Adult

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. Conway’s latest tale has Atticus investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition and murder.

Abraham Lincoln was shaped by the values of the white America into which he was born. While he viewed slavery as a moral crime abhorrent to American principles, he disapproved of anti-slavery activists. Until the last year of his life, he advocated "voluntary deportation," concerned that free blacks in a white society would result in centuries of conflict. In 1861, he had reluctantly taken the nation to war to save it. While this devastating struggle would preserve the Union, it would also abolish slavery --- creating the biracial democracy Lincoln feared. John Quincy Adams, 40 years earlier, was convinced that only a civil war would end slavery and preserve the Union. An antislavery activist, he had concluded that a multiracial America was inevitable.

It’s 1949, and South Philadelphia bursts with opportunity during the post-war boom. The Palazzini Cab Company & Western Union Telegraph Office, owned and operated by Dominic Palazzini and his three sons, is flourishing. But a decades-long feud that split Dominic and his brother, Mike, and their once-close families sets the stage for a re-match. Amidst the hoopla, the arrival of an urgent telegram from Italy upends the life of Nicky Castone (Dominic and his wife’s orphaned nephew) who lives and works with his Uncle Dom and his family. Nicky decides, at 30, that he wants more.

KENNEDY AND KING traces the emergence of two of the 20th century's greatest leaders, their powerful impact on each other and on the shape of the civil rights battle between 1960 and 1963. These two men from starkly different worlds profoundly influenced each other's personal development. Kennedy's hesitation on civil rights spurred King to greater acts of courage, and King inspired Kennedy to finally make a moral commitment to equality.

Nantucket is only 11 miles away from Martha's Vineyard. But they may as well be worlds apart for estranged twin sisters Harper and Tabitha Frost. After not speaking for more than a decade, Harper and Tabitha switch islands --- and lives --- to save what's left of their splintered family. But the twins quickly discover that the secrets, lies and gossip they thought they'd outrun can travel between islands just as easily as they can. Will Harper and Tabitha be able to bury the hatchet and end their sibling rivalry once and for all? Before the last beach picnic of the season, there will be enough old resentments, new loves and cases of mistaken identity to make this the most talked-about summer that Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket have experienced in ages.

Denny Malone is “the King of Manhattan North,” a highly decorated NYPD detective sergeant who has done whatever it takes to serve and protect in a city built by ambition and corruption, where no one is clean --- including Malone himself. What only a few know is that Denny Malone and his partners have stolen millions of dollars in drugs and cash in the wake of the biggest heroin bust in the city’s history. Now Malone is caught in a trap and being squeezed by the Feds, and he must walk the thin line between betraying his brothers and partners, the Job, his family, and the woman he loves, trying to survive while the city teeters on the brink of a racial conflagration that could destroy them all.

During a terrible heat wave in 1991, 10-year-old Anton has been locked in an apartment in the projects alone for seven days. Hot, hungry and desperate, he shatters a window and climbs out. Juanita, his mother, is discovered in a crack house less than three blocks away, nearly unconscious and half-naked. Though the bond between mother and son is extremely strong, Anton is placed with child services while Juanita goes to jail. Desperate to have a child in the house again after the tragic death of his teenage son, Judge David Coleman uses his power and connections to keep his new foster son, Anton, with him and his wife --- actions that will have devastating consequences in the years to come.

Welcome to the Misfit Mob. It’s where Police Scotland dumps the officers it can’t get rid of, but wants to: the outcasts, the troublemakers, the compromised. Officers like DC Callum MacGregor, lumbered with all the boring go-nowhere cases. So when an ancient mummy turns up at the Oldcastle tip, it’s his job to find out which museum it’s been stolen from. But then Callum uncovers links between his ancient corpse and three missing young men, and life starts to get a lot more interesting. No one expects the Misfit Mob to succeed, but right now they’re the only thing standing between the killer’s victims and a slow, lingering death. The question is, can they prove everyone wrong before he strikes again?

Burdened by a dark family secret, Virginia Fortescue flees her oppressive home in New York City for the battlefields of World War I France. As the war rages, Virginia falls into a passionate affair with the dashing Captain Simon Fitzwilliam, only to discover that his past has its own dark secrets --- secrets that will damage their eventual marriage. Five years later, the newly widowed Virginia Fitzwilliam arrives in Cocoa Beach, Florida, to settle her husband’s estate. Despite the evidence, Virginia does not believe Simon perished in the fire that destroyed the seaside home he built for her and their young daughter. Separated from her husband since the early days of their marriage, the headstrong Virginia plans to uncover the truth, for the sake of the daughter Simon never met.

By offering guideposts to well-being and happiness in eight areas --- including relationships, love and spirituality --- Haemin Sunim emphasizes the importance of forging a deeper connection with others and being compassionate and forgiving toward ourselves. The more than 20 full-color illustrations that accompany his teachings serve as calming visual interludes, encouraging us to notice that when you slow down, the world slows down with you.