Twenty-six-year-old Rosa Sauer’s parents are gone, and her husband Gregor is far away, fighting on the front lines of WWII. Impoverished and alone, she makes the fateful decision to leave war-torn Berlin to live with her in-laws in the countryside. But one morning, the SS informs her that she has been conscripted to be one of Hitler’s tasters: twice a day, she and nine other women go to his secret headquarters to eat his meals before he does. Forced to eat what might kill them, the tasters begin to divide into The Fanatics, those loyal to Hitler, and the women like Rosa who insist they aren’t Nazis, even as they risk their lives every day for Hitler’s. As secrets and resentments grow, this unlikely sisterhood reaches its own dramatic climax.

Bandbox is a hugely successful magazine, a glamorous monthly cocktail of 1920s obsessions from the stock market to radio to gangland murder. Edited by the bombastic Jehoshaphat “Joe” Harris, the magazine has a masthead that includes, among many others, a grisly, alliterative crime writer; a shy but murderously determined copyboy; and a burned-out vaudeville correspondent who’s lovesick for his loyal, dewy assistant. As the novel opens, the defection of Harris’ most ambitious protégé has plunged Bandbox into a death struggle with a new competitor on the newsstand. But there’s more to come: a sabotaged fiction contest, the NYPD vice squad, a subscriber’s kidnapping, and a film-actress cover subject who makes the heroines of Fosse’s Chicago look like the girls next door.

Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm. But dark forces are at work in the bayou, both human and supernatural, conspiring to disrupt the rhythms of Miranda’s peculiar and precarious life. And when the preacher makes an unthinkable demand, it sets Miranda on a desperate, dangerous path, forcing her to consider what she is willing to sacrifice to keep her loved ones safe.

Hiding among a tribe of the Martu in the isolation of the Australian outback near the edges of Lake Disappointment, Mouse and her lover, Angelo, have seemingly evaded at least one of the predators hunting them. Carefully dropping bogus breadcrumbs across Europe, they misdirect the Novus Rishi, a ruthless cult that wants Mouse as the ultimate weapon in their battle against evil. But when unnerving dreams start to plague Angelo, and the ancient beings of the Martu’s Dreaming send prophetic warnings that include visions of Mouse at her father’s side, the two lovers realize it’s time to act. With nowhere left to run, Mouse and Angelo prepare for a last showdown with their enemies.

Humanity clings to life on January --- a colonized planet divided between permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other. Two cities, built long ago in the meager temperate zone, serve as the last bastions of civilization --- but life inside them is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside. Sophie, a young student from the wrong side of Xiosphant city, is exiled into the dark after being part of a failed revolution. But she survives --- with the help of a mysterious savior from beneath the ice. Burdened with a dangerous, painful secret, Sophie and her ragtag group of exiles face the ultimate challenge --- and they are running out of time.

When Mary Todd meets Abraham Lincoln, he is on no one's shortlist to be president. Rough and reticent, he’s a country lawyer lacking money and manners, living above a dry goods shop, but with a gift for oratory. Mary, a quick, self-possessed debutante with a tireless interest in debates and elections, at first finds him an enigma. It’s not long, though, before she sees the Lincoln that his roommate, Joshua Speed, knows: a man who, despite his awkwardness, is amiable and profound, with a gentle wit to match his genius and a respect for her keen political mind. But as her relationship with Lincoln deepens, she must confront his inseparable friendship with Speed, who has taught his roommate how to dance, dress and navigate the polite society of Springfield.

Lured by the promise of a rare and elusive butterfly, the intrepid Veronica Speedwell is persuaded by Lord Templeton-Vane, the brother of her colleague Stoker, to pose as his fiancée at a house party on a Cornish isle owned by his oldest friend, Malcolm Romilly. But Veronica soon learns that one question hangs over the party: What happened to Rosamund? Three years ago, Malcolm’s bride vanished on their wedding day, and no trace of her has ever been found. Now those who were closest to her have gathered, each a possible suspect in her disappearance. Determined to discover Rosamund’s fate, Veronica and Stoker match wits with a murderer who already has struck once and will not hesitate to kill again.

