Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market, loves a good festival, especially one serving up tasty treats. So what could be more fun than a food walk in the city's Chinatown–International District, celebrating the Year of the Rabbit? But when her friend Roxanne stumbles across a man's body in the Gold Rush, a long-closed residential hotel, questions leap out. Who was he? What was he doing in the dust-encrusted herbal pharmacy in the hotel's basement? Why was the pharmacy closed up --- and why are the owners so reluctant to talk? With each new discovery, Pepper finds herself asking new questions and facing more brick walls.

The invention of faster-than-light technology has brought great opportunity, but also great danger. The Black Horizon conspiracy is broken up, but it still has deadly assets beyond the reach of Earth. As the great powers jostle for advantage, the alien minds known as the Fermi have their own ways of dealing with humans meddling in plans vaster and more ancient than anyone can suspect. After the Venus catastrophe, John Grant’s starship Fighting Chance and the Space Station have reached Apis --- but not for long. They barely have time to mourn the dead before they’re chased out of the system. The Station begins exploring the systems that Black Horizon warned them against --- with good reason, as they soon discover.

When Detective Anjelica Henley is called to investigate the murder of a popular preacher in his own church, she discovers a second victim, tortured and tied to a bed in an upstairs room. He is alive, but barely, and his body shows signs of a dark religious ritual. With a revolving list of suspects and the media spotlight firmly on her, Henley is left with more questions than answers as she attempts to untangle both crimes. But when another body appears, the case takes on a new urgency. Unless she can apprehend the killer, the next victim may just be Henley herself.

Sand. A hostile world of burning sun. Outlines of several once-busy cities shimmer on the horizon. Now empty of inhabitants, their buildings lie in ruins. In the distance, a group of people --- a family --- walks toward us. To survive in this alien world of shifting sand, they must find an object hidden in or near water. But other families want it too. And they are willing to fight to the death to make it theirs. It is beginning to rain in Fairfax County, Virginia, when McKenzie Strathie wakes up. An ordinary teenage girl living an ordinary life --- except that the previous night she found a sand-lizard in her bed, and now she's beginning to question everything around her, especially who she really is.

1960, New York City: College student Rita Klein meets Jacob Nassy, who is traumatized by his childhood experience of being separated from his mother during the Holocaust. When Rita learns that Hitler’s Final Solution was organized using Hollerith punch-card computers, she sets out to find the answers that will help Jacob heal. 1941, The Hague: Cornelia Vogel is working as a punch-card operator when a census of Holland’s population is ordered by the Germans. After the Ministry acquires a Hollerith computer made in America, Cornelia is tasked with translating its instructions from English into Dutch. When Cornelia learns the census is being used to persecute Holland’s Jews, she risks everything to help Leah escape. After Rita uncovers a connection between Cornelia and Jacob’s mother, long-buried secrets come to light.

The year is 500 AD. Sisters Isla and Blue live in the shadows of the Ghost City, the abandoned ruins of the once-glorious mile-wide Roman settlement Londinium on the bank of the River Thames. But the small island they call home is also a place of exile for Isla, Blue and their father, a legendary blacksmith accused of using dark magic to make his firetongue swords --- formidable blades that cannot be broken --- and cast out from the community. When he dies suddenly, the sisters find themselves facing enslavement by the local warlord and his cruel, power-hungry son. Their only option is to escape to the Ghost City, where they discover an underworld of rebel women living secretly amid the ruins.

It is 1685, and England is on the brink of a renewed civil war. Ned Ferryman cannot persuade his sister, Alinor, that he is right to return from America with his Pokanoket servant, Rowan, to join the rebel army. Instead, Alinor has been coaxed by the manipulative Livia to save the queen from the coming siege. The rewards are life-changing: the family could return to their beloved Tidelands, and Alinor could rule where she was once lower than a servant. Alinor’s son, Rob, is determined to stay clear of the war, but when he and his nephew set out to free Ned from execution for treason and Rowan from a convict deportation to Barbados, they find themselves enmeshed in the creation of an imposter Prince of Wales --- a surrogate baby to the queen.

Julian Barnes’ novel of platonic unrequited love springs into being around the singular character of the stoic, exacting Professor Elizabeth Finch. Neil, the narrator, takes her class “Culture and Civilisation,” taught not for undergraduates but for adults of all ages. We are drawn into his intellectual crush on this private, withholding yet commanding woman. While other personal relationships and even his family drift from Neil’s grasp, Elizabeth’s application of her material to the matter of daily living remains important to him, even after her death, in a way that nothing else does.

After her mother’s death, Faun Novak, a naïve college dropout, grabs her Polaroid and hops a Greyhound to Los Angeles. There, she reconnects with her charismatic childhood friend Josie, now an up-and-coming model and muse. To make their reunion even sweeter, Josie is now dating Cal Holiday, the frontman of the superstar rock band Holiday Sun. Among the band's groupies are a doting high school girl at war with her mother; a drug-dealing wife and new mom who longs to be a star herself; and a cynical mover-and-shaker with a soft spot for Holiday Sun’s bassist. But just as everything is going great and her boring, old life is falling away, Faun realizes just how blind she has been to the darkest corners of this glamorous musical dreamland as the summer heats up and everything spirals out of control.

In retreat from a devastating loss and crushing injustice, Katie lives alone in a fortresslike stone house on Jacob’s Ladder island. Once a rising star in the art world, she finds refuge in her painting. The neighboring island of Ringrock houses a secret: a government research facility. And now two agents have arrived on Jacob’s Ladder in search of someone --- or something --- they refuse to identify. Although an air of menace hangs over these men, an infinitely greater threat has arrived. Katie soon finds herself in an epic and terrifying battle with a mysterious enemy. But she is not alone after all: a brave young girl appears out of the violent squall. Against them is an omnipresent terror that could bring about the end of the world.

