Adult

Over 20 years ago, the heiress Patricia Lockwood was abducted during a robbery of her family's estate, then locked inside an isolated cabin for months. Patricia escaped, but so did her captors --- and the items stolen from her family were never recovered. Until now. On the Upper West Side, a recluse is found murdered in his penthouse apartment, alongside two objects of note: a stolen Vermeer painting and a leather suitcase bearing the initials WHL3. For the first time in years, the authorities have a lead --- not only on Patricia's kidnapping, but also on another FBI cold case --- with the suitcase and painting both pointing them toward one man: Windsor Horne Lockwood III…or Win, as his few friends call him.

In the first scene of this provocative gut-punch of a novel, our unnamed narrator meets a magnetic writer named Ciaran and falls, against her better judgment, completely in his power. After a brief, all-consuming romance, he abruptly rejects her, sending her into a tailspin of jealous obsession and longing. If he ever comes back to her, she resolves to hang onto him and his love at all costs, even if it destroys her. ACTS OF DESPERATION renders a consciousness split between rebellion and submission, between escaping degradation and eroticizing it, between loving and being lovable. Author Megan Nolan dissects one of life’s most elusive mysteries: Why do we want what we want, and how do we want it?

Florence Darrow has always felt she was destined for greatness, but after a disastrous affair with her married boss, she starts to doubt herself. All that changes when she sets off for Morocco with her new boss, the celebrated but reclusive author Maud Dixon. Amidst the colorful streets of Marrakesh and the windswept beaches of the coast, Florence begins to feel she’s leading the sort of interesting, cosmopolitan life she deserves. But when she wakes up in the hospital after a terrible car accident, with no memory of the previous night --- and no sign of Maud --- a dangerous idea begins to take form.

A community in the Piedmont of North Carolina rises in outrage as a county initiative draws students from the largely Black east side of town into predominantly white high schools on the west. For two students, Gee and Noelle, the integration sets off a chain of events that will tie their two families together in unexpected ways over the span of the next 20 years. As love is built and lost, and the past never too far behind, WHAT’S MINE AND YOURS moves between the years, from the foothills of North Carolina, to Atlanta, Los Angeles and Paris. It explores the unique organism that is every family: what breaks them apart and how they come back together.

A decade ago, Emily Carlino vanished after her car broke down on a California highway. She was presumed to be one of serial killer Ronny Lee Jessup’s victims whose remains were never found. Writer David Thorne still hasn’t recovered from losing the love of his life, or from the guilt of not being there to save her. He then meets the beguiling and playful Maddison Sutton, who is keenly aware of all he has lost. But what really takes his breath away is that everything about Maddison is just like Emily. As the fantastic becomes credible, David’s obsession grows, Maddison’s mysterious past deepens --- and terror escalates. Is she Emily? Or an irresistible dead ringer? Either way, the ultimate question is the same: What game is she playing?

England, 1895. An unsolved series of magician murders and opus thefts isn’t a puzzle to Elsie Camden. But to reveal a master spellcaster as the culprit means incriminating herself as an unregistered spellbreaker. When Elsie refuses to join forces with the charming assassin, her secret is exposed, she’s thrown in jail, and the murderer disappears. But Elsie’s hope hasn’t vanished. Through a twist of luck, the elite magic user Bacchus Kelsey helps Elsie join the lawful, but with a caveat: they must marry to prove their cover story. Forced beneath a magical tutor while her bond with Bacchus grows, Elsie seeks to thwart the plans of England’s most devious criminal --- if she can find them.

One rainy night, Dylan Moran’s car plunges off the road into a raging river, his beautiful wife drowning as he struggles to shore. In the aftermath, Dylan experiences sudden, strange visions: wherever he goes, he’s haunted by glimpses of himself. Dylan initially chalks it up to trauma, but that changes when he runs into a psychiatrist who claims he’s her patient. She says he has been undergoing a unique hypnotherapy treatment built on the idea that with every choice, he creates an infinite number of parallel universes. Now those parallel universes are unlocked --- and Dylan’s doppelgänger has staked a claim to his world. Can Dylan use these alternate realities to get a second chance at the life that was stolen from him?

Hilary Byrd flees his demons and the dark undercurrents of contemporary life in England for a former British hill station in south India. Charmed by the foreignness of his new surroundings and by the familiarity of everything the British have left behind, he finds solace in life’s simple pleasures, travelling by rickshaw around the small town with his driver Jamshed and staying in a mission house beside the local presbytery where, after a chance meeting, the Padre and his adoptive daughter Priscilla take Hilary under their wing. The Padre is concerned for Priscilla’s future, and as Hilary’s friendship with the young woman grows, he begins to wonder if his purpose lies in this new relationship. But religious tensions are brewing, and the mission house may not be the safe haven it seems.

At the turn of the century, Paris was a hotbed of creativity. Technology boomed, delivering to the world electric light, the automobile and new ways to treat disease, while imagination blossomed, creating Art Nouveau, motion pictures and modernist literature. A pivotal figure during this time, yet largely forgotten today, Loie Fuller was an American performance artist who became a living symbol of the Art Nouveau movement with her hypnotic dances and stunning theatrical effects. In the early 1900s, she heard about Marie Curie's discovery of a glowing blue element and dreamed of using it to dazzle audiences on stage. While Loie's dream wouldn't be realized, her connection with Marie and their shared fascination with radium endured.

West Virginia Congresswoman Victoria Emerson has always put the needs of her community before the power games of Washington, D.C. Then an Army officer appears on her doorstep, deploying the code words “Crimson Phoenix” --- meaning this is not a drill. The United States is on the brink of nuclear disaster. The major will escort her to a secure bunker. She cannot bring her family. A single mother, Victoria refuses to abandon her teenage sons. Denied entry to the bunker, the family somehow survives the unthinkable. In the aftermath, the nation is in chaos. Against this total collapse, Victoria creates a new home in a small Appalachian mountain town. The community she builds around her shines like a beacon in a dark wasteland. Now she must defend it with her life --- to give hope to a new America.