One of only four winners of the O. Henry Special Award for Continuing Achievement, Alice Adams wove her life into her fiction and used her writing to understand the changing tides of the 20th century. Her work portrays vibrant characters both young and old who live on the edge of their emotions, absorbed by love affairs yet always determined to be independent and to fulfill their personal destinies. Carol Sklenicka integrates the drama of Adams’ deeply felt, elegantly fierce life with a cascade of events --- the civil rights and women’s movements, the ’60s counterculture and sexual freedom. This biography’s revealing analyses of Adams’ stories and novels, and extensive interviews with her family and friends, give us the definitive story of a writer often dubbed “America’s Colette.”

There's plenty about the grownup world that six-year-old Aoife doesn't understand. Like what happened to her big brother, Theo, and why her mama is in the hospital instead of home where she belongs. Uncle Donny says she just needs to be patient, but Aoife is sure her mama won't be able to come home until Aoife learns what really happened to her brother. The trouble is no one wants to talk about Theo because he was murdered. But by whom? With her imaginary friend, Teddy, by her side and the detecting skills of her nosy next-door neighbor, Aoife sets out to uncover the truth about her family. But she will learn that some secrets can't stay hidden forever, and sometimes the pain we bury is the biggest secret of them all.

Inside a barn in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a scientist searching for an Alzheimer’s cure throws a switch --- and finds herself mysteriously transported into her husband’s body. What begins as a botched experiment will change her life --- and the world --- forever. Over two decades later, all across the planet, “flash” technology allows individuals the ability to transfer their consciousness into other bodies for specified periods, paid, registered and legal. Society has been utterly transformed by the process, from travel to warfare to entertainment. But beyond the reach of the law and government regulators is a sordid black market called the darkshare, where desperate “vessels” anonymously rent out their bodies, no questions asked, for any purpose --- sex, drugs, crime...or worse.

Natalie, a young art student in New York City, is struggling to pay her bills when a friend makes a suggestion: Why not go online and find a sugar daddy? Though more than 30 years her senior, Gabe, a handsome corporate finance attorney, seems like the perfect candidate. Within a month, they are madly in love. At least Nat is. Gabe already has a family and has no intention of leaving them. So when he abruptly ends things, Nat can’t let go. She begins drinking heavily and stalking him. But Gabe is not about to let his sugar baby destroy his perfect life. What was supposed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement devolves into a nightmare of deception, obsession and, when a body is found near Gabe’s apartment, murder.

Berlin, 1938: It’s the height of summer, and Germany is on the brink of war. When fledgling reporter Georgie Young is posted to Berlin, alongside fellow Londoner Max Spender, she knows they are entering the eye of the storm. Arriving to a city swathed in red flags and crawling with Nazis, Georgie feels helpless, witnessing innocent people being torn from their homes. As tensions rise, she realizes that she and Max have to act --- even if it means putting their lives on the line. But when she digs deeper, Georgie begins to uncover the unspeakable truth about Hitler’s Germany --- and the pair are pulled into a world darker than she ever could have imagined.

In 1991, Heather Cole and her friends were members of the Dead Girls Club. Obsessed with the macabre, the girls exchanged stories about serial killers and imaginary monsters, like the Red Lady, the spirit of a vengeful witch killed centuries before. Heather knew the stories were just that, until her best friend, Becca, began insisting the Red Lady was real --- and she could prove it. That belief got Becca killed. It's been nearly 30 years, and Heather has done her best to put that fateful summer, Becca and the Red Lady behind her. Until a familiar necklace arrives in the mail, a necklace she hasn't seen since the night Becca died. The night Heather killed her. Now, someone else knows what she did...and they're determined to make Heather pay.

After leaving the NYPD following her abduction by serial killer Blake Bram, Shana Merchant hoped for a fresh start in the Thousand Islands of Upstate New York. Her former tormentor has other plans. When the decades-old skeleton of Shana's estranged uncle is uncovered, Bram issues a challenge: Return home to Vermont and solve the cold case, or the blood he spills next will be on her hands. As Shana interviews members of her family and the community, mining for secrets that could help her solve her uncle's murder, she begins to realize how little she remembers of her childhood. And when Bram kidnaps again, leaving a trail of clues Shana alone can understand, she knows his new victim will only survive if she wins the psychopath’s twisted game.

