History remembers Robert F. Kennedy as a racial healer, a tribune for the poor, and the last progressive knight of a bygone era of American politics. But Kennedy’s enshrinement in the liberal pantheon was actually the final stage of a journey that had its beginnings in the conservative 1950s. Larry Tye peels away layers of myth and misconception to paint a complete portrait of this singularly fascinating figure. To capture the full arc of his subject’s life, Tye draws on unpublished memoirs, unreleased government files and 58 boxes of papers that had been under lock and key for the past 40 years.

At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park and is immediately caught by their freedom and dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, she is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic and thrilling --- a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence.

Spanning nearly 40 years, the stories in Robin MacArthur’s debut give voice to the hopes, dreams, hungers and fears of a diverse cast of Vermonters --- adolescent girls, aging hippies, hardscrabble farmers, disconnected women and solitary men. Straddling the border between civilization and the wild, they all struggle to make sense of their loneliness and longings in the stark and often isolating enclaves they call home. Golden fields and white-veiled woods, dilapidated farmhouses and makeshift trailers, icy rivers and still lakes rouse the imagination, tether the heart and inhabit the soul.

Ranging from Australia to Greece, England to a Pacific island, the stories in Fiona McFarlane’s story collection journey across continents, eras and genres, charting the pivotal moments of people’s lives. In “Mycenae,” a middle-aged couple embarks on a disastrous vacation in the company of old friends. In “Good News for Modern Man,” a scientist conducts research on a small, remote island, where he is haunted by a colossal squid and the ghost of Charles Darwin. And in the title story, an Australian farmer turns to Old Testament methods to relieve a fatal drought. All are confronted with events that make them see themselves and their lives from a fresh perspective --- and what they do as a result is as unpredictable as life itself.

Inseparable throughout college, Eva, Benedict, Sylvie and Lucien graduate in 1997. Hopelessly in love with playboy Lucien and eager to shrug off the socialist politics of her upbringing, Eva breaks away to work for a big bank. Benedict, a budding scientist who's pined for Eva for years, stays on to complete his PhD in physics. Siblings Sylvie and Lucien, never much inclined toward mortgages or monogamy, pursue more bohemian existences --- she as an aspiring artist, and he as a club promoter and professional partyer. But as their 20s give way to their 30s, the group struggles to navigate their thwarted dreams.

When Katie Doyle moves across the country to the Hamptons, she is hoping to find summer employment, new friends for her young son, and a chance to explore a new love affair with George, a dazzling investor. What she finds is a strange cocktail of classes, where society’s one-percenters vacation alongside local, hardworking people who’ve lived in the Hamptons for generations. Though she’s looking forward to her move, Katie is wary about mingling in her boyfriend’s East Coast elite circles. She soon discovers Southampton isn’t all that it seems to be on the surface --- and neither are the people who live there.

Legendary Dodgers Maury Wills, Sandy Koufax, Wes Parker, Jeff Torborg, Dick Tracewski, Lou Johnson and Tommy Davis encapsulated 1960s America: white and black, Jewish and Christian, wealthy and working class, pro-Vietnam and anti-war, golden boy and seasoned veteran. THE LAST INNOCENTS is a thoughtful, technicolor portrait of these six players and their storied team. Bringing into focus the high drama of their World Series appearances and pivotal games, Michael Leahy explores these men’s interpersonal relationships and illuminates the triumphs, agonies and challenges each faced individually.

The fifth of eight children, Chris Forhan was born into a family of silence. He and his siblings learned, without being told, that certain thoughts and feelings were not to be shared. On the evenings his father didn’t come home, the rest of the family would eat dinner without him, his whereabouts unknown. And on a cold night in 1973, just before Christmas, Forhan’s father killed himself in the carport. Forty years later, Forhan digs into his family’s past and finds within each generation the same abandonment, loss and silence in which he was raised. He shows his family members as both a part and a product of their time.

NEW ENGLAND BOUND reclaims the lives of so many long-forgotten enslaved Africans and Native Americans in the 17th century. Based on new evidence, Wendy Warren links the growth of the northern colonies to the Atlantic slave trade, demonstrating how New England’s economy derived its vitality from the profusion of slave-trading ships coursing through its ports. She documents how Indians were systematically sold into slavery in the West Indies and reveals how colonial families like the Winthrops were motivated not only by religious freedom but also by their slave-trading investments.

It’s 1996, and Reacher is still in the army. In the morning they give him a medal, and in the afternoon they send him back to school. That night he’s off the grid. Two other men are in the classroom: an FBI agent and a CIA analyst. A Jihadist sleeper cell in Hamburg, Germany, has received an unexpected visitor --- a Saudi courier, seeking safe haven while waiting to rendezvous with persons unknown. A CIA asset, undercover inside the cell, has overheard the courier whisper a chilling message: “The American wants a hundred million dollars.” For what? And who from? Reacher and his two new friends are told to find the American.

Since the age of 21, Paul McCartney has lived one of the ultimate rock-n-roll lives played out on the most public of stages. Now, McCartney’s story is told by rock music's foremost biographer, with his consent and access to family members and close friends who have never spoken on the record before. PAUL McCARTNEY reveals the complex character behind the façade and sheds new light on his childhood --- blighted by his mother's death but redeemed by the father who introduced him to music.

It is 1670, and Simon Fronwieser is in the town of Oberammergau to bring his seven-year-old son to boarding school. As he bids his boy a tearful farewell, news comes of a shocking murder: the man who was to play the part of Christ in the town’s Passion Play has been found dead, nailed to the set’s cross. As there is no doctor in town, Simon is brought in to examine the body. The chance to spend more time with his son and to investigate the murder quickly convince him to stay. Soon he is joined by his father-in-law, Jakob Kuisl, the Schongau hangman, and the two begin piecing together the puzzle of the actor’s death.

It has been 20 years since the god-like Augurs were overthrown and killed. Now, those who once served them --- the Gifted --- are spared only because they have accepted the rebellion's Four Tenets, vastly limiting their powers. As a Gifted, Davian suffers the consequences of a war lost before he was even born. He and others like him are despised. But when Davian discovers he wields the forbidden power of the Augurs, he sets into motion a chain of events that will change everything. To the west, a young man whose fate is intertwined with Davian's wakes up in the forest, covered in blood and with no memory of who he is. And in the far north, an ancient enemy long thought defeated begins to stir.

In September 1776, the vulnerable Continental Army under an unsure George Washington evacuates New York after a devastating defeat by the British Army. Three weeks later, Benedict Arnold miraculously succeeds in postponing the British naval advance down Lake Champlain that might have ended the war. Four years later, Washington has vanquished his demons and Arnold has fled to the enemy after a foiled attempt to surrender the American fortress at West Point to the British. After four years of war, America is forced to realize that the real threat to its liberties might not come from without but from within.