When the fishing boat Pirio Kasparov is on is rammed by a freighter, she finds herself abandoned in the North Atlantic. She survives nearly four hours in the water before being rescued by the Coast Guard. But the boat’s owner and her professional fisherman friend, Ned, is not so lucky. Compelled to look after Noah, the son of the late Ned, and her alcoholic prep school friend, Thomasina, Pirio can’t shake the lurking suspicion that the boat’s sinking --- and Ned’s death --- was no accident.

Byron Hemmings wakes to a morning that looks like any other: his school uniform draped over his wooden desk chair, his sister arguing over the breakfast cereal, the click of his mother’s heels as she crosses the kitchen. But when the three of them leave home, the morning takes an unmistakable turn. In one terrible moment, something happens, something completely unexpected and at odds with life as Byron understands it. While his mother seems not to have noticed, 11-year-old Byron realizes that from now on nothing can be the same. Over the days and weeks that follow, Byron’s perfect world is shattered. Unable to trust his parents, he confides in his best friend, James, and together they concoct a plan.

Olivia was only 15 the summer she left her hometown of Ocean Vista. Two decades later, on a visit with her children, her nine-year-old son Daniel, recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder, disappears. Olivia’s search for him sparks tender and painful memories of her past --- of her fiercely loving and secretive mother, an erratic and beautiful psychic, and the discovery of heartbreaking secrets that shattered her world.

In THE TRIP TO ECHO SPRING, Olivia Laing examines the link between creativity and alcohol through the work and lives of six extraordinary men: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever and Raymond Carver. All six of these writers were alcoholics, and the subject of drinking surfaces in some of their finest work.

Ten years ago, someone ruined Alice Croft's life. Now, she has a chance to right that wrong. She thinks she has found the perfect man to carry out her plan --- Jack Calabrese. However, it isn't long before she  finds herself drawn into a labyrinth of terrifying surrender to a man who is more dangerous than she ever could have imagined.

Hayley Kincain and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since Iraq. Now they are staying in one place so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps she can have a normal life, put aside her own pain, even have a relationship. Will being back home help Andy’s PTSD, or will his terrible memories drag him to the edge of hell, and drugs push him over?

Shy took the summer job to make some money. In a few months on a luxury cruise liner, he'll rake in the tips and be able to help his mom and sister out with the bills. But everything changes when the Big One hits. Shy is only weeks out at sea when an earthquake more massive than ever before recorded hits California, and his life is forever changed.

When Cathleen Harrington leaves her home in Ireland in 1919 to travel to South Africa, she knows that she does not love the man she is to marry there. Her only real companions are her diary and her housemaid, and later the housemaid's daughter, Ada. When Ada disappears one day, scorned by her own community, Cathleen must make a choice: Should she conform to society, or search for the girl who has become closer to her than her own daughter?

Lillian and her restaurant have a way of drawing people together. Among the cast of characters are Al, the accountant who finds meaning in numbers and ritual; Chloe, a budding chef who hasn’t learned to trust after heartbreak; Louise, Al’s wife, whose anger simmers just below the boiling point; and Isabelle, whose memories are slowly slipping from her grasp. And there’s Lillian herself, whose life has taken a turn she didn’t expect.

On the surface of it, there's not much to David Maine's novel THE PRESERVATIONIST. After all, most of us probably knew the plot already, right? The animals came two by two, it rained for forty days and forty nights, and there was a rainbow at the end. What else can be said about the oft-told Old Testament tale of Noah's Ark?