Adult

Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm. But dark forces are at work in the bayou, both human and supernatural, conspiring to disrupt the rhythms of Miranda’s peculiar and precarious life. And when the preacher makes an unthinkable demand, it sets Miranda on a desperate, dangerous path, forcing her to consider what she is willing to sacrifice to keep her loved ones safe.

Aidan Poole logs on to his laptop late at night to Skype his girlfriend, Zoe. To his horror, he realizes that there is someone else in her flat. Aidan can only listen to the sounds of a violent struggle taking place in the bathroom --- and then the sound of silence. When Aidan’s cryptic messages finally reach the police, Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens and his team take the case --- and discover the body. They soon find that no one has a bad word to say about Zoe, a bighearted young artist at the center of a curious web of waifs and strays, each relying on her for support, each hiding dark secrets and buried resentments. Has one of her so-called “friends” been driven to murder? Or does Aidan have the biggest secret of them all?

The seven precious relics of the Arma Christi, the weapons of Christ, are disappearing from sanctuaries across the globe. After former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone witnesses the theft of one of them, he learns from his old boss, Stephanie Nelle, that a private auction is about to be held where incriminating information on the president of Poland will be offered to the highest bidder. The price of admission to that auction is one of the relics, so Malone is first sent to a castle in Poland to steal the Holy Lance, a thousand-year-old spear sacred not only to Christians but to the Polish people, and then on to the auction itself. But nothing goes as planned, and Malone is thrust into a bloody battle among three nations over information that, if exposed, could change the balance of power in Europe.

Admiral Chester Nimitz spoke of the “uncommon valor” of the men who fought on Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest and most brutal battles of World War II. In 36 grueling days, nearly 7,000 Marines were killed and 22,000 were wounded. Martha MacCallum takes us from Pearl Harbor to Iwo Jima through the lives of these men of valor, among them Harry Gray, a member of her own family. In UNKNOWN VALOR, she weaves their stories --- from Boston, Massachusetts, to Gulfport, Mississippi, as told through letters and recollections --- into the larger history of what American military leaders rightly saw as an eventual showdown in the Pacific with Japan.

Leonid McGill has spent a lifetime building up his reputation in the New York investigative scene. His seemingly infallible instinct and inside knowledge of the crime world make him the ideal man to help when Phillip Worry comes knocking. Phillip "Catfish" Worry is a 92-year-old Mississippi bluesman who needs Leonid's help with a simple task: deliver a letter revealing the black lineage of a wealthy heiress and her corrupt father. But when a famed and feared assassin puts a hit on Catfish, Leonid has no choice but to confront the ghost of his own felonious past. Working to protect his client and his own family, Leonid must reach the heiress on the eve of her wedding before her powerful father kills those who hold their family's secret.

It’s bad enough that Annie Mercer’s boss sabotaged her chemistry career, and her best friend tried to cure her with crystals. But after her fiancé, Jon, asks for space while he’s gallivanting around Paris, Annie decides she needs space too --- from everyone. Yet when Harper moves in next door, she can’t help but train a watchful eye on the glamorous but fragile young woman. And if keeping Harper safe requires teaming up with Mo, a maddeningly optimistic amateur detective, who is she to mind her own business? Soon Annie has let not one but two new people into her life. Then Jon reappears --- and he wants her to join him in France. So she must decide: Is another shot at happiness worth the risk?

Growing up in LA, Erin Khar hid behind a picture-perfect childhood filled with excellent grades, a popular group of friends and horseback riding. After first experimenting with her grandmother’s expired painkillers, Khar started using heroin when she was 13. The drug allowed her to escape from pressures to be perfect and suppress all the heavy feelings she couldn’t understand. STRUNG OUT explores how heroin shaped every aspect of her life for the next 15 years and details the various lies she told herself, and others, about her drug use. With enormous heart and wisdom, she shows how the shame and stigma surrounding addiction, which fuels denial and deceit, is so often what keeps addicts from getting help.

On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next 12 months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally --- and willing to fight to the end. In THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless."

Marissa Dahl, a successful film editor, travels to a small island off the coast of Delaware to work with director Tony Rees on a feature film. But she soon discovers that on this set, nothing is as it's supposed to be --- or as it seems. There are rumors of accidents and indiscretions, of burgeoning scandals and perilous schemes. Half the crew has been fired. The other half wants to quit. Even the actors have figured out something is wrong. And no one seems to know what happened to the editor she was hired to replace. Then Marissa meets the teenage girls who are determined to solve the real-life murder that is the movie's central subject, and before long, she is drawn into the investigation herself. The only problem is, the killer may still be on the loose. And he might not be finished.

It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn 19, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens 32 years in the future in her 51-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she’s told is her own, Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. Hopping through decades, pop culture fads and much-needed stock tips, Oona is still a young woman on the inside but ever changing on the outside.