Ten-year-old Miranda Larkin comes home from school to find her house eerily quiet. Her mother is missing. Nothing else is out of place. There is no sign of a struggle. Her mom’s pocketbook remains in the front hall, in its usual spot. So begins a mystery that will span a lifetime. What happened to Jane Larkin? Investigators suspect Jane’s husband. A criminal defense attorney, Dan Larkin surely would be an expert in outfoxing the police. But no evidence is found linking him to a crime, and the case fades from the public’s memory. Jane’s three children --- Alex, Jeff and Miranda --- are left to be raised by the man who may have murdered their mother. Two decades later, the remains of Jane Larkin are found. The investigation is awakened. The children, now grown, are forced to choose sides.

After more than a decade of dead-end dates and dysfunctional relationships, Christie Tate has reclaimed her voice and settled down. Her days of agonizing in group therapy over guys who won’t commit are over, the grueling emotional work required to attach to another person tucked neatly into the past. But she soon realizes that the feeling of “apartness” that has plagued her since childhood isn’t magically going away now that she’s in a healthy romantic relationship. With her friend, Meredith, by her side, she embarks on a brutally honest exploration of her friendships past and present, sorting through the ways that debilitating shame and jealousy have kept the lasting bonds she craves out of reach --- and how she can overcome a history of letting go too soon.

Maggie Mackay has been haunted her entire life. No matter what she does, she can’t shake the sense that something is wrong with her. And maybe something is. When she was five years old, Maggie announced that a man on the remote island of Kilmeray in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides --- a place she’d never visited --- was murdered. Her unfounded claim drew media attention and turned the locals against each other, creating rifts that never mended. Now, nearly 20 years later, Maggie is determined to discover what really happened and what the villagers are hiding. But everyone has secrets, and some are deadly. As she gets closer to the horrifying truth, the island’s legendary and violent storms begin to rage again, and Maggie’s own life is in danger.

Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is once again an outcast. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over. She has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange. Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. It’s clear from the way he tracks Misery’s every movement that he doesn’t trust her. If only he knew how right he was. Misery has her own reasons to agree to this marriage of convenience, reasons that have nothing to do with politics or alliances, and everything to do with the only thing she's ever cared about.

A young widow adheres to the expectations of wearing mourning clothes for nearly a year, though she's unsure what the traditions mean or whether she is ready to meet the world without their protection. An older sister returns home from a confusing time in America, only to explain at every turn why she’s left the land of opportunity. A younger sister hides her sexual exploits from her family, while her older brother openly flaunts his infidelity. The stories collected in CALL AND RESPONSE are strongly anchored in place --- in the village of Serowe, where the author is from, and in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana --- charting the emotional journeys of women seeking love and opportunity beyond the barriers of custom and circumstance.

On the losing side of a bloody East Coast crime war, Danny Ryan is now on the run. The Mafia, the cops and the FBI all want him dead or in prison. With his little boy, his elderly father and the tattered remnants of his loyal crew of soldiers, he makes the classic American migration to California to start a new life. But the Feds track him down and want Danny to do them a favor that could make him a fortune --- or kill him. When Hollywood starts shooting a film based on his former life, Danny demands a piece of the action and begins to rebuild his criminal empire. Then he falls in love with a beautiful movie star who has a dark past of her own. As their worlds collide in an explosion that could destroy them both, Danny has to fight for his life in a city where dreams are born. Or where they go to die.

Restless and uncertain of her future in the wake of World War I, former battlefield nurse Bess Crawford agrees to travel to Yorkshire to help a friend of her cousin Melinda through surgery. But circumstances change suddenly when news of a terrible accident reaches them. Bess agrees to go to isolated Scarfdale and the Neville family, where one man has been killed and another gravely injured. The police are asking questions, and Bess is quickly drawn into the fray as two once close families take sides. When another tragedy strikes, the police are ready to make an arrest. What dark truth is behind these deaths? And what about the tale of an older murder --- one that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the Nevilles?

