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Adult

by Martha Ackmann - Biography, Nonfiction

From her impoverished childhood in the Smoky Mountains to international stardom as a singer, songwriter, actress, businesswoman and philanthropist, Dolly Parton has exceeded everyone's expectations except her own. AIN’T NOBODY’S FOOL is a deep dive into the social, historical and personal forces that made Dolly Parton one of the most beloved and unifying figures in public life and includes interviews with friends, family members, school mates, Nashville neighbors, members of her band, studio musicians, producers and many others. It also features never-before-seen photographs and unearthed documents shedding light on her family's hardscrabble life.

by Debbie Macomber - Fiction, Romance, Women's Fiction

Maisy Gallagher has her own dreams, but when her father passes away, she selflessly sets them aside to help her family. Despite knowing it was the right thing to do, she can’t help but wish for the road not taken. Chase Furst, the hardened heir to a financial empire, is on the other hand primarily focused on his own life and on his work as a bank executive. His childhood was marred by his mother’s struggle with addiction, and left him cynical and emotionally distant. But then Chase meets Maisy, a beautiful woman full of optimism and kindness who can see past his defenses. To his surprise and annoyance, she offers to help him during a time of need, and declines his offer of payment. Instead, she asks him to pay it forward --- and not with money or a quick fix, but through an act of true selflessness.

by Danielle Steel - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

In April 1912, 23-year-old Lady Victoria Oldbrooke is traveling with her beloved father from England on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. But when the ship strikes an iceberg, and lifeboats are lowered with women and children first, Lord Alfred gives his place to another, and they are separated. Before he goes down with the ship, he asks his friend Bert Banning, a mill owner from Manchester, to promise he’ll marry his daughter and care for her. Devastated by the loss of Lord Alfred, Victoria and Bert take comfort in their growing friendship. Cruelly shunned by everyone she knows, even family friends, she marries Bert and moves to his home in Manchester. Isolated from her familiar universe and peers, and fascinated by Bert’s business, Victoria learns all she can about it. When he meets a tragic end, in spite of opposition from all sides, she steps into his shoes and applies everything she learned.

by Lena Dunham - Memoir, Nonfiction

For the last decade, being the owner and operator of Lena Dunham’s body has felt, as she puts it, “like towing a wrecked car across town at midnight.” It’s not easy dragging a wrecked car anywhere, much less to the Met Gala while sewn into a gold lamé corset. Or to the set of the hit show that you --- as a 25-year-old --- are writing, directing, producing and starring in. Or to the White House, the Golden Globes, or your publicist’s office to discuss the latest internet disaster. As Dunham takes us through her journey, tracking her rise to fame --- from selling the pilot of "Girls" to the present in three acts, it becomes clear that the spotlight casts long shadows. When an endless supply of drugs can’t protect you from pain --- and begins to control your every move --- being famous doesn’t stand a chance against the darker corners of the human experience.

by Anne Perry and Victoria Zackheim - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

Junior attorney Daniel Pitt must step in for his friend, fellow attorney Toby Kitteridge, whose parents have been brutally attacked. Toby's mother is dead and his father, a village vicar, is barely alive. With Toby returning to the family home in rural Ipswich, struggling with grief and disbelief, Daniel remains in London to substitute for Toby and defend Peter Ward, on trial for the sexual assault and murder of a young woman. Daniel finds himself distracted by his desire to help Toby, who is too distraught to investigate the attack on his parents. And when the evidence points to Toby’s father as the killer of Toby’s mother, Daniel faces two of the greatest challenges of his young career: proving the innocence of both Peter Ward and Reverend Kitteridge. One mistake in London and a blameless man will hang. One mistake in Ipswich and Toby’s father will go to prison for life.

by Camille Pagán - Fiction

Harold may be an aging mutt --- but Amelia May, the romance novelist who adopted him, left Harold with a final task: to help her partner, Miguel, find love again. Trouble is, the grief-ridden recluse rarely goes out, not even to the bookstore he and Amelia owned together. Now it’s in danger of going under, and when a renowned author doesn’t show up for his event, it pushes the store’s already precarious finances into the red. In a final attempt to save the bookstore, Miguel and Harold set out to find the no-show and insist he fulfill his obligation. But instead they’re greeted by Fiona, his sunny yet secretive sister. Harold is quickly running out of time to accomplish his mission, but if he can just convince his infuriatingly stubborn person to let Fiona in, he’s certain Miguel will find something far more important than a missing author: his own happy ending.

by Jess Hilarious - Memoir, Nonfiction

Before Jess Hilarious ever had dreams of telling jokes in front of sold-out arenas across the country, being featured on "Wild-’n-Out" or becoming a cohost on "The Breakfast Club," Jess dreamt of marrying her high school sweetheart and raising a family together in their hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. In hopes that having her partner’s child would solidify this outcome, Jess became pregnant at 19 but begrudgingly learned that the vision she had for her life --- as a wife and mother --- would have to be reimagined. With her trademark wit and perspective, Jess shares her experiences with valuable and vulnerable insight for coparents who struggle with what it means to put their children first while protecting them from the ups and downs of adult relationships.

by Tom Perrotta - Fiction

Jimmy Perrini lives in 1970s suburban New Jersey, a few miles from Manhattan, but a world apart. At the end of eighth grade, after tragedy strikes, Jimmy finds himself lost in a fog of grief that alienates him from friends and family, drifting instead into troubling friendships with two older teenagers: one a notorious local burnout with a fast car, an endless supply of weed, and a shaky grasp of reality; the other a smart, eccentric girl, whom Jimmy finds himself drawn to as they become entranced by her Ouija board, which may just offer the only salve to their grief. As a fateful public drama unfolds, Jimmy is torn between the occult beyond and the cold realities of the place he has called home. Narrated by a much older Jimmy, a literary-turned-commercial novelist, Ghost Town reveals how the past haunts the present --- the way our ghosts are always with us, even when we think we’ve left them behind.

by Abigail Savitch-Lew - Fiction

In 1978, two tenements on Livonia Avenue in Brownsville burn to the ground, killing one resident and displacing dozens of others. It remains unclear who set the buildings ablaze, but the survivors are convinced the culprit is Mr. Wong. Who exactly is Mr. Wong, and what allegedly drove him to this extraordinary act of violence, is the question that consumes this novel as it plunges into four generations of Wong family history. Joining together the present and the past is the community organizer Lina Rodriguez Armstrong, who was also displaced by that fire and who has spent the intervening years fighting for the rights of Brownsville’s residents and organizing a Livonia Avenue community land trust.

by Sophie Mackintosh - Fiction, Magical Realism

Clara and Francis are in love, but nobody knows it. For months they have been stealing away from their respective lives, leaving no trace of their relationship behind. Their time together is always excruciatingly sweet and all too short. Until one day they wake up in an apartment neither of them recognizes, with no memory of how they got there. They find themselves in a new, unnamed city, a self-contained sanctuary where adulterers live openly as couples. Here there are fountains and old town squares and perfect cafes with checkered tablecloths. Ripe fruits wait on the counter each morning, invisible threads bind each lover to the other, and their primary responsibility is to enjoy one another. Contact with the real world is impossible and the city’s whims are mysterious --- but now those stolen afternoons never have to end.