Adult

When the Countess of Walther dies at her German estate, her loyal dwarfess Maria-Barbara is forced to work as a prophet for a traveling magician, who betrays her by selling her to the Queen of Spain. At the royal court in Madrid, Mari finds herself in a bizarre, enchanted world, a society culturally splendid but intellectually isolated. There she becomes Maribarbola, prophet to the Queen, and, her survival at stake, endeavors to outsmart the Spaniards. Mari's wits and loyalties are tested as she becomes embroiled in palace intrigue alongside the politically embattled Queen. But even as she survives and thrives at the Spanish court, the loss of identity Mari suffers from living a lie makes her question whether she is really surviving at all.

THE VANITY FAIR DIARIES is the story of an Englishwoman barely out of her 20s who arrives in New York City with a dream. Summoned from London in hopes that she can save Condé Nast's troubled new flagship Vanity Fair, Tina Brown is immediately plunged into the maelstrom of the competitive New York media world and the backstabbing rivalries at the court of the planet's slickest, most glamour-focused magazine company. She survives the politics, the intrigue and the attempts to derail her by a simple stratagem: succeeding. In the face of rampant skepticism, she triumphantly reinvents a failing magazine.

Nothing stops former Navy SEAL and Tier One operator John Dempsey from answering the call of duty --- including a mission with the highest stakes he’s ever faced. When one of the most brazen and lethal acts of terrorism rocks American and Israeli intelligence forces at the highest levels, Dempsey’s ultracovert antiterror unit, Ember, mobilizes. But this operation isn’t just a retaliatory strike by Ember; it’s a mission of vengeance for Dempsey --- against the Iranian terrorist mastermind who slaughtered Dempsey’s Tier One comrades. Racing from Tel Aviv to Tehran, the elite American warrior and his formidable Israeli counterpart must forsake their backup in a capture-or-kill gambit that could turn into a suicide run.

When Jo Harding falls down the stairs at home, she wakes up in the hospital with partial amnesia. In fact, she finds that she's lost an entire year of memories, and she can't remember anything that happened the night she fell. Her husband and her two children assure her that everything's fine, but Jo's family seems to have gone through a lot of dramatic changes in the past year, and she can't let go of the suspicion that there's more they're keeping from her. As she pieces together the details of the past 12 months, it becomes more and more clear that her family wants her to stay in the dark. But why?

Everyone in the charming Hudson Valley town of Oak Falls expected Flynn Keegan, their handsome blond "Golden Boy," to make it big in Hollywood. So when veterinarian Kate Turner identifies a bone dug up by one of her dog patients as human, no one thinks back 10 years to remember Flynn. Until DNA and a smashed skull prove he was murdered. With few clues available to the forensic team, the grieving family begs Kate to investigate. His four closest friends plead ignorance. Neighbors and teachers remember the charismatic young man but offer no real help. Meanwhile, Kate is juggling her eccentric house call clients, a silly pot-bellied pig wedding and the sudden reappearance of an old college boyfriend.

Helen Forester takes her West Highland terrier for a walk in her street’s private garden. But minutes later she is dead, strangled yet peacefully laid out on the path, her dog nowhere to be found. The only other person in the locked space is the gardener, who finds the body and calls the police. He expects proper cops to arrive, but what he gets are Bryant, May and the wily members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Before the detectives can make any headway on the case, a second woman is discovered in a public park, murdered in nearly identical fashion. Bryant and May have to think and act fast to save innocent lives, the fate of the city’s parks, and the very existence of the PCU.

A wrecking crew is demolishing a row of townhouses when they uncover a skeleton in one of the attics. The dead man is wearing authentic 1760s garb, and on the floor next to it is a white tricorn hat --- the ostentatious signature accessory of Beau Nash, a fashion icon who some say ended up in a pauper’s grave. Or did the Beau actually end up in a townhouse attic? Chief Inspector Peter Diamond, who has been assigned to identify the remains, begins to fantasize about turning Nash scholarship on its ear. But one of his constables is stubbornly insisting the corpse can’t be Nash’s and threatens to spoil Diamond’s favorite theory, especially when he offers some pretty irrefutable evidence.

Any number of artists have produced evocative work, paintings that could trigger a literary response. But none came to mind who could equal Edward Hopper in turning out canvas after canvas. If no single artist could take Hopper’s place, how about a full palette of them? Suppose each author was invited to select a painting from the whole panoply of visual art. In artists ranging from Art Frahm and Norman Rockwell to René Magritte and Clifford Still, the impressive concept goes on to include Thomas Pluck, Sarah Weinman, David Morrell, Craig Ferguson, Joe R. Lansdale, Jill D. Block, Justin Scott, Jonathan Santlofer, Gail Levin, Nicholas Christopher and Lee Child, with each story accompanied in color by the work of art that inspired it.

From the outside, the Davenports look like any other family living a completely ordinary life --- until that devastating day when five-year-old Jonah is killed, and the family is torn apart. As the fury of guilt engulfs them, the Davenports slowly start to unravel, one by one. Losing her son forces Rachel to withdraw into a frayed, fuzzy reality. Her husband, Sam, tries to remain stoic, but he’s consumed by regret with the choices he’s made. Eden mourns her brother, while desperately fighting to regain a sense of normalcy. And Aunt Ruth, Rachel’s sister, works too hard to care for the family, even as her own personal issues haunt her.