When Diane Aziz drives her oldest son, Walter, from Los Angeles to college at UC Berkeley, it will be her last parental act before falling into a deep depression. A single mother who maintains a wishful belief that her children can attain all the things she hasn’t, she’s worked hard to secure their future in caste-driven 1980s Los Angeles, gaining them illegal entry to an affluent public school. When she enters a state hospital, her closest friend tries to keep the children safe and their mother’s dreams for them alive. Moving from Berkeley and Los Angeles to New York and back again, this is a story about one family trying to navigate the crisis of their lives, a crisis many know firsthand in their own families or in those of their neighbors.

Journalist Nina Siegal, who grew up in a family that had survived the Holocaust in Europe, had always wondered about the experience of regular people during World War II. She had heard stories of the war as a child and Anne Frank’s diary, but the tales were either crafted as moral lessons --- to never waste food, to be grateful for all you receive, to hide your silver --- or told with a punchline. The details of the past went untold in an effort to make it easier to assimilate into American life. When Siegal moved to Amsterdam as an adult, those questions came up again, as did another horrifying one: Why did 75% of the Dutch Jewish community perish in the war, while in other Western European countries the proportions were significantly lower?

Evacuated from a secluded boarding school during a snowstorm, Hannah’s coach careers off the road, trapping her with a handful of survivors. Meg is in a cable car stranded high above snowy mountains, with five strangers and no memory of how they got on board. They are heading to a place known only as “The Retreat,” but Meg realizes they may not all make it there alive. Carter is gazing out the window of an isolated ski chalet that he and his companions call home. As their generator begins to waver in the storm, their fragile bonds will be tested when the power finally fails. The imminent dangers faced by Hannah, Meg and Carter are each one part of the puzzle. Lurking in their shadows is an even greater danger --- one with the power to consume all of humanity.

Federal Investigator Aaron Falk is on his way to a small town deep in Southern Australian wine country for the christening of an old friend's baby. But mystery follows him, even on vacation. This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of Kim Gillespie's disappearance. One year ago, at a busy town festival on a warm spring night, Kim safely tucked her sleeping baby into her stroller, then vanished into the crowd. No one has seen her since. When Kim's older daughter makes a plea for anyone with information about her missing mom to come forward, Falk and his old buddy Raco can't leave the case alone. What would make a mother abandon her child? What happened to Kim Gillespie?

These stories are about the abomination that resides within us all. That churning, clawing, ravenous yearning: the hunger to be held, and seen, and known. And the terror, too: to be loved too well, or not enough, or for long enough. Two teenage girls working at a sinister roadside attraction explore its secrets --- and their own doomed summer love. A zombie rooster plays detective in a missing persons case. A woman moves into a new house with her acclaimed artist boyfriend --- and finds her body slowly shifting into something specially constructed to accommodate his needs and whims. A pack of middle schoolers turn to the occult to rid themselves of a hated new classmate. And a pair of outcasts, a vampire and a goat woman, find solace in each other, even as the world's lack of understanding might bring about its own end.

1950s Philadelphia: Fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright. When Eleanor Quarles meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his parents don’t let just anyone into their fold. Eleanor hopes that a baby will make her finally feel at home in William’s family and grant her the life she’s been searching for. But having a baby --- and fitting in --- is easier said than done. With their stories colliding in the most unexpected of ways, Ruby and Eleanor will make decisions that shape the trajectory of their lives.

THE HOUSE OF LINCOLN tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's ascendance from rumpled lawyer to U.S. president to Great Emancipator through the eyes of a young immigrant who arrives in Lincoln's home of Springfield, Illinois, from Madeira, Portugal. Showing intelligence beyond society's expectations, 14-year-old Ana Ferreira is offered a job in the Lincoln household assisting Mary Lincoln with their boys and with the hosting duties borne by the wife of a rising political star. Ana bears witness to the evolution of Lincoln's views on equality and the Union, and observes in full complexity the psyche and pain of his bold, polarizing wife. Yet, alongside her dearest friend in the Black community, she also directly experiences how slavery contradicts the promise of freedom in her adopted country.

