Adult

It is 2059, and the world has crashed. Forty years ago, a solar catastrophe began to slow the planet's rotation to a stop. Now, one-half of the globe is permanently sunlit, the other half trapped in an endless night. The United States has colonized the southern half of Great Britain, lucky enough to find itself in the narrow habitable region left between frozen darkness and scorching sunlight. Ellen Hopper is a scientist who wants nothing more to do with her country after its slide into casual violence and brutal authoritarianism. Yet when two government officials arrive, demanding she return to London to see her dying college mentor, she accepts --- and begins to unravel a secret that threatens not only the nation's fragile balance, but the future of the whole human race.

Following a rancorous split from New York’s upper-class society, newly divorced Wendy Hamill and her three sons are exiled from the East Coast elite circle. Wendy’s middle son, Kirk, is eight when she moves the family to her native Bermuda, leaving the three young boys to fend for themselves as she chases after the highs of her old life: alcohol, a wealthy new suitor and other indulgences. After eventually leaving his mother’s dysfunctional orbit for college in New Orleans, Kirk begins to realize how different his family and upbringing is from that of his friends and peers. Split between extreme privilege and bare survival, Kirk is used to keeping up appearances and burying his inconvenient truths from the world, until he’s 18 and falls in love for the first time.

It’s late 2016 when Ariel discovers that her mother Mona’s animal sanctuary in Western Kansas has not only been the target of anti-Semitic hate crimes, but that it’s also for sale, due to hidden financial ruin. Estranged from her mother for six years, Ariel knows she has to return to her childhood home --- especially since her own past may have played a role in the attack on the sanctuary. Ariel expects tension, maybe even fury, but she doesn’t anticipate that her first love, a ranch hand named Gideon, will still be working at the Bright Side. Meanwhile, Ariel’s charming but hapless fiancé, Dex, grows paranoid about her sudden departure. After uncovering Mona’s address, he sets out to confront Ariel, but instead finds her grappling with the life she’s abandoned.

Wendy Doe is a woman with no past and no future. Without any memory of who she is, she’s diagnosed with dissociative fugue, a temporary amnesia that could lift at any moment --- or never at all --- and invited by Dr. Benjamin Strauss to submit herself for experimental observation at his Meadowlark Institute for Memory Research. With few better options, Wendy feels she has no choice. To Dr. Strauss, Wendy is a female body, subject to his investigation and control. To Strauss’ ambitious student, Lizzie Epstein, she’s an object of fascination, a mirror of Lizzie’s own desires, and an invitation to wonder: Once a woman is untethered from all past and present obligations of womanhood, who is she allowed to become?

Jenny McLaine’s life is falling apart. Her friendships are flagging. Her body has failed her. She’s just lost her column at The Foof because she isn’t the fierce voice new feminism needs. Her ex has gotten together with another woman. And worst of all: Jenny’s mother is about to move in. Having left home at 18 to remake herself as a self-sufficient millennial, Jenny is now in her 30s, and nothing is as she thought it would be. Least of all adulthood. Told in live-wire prose, texts, emails, script dialogue and social media messages, GROWN UPS is a neurotic dramedy of 21st-century manners for the digital age.

A retired widow in rural Connecticut wakes to an unexpected visit from her childhood best friend whom she hasn’t seen in 49 years. A man arrives at a Pennsylvania hotel to introduce his estranged father to his newborn daughter and finds him collapsed on the floor of the lobby. A 67-year-old taxi driver in Kauai receives a phone call from the mainland that jars her back to a traumatic past. These seemingly disconnected lives come together as half-century-old secrets begin to surface. It is in this moment that Bill Clegg reminds us how choices --- to connect, to betray, to protect --- become our legacy.

The women in black, so named for the black frocks they wear while working at an upscale department store called Goode’s, are run off their feet selling ladies’ cocktail dresses during the busy season. But in Sydney in the 1950s, there’s always time to pursue other goals. By the time the last marked-down dress has been sold, all of their lives will be forever changed in Madeleine St John’s debut novel, which is perfect for fans of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”

Seven years after her husband's death --- six since she read his final letter --- Holly Kennedy has moved on with her life. When Holly's sister asks her to tell the story of the "PS, I Love You" letters on her podcast --- to revisit the messages Gerry wrote before his death to read after his passing --- she does so reluctantly, not wanting to reopen old wounds. But after the episode airs, people start reaching out to Holly, and they all have one thing in common: they are terminally ill and want to leave their own missives behind for loved ones. Suddenly, Holly finds herself drawn back into a world she's worked tirelessly to leave behind --- but one that leads her on another incredible, life-affirming journey.

January 1905: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson are summoned by Holmes' brother, Mycroft, to undertake a clandestine investigation. An agent of the British Secret Service has been found floating in the Thames, carrying a manuscript smuggled into England at the cost of her life. The pages purport to be the minutes of a meeting of a secret group intent on nothing less than taking over the world. Based on real events, the adventure takes the famed duo --- in the company of a bewitching woman --- aboard the Orient Express from Paris into the heart of Tsarist Russia, where Holmes and Watson attempt to trace the origins of this explosive document. On their heels are desperate men of unknown allegiance, determined to prevent them from achieving their task.

New York, present day: Juno Lambert buys a 1931 Underwood typewriter that once belonged to celebrated journalist Cordelia Capel. Within its case, she discovers an unfinished novel, igniting a transatlantic journey to fill the gaps in the story of Cordelia and her sister and the secret that lies between them. Europe, 1936: Cordelia’s socialite sister, Irene, marries a German industrialist who whisks her away to Berlin. The sisters exchange letters, and Cordelia discovers that Irene’s husband is a Nazi sympathizer. As life in Nazi Germany darkens, Irene no longer dares admit what her existence is truly like. Knowing that their letters cannot tell the whole story, Cordelia decides to fill in the blanks by sitting down with her Underwood and writing the truth.