Adult

Twelve-year-old Sara enjoyed a G-rated existence in suburban New England, filled with over-the-top birthday cakes, Revolutionary War reenactments, and nerdy word games invented by her prudish father, Ira. But Sara's world changed for the icky when she discovered that Ira had been shielding her from the truth: that he was a campy sex writer who’d sold millions of books in multiple languages. For decades, these books remained an unspoken family secret, until Ira developed early onset Alzheimer's disease…and announced he'd be reviving his writing career. With Sara's help. In her memoir, Sara shares the profound experience of discovering new facets of her father --- once as a child, and again as an adult.

Angela's graduate school days at MIT come to an abrupt end when she uses her hacking skills on another student's computer. Yet her mentor, Eve Abajian, arranges a new beginning for her --- as an intern in the FBI's Boston field office. Her new supervisor, Assistant Special Agent in Charge William Keats, sees in Angela a fellow prodigy. But Angela's skills come with a natural curiosity, which is also a dangerous liability. With little training, Angela is quickly plunged into a tough case: tracking murderous brothers who go by the Poet and the Engineer. When Keats tells her to "watch and listen," Angela's mind kicks into overdrive. The obsessive thinking that earned her A’s on campus can prove fatal in the field.

Ed Edwards is in the used car business. Burdened by an aging, alcoholic mother constantly on his case to do something worthier of his lighter skin tone and dreaming of a brighter future for himself and his plucky little sister, Ed is ready to get out of the game. When Dave, his lazy, grease-stained boss, sends him to repossess a Cadillac, Ed finally gets the chance to escape his miserable life. The Cadillac in question was purchased by Frank Craig and his beautiful wife Nancy, owners of a local drive-in and pet cemetery. Fed up with her deadbeat husband and with unfulfilled desires of her own, Nancy suggests to Ed that they kill Frank and claim his insurance policy. It is a tantalizing offer, but does Ed have what it takes to see the plan through?

After years of city life, Orla and Shaw Bennett are ready for the quiet of New York's Adirondack mountains --- or at least, they think they are. Settling into the perfect farmhouse with their two children, they are both charmed and unsettled by the expanse of their land, the privacy of their individual bedrooms, and the isolation of life a mile from any neighbor. But none of the Bennetts could expect what lies waiting in the woods, where secrets run dark and deep. When something begins to call to the family --- from under the earth, beneath the trees and within their minds --- Orla realizes she might be the only one who can save them…if she can find out what this force wants before it's too late.

In the wealthy Austin suburb of Lakehaven, the body of Danielle Roberts is discovered on a park bench. Danielle was an adoption consultant who delivered the joy of parenthood to a number of local families. Perhaps no other family is as crushed as the Pollitts, and her death becomes the catalyst for a maelstrom of suspicion and intrigue. You have been told a huge lie, an anonymous email charges the son, Grant. No one can learn the truth now, thinks the father, Kyle. Never ask me what I'd do to protect my family, resolves the wife, Iris. I'll do whatever it takes to save him, vows the daughter, Julia, of Danielle's grieving teenage son. When each begins to suspect the others of the unimaginable, the strength of their bonds will be tested in extraordinary new ways.

The 11 stories in LAST ONE OUT SHUT OFF THE LIGHTS feature characters struggling to find a foothold in a world that is forever washing out from under them, people who must reckon with their ambivalence about belonging to a place so continually in flux. We meet a reluctant teenage mother who stows her baby in a closet to steal a night out; a spiteful retiree who sabotages his neighbor in the wake of a hurricane; a Pentecostal singer in a children's theater company who confronts the cultish leader of her troupe; a community of elderly Cajuns who conspire with a family of Sudanese immigrants to hide an escaped cow from the authorities; and a desperate young woman who tries to drag her brother to Mexico for surgery, determined to save his life and her own.

When NOTES ON A SILENCING hit bookstores in the summer of 2020, even amidst a global pandemic, it sent shockwaves through the country. Not only did this intimate investigative memoir usher in a media storm of coverage, it also prompted the elite St. Paul's School to issue a formal apology to the author, Lacy Crawford, for its handling of her report of sexual assault by two fellow students nearly 30 years ago. In this searing book, Crawford tells the story of coming forward during the state investigation of the elite New England prep school decades after her assault, only to find for the first time evidence that corroborated her memories. This revelation launched Crawford on an extraordinary inquiry deep into gender, privilege and power, and the ways that shame and guilt are used to silence victims.

After a scandalous secret turns their fairy-tale wedding into a nightmare, Rebecca "Bex" Porter and her husband, Prince Nicholas, are in self-imposed exile. Cutting themselves off from friends and family, and escaping the world's judgmental eyes, feels like the best way to protect their fragile, all-consuming romance. But when a crisis forces the new Duke and Duchess back to London, the Band-Aid they'd placed over their problems starts to peel at the edges. Now, as old family secrets and new ones threaten to derail her new royal life, Bex has to face the emotional wreckage she and Nick left behind: with the Queen, with the world, and with Nick's brother Freddie, whose sins may not be so easily forgotten --- or forgiven.

Charlie Besson is tense and sweating as he prepares for a wild job interview. His car is idling, like his life, outside the Hollywood mansion of Kathi Kannon, star of stage and screen and People magazine’s Worst Dressed list. She's an actress in need of assistance, and he's adrift and in need of a lifeline. Kathi is an icon, bestselling author and award-winning movie star, most known for her role as Priestess Talara in a blockbuster sci-fi film. She’s also known in another role: Outrageous Hollywood royalty. Charlie gets the job, and his three-year odyssey is filled with late-night shopping sprees, last-minute trips to see the aurora borealis, and an initiation to that most sacred of Hollywood tribes: the personal assistant. But Kathi becomes much more than a boss, and as their friendship grows, Charlie must make a choice.

Stephanie and Patrick are adjusting to life with their colicky twin girls. The babies are a handful, but even as Stephanie struggles with the disorientation of sleep deprivation, there's one thing she's sure of: she has all she ever wanted. Then Erica, a woman from Patrick's past, appears and makes a disturbing accusation. Patrick had always said his first wife's death was an accident, but now Erica claims it was murder. Patrick insists he's innocent, that this is nothing but a blackmail attempt. Still, Erica knows things about Patrick --- things that make Stephanie begin to question her husband. Stephanie isn't sure what, or who, to believe. As Stephanie's trust in Patrick begins to falter, Patrick stands to lose everything. Is Erica the persuasive liar Patrick says she is? Or has Stephanie made a terrible mistake?