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In 1950, three years after Jackie Robinson first walked onto the diamond at Ebbets Field, the all-white, upper-crust US Lawn Tennis Association opened its door just a crack to receive a powerhouse player who would integrate "the game of royalty." The player was a street-savvy young Black woman from Harlem named Althea Gibson, who was about as out-of-place in that rarefied and intolerant world as any aspiring tennis champion could be. But her astonishing performance on the court soon eclipsed the negative feelings being cast her way as she eventually became one of the greatest American tennis champions. In ALTHEA, Sally H. Jacobs tells the heart-rending story of this pioneer --- a trailblazer, a champion, and one of the most remarkable Americans of the 20th century.

In August 1939, Alice Marble graced the cover of Life magazine, photographed by the famed Alfred Eisenstaedt. She was a glamorous worldwide celebrity, having that year won singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles tennis titles at both Wimbledon and the US Open, then an unprecedented feat. Yet today one of America’s greatest female athletes and most charismatic characters is largely forgotten. QUEEN OF THE COURT places her back on center stage.

Wade, a respected banker in La Jolla, CA, and his estranged wife, Fiona, make the unbearable decision to send their teenage son, Myles, away to an expensive treatment center after a streak of harmful behavior. After a year of treatment, Myles comes home, seemingly rehabilitated. But soon, he sneaks off to Tijuana to buy drugs --- and is kidnapped. When the ransom call comes, Fiona is frantic and accepts help from Andre, the Quebecois whose charity Fiona runs. In order to get the ransom money, Wade makes a deal with Andre: He’ll work for Andre’s bank in exchange for the cash. But as Wade races to rescue Myles before his kidnappers lose their patience, he realizes he’s wrapped up in more crime than just a kidnapping. He’s now indebted to a cartel.

Nessa Garvey’s sister, Deena, vanished without a trace in Philadelphia in 2004. In all that time, Nessa has never once doubted what her instincts told her: her sister’s ex-husband has gotten away with an unspeakable crime. Nessa’s niece, Ruby, is raised by her father, the man Nessa suspects, in rural Vermont on the shores of Lake Champlain. Ruby learns how to hunt, how the plants and trees grow, how to avoid making her father angry. The one question she longs to ask is the one she knows she cannot voice: What really happened to her mother? Over 14 years and 400 miles apart, these two women slowly begin to unearth the family history of insidious power and control that has shaped them both in such different ways. But can they reach each other in time?

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under --- but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And 12-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home. Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil. Can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written, is there still time to find a happy ending?

Jason Fitger may be the last faculty member the dean wants for the job, but he’s the only professor available to chaperone Payne University’s annual “Experience: Abroad” occurring during the three weeks of winter term. Among his charges are a claustrophobe with a juvenile detention record, a student who erroneously believes he is headed for the Caribbean, a pair of unreconciled lovers, a set of undifferentiated twins, and one young woman who has never been away from her cat before. Through a sea of troubles --- personal, institutional and international --- the gimlet-eyed, acid-tongued Fitger strives to navigate safe passage for all concerned, revealing much about the essential need for human connection and the sometimes surprising places in which it is found.

Emi Vargas, whose parents helped save the world, is tired of being told how lucky she is to have been born after the climate crisis. But following the public assassination of a dozen climate criminals, Emi’s mother, Kristina, disappears as a possible suspect. A determined Emi and her father, Larch, journey from their home in Nuuk, Greenland, to New York City, now a lightly populated storm-surge outpost built from the ruins of the former metropolis. Thirty years earlier, Larch first came to New York with a team of volunteers to save the city from rising waters and torrential storms. Kristina was fighting massive wildfires that ravaged the western United States. They became part of a movement that changed the world --- The Great Transition --- forging a new society and finding each other in the process.

One brilliant June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. THE SCARLET LETTER was written almost 200 years earlier, but it seems to tell the story of Mia’s mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community --- an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside world is forbidden, and books are considered evil. But how could this be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her? Through a journey of heartbreak, love and time, Mia must abandon the rules she was raised with at the Community. As she does, she realizes that reading can transport you to other worlds or bring them to you, and that readers and writers affect one another in mysterious ways.

When widowed Washington, D.C. socialite Edith Bolling meets President Woodrow Wilson, the attraction is immediate. A whirlwind romance results in a proposal of marriage, which Edith happily accepts --- along with the important role of First Lady. By the end of the Great War, Edith is accompanying her husband to Europe for peace talks, meeting heads of state and dealing with foreign affairs. But something is wrong with Woodrow, and his condition worsens as time goes on. Unwilling to let her husband’s presidency fail, Edith steps in behind the scenes, supporting Woodrow in every way while concealing his true condition to all except the most trusted advisors. But leading a country in turmoil is a thankless job --- especially as a woman --- and serving incognito as President could take everything she has.

