The year 1968 saw an extraordinary range of protests across much of the western world. Some of these were genuinely revolutionary --- around 10 million French workers went on strike and the whole state teetered on the brink of collapse. Others were more easily contained, but had profound longer-term implications --- terrorist groups, feminist collectives and gay rights activists could all trace important roots to 1968. 1968 is a striking and original attempt half a century later to show how these events, which in some ways still seem so current, stemmed from histories and societies that are in practice now extraordinarily remote from our own time.

Nine-year-old orphaned Dores is working in the kitchen of a sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil when in walks a girl who changes everything. Graça, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy sugar baron, is clever, well fed, pretty and thrillingly ill-behaved. Born to wildly different worlds, Dores and Graça quickly bond over music. One has a voice like a songbird; the other feels melodies in her soul and composes lyrics to match. Music will become their shared passion, the source of their partnership and their rivalry, and the only way out of the life to which each was born. But only one of the two is destined to be a star. Their intimate, volatile bond will determine each of their fortunes --- and haunt their memories.

After a three-year prison sentence, Bell Elkins is back in Acker's Gap. And she finds herself in the white-hot center of a complicated and deadly case --- even as she comes to terms with one last, devastating secret of her own. A prominent local family has fallen victim to the same sickness that infects the whole region: drug addiction. With mother against father, child against parent, and tensions that lead inexorably to tragedy, they are trapped in a grim, hopeless struggle with nowhere to turn. Teamed up with former Deputy Jake Oakes, who battles his own demons as he adjusts to life as a paraplegic, and aided by the new prosecutor, Rhonda Lovejoy, Bell tackles a case as poignant as it is perilous, as heartbreaking as it is challenging.

Joe Brody is a strip club bouncer who has a highly classified military history and whose best friend from Catholic school is head mafioso Gio Caprisi. FBI agent Donna Zamora is a single mother stuck at a desk manning the hotline. Their storylines intersect over a tip from a cokehead that leads to a crackdown on Gio’s strip joint in Queens and Joe’s arrest. Outside the jailhouse, the Fed and the bouncer lock eyes, as Gordon launches them both headlong into a nonstop plot that goes from back-road gun show intervention to high-stakes perfume heist and manages to touch everyone from the CIA to the Flushing Triads. Beneath it all lurks a sinister criminal mastermind whose manipulations could cause chaos on a massively violent scale.

When Detective Nick Fourcade enters the home of Genevieve Gauthier, the bloody crime scene that awaits him is both the most brutal and the most confusing he's ever seen. Genevieve’s seven-year-old son, KJ, has been murdered by an alleged intruder, yet Genevieve is alive and well. Meanwhile, Nick's wife, Detective Annie Broussard, sits in the emergency room with the grieving Genevieve. Annie understands the emotional devastation this woman is going through, but is troubled by a story that makes little sense. Who would murder a child and leave the only witness behind? When the very next day KJ's sometimes babysitter, 12-year-old Nora Florette, is reported missing, Nick and Annie dig deep into the dual mysteries.

Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. One afternoon, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen, but he is young and friendly, and wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, "None of what’s going to happen is your fault." Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: "Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world."

1930s Shanghai was a haven for outlaws from all over the world: a place where pasts could be forgotten, fascism and communism outrun, names invented, and fortunes made --- and lost. “Lucky” Jack Riley was the most notorious of those outlaws. An ex–U.S. Navy boxing champion, he escaped from prison and rose to become the Slots King of Shanghai. “Dapper” Joe Farren --- a Jewish boy who fled Vienna’s ghetto --- ruled the nightclubs. In 1940, Lucky Jack and Dapper Joe bestrode the Shanghai Badlands like kings, while all around the Solitary Island was poverty, starvation and war. They thought they ruled Shanghai, but the city had other ideas. This is the story of their rise to power, their downfall, and the trail of destruction left in their wake.

Jack Buchanan knows the woman sitting next to him on his business flight to Denver --- he just can't figure out how he knows her. He and Clara Stowe have nearly nothing in common apart from a deep and shared certainty that they've met before. As their airplane conversation deepens, both struggle to figure out what circumstances could have possibly brought them together. Then, Clara admits that she's traveling to the Colorado mountains to kill herself, and she disappears into the crowded airport immediately after landing. THE DEAD GIRL IN 2A is the story of what happens to Jake and Clara after they get off that plane, and the manipulative figure who has brought them together decades after they first met.

