Adult

On Ruby’s 13th birthday, a wish she didn’t even know she had suddenly comes true: the couple who raised her aren’t her parents at all. Her real mother and father are out there somewhere, and Ruby becomes determined to find them. Venturing into the forest with nothing but a suitcase and the company of her only true friend --- the imaginary Shadow Boy --- Ruby discovers a group of siblings who live alone in the woods. The children take her in, and while they offer the closest Ruby’s ever had to a family, Ruby begins to suspect that they might need her even more than she needs them. And it’s not always clear what’s real and what’s not --- or who’s trying to help her and who might be a threat.

Pledging to Theta Pi at Merriwether University seemed to offer Emma Danelski a passport to friendship, fun and popularity. But the excitement of pledge training quickly fades, as does the warmth of her so-called sisters. What’s left is a stifling society filled with petty rules, bullying and manipulation. Most haunting are the choices Emma makes in the wake of another sorority sister’s suicide. It doesn’t matter that no one else needs to know what Emma did, or how vastly different life at Theta House is from the glossy image it projects. Emma knows. And now, with her loyalties tested, she must decide which secrets are worth keeping and how far she’ll go to protect them --- and herself.

The Dark Net is real. An anonymous and often criminal arena that exists in the secret far reaches of the Web, some use it to manage Bitcoins, pirate movies and music, or traffic in drugs and stolen goods. And now an ancient darkness is gathering there as well. This force is threatening to spread virally into the real world unless it can be stopped by members of a ragtag crew, including a 12-year-old who has been fitted with a high-tech visual prosthetic to combat her blindness; a technophobic journalist; a one-time child evangelist with an arsenal in his basement; and a hacker who believes himself a soldier of the Internet.

In 2008, Simon Fitzmaurice was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was given four years to live. In 2010, in a state of lung-function collapse, Simon knew with crystal clarity he was not ready to die. Against all prevailing medical opinion, he chose life. Despite the loss of almost all motor function, thanks to miraculous technology, he continued to work, raise his five children and write this astonishing memoir. IT’S NOT YET DARK is a journey into a life that, though brutally compromised, was lived more fully than most, revealing the potent power of love, art and the human spirit.

Spanning eight hours, BRAVE DEEDS follows a squad of six AWOL soldiers as they attempt to cross war-torn Baghdad on foot to attend the funeral of their leader, Staff Sergeant Rafe Morgan. As the men make their way to the funeral, they recall the most ancient of warriors yet are a microcosm of 21st-century America, and subject to the same human flaws as all of us. Drew is reliable in the field but unfaithful at home; Cheever, overweight and whining, is a friend to no one --- least of all himself; and platoon commander Dmitri “Arrow” Arogapoulos is stalwart, yet troubled with questions about his own identity and sexuality.

As a young college graduate a year into treatment with a psychiatrist, Cree LeFavour began to organize her days around the cruel, compulsive logic of self-harm. Her body was a canvas of cruelty; each scar a mark of pride and shame. The thrill of meeting with her psychiatrist, Dr. Adam N. Kohl --- whose relationship with Cree is at once sustaining and paralyzing --- comes to be the only bright spot in her days. LIGHTS ON, RATS OUT brings us closely into these years, recounting a fiercely bright and independent woman’s charged attachment to a mental health professional and the dangerous compulsion to keep him in her life at all costs.

The brutal ax-murder of Andrew and Abby Borden leaves little evidence and many unanswered questions. While neighbors struggle to understand why anyone would want to harm the respected Bordens, those close to the family have a different tale to tell --- of a father with an explosive temper; a spiteful stepmother; and two spinster sisters, with a bond even stronger than blood, desperate for their independence. As the police search for clues, Emma comforts an increasingly distraught Lizzie, whose memories of that morning flash in scattered fragments. Shifting among the perspectives of the unreliable Lizzie, her older sister Emma, the housemaid Bridget, and the enigmatic stranger Benjamin, the events of that fateful day are slowly revealed.

Former North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation agent Rachel Carver blames herself for the collateral death of an innocent woman in her last case. Unable to accept her superior’s attempts to cover up the incident, she turned in her badge. But when a former partner asks her to consult on a new murder case, she reluctantly agrees, traveling to a small, remote mountain community, where she’s tasked with leading a group of inexperienced detectives on a hunt for the killer.

Markie, who has suffered a humiliating and very public fall from marital, financial and professional grace, moves, along with her teenage son, Jesse, to a new town. But Markie and Jesse are unable to escape the attention of their new neighbor Mrs. Saint, who takes it upon herself --- along with her ragtag group of “defectives” --- to identify and fix the flaws in those around her. Soon, the quirky yet endearing woman recruits Markie to join her eccentric community, a world where both hidden truths and hope unite them. But when Mrs. Saint’s own secrets threaten to unravel their fragile web of healing, it’s up to Markie to mend these wounds and usher in a new era for the “defectives” --- one full of second chances and happiness.

Max Emerson is rich and powerful --- a patron of the arts and the owner of a multinational business. But Max’s business is money laundering, and, for the first time in his fortunate life, he’s in trouble. Hackers are targeting his company. The FBI is pressuring him to betray one of his crooked clients. A dark secret from his own past looks in danger of resurfacing. When his parents are killed in a tragic accident, the whole world Max has built for himself seems to be on the brink of collapse. Just as he’s drawn back into the heart of his estranged family, he receives a letter from beyond the grave --- a letter that turns everything he thought he knew on its head.