Cashel Greville Ross experiences more of everything than most --- from the rapturous to the devastating, from surprising good luck to unexpected loss. Born in 1799, Cashel seeks his fortune across the turbulence of multiple continents, from County Cork to rural Massachusetts, from Waterloo to Zanzibar, embedded with the East Indian Army in Sri Lanka, sunning himself alongside the Romantic poets in Pisa. He travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, even a father. And he experiences all the vicissitudes of existence, including a once-in-a-lifetime love that will haunt the rest of his days. In the end, his great accomplishment is to discover who he truly is --- which is the romance of life itself, and the beating heart of THE ROMANTIC.

When they first meet, John --- a dashing European, a Latvian refugee, a physics PhD --- is hoping to settle down. Michaele, a fast-talking American college student, is hungry for an independent life as a writer and historian. When they meet again some years later, Michaele is ready. Or so she thinks. The life Michaele and John build together intermingles sweetness with complications, including their ethnic and religious differences (Michaele is Jewish; John is not), the trauma John endured as a child during WWII, Michaele’s thwarted ambitions, and even John’s preoccupation with Latvian rye. When he opens a successful company marketing rye bread, Michaele embarks on a European journey in search of her husband’s origins, excavating poignant stories of war, privation and resilience.

For Stella, deputy editor of The Globe, the choice has always been clear. It doesn’t matter how low she has to stoop --- getting the best story is what she’s built her reputation on. For Jess, The Globe’s rookie reporter, the story stops when the truth does. But she knows that the dirty tricks of the tabloids will be hard to overturn. And when a celebrity is hounded by The Globe and pays the ultimate price, Jess wonders just how much Stella and the paper are responsible. Determined to show the world what the tabloid is capable of, Jess will do whatever it takes to uncover the truth. But she needs to watch her back, because someone else is prepared to kill to bury it.

Lilach has it all: a beautiful home, a successful husband and stable marriage, and a teenage son, Adam. But after a brutal attack on a local synagogue shakes their sense of safety, Adam enrolls in a self-defense class taught by a former Israeli Special Forces officer. There, for the first time, he finds a sense of confidence and belonging. Then tragedy strikes again when an African American boy dies at a house party, apparently from a drug overdose. Though he was a high school classmate, Adam claims not to know him. Yet rumors begin to circulate that the death was not accidental, and that Adam and his new friends had a history with Jamal. As more details surface and racial tensions in the community are ignited, Lilach begins to question everything she thought she knew about her son.

There's a princess trapped in a tower. This isn't her story. Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of Toadling: return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right? But nothing with fairies is ever simple. Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He's heard there's a curse here that needs breaking, but it's a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold.

The Titan Project, an international research station off the coast of Australia, discovers a thriving zone of life in an otherwise dead sea. The area teems with a strange bioluminescent coral that defies science yet holds great promise for the future. But the loss of a military submarine in the area triggers a brutal attack and sets in motion a geological disaster that destabilizes an entire region. Massive quakes, volcanic eruptions and deadly tsunamis herald a greater cataclysm to come --- for something is stirring miles under the ocean, a threat hidden for millennia. As seas turn toxic and coastlines burn, can Sigma Force stop what has been let loose --- especially as an old adversary returns, hunting them and thwarting their every move?

As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters. Her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead. Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago. Believing Nena dead, Néstor has been on the run from his grief ever since. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind. When the United States invades Mexico in 1846, the two are brought abruptly together on the road to war. But the shock of their reunion is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh.

Fifteen years ago, Sara Linton’s life changed forever when a celebratory night out ended in a violent attack that tore her world apart. Since then, Sara has remade her life. A successful doctor, engaged to a man she loves, she has finally managed to leave the past behind her. Until one evening, on call in the ER, everything changes. Sara battles to save a broken young woman who’s been brutally attacked. But as the investigation progresses, led by GBI Special Agent Will Trent, it becomes clear that Dani Cooper’s assault is uncannily linked to Sara’s. And the past isn’t going to stay buried forever.

Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (1905–1961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywood’s most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photos --- with a touch of defiance --- “Orientally yours.” Now, more than a century after her birth, Yunte Huang narrates Wong’s tragic life story, retracing her journey from Chinatown to silent-era Hollywood, and from Weimar Berlin to decadent, prewar Shanghai, and capturing American television in its infancy. As Huang shows, Wong’s rendezvous with history features a remarkable parade of characters, including a smitten Walter Benjamin and (an equally smitten) Marlene Dietrich.

