Adult

As a young girl growing up in Brooklyn, Claire DeWitt (now a private investigator) and her two best friends, Tracy and Kelly, solved many cases together --- until the day Tracy vanished without a trace. Later, in her 20s, Claire is trying to get her PI license by taking on a cold case that has stumped the LAPD. Today, Claire is on her way to Las Vegas from San Francisco when she’s almost killed by a homicidal driver. In a haze of drugs and injuries, she struggles off the scene, determined to find her would-be killer’s identity --- but the list of people who would be happy to see her dead is not a short one. As these three narratives converge, some mysteries are solved and others continue to haunt.

Penny and Hattie, orphaned sisters in a small town, are best friends. But Penny, at the mercy of her brutal husband, is desperate for a fresh start. Willing to do anything for her older sister, Hattie agrees to help. A match is struck, and a fire burns Penny’s marriage to the ground. With her husband gone, Penny is free, and it seems the sisters get away with murder. But freedom comes at a cost. More than a year after the fire, a charming young man comes to town. Hattie and Penny quickly bring him into the fold and into their hearts, but their love for him threatens the delicate balance. Soon long-held resentments, sibling rivalry and debts unpaid boil over, and the bonds of sisterhood begin to snap.

Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times, or do the times make the leader? In LEADERSHIP IN TURBULENT TIMES, Doris Kearns Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely --- Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights) --- to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking back to their first entries into public life, we encounter them at a time when their paths were filled with confusion, fear and hope.

A century and a half of family secrets are written on Judas Stammers’ body, painted purple by a birthmark that covers half his face and abdomen. Judas is the last descendant of a 19th-century robber baron who made his fortune off the slaves who died in his coal mines. The money is gone, but the legacy lives on in the form of an all-male, all-black private school founded by the family patriarch in atonement for his sins. Ostracized for his name as much as his appearance, Judas’ lust for his classmates is matched only by their contempt for him, until finally he’s driven to seek out sex in places where his identity means nothing to the anonymous men he gives himself to. Hovering over everything is Judas’ mother, Dixie, an acclaimed potter whose obsession with creating the perfect vessel over and over again leaves her son that much more isolated.

Setting a precedent as First Lady, Betty Ford refused to be silenced by her critics as she publicly championed equal rights for women, and spoke out about issues that had previously been taboo --- breast cancer, depression, abortion and sexuality. Privately, there were signs something was wrong. After a painful intervention by her family, she admitted to an addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs. Her courageous decision to speak out publicly sparked a national dialogue, and in 1982 she co-founded the Betty Ford Center, which revolutionized treatment for alcoholism and inspired the modern concept of recovery.

KATERINA is a sweeping love story alternating between 1992 Paris and Los Angeles in 2018. At its center are a young writer and a young model on the verge of fame --- both reckless, impulsive, addicted and deeply in love. Twenty-five years later, the writer is rich, famous and numb, and he wants to drive his car into a tree, when he receives an anonymous message that draws him back to the life, and possibly the love, he abandoned years prior.

Holed up with other mothers-to-be in a secret maternity home in Los Angeles, Scarlett Chen is far from her native China, where she worked in a factory and fell in love with the owner, Boss Yeung. Now she’s carrying his baby. Already married with three daughters, Boss Yeung is overjoyed because the doctors have confirmed that he will finally have the son he has always wanted. To ensure that his child has every advantage, Boss Yeung has shipped Scarlett off to give birth on American soil. Then a new sonogram of Scarlett’s baby reveals the unexpected. Panicked, she escapes by hijacking a van --- only to discover that she has a stowaway: her housemate Daisy, who intends to track down the father of her child.

Junior and Henrietta live a comfortable, solitary life on their farm, far from the city lights, but in close quarters with each other. One day, a stranger from the city arrives with alarming news: Junior has been randomly selected to travel far away from the farm...very far away. The most unusual part? Arrangements already have been made so that when he leaves, Henrietta won't have a chance to miss him, because she won't be left alone --- not even for a moment. Henrietta will have company. Familiar company.

René shares a home, a family and a passion for dance with her older brother, Leon. Yet for all they have in common, their lives are on remarkably different paths. In contrast to René, a born spitfire, Leon is a gentle soul. As the years pass, René and Leon’s parents fight with increasing frequency --- and ferocity. Their father spends more time on the road, his sporadic homecomings both yearned for and dreaded by the children. And as René and Leon grow up, they grow apart. They grasp whatever they can to stay afloat as René works to save herself, crossing the border into a larger, more hopeful world, while Leon embarks on a path of despair and self-destruction.

Annie Marlow has been through the worst. Rocked by tragedy, she heads to the one place that makes her happy: Oceanside in the Pacific Northwest, the destination of many family vacations when she was a teenager. Once there, Annie begins to restore her broken spirit, thanks in part to the folks she meets. Chief among them is Keaton, a local painter whose quiet, peaceful nature offers her both comfort and reprieve from her grief, and the two begin to grow closer. Then events threaten to undo the idyll Annie has come to enjoy. And when the opportunity of a lifetime lands in her lap, she is torn between the excitement of a new journey toward success and the safe and secure arms of the haven --- and the man --- she’s come to call home.