Adult

In BIMINI TWIST, part-time deputy sheriff Jane Bunker takes on a missing person case --- a young woman working at the Bar Harbor Inn has disappeared. The Inn employs foreign exchange students from all over the world during the busy summer season, and the missing Bianca Chiriac is one of them. When it becomes clear that Bianca isn’t just sleeping off a late-night party, Jane is plunged into the underbelly of the resort town, and must find the missing woman before the worst happens.

In these 15 stories --- ranging from occupied Czechoslovakia to California’s Central Valley to the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest --- Mark Slouka explores moments in life when our back is to the wall. Here he captures the depth and emotional range of an array of characters --- from a young boy attempting to shield his father from painful memories in "The Hare’s Mask" to a lonely man whose beloved dog inexplicably begins to sprout razor blades from her skin in "Dog." Whether battling the end of desire, the fact of injustice, or death itself, the men and women in these stories are doing everything possible to tighten their grip on life.

Merry, Sam and Conor are the perfect family in the perfect place. Merry adores the domestic life. Sam, formerly an academic, is pursuing a new career as a filmmaker. When Merry's childhood friend Frank visits their Swedish paradise, she immediately becomes part of the family. She befriends the neighbors, and even finds herself embracing the domesticity she's always seemed to scorn. All their lives, Frank and Merry have been more like sisters than best friends. And that's why Frank soon sees the things others might miss --- treacherous things, which are almost impossible to believe when looking at this perfect family. But Frank, of all people, knows that the truth is rarely what you want the world to see.

Tom Santopietro traces the writing of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, the impact of the Pulitzer Prize, and investigates the claims that Lee’s book is actually racist. Here for the first time is the full behind-the-scenes story regarding the creation of the 1962 film, one that entered the American consciousness in a way that few other movies ever have. From the earliest casting sessions to the Oscars and the 50th anniversary screening at the White House, Santopietro examines exactly what makes the movie and Gregory Peck’s unforgettable performance as Atticus Finch so captivating.

Katie Daniels, a 28-year-old Kentucky transplant with a strong set of traditional values, has just been dumped by her fiancé when she finds herself seated across a negotiating table from native New Yorker Cassidy Price, a sexy, self-assured woman wearing a man's suit. While at first Katie doesn't know what to think, a chance meeting later that night leads them both to the Metropolis, a dimly lit lesbian dive bar that serves as Cassidy's second home. Soon their undeniable chemistry will push each woman to confront what she thinks she deserves --- and what it is she truly wants.

Sol and Liz are a couple on the cusp. He’s a professional cyclist in the Tour de France, a workhorse but not yet a star. She’s a geneticist on the brink of a major discovery, either that or a loss of funding. They’ve just welcomed their first child into the world, and their bright future lies just before them --- if only they can reach out and grab it. But as Liz’s research slows, as Sol starts doping, their dreams grow murkier and the risks graver. Over the whirlwind course of the Tour, they enter the orbit of an extraordinary cast of conmen and aspirants, who draw the young family ineluctably into the depths of an illegal drug smuggling operation.

Tango was an unlikely choice for Meghan Flaherty. A young woman living with the scars of past trauma, she was terrified of being touched and shied away from real passion. But by her late 20s, she knew something had to change. She dug up an old dream and tried on her dancing shoes. As Meghan moved from beginner classes to the late-night dance halls of New York’s vibrant tango underground, she discovered that more than any footwork, the hardest and most essential lesson of the dance was to follow with strength and agency; to find her balance, regardless of the lead. And as she broke her own rule --- never mix romance and tango --- she started to apply those lessons in every corner of her life.

A year has passed since Catherine and Michael Hall lost their teenage daughter in a car accident, leaving them and their 16-year-old son, Rowan, reeling in the aftermath of the tragedy. After Rowan escapes to boarding school, Catherine withdraws from her life as a successful London gallerist to Hamdean, an apartment in a Georgian country manor, where she and Michael had hoped to spend their retirement. When a beguiling young woman, Keira, appears at the house claiming to have once lived there, Catherine is reanimated by the promise of a meaningful connection. However, their relationship soon shifts to one of forbidding uncertainty as the mysteries of the past collide with the truth of the present.

At an AA meeting, handyman and part-time investigator Jay Porter meets a recovering addict who needs his help. Amy Lupus’ younger sister, Emily, has gone missing from the Coos County Center, the newly opened rehab run by Jay’s old nemeses, Adam and Michael Lombardi. When Jay learns of a “missing” hard drive, he is flung back to five years ago when his own junkie brother, Chris, found a hard drive belonging to Lombardi Construction. For years, Jay assumed that the much-sought-after hard drive contained incriminating photos of Adam and Michael’s father, which contributed to Chris’ death. But now he believes that hard drive may have harbored a secret far more sinister, which the missing Lupus sister may have unwittingly discovered.

When disaster strikes at the Beijing Duck House, each character is forced to confront the conflicts that fast-paced restaurant life has kept at bay. Owner Jimmy Han hopes to leave his late father’s homespun establishment for a fancier one. Jimmy’s older brother, Johnny, and Johnny’s daughter, Annie, ache to return to a time before a father’s absence and a teenager’s silence pushed them apart. Nan and Ah-Jack, longtime Duck House employees, are tempted to turn their 30-year friendship into something else. And when Nan’s son, Pat, and Annie find themselves in a dangerous game that implicates them in the Duck House tragedy, their families must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice to help their children.