In April 1938, Josef Hofmann arrives at a boarding house in Hamm, Germany, and lets a room from the widow who owns it. Fifty years later, Walter Gersdorff, the widow’s son, discovers the carefully hidden diary that the boarder had kept during his stay. What Walter finds is a chronicle of one of the most tumultuous years in German history, narrated by a secret agent on a deadly mission. Josef Hofmann was not the returned Argentinian immigrant he’d said he was --- he was a communist spy under Moscow’s command trying to reconnect with remaining members of Germany’s suppressed communist party. But as he grew close to the Gersdorffs, accidentally stepping into the role of the father Walter never had, Hofmann began to wish for another kind of hope in his life.

Your name is Charlie Worthing, and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams that you dismiss as nonsense. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity. But teasing truth from the Winter is never easy. You have to avoid the Villains and their penchant for murder, kidnapping and stamp collecting; ensure you aren't eaten by Nightwalkers, whose thirst for human flesh can only be satisfied by comfort food; and sidestep the increasingly less-than-mythical WinterVolk.

Two real-life stories. One stunning twist. Meet Jake, a studious freshman weighing how far to go to find a brotherhood that will introduce him to lifelong friends and help conquer his social awkwardness; and Oliver, a hardworking chapter president trying to keep his misunderstood fraternity out of trouble despite multiple run-ins with the police. Their year-in-the-life stories help explain why students are joining fraternities in record numbers despite scandalous headlines. To find out what it’s like to be a fraternity brother in the 21st century, Alexandra Robbins contacted hundreds of brothers whose chapters don’t make headlines --- and who suggested that many fraternities can be healthy safe spaces for men.

Culleton, New York has a long history --- of writers, of artists and of unsolved mysteries. It’s where Adair grew up before she moved to Brooklyn to try to make it as an artist. But after years away from her hometown and little to show for it, Adair decides to return. She moves back into Moye House, the old mansion and current writer’s retreat, imbued with her family's legacy. Ciaran is a writer staying at Moye House in the hopes of finally solving the mystery of what happened to Rowan Kinnane --- his sister, and Adair’s childhood best friend. As the two begin investigating, secrets long buried rise to the surface, complicating their sense of themselves and their understanding of what happened on that fateful day.

Detective Emily Baxter is still reeling from the Ragdoll case, and from the disappearance of her friend, William “Wolf” Fawkes. Despite her reluctance to jump into another gruesome case, she’s summoned to a meeting of a new FBI/CIA/UK law enforcement task force in New York. There, she is presented with photographs of the latest copycat murder: a body contorted into a familiar pose, strung up from the Brooklyn Bridge, the word “BAIT” carved deep into its chest. As the media pressure intensifies, Baxter is ordered to assist with the investigation and attend the scene of another murder, again with a victim inscribed with a word: “PUPPET.” Baxter must shake off the grief and fear that have paralyzed her for the last year so she can stop another terrible killer before it’s too late.

Throughout Peter Kispert’s debut collection, we meet characters who have lied, who have sometimes created elaborate falsehoods, and who now must cope with the way that those deceptions eat at the very fabric of their lives and relationships. In the title story, the narrator, desperate to save a love affair on the rocks, hires an actor to play a friend he invented in order to seem less lonely. In "Aim for the Heart," a man's lies about a hunting habit leave him with an unexpected deer carcass and the need to parse unsettling high school memories. And in "Rorschach," a theater producer runs a show in which death row inmates are crucified in an on-stage rendering of the New Testament, while being haunted daily by an unrequited love and nightly by ghosts of his own creation.

Larry is the secular son in a family of Orthodox Brooklyn Jews. When his father dies, it’s his responsibility to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for 11 months. To the horror and dismay of his sister, Larry refuses --- imperiling the fate of his father’s soul. To appease her, Larry hatches an ingenious if cynical plan, hiring a stranger through a website called kaddish.com to recite the prayer and shepherd his father’s soul safely to rest.

