The dark-eyed woman in the long black gown was first seen in the 1970s, standing near a fireplace. La Posada had been a grand Santa Fe home before it was converted to a hotel. Julia Schuster Staab, the wife of the home’s original owner, died nearly a century before the hauntings were first reported. In AMERICAN GHOST, Hannah Nordhaus traces the life, death and unsettled afterlife of her great-great-grandmother --- from her childhood in Germany to her years in the American West with her Jewish merchant husband.

Detective Sunderson's new neighbors are creating even more havoc than the Great Leader did. A family of outlaws, armed to the teeth, the Ameses have local law enforcement too intimidated to take them on. Then Sunderson’s cleaning lady is murdered, and black sheep brother Lemuel Ames seeks Sunderson’s advice on a crime novel he’s writing that may not be fiction. Sunderson must struggle with the evil within himself and the far greater, more expansive evil of his neighbor.

The enigmatic billionaire founder of Tetration hires failed novelist Josh Cohen to ghostwrite his memoirs. The mogul, known as Principal, brings Josh behind the digital veil, tracing the rise of Tetration, which started in the earliest days of the Internet by revolutionizing the search engine before venturing into smartphones, computers and the surveillance of American citizens. Principal takes Josh on a mind-bending world tour, initiating him into the secret pretext of the autobiography project and the life-or-death stakes that surround its publication.

The ties of family make for uncomfortable binds in Thomas McGuane’s first short story collection in nine years. A devoted son is horrified to discover his mother’s antics before she slipped into dementia. A father’s outdoor skills are no match for an ominous change in the weather. But complications arise equally in the absence of blood, as when lifelong friends on a fishing trip finally confront their deep dislike for each other. Or when a gifted traveling cattle breeder succumbs to the lure of a stranger’s offer of easy money.

Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa’s latest novel, THE DISCREET HERO, follows two fascinating characters whose lives are destined to intersect: neat, endearing Felícito Yanaqué, a small businessman in Piura, Peru, who finds himself the victim of blackmail; and Ismael Carrera, a successful owner of an insurance company in Lima, who cooks up a plan to avenge himself against the two lazy sons who want him dead.

Invited by Commissario Guido Brunetti to dine at his in-laws’ palazzo, opera star Flavia Petrelli confesses her alarm at the excessive displays of adoration from an anonymous fan. When a talented young Venetian singer who has caught Flavia’s attention is savagely attacked, Brunetti begins to think that Flavia’s fears are justified in ways neither of them imagined. He must enter into the psyche of an obsessive fan before Flavia, or anyone else, comes to harm.

When Heidi Julavits found her old diaries in a storage bin, she hoped to discover the early evidence of the person (and writer) she’d since become. Instead, "The actual diaries revealed me to possess the mind of a paranoid tax auditor." Thus was born a desire to try again, to chronicle her daily life as a forty-something woman, wife, mother and writer. The result is THE FOLDED CLOCK, in which the diary form becomes a meditation on time and self, youth and aging, betrayal and loyalty, friendship and romance, art and ambition.

A 10-member wedding party is kidnapped in front of the groom’s family mansion in Mexico City. The perpetrator is a small-time gangster who wants nothing more than to make his crew part of a major cartel and hopes that this crime will be his big break. Jessica Juliet Wolfe is a bridesmaid and close friend of the bride who hails from a family of notorious outlaws that has branches on both sides of the border. When the Wolfes learn of Jessie’s abduction, they fear that the kidnappers will kill the captives after receiving the ransom --- unless they rescue Jessie first.

In the midst of boomtown Chicago, two Jewish families have suffered terrible blows. The Lehrmans, who run a small hat factory, lost their beloved son Harold in a blizzard. The Chimbrovas, who run a saloon, lost three of their boys on the SS Eastland when it sank in 1915. Each family holds out hope that one of their remaining children will rise to carry on the family business. But Benny Lehrman has no interest in making hats. His true passion is piano --- especially jazz.