David Burroughs was once a devoted father to his three-year-old son Matthew, living a dream life just a short drive away from the working-class suburb where he and his wife, Cheryl, first fell in love --- until one fateful night when David woke suddenly to discover Matthew had been murdered. Half a decade later, David has been wrongly accused and convicted of the murder, left to serve out his time in a maximum-security prison. Then Cheryl’s younger sister, Rachel, makes a surprise appearance during visiting hours bearing a strange photograph. It’s a vacation shot of a bustling amusement park a friend shared with her, and in the background is a boy bearing an eerie resemblance to David’s son. Even though it can’t be, David just knows: Matthew is still alive.

There was always something slightly dangerous about Joan. So when she turns up at private investigator Henry Kimball’s office asking him to investigate her husband, he can’t help feeling ill at ease. Just the sight of her stirs up a chilling memory: He knew Joan in his previous life as a high school English teacher, when he was at the center of a tragedy. Now Joan needs his help in proving that her husband is cheating. But what should be a simple case of infidelity becomes much more complicated when Kimball finds two bodies in an uninhabited suburban home with a FOR SALE sign out front. Suddenly it feels like the past is repeating itself, and Henry must go back to one of the worst days of his life to uncover the truth.

As a child, Evan Smoak was raised and trained as an off-the-books assassin for the government as part of the Orphan program. When he broke with the program, he remade himself as The Nowhere Man, dedicated to helping the most desperate in their times of trouble, and found himself slowly back on the government's radar. But Orphan X has always been several steps ahead of his pursuers. Until he makes one little mistake. Now the President has him in her control and offers Evan a deal --- eliminate a rich, powerful man she says is too dangerous to live, and she'll let Evan survive. But when Evan left the Program, he swore to only use his skills against those who really deserve it. Now he has to decide what's more important --- his principles or his life.

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear. The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it --- except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

When Alice’s best friend, Gabby, is reeling from a breakup, Alice writes her a heartfelt story to cheer her up. While reading it in a café, Gabby meets the man of her dreams. Thinking the story might have some special power to it, Gabby shares it with her sister and other friends, who all find instant love. Word of mouth spreads, and Alice stumbles upon a new calling --- to be a love scribe. But not all the love stories she writes unfold as expected. And while Alice tries to harness her extraordinary gift, she is summoned to a mansion in the woods where she encounters the reclusive Madeline Alger and her mysterious library. As Alice struggles to write a story for Madeline, her most challenging assignment yet, she’s forced to confront her own guarded heart.

It’s fair to say that Maddie’s life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still somehow manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced stage Parkinson’s. At work, her boss is a nightmare and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting. So when her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie seizes the chance to move out of the family home and finally start living. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she’s ready to experience some important “firsts.” But when tragedy strikes, Maddie is forced to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils --- and rewards --- of putting her heart on the line.

After scoring a plea deal in a high-profile murder trial, serial killer James Michael Barrett leads a grim parade of law enforcement officers to the body of his last victim. At the alleged burial site, the officers swing their shovels down and are met with a strange metallic sound they weren’t expecting. In a blink, a terrific explosion rocks the woods, killing Barrett and most of the officers instantly. The detonation is only the beginning of a shocking case for FBI consultant Kendra Michaels. A string of heinous murders in the style of the very-dead Barrett mysteriously continue, and it becomes clear that he may not have been working alone. But the killer has a terrifying plan that Kendra and her team are only beginning to understand.

October 1942: It’s been two years since Kate Rees was sent to Paris on a British Secret Service mission to assassinate Hitler. Since then, she has left spycraft behind to take a training job as a sharpshooting instructor in the Scottish Highlands. But her quiet life is violently disrupted when Colonel Stepney, her former handler, drags her back into the fray for a risky three-pronged mission in Paris. Each task is more dangerous than the next: Deliver a package of forbidden biological material. Assassinate a high-ranking German operative whose knowledge of invasion plans could turn the tide of the war against the Allies. Rescue a British agent who once saved Kate’s life --- and get out.