LANDFALL is set during the tumultuous middle of the George W. Bush years, amid the twin catastrophes of the Iraq insurgency and Hurricane Katrina. The president possesses a personality whose high-speed alternations between charm and petulance, resoluteness and self-pity, continually energize and mystify the panoply of characters around him. They include his acerbic, crafty mother, former First Lady Barbara Bush; his desperately correct and eager-to-please secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice; the gnomic and manipulative Donald Rumsfeld; foreign leaders from Tony Blair to Vladimir Putin; and the caustic one-woman chorus of Ann Richards, Bush's predecessor as governor of Texas.

Librarian Martha Storm has always found it easier to connect with books than people --- though not for lack of trying. She keeps careful lists of how to help others in her superhero-themed notebook. And yet, sometimes it feels like she’s invisible. All of that changes when a book of fairy tales arrives on her doorstep. Inside, Martha finds a dedication written to her by her best friend --- her grandmother Zelda --- who died under mysterious circumstances years earlier. When Martha discovers a clue within the book that her grandmother may still be alive, she becomes determined to discover the truth. As she delves deeper into Zelda’s past, she unwittingly reveals a family secret that will change her life forever.

Rudy never expected to be a widower at 54 years old. Now, 10 months after the untimely death of his beloved wife, he’s still struggling with how to move on from the overwhelming tragedy --- but at least his new job is helping. After being downsized from his finance position, Rudy turned to his first love: the piano. As the piano player at Nordstrom, Rudy finds immense joy in bringing a little music into the world. And it doesn’t hurt that Sasha, the men’s watch clerk who is finally divorcing her no-good husband, finds time to join him at the bench every now and then. Just when Rudy and Sasha’s relationship begins to deepen, the police reveal a shocking update about Rudy’s wife’s untimely death, and now they want a second look at him, too.

Inside a century-old row house in Brooklyn, renegade Sister Evelyn and her fellow nuns preside over a safe haven for the abused and abandoned. Gruff and indomitable on the surface, warm and wry underneath, little daunts Evelyn, until she receives word that Mercy House will be investigated by Bishop Hawkins, a man with whom she shares a dark history. In order to protect everything they’ve built, the nuns must conceal many of their methods, which are forbidden by the Catholic Church. Evelyn will go to great lengths to defend all that she loves. She confronts a gang member, defies the church, challenges her own beliefs and faces her past.

Clayton Deese looks like a small-time criminal, muscle for hire when his loan shark boss needs to teach someone a lesson. Now, seven months after a job that went south and landed him in jail, Deese has skipped out on bail, and the U.S. Marshals come looking for him. They don't much care about a low-level guy --- it's his boss they want --- but Deese might be their best chance to bring down the whole operation. Then, they step onto a dirt trail behind Deese's rural Louisiana cabin and find a jungle full of graves. Lucas Davenport is now on the trail of a serial killer who has been operating for years without notice. His quarry is ruthless, and --- as Davenport will come to find --- full of surprises.

Beneath the surface of Lake Michigan, there are vast systems: crosscutting currents, sudden drop-offs, depths of absolute darkness, shipwrecked bodies, hidden places. Peter Rock’s autobiographical novel begins in the ’90s on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin. The narrator, a recent college graduate, and a young widow, Mrs. Abel, swim together at night, making their way across miles of open water. The nature of these night swims, and of his relationship to Mrs. Abel, becomes increasingly mysterious to the narrator as the summer passes, until the night that Mrs. Abel disappears. Twenty years later, the narrator tries to understand those months, his forgotten obsessions and dreams, and looks for clues to the fate of Mrs. Abel.

In one ancient variation on the myth of Pandora’s Box, there were two jars: one for Pandora and one for her sister, Anesidora. One contained all the blessings of the gods, the other all the world’s curses. Now, in a subterranean city in Northern Iraq, archaeologist Sophie Durand has discovered a secret chamber covered in writing that confirms that version of the tale --- a chamber that contains a single jar. Those who believe the myth want to know which jar has been found in the Pandora Room: the one containing blessings, or the one full of curses. Governments rush to lay claim, but jihadi forces aren’t waiting for the dust to settle. Whatever the jar contains, they want it, no matter who they have to kill…or what will emerge when they open it.