Nearly 30 years ago, while Claire and her brother slept upstairs, a brutal crime was committed in their grand London home. The next morning, her father's car was found abandoned, with bloodstains on the front seat. The first lord accused of murder in more than a century, he has been missing ever since. Now a doctor living under an assumed name, Claire learns the police may have found him, and her carefully calibrated existence begins to fracture. She starts to infiltrate his privileged inner circle, who have never broken their silence about what happened that night. Soon, Claire will learn how far she'll go to finally find the truth.

As an immigrant in an unfamiliar country, with an indifferent mother and abusive father, Reyna Grande had few resources at her disposal. Taking refuge in words, Reyna’s love of reading and writing propels her to rise above until she achieves the impossible and is accepted to the University of California, Santa Cruz. Although her acceptance is a triumph, the actual experience of American college life is intimidating and unfamiliar for someone like Reyna, who is now estranged from her family and support system. Again, she finds solace in words, holding fast to her vision of becoming a writer, only to discover she knows nothing about what it takes to make a career out of a dream. Through it all, Reyna is determined to make the impossible possible.

The daughter of Virginia gentry, Diana Cooke knew early that her parents had only one asset: their stately house, Saratoga, the largest in the commonwealth. Though they are land-rich, the Cookes do not have the means to sustain the estate. Without a wealthy husband, Diana will lose the mansion that has been the heart and soul of her family for five generations. The mysterious Captain Copperton is an outsider with no bloodline but plenty of cash, yet he is cruel as well as vulgar. Diana’s union with Copperton is brief and gives her a son she adores. But when her handsome, charming Ashton, now grown, returns to Saratoga with his college roommate, the real scandal and tragedy begins.

Fans fell in love with Eliza Hamilton --- Alexander Hamilton’s devoted wife --- in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s phenomenal musical “Hamilton.” But they don’t know her full story. A strong pioneer woman, a loving sister, a caring mother and, in her later years, a generous philanthropist, Eliza had many sides. Tilar J. Mazzeo’s biography follows Eliza through her early years in New York, into the ups and downs of her married life with founding father Alexander Hamilton, beyond the aftermath of his tragic murder, and finally to her involvement in many projects that cemented her legacy as one of the unsung heroes of our nation’s early days.

When the Britannia Theatre's balcony collapses, killing over a dozen people, the fingers point at the architect. He should have known better, should have made it safer, should have done something. Douglas Layton knows the flaw wasn't in his design, but he can't fight a guilty verdict. When he is finally released from prison, he has nothing: no job, no family, nowhere to go. He needs to assume a new identity and rebuild his life. But he soon finds himself digging up the past in a way he never anticipated. If the collapse was not an accident, who caused it? And why? And what if they find out who he used to be?

Audrey Coltrane signed up to train military pilots in Hawaii when the war in Europe began. She insists she is not interested in any dream-derailing romantic involvements, even with the disarming Lieutenant James Hart, who fast becomes a friend as treasured as the women she flies with. Then one fateful day, she gets caught in the air over Pearl Harbor just as the bombs begin to fall. To make everything she’s lost count for something, Audrey joins the Women Airforce Service Pilots program. The bonds she forms with her fellow pilots reignite a spark of hope in the face of war, and --- especially when James goes missing in action --- give Audrey the strength to cross the front lines and fight for everything she holds dear.

Junior and Henrietta live a comfortable, solitary life on their farm, far from the city lights, but in close quarters with each other. One day, a stranger from the city arrives with alarming news: Junior has been randomly selected to travel far away from the farm...very far away. The most unusual part? Arrangements already have been made so that when he leaves, Henrietta won't have a chance to miss him, because she won't be left alone --- not even for a moment. Henrietta will have company. Familiar company.

Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn't let anything stop her. But now someone else is standing in her way --- Diane. Best friends at 17, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret --- the worst thing she'd ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine --- and it blew their friendship apart. Kit is still the only person who knows what Diane did. And now Diane knows something about Kit that could destroy everything she's worked so hard for.

Jane loses everything when her teenage daughter is killed in a senseless accident. Devastated, she manages to make one tiny stab at a new life: she moves from San Francisco to the seaside town of Half Moon Bay. Jane is inconsolable, and yet, as the months go by, she is able to cobble together some version of a job, of friends, of the possibility of peace. And then, children begin to disappear. And soon, Jane sees her own pain reflected in all the parents in the town. She wonders if she will be able to live through the aching loss, the fear all around her. And as the disappearances continue, she begins to see that what her neighbors are wondering: is it Jane herself who has unleashed the horror of loss?

