Adult

Criminal defense lawyer Björn Diemel has been given an ultimatum: repair his work-life balance, or his wife will leave him --- and take their daughter. He reluctantly starts a mindfulness course, and to his surprise, it’s a revelation. He becomes calmer, happier, and more focused as he starts to understand what’s really important in life. When his worst client, brutal kingpin Dragan Sergowicz, tries to interfere with his precious family time, Björn will stop at nothing --- not even killing --- to protect his peace.

Spring is in the air, and Sunset Hall is abuzz with anticipation of Bernadette’s upcoming wedding. But not everyone is feeling celebratory. Namely, her best friend, Agnes Sharp, who isn’t a fan of Bernadette’s plan to leave the house share and its residents behind. Nevertheless, Agnes and the not-so-sprightly gang of pensioners launch into wedding-planning mode after a spot opens at the high-class Foxglove Manor --- in just two weeks. Just when they think they have the guest list squared away, a threatening note appears at the house. Agnes and the others decide to handle it themselves, not wanting to cause the betrothed stress. With some assistance from a private investigator, Agnes digs into the case of the poison-pen letter, determined to ensure the wedding goes off without a hitch...aside from the bodies they’ve already had to hide from the bride.

When Audrey and Fraser tumble into a love story for the ages, theirs is an epic, unbreakable romance --- until one tragic moment upends everything. Facing the unimaginable, wrestling with guilt, they’re left haunted by “what ifs.” Would their lives still have imploded if they'd done one little thing differently? Where would they be if events had unfolded the other way around? This powerful, emotional, sliding-doors novel about love, loss, grief, and hope asks if our stories are already written. Are we able to change fate? And is it ever too late to start again?

Rainy March is a proud, third-generation Book Witch. With her magical umbrella and feline familiar, she jumps in and out of novels to fix malicious alterations and rogue heroes like a modern-day magical Nancy Drew. Book Witches live by a strict code: Real people belong in the real world; fictional characters belong in works of fiction. Falling in love with a fictional character? Don’t even think about it. Which is why Rainy has been forbidden from seeing the Duke of Chicago, the dashing British detective who stars in her favorite mystery series. If she’s ever caught with him again, she’ll be expelled from her book coven --- and forced to give up her magical gifts. But when her beloved grandfather disappears, there’s only one person she trusts to help her solve the case: the Duke.

Settle in and take a trip back to Scotland’s favorite fictitious street with Bertie, Irene, Big Lou, newcomer Galactica Macfee and all the rest. Once more, we catch up with the delightful goings-on in 44 Scotland Street. With his singular warmth and charm, Alexander McCall Smith gives us another installment in this popular series, where anything could happen to Bertie and the gang.

In a post-pandemic future where AI has infiltrated daily life, the line between what is real and what is digital has eroded to nothing. Algorithms and robots have replaced everything from the criminal justice system to individual loved ones. As long as she can remember, 10-year-old Kate has felt like someone was watching her. She has been orphaned since the pandemic, her foster parents find her eccentric and off-putting, and her legal guardian is nowhere to be seen. Now, an algorithm has predicted the very worst --- ​within 30 days, Kate will either be killed, or become a killer. When two police officers arrive at her home in Maine, Kate is urged by her trusted AI Interactive Toy (a talking stuffed seal named Zeno) to make an immediate escape. Confused and looking for answers, the girl sets a course for New York City and begins an Orwellian journey into the unknown.

Jayne Anne Phillips grew up in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. The distinctly American landscape of Appalachia --- dense with forests and small churches, rich in history and misunderstandings --- has been the great setting for her fiction, even as she and her boundless imagination have traveled to other times and places. In these pieces, and in her inimitable first-person voice, at once intimate and wide-ranging, Phillips brings us into her childhood and family, most movingly her mother. She traces her journey across the country in search of love and work and belonging --- her discovery of writing and reading as tools for both survival and revelation --- and offers insights into the fellow writers and touchstones that moved and influenced her. Phillips ponders her relationship with inspiration, spirituality, culture and the troubled annals of the last American centuries.

Christmas, 1857. After her abolitionist husband is murdered in the lawless Kansas Territory, Lidie Newton returns, in mourning, to her hometown of Quincy, Illinois. But her sisters have little comfort to offer, and Lidie is haunted by the memories of her failures --- until she takes an interest in her niece, Annie. Beautiful, self-assured and mischievous, Annie becomes an actress at the local theater, and when she is offered the opportunity to perform abroad, she decides to run away. But travel is dangerous for a young unmarried woman, so Lidie, armed with her pistol and her wit, goes with her. The two women embark on a perilous journey across the Atlantic, rushing toward an unknown future in England. Annie takes a stage name and finds her way to a career, while Lidie becomes her ladies' maid. But will either of them be content with her new lot in life?

Twelve years ago, Otta escaped her small town, determined to become a marine biologist. Now she’s returned, carrying the guilt of a friend’s disappearance during a deep-sea dive and unsure she’ll ever be able to dive again. Then a stranger appears at her door. This stranger, May, says that her daughter has run away, and insists that she’s under the nearby lake --- alive. To find the missing girl, Otta and May must travel deeper and deeper beneath the water, confronting webs of fear, control and delusion borne of a rampant nostalgia for a purer world. Along the way, they will also push their bodies to the mortal limit.

The celebration of the 35th wedding anniversary of Russell Calloway’s best friend, Washington Lee --- the least likely monogamist of his acquaintance somehow having become over the years a model husband and father --- at the Odeon in the Spring of 2020 sparks an at once funny and moving autumnal reckoning with mortality as the specter of the COVID-19 virus spreads. In this moment of unprecedented upheaval --- frantic and fraught real-time response, piercing personal and political impact --- the Calloways find themselves and their marriage tested in ways they could never have anticipated as fatal consequences ensue.