Adult

When Eliza Hunt created The Hudson Valley Ladies’ Bulletin Board 15 years ago, she was happily entrenched in her picture-perfect suburban life. Now, with an empty nest and a crippling case of agoraphobia, the once-fun hobby has become her lifeline. So when a rival parenting forum threatens the site’s existence, she doesn’t think twice before fabricating a salacious rumor to spark things up a bit. It doesn’t take long before that spark becomes a flame. Across town, new mom and site devotee Olivia York is thrown into a tailspin by what she reads on the Bulletin Board. Allison Le is making cyber friends with a woman who isn’t quite who she says she is. And Amanda Cole, Eliza’s childhood friend, may just hold the key to unearthing why Eliza can’t step out of her front door.

These are the stories that defy conventional logic. The proverbial vanished without a trace incidences, which happen a lot more (and a lot closer to your backyard) than almost anyone thinks. These are the missing whose situations are the hardest on loved ones left behind. The cases that are an embarrassment for park superintendents, rangers and law enforcement charged with Search & Rescue. The ones that baffle the volunteers who comb the mountains, woods and badlands. The stories that should give you pause every time you venture outdoors.

Twelve-year-old Miles is one of the last boys alive, and his mother, Cole, will protect him at all costs. On the run after a horrific act of violence --- and pursued by Cole's own ruthless sister, Billie --- all Cole wants is to raise her kid somewhere he won't be preyed on as a reproductive resource or a sex object or a stand-in son. Someplace like home. To get there, Cole and Miles must journey across a changed America in disguise as mother and daughter. From a military base in Seattle to a luxury bunker, from an anarchist commune in Salt Lake City to a roaming cult that's all too ready to see Miles as the answer to their prayers, the two race to stay ahead at every step…even as Billie and her sinister crew draw closer.

Rose and Lily Winters are twins. Like most young women, they’ve struggled with their bodies and food since childhood, and high school finds them turning to food --- or not --- to battle the waves of insecurity and the yearning for popularity. Within a few years, Rose is about to mark her one-year anniversary in a rehabilitation facility for anorexics. Lily is also struggling. A kindergarten teacher, she dates abusive men, including a student’s married father, in search of the close yet complicated companionship she lost when she became separated from Rose. When Lily joins a cult diet group led by a social media faux feminist, whose eating plan consists of consuming questionable non-caloric foods, Rose senses that Lily needs her help.

Arden Maynor was just a child when she was swept away while sleepwalking during a terrifying rainstorm and went missing for days. Against all odds, she was found, alive, clinging to a storm drain. The girl from Widow Hills was a living miracle. Arden’s mother wrote a book, and fame followed. As soon as she was old enough, Arden changed her name and disappeared from the public eye. Now a young woman living hundreds of miles away, she goes by Olivia. But with the 20th anniversary of her rescue approaching, the media will inevitably renew its interest in Arden. Soon Olivia feels like she’s being watched and begins sleepwalking again, like she did long ago, even waking outside her home. Until late one night she jolts awake in her yard. At her feet is the corpse of a man she knows --- from her previous life, as Arden Maynor.

In 1947, photographer and war correspondent Janey Everett arrives at a remote surfing village on the Hawaiian island of Kauai to research a planned biography of forgotten aviation pioneer Sam Mallory, who joined the loyalist forces in the Spanish Civil War and never returned. Obsessed with Sam’s fate, Janey has tracked down Irene Lindquist, the owner of a local island-hopping airline, who she believes might actually be the legendary Irene Foster, Mallory’s onetime student and flying partner. Foster’s disappearance during a round-the-world flight in 1937 remains one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries. At first, the flinty Mrs. Lindquist denies any connection to Foster. But Janey informs her that the wreck of Sam Mallory’s airplane has recently been discovered in a Spanish desert, and piece by piece, the details of Foster’s extraordinary life emerge.

Twelve-year-old Sara enjoyed a G-rated existence in suburban New England, filled with over-the-top birthday cakes, Revolutionary War reenactments, and nerdy word games invented by her prudish father, Ira. But Sara's world changed for the icky when she discovered that Ira had been shielding her from the truth: that he was a campy sex writer who’d sold millions of books in multiple languages. For decades, these books remained an unspoken family secret, until Ira developed early onset Alzheimer's disease…and announced he'd be reviving his writing career. With Sara's help. In her memoir, Sara shares the profound experience of discovering new facets of her father --- once as a child, and again as an adult.

Angela's graduate school days at MIT come to an abrupt end when she uses her hacking skills on another student's computer. Yet her mentor, Eve Abajian, arranges a new beginning for her --- as an intern in the FBI's Boston field office. Her new supervisor, Assistant Special Agent in Charge William Keats, sees in Angela a fellow prodigy. But Angela's skills come with a natural curiosity, which is also a dangerous liability. With little training, Angela is quickly plunged into a tough case: tracking murderous brothers who go by the Poet and the Engineer. When Keats tells her to "watch and listen," Angela's mind kicks into overdrive. The obsessive thinking that earned her A’s on campus can prove fatal in the field.

Ed Edwards is in the used car business. Burdened by an aging, alcoholic mother constantly on his case to do something worthier of his lighter skin tone and dreaming of a brighter future for himself and his plucky little sister, Ed is ready to get out of the game. When Dave, his lazy, grease-stained boss, sends him to repossess a Cadillac, Ed finally gets the chance to escape his miserable life. The Cadillac in question was purchased by Frank Craig and his beautiful wife Nancy, owners of a local drive-in and pet cemetery. Fed up with her deadbeat husband and with unfulfilled desires of her own, Nancy suggests to Ed that they kill Frank and claim his insurance policy. It is a tantalizing offer, but does Ed have what it takes to see the plan through?

After years of city life, Orla and Shaw Bennett are ready for the quiet of New York's Adirondack mountains --- or at least, they think they are. Settling into the perfect farmhouse with their two children, they are both charmed and unsettled by the expanse of their land, the privacy of their individual bedrooms, and the isolation of life a mile from any neighbor. But none of the Bennetts could expect what lies waiting in the woods, where secrets run dark and deep. When something begins to call to the family --- from under the earth, beneath the trees and within their minds --- Orla realizes she might be the only one who can save them…if she can find out what this force wants before it's too late.