Adult

In 1968, two young Vietnamese sisters flee to Saigon after their village on the Mekong River is attacked by American forces and burned to the ground. The only survivors of the brutal massacre that killed their family, the sisters struggle to survive but become estranged, separated by sharply different choices and ideologies. Mai ekes out a living as a GI bar girl, but Tam’s anger festers, and she heads into jungle terrain to fight with the Viet Cong. For nearly 10 years, neither sister knows if the other is alive. Do they both survive the war? And if they do, can they mend their fractured relationship? Or are the wounds from their journeys too deep to heal?

The summer of 1960 was the hottest ever for Summit, Wisconsin. But for Frankie, Viv and Biz, 11-year-old best friends, it would forever be remembered as the summer that evil paid a visit to their small town. With a to-do list in hand, the girls set forth from their hideout to make their mark on that summer, but when three patients escape from Broadhurst Mental Institution, their idyllic lives take a sinister turn. Determined to uncover long-held secrets, the girls have no idea that what they discover could cost them their lives and the ones they hold dear. Six decades later, Biz, now a bestselling novelist, remembers that long-ago summer and how it still haunts her and her lifelong friend.

Remarkably, no carefully researched popular history of the Great Chicago Fire has been written until now, despite it being one of the most cataclysmic disasters in U.S. history. Building the story around memorable characters, both known to history and unknown, including the likes of General Philip Sheridan and Robert Todd Lincoln, eminent Chicago historian Carl Smith chronicles the city’s rapid growth and place in America’s post-Civil War expansion. The dramatic story of the fire --- revealing human nature in all its guises --- became one of equally remarkable renewal, as Chicago quickly rose back up from the ashes thanks to local determination and the world’s generosity and faith in Chicago’s future.

Gabriel Mathis, a 23-year-old aspiring fantasy writer and reluctant Russophile, travels to Ukraine to teach English and meets the love of his life: an international arms dealer very much out of his league. Simon --- a former Special Forces medic, torn over a warped sense of duty and a child he did not want --- returns to the US to pursue his dream of becoming a mixed martial artist. After spending his adolescence defending his bisexuality, Michael makes his mark in New York’s fashion industry while nursing resentment for a community that never accepted him. Dewaine Farria traces the lives of brothers Michael and Gabriel and their friend Simon from adolescence to their mid-20s, through Oklahoma, Afghanistan, New York, Somalia, Ukraine and New Orleans.

In December 1926, Agatha Christie goes missing. Investigators find her empty car on the edge of a deep, gloomy pond, the only clues some tire tracks nearby and a fur coat left in the car --- strange for a frigid night. Her World War I veteran husband and her daughter have no knowledge of her whereabouts, and England unleashes an unprecedented manhunt to find the up-and-coming mystery author. Eleven days later, she reappears, just as mysteriously as she disappeared, claiming amnesia and providing no explanations for her time away. The puzzle of those missing 11 days has persisted. Acclaimed author Marie Benedict brings us into the world of Agatha Christie, imagining why such a brilliant woman would find herself at the center of such murky historical mysteries.

Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby's periphery, he was at the center of a very different story --- one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I. Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed firsthand, Nick delays his return home, hoping to escape the questions he cannot answer about the horrors of war. Instead, he embarks on a transcontinental redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance --- doomed from the very beginning --- to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans, rife with its own flavor of debauchery and violence.

Duchess Day Radley is a 13-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids. Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother. Now, 30 years later, Vincent is being released. And Duchess and Walk must face the trouble that comes with his return.

In this irresistible collection of wide-ranging and endearingly personal columns culled from his best-loved pieces in Southern Living and Garden & Gun, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Rick Bragg muses on everything from his love of Tupperware to the decline of country music; from the legacy of Harper Lee to the metamorphosis of the pickup truck; and from the best way to kill fire ants to why any self-respecting Southern man worth his salt should carry a good knife. WHERE I COME FROM celebrates “a litany of great talkers, blue-green waters, deep casseroles, kitchen-sink permanents, lying fishermen, haunted mansions, and dogs that never die, things that make this place more than a dotted line on a map or a long-ago failed rebellion, even if only in some cold-weather dream.”

Accountant Anthony Costello has a talent for manipulating both numbers and people, turning losses into profits, enemies into allies --- and vice versa. When Costello is found murdered in his own home, three suspects had motive. All three had access to his home. And all three women are missing. Are they in the wind --- or in the grave? Eyes are on Detective Sean Walsh, whose personal connection to the case is stronger than leads to solve it. Neither the powerful bankroll behind Costello nor Walsh's vengeful superior officer can budge the investigation, yet as Walsh continues to dig, he uncovers even more reasons the women have to stay hidden --- from the law, and from each other.

With a wealth of never-before-accessed materials, Heather Clark brings to life the brilliant Sylvia Plath, who had precocious poetic ambition and was an accomplished published writer --- even before she became a star at Smith College. Refusing to read Plath’s work as if her every act was a harbinger of her tragic fate, Clark considers the sociopolitical context as she thoroughly explores Plath’s world: her early relationships and determination not to become a conventional woman and wife; her troubles with an unenlightened mental health industry; her Cambridge years and thunderclap meeting with Ted Hughes; and much more.