1925, London. When Alice Diamond, aka "Diamond Annie," is elected the Queen of the Forty Elephants, she's determined to take the all-girl gang to new heights. She has a plan to create a dynasty the likes of which no one has ever seen and demands absolute loyalty from her "family" --- it's how she's always kept the cops in line. Too bad she's now the target for one of Britain's first female policewomen. Officer Lilian Wyles isn't merely one of the first female detectives at Scotland Yard, she's one of the best detectives on the force. Even so, she'll have to win a big score to prove herself. When she hears about the large-scale heist in the works to fund Alice's new dynasty, she realizes she has the chance she's been looking for --- and the added bonus of putting Diamond Annie out of business permanently.

Veronica Speedwell’s natural-historian beau, Stoker, has been away in Bavaria for months, and their relationship is at an impasse. But when Veronica shows up before him with his brother, Tiberius, Lord Templeton-Vane, he is lured back home by an intriguing job offer: preparing an iguanodon for a very special dinner party. Tiberius has received a cryptic message --- along with the obituaries of two recently deceased members of his old group of friends, the Seven Sinners --- that he too should get his affairs in order. Realizing he is in grave danger but not knowing why, he plans a reunion party for the remaining Sinners at his family estate to lure the killer out while Veronica and Stoker investigate. As the guests arrive and settle in, the evening’s events turn deadly.

Nate Evers, a young Black political activist, struggles with rage as his people are still being killed in the streets 62 years after Emmett Till. When his little cousin is murdered, Nate leads three grief-stricken friends on a mission of retribution --- kidnapping the descendants of long-ago perpetrators of hate crimes, confronting the targets with their racist lineages, and forcing them to pay reparations to a community fund. For three of the group members, the results mean justice; for Nate, it’s pure revenge. Not all targets go quietly into the night, though, and Nate and his friends' world spirals out of control when they confront the wrong man. Now the leader of a white supremacist group is hot on their tail, as is a jaded lawman with some disturbingly racist views of his own.

Here are three things you should know about my husband: 1) He was the great love of my life despite his penchant for going incommunicado, 2) He was, as far as I and everyone else could tell, perfectly happy. Which is significant because… 3) On New Year’s Eve, he killed himself. And here is one thing you should know about me: I found him. Bonus fact: No. I am not okay. SOMEDAY, MAYBE is a debut novel about a young woman’s emotional journey through unimaginable loss, pulled along by her tight-knit Nigerian family, a posse of friends, and the love and laughter she shared with her husband.

Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family. Now an exhausted young doctor in her first year of practice, she is beloved by Kunle, the volatile son of an ascendant politician. Eniola is tall for his age, a boy who looks like a man. Because his father has lost his job, Eniola spends his days running errands for the local tailor, collecting newspapers, begging when he must and dreaming of a big future. When a local politician takes an interest in Eniola and sudden violence shatters a family party, Wuraola's and Eniola’s lives become intertwined. In A SPELL OF GOOD THINGS, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ shines her light on Nigeria, the gaping divide between the haves and the have-nots, and the shared humanity that lives in between.

Eve has a good life. She gets up each day, gets a kiss from her husband Nate, and heads off to teach math at the local high school. All is as it should be. Last year, though, Caseham High was rocked by a scandal involving a student-teacher affair, with one student, Addie, at its center. But Eve knows there is far more to these ugly rumors than meets the eye. Addie can't be trusted. She lies. She hurts people. She destroys lives. At least, that's what everyone says. But nobody knows the real Addie. Nobody knows the secrets that could destroy her. And Addie will do anything to keep it quiet.

