Twins Penny and Nix Albright grew up doing everything together. But when Nix dies in a tragic accident soon after college, she leaves behind a cryptic voicemail that has Penny guilt-ridden. Five years later, Penny has found new purpose as a rookie cop. She’s working to fulfill Nix’s dream of making the world a safer place. But following that dream becomes a nightmare when she’s called to her first murder scene. When she sees the victim, she knows him instantly: Danny Bowery, one of three men she’s long blamed for Nix’s death. A stunned Penny discovers a blonde in blood-drenched clothes gripping a box cutter. Before Penny can arrest her, the woman reveals that Bowery’s murder is part of a larger story that is far from over. Then she disappears. Now, Penny will stop at nothing to pursue this dangerous woman and learn why she’s avenging Nix’s death.

It’s 1977, and an air of restlessness has settled on the residents of Cambridge Road in Rochester, New York. When Nina Larkin is given a copy of THE JOY OF SEX by her newly divorced friend, she no longer can dismiss the nearly nonexistent intimacy of her marriage. Just as her oldest child, Clara, is falling in love for the first time, Nina finds herself longing for the forbidden: a midlife awakening. An intoxicating fling with a prominent neighbor brings Nina a freedom she never thought possible --- but also risks the reputations of both families and unravels Clara’s world. Years later, Clara, now a successful food stylist in New York City, has never been able to move past the long-ago scandal. Drawn back home by the pull of a family wedding and wrestling with her own demons, she makes a pivotal decision that turns her life upside down.

Nineteen-year-old Celia Dent keeps telling herself how lucky she is to be working at the phone company and to be married to Drew. Celia’s contentment with her little life is shattered, though, when a woman she knows from work is murdered in a love tryst gone awry. What would that be like, Celia wonders, to die for love --- or to kill for love? Before she knows it, her musings about love-and-death happenings are bleeding into daily life. Suddenly she’s playing hooky from work and searching for a love tryst of her very own. She’s practicing her marksmanship at a local gun range and thinking about how good it would feel to bury something sharp inside her domineering husband’s ear. It’s all pretend, though, until the night comes when Celia finally goes too far, and she and Drew are set on a deadly collision course.

Dan Simon's debut novel takes place in Ashland, New Hampshire, a former mill town in the lakes region, and is told in six voices. Among them are Carolyn, a 20-year-old writer at a turning point in her life; Gordon, who arrives in Ashland in the twilight of his years; Andy, a local boy; Geoff, Carolyn's writing teacher at Plymouth State; and Edith, Gordon's wife, who is inadvertently Carolyn's spiritual guide and friend. Then there is Jennie, Carolyn's aunt, who seems to offer her a model for how to live. But things aren't always what they seem, and Carolyn must discover her own rules and make her own way.

The Flynn family is coming undone. Catherine and Bud's open marriage has reached its breaking point as their daughters spiral in their own chaotic orbits: Abigail, the eldest, is dating a man in his 20s nicknamed War Crime Wes; Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist; the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone --- or something --- is monitoring the town’s citizens. Casting a shadow across their lives, and their small coastal town, is Paul Alabaster, a billionaire shipping magnate. Rumors of corruption circulate, but no one dares to dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with a mysterious shipping container sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy --- one that may just bring them closer together.

Twelve-year-old Zach is cautiously optimistic. His father Bram, whose business is in dire need of cash, has put together a father-son backcountry ski weekend to wine and dine his biggest investors. Schooled in outdoor survival by his mother, Zach is eager to prove himself to the hypercritical Bram. Maybe if Zach shows how useful he is, he can earn his father’s love. But Zach knows to be on high alert around Bram, and he sees the way the group ignores the increasingly threatening conditions. For the first time in his beloved mountains, he is faced with the unknown, convinced that something watches their cabin from the treeline. Something that leaves behind strange tracks and picks its prey clean. As the adults recklessly test the limits of the outdoors, Zach worries he might be in even more danger than he realized.

Christine is on tour for her novel, a revenge fantasy based on a real-life relationship gone bad with an older professor 10 years prior. Now on the road, she’s seeking answers --- about how to live a good life and what it means to make art --- through intimate conversations with strangers, past lovers and friends. But when the antagonist of her novel --- her old painting professor --- reaches out in a series of sly communiques after years of silence to tell her that he’s read her book, Christine must reckon with what it means to lose the reins of a narrative she wrote precisely to maintain control. When her professor invites her to join him at his house, on a remote island off the coast of Maine, their encounter threatens to change the very foundations of her life as she’s imagined it.

A. is an amateur translator. Adrift and burdened by debt following a medical trauma, she makes rent caring for a young boy who is not and could never be her own. Her nights are spent on the dance floor, chasing spontaneous connection. There, she encounters N., who shares her numbed state and sometimes her bed. Among N.’s meager possessions, A. comes across a slim book about an unnamed foreign town of disappearing boys. The book, Field Notes, documents the stories of a community of mothers who assemble to mourn their missing sons together. When a near-assault stuns A. out of her inertia, she takes off for the city where Field Notes was written in search of its author and the end of the story. But A.’s digging leads her instead to the traces of a murdered poet, a mysterious woman whose legacy will intersect unexpectedly and pivotally with A.’s own life.

Willow experienced all her big firsts with her high school sweetheart. Now, reeling from their very public breakup, she wants to get a re-do on those important moments. While dog-sitting for her brother during his deployment, she has a chance to start over, and spending time with his best friend gives her the confidence to start checking items off her “Re-Do list.” Deacon promised his best friend two things when Cruz left for a deployment: he would look out for Willow and keep his hands off Cruz’s baby sister. “Operation Re-Do” is innocent enough at first: Deacon likes Willow, and he’s willing to help her out any way he can. But when the list of firsts turns from a first dance to first kisses and more, Deacon can’t deny the connection he feels to Willow.

Fatima Bhutto was a teenager when her beloved father was assassinated. Ever since, she longed for a complete and happy family. Years later, still grappling with profound grief, she meets a charismatic man who offers her a new beginning --- promising love, healing, and the children she’s always dreamed of. But the dream soon unravels, revealing a toxic, manipulative relationship that holds her captive for over a decade. By the spring of 2020, Fatima finds herself secluded in the English countryside, accompanied by her most loyal companion: Coco, a fiercely protective Jack Russell terrier. In the presence of nature and Coco’s unwavering devotion, Fatima begins to question everything --- and slowly finds the courage to confront her suffering and reclaim her voice.