In a hundred-year period, a handful of men and women changed the way we see the world. Many of them are well known, such as Marx, Freud, Proust, Einstein and Kafka. Others have vanished from collective memory despite their enduring importance in our daily lives. Without Karl Landsteiner, for instance, there would be no blood transfusions or major surgery. Without Rosalind Franklin, genetic science would look very different. Without Fritz Haber, there would not be enough food to sustain life on earth. What do these visionaries have in common? They all had Jewish origins. Norman Lebrecht has devoted half of his life to pondering and researching the mindset of the Jewish intellectuals, writers, scientists and thinkers who turned the tides of history and shaped the world today as we know it.

At 78, Twyla Tharp is revered not only for the dances she makes, but for her astounding regime of exercise and nonstop engagement. She is famed for religiously hitting the gym each morning at daybreak, and utilizing that energy to propel her breakneck schedule as a teacher, writer, creator and lecturer. KEEP IT MOVING is a series of no-nonsense mediations on how to live with purpose as time passes. From the details of how she stays motivated to the stages of her evolving fitness routine, Tharp models how fulfillment depends not on fortune but on attitude, possible for anyone willing to try and keep trying. Culling anecdotes from Twyla’s life and the lives of other luminaries, each chapter is accompanied by a small exercise that will help anyone develop a more hopeful and energetic approach to the everyday.

When Leeds meets Layla, he’s convinced he’ll spend the rest of his life with her --- until an unexpected attack leaves Layla fighting for her life. After weeks in the hospital, Layla recovers physically, but the emotional and mental scarring has altered the woman Leeds fell in love with. In order to put their relationship back on track, Leeds whisks Layla away to the bed-and-breakfast where they first met. Once they arrive, Layla’s behavior takes a bizarre turn. Feeling distant from Layla, Leeds soon finds solace in Willow, another guest of the B&B with whom he forms a connection through their shared concerns. As his curiosity for Willow grows, his decision to help her find answers puts him in direct conflict with Layla’s well-being.

The work of Mike Nichols pervades American cultural consciousness --- from The Graduate and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to Angels in America, The Birdcage, Working Girl and Primary Colors, not to mention his string of hit plays, including "Barefoot in the Park" and "The Odd Couple." If that weren’t enough, he was also one half of the timelessly funny duo Nichols & May, as well as a founding member of the original improv troupe. Most fans, however, know very little of the person behind it all. Here, for the first time, Ash Carter and Sam Kashner offer an intimate look behind the scenes of Nichols' life, as told by the stars, moguls, playwrights, producers, comics and crew members who stayed loyal to Nichols for years.

After a savage battle, the Boundary is whole again --- but it may be too late. Banes now stalk the lands of Andarra, and the Venerate have gathered their armies for a final, crushing blow. In Ilin Illan, Wirr fights to maintain a precarious alliance between Andarra's factions of power. With dark forces closing in on the capital, if he cannot succeed, the war is lost. Imprisoned and alone in a strange land, Davian is pitted against the remaining Venerate. As he tries to keep them from undoing Asha's sacrifice, he struggles to come to terms with his own path and all he has learned about Caeden, the friend he chose to set free. Finally, Caeden is confronted with the reality of a plan laid centuries ago --- heartbroken at how it started and devastated by how it must end.

Stubborn, aristocratic Mary Ball Washington was entrenched in the Old World ways of her ancestors, dismissing the American experiment even as her son led the successful rebellion against the crown. During his youth, ambitious George dove into the hard-scrabble work of a surveyor and rose through the ranks of the fledgling colonial army, even as his overprotective mother tried to discourage these efforts. While she passed down her strength and individuality to George, Mary also sought to protect him from the risks he needed to take to become a daring general and president. But it was this resistance itself that fanned the spark of George’s independence into a flame. The constant tug of war between the two throughout the early years helped define George’s character.

When her dreams of rising through the Accra police ranks crash around her, 26-year-old Emma Djan is unsure what will become of her career. Through a sympathetic former colleague, she gets an interview with a private detective agency that takes on cases of missing persons, theft and infidelity. Meanwhile, Gordon Tilson, a middle-aged widower in Washington, DC, has found solace in an online community after his wife’s passing. Through the support group, he’s even met a young Ghanaian widow he’s come to care about. When her sister gets into a car accident, he sends her thousands of dollars to cover the hospital bill --- to the horror of his only son, Derek. Then Gordon decides to surprise his new love by paying her a visit --- and disappears.