In this debut collection, Kate Doyle captures precisely that time of life when so many young women are caught in between, preoccupied by nostalgia for past relationships --- with friends, roommates, siblings --- while trying to move forward into an uncertain future. In “That Is Shocking,” a college student relates a darkly funny story of romantic humiliation, one that skirts the parallel story of a friend she betrayed. In others, young women long for friends who have moved away, or moved on. In “Cinnamon Baseball Coyote” and other linked stories about siblings Helen, Evan and Grace, their years of inside jokes and brutal tensions simmer over as the three spend a holiday season in an amusing whirl of rivalry and mutual attachment, and a generational gulf widens between them and their parents.

Shantanu Das is living in the shadows of his past. In his 50s, he finds himself isolated from his traditional Bengali community after a devastating divorce from his wife, Chaitali; he hasn’t spoken to his older daughter, Mitali, in months. Years before, when his younger daughter, Keya, came out as gay, no one in the Das family could find the words they needed. As each worked up the courage to say sorry, fate intervened: Keya was killed in a car crash. So, when Shantanu finds an unfinished play Keya and her girlfriend had been writing, Mitali approaches the family with a wild idea: What if they were to put it on? It would be a way to honor Keya and finally apologize. Here, it seems, are the words that have escaped them over and over again.

When a severed finger was found in her car four years ago, Kerry Grey was arrested as an accomplice to the brutal slayings of three young women. Unbeknownst to Kerry, her husband Lucas was not only missing, but a deranged serial killer. Finally out on parole, she is ready to start anew and reunite with her young son. However, when a vigilante group inflamed by fear and motivated by reward money sparks a fevered hunt for Lucas, the nightmares of her past return. Only one person can help Kerry evade the hysteria of the media --- her parole officer, Adam Nash. But can she trust him? Was his move to the backwoods town of Joy, Montana, coincidental, or does Nash have his own obsessive hidden agenda involving the Hatchet Killer mystery, her husband and sweet justice?

A family vacation turns into a nightmare for Michael Hart when he discovers that his wife, Natalie, and their two children have disappeared from their New York City hotel room. Horrified, he fears they’ve been kidnapped. Michael’s frantic search to find them takes a shocking turn when he discovers that Natalie appears to have left quite willingly, taking their children with her. The police want to know why, and so does Michael. But there may be a reason why Natalie ran, something Michael can’t tell the police --- the truth about his past. While untangling his deceptions might be the key to locating Natalie, Michael knows it also could be his undoing. To find his wife, he must now turn to the one person capable of exposing all that he’s been hiding.

A mere woman, Rose Ransom’s role in the Leader's death has been miraculously overlooked. A government propaganda drive to promote positive images of women has just been announced ahead of a visit from Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first American president to set foot on English soil in two decades. Queen Wallis Simpson will be spearheading the campaign, and Rose has been tasked with visiting her to explain the plan. When Rose arrives at the palace, she finds Wallis in a state of paranoia, desperate to return to America and enjoy the liberty of her homeland following her husband's death. Wallis claims she has a secret document so explosive that it will blow the Protectorate apart. But will the last queen of England pull the trigger on the Alliance?

An idyllic wellness retreat has opened on an island off the English coast, promising rest and relaxation --- but the island itself, known locally as Reaper’s Rock, has a dark past. Once the playground of a serial killer, it’s rumored to be cursed. A young woman is found dead below the yoga pavilion in what seems to be a tragic fall. But Detective Elin Warner soon learns the victim wasn’t a guest --- in fact, she wasn’t meant to be on the island at all. And they would do anything to escape. The longer Elin stays, the more secrets she uncovers. When someone else drowns in a diving incident, Elin begins to suspect that there’s nothing accidental about these deaths. But why would someone target the guests at this luxury resort?

It’s the worst year of the Great Depression, and the Chicago World’s Fair becomes a symbol of the good that’s yet to come. As the mysterious Madame Mystique, Rosa Mancuso mixes magic with a dose of bare skin burlesque, bringing customers to the home of the Fair’s carnival rides and spectacles. Rosa doesn’t perform for fame, though. She has come from Mussolini’s Italy to America, where she’s plotting her revenge for the murders of her family. The perpetrator will soon arrive at the World’s Fair via a celebrated Italian air fleet, and Rosa is determined to be prepared. But when her estranged cousin, Mina, comes to her desperate for help, with a dangerous mobster close on her heels, Rosa agrees to protect Mina and her new baby, born across the color line.

1944, New York City. Judy Washington is tired of having to work at the Bronx Slave Market, cleaning white women’s houses for next to nothing. She dreams of a bigger life, but with her husband fighting overseas, it’s up to her and her mother to earn enough for food and rent. When she’s recruited to join the Women’s Army Corps, Judy jumps at the opportunity. During training, Judy becomes fast friends with the other women in her unit: Stacy, Bernadette and Mary Alyce. Under Second Officer Charity Adams' leadership, they receive orders to sort over one million pieces of mail in England, becoming the only unit of Black women to serve overseas during WWII. However, their work becomes personal when Mary Alyce discovers a backlogged letter addressed to Judy.

It’s the Hollywood event of the season, and anyone who’s anyone will be enjoying their evening at socialite Holly Stabler’s gorgeous hilltop estate. For personal assistant Zanne Klein, the gala is her chance at a promotion she’s chased for far too long, which means she’ll finally be able to buy a house, pay off her loans, and give her girlfriend the life she deserves. But just when the perfect party seems to be in reach, Phoebe Lee, a talented director who mysteriously disappeared decades before, shows up uninvited --- with a dark secret. As the event unfolds and truths are exposed, Zanne, Holly and Phoebe are set on a collision course that promises to make the night one Hollywood will never forget.