Adult

It’s 5pm on a Wednesday when Emma settles into her hometown bar with a motley crew of locals, all unaware that a series of decisions over the course of a single night is about to change their lives forever. As the evening unfolds, key details about Emma’s history emerge, and the past comes bearing down on her like a freight train. Why has Emma, a powerhouse in the business world, ended up here? What is she running away from? And what is she willing to give up to recapture the love she once cherished?

Four teenage boys are high school seniors at two very different schools within the city of Los Angeles, the second largest school district in the nation with nearly 700,000 students. Blending complex social issues with each individual experience, Jeff Hobbs takes us deep inside these boys’ worlds. The foursome includes Carlos, the younger son of undocumented delivery workers, who aims to follow in his older brother’s footsteps and attend an Ivy League college; Tio harbors serious ambitions to become an engineer, despite a father who doesn’t believe in him; Jon struggles to put distance between himself and his mother, who is suffocating him with her own expectations; and Owen, raised in a wealthy family, can’t get serious about academics but knows he must.

The Shondell and Balangie families are longtime enemies in the New Iberia criminal underworld and show each other no mercy. Yet their youngest heirs, Johnny Shondell and Isolde Balangie, have fallen in love and run away after Isolde was given as a sex slave to Johnny’s uncle. As he seeks to uncover why, Detective Dave Robicheaux gets too close to both Isolde’s mother and the mistress of her father, a venomous New Orleans mafioso whose jealousy has no bounds. In retribution, he hires a mysterious assassin to go after Robicheaux and his longtime partner, Clete Purcel. In order to defeat the hitman and rescue Johnny and Isolde, Robicheaux will have to overcome the demons that have tormented him throughout his adult life.

When Fern Douglas sees the news about Astrid Sullivan, a 34-year-old missing woman from Maine, she is positive that she knows her. And when Astrid appears in Fern’s recurring nightmare --- one in which a girl reaches out to her, pleading --- Fern fears that it’s not a dream at all, but a memory. Returning to her childhood home to help her father pack for a move, Fern purchases a copy of Astrid’s recently published memoir and discovers more evidence that she has an unsettling connection to the missing woman. With the help of her psychologist father, Fern digs deeper, hoping to find evidence that her connection to Astrid can help the police locate her. But when Fern discovers more about her own past than she ever bargained for, the disturbing truth will change both of their lives forever.

Yorkshire, 1843: Lydia Robinson has tragically lost her precious young daughter and her mother within the same year. She returns to her bleak home, grief-stricken and unmoored. All of that changes with the arrival of her son’s tutor, Branwell Brontë, brother of her daughters’ governess, Miss Anne Brontë, and those other writerly sisters, Charlotte and Emily. Branwell has his own demons to contend with --- including living up to the ideals of his intelligent family --- but his presence is a breath of fresh air for Lydia. A love of poetry, music and theater bring mistress and tutor together, and Branwell’s colorful tales of his sisters’ imaginative worlds form the backdrop for seduction. But their new passion comes with consequences.

Just days after the United States decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. But even before the surrender, the U.S. government and military had begun a secret propaganda and information suppression campaign to hide the devastating nature of these experimental weapons. The cover-up intensified as Occupation forces closed the atomic cities to Allied reporters, preventing leaks about the horrific long-term effects of radiation that would kill thousands during the months after the blast. For nearly a year the cover-up worked --- until New Yorker journalist John Hersey got into Hiroshima and managed to report the truth to the world.

While in San Quentin, serving a sentence for armed robbery, Jarvis Jay Masters was set up for the murder of a guard --- a conviction that landed him on death row, where he’s been since 1990. At the time of his murder trial, he was held in solitary confinement, torn by rage and anxiety, felled by headaches, seizures and panic attacks. A criminal investigator repeatedly offered to teach him breathing exercises, which he initially refused --- but then desperation caused him to change his mind. David Sheff describes Masters’ gradual but profound transformation from a man dedicated to hurting others to one who has prevented violence on the prison yard, counseled high school kids by mail, and helped prisoners --- and even guards --- find meaning in their lives.

Danny has become a single father to 11-year-old Will --- who hasn’t spoken since the death of his mother in a car crash a year earlier --- and has just been fired from his construction job. To make matters worse, he’s behind on the rent and his nasty landlord is threatening to break his legs if he doesn’t pay soon. After observing local street performers in a nearby park, Danny spends his last few dollars on a tattered panda costume, impulsively deciding to become a dancing bear. While performing one day, Danny spots his son in the park and chases off the older boys who are taunting him. Will opens up for the first time since his mother’s death, unaware that the man in the panda costume is his father.

Dr. Margo Dunlop’s adoptive mom just passed away, and she can't begin to empty the house --- or, it seems, get her brother on the phone. Not to mention she's newly single, secretly pregnant and worried about her best friend's dangerous relationship. In an effort to cheer herself up, she goes in search of her birth mother. Instead she finds Nikki, her mother's sister. Aunt Nikki isn't what Margo expects, and she brings upsetting news: Margo's mother is dead. Worse, she was murdered years ago, and her killer is still at large --- and sending Nikki threatening letters. Then Margo receives a letter, too. Someone out there has been waiting and watching, and in Margo sees the spitting image of her mother.

When a body washes up outside Deception Cove, Washington, Jess Winslow --- once a U.S. Marine, now a trainee sheriff's deputy --- is assigned to investigate. But when she realizes it's "Bad" Brock Boyd, a hometown celebrity lately fallen from grace, things become complicated. The last person seen with Boyd was her own boyfriend, Mason Burke. An ex-convict and newcomer in town, Mason is one of the only people who can understand Jess' haunting memories of her time in Afghanistan --- and her love for Lucy, her devoted service dog. However, as the facts of the case point ever more squarely at Mason, Jess must face that everything she thinks she knows about him might be wrong.