On the way to hurricane-ravaged Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast, Tempe receives a call from the Charleston coroner. The storm has tossed ashore a medical waste container. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic sheeting and bound with electrical wire. Tempe recognizes many of the details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Quebec years earlier. With a growing sense of foreboding, she travels to Montreal to gather evidence. Meanwhile, health authorities in South Carolina become increasingly alarmed as a human flesh-eating contagion spreads. Someone is protecting a dark secret --- and willing to do anything to keep it hidden.

Nora Stephens, a cutthroat literary agent, agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when her little sister, Libby, begs her for a sisters’ trip away. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute. But as they are thrown together again and again --- in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow --- what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.

In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned, Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good. Picking up her mother's old packhorse library route, Honey begins to deliver books to the remote hollers of Appalachia. Honey is looking to prove that she doesn't need anyone telling her how to survive. But the route can be treacherous, and some folks aren't as keen to let a woman pave her own way.

As Jenny Lawson’s hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In BROKEN, she brings readers along on her mental and physical health journey, offering heartbreaking and hilarious anecdotes along the way. With people experiencing anxiety and depression now more than ever, Jenny humanizes what we all face in an all-too-real way, reassuring us that we’re not alone and making us laugh while doing it. From the business ideas that she wants to pitch to “Shark Tank” to the reason why she can never go back to the post office, BROKEN leaves nothing to the imagination in the most satisfying way. And, of course, Jenny’s long-suffering husband Victor --- the Ricky to Jenny’s Lucille Ball --- is present throughout.

Isabelle is completely lost. When she first began her career in publishing after college, she did not expect to be 25, still living at home and one of the few Black employees at her publishing house. Overworked and underpaid, constantly torn between speaking up or stifling herself, Izzy thinks there must be more to this publishing life. So when she overhears her boss complaining about a beastly high-profile author who has failed to deliver his long-awaited manuscript, Isabelle sees an opportunity to finally get the promotion she deserves. All she has to do is go to the author’s Santa Barbara mansion and give him a pep talk or three. How hard could it be? But Izzy quickly finds out she is in over her head.

When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback titled THE DOUBLE HELIX on her bed. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the code of life. Driven by a passion to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, she would help to make what the book’s author, James Watson, told her was the most important biological advance since his co-discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned a curiosity of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: an easy-to-use tool that can edit DNA. Known as CRISPR, it opened a brave new world of medical miracles and moral questions.

Colleen and Rich Gundersen are raising their young son, Chub, on the rugged California coast. It’s 1977, and life in this Pacific Northwest logging town isn’t what it used to be. For generations, the community has lived and breathed timber; now that way of life is threatened. Colleen is an amateur midwife. Rich is a tree-topper. It’s a dangerous job that requires him to scale trees hundreds of feet tall. Colleen and Rich want a better life for Chub, and they take steps to assure their future. Rich secretly spends their savings on a swath of ancient redwoods. But when Colleen, grieving the loss of a recent pregnancy, challenges the logging company’s use of the herbicides she believes are responsible for the many miscarriages in the community, she and Rich find themselves on opposite sides of a budding conflict.

Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. One day, a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath their sorting table. Esme rescues the slip, and when she learns that the word means “slave girl,” she begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men. As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so, she must venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.

Never knowing his parents, 11-year-old Stewie Little and his brother have been raised on a farm by their older sister. Stewie steadfastly tends the chickens left by his beloved late grandmother. And every day he goes door to door selling fresh eggs from his wagon --- a routine with a surprise just around the corner. It’s his new customer, Marilyn. Prickly and guarded, yet comfortably familiar, she reminds the grieving Stewie so much of the grandmother he misses more than he can express. Marilyn has a reason for keeping her distance: a secret no one knows about. Her survival tactic is to draw a line between herself and other people --- one that Stewie is determined to cross.

To Julie Metz, her mother, Eve, was the quintessential New Yorker. Eve rarely spoke about her childhood, and it was difficult to imagine her living anywhere else except Manhattan, where she could be found attending Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera or inspecting a round of French triple crème at Zabar’s. In truth, Eve had endured a harrowing childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna. After her mother passed, Julie discovered a keepsake book filled with farewell notes from friends and relatives addressed to a 10-year-old girl named Eva. This long-hidden memento was the first clue to the secret pain that Julie’s mother had carried as a refugee and immigrant, shining a light on a family that had to persevere at every turn to escape the antisemitism and xenophobia that threatened their survival.

Set in Alabama in the early '80s, FAMILY LAW follows a young lawyer, Lucia, who is making a name for herself at a time when a woman in a courtroom is still a rarity. When her mother's pending divorce brings teenaged Rachel into Lucia's orbit, Rachel finds herself captivated not only with Lucia, but with the change Lucia represents. Rachel is outspoken and curious, and she chafes at the rules her mother lays down as the bounds of acceptable feminine behavior. In Lucia, Rachel sees the potential for a new path into womanhood. When a moment of violence --- a threat made good --- puts Rachel in danger, Lucia has to decide how much her work means to her and what she's willing to sacrifice to keep moving forward.

