P.I. Leonid McGill isn’t usually one to refuse a case. But when Hiram Stent, a man down on his luck, begs him to find a cousin who is about to inherit millions of dollars, he senses something fishy. His instincts prove right: The night after he turns Hiram away, Hiram is found dead and Leonid’s office is broken into. Feeling partly responsible for this bizarre turn of events, Leonid is forced to open an investigation that will pull him into the lurid history of an old-money New York family.

When two fellow trainers were killed by orcas in marine parks, John Hargrove decided that SeaWorld's wildly popular programs were both detrimental to the whales and ultimately unsafe for trainers. After leaving SeaWorld, he became one of the stars of the controversial documentary "Blackfish" and now contributes his expertise to an advocacy movement that is convincing both federal and state governments to act. In BENEATH THE SURFACE, Hargrove paints a compelling portrait of these highly intelligent and social creatures.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Washington, D.C. found itself caught between warring sides in a four-year battle that would determine the future of the United States. With their husbands, brothers and fathers marching off to war, the women of Washington, D.C. joined the cause as well. Cokie Roberts chronicles their increasing independence, their political empowerment, their indispensable role in keeping the Union unified through the war, and in helping heal it once the fighting was done.

With food rationed and money scarce, Charlotte struggles to keep her family well fed during World War II. When their upcoming cherry harvest is threatened, she helps persuade local authorities to allow German war prisoners from a nearby camp to pick the fruit. But when Charlotte’s husband befriends one of the prisoners, a teacher named Karl, and invites him to tutor their daughter, the implications of Charlotte’s decision become apparent --- especially when she finds herself unexpectedly drawn to Karl.

In the long, hot summer of 1939, Britain is preparing for war, but on a riverside farm in Suffolk there is excitement of another kind. Mrs. Pretty, the widowed owner of the farm, has had her hunch confirmed that the mounds on her land hold buried treasure. As the dig proceeds, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary find. This fictional recreation of the famed Sutton Hoo dig follows three months of intense activity when locals fought outsiders, professionals thwarted amateurs, and love and rivalry flourished in equal measure.

Even the deadliest gangs in Chicagoland fear the Cross Crew and carefully avoid their cinderblock bunker headquarters.The Crew is notorious for its ruthless efficiency and cold-blooded cunning. Why, then, would anyone be foolhardy enough to threaten them --- and, even more dangerously, their loved ones? As Cross catches the scent of a far-reaching conspiracy, he realizes that it all connects to an unexplained event in his past: a massacre from which he emerged inexplicably unscathed, save for the blue mark on his face that pulses when danger is near. If he's reading the signs accurately, Cross might find himself again facing a terrible menace that is not altogether human.

Graham Swift presents a vision of a country, England, that is both a crucible of history and a maze of contemporary confusions. Moving from the 17th century to the present day, from world-shaking events to domestic dramas and frequently mixing tragedy with comedy, ENGLAND AND OTHER STORIES is bound together by an underlying instinct for the story of us all: an evocation of that mysterious thing, a nation, enriched by a clear-eyed compassion for how human individuals find or lose their way in the nationless territory of birth, growing up, sex, aging and death.

Fresh out of college, Hannah Brencher moved to New York, where she found herself lonely and depressed. When she noticed a woman who looked like she felt the same way on the subway, Hannah did something strange --- she wrote the woman a letter. She folded it, scribbled “If you find this letter, it’s for you...” on the front and left it behind. When she realized that it made her feel better, she started writing and leaving love notes all over the city. She found solace in the idea that her words might brighten someone’s day.

Leonora, known to some as Lee and others as Nora, is a reclusive crime writer, unwilling to leave her “nest” of an apartment unless it is absolutely necessary. When a friend she hasn’t seen or spoken to in years unexpectedly invites Nora (Lee?) to a weekend away in an eerie glass house deep in the English countryside, she reluctantly agrees to make the trip. Forty-eight hours later, she wakes up in a hospital bed injured but alive, with the knowledge that someone is dead.

As the sole assistant to a famous upscale interior designer, Lane Harmon is accustomed to visiting opulent homes. When called upon to assist in redecorating a modest townhouse in Bergen County, she learns the home belongs to the wife of notorious and disgraced financier Parker Bennett, who has been missing for two years. Gradually, Lane finds herself drawn to Eric, the Bennetts’ son, who is determined to prove that his father is not guilty. Lane doesn’t know that the closer she gets to the Bennetts, the more she puts her life --- and her daughter's life --- in jeopardy.

Ace Thompson is the last person Sierra West wants to ask for a bartending job, but she has no choice. Ever since discovering that her "perfect" family is built on a lie, Sierra has been determined to make it on her own. Resisting her new boss should be easy when they're always bickering. Until one night, the squabbling stops…and something far more dangerous takes over. Ace has a personal policy against messing around with staff --- or with spoiled rich girls. But there's a steel backbone beneath Sierra's silver-spoon upbringing. She's tougher than he thought, and so much more tempting.

The House of Farrell is a prolific skincare company and home of The Cream, an iconic face product. But the world of cosmetics is changing, and the once glorious House of Farrell is now in decline, its customers tempted away by more fashionable brands. With no idea how to right the ship, company figurehead Athina Farrell hires Bianca Bailey, a formidable businesswoman. Athina and Bianca lock horns over the future of the House of Farrell, but it’s the past that tells its devastating tale of ambition and ego, passion and wonder.

For Jane Re, half-Korean, half-American orphan, Flushing, Queens, is the place she’s been trying to escape from her whole life. So she’s thrilled to become the au pair for the Mazer-Farleys, two Brooklyn English professors and their adopted Chinese daughter. Jane is the recipient of Beth Mazer’s feminist lectures and Ed Farley’s very male attention. But when a family death interrupts Jane and Ed’s blossoming affair, she flies off to Seoul. Reconnecting with family and struggling to learn the ways of modern-day Korea, Jane begins to wonder if Ed Farley is really the man for her.

Lee Nicholson takes the academic world by storm, seemingly unearthing a never-before published sonnet by William Shakespeare. When she reads the poem on the air, her words are ignored by all but a small group of people. Buried in the language of the sonnet, in its allusions and wordplay, secrets have been hidden dating back to Elizabethan times, shared by the queen and her doctor, by men who seek the crown and men who seek the world. If the riddles are solved, it could explode what the world knows of the monarchy. Or it could release a pandemic more deadly than the world has ever seen.

What comes next? What comes after the devastating loss of Abigail Thomas’ husband, a process both sudden and slow? What form does her lifelong platonic friendship take after a certain line is crossed? How to cope with her daughter’s diagnosed illness? Or the death of her beloved dog? And how to like it? How to accept, appreciate, enjoy? Who are our most trusted, valuable companions, and what will we do for them?

No one knows the identity of a newborn whose body has just been discovered in the woods or what ended her very short life. Freelance journalist Molly Sanderson is unexpectedly called upon to cover the news for her local paper. A severe depression followed the loss of her own baby, and this assignment could unearth memories she has tried hard to bury. But the disturbing history Molly uncovers is not her own. Her investigation reveals a decades-old trail of dark secrets hiding behind Ridgedale's white picket fences.

Felicia Day is a violinist, filmmaker, Internet entrepreneur, compulsive gamer, hoagie specialist, and former lonely homeschooled girl who overcame her isolated childhood to become at least semi-influential in the world of Internet geeks and Goodreads book clubs. She moved to Hollywood to pursue her dream of becoming an actress and was immediately typecast as a crazy cat-lady secretary. But her misadventures in Hollywood led her to produce her own web series, own her very own production company, and become an Internet star.