1927. When Olivia "Livy" West learns of the Dole Air Race --- a high-stakes contest to be the first to make the 2,400-mile Pacific crossing from the West Coast to Hawaii --- she sets her sights on qualifying. But it soon becomes clear that only men will make the cut. Livy manages to be picked as a navigator for one of the pilots, before setting out on a harrowing journey that some will not survive. 1987. Wren Summers has inherited a remote piece of land on the Big Island with nothing on it but a dilapidated barn and an overgrown mac nut grove. She plans on selling it but is drawn in by the mysterious objects kept in the barn by her late great-uncle. Determined to find out what really happened all those years ago, Wren enlists the help of residents at a nearby retirement home to uncover Olivia’s story piece by piece.

Dick Kallman was an up-and-coming actor in the ’50s and ’60s --- until he wasn’t. A costar on Broadway, a member of Lucille Ball’s historic Desilu workshop, and finally a primetime TV actor, Dick had hustled to get his big break. But just as soon as his star began to rise, his roles began to dry up and he faded from the spotlight, his name out of tabloids and newspapers until his sensational murder in 1980. Through the eyes of his occasional pianist and longtime acquaintance Matt Liannetto, a tenderhearted but wry observer often on the fringes of Broadway’s big moments, Kallman’s life and death come into appallingly sharp focus.

Police officers risk their lives every day to protect and serve our homes, families and communities. These men and women are our eyes. Our ears. Our protectors. Those who wear a badge, doing their best to help people. These cops serve their communities. They serve their country. They’re in the business of saving lives --- even at the risk of their own. These patrol officers and K9 handlers, sheriffs and detectives, reveal what it’s really like to wear the uniform, to carry the weight of the responsibility they’ve been given. This is a calling. This is the job.

In this wryly humorous and innovative look at a marriage gone wrong, Hannah Pittard recalls a decade’s worth of unforgettable conversations, beginning with the one in which she discovers her husband has been having sex with her charismatic best friend, Trish. These time-jumping exchanges are fast-paced, intimate and often jaw-dropping in their willingness to reveal the vulnerabilities inherent in any friendship or marriage. Blending fact and fiction, sometimes recreating exchanges with extreme accuracy and sometimes diving headlong into pure speculation, Pittard takes stock not only of her own past and future but also of the larger, more universal experiences they connect with --- from the depths of female rage to the heartbreaking ways we inevitably outgrow certain people.

Hope Chen and her husband are raising her nine-year-old nephew, Luca, in the wake of his troubled mother’s death. One day, Luca and his dog disappear without a trace. Guilt-ridden, fearing the worst but praying for the best, Hope finds her imagination running wild. Meanwhile, a woman with dangerous secrets to keep buried will do anything to protect her marriage. In one fleeting instant, it’s all within her reach. She finally can give her husband the one thing that will make him love her again. Hope will do anything to get Luca back. The other woman will do anything to stop Hope. As Hope’s search grows more desperate and the other woman’s plans more twisted, their lives collide in an explosive battle of wits. With a boy caught in the middle, nothing on this deadly path of love and revenge is what it seems.

When grumpy ex-footballer Alfie Harding gets badgered into selling his memoirs, he knows he’s never going to be able to write them. So in walks curvy, cheery and cute as heck ghostwriter Mabel Willicker, who knows just how to sunshine and sass her way into getting every little detail out of Alfie. They banter and bicker their way to writing his life story, both of them sure they’ll never be anything other than at odds. But after their business arrangement is mistaken for a budding romance, the pair have to pretend to be an item for a public who’s ravenous for more of this Cinderella story. Or at least it feels like it’s pretend --- until each slow-burn step in their fake relationship sparks a heat neither can control. Is this sizzling chemistry just for show? Or something so real it might just give them their fairy tale ending?

On the morning after Harry Cline’s funeral, a rare ice storm hits the town of Wesleyan, Georgia. The community wakes up to find its controversial statue of Confederate general Henry Benning destroyed --- and not by the weather. Half the town had wanted to remove the statue; the other half had wanted to preserve it. Now that the matter has been taken out of their hands, the town’s long-simmering tensions are laid bare. Without Harry beside her, Marietta is left to question many of her preconceived ideas about her friends and family. She longs to salvage these connections, but the world is changing and the divides can no longer be ignored.