In ACID FOR THE CHILDREN, Flea takes readers on a deeply personal and revealing tour of his formative years. Through hilarious anecdotes, poetical meditations and occasional flights of fantasy, the iconic bassist and co-founder of the Red Hot Chili Peppers deftly chronicles the experiences that forged him as an artist, a musician and a young man. His dreamy, jazz-inflected prose makes the Los Angeles of the 1970s and ’80s come to gritty, glorious life. It is here that young Flea, looking to escape a turbulent home, found family in a community of musicians, artists and junkies who also lived on the fringe. He spent most of his time partying and committing petty crimes. But it was in music where he found a higher meaning, a place to channel his frustration, loneliness and love.

On vacation from London on the beautiful Italian coast, 28-year-old Elena Standish and her older sister, Margot, have finally been able to move on from the lasting trauma of the Great War, in which the newly married Margot lost her husband and the sisters their beloved brother. Touring with her camera in hand, Elena has found new inspiration in the striking Italian landscape, and she’s met an equally striking man named Ian. When Ian has to leave unexpectedly, Elena finds she’s not ready to part from him, and the two share a spontaneous train trip home to England. But a shocking sequence of events disrupts their itinerary, forcing Elena to personally deliver a message to Berlin on Ian’s behalf, one that could change the fate of Europe.

Why do random Jewish holidays keep springing up unexpectedly? Why are yarmulkes round? Who was the first Jewish comedian? What's "Christian humor," and have you ever even heard of that phrase? Who is "the Golem," and who do you want it to beat up? These baffling questions and many more are answered by comedy legends Dave Barry, Adam Mansbach and Alan Zweibel, two-thirds of whom are Jewish. In A FIELD GUIDE TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE, the authors dissect every holiday, rite of passage and tradition, unravel a long and complicated history, and tackle the tough questions that have plagued Jews and non-Jews alike for centuries.

Sister Bess Crawford, who has been working with the severely wounded in England in the wake of the Great War, is asked to carry out a personal mission in Paris for a Matron at the London headquarters of The Queen Alexandra’s. When she locates Lawrence Minton, she finds a bitter and disturbed officer who is well on his way toward an addiction to opiates. He tells her that he doesn’t care if he lives or dies, as long as he can find oblivion. But what has changed him? What is it that haunts him? He can’t confide in Bess, because the truth is so deeply buried in his mind that he can only relive it in nightmares. The officers who had shared a house with him in Paris profess to know nothing. Still, Bess is reluctant to trust them even when they offer her their help.

“Marley was dead, to begin with,” Charles Dickens tells us at the beginning of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. But in Jon Clinch’s novel, Jacob Marley, business partner to Ebenezer Scrooge, is very much alive: a rapacious and cunning boy who grows up to be a forger, a scoundrel, and the man who will be both the making and the undoing of Scrooge. With their business interests inextricably bound together, and instincts for secrecy and greed bred in their very bones, the two men engage in a shadowy war of deception, false identities, forged documents, theft and cold-blooded murder. Marley and Scrooge are destined to clash in an unforgettable reckoning that will echo into the future and set the stage for Marley’s ghostly return.

On the eve of a top-secret space mission, Captain Calli Chase detects a tripped alarm in the tunnels deep below a NASA research center. A NASA pilot, quantum physicist and cybercrime investigator, Calli knows that a looming blizzard and government shutdown could provide the perfect cover for sabotage, with deadly consequences. As it turns out, the danger is worse than she thought. A spatter of dried blood, a missing security badge, a suspicious suicide --- a series of disturbing clues point to Calli’s twin sister, Carme, who’s been MIA for days. Desperate to halt the countdown to disaster and clear her sister’s name, Captain Chase digs deep into her vast cyber security knowledge and her painful past, probing for answers to her twin’s erratic conduct.

Istanbul, 1683: Mehmed IV, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, is preparing to lay siege to Vienna, capital of the Holy Roman Empire, when a mysterious visitor arrives in his bedroom --- naked, covered in strange tattoos --- to deliver a dangerous, world-changing message. Paris, 2017: Ottoman flags have been flying over the great city for 300 years, ever since its fall --- along with all of Europe --- to the empire’s all-conquering army. When a mysterious stranger --- naked, covered in strange tattoos --- appears on the banks of the Seine, Kamal Arslan Agha, a feted officer in the sultan’s secret police, is called in to investigate. But what he discovers is a secret buried in the empire’s past, a secret the Sultan will do anything to silence.

Nia, a gifted but desperately lonely hacker, is living in isolation with her strict single dad. As a social-media maven, she is wildly popular and has more than a million friends. But they are all strangers. Cameron is on a quest for YouTube fame as a vlogger focusing on exploring the mysteries of Lake Erie. While recording his latest video, he is knocked out by lightning in a freak storm that appears to defy the laws of physics. When Cameron awakens, he discovers an astonishing cyberkinetic talent: the ability to manipulate computers and electronics with his mind. After a chance meeting online, the two teenagers join together to right wrongs in the world --- but they draw the attention of dangerous forces, putting the future of the planet at risk.

Twelve-year-old Rain Winter narrowly escaped an abduction while walking to a friend’s house. Her two best friends, Tess and Hank, were not as lucky. Tess never came home, and Hank was held in captivity before managing to escape. Their abductor was sent to prison but years later was released. Then someone delivered real justice --- and killed him in cold blood. Now Rain is living the perfect suburban life, her dark childhood buried deep. But when another brutal murderer who escaped justice is found dead, Rain is unexpectedly drawn into the case. Eerie similarities to the murder of her friends’ abductor force Rain to revisit memories she’s worked hard to leave behind.