In 2015, Noah Strycker set himself a lofty goal: to become the first person to see half the world’s birds in one year. For 365 days, with a backpack, binoculars and a series of one-way tickets, he traveled across 41 countries and all seven continents, eventually spotting 6,042 species --- by far the biggest birding year on record. This is no travelogue or glorified checklist. Noah ventures deep into a world of blood-sucking leeches, chronic sleep deprivation, airline snafus, breakdowns, mudslides, floods, war zones, ecologic devastation, conservation triumphs, common and iconic species, and scores of passionate bird lovers around the globe.

Ender Wiggin won the Third Formic war, ending the alien threat to Earth. Afterwards, all the terraformed Formic worlds were open to settlement by humans, and the International Fleet became the arm of the Ministry of Colonization, run by Hirum Graff. MinCol now runs Fleet School on the old Battle School station, and still recruits very smart kids to train as leaders of colony ships, and colonies. Dabeet Ochoa is a very smart kid. Top of his class in every school. But he doesn’t think he has a chance at Fleet School, because he has no connections to the Fleet. That he knows of. At least until the day that Colonel Graff arrives at his school for an interview.

Suzanne McBride's three adopted daughters are coming home for the holidays, but tensions are running high. Hannah knows she can’t avoid spending the holidays with her family two years in a row. But it’s not the weight of their expectations that’s panicking her --- it’s the life-changing secret she’s hiding. All Beth wants for Christmas is time to decide if she’s ready to return to work. Seeing everyone was supposed to help her stress levels, not increase them! Posy isn’t sure she’s living her best life, but with her parents depending on her, making a change seems risky --- but not as risky as falling for gorgeous new neighbor Luke. As Suzanne’s dreams of the perfect McBride Christmas unravel, she must rely on the magic of the season to bring her daughters together.

When the body of Jamal Cousin, president of the preeminent black fraternity at Florida's flagship university, is discovered hogtied in the Stygian water swamps of the Suwanee River Valley, the death sets off a firestorm that threatens to rage out of control when a fellow student, Mark Towson, the president of a prominent white fraternity, is accused of the crime. Contending with rising political tensions, racial unrest and a sensational media, Townson’s defense attorney, Jack Swyteck, knows that the stakes could not be higher. The evidence against his client, which includes a threatening text message referencing "strange fruit" on the river, seems overwhelming. Then Jack gets a break that could turn the case.

Virgil Flowers knows the town of Trippton, Minnesota, a little too well. A few years back, he investigated the corrupt --- and, as it turned out, homicidal --- local school board, and now the town is back in view with more alarming news: A woman has been found dead, frozen in a block of ice. There’s a possibility that it might be connected to a high school class of 20 years ago that has a mid-winter reunion coming up, so Virgil begins to dig into 20 years’ worth of traumas, feuds and bad blood. In the process, one thing becomes increasingly clear to him. It’s true what they say: High school is murder.

After taking down the man responsible for his best friend’s death, Stuart Ramey thinks the case is finally closed. That is, until Stu finds himself left with a multimillion dollar fortune in Bitcoin in a desperate bid by Frigg, a rogue A.I. program created by the killer, to keep itself from being fully deactivated. To sort out his situation and take Frigg down for good, Stu enlists the help of Ali Reynolds and the rest of his cyber security colleagues at High Noon Enterprises. But they are not the only ones who know about Frigg’s existence. Graciella Miramar is the right-hand woman to El Pescado, the leader of a dangerous drug cartel, and she’ll do anything to get her hands on that program.

The veteran of four spaceflights and the American record holder for consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few have. Now, he takes us inside a sphere utterly hostile to human life. He describes navigating the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight: the devastating effects on the body; the isolation from everyone he loves and the comforts of Earth; the catastrophic risks of colliding with space junk; and the still more haunting threat of being unable to help should tragedy strike at home --- an agonizing situation Kelly faced when, on a previous mission, his twin brother's wife, American Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot while he still had two months in space.

Randolph Tiefenthaler insists he had a normal childhood, though he grew up with a father who kept 30 loaded guns in the house. A modestly successful architect with a wonderful family and a beautiful home, he soon finds his life compromised when his father, a man Randolph loves yet has always feared, is imprisoned for murder. FEAR is the story of the twisted events leading up to his father’s incarceration.

The stories in FIVE-CARAT SOUL --- none of them ever published before --- spring from the place where identity, humanity and history converge. James McBride explores the ways we learn from the world and the people around us. An antiques dealer discovers that a legendary toy commissioned by Civil War General Robert E. Lee now sits in the home of a black minister in Queens. Five strangers find themselves thrown together and face unexpected judgment. An American president draws inspiration from a conversation he overhears in a stable. And members of The Five-Carat Soul Bottom Bone Band recount stories from their own messy and hilarious lives.