After being stolen from her wealthy German parents and raised in the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, a young woman finds herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence is interrupted, however, when she happens upon a group of Jews fleeing the Nazi terror. Stunned to learn what’s happening in the outside world, she vows to teach the group all she can about surviving in the forest --- and in turn, they teach her some surprising lessons about opening her heart after years of isolation. But when she is betrayed and escapes into a German-occupied village, her past and present come together in a shocking collision that could change everything.

Ambrosia Wellington receives in the mail an invitation to her 10-year reunion, along with an anonymous note that reads “We need to talk about what we did that night.” It seems that the secrets of Ambrosia’s past aren’t as buried as she’d believed. Amb can’t stop fixating on what she did or who she did it with: larger-than-life Sloane “Sully” Sullivan, her former best friend, who could make anyone do anything. At the reunion, Amb and Sully receive increasingly menacing messages, and it becomes clear that they’re being pursued by someone who wants more than just the truth of what happened that first semester. This person wants revenge for what they did and the damage they caused --- the extent of which Amb is only now fully understanding.

THE GIRLS WHO STEPPED OUT OF LINE are the heroes of the Greatest Generation that you hardly ever hear about. These women who did extraordinary things didn't expect thanks and shied away from medals and recognition. Despite their amazing accomplishments, they've gone mostly unheralded and unrewarded. No longer. These are the women of World War II who served, fought, struggled and made things happen --- in and out of uniform. Retired U.S. Army Major General Mari K. Eder wrote this book because she knew their stories needed to be told --- and the sooner the better. For theirs is a legacy destined to embolden generations of women to come.

Adrian Rizzo was seven when she met her father for the first time. That was the day he nearly killed her --- before her mother, Lina, stepped in. Soon after, Adrian was dropped off at her grandparents’ house in Maryland. A decade later, Adrian has created her own line of yoga and workout videos. While Lina dismisses the death threats that Adrian starts getting as a routine part of her daughter’s growing celebrity, Adrian can’t help but find the vicious rhymes unsettling. They continue after she returns to Maryland and becomes reacquainted with Raylan, her childhood crush. Sometimes it even seems like the terrifying messages are indeed routine, like nothing will come of them. Until the murders start, and the escalation begins.

On a beautiful summer night in a charming English suburb, a young woman and her boyfriend disappear after partying at the massive country estate of a new college friend. One year later, a writer moves into a cottage on the edge of the woods that border the same estate. Known locally as the Dark Place, the dense forest is the writer’s favorite area for long walks, and it’s on one such walk that she stumbles upon a mysterious note that simply reads “DIG HERE.” Could this be a clue towards what has happened to the missing young couple? And what exactly is buried in this haunted ground?

Hanna has barely spoken to her family since the tragedy that rocked their lives 14 years ago. The tragedy for which they held Hanna responsible. Then she sees her family home listed as the scene of a horrific crime. Number of victims: three. Date of crime: today. Frantic, Hanna tries to contact her family, only to find they have disappeared. To find them, Hanna will have to confront what happened all those years ago. And the person determined to make her pay for it.

Once a promising young novelist, Jacob Finch Bonner is now teaching in a third-rate MFA program. Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need Jake’s help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing. Jake braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker’s first novel, but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that. In a few short years, all of Evan Parker’s predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an email arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says.

Brian Broome’s early years growing up in Ohio as a dark-skinned Black boy harboring crushes on other boys propel forward PUNCH ME UP TO THE GODS. Brian’s recounting of his experiences --- in all their cringe-worthy, hilarious and heartbreaking glory --- reveal a perpetual outsider awkwardly squirming to find his way in. Indiscriminate sex and escalating drug use help to soothe his hurt, young psyche, usually to uproarious and devastating effect. A no-nonsense mother and broken father play crucial roles in our misfit’s origin story. But it is Brian’s voice in the retelling that shows the true depth of vulnerability for young Black boys that is often quietly near to bursting at the seams.

Through poverty, adolescence and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley Ford wishes she could turn to her father for hope and encouragement. But he’s in prison, and she doesn’t know what he did to end up there. She doesn’t know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men. In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates. When the relationship turns sour, he assaults her. Still reeling from the rape, Ashley desperately searches for meaning in the chaos. Then her grandmother reveals the truth about her father’s incarceration…and Ashley’s entire world is turned upside down.

Vern --- seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised --- flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes. To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past and, more troublingly, the future --- outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.

