Adult

When a young woman is found strangled to death and left on a park bench in Santa Rosa, California, Detective Eddie Mahler and his Violent Crime Investigations (VCI) Team are called to the scene. The crime immediately thrusts Mahler back to two unsolved homicides --- young women who were also strangled --- at this same location a couple of years earlier. His inability to find evidence against the man he knows was responsible for their deaths has haunted him since. Now suffering from chronic migraines that affect his vision, Mahler has secretly lost faith in the investigation process, and must rely more than ever on his team.

When David left home three years ago, he never looked back. Now, the only connection to his tiny New England hometown is his grandmother Maggie, whose mind is unraveling as she slowly succumbs to dementia. But when her best friend turns up dead and she may be the sole witness to the crime, David has no choice but to return to a place that never accepted his trans-identity and only ever wanted him gone. Maggie's testimony is shrouded in doubt; in between moments of lucidity she talks about things that never happened, about apparitions, disappearances and murders. But are they really only stories? After a man's death sets off a hauntingly familiar chain of events, it seems there's some truth to Maggie's words.

Though Bianca LaBelle and Rudolph Valentino have been friends for years, in the summer of 1926 they are making their first picture together. One evening after dinner at Bianca's fabulous Beverly Hills estate, a troubled Rudy confesses that he has received anonymous death threats. In a matter of days, filming comes to an abrupt halt when Rudy falls deathly ill. Could it be poison? As Rudy lies dying, Bianca promises him that she will find out who is responsible. Was it one of his many lovers? A delusional fan? Or perhaps Rudy had run afoul of a mobster whose name Bianca knows all too well? She calls on P.I. Ted Oliver to help her investigate the end of what had seemed to be the charmed life of Valentino.

Claire “Mac” Woods --- a professor enjoying her newfound hotshot status at an academic conference --- finally has the acceptance and admiration she has long craved. But at the conference's hotel bar, Mac is surprised to run into a face from a past she'd rather forget: Gwendolyn Whitney, her foil, rival and former best friend. Mac was admitted into the same elite graduate program as Gwen, but then they become entangled with the department’s power-couple professors and compete head-to-head for a life-changing fellowship. The more twisted the track toward success becomes, the more Mac has to contort herself to stay one step ahead. Which deception signals the point of no return?

LAND OF BIG NUMBERS traces the journeys of the diverse and legion Chinese people, their history, their government, and how all of that has tumbled into the present. Te-Ping Chen’s stories coalesce into a portrait of a people striving for openings where mobility is limited. Twins take radically different paths: one becomes a professional gamer, the other a political activist. A woman moves to the city to work at a government call center and is followed by her violent ex-boyfriend. A man is swept into the high-risk, high-reward temptations of China’s volatile stock exchange. And a group of people sit, trapped for no reason, on a subway platform for months, waiting for official permission to leave.

MILK BLOOD HEAT depicts the sultry lives of Floridians in intergenerational tales that contemplate human connection, race, womanhood, inheritance and the elemental darkness in us all. A 13-year-old meditates on her sadness and the difference between herself and her white best friend when an unexpected tragedy occurs; a woman recovering from a miscarriage finds herself unable to let go of her daughter --- whose body parts she sees throughout her daily life; a teenager resists her family’s church and is accused of courting the devil; servers at a supper club cater to the insatiable cravings of their wealthy clientele; and two estranged siblings take a road trip with their father’s ashes and are forced to face the troubling reality of how he continues to shape them.

After artist Claire Beaudry Chase is attacked and left for dead in her home on the Connecticut coast, she doesn’t know who she can trust. But her well-connected husband, Griffin --- who is running for governor --- is her prime suspect. Just before the attack, Claire was preparing for an exhibit of her shadow boxes, one of which clearly accuses Griffin of a violent crime committed 25 years ago. If the public were to find out who her husband is, his political career would be over. Claire is certain her husband and his powerful supporters would kill her to stop the truth from getting out. When one of Claire’s acquaintances is murdered, the authorities suspect the homicide is linked to the attack on Claire.

It is 2015, weeks after the Supreme Court marriage equality ruling, and all Sebastian Mote wants is to settle down. A high school art history teacher, newly single and desperately lonely, he envies his queer students their freedom to live openly the youth he lost to fear and shame. When he runs into his childhood friend Oscar Burnham at a wedding in Washington, D.C., he can’t help but see it as a second chance. But Oscar has no interest in their shared history, nor in the sense of belonging Sebastian craves. While Oscar and Sebastian struggle to find their place in a rapidly changing world, each is drawn into a cross-generational friendship that treads the line between envy and obsession.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a breakup or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. WINTERING explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered. A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology and the natural world, May's story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

101 ARABIAN TALES is a unique collective memoir, garnered from in-depth interviews with 101 fellow Libyan Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. The story’s spine is Randolph W. Hobler’s own narrative, anchored to and deftly embroidered with hundreds of other anecdotes. Rather than a narrow individual view, this collective sharing provides many rich hues and shades of experiences --- hilarious, heartbreaking, insightful and poignant, as well as educational and inspiring. These volunteers were spread out over 900 miles, resulting in an omniscient kaleidoscope of experiences, many of which fall under the category of “you can’t make this up!” Hobler’s breezy whimsical style is accessible and entertaining, capped off with 220 compelling photographs.