Adult

When builders discover a human skeleton during a renovation of a café, they call in archaeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway, who is preoccupied with the threatened closure of her department and by her ever-complicated relationship with DCI Nelson. The bones turn out to be the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in 2002. Suspicion soon falls on Emily’s Cambridge tutor and on another archaeology enthusiast who was part of the group gathered the weekend before she disappeared --- Ruth’s friend, Cathbad. As they investigate, Nelson and his team uncover a tangled web of relationships within the archaeology group and look for a link between them and the café where Emily’s bones were found. Then, just when the team seems to be making progress, Cathbad disappears.

Sassy, streetwise Sammy is a teenage girl who is falling through the cracks. Neglected by an alcoholic mother, the problems she endures at school and home lead her into the hands of adults who don't have her best interests in mind. Meanwhile, in a small village in Eastern Europe, preternaturally beautiful and naïve Nico is about to turn 13. As her family falls upon desperate times, her father is approached to marry her off. Consequently, Nico is shuttled across the border into Ireland, where she and Sammy find one another in their new home, a suburban brothel. As Nico and Sammy journey into this dark underbelly and out the other side, their friendship --- and the unexpected acts of kindness they give and receive --- form a potent bond.

Holly and Robert Barron are attractive young real-estate investors and contestants in a competition run by To the Manor Build, the nation’s most popular home renovation app. But just hours after their picture-perfect wedding, Holly and Robert go missing, leaving behind a bloody trail. Suspicion falls quickly on Erika Turnbull, the Barrons’ assistant, who is secretly in love with Robert. Did Erika let her misguided passion turn her into a murderer? So claim the townsfolk of Snowden, Vermont, who still haven’t forgiven her for a tragic accident back in high school. But Erika’s mother is not about to let small-town gossip and a cop with an axe to grind destroy her daughter --- again. With time running out and their own lives at risk, the mother-daughter duo set out to find what really happened to the Barrons.

With the advent of the internet, any topic we want to know about is instantly available with the touch of a smartphone button. With so much knowledge at our fingertips, what is there left for our brains to do? At a time when we seem to be stripping all value from the idea of knowing things --- no need for math, no need for map-reading, no need for memorization --- are we risking our ability to think? As we empty our minds, will we one day be incapable of thoughtfulness? Addressing these questions, Simon Winchester explores how humans have attained, stored and disseminated knowledge. Studded with strange and fascinating details, KNOWING WHAT WE KNOW is a deep dive into learning and the human mind. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming.

Ro is stuck. She's just entered her 30s, she's estranged from her mother, and her boyfriend has just left her to join a mission to Mars. Her days are spent dragging herself to her menial job at the aquarium, and her nights are spent drinking sharktinis (Mountain Dew and copious amounts of gin, plus a hint of jalapeño). With her best friend pulling away to focus on her upcoming wedding, Ro's only companion is Dolores, a giant Pacific octopus who also happens to be her last remaining link to her father, a marine biologist who disappeared while on an expedition when Ro was a teenager. When Dolores is sold to a wealthy investor intent on moving her to a private aquarium, Ro finds herself on the precipice of self-destruction.

1792. As the author of A VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN, Mary Wollstonecraft refuses to bow to society’s conventions and instead supports herself with her pen until an illicit love affair challenges her every belief about romance and marriage. When she gives birth to a daughter and is stricken with childbed fever, Mary fears it will be her many critics who recount her life’s extraordinary odyssey. 1818. The daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley struggles to balance an ever-complicated marriage with motherhood while nursing twin hopes that she might write something of her own one day and discover the truth of her mother’s unconventional life. Mary’s journey will unlock her mother’s secrets, all while leading to her own destiny as the groundbreaking author of FRANKENSTEIN.

Keera Duggan was building a solid reputation as a Seattle prosecutor until her romantic relationship with a senior colleague ended badly. For the competitive former chess prodigy, returning to her family’s failing criminal defense law firm to work for her father is the best shot she has to restore the family’s reputation, her relationship with her father, and her career. Keera’s chance to play in the big leagues comes when she’s retained by Vince LaRussa, an investment adviser accused of murdering his wealthy wife. The prosecutor happens to be Miller Ambrose, Keera’s former lover, who’s eager to destroy her in court on her first homicide defense. As Keera and her team follow the evidence, they uncover a complicated and deadly game that’s more than Keera bargained for.

Helen Campbell is the eldest and most practical of three sisters, daughters of hard-working Irish emigrants living in New York City in the 1950s. She does what she can to keep the wild-child middle sister, Carolyn, in line and support the youngest, Peggy, as she pursues her dreams of becoming a doctor. Then Helen meets Charlie. While it's love at first sight for those two, Carolyn's antics threaten to derail all the sisters' future happiness. However, through thick and thin, the three sisters strive to prevail, though not necessarily in the ways they thought they wanted.

THE CARGO REBELLION tells a true story of mutiny on the high seas in which 400 indentured Chinese men overthrew their captor, the Connecticut businessman and slave trader Leslie Bryson, taking a stand against an exploitative global enterprise. The laborers learned that Bryson’s claimed destination of San Francisco was a lie to trick them into deadly servitude in the dreaded guano islands of Peru. Reaching a dramatic tipping point, the mutineers rose up and killed Bryson and several of the ship's officers and then attempted to sail back to China. This book is a history from below that does justice to the memory of hundreds of thousands of indentured workers and demonstrates how Asian migration to the Americas was rooted in slavery, colonialism and the life-and-death struggle against servitude.

A stunning debut novel from the Northern Irish poet Eoghan Walls, THE GOSPEL OF ORLA is the coming-of-age story of a young girl, Orla, and the man she meets who has an astonishing and unique ability. It is also a road novel that takes us across the north of England after the two flee Orla’s village together. Here the mysteries of faith charge full bore into the vagaries of contemporary mores.