After their decision not to have a biological child, Sarah Sentilles and her husband, Eric, decide to adopt via the foster care system. Despite knowing that the system’s goal is the child’s reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry of social workers who question them, evaluate them, and ultimately prepare them to welcome a child into their lives. After years of starts and stops, and endless navigation of the complexities and injustices of the foster care system, a phone call finally comes: a three-day-old baby girl named Coco, in immediate need of a foster family. A love letter to Coco and to the countless children like her, STRANGER CARE chronicles Sarah’s discovery of what it means to mother --- in this case, not just a vulnerable infant but the birth mother who loves her, too.

As an apple-cheeked bubbly child, Julianna Margulies was bestowed with the family nickname “Sunshine Girl.” Raised in fairly unconventional ways in various homes in Paris, England, New York and New Hampshire, Julianna found that her role among the surrounding turmoil and uncertainty was to comfort those around her, seeking organization among the disorder, making her way in the world as a young adult and eventually an award-winning actress. Throughout, there were complicated relationships, difficult choices and overwhelming rejections. But there were also the moments where fate, faith and talent aligned.

In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry --- freed by the Emancipation Proclamation --- seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm. Meanwhile, Prentiss and Landry plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Parallel to their story runs a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers. When their secret is discovered, the resulting chaos, including a murder, unleashes convulsive repercussions on the entire community.

It’s 1960, and the world teeters on the edge of cultural, political, sexual and artistic revolution. On the Greek island of Hydra, a proto-commune of poets, painters and musicians revel in dreams at the feet of their unofficial leaders, the writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston, troubled queen and king of bohemia. At the center of this circle of misfit artists are the captivating and inscrutable Axel Jensen, his magnetic wife Marianne Ihlen, and a young Canadian ingenue poet named Leonard Cohen. When 18-year-old Erica stumbles into their world, she’s fresh off the boat from London. Among these artists, she will find an unraveling utopia where everything is tested --- the nature of art, relationships and her own innocence.

Set in one year, THREE ROOMS follows a young woman as she moves from a rented room at Oxford, where she’s working as a research assistant; to a stranger’s sofa, which is all she can afford as a copyediting temp at a society magazine; to her childhood home, where she’s been forced to return, jobless, even a room of her own out of reach. As politics shift to nationalism, the streets fill with protestors, and news drip-feeds into her phone, she struggles to live a meaningful life on her own terms, unsure if she’ll ever be able to afford to do so.

With their long necks, sheer tights and taut buns, Dara and Marie Durant have only known the course of a well-bred dancer. Not much changes when their parents face death in a tragic accident. As Dara and Marie take over their mother's duty of running the Durant School of Dance, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student, the sisters perfect a fine dance, circling around one another, six days a week, keeping the studio thriving. But when another eerily suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of "The Nutcracker" --- a season of tense competition, provoked anxiety and wild exhilaration --- an interloper arrives and threatens the sisters' delicate balance.

When Lizzie's car crashes with her two daughters inside, she faces a terrible choice. And when she recovers from her injuries, she must deal with the impact of that tragedy and the police investigation into it. As Lizzie and her family struggle to come to terms with the events of that night, things take an even darker turn. What exactly happened on that remote country road? Who is responsible? And can the family get through this together...or will the truth finally tear them apart?

Mexico in the 1970s is a dangerous country, even for Maite, a secretary who spends her life seeking the romance found in cheap comic books and ignoring the activists protesting around the city. When her next-door neighbor, the beautiful art student Leonora, disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman --- and journeying deeper into Leonora’s secret life of student radicals and dissidents. Mexico in the 1970s is a politically fraught land, even for Elvis, a goon with a passion for rock ’n’ roll who knows more about kidney-smashing than intrigue. When Elvis is assigned to find Leonora, he begins a blood-soaked search for the woman --- and his soul.

Seventeen-year-old Sarabeth has become increasingly rebellious since her parents found God and moved their family to a remote Arkansas farmstead. She’s all but given up on escaping the farm when a masked man appears one summer morning and snatches her out of the cornfield. A week after her abduction, she’s found alongside a highway, but her family treats her like she’s tainted. There’s little hope of finding her captor, who kept Sarabeth blindfolded in the dark, never uttering a word. Five years later, Sarabeth is struggling to keep her past buried when investigator Nick Farrow calls. Convinced that her case is connected to the strikingly similar disappearance of another young girl, Farrow wants Sarabeth’s help.

In 50 years, Myrra will be free. Until then, she's a contract worker. Ever since she was five, her life and labor have belonged to the highest bidder on her contract --- butchers, laundries and now the powerful, secretive Carlyles. But when one night finds the Carlyles dead, Myrra is suddenly free a lot sooner than she anticipated --- and at a cost she never could have imagined. Burdened with the Carlyles' orphaned daughter and the terrible secret they died to escape, she runs. With time running out, Myrra must come face to face with the truth about her world --- and embrace what's left before it's too late.