona Mitchel. She has developed real, meaningful relationships with the people around her and has come to love her role as assistant to undertaker Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh McCreadie. Mallory, Gray and McCreadie are on their way to the Scottish Highlands for McCreadie's younger sister's wedding. They discover that the groom, Archie Cranston, has set up deadly traps in the woods for the endangered Scottish wildcats, and they soon come across a cat who's been caught and severely injured. Oddly, Mallory notices the cat's injuries don't match up with the intricacies of the trap. And then when one of the guests is murdered, Mallory and Duncan must work fast to uncover the murderer before another life is lost.

After an accident that nearly kills her, Emily and her husband, Freddie, move to a beautiful Dartmoor country house called Larkin Lodge. The house is gorgeous, striking --- and to Emily, something about it feels deeply wrong. Old boards creak at night, fires go out, and books fall from the shelves, and all of it stems from the terrible presence she feels in the third-floor room. But these things happen only when Emily is alone, so are they happening at all? Her postsepsis condition can cause hallucinatory side effects, which means she can’t fully trust her own senses. Freddie doesn’t notice anything odd. Emily, however, starts to believe that the house is being haunted by someone who was murdered in it. As bizarre events pile up and her marriage starts to crumble, Emily becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about Larkin Lodge. But if the house has secrets, so do Emily and her husband.

In the glow of their children’s exciting first year of college at a small private school in Northern California, five families plan on a night of dinner and cocktails for the opening festivities of Parents Weekend. As the parents stay out way past their bedtimes, their kids --- five residents of Campisi Hall --- never show up at dinner. As the hours click by with not so much as a text from the students, panic ensues. Soon, the campus police call in reinforcements. Search parties are formed. Reporters swarm the small enclave. Rumors swirl and questions arise. Libby, Blane, Mark, Felix and Stella --- The Five, as the podcasters, bloggers and TikTok sleuths call them --- come from five very different families. What led them out on that fateful night? Could it be the sins of their mothers and fathers come to cause them peril or a threat to the friend group from within?

After their love ended in heartbreak years ago, Charlie Book and Ruby Cahill never expected to see each other again. Now, as part of his work for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Book lives aboard the Christabel, a 19th century freighter half-sunken off the shore of Galveston. Over many years, a massive forest of mangrove trees has grown up through the deck of the ship, creating a startlingly beautiful enigma Book calls the Floating Forest. As a powerful storm churns through the Gulf, he intends to sleep on board as usual. But when he arrives at the dock, he’s stunned to find Ruby there waiting for him. And she’s not alone. With her are a mysterious woman and her infant child, asking Book to hide them safely aboard the Christabel while they're on the run. Only it isn’t the police who are after them, it’s a coven of witches the woman has fled.

In Boston, 1865, Charlotte and Henrietta Stevenson, daughters of a Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice, have accomplished as much as women are allowed in those days. Chafing against those restrictions and inspired by the works of Jane Austen, they start a secret correspondence with Sir Francis Austen, her last surviving brother, now in his 90s. He sends them an original letter from his sister and invites them to come visit him in England. In Philadelphia, Nicholas and Haslett Nelson --- bachelor brothers, veterans of the recent Civil War, and rare book dealers --- are also in correspondence with Sir Francis Austen, who lures them to England with the promise of a never-before-seen, rare Austen artifact to be evaluated. The Stevenson sisters sneak away without a chaperone to sail to England.

Since she was three years old, Anastasia Miller has been telling anyone who would listen that she's an alien disguised as a human being and that the armada that left her on Earth is coming for her. Since she was three years old, no one has believed her. Now, with an alien signal from the stars being broadcast around the world, humanity is finally starting to realize that it's already been warned and it may be too late. The invasion is coming, Stasia's biological family is on the way to bring her home and very few family reunions are willing to cross the gulf of space for just one misplaced child.

Before he'd covered dozens of World Series; before he'd written about countless hirings, firings, superstars and scandals, Bill Madden was a cub reporter on one of his first assignments at Yankee Stadium --- and manager Ralph Houk had just gone out of his way to spit tobacco juice all over Madden's shoes. “That’s Ralph’s way with rookie writers he doesn’t recognize,” came the explanation. “He doesn’t mean anything by it.” So began a Hall of Fame scribe's career, as detailed in this clear-eyed memoir. With verve and candor, Madden reflects on five decades of triumphs, misadventures and unforgettable characters.

Greta Gatsby, Jay's younger sister, is finally free of her dull finishing school and looking forward to an idyllic summer at the Gatsby Mansion, the jewel of West Egg. Nothing could disrupt the blissful time she has planned…except finding out that Jay’s cadre of dubious friends --- Daisy and Tom Buchanan, along with Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker --- will be summering there, too. It's hard to be noticed when the luminous Daisy Buchanan is in the room, and Jordan keeps rather too close tabs on handsome Nick Carraway for Greta’s liking. But by far the worst is Daisy’s boorish husband, Tom, whose explosive temper seems always balanced on a knife-edge. But soon, bad blood is the least of their problems, as a shocking event sets the Gatsby household reeling. Death has come to West Egg, and with it, a web of scandal, betrayal and secrets.