One warm summer night 25 years ago, Liza Gold and her friends celebrated their high school graduation with a party on the beach. It should have been the best night of their lives, but one of them never came back out of the ocean. The tragedy haunted Liza Gold for years. Now, she's a recently divorced working mom struggling to connect with her standoffish teenage daughter, Zoe, when history repeats itself. Another young woman has drowned at Beach Week, and this time the victim is Zoe’s secret best friend. Liza begins to suspect that the two deaths are somehow related, which causes her to face hard truths and take an unflinching look at the people she’s called her closest friends for the past two decades. She must discover what really happened to both women before it’s too late.

Millions have sat under the “big top,” watching as trapeze artists glide and clowns entertain, but few know the captivating stories behind the men whose creativity, ingenuity and determination created one of our country’s most beloved pastimes. In BATTLE FOR THE BIG TOP, New York Times bestselling author Les Standiford brings to life a remarkable era when three circus kings --- James Bailey, P.T. Barnum and John Ringling --- all vied for control of the vastly profitable and influential American Circus. Ultimately, the rivalry of these three men resulted in the creation of an institution that would surpass all intentions and, for 147 years, hold a nation spellbound.

The first time Aja Owens encounters the man of her dreams, she’s having a panic attack in the frozen foods section of the Piggly Wiggly. The second time, he’s being introduced to her as her favorite bingo buddy’s semi-estranged grandson. From there, all it takes is one game for her to realize that he’s definitely going to be a problem. In Walker Abbott’s mind, there are only two worthwhile things in Greenbelt, South Carolina --- the peach cobbler at his old favorite diner and his ailing grandmother. Dragging himself back after more than a decade away, he’s counting down the days until Gram heals and he can get back to his real life. Just when he thinks his plan is solid, enter Aja to shake everything up.

It’s the late 1960s, and two lovers converge on an arid patch of earth in South India. John Walker is the handsome scion of a powerful East Coast American family. Diane Maes is a beautiful hippie from Belgium. They have come to build a new world --- Auroville, an international utopian community for thousands of people. Their faith is strong, and the future is bright. So how do John and Diane end up dying two decades later, on the same day, on a cracked concrete floor in a thatch hut by a remote canyon? This is the mystery Akash Kapur sets out to solve in BETTER TO HAVE GONE, and it carries deep personal resonance: Diane and John were the parents of Akash’s wife, Auralice.

Fern seeks refuge from her mother’s pill-popping and boyfriends via “Soul Train”; Gwin finds salvation in the music of Prince much to her congregation’s dismay; and Jesenia, miles ahead of her classmates at her gifted and talented high school, is a brainy and precocious enigma. None of this matters to Boss Man, the monster who abducts them and holds them captive in a dilapidated house in Queens. On the night they are finally rescued, throngs line the block gawking and claiming ignorance. Among them is lifetime resident Miss Metropolitan, advice columnist for the local weekly. But how could anyone who fancies herself a “newspaperwoman” have missed a horror story unfolding right across the street? And why is it that only two of the three girls --- now women --- were found?

Lucy Harper still has traumatic memories and lingering health problems from the 2020 pandemic. So, when a new virus surfaces years later, she and her husband, Reed, seek refuge on his family’s private island off the coast of Maine. Ostensibly safely sequestered with their five closest friends and family, Lucy should feel at ease. So why does she feel the weight of the island’s dark history pushing down on the group? As Lucy uncovers Reed’s family secrets and the island’s history as a quarantine hospital for typhus patients, she becomes obsessed with the past and feels her own grip on reality slipping. Tempers flare, strange signs appear in the woods, and accidents turn deadly. Is the island haunted by the dead? Or is someone amongst the living taking their revenge?

Devastated by the sudden death of her mother --- a quiet, loving and intensely private Southern seamstress called Miss Mabel --- Sutton Douglas makes the impulsive decision to head north to the Michigan resort town where she believes she’ll find answers to the lifelong questions she’s had about not only her mother’s past but also her own place in the world. Recalling Miss Mabel’s sewing notions that were her childhood toys, Sutton buys a collection of buttons at an estate sale from Bonnie Lyons, the imposing matriarch of the lakeside community. Propelled by a handful of trinkets left behind by her mother and glimpses into the history of the magical lakeshore town, Sutton becomes tantalized by the possibility that Bonnie is the grandmother she never knew. But is she?

When Stephanie Plum is woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of footsteps in her apartment, she wishes she didn’t keep her gun in the cookie jar in her kitchen. And when she finds out the intruder is fellow apprehension agent Diesel, six feet of hard muscle and bad attitude who she hasn’t seen in more than two years, she still thinks the gun might come in handy. It turns out Diesel and Stephanie are on the trail of the same fugitive: Oswald Wednesday, an international computer hacker as brilliant as he is ruthless. Unsure if Diesel is her partner or her competition in this case, she’ll need to watch her back every step of the way as she sets the stage to draw Wednesday out from behind his computer and into the real world.

