Adult

When Kat Jamison retreats to the Blue Ridge Mountains, she's counting on peace and solitude to help her make a difficult decision. Her breast cancer has returned, but after the death of her husband, her will to fight is dampened. Now she has a choice to make: face yet another round of chemotherapy or surrender gracefully. Self-reflection quickly proves impossible as her getaway is complicated by a pair of abandoned dogs and two friendly children staying nearby, Lily and Nirav. But when lightning ignites a deadly wildfire, Kat's cabin is cut off from the rest of the camp, separating Lily and Nirav from their parents. Left with no choice, Kat, the children and the dogs must flee on foot through the drought-stricken forest, away from the ravenous flames.

Lizzie works in the library of a university where she was once a promising graduate student. Her side hustle is answering the letters that come in to "Hell and High Water," the doom-laden podcast hosted by her former mentor. At first it suits her, this chance to practice her other calling as an unofficial shrink --- she has always played this role to her divorced mother and brother recovering from addiction --- but soon Lizzie finds herself struggling to strike the obligatory note of hope in her responses. The reassuring rhythms of her life as a wife and mother begin to falter as her obsession with disaster psychology and people preparing for the end of the world grows.

Beginning where most biographies of George Washington leave off, WASHINGTON'S END opens with the first president exiting office after eight years and entering what would become the most bewildering stage of his life. Embittered by partisan criticism and eager to return to his farm, Washington assumed a role for which there was no precedent at a time when the kings across the ocean yielded their crowns only upon losing their heads. In a different sense, Washington would lose his head, too. Popular historian and former White House speechwriter Jonathan Horn reveals that the quest to surrender power proved more difficult than Washington imagined and brought his life to an end he never expected.

Berlin, 1938. Groundbreaking physicist Dr. Hannah Weiss is on the verge of the greatest discovery of the 20th century: splitting the atom. She believes the weapon's creation will secure an end to future wars, but as a Jewish woman living under the harsh rule of the Third Reich, her research is belittled, overlooked and eventually stolen by her German colleagues. New Mexico, 1945. Someone in the top-secret nuclear lab at Los Alamos has been leaking encoded equations to Hitler's scientists. Chief among Major Jack Delaney’s suspects is Hannah Weiss, an exiled physicist lending her talent to J. Robert Oppenheimer's mission. All signs point to Hannah as the traitor, but over three days of interrogation, Jack will realize they have more in common than either one bargained for.

Judah is an orphaned girl with a secret gift, born at the gates of Highfall castle. Raised alongside Gavin, heir to Lord Elban's empire, the two share an extrasensory bond --- one that is key to Judah's survival and her possible undoing. Elban --- as mighty as he is cruel --- plans to use Judah as a pawn to amass greater control. He will stop at nothing to get what he wants. But beyond the castle walls, a magus, a healer with his own powerful force, has arrived from the provinces. He, too, has designs on the realm, and at the heart of his plans lies Judah. The girl who started life with no name and no history will soon discover her own strength. Intriguingly, she does not have to be given power: she can just take it.

Baja California, 1979. Viridiana spends her days watching the dead sharks piled beside the seashore, as the fishermen pull their nets. Her head is filled with dreams of Hollywood films, of romance, of a future beyond the drab town where her only option is to marry and have children. Three wealthy American tourists arrive for the summer, and Viridiana is magnetized. She immediately becomes entwined in the glamorous foreigners’ lives. When one of them dies, Viridiana lies to protect her friends. Soon enough, someone is asking questions, and Viridiana has some of her own about the identity of her new acquaintances. Sharks may be dangerous, but there are worse predators nearby, ready to devour a naïve young woman who is quickly being tangled in a web of deceit.

What if you knew how and when you will die? Csorwe does --- she will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice. But on the day of her foretold death, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Leave with him, and live. Turn away from her destiny and her god to become a thief, a spy, an assassin --- the wizard's loyal sword. Topple an empire, and help him reclaim his seat of power. But Csorwe will soon learn that gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.

Marine biologist and former government agent Doc Ford is sure he's beyond the point of being surprised by his longtime pal Tomlinson's madcap tales of his misspent youth. But he's stunned anew when avowed bachelor Tomlinson reveals that as a younger man strapped for cash, he'd unwittingly fathered multiple children via for-profit sperm bank donations. Thanks to genealogy websites, Tomlinson's now-grown offspring have tracked him down, seeking answers about their roots --- but Doc quickly grows suspicious that one of them might be planning something far more nefarious than a family reunion. With recent history on his mind, Doc is unsurprised when his own dicey past is called into question.

Vietnam, 1963. A female Viet Cong assassin is trawling the boulevards of Saigon, catching US Army officers off-guard with a single pistol shot, then riding off on the back of a scooter. Although the US military is not officially in combat, 16,000 American servicemen are stationed in Vietnam “advising” the military and government. Among them are Ellsworth Miser and Clovis Robeson, two army investigators who have been tasked with tracking down the daring killer.

Criminal psychologist Seonkyeong receives an unexpected call one day. Yi Byeongdo, a serial killer whose gruesome murders shook the world, wants to be interviewed. Refusing to speak to anyone until now, he asks specifically for her. Seonkyeong agrees out of curiosity. That same day, Hayeong, her husband’s 11-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, shows up at their door after her grandparents, with whom she lived after her mother passed away, die in a sudden fire. Seonkyeong wants her to feel at home, but is gradually unnerved as the young girl says very little and acts strangely. At work and at home, Seonkyeong starts to unravel the pasts of the two new arrivals in her life and begins to see startling similarities.