Flora is not like other bees. With circumstances threatening her hive’s survival, Flora’s curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw, but her courage and strength are an asset. However, when she breaks the most sacred law of all --- daring to challenge the Queen’s fertility --- enemies abound. Her deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce maternal love that will lead her to unthinkable deeds.

Because they are two sets of twins, the four Latimer sisters are as close as can be. Together they decide to enroll in a training program for nurses --- a new option for women of their time, who previously have been largely limited to the role of wives, and preferably mothers. As the sisters become immersed in hospital life and the demands of their training, they meet people and encounter challenges that spark new maturity and independence.

When Didi discovers that her husband, the Masterji, has been hiding his beautiful lover and their young son Tarun in a nearby city, she takes the Masterji back into her grasp and expels his second family. Tarun’s mother slowly begins to lose her mind, and Tarun turns to Didi for the mothering he longs for. But as Tarun gets older, Didi’s domination of the boy threatens to destroy his one chance at true happiness.

Patterson Wells works alongside dangerous, desperate itinerant men as a tree clearer in disaster zones, and he’s still dealing with the loss of his young son. Writing letters to the boy offers solace, but the bottle gives more. In Colorado, Patterson stops to go fishing with an old acquaintance, only to find him in a meth-induced delirium with a woman tied up in the bathtub. Patterson tries to do the right thing, but in the lives of those he knows, violence and justice are strange, intoxicating bedfellows.

CUT ME LOOSE tells the story of one woman's harrowing struggle to define herself as an individual. Through Leah Vincent's eyes, we confront not only the oppressive world of religious fundamentalism, but also the broader issues that face even the most secular young women as they grapple with sexuality and identity.

Soon after Billie Breslin takes a job at Delicious!, New York’s most iconic food magazine is abruptly shut down. Billie agrees to stay on in the empty office, maintaining the hotline for reader complaints in order to pay her bills. In a hidden room in the magazine’s library, Billie finds a cache of letters written during World War II. They provide her with a feeling of deep connection to the young writer whose courage in the face of hardship inspires her to come to terms with her fears.

Robert Trent Jones was the most prolific and influential golf course architect of the 20th century and became the archetypical modern golf course designer. Jones spread the gospel of golf by designing courses in 42 US states and 28 countries, and 20 U.S. Opens have been contested on Jones-designed courses. Biographer James R. Hansen recounts how an English immigrant boy arrived in upstate New York in 1912, just as golf was emerging as a popular pastime in America.

Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, who are determined that their middle daughter will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. However, when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together tumbles into chaos, forcing them to confront the long-kept secrets that have been slowly pulling them apart.

The Nash family is close-knit. However, their seeming stability is thrown into chaos when Deenie's best friend is struck by a terrifying, unexplained seizure in class. Rumors of a hazardous outbreak spread through the family, school and community. As hysteria and contagion swell, a series of tightly held secrets emerges, threatening to unravel friendships, families and the town's fragile idea of security.

After a string of betrayals and the loss of her legacy, Portia Cuthcart is determined to start a new life with her sisters in Manhattan…and never cook again. But when Portia moves into a dilapidated brownstone on the Upper West Side, she meets 12-year-old Ariel and her widowed father, Gabriel. Soon, a promise made to her sisters forces Portia back into a world of magical food and swirling emotions, where she must confront everything she has been running from.

Crime writer Erica Falck is shocked to discover a Nazi medal among her late mother’s possessions. To uncover her family's past, Erica must read her mother’s wartime diaries. Could what little knowledge she has be enough to endanger her husband and newborn baby? The dark past is coming to light, and no one will escape the truth of how they came to be.

In 1886, Gretta Pope wakes one morning to discover that her husband, Ulysses, is gone. All he left behind was a brief note with no explanation for why he left or where he’s headed. Gretta’s sons set off after him, jumping trains to get where they need to go and ending up in the rugged badlands of Montana. Gretta has no choice but to search for her sons and her husband, leading her to the doorstep of a woman who seems intent on making Ulysses her own.

Ruth has always stood firmly beside her husband, Peter, the legendary chief of New England’s Derry School for boys. The aging Peter will soon have to retire, and Ruth is wondering what they will do in their old age, separated from the school into which they have poured everything, including their savings. The narrative takes us back through the years, revealing the explosive spark and joy between Ruth and Peter.

The year is 2002. Weekly news magazines dominate the political agenda in New York and Washington. A young journalist named Michael M. Hastings is a 22-year-old intern at The Magazine who will stop at nothing to turn his internship into a full-time position. As Hastings loses his naïveté about the journalism game, he must choose where his loyalties lie --- with the men at The Magazine who can advance his career, or with his friend in the field who is reporting the truth.

LOVELY, DARK, DEEP is a collection of 10 mesmerizing stories from Joyce Carol Oates that maps the eerie darkness within us all. Fearful that her husband is “disappearing” from their life, a woman becomes obsessed with keeping him in her sight in “The Disappearing.” “A Book of Martyrs” reveals how the end of a pregnancy brings with it the end of a relationship. And in the title story, the elderly Robert Frost is visited by an interviewer, an unsettling young woman, who seems to know a good deal more about his life than she should.

