Adult

Inspired by the title Dorothea Benton Frank planned for her next book --- REUNION BEACH --- Elin Hilderbrand, Adriana Trigiani, Patti Callahan, Mary Alice Monroe and other bestselling authors and writers channeled their creativity, admiration and grief into stories and poems that celebrate this remarkable woman and her abiding love for the Lowcountry of her native South Carolina --- a land of beauty, history, charm and Gullah magic she so brilliantly brought to life in her acclaimed novels.

No, I didn't kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn't dump the body in the station mall. When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people --- who knew?) Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans! Again!

When Kate Campbell’s life in Manhattan suddenly implodes, she is forced to return to Sea Point, the small town full of quirky locals, quaint bungalows and beautiful beaches where she grew up. Meanwhile, Miles Hoffman has also returned home to prove to his mother that he’s capable of taking over the family business, and he’s promised to help his childhood best friend, Ziggy Miller, with his own financial struggles at the same time. Kate, Miles and Ziggy converge in Sea Point as the town faces an identity crisis when a local developer tries to cash in on its potential. White lies and long-buried secrets threaten to forever erode not only the bonds between the three friends but also the landscape of the beachside community they call home.

Louise wakes up. Her head aches, her mouth is dry, her memory is fuzzy --- but she suspects she’s done something bad. She rolls over toward her husband, Niall. The man who, until recently, made her feel loved. But it’s not Niall lying beside her. In fact, she’s never seen this man before. And he’s not breathing. As Louise desperately struggles to piece her memories back together, it’s clear to Jonah Sheens and his team that she is their prime suspect --- though they soon find she’s not the only one with something to hide. Did she do it? And, if not, can they catch the real killer before they strike again?

Seventeen-year-old Sarabeth has become increasingly rebellious since her parents found God and moved their family to a remote Arkansas farmstead. She’s all but given up on escaping the farm when a masked man appears one summer morning and snatches her out of the cornfield. A week after her abduction, she’s found alongside a highway, but her family treats her like she’s tainted. There’s little hope of finding her captor, who kept Sarabeth blindfolded in the dark, never uttering a word. Five years later, Sarabeth is struggling to keep her past buried when investigator Nick Farrow calls. Convinced that her case is connected to the strikingly similar disappearance of another young girl, Farrow wants Sarabeth’s help.

At just 35, reclusive billionaire Robbie Malcolm is a renowned financial prognosticator, a celebrated philanthropist and a mathematical genius. Also, he’s dying, which is a fact he’s carefully concealing from the world. As he takes stock, Robbie realizes that his wealth means nothing if he can’t help the people who matter most. So he invites his oldest friends --- Blair, Cat and Wade --- to their beloved Fenwick Island on the coast of Delaware to share his secret and to reveal plans for each of them that he believes will change their lives forever. However, Robbie isn’t the only one with secrets. His plans may look good on paper, but are they any match for the utter disaster that is real life?

Eleanor and Cam meet at a crafts fair in Vermont in the early 1970s. She’s an artist and writer, he makes wooden bowls. Within four years they are parents to three children, two daughters and a red-headed son who fills his pockets with rocks, plays the violin and talks to God. If Eleanor and Cam don’t make love as often as they used to, they have something that matters more. Their family. Then comes a terrible accident, caused by Cam’s negligence. Unable to forgive him, Eleanor is consumed by bitterness, losing herself in her life as a mother, while Cam finds solace with a new young partner. Over the decades that follow, the five members of this fractured family make surprising discoveries and decisions that occasionally bring them together, and often tear them apart.

In the summer of 1979, Jackie Pierce spent three months of infinite freedom at her bohemian uncle’s sprawling estate on the California coast. She and her cousin Willa fell into a fast friendship…until the summer abruptly ended in tragedy, and Willa silently slipped away into the night. Twenty years later, Jackie unexpectedly inherits The Sandcastle and returns there to ready it for sale. It turns out that before her estranged aunt’s death, she had promised an up-and-coming producer he could record a tribute album to her late uncle at the property’s studio. When a piece of the past resurfaces and sparks new questions about Willa’s disappearance, Jackie must discover if the dark secret she’s kept ever since is even the truth at all.

Marisa Rosso can’t understand why everyone else is getting on with their lives as she still struggles to get over the death of her beloved grandfather. Retreating further and further from normal life, she moves to the remote tidal island of Mount Polbearne, at the foot of Cornwall, hoping for peace and solitude, while carrying on her job as a registrar, dealing with births, weddings and deaths. Unfortunately --- or fortunately? --- the solitude she craves proves elusive. Between her noisy Russian piano-teaching neighbor, the bustle and community spirit of the tiny village struggling back to life after the quarantine, and the pressing need to help save the local bakery, can Marisa find her joy again at the end of the world?

Aubrey, the title character of Gerry Andersen’s most successful novel, Dream Girl, is so captivating that Gerry’s readers insist she’s real. Gerry knows she exists only in his imagination. So how can Aubrey be calling Gerry, bed-bound since a freak fall? A virtual prisoner in his penthouse, Gerry is dependent on his incurious young assistant and a dull, slow-witted night nurse. Could the cryptic caller be one of his three ex-wives playing a vindictive trick after all these years? Or is she Margot, an ex-girlfriend who keeps trying to insinuate her way back into Gerry’s life? Aubrey is threatening to visit him, suggesting that Gerry owes her something. Is the threat real or a sign of dementia? Then he wakes up to a woman’s dead body next to his bed and the terrifying uncertainty of whether or not he is responsible.