Adult

In 1979, a fiery preacher named Jane Whaley attracted a small group of followers with a promise that she could turn their lives around. In the years since, Whaley’s following has expanded to include thousands of congregants across three continents. In their eyes she’s a prophet. And to disobey her means eternal damnation. The control Whaley exerts is absolute: she decides what her followers study, where they work, whom they can marry --- even when they can have sex. Based on hundreds of interviews, secretly recorded conversations and thousands of pages of documents, BROKEN FAITH is a terrifying portrait of life inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, and the harrowing account of one family who escaped after two decades.

The story of the Boston Massacre --- when on a late winter evening in 1770, British soldiers shot five local men to death --- is familiar to generations. But from the very beginning, many accounts have obscured a fascinating truth: the Massacre arose from conflicts that were as personal as they were political. Professor Serena Zabin draws on original sources and lively stories to follow British troops as they are dispatched from Ireland to Boston in 1768 to subdue the increasingly rebellious colonists. And she reveals a forgotten world hidden in plain sight: the many regimental wives and children who accompanied these armies.

Driving home one rainy night, Cassie Larkin sees a man and woman fighting on the side of the road. Against all reason and advice, she gets out of her minivan and chases after the violent man, trying to help his victim. When Cassie physically tries to stop him, he suddenly turns on her and spits out an ominous threat: “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.” A veterinarian trained to heal, Cassie can’t let the woman die. But while she’s examining the unconscious victim, the attacker steals her car. Now he has her name and address, and knows about her children. The next day --- Halloween --- her husband disappears while trick-or-treating with their six-year-old daughter. Are these disturbing events a coincidence or the beginning of a horrifying nightmare?

Olivia Harper's 16-hour workdays are unfulfilling, and so are things with her ex-fiancé, who suddenly wants to take up where they left off. Then her estranged mother, Juliet, is seriously injured in a car accident, forcing Liv to head home to beautiful Cape Sanctuary on the Northern California coast. But as she gets closer to home, the painful memories start flooding back: Natalie, her vibrant older sister who spiraled into addiction. The endless arguments with her mother, who enabled her sister at every turn. The overdose that took Natalie, leaving her daughter, Caitlin, an orphan. As Liv tries to balance her own needs with those of her injured mother and resentful 15-year-old niece, it becomes clear that all three Harper women must come clean about the heartbreaking secrets they’ve been keeping from each other.

A wedding planner left at the altar? Yeah, the irony isn’t lost on Carolina Santos, either. But despite that embarrassing blip from her past, Lina is offered an opportunity that could change her life. There’s just one hitch: she has to collaborate with the best (make that worst) man from her own failed nuptials. Marketing expert Max Hartley is determined to make his mark with a coveted hotel client looking to expand its brand. Then he learns he’ll be working with his brother’s whip-smart, stunning --- absolutely off-limits --- ex-fiancée. And she loathes him. If they can nail their presentation without killing each other, they’ll both come out ahead. Except Max has been public enemy number one ever since he encouraged his brother to jilt the bride, and Lina is ready to dish out a little payback of her own.

Isobel Johnson is a devoted teacher who has spent her career in Liston Heights sidestepping the community’s high-powered families. But when she receives a threatening voicemail accusing her of Anti-Americanism and a liberal agenda, she’s in the spotlight. Meanwhile, Julia Abbott, a helicopter mom obsessed with the casting of Liston Heights High's winter musical, makes an error in judgment that has far-reaching consequences for her entire family. Brought together by the sting of public humiliation, Isobel and Julia learn firsthand how entitlement and competition can go too far, thanks to a secret Facebook page created as an outlet for parent grievances.

Molly Bit is a great actress. From her first acting classes to her big break, she is different from the others struggling to make it. But fame is perilous. She uses --- and is used by --- the Hollywood system. Her collaborator is an addict. The producer who promises her stardom is ruthless and unhinged by grief. Fans, friends, strangers --- they want and want. And one dangerously obsessed fan wants to take away everything.

Young George Washington was raised by a struggling single mother, demanded military promotions, caused an international incident and never backed down. But after he married Martha, everything changed. He took up arms against the British only when there was no other way, though he lost more battles than he won. After an unlikely victory in the Revolutionary War cast him as the nation's hero, he was desperate to retire, but the founders pressured him into the presidency --- twice. When he returned to his plantation upon his retirement, the man who fought for liberty must confront his greatest hypocrisy --- what to do with the men, women and children he owns --- before he succumbs to death.

Of 34 Neumann family members, 25 were murdered by the Nazis. One of the survivors was Hans Neumann, who traveled to Berlin and hid in plain sight under the Gestapo’s eyes. What Hans experienced was so unspeakable that, when he built an industrial empire in Venezuela, he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it. All his daughter Ariana knew was that something terrible had happened. When Hans died, he left Ariana a small box filled with letters, diary entries and other memorabilia. Ten years later, Ariana finally summoned the courage to have the letters translated, and she began reading. What she discovered launched her on a worldwide search that would deliver indelible portraits of a family loving, finding meaning, and trying to survive amid the worst that can be imagined.

Lidia Yuknavitch is a writer of rare insight into the jagged boundaries between pain and survival. Her characters are scarred by the unchecked hungers of others and themselves, yet determined to find salvation within lives that can feel beyond their control. In novels such as THE SMALL BACKS OF CHILDREN and THE BOOK OF JOAN, she has captivated readers with stories of visceral power. Now, she offers a shard-sharp mosaic portrait of human resilience on the margins. The landscape of VERGE is peopled with characters who are innocent and imperfect, wise and endangered: an eight-year-old black-market medical courier, a restless lover haunted by memories of his mother, a teenage girl gazing out her attic window at a nearby prison, all of them wounded but grasping toward transcendence.