Nadine Walsh’s summer garden party is in full swing. But she finds herself standing over a dead body in her basement while her guests clink glasses upstairs. What happened? How did it come to this? Rewind to that morning when Nadine is in her kitchen, making last-minute preparations before she welcomes more than a hundred guests to her home to celebrate her mother’s birthday. But only her mother knows that today isn’t just a birthday party. It marks another anniversary as well. Still, Nadine will focus just on tonight. Everyone deserves a celebration after the year they’ve had. A chance for fun. A chance to forget. But it’s hard to forget when Nadine’s head is swirling with secrets, haunting memories, and concerns about what might happen when her guests unite.

In September 1883, a small town in the South Australian outback huddles under strange, vivid sunsets. Six-year-old Denny Wallace has gone missing during a dust storm, and the entire community is caught up in the search for him. As they scour the desert and mountains for the lost child, the residents of Fairly --- newlyweds, farmers, mothers, indigenous trackers, cameleers, children, artists, schoolteachers, widows, maids and policemen --- confront their relationships, both with one another and with the landscape they inhabit. The colonial Australia of THE SUN WALKS DOWN is noisy with opinions, arguments, longings and terrors. It's haunted by many gods --- the sun among them, rising and falling on each day in which Denny could be found, or lost forever.

India, 1947. In a rural village in Bengal live three sisters. Priya is intelligent and idealistic, resolved to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a doctor. Deepa is the beauty, determined to make a marriage that will bring her family joy and status. Jamini is devout, sharp-eyed and a talented quiltmaker, with deeper passions than she reveals. Theirs is a home of love and safety, a refuge from the violent events taking shape in the nation. Then their father is killed during a riot, and even their neighbors turn against them. When the partition of India is officially decided, a drastic --- and dangerous --- change is in the air. The sisters find themselves separated from one another, each on different paths. They fear for what will happen not just to themselves, but to each other.

In the early 1970s, in Stovall, Texas, 17-year-old Earl meets Tina, the new girl in town. Tina convinces Earl to drive her to see her mother in Austin, where Earl and Tina are quickly separated. Two days later, Earl is being questioned by the police about Tina’s disappearance and the blood in the trunk of his car. But Earl can’t remember what happened in Austin, and with little financial support from his working-class family, he is sentenced for a crime he did not commit. Forty years later, Earl is released into a world he can barely navigate. Settling in a small town on the Oregon coast, he attempts to establish a sense of freedom. But just as Earl finds the rhythm he’s always sought, his past returns to endanger the new life he’s built.

In the summer of 1964, three innocent men are brutally murdered for trying to help Black Mississippians secure the right to vote. Against this backdrop, 21-year-old Violet Richards finds herself in more trouble than she’s ever been in her life. Suffering a brutal attack of her own, she kills the man responsible. But with the color of Violet’s skin, there is no way she can escape Jim Crow justice in Jackson, Mississippi. With the help of her white beau, she escapes. Back in Jackson, Violet’s older sister, Marigold, has dreams of attending law school, but she’s pregnant and unmarried. After news of the murder brings the police to her door, Marigold heads North seeking the promise of a better life and no more segregation. But has she made a terrible choice that threatens her life and that of her unborn child?

On a river deep in the Mexican jungle stands the colossal villa Xanadu, a wellness center that’s home to an ardent spiritual group devoted to self-help guru Paul Bentzen and his enigmatic wife, Kali. But when Paul mysteriously dies, his entire estate --- including Xanadu --- is left not to Kali, but to his estranged niece, Sveta. Shocked and confused, Sveta travels from New York City to Mexico to pay her respects. At first, Xanadu seems like a secluded paradise with its tumbling gardens, beautiful people and transcendent vibe. But soon the mystical façade wears thin, revealing a group of brainwashed members drunk on promises of an impossible utopia, guided by a disturbing belief system and a charismatic, dangerously capable leader.

Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness and his marriage on the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, he agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation.

An idyllic wellness retreat has opened on an island off the English coast, promising rest and relaxation --- but the island itself, known locally as Reaper’s Rock, has a dark past. Once the playground of a serial killer, it’s rumored to be cursed. A young woman is found dead below the yoga pavilion in what seems to be a tragic fall. But Detective Elin Warner soon learns the victim wasn’t a guest --- in fact, she wasn’t meant to be on the island at all. And they would do anything to escape. The longer Elin stays, the more secrets she uncovers. When someone else drowns in a diving incident, Elin begins to suspect that there’s nothing accidental about these deaths. But why would someone target the guests at this luxury resort?

It was supposed to be the perfect weekend away. Six very different women travel to a sun-soaked Greek island for a bachelorette trip to celebrate Lexi’s upcoming wedding. From the glorious ocean views to the quaint tavernas and whitewashed streets, the vacation seems too good to be true. But dangerous undercurrents run beneath the sunset swims and midnight cocktails --- because each of the women is hiding a secret. Someone is determined to make sure that Lexi’s marriage never happens --- and that one of them doesn’t leave the island alive.

In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned, Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good. Picking up her mother's old packhorse library route, Honey begins to deliver books to the remote hollers of Appalachia. Honey is looking to prove that she doesn't need anyone telling her how to survive. But the route can be treacherous, and some folks aren't as keen to let a woman pave her own way.