Ellen Cooney’s latest novel is the story of two women and a whole pack of dogs who, having lost their way in the world, find a place at a training school --- and radical rescue center --- called the Sanctuary. It is a story of strays and rescues, kidnappings and homecomings, moving on, holding on and letting go. And it is, ultimately, a moving and hilarious chronicle of the ways in which humans and canines help each other find new lives, new selves and new hope.

At 23, after leaving graduate school to pursue her dreams of becoming a poet, Joanna Rakoff moves to New York City and takes a job as assistant to the storied literary agent for J. D. Salinger. She is tasked with answering Salinger’s voluminous fan mail. Drawn inexorably into the emotional world of Salinger’s devotees, she abandons the agency’s form response and begins writing back herself. Over the course of the year, she finds her own voice by acting as Salinger’s, on her own dangerous and liberating terms.

Born in 1906, Huguette Clark grew up in her family's 121-room Beaux Arts mansion in New York and was one of the leading celebrities of her day. All her money and all her real estate could not protect her in her later life from being manipulated by shady hangers-on and hospitals that were only too happy to admit (and bill) a healthy woman. But what happened to Huguette that turned a vivacious, young socialite into a recluse? And what was her life like inside that gilded, copper cage?

Penny Troyer goes out to hear Michael Knoxx --- the most famous member of The Knoxx Family Singers, a traveling Mennonite Evangelical family --- speak. Though he talks about living life to the fullest, Michael knows he needs to take his own advice. Life on the road is grueling; he wants to slow down and perhaps meet someone who sees him as a man, not just a celebrity. So when a twist of fate allows him the chance to stay a little longer in Pinecraft, Michael knows God is showing him a new path, especially when he discovers how much he and Penny have in common.

As a private investigator, Kathleen Stone relies on her ability to blend into the background. But when a cheating spouse she’s been trailing ends up dead under suspicious circumstances, she fears that someone she angered in her past job --- busting gangs and drug dealers as an undercover cop --- has seen through her disguises. Now she must work with her former colleagues in the NYPD to solve the case before she’s the next victim.

Maureen Corrigan, the book critic for NPR's "Fresh Air," points out that, while THE GREAT GATSBY may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power. Offering a fresh perspective on what makes GATSBY so great and utterly unusual, SO WE READ ON takes us into archives, high school classrooms, and even out onto the Long Island Sound to explore the novel's hidden depths.

Kim Philby’s story is not a tale of one spy, but of three: Philby, his fellow Englishman Nicholas Elliott, and the American James Jesus Angleton. These men supposedly served the same cause, but Philby was channeling all of their confidences to his Soviet handlers. As the web of suspicion closed around him, Elliott and Angleton never abandoned him. When the truth was revealed, it would have profound consequences on those who thought they knew him best.

Eddy Harkness is a brilliant young detective who currently empties parking meters and struggles to redeem his disgraced family name. One night Harkness’s police-issue Glock disappears. Unable to report the theft, Harkness starts a secret search --- just as a string of fatal accidents lead him to uncover a new, dangerous smart drug, Third Rail. With only a plastic disc gun to protect him, Harkness begins a high-stakes investigation that leads him into the darkest corners of the city.

An Irishman far from home, Cullen McGrath left a once prosperous life in England because of a horse racing scandal that nearly ruined him. He's come to Nashville for a fresh start, hoping to buy land and begin farming, all while determined to stay as far away from thoroughbred racing as possible. But starting over proves harder than he'd wagered, especially when the father of gifted horse rider Maggie Linden makes him an offer he shouldn't accept yet cannot possibly refuse.

Olivia and Brody have chosen the perfect location for their destination wedding: a friend’s idyllic inn in the Mediterranean town of Cassis. However, the weekend is quickly thrown off balance by guests. Olivia’s daughters, one reckless and one practical, both make brash decisions. Brody’s mother is coping with the fallout of her own marriage, and then there is Jake, the playboy best man. In the middle is Olivia, navigating the dramas and joys of starting a new life.

With her house damaged by floodwaters and a book deadline looming, Charity Anderson has no choice but to return to her hometown of Kings Meadow. However, being there dredges up a painful secret, and old fears threaten to overwhelm her. Charity's former high school classmate, Buck Malone, sacrificed his dreams to take care of his family. Soon he becomes the inspiration for Charity's hero, both on the page and off. Can he also help her face and overcome her fears so they might find their own happily ever after?

Corporal Elijah Russell is assigned to an elite Special Forces unit preparing to stage a secret mission in eastern Afghanistan. His task is to train the Green Berets --- fiercely loyal to their enigmatic commander, Captain Wynne --- to ride the horses they will use to execute this mission through treacherous mountain terrain. But as the team presses farther into enemy territory, the nature of their operation only becomes more mysterious and Wynne’s charismatic power takes on a darker cast.

The Kong women are rocked by 18 year old Ari's disastrous trip to her "home" orphanage in China, which has sent her into a self-destructive spiral. Her adoptive mother, Charlie, is desperate to keep her daughter safe. Meanwhile, Charlie must endure the scrutiny of her beautiful, Bryn Mawr educated mother, Gran --- who, as the daughter of a cultured Chinese doctor, came to America to survive Mao's revolution --- and her sister, Les, a brilliant judge. As they cope with Ari's journey of discovery, the Kong women will come face to face with the truths of their lives --- intertwining stories of accomplishments, secrets, and love.