Cait Monaghan and Rebecca McRae are on a desolate road that slices through the New Mexican desert. They've never met before tonight. Both have secrets to protect. Both of their lives are in danger. When a truck pulls up fast behind them, they assume it's punk teenagers or run-of-the-mill road rage, but it soon becomes clear that whoever is driving the truck is hunting them for sport --- and they are out to draw blood. As the miles unspool and the dangers mount, the pasts they've worked so hard to keep buried have come back to haunt them. Someone wants one of them dead. But which one? And given the lives the two women have been leading, that someone could be almost anyone. If Cait and Rebecca are going to survive, they'll have to learn to trust one another --- and themselves.

Truth: Sherri Griffin and her daughter, Katie, have recently moved to the idyllic beach town of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Rebecca Coleman, former leader of the Newburyport Mom Squad, has made a surprising effort to include these newcomers in typically closed-group activities. Rebecca’s teenage daughter, Alexa, has even been spotted babysitting Katie. Truth: Alexa has time on her hands because of a recent falling-out with her longtime best friends for reasons no one knows --- but everyone suspects have to do with Alexa’s highly popular and increasingly successful YouTube channel. Lie: Rebecca Coleman doesn’t have a new man in her life. Alexa is not seeing anyone new herself and is planning on shutting down her YouTube channel in advance of attending college in the fall. Sherri Griffin’s real name is Sherri Griffin, and a bad divorce is all she’s running from.

Truth: Sherri Griffin and her daughter, Katie, have recently moved to the idyllic beach town of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Rebecca Coleman, former leader of the Newburyport Mom Squad, has made a surprising effort to include these newcomers in typically closed-group activities. Rebecca’s teenage daughter, Alexa, has even been spotted babysitting Katie. Truth: Alexa has time on her hands because of a recent falling-out with her longtime best friends for reasons no one knows --- but everyone suspects have to do with Alexa’s highly popular and increasingly successful YouTube channel. Lie: Rebecca Coleman doesn’t have a new man in her life. Alexa is not seeing anyone new herself and is planning on shutting down her YouTube channel in advance of attending college in the fall. Sherri Griffin’s real name is Sherri Griffin, and a bad divorce is all she’s running from.

After a disastrous summer spent at her family summer home on Cape Cod, 17-year-old Ann Gordon was left with a secret that changed her life forever, and created a rift between her sister, Poppy, and their adopted brother, Michael. Now, 15 years later, her parents have died, leaving Ann and Poppy to decide the fate of the Wellfleet home that's been in the Gordon family for generations. For Ann, the once-beloved house is tainted with bad memories. Poppy loves the old saltbox, but after years spent chasing waves around the world, she isn't sure she knows how to stay in one place. Just when the sisters decide to sell, Michael re-enters their lives with a legitimate claim to the house. But more than that, he wants to set the record straight about that long-ago summer.

After Maggie Krause’s mother, Iris, dies suddenly in a car crash, Maggie finds five sealed envelopes with her will, each addressed to a mysterious man she’s never heard of. Overwhelmed by her grief and frustrated with her family, she decides to hand-deliver the letters. The ensuing road trip takes her over miles of California highways, through strangers’ recollections of a second, hidden life, and a journey through her own fears as she navigates her new relationship. As she fills in the details of Iris’ story, Maggie must confront the possibility that almost everything she knew about her --- her marriage, her lukewarm relationship to Judaism, her disapproval of her daughter’s queerness --- is more meaningful than she ever allowed herself to imagine.

In May 1875, Elizabeth Todd Edwards reels from news that her younger sister Mary, former First Lady and widow of President Abraham Lincoln, has attempted suicide. Mary’s shocking act followed legal proceedings arranged by her eldest and only surviving son that declared her legally insane. Although they have long been estranged, Elizabeth knows Mary’s tenuous mental health has deteriorated through decades of trauma and loss. Yet is her suicide attempt truly the impulse of a deranged mind, or the desperate act of a sane woman terrified to be committed to an asylum? And --- if her sisters can put past grievances aside --- is their love powerful enough to save her?

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. They're polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke and bogged down with writer's block. Until, one hazy evening, they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book, and no one will fall in love. Really.

From her beginnings as the daughter of a courtesan to her extraordinary transformation into the most celebrated actress of her era, Sarah Bernhardt is brought to life by an internationally bestselling author praised for his historical novels featuring famous women. C. W. Gortner’s THE FIRST ACTRESS is a fascinating, intimate account of a woman whose unrivaled talent and indomitable spirit has enshrined her in history as the Divine Sarah.

Bridget Jones penned a diary; Roxy writes letters. Specifically, she writes letters to her hapless, rent-avoidant ex-boyfriend --- and current roommate --- Everett. This charming and funny twenty-something is under-employed (and under-romanced), and she’s decidedly fed up with the indignities she endures as a deli maid at Whole Foods (the original), and the dismaying speed at which her beloved Austin is becoming corporatized. When a new Lululemon pops up at the intersection of Sixth and Lamar where the old Waterloo Video used to be, Roxy can stay silent no longer. As her letters to Everett become less about overdue rent and more about the state of her life, Roxy realizes she’s ready to be the heroine of her own story.

Lily is grappling with her sexual and intellectual desires, while also trying to manage her roles as a mother and a wife in 2016. Vivian Barr is dedicated to helping her husband find success in Watergate-era Washington, D.C. But one night he demands a humiliating favor, and her refusal to obey changes the course of her life --- along with the lives of others. Esther and her uncle’s tribe live a tenuous existence outside the palace walls in ancient Persia. When an innocent mistake results in devastating consequences for her people, she is offered up as a sacrifice to please the King, in the hopes that she will save them all. In THE BOOK OF V., these characters' stories overlap and ultimately collide, illuminating how women’s lives have and have not changed over thousands of years.