After serving time for a crime she didn’t commit, Evangeline returns home to discover that her father left her solely responsible for the family’s failing ranch, her mother blames her for her father’s death, and her brothers want her out of their way. With her family’s future squarely on her shoulders, she desperately searches for ways to save their home --- before they lose everything. Her only ally is the cop who sent her away, Chris Chambers, who is positive she took the fall for someone else. But the closer Evangeline and Chris get to exposing the truth --- and to each other --- the deeper Evangeline is drawn into a dangerous sting that will finally bring her justice and pave the way for a bright future.

For 13 days in 1976, teenage murderers April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy terrorized Southern California's Inland Empire, killing a dozen victims before perishing themselves in a fire. Or did they? More than 40 years later, twentysomething podcast producer Quentin Garrison blames his troubled upbringing on the murders. And after a shocking message from a source, he has reason to believe April Cooper may still be alive. Meanwhile, New York City film columnist Robin Diamond is coping with rising doubts about her husband and terrifying threats from internet trolls. But that's nothing compared to the outrageous phone call she gets from Quentin...and a brutal home invasion that makes her question everything she ever believed in.

On a dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the river Thames, an extraordinary event takes place. The regulars are telling stories to while away the dark hours, when the door bursts open on a grievously wounded stranger. In his arms is the lifeless body of a small child. Hours later, the girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can science provide an explanation? These questions have many answers, some of them quite dark indeed. Those who dwell on the river bank apply all their ingenuity to solving the puzzle of the girl who died and lived again, yet as the days pass the mystery only deepens.

In a small apartment in Boston, 16-year-old Daniel Fitzsimmons is listening to his landlord describe a seemingly insane theory about invisible pulses of light and energy that can be harnessed by the human mind. He longs to laugh with his brother Harry about it, but Harry doesn’t know he’s there. None of that matters, though, because the next night Harry, a Harvard football star, is murdered in an alley. Detectives “Bark” Jones and Tommy Dillon are assigned to the case. The veteran partners thought they’d seen it all, but they are stunned when Daniel wanders into the crime scene. Even stranger, Daniel claims to have known the details of his brother’s murder before it ever happened.

Barely 19, Minnie knows that her station in life as a Danish princess is to leave her family and enter into a royal marriage. The winds of fortune bring her to Russia, where she marries the Romanov heir, Alexander, and becomes empress. When resistance to his reign strikes at the heart of her family and the tsar sets out to crush all who oppose him, Minnie --- now called Maria --- must tread a perilous path of compromise in a country she has come to love. Her husband’s death leaves their son Nicholas as the inexperienced ruler of a deeply divided and crumbling empire. As the unstoppable wave of revolution rises anew to engulf Russia, Maria will face her most dangerous challenge and her greatest heartache.

Wife, mother, friend --- Eve Armanton is all of these things. But who is she really? Now that her son has left home, Eve no longer recognizes the middle-aged woman staring back at her each morning --- or the cold, loveless marriage she finds herself left in. A chance meeting with Micajah Burnett, the son of an old school friend, stirs Eve in ways she hasn’t felt in years. Micajah offers youth, desire and freedom --- and Eve takes the dangerous and liberating step into a passionate affair. Eve is about to discover who she was, who she is and who she can be. Only one thing is certain --- nothing will ever be the same again.

There are three things you should know about Elsie. The first thing is that she’s my best friend. The second is that she always knows what to say to make me feel better. And the third thing…might take a bit more explaining. Eighty-four-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, she thinks about her friend Elsie and wonders if a terrible secret from their past is about to come to light. If the charming new resident is who he claims to be, why does he look exactly like a man who died 60 years ago?

In an age defined by hyper-connectivity and constant stimulation, Francine Prose makes a compelling case for the solitary act of reading and the great enjoyment it brings. WHAT TO READ AND WHY includes selections culled from Prose’s previous essays, reviews and introductions, combined with new, never-before-published pieces that focus on her favorite works of fiction and nonfiction, on works by masters of the short story, and even on books by photographers like Diane Arbus.

In the spring of 1885, 17-year-old Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned and alone on her family's homestead. Desperate to fend off starvation and predatory neighbors, she cuts off her hair, binds her chest, saddles her beloved mare, and sets off across the mountains to find her outlaw brother Noah and bring him home. A talented sharpshooter herself, Jess' quest lands her in the employ of the territory's violent, capricious Governor, whose militia is also hunting Noah --- dead or alive. Wrestling with her brother's outlaw identity, and haunted by questions about her own, Jess must outmaneuver those who underestimate her, ultimately rising to become a hero in her own right.