Adult

A fierce blizzard is burying the eastern seaboard, but on the icy Rhode Island shore, renowned artist Maddie Morrison finds warm sanctuary from a contentious divorce at the legendary Ocean House. Hours later, her body is found buried under a blanket of snow, and her little daughter, CeCe, has disappeared without a trace. For Detective Conor Reid; his brother, Tom, a coast guard commander; and Maddie’s grieving sister, Hadley, the posh hotel becomes ground zero for an investigation. Trapped by the blizzard, they must hunker down and determine who in the young mother’s life could have possibly wanted her dead. There are stories of a twisted romantic past. Of old jealousies and resentments that still cut to the bone. And a history of greed, rage and revenge that created the perfect storm for murder.

Benny Catspaw’s perpetually sunny disposition is tested when he loses his job, his reputation, his fiancée and his favorite chair. Someone is out to get him. He just doesn’t know who or why. Then Benny receives an inheritance from an uncle he’s never heard of: a giant crate and a video message. All will be well in time. Stranger yet is what’s inside the crate. He’s a seven-foot-tall self-described “bad weather friend” named Spike whose mission is to help people who are just too good for this world. He’ll find Benny’s enemies and deal with them. This might be satisfying if Spike wasn’t such a menacing presence with terrifying techniques of intimidation. In the company of Spike and a fascinated young waitress-cum-PI-in-training named Harper, Benny plunges into a perilous high-speed adventure.

Bora Chung’s inimitable blend of horror, absurdity and dark humor reaches its peak in these tales of loss and discovery, dystopia and idealism, death and immortality. In a thrilling translation by the acclaimed Anton Hur, readers will experience a variety of possible fates for humanity. In “The Center for Immortality Research,” a low-level employee runs herself ragged planning a fancy gala for donors only to be blamed for the chaos that ensues during the event in front of the mysterious celebrity benefactors hoping to live forever. In “A Song for Sleep,” an AI elevator in an apartment complex develops a tender, one-sided love for an elderly resident. “Seed” traverses the final frontier of capitalism’s destruction of the planet --- but nature always creeps back to life.

Tessa Ensler has worked her way up to being a top criminal defense barrister against all the odds. Her quick-witted cross-examinations and intelligence in the courtroom see her clocking up win after win --- including securing freedom for men accused of rape and sexual assault. Innocence until proven guilty is, after all, the bedrock of a civilized society. But when Tessa is raped by a coworker, she struggles to find the strength to bring him to justice in the face of the barriers and opposition within that same system. Determined to have her day in court, Tessa is forced to confront the stark reality that the law was not written for victims and that she is the one on trial. She fights on, even as her evidence is manipulated to make her look like a liar, even while she is retraumatized on the stand.

Haru, a successful Japanese art dealer, loves beauty, harmony, art, balance, intriguing women, sophisticated conversation and elegance. Months after a brief affair in Japan with a French woman, Maud, he discovers she is pregnant with his child. However, she warns him that if he ever tries to see her or the child, she will kill herself. Quietly devastated at the thought of never knowing his daughter, who will become a dark presence in an otherwise elegantly orchestrated life, Haru decides he will respect Maud’s wishes. His daughter grows to adulthood without ever knowing him. Is it too late to change things?

Nothing could be more out of character, but after 59 years of marriage, as her husband Bernard’s health declines, and her friends' lives become focused on their grandchildren --- which Jenny never had --- Jenny decides she wants a little something for herself. So she secretly applies to be a contestant on the primetime TV show “Britain Bakes.” But her new-found independence, and the stress of the competition, starts to unearth memories buried decades ago. Chocolate teacakes remind her of a furtive errand involving a wedding ring; sugared donuts call up a stranger’s kind act; a simple cottage loaf brings back the moment her life changed forever. With her baking star rising, Jenny struggles to keep a lid on that first secret --- a long-concealed deceit that threatens to shatter the very foundations of her marriage.

1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls --- a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night. 1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near a different river. He is alive but still not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts with messages he cannot understand. So begins a narrative that spans four generations of connections and consequences that ignite and reignite as the century unfolds.

Everyone remembers her daringly short, silver lamé dress. It was an iconic photo capturing an electric moment, where emerging American designer Astrid Bricard is young, uninhibited, and on the cusp of fashion and feminism’s changing landscape. Yet she can't escape the shadow of her mother, Mizza Bricard, infamous "muse" for Christian Dior. Astrid would give anything to take her place among the great houses of couture --- on her own terms. But then Astrid disappeared. Now Astrid's daughter, Blythe, holds what remains of her mother and grandmother's legacies. Of all the Bricard women, she can gather the torn, painfully beautiful fabrics of three generations of heartbreak to create something that will shake the foundations of fashion. But what really happened to Astrid?

Jenny is 13 when an epic dust storm rolls into her central California town in December 1977. Bedridden after contracting a life-threatening illness in the storm and suffering a shocking loss, Jenny realizes she will never be cared for by the mother who both neglects and terrifies her or the father who allows it. She relies on her cousin, Heather, who has the loving home Jenny longs for; her beloved great-uncle, Gino, the last link between generations; her best friend, Henry, a free spirit with whom she shares an inexplicable bond; and earnest baseball star Billy, who becomes her first love. After a stunning turn of events in both their lives, Jenny and Henry leave for college in LA together in the summer of 1982. When she returns home years later, the life Jenny so carefully created collides with the one she left behind.

In mid-1970s Jersey City, young Mickey Wright is thrust into a world controlled by a powerful Teamster local associated with the Genovese crime syndicate. The man who puts him in jeopardy is his father, a free-wheeling policeman well-known to Jersey City's politicians and drug dealers. When a Black trucker is murdered, Mickey is forced to choose between loyalty to family and the Teamsters or to values he shares with Debbie Olsen, the love of his young life who is the daughter of a solidly middle-class family. Memorable appearances by Mickey's sister, who is broken by her father's foul will, and memories of their late mother haunt the story. The question of whether Mickey can stand tall, break free and live a worthy life of his choosing isn't answered until a final, shocking confrontation.