Adult

At 28, Stephanie Land turned to housekeeping to make ends meet. With a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a college degree, and began to write relentlessly. She wrote the true stories that weren't being told: the stories of overworked and underpaid Americans. Of living on food stamps to eat. Of the government programs that provided her housing, but that doubled as halfway houses. The aloof government employees who called her lucky for receiving assistance. She wrote to remember the fight, to eventually cut through the deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor. MAID explores the underbelly of upper-middle-class America and the reality of what it's like to be in service to them.

Casey Gerald's story begins at the end of the world: Dallas, New Year's Eve 1999, when he gathers with the congregation of his grandfather's black evangelical church to see which of them will be carried off. His beautiful, fragile mother disappears frequently and mysteriously; for a brief idyll, he and his sister live like Boxcar Children on her disability checks. When Casey --- following in the footsteps of his father, a gridiron legend --- is recruited to play football at Yale, he enters a world he's never dreamed of. But even as he attains the inner sanctums of power, Casey sees how the world crushes those who live at its margins. He sees how the elite perpetuate the salvation stories that keep others from rising. And he sees, most painfully, how his own ascension is part of the scheme.

Wayétu Moore’s debut novel reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through three characters who share an uncommon bond. Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper and left for dead, but still she survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, the child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him. When the three meet in the settlement of Monrovia, their gifts help them salvage the tense relationship between the African American settlers and the indigenous tribes, as a new nation forms around them.

Vladimir Nabokov’s LOLITA is one of the most beloved and notorious novels of all time. And yet, very few of its readers know that the subject of the book was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of 11-year-old Sally Horner. Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, THE REAL LOLITA tells Sally Horner’s full story for the very first time. Drawing upon extensive investigations, legal documents, public records and interviews with remaining relatives, Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing LOLITA.

The body of a young woman turns up in an abandoned well. Estranged from her family, the victim had balked at an arranged marriage and had planned to attend graduate school. But someone cut her dreams short. Solving the mystery behind the murder isn’t Tracy Crosswhite’s only challenge. The detective is keeping a secret of her own: she’s pregnant. And now her biggest fear seems to be coming true when a new detective arrives to replace her. Meanwhile, Tracy’s colleague, Vic Fazzio, is about to take a fall after his investigation into the murder of a local community activist turns violent and leaves an invaluable witness dead. Two careers are on the line. And when more deadly secrets emerge, jobs might not be the only things at risk.

An island paradise held hostage. A band of dangerous killers unleashed. A sinister plot that could push the superpowers to the brink of war. For Jonathan Grave and Gail Bonneville, the Crystal Sands Resort has become the ultimate flashpoint. Their mission: defeat the attackers before more lives are lost. Their only hope is Grave’s partner Boxers, but he’s hundreds of miles away. Grave may be without weapons, but he’s never without resources. That’s when he’s most lethal --- when he will strike fast, hard and without warning.

Claire wakes in a hospital room in the Florida Keys. She has no idea how she got there or why. The loss of so many memories is paralyzing. Some things she can piece together by looking at old photos saved by her husband, Charlie, and her best friend, Rachel, and by combing through boxes of letters and casual jottings. But she senses a mystery at the center of all these fragments of her past, a feeling that something is not complete. Is Charlie still her husband? Is Rachel still her friend? Told from alternating points of view, the story unfolds as the smudge that covers Claire’s memory is gradually, steadily wiped away, until finally she can understand the why and the how of her life.

The murder of the Romanov family horrified the world, and its aftershocks still reverberate today. In Putin's autocratic Russia, the Revolution itself is considered a crime, and its anniversary was largely ignored. In stark contrast, the centenary of the massacre of the Imperial Family in Ekaterinburg will be a huge ceremony. While the murders themselves have received major attention, what has never been investigated in detail are the various plots and plans behind the scenes to save the family. Helen Rappaport refutes the claim that the fault lies entirely with King George V, as has been the traditional claim for the last century. The responsibility for failing the Romanovs must be equally shared.

It seems like just another night shift for Lucy, an overworked ER physician, until six-year-old Ben is brought in as the sole survivor from a horrifying crime scene. Lucy, who’s grappling with a personal upheaval of her own, feels a profound, unexpected connection to the little boy. She wants to help him…but will recovering his memory heal him, or damage him further? Across town, Clare will soon be turning 100 years old. She has long believed that the lifetime of secrets she’s been keeping don’t matter to anyone anymore, but a surprising encounter makes her realize that the time has come to tell her story. As Ben, Lucy and Clare struggle to confront the events that shattered their lives, something stronger than fate is working to bring them together.

While DI Nicola Tanner investigates the deadly spread of a dangerous new drug, Tom Thorne is handed a case that he doesn’t take too seriously, until a spate of animal killings points to the work of a serial killer. When the two cases come together in a way that neither could have foreseen, both Thorne and Tanner must risk everything to catch two very different killers.