Adult

Best friends Joni and Ren have been inseparable since childhood. So when Joni moves across the country for her job, the two devise a creative way to stay in touch: they’ll be each other’s plus-ones every year for wedding season. It’s a tradition that works, until a line is crossed and the friendship they once thought was forever is ruined. Now Joni is back at their families’ shared summer home for her sister’s wedding, and she’s determined to make the week perfect, even if it means faking a friendship with Ren. But as sunny beach days together turn into starry nights, Joni begins to question what her life is without Ren in it. And when the wedding arrives, bringing past heartaches to the surface, she’ll be forced to decide if loving Ren means letting him go, or if theirs is a love story worth fighting for.

A lot of us like to think we could solve a mystery. Can these four moms actually do it? In 2020, Marissa, Jeannie, Samira and Nicole find themselves at a familiar crossroads: when motherhood takes charge of their lives, they begin grappling with their own identities. Their thriving careers seem like a lifetime ago and as their children become more independent, they struggle to find purpose. But when they meet at a bowling night fundraiser for their kids’ school, they discover a shared interest in true crime that crystalizes around a mysterious double homicide that took place in their hometown a decade earlier: A couple in their 60s vanished overnight from their home and mysteriously shuttered their family business, leaving millions of dollars unaccounted for. Initially believed to have absconded with the money, they went from suspects to victims when their bodies were discovered in their car at the bottom of a steep ravine. And then the case turned cold.

In “Machine City” a college student’s chance role in a friend’s movie blurs the line between his character and his true self. (Is he a robot?) In “Slide to Unlock” a man comes to terms with his life via the passwords he struggles to remember in extremis. (What’s his mom’s name backward?) And in “Weird Menace” a director and faded movie star gab about science fiction, bad costume choices and lost loves on a commentary track for a B-film from the ’80s that neither remembers all that well.

As a newly minted junior professor, Daphne Ouverture spends her days giving lectures on French colonialism, working on her next academic book and going on atrocious dates. Her small world suits her just fine. Until Sam Taylor dies. The rising star of Harrison University’s anthropology department was never one of Daphne’s favorites, despite his popularity. But that doesn’t prevent Sam’s killer from believing Daphne has something that belonged to Sam --- something the killer will stop at nothing to get. Between grading papers and navigating her disastrous love life, Daphne embarks on her own investigation to find out what connects her to Sam’s murder. With the help of an alluring former-detective-turned-bookseller, she unravels a deadly cover-up on campus.

When the ashes from an Ash Wednesday service in the prairie town of Andwhen, Minnesota, refuse to wash off, members of a small congregation are left wondering whether they’ve been blessed or cursed. For Basil --- a “gentle giant” of a teen reeling from a farming accident that shattered his family and haunted by his mother’s decade-long confinement in a state mental hospital --- the ashes become a sign. He embarks on a secret ritual of fasting and prayer, seeking meaning in his unraveling world.

Former Supreme Court clerk Avery Keene is back...trying to put the past behind her at a prestigious high-end law firm in Washington, D.C. Head down and focused on a new life, Avery is now working as an internal investigator when a high-profile client seeks her out. Camasca Enterprises has a big problem and a short runway. The tech company has developed a new integrated AI system poised to revolutionize the medical industry. To prove its potential, Camasca’s charismatic founder, retired Major Rafe Diaz, has picked a complicated target: delivering cutting-edge health care to his fellow veterans. The potential is staggering but their prototype has been plagued by a series of disturbing anomalies --- culminating in the mysterious death of a beloved Camasca engineer.

Alexis Spencer will use any inspirational quote to rationalize her failures and shortcomings. However, when Alexis loses her job and her relationship on the same day, there’s no quote strong enough to get her through that. In typical fashion, she blames the world for her problems, including her younger self, who should have tried harder. Feeling sorry for herself, Alexis finds a bottle of vodka from her college days and goes on a bender, blacking out in the process. Only this time, she doesn’t wake up at home, or in the right city. In fact, she isn’t even in the right year. Alexis is back in her college town in the year 2002. Convinced this is her chance to do things over, she heads to her dorm --- and comes face-to-face with her eighteen-year-old self. Now Alexis and Lexi must learn to get along and come to terms with the fact that alone, they will never make things right, but together, they could change their life for the better.

Fifteen years ago, Maia Gold attended a writers retreat hosted by billionaire Argos Alexander on the Greek island of Eris. It’s where she wrote her first book. But something dark happened on that island. Now, Maia finds a familiar envelope in the mail. It’s an invitation to return to Eris, and according to social media, she’s not the only one from that first retreat who’s been invited back. Soon, the guests learn that their host is absent, though he has left instructions for them: whoever can write the most suspenseful mystery while on the island will win a fortune and literary acclaim. When the guests gather in the morning to share their first chapters, they find Argos Alexander, dead. Tensions simmer as the guests try to determine who’s capable of murder, not just on the page, but in real life.

In 1968 we meet six teens confined at the Good Shepherd locked away merely for being gay, pregnant or simply unruly. Mairin --- free-spirited daughter of Irish immigrants, committed to keep her safe from her stepfather. Angela --- denounced for her attraction to girls. Helen --- the daughter of intellectuals detained in Communist China. Odessa --- caught up in a police dragnet over a racial incident. Denise --- sentenced for brawling in a foster home, she dared to dream of a better life. Janice --- deeply insecure, she couldn’t decide where her loyalty lay --- except when it came to her friend Kay, who would never outgrow her childlike dependency. Sister Bernadette --- rescued from a dreadful childhood, she owed her loyalty to the Sisters of Charity even as her conscience weighed on her.