Adult

After surviving a serial killer’s abduction as a young teenager, Ellery Hathaway is finally attempting a normal life. She has a new job as a rookie Boston detective and a fledgling relationship with Reed Markham, the FBI agent who rescued her years ago. But when a 12-year-old girl disappears on Ellery’s watch, the troubling case opens deep wounds that never fully healed. Chloe Lockhart walked away from a busy street fair and vanished into the crowd. Maybe she was fleeing the suffocating surveillance her parents put on her from the time she was born, or maybe the evil from her parents’ past finally caught up to her. For Chloe, as Ellery learns, is not the first child Teresa Lockhart has lost.

The highest power in the country has made Evan Smoak a tempting offer --- in exchange for an unofficial pardon, he must stop his clandestine activities as The Nowhere Man. But then he gets a call for help from a woman claiming to have given him up for adoption. Her unlikely request: help Andrew Duran, a man whose life has gone off the rails and who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, bringing him to the deadly attention of very powerful figures. Now a brutal brother and sister assassination team are after him. With no one to turn to, and no safe place to hide, Evan is Duran’s only option. But when the hidden cabal catches on to what Evan is doing, everything he has fought for is on the line --- including his own life.

John Quincannon’s pursuit of two con men who have absconded to Hawaii with a considerable sum of his employer’s assets dovetails nicely with Sabina Carpenter’s vision of a second honeymoon. But neither is wont to stay out of trouble, and Sabina inadvertently becomes involved in a locked room/dying message murder in Honolulu.

Eve has left her 30-year career to become a Free Spirit; Sally has waved goodbye to her indifferent husband and two grown-up children; and Anastasia, a defiantly independent narrowboat-dweller is suddenly landlocked and vulnerable. Before they quite know what they’ve done, Sally and Eve agree to drive Anastasia’s narrowboat on a journey through the canals of England, as she awaits a life-saving operation. As they glide through the countryside, the eccentricities and challenges of narrowboat life draw them inexorably together, and a tender and unforgettable story unfolds. At summer’s end, all three women must decide whether to return to the lives they left behind, or forge a new path forward.

It's lady's maid Louisa Cannon's wedding day, but the fantasy is shattered shortly after when she is approached by a secretive man asking her to spy on Diana Mitford --- who is having an affair with the infamous Oswald Mosley --- and her sister, Unity. Thus, as summer 1933 dawns, Louisa finds herself accompanying the Mitfords on a glitzy cruise, full of the starriest members of Society. But the waters run red when a man is found attacked. Back in London, the case is taken by lawyer Tom Mitford, and Louisa finds herself caught between worlds: of a love lost, a family divided and a country caught in conflict.

The day her doctor says the one word that no one wants to hear, Amy Bergstrom discovers a secret that her husband of 25 years has been keeping from her. Now that the months of treatment and surgeries are behind her, she seeks healing, peace and clarity in an ancient forest. After dropping off his daughter at Amy’s Aunt Rae’s horse ranch, Officer Paul Bergstrom visits the fixer-upper he had bought years ago as a place to retire with his family and lovingly repairs it. Witnessing her mother’s health crisis had been terrifying enough, but learning the cause was genetic leaves Carly with the sense that all of her dreams are pointless. With the help of her eccentric great aunt and a Clydesdale named T. Rex, Carly just may find her faith in her future again.

When it comes to Christmas, Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL is second only to the nativity story itself in terms of how many people know it and revisit it each year as part of their family traditions. In KEEPING CHRISTMAS, novelist and Dickens enthusiast Allison Pittman offers 25 readings for Advent, seamlessly bringing together the Word of God and the words of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Just as Jesus Christ changed the world on the night of his birth, so Ebenezer Scrooge changes during a single night of supernatural visitations. This contemplative, entertaining read is the perfect companion for those dark winter nights as we eagerly anticipate the coming celebration of Christmas when, like Scrooge, we are given the gift of reflection, repentance and life anew.

Eleven-year-old Kiwi Seager knows two things: She will be going to hell someday, and, worse, her mother can no longer love her. Kiwi has done something no mother could ever forgive, something that has forced this mother and daughter to flee their California home...and to accept the help of strangers. Can they run fast enough and far enough to lose the evil following them? Or does new danger await them, wearing the face of a Good Samaritan? Kiwi holds out little hope of a mother and child reunion, but for now being together is better than nothing.

Born to working class parents and the eldest of six children, Gabriel Byrne harbored a childhood desire to become a priest. At 11 years old, he found himself crossing the Irish Sea to join a seminary in England. Four years later, he had been expelled and quickly returned to his native city of Dublin. It was a friend who suggested Byrne join an amateur drama group, a decision that would change his life forever and launch him on an extraordinary 40-year career in film and theater. Moving between sensual recollection of childhood in a now almost vanished Ireland and reflections on stardom in Hollywood and Broadway, Byrne also courageously recounts his battle with addiction and the ambivalence of fame.

Sam Easton --- a true survivor --- is home from Afghanistan, trying to rebuild a life in his hometown of LA. Separated from his wife, bartending and therapy sessions are what occupy his days and nights. When friend and colleague Melody Traeger is beaten by her boyfriend, she turns to Sam for help. When the boyfriend turns up dead the next day, a hard case like Sam is the perfect suspect. But LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan, whose brother recently died serving overseas, is sympathetic to Sam's troubles and can't quite see him as a killer. She's more interested in the secrets Melody might be keeping and the developments in another murder case on the other side of town.