With his best bro Colman riding shotgun, Serge A. Storms hits the highway in his ’69 gold Plymouth Satellite, putting pedal to the metal on a grand tour of the past. Beginning in Key West, the sunshine boys’ odyssey includes a forgotten mass grave in Palm Beach County holding the remains of African Americans killed by the Great Hurricane of 1928, and the resting place of one world-famous television dolphin (RIP Flipper) from the 1960s. But one deadland --- a haunted old sugar field --- holds more than just the bones of those who’ve passed. For years, local children have whispered about a boogeyman hiding among the stalks. Could it be the same maniac known as Naked Florida man who’s been raising hell all over the place?

The Mississippi Delta isn’t a place that Lydia Chin, an American-born Chinese private detective from Chinatown, NYC, ever thought she’d have reason to go. But when her mother tells her a cousin Lydia didn’t know she had is in jail in Clarksdale, Mississippi --- and that Lydia has to rush down south and get him out --- Lydia finds herself rolling down Highway 61 with Bill Smith, her partner, behind the wheel. From the river levees to the refinement of Oxford, from old cotton gins to new computer scams, Lydia soon finds that nothing in Mississippi is as she expected it to be. Including her cousin’s legal troubles --- or possibly even his innocence.

For the residents of 44 Scotland Street, life in Edinburgh's intriguing New Town is a thing to be relished. After all, there are new faces to excite Domenica's anthropological imagination, precious moments with his triplets for Matthew to savor, and the prospect of a trip to the promised land of Glasgow for young Bertie. But there are mysteries that need solving too. Could Angus Lordie's dog, Cyril, have unearthed a Neanderthal skull? Does the long-suffering Stuart have any hope of kindling a new relationship when Bruce, ever the navel gazer and consummate seducer, effortlessly steps into his pas de deux? And how will the patrons of Big Lou's cafe react to the menu's imminent culinary transformation?

Cherry blossom season is Washington, D.C.’s most beautiful time of the year. But as tourists flock to the city, this year’s festivities are marred by the discovery of the naked body of a young woman floating in the Tidal Basin. Veteran homicide detective Brian (Brick) Kavanagh is assigned to the case. He’s shocked when he learns the victim is connected to another homicide, which makes the investigation very personal for him. Brick’s efforts to solve the case are thwarted by departmental politics and a rush to judgment. Convinced that justice has not been served and the wrong person is in jail, Kavanagh risks all to relentlessly pursue the truth.

Sylvie, the beautiful, brilliant, successful older daughter of the Lee family, flies to the Netherlands for one final visit with her dying grandmother --- and then vanishes. Amy, the sheltered baby of the Lee family, is too young to remember a time when her parents were newly immigrated and too poor to keep Sylvie. Seven years older, Sylvie was raised by a distant relative in a faraway, foreign place and didn’t rejoin her family in America until age nine. Timid and shy, Amy has always looked up to her sister, the fierce and fearless protector who showered her with unconditional love. But what happened to Sylvie? Amy and her parents are distraught and desperate for answers.

Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a 50-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle --- but nonetheless world-changing --- invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible. Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence --- until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life. Using Seeptech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated. Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina follows a lost boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest.

The onetime world-class thief Nolan --- now happily gone straight with his own restaurant/nightclub --- whisks his longtime lover, Sherry, off to Vegas for a trip to a wedding chapel and a honeymoon stay. But an eye-in-the-sky security cam at a casino spots Nolan, whose past catches up with him when he's thought to be casing the joint. An old "friend" sees Nolan as the perfect patsy for a scheme to heist the weekly skim haul, and when the former thief's young frequent accomplice, Jon --- a musician in the casino's house band --- finds the couple mysteriously, suspiciously missing, it's up to Nolan's Best Man to keep wedding bells from tolling a funeral march.

In April 1988, Valerie Solanas --- the writer, radical feminist, author of the SCUM Manifesto and would-be assassin of Andy Warhol --- was discovered dead at 52 in her hotel room, in a grimy corner of San Francisco, alone, penniless and surrounded by the typed pages of her last writings. In VALERIE, a nameless narrator revisits the room where Solanas died, the courtroom where she was tried and convicted of attempting to murder Andy Warhol, the Georgia wastelands where she spent her childhood, and was repeatedly raped by her father and beaten by her alcoholic grandfather, and the mental hospitals where she was shut away.

One corporation has made a perfect world based on a perfect algorithm. Now what to do with all these messy people? Lionel Bigman is dead. Murdered by a robot. Guy Matthias, the philandering founder and CEO of the mega-corporation Beetle, insists it was human error. But was it? Either the predictive algorithms of Beetle's supposedly omniscient “lifechain” don't work, or they've been hacked. Both scenarios are impossible to imagine and signal the end of Beetle's technotopia and life as we know it.