Dave Cullen unfolds the story of Parkland through the voices of key participants whose diverse personalities and outlooks comprise every facet of their grassroots #neveragain movement. Instead of taking us into the minds of the killer, he takes us into the hearts of the Majory Stoneman Douglas students as they cope with the common concerns of high school students everywhere --- awaiting college acceptance letters, studying for mid-term exams, competing against their athletic rivals, putting together the yearbook, staging the musical "Spring Awakening," enjoying prom and graduation --- while moving forward from a horrific event that has altered them forever.

From her first day as Personal Assistant to the celebrated Mina Appleton, Christine Butcher understands what is expected of her. For 20 years, she has been a most devoted servant, a silent witness to everything in Mina’s life. Day after day, year after year, Christine has been there, invisible --- watching, listening, absorbing all the secrets floating around her. Keeping them safe. Christine is trusted. But those years of loyalty and discretion come with a high price. And eventually Christine will pay. But it would be a mistake to underestimate such a steadfast woman as Christine. Because as everyone is about to discover, there’s a dangerous line between obedience and obsession.

After her cat toy empire goes up in flames, Sophie Lane returns to Blackberry Island, determined to rebuild. Until small-town life reveals a big problem: she can’t grow unless she learns to let go. If Sophie relaxes her grip even a little, she might lose everything. Or she might finally be free to reach for the happiness and love that have eluded her for so long. Kristine has become defined by her relationship to others. As much as she adores her husband and sons, she wants something for herself --- a sweet little bakery just off the waterfront. Like the mainland on the horizon, Heather’s goals seem beyond her grasp. Every time she manages to save for college, her mother has another crisis. Can she break free, or will she be trapped in this tiny life forever?

A journalist shows up on Eve Duncan's doorstep with a plea for help. Jill Cassidy has just come from a small African village with a heartwrenching story: half the villagers --- many of them children --- have been killed in a horrific attack by guerilla soldiers, the bodies burned beyond recognition. Now, the families desperately need Eve's help to get closure and begin to heal. But when Eve arrives in the remote jungle, she begins to suspect that Jill's plea may have been a cover story for a deeper, more sinister plot. Isolated and unsure who she can trust, Eve finds herself stranded in an unstable country where violence threatens to break out again at any moment.

Roya is a dreamy, idealistic teenager who finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri’s neighborhood book and stationery shop. When Mr. Fakhri introduces Roya to Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi’s poetry, she loses her heart at once. A few months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square, but violence suddenly erupts --- a result of the coup d’etat that forever changes their country’s future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. More than 60 years later, though, an accident of fate leads Roya back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did he leave? Where did he go? How was he able to forget her?

It's 1969, and for the Levin family, the times they are a-changing. Every year the children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic home in downtown Nantucket. But like so much else in America, nothing is the same. Blair, the oldest sister, is marooned in Boston, pregnant with twins and unable to travel. Middle sister Kirby, caught up in the thrilling vortex of civil rights protests and determined to be independent, takes a summer job on Martha's Vineyard. Only-son Tiger is an infantry soldier, recently deployed to Vietnam. Thirteen-year-old Jessie suddenly feels like an only child, marooned in the house with her out-of-touch grandmother and her worried mother, each of them hiding a troubling secret.

FBI agent Emmy Dockery is young and driven, and her unique skill at seeing connections others miss has brought her an impressive string of arrests. But a shocking new case has left her utterly baffled. The victims all appear to have died by accident and seemingly have nothing in common. But this many deaths can't be a coincidence. And the killer is somehow one step ahead of every move Dockery makes. To FBI special agent Harrison "Books" Bookman, everyone in the FBI is a suspect --- particularly Emmy Dockery (the fact that she's his ex-fiancee doesn't make it easier). But someone else is watching Dockery. Studying, learning, waiting. Until it's the perfect time to strike.

The women in black, so named for the black frocks they wear while working at an upscale department store called Goode’s, are run off their feet selling ladies’ cocktail dresses during the busy season. But in Sydney in the 1950s, there’s always time to pursue other goals. By the time the last marked-down dress has been sold, all of their lives will be forever changed in Madeleine St John’s debut novel, which is perfect for fans of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”