The two most difficult days in Bangkok writer Poke Rafferty’s life begin with an emergency visit from Edward Dell, the almost-boyfriend of Poke’s teenage daughter, Miaow. The boy’s father, Buddy, a late-middle-aged womanizer who has moved to Bangkok for happy hunting, has disappeared, and money is being siphoned out of his bank and credit card accounts. It soon becomes apparent that Buddy is in the hands of a pair of killers who prey on Bangkok’s “sexpats”; when his accounts are empty, he’ll be found, like a dozen others before him, floating facedown in a Bangkok canal. His money is almost gone. Over 48 frantic hours, Poke does everything he can to locate Buddy before it’s too late.

Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Ron Chernow shows in his biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.

In JERUSALEM, Alan Moore channels both the ecstatic visions of William Blake and the theoretical physics of Albert Einstein through the hardscrabble streets and alleys of his hometown of Northampton, UK. In the half a square mile of decay and demolition that was England’s Saxon capital, eternity is loitering between the firetrap housing projects. Embedded in the grubby amber of the district’s narrative among its saints, kings, prostitutes and derelicts, a different kind of human time is happening, a soiled simultaneity that does not differentiate between the petrol-colored puddles and the fractured dreams of those who navigate them.

General Patton died under mysterious circumstances in the months following the end of World War II. For almost 70 years, there has been suspicion that his death was not an accident --- and may very well have been an act of assassination. KILLING PATTON takes readers inside the final year of the war and recounts the events surrounding Patton's tragic demise, naming the many powerful people who wanted him dead.

Scotland holds a treasure that Jane MacGuire has been hunting for years. But as she scours the highlands in search of it, she’s plagued by dreams of a girl in danger. Who is this girl, and what is she trying to tell Jane? And will Jane figure it out before it’s too late --- for her and the mysterious young woman? Things are further complicated when Seth Caleb comes back into Jane’s life. This time, Jane finds herself pulled unexpectedly into his world as she fights to save him. But Caleb isn’t the only person sweeping her up into startling developments. When Eve Duncan surprises Jane with news of her own, Jane comes face to face with stunning changes in the lives of those she loves most.

Officer Miranda Rader of the Harmony, Louisiana PD is known for her honesty, integrity and steady hand in a crisis --- but that wasn’t always so. Miranda comes from the town of Jasper, and her side of the tracks was the wrong one. She’s worked hard to earn the respect of her co-workers and the community. When Miranda and her partner are called to investigate the murder of one of the town’s most beloved college professors, they’re unprepared for the brutality of the scene. This murder is unlike any they’ve ever investigated, and just when Miranda thinks she’s seen the worst of it, she finds a piece of evidence that chills her to the core: a faded newspaper clipping about that terrible night 15 years ago.

For three years, Investigator Cassie Dewell has been on the hunt for a serial killer known as the Lizard King, whose hunting grounds are the highways and truck stops where runaways and prostitutes are most likely to vanish. Working for the Bakken County, North Dakota sheriff's department, Cassie has lured him and his truck to a depot. But her plan goes horribly wrong, and consequently she loses her job. At the same time, Kyle Westergaard, a troubled kid whom Cassie has taken under her wing, has disappeared after telling people that he’s going off on a long-planned adventure. Kyle's grandmother begs Cassie to find him, and Cassie agrees --- all the while hunting the truck driver.

While in high school, Dani Capelli fell hard for the wrong boy, and found herself pregnant and married by graduation. Two daughters later, she realized her mistake, filed for divorce and enrolled in vet school. Things were finally looking up…until her ex-husband became her late husband, in the most notorious way possible. So when the retiring Haven Point veterinarian offers Dani a chance to settle in the small Idaho town and take over his practice, she jumps at it. But adjusting to the charming mountain community isn’t easy; 13-year-old Silver begins acting out, while six-year-old Mia is growing too attached to their next-door-neighbor, Deputy Sheriff Ruben Morales. Dani can’t blame her. Ruben is everything she’s secretly wanted --- and everything she can’t bear to risk loving…and losing.

Quinn LaPointe grew up on beautiful Butternut Lake. But after a high school tragedy, she left for college and never looked back. Becoming a successful writer in Chicago, she worked to keep out the dark memories of an accident that upended her life. But now, after 10 years, she’s finally returned home. Determined to come to terms with the tragedy and rebuild old relationships, Quinn settles into Loon Bay Cabins, a rustic but cozy lakeside resort, where she begins writing down her memories of the year before the accident. Her journey through the past leads her to some surprising discoveries about the present. As secrets are revealed and a new love emerges, Quinn finds that understanding the past is the key to the future.

Ex-FBI agent Brigid Quinn, now happily settled in Tucson, doesn’t visit her family in Florida much. But her former partner on the force, Laura Coleman --- a woman whose life she has saved and who has saved her life in turn --- is living there now. So when Laura calls about a case that is not going well, Brigid doesn’t hesitate to get on a plane. On leave from the Bureau, Laura has been volunteering for a legal group trying to prove the innocence of a man who is on death row for killing his family. Laura is firmly convinced that he didn’t do it, while Brigid isn’t so sure. But the date for his execution is coming up so quickly that they’ll have to act fast to find any evidence that may absolve him before it’s too late.