In 2008, nine mountaineers failed to return from a winter backpacking trip in the New Mexico mountains. At their final campsite, searchers found a bizarre scene: something had appeared at the door of their tent so terrifying that it impelled them to slash their way out and flee barefoot to certain death in a blizzard. Despite a diligent search, only six bodies were found, two violently crushed and inexplicably missing their eyes. The case, given the code name “Dead Mountain” by the FBI, was never solved. Now, two more bodies from the lost expedition are unexpectedly discovered in a cave, one a grisly suicide. Young FBI Agent Corrie Swanson teams up with archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate what really happened on that fateful trip 15 years ago --- and to find the ninth victim.

Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor. But Zhu’s neighbor in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband --- and she’s strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. To stay in the game, Zhu will have to gamble everything on a risky alliance with the talented but unstable eunuch general Ouyang, who already has sacrificed everything for a chance at revenge on his father’s killer, the Great Khan. Unbeknownst to the southerners, a new contender is even closer to the throne. The scorned scholar Wang Baoxiang has maneuvered his way into the capital, and his lethal court games threaten to bring the empire to its knees.

On the isle of Ithaca, queen Penelope maintains a delicate balance of power. Many years ago, her husband Odysseus sailed to war with Troy and never came home. In his absence, Penelope uses all her cunning to keep the peace --- a peace that is shattered by the return of Orestes, King of Mycenae, and his sister Elektra. Orestes' hands are stained with his mother's blood. Not so long ago, the son of Agamemnon took Queen Clytemnestra's life on Ithaca's sands. Now, wracked with guilt, he is slowly losing his mind. But a king cannot be seen to be weak, and Elektra has brought him to Ithaca to keep him safe from the ambitious men of Mycenae. His uncle Menelaus, the battle-hungry king of Sparta, longs for Orestes' throne --- and if he can seize it, no one will be safe from his violent whims.

A struggling midlist writer, Jane feels trapped in an underwhelming marriage. There's only ever been one person she cared about: Thalia, her best and only friend nearly a decade ago during their Creative Writing days at Oxford. But then one night ruined everything. The blood-soaked night that should have bound Thalia to Jane forever instead made her lose her completely. Thalia disappeared without a trace, and Jane has been unable to find her since. Until now. Because there she is, her name at the top of the New York Times bestseller list: A Most Pleasant Death by Thalia Ashcroft. When she discovers a post from Thalia on her website about attending a book convention in New York City in a week --- “Can’t wait to see you there!” --- Jane can’t wait either. Jane won’t lose Thalia again.

T.J. Allen, a professional athlete, is charged with the murder of Matthew Stanton, the owner of the team. Renowned lawyer Joseph Antonelli agrees to take the case only after the trial court judge tells him that Allen is innocent and that “All of America contributed to the making of Matthew Stanton.” The evidence is firmly stacked against Allen: he was found standing over Stanton’s dead body, the murder weapon still in hand. The only way to prove Allen is innocent is to find the real killer and their motive. Who had a reason to kill Matthew Stanton? What had he done, or what was he planning to do, that made the real killer think he had no choice? As Antonelli prepares for the most difficult case of his career, he will learn that the answer to that question not only will change the outcome of this trial, but could change the world as we know it.

Sir Hereward: the only male child of an ancient society of witches. Knight, artillerist, swordsman. Mercenary for hire. Ill-starred lover. Mister Fitz: puppet, sorcerer, loremaster. Practitioner of arcane arts and wielder of sorcerous needles. Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: godslayers. Agents of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, charged with the location and removal of listed extra-dimensional entities, more commonly known as gods. Together, they are relentless travelers in a treacherous world of magic, gunpowder and adventure. Compiled for the first time ever, these eight magical stories --- plus an all-new tale, “The Field of Fallen Foe” --- comprise a must-have adult fantasy collection for fans and those about to discover the witch knight and his puppet sorcerer for the first time.

Meet Henri and Louise. Two strangers, traveling alone, on the train from Belgrade to Istanbul. Except this isn't the first time they have met. It's the 1960s, and Louise is running. From her past in England, from the owners of the money she has stolen --- and from Henri, the person who has been sent to collect it. Across the Continent Henri follows, desperate to leave behind his own troubles. The memories of his past life as a gendarme in Algeria that keep resurfacing. His inability to reconcile the growing responsibilities of his current criminal path with this former self. But Henri soon realizes that Louise is no ordinary mark. As the train hurtles toward its final destination, Henri and Louise must decide what the future will hold --- and if it involves one another.