Gathering pieces written between 2003 and 2020, LANGUAGES OF TRUTH chronicles Salman Rushdie’s intellectual engagement with a period of momentous cultural shifts. Immersing the reader in a wide variety of subjects, he delves into the nature of storytelling as a human need, and what emerges is, in myriad ways, a love letter to literature itself. Rushdie explores what the work of authors from Shakespeare and Cervantes to Samuel Beckett, Eudora Welty and Toni Morrison mean to him, whether on the page or in person. He delves deep into the nature of “truth,” revels in the vibrant malleability of language and the creative lines that can join art and life, and looks anew at migration, multiculturalism and censorship.

Freddie and Greg Tyler seem to have it all: a comfortable home, a beautiful young daughter, a bond that feels unbreakable. But when Greg is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer, the sense of certainty they once knew evaporates. Throughout their town, friends and neighbors face the most difficult of life’s challenges and are figuring out how to survive thanks to love, grace and hope.

MORE THAN I LOVE MY LIFE is the story of three strong women: 90-year-old Vera; her daughter, Nina; and her granddaughter, Gili, who at 39 is a filmmaker and a wary consumer of affection. A bitter secret divides each mother and daughter pair, though Gili --- abandoned by Nina when she was just three --- has always been close to her grandmother. With Gili making the arrangements, they travel together to Goli Otok, a barren island off the coast of Croatia, where Vera was imprisoned and tortured for three years as a young wife after she refused to betray her husband and denounce him as an enemy of the people. This unlikely journey lays bare the intertwining of fear, love and mercy, and the complex overlapping demands of romantic and parental passion.

Lucas and Margo are fed up. Margo is a brilliant programmer tired of being talked over as the company’s sole Black employee, and while Lucas is one of many Asians at the firm, he’s nearly invisible as a low-paid customer service rep. Together, they decide to steal their tech startup’s user database in an attempt at revenge. The heist takes a sudden turn when Margo dies in a car accident, and Lucas is left reeling, wondering what to do with their secret --- and wondering if her death really was an accident. When Lucas hacks into Margo’s computer looking for answers, he is drawn into her private online life and realizes just how little he knew about his best friend.

In the lush green hills beyond Florence sits the Villa Medici, a graceful pensione surrounded by manicured gardens. Rachel, a college student from an unfashionable London suburb, can’t believe her luck in landing a summer job here. Especially when she’s drawn into a circle of privileged young sophisticates, including her glamorous coworker Diana, who promises to help Rachel win the affections of handsome, confident Sebastian. But as champagne flows and rivalries fester in the Tuscan countryside, Rachel realizes that Diana has motivations of her own. She feels the stakes rising along with the temperature until, one night, something snaps. Someone dies. And nothing will ever be the same.

It’s been almost two years since Effie’s beloved parents got divorced. Since then, she’s become estranged from her father and embarked on a feud with his much younger girlfriend, Krista. And now Greenoaks, the rambling Victorian country house Effie called home her whole life, has been sold. When Krista decides to throw a grand “house cooling” party, Effie is originally left off the guest list --- and then receives a last-minute “anti-invitation.” Effie declines, but then remembers a beloved childhood treasure is still hidden in the house. Her only chance to retrieve it is to break into Greenoaks while everyone is busy celebrating. As Effie sneaks around the house, she realizes the secrets Greenoaks holds aren’t just in the dusty passageways and hidden attics she grew up exploring.

Nineteen-year-old Sherri Taylor plays the organ at the local church and has never felt comfortable in her own skin. But when her parents die in quick succession, she leaves the only home she’s ever known for the chance to be part of a glamorous slice of history. In the winter of 1981, Sherri joins the daughters of dairy farmers and factory workers for the defining experience of her life. Living in the “bunny hutch” --- Playboy’s version of a college dorm --- Sherri gets her education in the joys of sisterhood, the thrill of financial independence, the magic of first love, and the heady effects of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But as spring gives way to summer, Sherri finds herself caught in a romantic triangle --- and the tragedy that ensues will haunt her for the next 40 years.

Addison is about to get married but is not looking forward to the big day. She doesn't know who she really is. A few years ago, a kind driver found her bleeding next to a New Jersey highway and rescued her. While her physical wounds healed, Addison’s memory never returned. She doesn’t know her real name. Or how she ended up injured on the side of a road. Or why she can’t shake the notion that she may have done something very, very bad. In a posh home in the Boston suburbs, Julian tries to figure out what happened to his loving, caring wife, Cassandra, who disappeared without a trace two years ago. She never would have left him and their seven-year-old daughter Valentina of her own free will. Or would she?

They say Cape Disappointment is haunted. That's why tourists used to flock there in droves. Now they’re long gone, and when Meredith Strand and her young daughter return to Meredith's childhood home after an acrimonious split from her wife, the Cape seems more haunted by regret than any malevolent force. But her mother, suffering from early stages of Alzheimer's, is convinced the ghost stories are real. Not only is there something in the water, but it's watching them. Waiting for them. Reaching out to Meredith's daughter the way it has to every woman in their line for generations --- and if Meredith isn't careful, all three women, bound by blood and heartbreak, will be lost one by one to the ocean's mournful call.