Adult

SMALLTIME is a riveting American immigrant story that travels back to Risorgimento Sicily, to the ancient, dusty, hill-town home of Antonino Sciotto, Russell Shorto’s great-grandfather, who leaves his wife and children in grinding poverty for a new life --- and wife --- in a Pennsylvania mining town. It’s a tale of Italian Americans living in squalor and prejudice, and of the rise of Russ, who, like thousands of other young men, created a copy of the American establishment that excluded him. The book draws an intimate portrait of a mobster and his wife, sudden riches, and the toll a lawless life takes on one family. But SMALLTIME is something more. The author enlists his ailing father --- Tony, the mobster’s son --- as his partner in the search for their troubled patriarch.

Polygamist Blake Nelson built a homestead on a hidden stretch of land --- a raw paradise in the wilds of Utah --- where he lived with his three wives: Rachel, the first wife, obedient and doting to a fault, with a past she'd prefer to keep quiet; Tina, the rebel wife, everything Rachel isn't, straight from rehab and the Vegas strip; and Emily, the young wife, naïve and scared, estranged from her Catholic family. The only thing that they had in common was Blake. Until all three are accused of his murder. When Blake is found dead under the desert sun, all three wives become suspect --- not only to the police, but to each other. As the investigation draws them closer, each wife must decide who can be trusted.

When Stanford alerts Seattle's Elliott Bay Academy that it's allotting only one spot to the school for their incoming class, three mothers discover that the competition is more cutthroat than they could have imagined. Tech giant Alicia turns to her fortune and status to fight for her reluctant daughter's place at the top. Kelly, a Stanford alum, leverages her PTA influence and insider knowledge to bulldoze the path for her high-strung daughter. And Maren makes three: single, broke and ill-equipped to battle the elite school community aligning to bring her superstar down. That's when, days before applications are due, one of the girls suffers a near-fatal accident, one that doesn't appear to be an accident at all.

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.