Adult

Stone Barrington is trying to enjoy some downtime at his English retreat when he's unceremoniously sent off to the remote reaches of the UK and into a deadly snare. As it turns out, this is only the first volley by a rival power, one that has its eyes set on disrupting the peace of the nation. With the help of two brilliant and stunning women, Stone must leverage a new position of power to capture a villain with a lethal agenda. But the closer he comes to nabbing the culprit, the more he realizes there's a bigger plan at work, and a true mastermind who's a force to be reckoned with.

“Marley was dead, to begin with,” Charles Dickens tells us at the beginning of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. But in Jon Clinch’s novel, Jacob Marley, business partner to Ebenezer Scrooge, is very much alive: a rapacious and cunning boy who grows up to be a forger, a scoundrel, and the man who will be both the making and the undoing of Scrooge. With their business interests inextricably bound together, and instincts for secrecy and greed bred in their very bones, the two men engage in a shadowy war of deception, false identities, forged documents, theft and cold-blooded murder. Marley and Scrooge are destined to clash in an unforgettable reckoning that will echo into the future and set the stage for Marley’s ghostly return.

Operation Treadstone has nearly ruined Adam Hayes. The top-secret CIA Black Ops program trained him to be an all but invincible assassin, but it also cost him his family and any chance at a normal life. Working as a carpenter in rural Washington state, Adam thinks he has left Treadstone in the past, until he receives a mysterious email from a former colleague, and soon after is attacked by an unknown hit team at his job site. Adam must regain the skills that Treadstone taught him --- lightning reflexes and a cold conscience --- in order to discover who the would-be killers are and why they have come after him now. His search will unearth secrets in the highest levels of government and pull him back into the shadowy world he worked so hard to forget.

Will Connor returns to his hometown to care for his injured mother. He’s kept his distance from the town since high school, but once home he finds himself reexamining a horrific incident that took place during one of his mother’s “spirit circles.” She had embraced the hippie generation’s fascination with New Age and the arcane, but the unexpected death of a close friend put an end to the meetings of the modern-day coven. Or did it? As Will looks deeper into his family’s history, he discovers that her practices weren’t so much a passing fad but the latest link in a long tradition of New England witchcraft, which still seems to hold a strange power over the town.

The characters in SUDDEN TRAVELER walk, drive, dream and fly, trying to reconcile themselves with their journeys through life, death and love. Science fiction meets folktale and philosophy meets mortality. A woman with a new generation of pacemaker chooses to shut it down in the Lakeland, the site of her strongest memories. A man repatriated in the near east hears the name of an old love called and must unpack history’s dark suitcase. From the new world-waves of female anger and resistance, a mythical creature evolves. And in the woods on the border between warring countries, an old well facilitates a dictator’s downfall, before he gains power.

Six bestselling and award-winning authors --- Kate Quinn, Stephanie Dray, Laura Kamoie, Sophie Perinot, Heather Webb and E. Knight --- bring to life a breathtaking epic novel illuminating the hopes, desires and destinies of princesses and peasants, harlots and wives, fanatics and philosophers. Here are seven unforgettable women whose paths cross during one of the most tumultuous and transformative events in history: the French Revolution.

When Neve Connolly pays a morning-after visit to her lover, Saul, and finds him brutally murdered, all the lies she has so painstakingly stitched together threaten to unravel. After scrubbing clean every trace of her existence from Saul’s life --- and death --- Neve believes she can return to normal, shaken but intact. But she can’t get out of her head the one tormenting question: What was she forgetting? An investigation into the slaying could provide the answer. It’s brought Detective Chief Inspector Alastair Hitching, and Neve’s worst fears, to her door. But with every new lie, every new misdirection to save herself, Neve descends further into the darkness of her betrayal --- and into more danger than she ever imagined.

A little door that opens to a world of fairy tale wonders becomes the blood-drenched stomping ground for a gang of hunters in “Faun.” A grief-stricken librarian climbs behind the wheel of an antique Bookmobile to deliver fresh reads to the dead in “Late Returns.” And tension shimmers in the sweltering heat of the Nevada desert as a faceless trucker finds himself caught in a sinister dance with a tribe of motorcycle outlaws in “Throttle,” co-written with Stephen King. Replete with shocking chillers, including two previously unpublished stories written expressly for this volume (“Mums” and “Late Returns”) and another appearing in print for the first time (“Dark Carousel”), FULL THROTTLE is a darkly imagined odyssey through the complexities of the human psyche.

Just weeks before Christmas, severe wintry weather damages the church hall hosting the Christmas Boutique --- an annual sale of handcrafted gifts and baked goods that supports the county food pantry. Determined to save the fundraiser, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson offers to hold the event at Elm Creek Manor, her ancestral family estate and summertime home to Elm Creek Quilt Camp. In the spirit of the season, Sylvia and the Elm Creek Quilters begin setting up market booths in the ballroom and decking the halls with beautiful hand-made holiday quilts. Each of the quilters chooses a favorite quilt to display, a special creation evoking memories of holidays past and dreams of Christmases yet to come.

A year ago, Naomi, the investigator with an uncanny ability to find missing children, made a promise that she would not take another case until she finds the younger sister who has been missing for years. The search takes her to Portland, Oregon, where scores of homeless children wander the streets. Though she does not want to get involved, Naomi is unable to resist the pull of children in need --- and the fear she sees in the eyes of a 12-year-old girl named Celia. Running from an abusive stepfather and an addict mother, Celia has nothing but hope in the butterflies --- her guides and guardians on the dangerous streets. As danger creeps closer, Naomi and Celia are forced to consider the question: Can you still be lost even when you’ve been found?