Adult

John Bachelor is the saddest kind of spy: not a joe in the field, not even a desk jockey, but a milkman --- a part-time pension administrator whose main job is to check in on aging retired spies. Late in his career and having lost his wife, his house and his savings after a series of unlucky choices, John has been living in a dead man's London apartment, hoping the bureaucracy isn't going to catch up with him and leave him homeless. But keeping a secret among spies is a fool's errand, and now John has made himself eminently blackmailable.

In Stockholm's Woodland Cemetery, Christoph tells Lena his story, which is also somehow hers. Twenty years before, he loved a woman named Magdalena --- an actress like Lena, with her looks, her personality, her past. Their breakup inspired him to write his first novel, about the time they were together, and in its scenes Lena recognizes the uncanny, intimate details of her own relationship with an aspiring writer, Chris. Is it possible that she and Chris are living the same lives as Magdalena and Christoph two decades apart? Are they headed towards the same scripted separation? Or, in the fever of writing, has Christoph lost track of what is real and what is imagined?

Piper Manning raised her siblings, and they’ve thankfully flown the coop. All she has to do is finish fixing up the lake house her grandparents left her, sell it and then she’s free. When a massive storm hits, she runs into a tall, dark and brooding stranger, Camden Reid. There’s a spark there, one that shocks her. Surprising her further, her sister and brother return, each of them holding their own secrets. The smart move would be for Piper to ignore them all, but Cam unleashes emotions deep inside of her that she can’t deny. And her siblings…well, they need each other. Only when the secrets come out, it changes everything Piper thinks she knows about her family, herself…and Cam.

One evening as the sun is setting, Amelia Madison's car slides into the sea off Mason's Pier. Her body is never found. Two years later, Elena Langdon meets Nicholas Madison. She is grieving the loss of her mother, he is grieving for his wife. Together they can help each other. Now Elena is living with Nicholas. But Elena doesn't really know him. She doesn't know what he's capable of. And she doesn't know what really happened to Amelia. Until the day she discovers the torn page of a letter, and the words she reads chill her to the bone. Elena must find the person who wrote these letters if she is to save herself.

It’s December 1896, and after marrying a muckraking reporter, detective Mary Handley turns her focus from pursuing new cases to raising her newborn daughter. But when her husband turns up dead, Mary knows her next case must be solving his death. Harper was working on a big story. Did it get him killed? She sets out to solve his murder, soon discovering that the investigation goes all the way to the top of the New York food chain. Realizing she’s outgunned, Mary turns to the one person who might be able to help: Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt. As the two dig deep into the underbelly of New York’s social scene, they uncover a sinister plot exploiting the city’s most vulnerable citizens.

Thomas Martin was a devoted family man who had all the trappings of an enviable life: a beautiful wife and daughter, a well-appointed home on Long Island's north shore, a job at a prestigious Manhattan advertising firm. He was also a devoted son and brother, shielding the women in his orbit from the everyday brutalities of the world. But what happens when Thomas’ fragile ego is rocked? After committing a horrific deed --- that he can never undo --- Thomas grapples with his sense of self. Sometimes he casts himself as a victim and, at other times, a monster. All he ever did was try to be a good man, but maybe if he tells his version of the story, he might uncover how and why things unraveled so horribly.

When Ada Calhoun found herself in the throes of a midlife crisis, she thought that she had no right to complain. She was married with children and had a good career. So why did she feel miserable? And why did it seem that other Generation X women were miserable, too? Calhoun decided to find some answers. At every turn, she saw a pattern: sandwiched between the Boomers and the Millennials, Gen X women were facing new problems as they entered middle age, problems that were being largely overlooked. In WHY WE CAN’T SLEEP, Calhoun opens up the cultural and political contexts of Gen X’s predicament and offers solutions for how to pull oneself out of the abyss --- and keep the next generation of women from falling in.

In Europe, the Americans are pulling out their troops in a tide of isolationism. Britain, torn between loyalties to America and the continent, is caught in the middle. In America, a space shuttle crashes on landing, killing all but one of the crew on-board: a British citizen named Mike Dreyfuss, who will become vilified by the US press and protesters. Halfway across the world, at English ground control headquarters, Martin Hepton watches with dismay as they lose contact with the most advanced satellite in Europe. A colleague of Hepton's who suspects something strange is going on disappears. Hepton realizes there is much more at stake than anyone knows --- and many more people on their trail than they can possibly evade.

It's February 1852, and all around Chicago, Maggie sees postings soliciting "eligible women" to travel to the gold mines of Goosetown. A young seamstress with a small daughter, she has nothing to lose. She joins 43 other women and two pious reverends on the dangerous 2,000-mile journey west. None are prepared for the hardships they face on the trek or for the strengths they didn't know they possessed. Maggie discovers she’s not the only one looking to leave dark secrets behind. And when her past catches up with her, it becomes clear a band of sisters will do whatever it takes to protect one of their own.

The Pine Creek Motel has seen better days. Henny would call it charming, but she's always seen the best in things. Like now, when she's just met an untimely end crossing the road. She's not going to let a tiny thing like death stop her from living fully --- not when her friends and family need her the most. After the funeral is over, her body is buried, and the last casserole dish is empty, Henny is still around. She's not sure why, but she realizes she has one last opportunity to help her friends discover the happiness they once knew before they lose the motel and cabins they've cherished for years.