Adult

The only child of a single mother, Nina Hill has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book. When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! It's time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn't convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It's going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page.

Joshua Fields takes the same flights every week for work, his life a series of departures and arrivals, hotels and airports. During yet another layover, he meets Morgan, a beautiful stranger with whom he feels an immediate connection. When it’s time for their respective flights, Morgan kisses Joshua passionately, lamenting that they’ll never see each other again. As soon as Morgan disappears in the crowd, Joshua is shocked to see her face on a nearby TV. The reason: Morgan is a missing person. What follows is a whirlwind, fast-paced journey filled with lies, deceit and secrets as Joshua tries to discover why Morgan has vanished from her own life.

A man flying first class discovers a puma in the lavatory. A new coach of a small-town Oklahoma high school football team installs an offense comprised of only one, very special, play. A college professor discusses with his friend his difficulties with the new generation of students. A woman interviews a hit man about killing her husband but is shocked by the method he proposes. Fair warning: RAISED IN CAPTIVITY does not slot into a smooth preexisting groove. If Saul Steinberg and Italo Calvino had adopted a child from a Romanian orphanage and raised him on Gary Larsen and Thomas Bernhard, he would still be nothing like Chuck Klosterman. They might be good company, though.

Twenty years ago, Brandon Taylor was thought to be just another teen boy who ended his life too soon. That's what almost everyone in Tibbehah County, Mississippi, said after his body and hunting rifle were found in the Big Woods. Now two New York-based reporters show up asking Sheriff Quinn Colson questions about the Taylor case. What happened to the evidence? Where are the missing files? Who really killed Brandon? But Quinn is trying to shut down the criminal syndicate that has had a stranglehold on Tibbehah for years, trafficking drugs, stolen goods and young women through the MidSouth. Quinn has been fighting evil and corruption since he was a kid, at home or as a U.S. Army Ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq. This time, evil may win out.

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was the embodiment of Southern contradictions. He was a slave owner who fought and died, at least in part, to perpetuate slavery, yet he founded an African-American Sunday School and personally taught classes for almost a decade. In a deeply religious age, Jackson was revered for a piety that was far beyond the norm. How did one man meld his religion with the institution of slavery? How did he reconcile it with the business of killing, at which he so excelled? In SEARCHING FOR STONEWALL JACKSON, historian Ben Cleary examines not only Jackson's life, but his own, contemplating what it means to be a white Southerner in the 21st century.

Chet the dog and P.I. Bernie are both music lovers. So when Lotty Pilgrim, a country singer from long ago, turns up at a local bar, they drive out to catch her act. Bernie is surprised to see someone who was once so big performing in such a dive, and drops a C-note the Little Detective Agency can’t afford to part with into the tip jar. The C-note is stolen right from under their noses, and before the night is over, it’s stolen again. Soon they’re working the most puzzling case of their career, a case that takes them back in time in search of old border-town secrets, and into present-day danger where powerful people want those secrets to stay hidden.

In the early 1900s, as the oppression of Russia’s imperial rule takes its toll on Finland, the three Koski siblings --- Ilmari, Matti and the politicized young Aino --- are forced to flee to the United States. Not far from the majestic Columbia River, the siblings settle among other Finns in a logging community in southern Washington, where the first harvesting of the colossal old-growth forests begets rapid development, and radical labor movements begin to catch fire. The brothers face the excitement and danger of pioneering this frontier wilderness, while Aino devotes herself to organizing the industry’s first unions. As the Koski siblings strive to rebuild lives and families in an America in flux, they also try to hold fast to the traditions of a home they left behind.

Lydia and Lucas Moore are in their late 20s when a stranger enters their small world on Wolf Island. Lydia, the responsible sister, has cared for her pathologically shy brother, Lucas, ever since their mom’s death a decade before. They live together in their family house by the sea, shadowed by events from their childhood. When Lydia sees the stranger step off the ferry, she feels an immediate connection to him. Lucas is convinced that the man, Cole Anthony, is the reincarnation of their baby brother, who died when they were young. Cole knows their mannerisms, their home, the topography of the island. What else could that mean? To find out, Lydia must finally face her anxiety about leaving the island and challenge Cole’s grip on her family’s past and her brother.

John Reynolds resides in a beautiful mansion with his wife and daughter, and his business is booming, but he remains despondent as his attempts to pivot into producing his own movie projects fail again and again. Depressed and at a creative dead-end, Reynolds has secretly signed up to participate in a weekend-long reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg. Just before his departure, an ex-Playmate --- the very centerfold of his adolescent daydreams --- pitches him her idea for a reality TV show. When Reynolds impulsively invites the former Playmate and her best friend, a former Miss Universe, to accompany him to the reenactment, his plans for a solitary weekend of self-discovery run amok.

When struggling perfumer Sophie Duval shelters Grace Kelly in her boutique to fend off a persistent British press photographer, James Henderson, a bond is forged between the two women and sets in motion a chain of events that stretches across 30 years of friendship, love and tragedy. James cannot forget his brief encounter with Sophie. Despite his guilt at being away from his daughter, he takes an assignment to cover the wedding of the century. In Monaco, as wedding fever soars and passions and tempers escalate, James and Sophie --- like Princess Grace --- ultimately must decide what they are prepared to give up for love.