Adult

When a string of horrific terrorist attacks plagues the Western world during the holiday season, the broader markets fall into a tailspin. The attacks are being coordinated by a shadowy former Iraqi commando who has disappeared into Europe’s underground. The United States government has an asset who can turn the Iraqi against his masters: James Reece, the most-wanted domestic terrorist alive. When a series of events uncovers his whereabouts, the CIA recruits him. Now a reluctant tool of the United States government, Reece travels the globe, targeting terrorist leaders and unraveling a geopolitical conspiracy that exposes a traitorous CIA officer and uncovers a sinister assassination plot with worldwide repercussions.

It’s the summer of 1959 in the seemingly tranquil suburbs of Washington, D.C. But our young narrator, John, and his best friends, Ivan and Max, know the truth: every door on their street could be hiding an escaped Nazi or a spy with secrets about the A-bomb. The entire city is being plagued by an inexplicable spider infestation --- surely evidence of “insect warfare” by the Russians! So when a rare vinegaroon --- a whip scorpion --- is discovered on Capitol Hill and sequestered for study at the Smithsonian, the boys, along with their tomboy accomplice, Beatriz, hatch a risky midnight plan to steal the deadly creature for their own devious purposes. Yet when the friends discover some very real instances of anti-Semitism and prejudice in the neighborhood, it’s the shocking and tragic events stemming from a well-intentioned community-building potluck party that change their lives forever.

In a quiet, leafy suburb in upstate New York, a teenager has been sneaking into houses --- and into the owners' computers as well --- learning their secrets, and maybe sharing some of them, too. Who is he, and what might he have uncovered? After two anonymous letters are received, whispers start to circulate, and suspicion mounts. And when a woman down the street is found murdered, the tension reaches the breaking point. Who killed her? Who knows more than they're telling? And how far will all these very nice people go to protect their own secrets? In this neighborhood, it's not just the husbands and wives who play games. Here, everyone in the family has something to hide.

When Berta Isla was a schoolgirl, she decided she would marry Tomás Nevinson --- the dashing half-Spanish, half-English boy in her class with an extraordinary gift for languages. But when Tomás returns to Madrid from his studies at Oxford, he is a changed man. Unbeknownst to her, he has been approached by an agent from the British intelligence services, and he has unwittingly set in motion events that will derail forever the life they had planned.

After a very public fight with her husband, Caroline Stark realizes that her life may not be as perfect as it seems: her husband is lying to her, money is disappearing, and there’s a stranger on the beach outside her house. As Caroline’s marriage and her carefully constructed lifestyle begin to collapse around her, she turns to the stranger, Aidan, for comfort…and revenge. After a brief and desperate fling, Aidan’s infatuation with Caroline, her family and her house becomes more and more destructive. But who is manipulating whom in this deadly game of obsession and control? Who will take the blame when someone ends up dead…and what is Caroline hiding?

One beautiful September day, three men in their late 60s convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college in the ’60s. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today --- Lincoln is a commercial real estate broker, Teddy is a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey is a musician beyond his rockin' age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971. Now, 45 years later, three lives and that of a significant other are put on display while the distant past confounds the present in a relentless squall of surprise and discovery.

Libby and her son, Ethan, are on a much-needed vacation. But in a moment of inattention, Ethan wanders into an elevator before Libby can reach him. When the elevator stops and the doors open, Ethan is gone. Hotel security scours the building and finds no trace of him, but when CCTV footage is found of an adult finding the child wandering alone and leading him away by the hand, the police are called in. The search intensifies, a lost child case turning into a possible abduction. Hours later, a child is seen with a woman stepping through an emergency exit. Libby and the police track the woman down and corner her, but she refuses to release Ethan. Asked who she is, the woman replies: "I'm his mother."

Two sisters, one farm. A family is split when their father leaves their shared inheritance entirely to Helen, his younger daughter. Despite baking award-winning pies at the local nursing home, her older sister, Edith, struggles to make what most people would call a living. So she can't help wondering what her life would have been like with even a portion of the farm money her sister kept for herself. With the proceeds from the farm, Helen builds one of the most successful light breweries in the country. Yet one day, Helen will find that she needs some help herself, and she could find a potential savior close to home…if it's not too late.

A man falls to his death from the Tarpeian Rock, which overlooks the Forum in the Capitoline Hill in Ancient Rome. While it looks like a suicide, one witness swears that she saw it happen and that he was pushed. This usually would attract very little official notice, but this man happened to be in charge of organizing the Imperial Triumphs demanded by the emperor. Normally, the investigation would be under the auspices of her new(ish) husband. But, worried about his stamina following a long recovery, private informer Flavia Albia steps in. With the date of the Triumphs fast approaching, Flavia must unravel a truly complex case of murder before danger shows up on her own doorstep.

Sarah Dove is no ordinary bookworm. To her, books have always been more than just objects: they live, breathe and sometimes even speak. When Sarah grows up to become the librarian in her quaint Southern town of Dove Pond, her gift helps place every book in the hands of the perfect reader. Recently, however, the books have been whispering about something out of the ordinary: the arrival of a displaced city girl named Grace Wheeler. If the books are right, Grace could be the savior that Dove Pond desperately needs. The problem is, Grace wants little to do with the town or its quirky residents --- Sarah chief among them.