After Henry's girlfriend, Val, leaves him and transfers to another school, his grief begins to manifest itself in bizarre and horrifying ways. After weeks of sleepless nights and sick delusions, Henry decides to run away and find Val. Once on the George Washington Bridge, however, a powerful hallucination knocks him out cold. When he awakens, he finds out that he has been kidnapped by two strangers who claim to be future versions of himself.

Aimée Leduc has her work cut out for her --- running her detective agency and fighting off sleep deprivation as she tries to be a good single mother to her new bébé. The last thing she has time for now is to take on a personal investigation for a poor manouche (Gypsy) boy. But he insists his dying mother has an important secret she needs to tell Aimée concerning Aimée’s father’s unsolved murder a decade ago. How can she say no? The dying woman’s secret is even more dangerous than her son realized.

Thirty-nine-year-old Adrienne is desperate to be a mother. And this time, nothing is going to get in her way. At 19, Leah bears a remarkable resemblance to the young woman Adrienne once was. Which is why Adrienne knows the baby Leah is carrying is meant to be hers. But Leah has ideas of her own. All she wants is to live in Adrienne’s house for a year after the baby is born and get a fresh start. It seems like a small price for Adrienne to pay to get their baby. And with Adrienne’s husband, Gabe, suddenly on board, what could possibly go wrong?

Kirstin Valdez Quade's stories plunge us into the fierce, troubled hearts of characters defined by the desire to escape the past or else to plumb its depths. The deadbeat father of a pregnant teenager tries to transform his life by playing the role of Jesus in a bloody penitential Passion. A young man discovers that his estranged father and a boa constrictor have been squatting in his grandmother’s empty house. One girl attempts to uncover the mystery of her cousin's violent past, while another young woman finds herself at an impasse when she is asked to hear her priest's confession.

Once the thriving attraction of rural Vermont, the Tower Motel now stands in disrepair, alive only in the memories of Amy, Piper, and Piper's kid sister, Margot. The three played there as girls until the day their games uncovered something dark and twisted in the motel's past, something that ruined their friendship forever. Now adults, Piper and Margot have tried to forget what they found that fateful summer, but their lives are upended when Piper receives a panicked midnight call from Margot, with news of a horrific crime for which Amy stands accused.

The youngest of five children, Tracy K. Smith was raised with limitless affection and a firm belief in God by a stay-at-home mother and an engineer father. But just as Tracy is about to leave home for college, her mother is diagnosed with cancer, a condition she accepts as part of God’s plan. ORDINARY LIGHT is the story of a young woman struggling to fashion her own understanding of belief, loss, history, and what it means to be black in America.

America’s First Families are unknowable in many ways. No one has insight into their true character like the people who serve their meals and make their beds every day. Full of stories and details by turns dramatic, humorous and heartwarming, THE RESIDENCE reveals daily life in the White House as it is really lived through the voices of the maids, butlers, cooks, florists, doormen, engineers and others who tend to the needs of the President and First Family.

Aviva Kagan was a just a teenager when she left her Hasidic Jewish life in Brooklyn for a fling with a college boy from Florida --- and then disappeared. Twenty-three years later, the child she walked away from is a tabloid reporter named Rebekah Roberts. And Rebekah isn't sure she wants her mother back in her life. But when a man from the ultra-Orthodox enclave of Roseville, NY, contacts Rebekah about his young wife's mysterious death, she is drawn back into Aviva's world.

Becky’s father has vanished from Los Angeles on a mysterious quest with her best friend’s husband. Becky’s mum is hysterical; her best friend, Suze, is desperate. Worse, Becky must tolerate an enemy along for the ride, who she’s convinced is up to no good. Determined to get to the bottom of why her dad has disappeared, help Suze, contain Alicia, and reunite her fractured family, Becky knows she must marshal all her trademark ingenuity. But just when her family needs her more than ever, can Becky pull it off?