Jane and her family are living in luxury for a year, house-sitting in the hills above Los Angeles. The gig magically coincides with Jane’s sabbatical, giving her the time and space she needs to finish her second novel --- a centuries-spanning epic that her artist husband, Lenny, dubs her “mulatto WAR AND PEACE.” Finally, some semblance of stability and success seems to be within her grasp. But things don’t work out quite as hoped. Desperate for a plan B, Jane turns her gaze to Hollywood. When she finagles a meeting with Hampton Ford, a hot producer with a major development deal at a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a “real writer,” and together they begin to develop “the Jackie Robinson of biracial comedies.” Things finally seem to be going right for Jane --- until they go terribly wrong.

Flourishing in just about every climate and culture around the world, onions have provided the essential basis not only for sautés, stews and sauces, but for medicines, metaphors and folklore. Now they're Mark Kurlansky's most flavorful infatuation yet as he sets out to explore how and why the crop reigns from Italy to India and everywhere in between. Featuring historical images and his own pen-and-ink drawings, he begins with the science and history of the only sulfuric acid–spewing plant, then digs through its 20 varieties and the cultures built around them. Entering the kitchen, Kurlansky celebrates the raw, roasted, creamed, marinated and pickled. THE CORE OF AN ONION also includes a recipe section featuring more than 100 dishes from around the world.

Los Angeles, 1916: Photographer Bill Ogden has opened a portrait studio in the seedy noir world of early Hollywood, where he is joined by his granddaughter, Flavia, who is need of a fresh start after bludgeoning her drunken, abusive husband to death in Wichita. Though his business is mainly legit, Bill finds himself brushing up against the “blue movie” porn industry growing in the shadows of the motion picture mainstream. When a series of grisly murders take place across the city, Bill and his capable granddaughter are pulled into events as tricky and tangled as anything this side of The Big Sleep. We meet dreamers, opportunists, washed-up former stars and starry-eyed newcomers --- a cast of unforgettable characters living on the margins looking to make a quick buck, launch a career or just keep their family together.

A daughter of Korean immigrants, Hyeseung Song spends her earliest years in the cane fields of Texas. With her parents at constant odds, she learns more words in Korean for hatred than for love. When the family’s fake Gucci business lands them in bankruptcy, Song moves to a new elementary school. Neither rich nor white, Song does what is necessary to be visible: she internalizes the model minority myth, as well as her beloved mother’s dreams to see her on a secure path. Years of self-erasure take a toll, and Song experiences recurring episodes of depression and mania. A thought repeats: I want to die. I want to die. Song enters a psychiatric hospital where she meets patients with similar struggles. So begins her sweeping journey to heal herself by losing everything.

Billionaire Elliott Kantor, who ruled over a mammoth real estate portfolio in Chicago, was a creature of habit. His trainer came to his house three mornings every week for a 5:30 workout. By 6:30 he was in the car, and his driver drove him down into the city where he’d get a shave and trim from his barber, then head over to his offices. He always ate breakfast at his desk, had two young assistants who tended to his every whim and demand, then spent all day in and out of meetings. There were few surprises in his world. Or so everyone thought, until Kantor died in his sleep at age 77, leaving behind a vast fortune and grieving wife, son and five grandchildren. When Simon Kantor enlists Ashe Cayne to explore his father's death, the probing private investigator learns there were plenty of "activities" Elliott participated in after hours, including a sex traffic ring.

Lizzie and Bex were best friends in college. After graduation, Bex vanished, leaving Lizzie confused and devastated. Fifteen years later, Bex is now Rebecca Sommers, a “traditional” Instagram influencer with millions of followers who salivate over her perfect life on her ranch with her five children and handsome husband, Gray. One night out of the blue, Bex calls Lizzie with a career-making proposition --- an exclusive interview with her about her multimillion-dollar business venture and an invitation to MomBomb, the high-profile influencing conference. At the conference, Bex goes missing, and Gray is found brutally murdered on their ranch. Lizzie finds herself plunged into the dark side of the cutthroat world of social media, which includes jealousy, sordid affairs, swingers and backstabbing.

Spring is in full bloom in Pike Place Market, where Pepper Reece is celebrating lavender’s culinary uses and planning a festival she hopes will become an annual event. When her friend, Lavender Liz, offers to share tips for promoting the much-loved --- and occasionally maligned --- herb, Pepper makes a trek to the charming town of Salmon Falls. But someone has badly damaged Liz’s greenhouse, throwing a wrench in the feisty grower’s plans for expansion. Suspicions quickly focus on an employee who has taken to the hills, though Liz herself is not convinced. Then Liz is found dead among her precious plants, stabbed by a pruning knife. As Pepper’s questions threaten to unearth secrets others desperately want to keep buried, danger creeps closer to her and those she loves.

