At age two, Laura Bridgman lost four of her five senses to scarlet fever. At age seven, she was taken to Perkins Institute in Boston to determine if a child so terribly afflicted could be taught. At age 12, Charles Dickens declared her his prime interest for visiting America. And by age 20, she was considered the 19th century's second most famous woman, having mastered language and charmed the world with her brilliance.

Fifteen-year-old Oscar Drai meets the strange Marina while he's exploring an old quarter of Barcelona. She leads him to a cemetery, where they watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the last Sunday of each month. At exactly 10:00 in the morning, a woman descends from her carriage to place a single rose on an unmarked grave. When Oscar and Marina decide to follow her, they begin a journey that transports them to a forgotten postwar Barcelona and reveals a dark secret that lies waiting in the mysterious labyrinth beneath the city streets.

In this darkly riveting debut novel --- a sophisticated psychological mystery that is also a heartbreakingly honest meditation on memory, identity and aging --- an elderly woman descending into dementia embarks on a desperate quest to find the best friend she believes has disappeared. Her search for the truth will go back decades and have shattering consequences.

Jess’ life is falling apart. Her husband has done a vanishing act, her teenage stepson is being bullied, and her math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that she can’t afford to pay for. But then an unexpected knight in shining armor offers to rescue them --- Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. Driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages…maybe ever.

Through her work as an artist’s model, Eliza meets the magnetic and irascible Devil --- a born showman whose dream is to run his own theater company. Devil’s righthand man is Carlo Bonomi, an ill-tempered dwarf with an enormous talent for all things magic and illusion. And then there is Jasper Button, the enigmatic, unlikely final member of this fascinating cast of characters. Thrown together by a twist of fate, their lives are inextricably linked. As Eliza gets sucked into their seductive and dangerous world, she risks not only her heart, but also her life, which is soon thrown into peril.

Jo, the firstborn, "The General" to her 11 sisters, is the only thing the Hamilton girls have in place of a mother. Together, they elude their distant and controlling father, until the day he decides to marry them all off. Meanwhile, the girls continue to dance until one night when they are caught in a raid, separated, and Jo is thrust face-to-face with someone from her past: a bootlegger named Tom whom she hasn’t seen in almost 10 years.

In 1892, would-be poet James Norbury finds lodging with a charming young aristocrat. Through this new friendship, he is introduced to the drawing-rooms of high society and finds love in an unexpected quarter. Then, suddenly, he vanishes without a trace. The answer to his disappearance ultimately lies within the doors of the exclusive, secretive Aegolius Club, whose predatory members include the most ambitious and bloodthirsty men in England.

Arturo and Alma Rivera have lived their whole lives in Mexico. One day, their 15-year-old daughter, Maribel, sustains a terrible injury. The Riveras come to America with a single dream: that in this country of great opportunity and resources, Maribel can get better. When Mayor Toro, whose family is from Panama, sees Maribel in a Dollar Tree store, it is love at first sight --- and the beginning of a friendship between the Rivera and Toro families.

Sam Lattimore meets Elizabeth Church in 1970s Halifax, in an art gallery. The sparks are immediate, leading quickly to a marriage that is dear, erotically charged and brief. In Howard Norman’s new novel, the gleam of the marriage and the circumstances of Elizabeth’s murder are revealed in heart-stopping increments.