Adult

Tessa Miller was an ambitious twentysomething writer in New York City when, on a random fall day, her stomach began to seize up. At first, she toughed it out through searing pain, taking sick days from work, unable to leave the bathroom or her bed. But when it became undeniable that something was seriously wrong, Miller gave in to family pressure and went to the hospital --- beginning a yearslong nightmare of procedures, misdiagnoses and life-threatening infections. Once she was finally correctly diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, Miller faced another battle: accepting that she will never get better.

Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences. The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home. Kieran's parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn. When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl and questions that have never washed away.

When Hannah packs up her past and moves to the cottage next door to her sister, she hopes the luxe neighborhood and close family ties will be the perfect escape for her son and the shadows that trail them. But when a young girl goes missing days after they unload their final boxes and her son is quickly thrown under suspicion, Hannah must do whatever it takes to protect her child. Even if that means pointing the blame her sister's way instead. With investigators swarming and neighborhood scrutiny closing in, the divide between two sisters grows. As one fiercely defends her husband, the other shields her boy from the crime, keeping quiet the secrets that might unravel it all. And all the while, one young girl has vanished, and someone is to blame.

Gina Apostol’s second novel takes the form of a memoir by one Raymundo Mata, a half-blind bookworm and revolutionary, tracing his childhood, his education in Manila, his love affairs, and his discovery of writer and fellow revolutionary Jose Rizal. Mata’s 19th-century story is complicated by present-day foreword(s), afterword(s) and footnotes from three fiercely quarrelsome and comic voices: a nationalist editor, a neo-Freudian psychoanalyst critic, and a translator, Mimi C. Magsalin. In telling the contested and fragmentary story of Mata, Apostol finds new ways to depict the violence of the Spanish colonial era, and to reimagine the nation’s great writer, Jose Rizal, who was executed by the Spanish for his revolutionary activities and is considered by many to be the father of Philippine independence.

Hard-hitting talk show host Augustus Seeza has become a household name in Ghana, though notorious for his lavish overspending, alcoholism and womanizing. He’s dating the imposing, beautiful Lady Araba, who leads a self-made fashion empire. Fearing Augustus is only after her money, Araba’s religious family intervenes to break them up. A few days later, Araba is found murdered in her bed. Her driver is arrested after a hasty investigation, but Araba’s favorite aunt, Dele, suspects Augustus Seeza was the real killer. Almost a year later, Dele approaches Emma Djan, the only female PI at her agency. To solve Lady Araba’s murder, Emma must not only go on an undercover mission that dredges up trauma from her past, but navigate a long list of suspects with strong motives.

Constable Ned Parker is looking into the seemingly accidental death of his nephew R. B., who was found in his overturned pickup near Sanders Creek bridge. At first it appears that R. B. drowned in the shallow water, but something doesn't add up for Ned, who begins turning over stones in search of what really happened the night R. B. died. Eventually, the investigation leads Ned back to the Starlite Club, a dangerous honky-tonk recently constructed in a no-man's land on the Lone Star side of the Red River. Although his investigation uncovers suspicious characters, drugs and gambling, it's the series of murders that eliminated any potential witnesses to what happened to R. B. on that cold January night that's the most troubling.

Shanghai, 1935. Black sheep gentleman Rowland Sinclair arrives with his bohemian housemates from Sydney, Australia, to represent his family's interests at international negotiations. A beautiful Russian taxi girl --- who once claimed to be the Princess Anastasia and who danced in Rowly's arms the night before --- is found slain in his suite. Out of sympathy for the murdered girl and to clear his name, Rowly and his companions embark upon their own investigation. They soon discover there are many people who may have wanted Alexandra Romanovna dead. As they are drawn deeper into Shanghai society and its underworld, Rowly searches for answers in a strange city determined to ruin him.

An elderly couple's home is transformed into a scene straight out of a horror film, their mutilated bodies the only clue left behind by the killer --- and they are only the unlucky first in a series of impossible murders. Soon dubbed the Eastside Creeper, the murderer camps out undetected in his victims' homes until he's ready to strike. After killing, he vanishes like smoke. Considered an expert in the grotesque, Detective Tully Jarsdel lands this seemingly unsolvable case. An academic-turned-cop, Jarsdel is intrigued by the Eastside Creeper. As the murders become more gruesome and the clues more inscrutable, widespread panic sets in. Jarsdel's unconventional methods may be the only thing left between a killer and a city about to descend into chaos.

The U.S. has finally entered World War I. Constance is chasing down suspected German saboteurs and spies for the Bureau of Investigation, while Fleurette is traveling across the country entertaining troops with song and dance. Meanwhile, at an undisclosed location in France, Norma is overseeing her thwarted pigeon project for the Army Signal Corps. When Aggie, a nurse at the American field hospital, is accused of stealing essential medical supplies, the intrepid Norma is on the case to find the true culprit. The far-flung sisters --- separated for the first time in their lives --- correspond with news of their days. The world has irrevocably changed. Will they be content to return to the New Jersey farm when the war is over?

A LIE SOMEONE TOLD YOU ABOUT YOURSELF traces the complex consequences of one of the most personal yet public, intimate yet political experiences a family can have: to have a child and, conversely, the decision not to have a child. A first pregnancy is interrupted by test results at once catastrophic and uncertain. A second pregnancy ends in a fraught birth, a beloved child, the purgatory of further tests --- and questions that reverberate down the years. When does sorrow turn to shame? When does love become labor? When does chance become choice? When does a diagnosis become destiny? And when does fact become fiction?