Calabria, 1960. Francesca Loftfield, a 27-year-old, starry-eyed American, arrives in the isolated mountain village of Santa Chionia tasked with opening a nursery school. There is no road, no doctor, no running water or electricity. And thanks to a recent flood that swept away the post office, there’s no mail, either. Most troubling, though, is the human skeleton that surfaced after the flood waters receded. Who is it? And why don’t the police come and investigate? When the local priest's housekeeper begs Francesca to help determine if the remains are those of her long-missing son, Francesca begins to ask a lot of inconvenient questions. As an outsider, she might be the only person who can uncover the truth. Or she might be getting in over her head.

As boys, Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived. Fifteen years later, Rafe is a reclusive artist who has no memory of what happened during those months. Jeremy has become a famed missing persons’ investigator and is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as him and Rafe. The two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes that they will find Emilie’s sister there. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins.

In 11 stories that span Florida marshes, North Carolina mountains, and Southern metropolitan cities, MAKE YOUR WAY HOME follows Black men and women who grapple with the homes that have eluded them. A preteen who is pregnant alongside her mother refuses to let convention dictate who she names as the father of her child. Centuries after slavery separated his ancestors, a native Texan tries to win over the love of his life, despite the grip of a family curse. A young deaconess, who falls for a new church member, wonders what it means when God stops speaking to her. And at the very end of the South as we know it, two sisters seek to escape North to freedom, to promises of a more stable climate.

After the perils of a case that landed much too close to home, Hana Westerman turned in her badge and abandoned her career as a detective in the Auckland CIB. Hoping that civilian life will offer her the opportunity to rest and recalibrate, she returns to her hometown of Tātā Bay, where she moves back in with her beloved father, Eru. Yet the memories of the past are everywhere, and as she goes for her daily run on the beach, Hana passes a local monument to Paige, a high school classmate who was murdered more than 20 years ago and hidden in the dunes overlooking the sea. A Māori man with a previous record was convicted of the crime, although Eru never believed he was guilty. When her daughter finds another young woman’s skeleton in the sands, Hana soon finds herself awkwardly involved.

I didn’t believe in the Rule of Three. Not at first. It was just one of those urban myths you hear about all the time. A story my boyfriend told me about a girl cursed by the number three. A girl whose parents had killed themselves after her sibling had died in an accident. Which meant that she was doomed to die too because that’s the Rule of Three. Bad things always happen in threes, they say, and they are right. Because it’s happening again. But this time the curse is coming for me. And worst of all? It’s coming for you, too.

Cordelia knows her mother is…unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend. Unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t evil sorcerers. When her mother unexpectedly moves them into the manor home of a wealthy older Squire and his kind but keen-eyed sister, Hester, Cordelia knows this welcoming pair are to be her mother's next victims. As her mother's plans darken, she must decide how to face the woman who raised her to save the people who have become like family.

Romance novelist Jacqueline Matthis’ big career has gone bust, and she has ditched the bright lights of New York City for her more affordable South Carolina hometown. Jac dreams up a comeback plan --- she is going to be a contestant on “the 1,” the most obsessively watched reality dating show in the world. On set, Jac quickly establishes herself as a front-runner for bachelor Marcus’ heart, but she’s shocked to discover who’s actually pulling the strings. How was she to know that Henry Foster, her last one-night stand before the show, was actually a longtime producer on “the 1”? As Jac plays the game and the show unfurls, she slowly discovers that she’s getting the villain edit. They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but as Jac’s secret plan begins crumbling around her, she’s not so sure.

Since the dark events that scarred her childhood, Kier Templer escaped her hometown to live life on the road. She and her twin have never lost contact until, on a trip to a Portuguese national park, Kier vanishes without a trace. Detective Elin Warner arrives in the same park ready to immerse herself in its vast wilderness  --- only to hear about Kier’s disappearance and discover a disturbing map she left behind. The few strangers at an isolated campsite close ranks against Elin’s questions, and the park’s wild beauty starts to turn sinister. Elin must untangle the clues to find out what really happened to Kier. But when you follow a trail, you have to be careful to watch your back.

Fifteen years ago, Maia Gold attended a prestigious --- and very exclusive --- writers retreat hosted by billionaire Argos Alexander on the Greek island of Eris. But something dark happened on that island, a betrayal that has hung over her ever since. Now, Maia has been invited to return to Eris, and she’s not the only one from that first retreat who’s been invited back. Almost all of the writers from 15 years before have returned to Eris, bringing unresolved resentments with them. The guests soon learn that their illustrious host is absent, though he has left instructions for them to participate in a contest. Whoever can write the most suspenseful mystery while on the island will win a fortune and literary acclaim. But when the guests gather in the morning to share their first chapters, they find Argos Alexander dead.