Dorothea Benton Frank once again takes us deep into the heart of the magical Lowcountry where three amazing middle-aged women are bonded by another amazing woman’s death. Through their shared loss, they forge a deep friendship, asking critical questions. Who was their friend, and what did her life mean? Are they living the lives they imagined for themselves? Will they ever be able to afford to retire? How will they maximize their happiness? Security? Health? And, ultimately, their own legacies?

When ex-Navy SEAL Nick Foley travels to China to find purpose and escape the demons of his past, he instead stumbles into a conspiracy his Special Forces training never prepared him for. A mysterious and deadly outbreak ravages a remote area of western China, and Nick finds himself the lead suspect in a bio-terrorism investigation being conducted by China's elite Snow Leopard counter-terrorism unit. To clear his name and avoid prosecution, he must team up with beautiful Chinese CDC microbiologist Dr. Dazhong “Dash” Chen to find who is really behind the attack. As their investigation proceeds, their budding friendship is tested by nationalistic loyalties and suspicion.

While driving out of the American embassy in Moscow one evening in 1978, the chief of the CIA’s Moscow station heard a knock on his car window. A man on the curb handed him an envelope whose contents stunned U.S. intelligence: details of top-secret Soviet research and developments in military technology that were totally unknown to the United States. In the years that followed, the man, Adolf Tolkachev, an engineer in a Soviet military design bureau, used his high-level access to hand over tens of thousands of pages of technical secrets.

Famous, beautiful and talented, Heike Gunn has the world at her feet. Then, one day, she simply vanishes. Meanwhile, journalist Jack Parlabane has lost everything: his career, his marriage, his self-respect. A call for help from an old friend offers a chance for redemption --- but only if he can find out what happened to Heike. Pursued by those who would punish him for past crimes, Parlabane enters the secret-filled world of Heike’s band, Savage Earth Heart, whose members each seem to be hiding something. He must dredge up old secrets to find Heike before it’s too late.

After learning that her husband is leaving her for another woman, Sophie impulsively rents a guest cottage on Nantucket and leaves Boston for a quiet family vacation with her two kids. Trevor Black has recently lost his wife and is raising a little boy on his own. Hoping a quiet summer on the Nantucket coast will help him reconnect with Leo, he rents a guest house on the beautiful island. When Sophie and Trevor realize they’ve mistakenly rented the same house, the two agree to share it. But as the summer unfolds, Sophie and Trevor must ask themselves if the guest cottage is all they want to share.

The lives of the Barretts are torn apart when 14-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism and contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts’ plight, resulting in what would become a hit reality TV show. Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie’s younger sister, Merry, at which point long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast begin to surface.

Propelled into the priesthood by a family tragedy, Odran Yates is full of hope and ambition. Forty years later, his devotion is caught in revelations that shatter the Irish people’s faith in the Catholic Church. He sees his friends stand trial, colleagues jailed and the lives of young parishioners destroyed. But when a family event opens wounds from his past, he is forced to confront the demons that have raged within the church and to recognize his own complicity in their propagation.

Andrew J. Rush has achieved the kind of critical and commercial success most authors only dream about. He also has a loving wife, three grown children, and is a well-regarded philanthropist. But Rush is hiding a dark secret. Under the pseudonym “Jack of Spades,” he writes another string of novels --- dark potboilers that are violent, lurid, even masochistic. Eventually, Rush’s reputation, career and family life all come under threat --- and unbidden, in the back of his mind, the Jack of Spades starts thinking ever more evil thoughts.

Born in the Midwest in the 1930s, Lillian lives, loves and works in Europe in the ’50s and early ’60s. She settles in New York and pursues the great love of her life in the ’60s and ’70s. Now it’s the early ’90s, and she’s taking stock. Throughout her life, walking the unpaved road between traditional and modern choices for women, Lillian grapples with parental disappointment and societal expectations, wins and losses in love, and develops her own brand of wisdom.

Tom Brokaw has led a fortunate life, with a strong marriage and family, many friends, and a brilliant journalism career culminating in his 22 years as anchor of the “NBC Nightly News” and as bestselling author. But in the summer of 2013, he received shocking news: He had multiple myeloma, a treatable but incurable blood cancer. Brokaw takes us through all the seasons and stages of this surprising year, the emotions, discoveries, setbacks and struggles --- times of denial, acceptance, turning points and courage.

On the eve of the Civil War, one soldier embodied the legacy of George Washington and the hopes of leaders across a divided land. Both North and South knew Robert E. Lee as the son of Washington’s most famous eulogist and the son-in-law of Washington’s adopted child. Each side sought his service for high command; Lee could choose only one. Former White House speechwriter Jonathan Horn reveals how the officer most associated with Washington went to war against the union that Washington had forged.

Pedro Martinez entered the big leagues a scrawny power pitcher with a lightning arm who they said wasn’t “durable” enough, who they said was a punk. Yet Martinez willed himself to become one of the most intimidating pitchers to have ever played the game, an eight-time All-Star, three-time Cy Young Award winner, World Series champion and Hall of Famer. In PEDRO, the always colorful pitcher opens up to tell his remarkable story.

Something really strange is happening in the City by the Bay. People are dying, but their souls are not being collected. Someone --- or something --- is stealing them, and no one knows where they are going, or why, but it has something to do with that big orange bridge. Death Merchant Charlie Asher is just as flummoxed as everyone else. He’s trapped in the body of a 14-inch-tall “meat puppet” waiting for his Buddhist nun girlfriend, Audrey, to find him a suitable new body to play host. To get to the bottom of this abomination, a motley crew of heroes will band together.

When Nancy Tucker was eight years old, her class had to write about what they wanted in life. She thought long and hard about it, and then, though she didn't know why, she wrote: "I want to be thin." Over the next 12 years, she developed anorexia nervosa, was hospitalized, and finally swung the other way towards bulimia nervosa. She left school, then rejoined; went in and out of therapy; ebbed in and out of life. From the bleak reality of a body breaking down to the electric mental highs of starvation, hers has been a life held in thrall by food.

On June 18, 1815, the armies of France, Britain and Prussia descended upon a quiet valley south of Brussels. In the previous three days, the French army had beaten the Prussians at Ligny and fought the British to a standstill at Quatre-Bras. The Allies were in retreat. The little village north of where they turned to fight the French army was called Waterloo. The blood-soaked battle to which it gave its name would become a landmark in European history. In his first work of nonfiction, Bernard Cornwell offers a riveting chronicle of every dramatic moment.

A master historian and superb teller of history, John Ferling illuminates the years 1763 to 1783 --- from the end of the French and Indian War that left England triumphant in North America to the signing of the Treaty of Paris in September 1783 and the final departure of British troops from New York City in November of that year. With original insight, he chronicles the myriad and complex events and contentious viewpoints that drove Americans in their insurgency against Great Britain and sustained them in the seemingly quixotic belief that they could win their independence.