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.

Brit is the second violinist, a beautiful and quiet orphan; on the viola is Henry, a prodigy who's always had it easy; the cellist is Daniel, the oldest and an angry skeptic who sleeps around; and on first violin is Jana, their flinty, resilient leader. Together, they are the Van Ness Quartet. After the group's youthful, rocky start, they experience devastating failure and wild success, heartbreak and marriage, triumph and loss, betrayal and enduring loyalty. They are always tied to each other --- by career, by the intensity of their art, by the secrets they carry, by choosing each other over and over again.

Cultural critic and bestselling author Roxane Gay collects original and previously published pieces that address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence and aggression they face, and where they are “routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied” for speaking out. Contributions include essays from established and up-and-coming writers, performers and critics, including actors Ally Sheedy and Gabrielle Union and writers Amy Jo Burns, Lyz Lenz and Claire Schwartz.

Jude Dubuisson has the supernatural ability to find lost things, a gift passed down to him by the father he has never known --- a father who was more than human. But so much was lost during Hurricane Katrina that it played havoc with Jude’s magic, leaving him overwhelmed and cursed. Jude has been lying low since the waters receded, hiding from his own power, his divine former employer, and a debt owed to the fortune god of New Orleans. When the fortune god is murdered, Jude is drawn back into a world full of magic, monsters and miracles --- and a deep conspiracy that threatens the city’s soul.

After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle. Its denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living, but crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaks” is ravaging the population. When a strange new visitor arrives --- a woman riding an orca, with a polar bear at her side --- the city is entranced. The “orcamancer,” as she’s known, very subtly brings together four people to stage unprecedented acts of resistance. By banding together to save their city before it crumbles under the weight of its own decay, they will learn shocking truths about themselves.

The erratic decisions of a prophecy-obsessed king have drained Innis Lear of its wild magic, leaving behind a trail of barren crops and despondent subjects. The king’s three daughters know the realm’s only chance of resurrection is to crown a new sovereign, proving a strong hand can resurrect magic and defend itself. But their father will not choose an heir until the longest night of the year, when prophecies align and a poison ritual can be enacted. Refusing to leave their future in the hands of blind faith, the daughters of Innis Lear prepare for war --- but regardless of who wins the crown, the shores of Innis will weep the blood of a house divided.

Raised by two attentive parents, Niru is a top student and a track star at his prestigious private high school. Bound for Harvard in the fall, his prospects are bright. But Niru has a painful secret: he is queer --- an abominable sin to his conservative Nigerian parents. No one knows except Meredith, his best friend and the one person who seems not to judge him. When his father accidentally discovers Niru is gay, the fallout is brutal and swift. As Niru and Meredith struggle to reconcile their desires against the expectations and institutions that seek to define them, they find themselves speeding toward a future more violent and senseless than they can imagine.

Ada has always been unusual. As an infant in southern Nigeria, she is a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents successfully prayed her into existence, but something must have gone awry, as the young Ada becomes a troubled child, prone to violent fits of anger and grief. Born “with one foot on the other side,” she begins to develop separate selves. When Ada travels to America for college, a traumatic event crystallizes the selves into something more powerful. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these alters --- now protective, now hedonistic --- move into control, Ada’s life spirals in a dangerous direction.

The 10 stories in Stephanie Powell Watts’ collection deal with both the ties that bind and the gulf that separates generations --- from children confronting the fallibility of their own parents for the first time to adults finding themselves forced to start over again and again. In “Highway 18,” a young Jehovah’s Witness going door to door with an expert field-service partner from up north is at a crossroads. Will she go to college or continue to serve the church? “If You Hit Randall County, You’ve Gone Too Far” tells of a family trying to make it through a tense celebratory dinner for a son just out on bail. And in the title story, a young girl experiences loss for the first time in the fallout from her father’s relationship with her babysitter.

Korea, 1943. Hana has lived her entire life under Japanese occupation. As a haenyeo, a female diver of the sea, she enjoys an independence that few other Koreans can still claim. Until the day Hana saves her younger sister from a Japanese soldier and is herself captured and transported to Manchuria. There she is forced to become a “comfort woman” in a Japanese military brothel. But haenyeo are women of power and strength. She will find her way home. South Korea, 2011. Emi has spent more than 60 years trying to forget the sacrifice her sister made, but she must confront the past to discover peace. Seeing the healing of her children and her country, can Emi move beyond the legacy of war to find forgiveness?