Adult

Renowned Scottish cookbook writer Paul Stuart is hard at work on his new book, The Philosophy of Food, but complicated domestic circumstances are making that difficult. So when Paul's eccentric cousin Chloe suggests that he join her at the house she's rented in the French countryside, he jumps at the chance. The two quickly befriend the locals, including their twin-sister landladies, who also own the infamous local restaurant known to be the second-worst eatery in all of France. With all kinds of local drama to deal with, Paul finds it next to impossible to focus on his writing, and that's before he learns that Chloe's past is far more complicated than he'd ever imagined.

Ella is nearing 30, and not yet living the life she imagined. Her artistic ambitions as a student have given way to an unintended career in caregiving. One spring, Bryn --- a retired carpenter --- hires her to help him care for his wife Jill, who was left verbally diminished after a car crash. As Ella is drawn into the couple's household, she finds that this is unlike the other caregiving jobs she’s held. She is profoundly moved by the tenderness Bryn shows toward the wife he still fiercely loves, and is startled by the yearning this awakens in her. She finds herself looking differently at her relationship with her girlfriend, Alix, and questioning what she knows about relationships of all kinds --- between partners, between employer and employee, and above all between men and women.

Katie Manning was a beloved child star until her mid-teens when her manager attacked and permanently scarred her face, effectively ending her career. Now 27, Katie wants a better answer to those clickbait “Where Are They Now?” articles that float around online. It’s an answer she hopes to find when her brother’s too-good-to-be-true fiancée invites her to a wellness retreat upstate. Together with her two best friends, Katie will try to find the inner peace promised at the tranquil retreat. But finding oneself just might drudge up more memories than Katie is prepared to deal with. Each woman has come to the retreat for different reasons. Each has her secrets to hide. And at the end of this weekend, only one will be left standing.

Harry Hole is not in a good place. Rakel --- the only woman he's ever loved --- has ended it with him, permanently. He's been given a chance for a new start with the Oslo Police, but it's in the cold case office. What he really wants is to be investigating cases he suspects have ties to Svein Finne, the serial rapist and murderer who Harry helped put behind bars. And now, Finne is free after a decade-plus in prison --- free and, Harry is certain, unreformed and ready to take up where he left off. But things will get worse. When Harry wakes up the morning after a blackout, drunken night with blood that's clearly not his own on his hands, it's only the very beginning of what will be a waking nightmare the likes of which even he never could have imagined.

Kevin Moore, once a high-flying Virginia attorney, hits rock bottom after a tumultuous summer leaves him disbarred and separated from his wife. Short on cash and looking for work, he lands in the middle of nowhere with a job at SUBstitution, the world’s saddest sandwich shop. His closest confidants: a rambunctious rescue puppy and the 20-year-old computer whiz manning the restaurant counter beside him. Kevin is determined to set his life right again, but the troubles keep coming, including a visit from a mysterious stranger who wanders into the shop armed with a threatening “invitation” to join a multimillion-dollar scam. Before long, Kevin will need every bit of his legal savvy just to stay out of prison.

It’s the murder trial of the century --- and Joshua Kane has killed to get the best seat in the house. He has done everything in his power to make sure the wrong man goes down for the crime. Because this time, the killer isn’t on trial. He’s on the jury. But there’s someone on his tail. Defense lawyer and former conman Eddie Flynn doesn’t believe that his movie-star client killed two people. He suspects that the real killer is closer than they think. But who would guess just how close?

This is a story about two marriages. Or is it? It begins with a wedding, held in the small San Francisco forest of Bottle Grove --- bestowed by a wealthy patron for the public good, back when people did such things. Here is a cross section of lives, a stretch of urban green where ritzy guests, lustful teenagers, drunken revelers and forest creatures all wait for the sun to go down. The girl in the corner slugging vodka from a cough-syrup bottle is Padgett --- she's keeping something secreted in the woods. The couple at the altar are the Nickels --- the bride is emphatic about changing her name, as there is plenty about her old life she is ready to forget.

Ginny Richardson's heart was torn open when her baby girl, Lucy, born with Down Syndrome, was taken from her. Under pressure from his powerful family, her husband, Ab, sent Lucy away to Willowridge, a special school for the “feeble-minded." Ab tried to convince Ginny it was for the best. But two years later, when Ginny's best friend, Marsha, shows her a series of articles exposing Willowridge as a hell-on-earth, she knows she can't leave her daughter there. With Ginny's six-year-old son in tow, Ginny and Marsha drive to the school to see Lucy for themselves. What they find sets their course on a heart-racing journey across state lines --- turning Ginny into a fugitive.

Rachel Klein never meant to kiss her creative writing professor, but with his long eyelashes, his silky hair and the sad, beautiful life he laid bare on Twitter, she does, and the kiss is very nice. Zahid Azzam never planned to become a houseguest in his student's sprawling Connecticut home, but with the sparkling swimming pool, the endless supply of Whole Foods strawberries and Rachel's beautiful mother, he does, and the home is very nice. Becca Klein never thought she'd have a love affair so soon after her divorce, but when her daughter's professor walks into her home, bringing with him an apricot standard poodle named Princess, she does, and the affair is...a very bad idea.

Deep in the woods just outside Acker's Gap, West Virginia, rises a ragged chunk of what was once a high stone wall. This is all that remains of Wellwood, a psychiatric hospital for the poor that burned to the ground decades ago. And it is here that Bell Elkins --- prosecutor turned private investigator --- makes a grim discovery while searching for a missing teenager: a dead body, marred by a ghastly wound that can only mean murder. To solve the mystery of what happened in these woods, Bell and her partners --- former sheriff Nick Fogelsong and former deputy Jake Oakes --- must confront the tangled history of Wellwood and its dark legacy, while each grapples with a private torment.