Adult

Lucille Howard is getting on in years, but she stays busy. Thanks to the inspiration of her dearly departed friend Arthur Truluv, she has begun to teach baking classes. Her classes have become so popular that she’s hired Iris, a new resident of Mason, Missouri, as an assistant. Iris doesn’t know how to bake, but she needs to keep her mind off a big decision she sorely regrets. When a new family moves in next door and tragedy strikes, Lucille begins to look out for Lincoln, their son. Lincoln’s parents aren’t the only ones in town facing hard choices and uncertain futures. In these difficult times, the residents of Mason come together and find the true power of community --- just when they need it the most.

Formerly a river urchin living on the banks of the Thames, nine-year-old Worm has never experienced a family Christmas. But thanks to a job at Hester Monk’s clinic, he’s found a makeshift family in kindly volunteer Miss Claudine Burroughs and curmudgeonly old bookkeeper Squeaky Robinson. When Worm witnesses the abduction of a beautiful woman by a pair of ruffians just days before Christmas, he frantically turns to Squeaky for help. What neither of the would-be saviors expects, however, is that the damsel in distress already has her dilemma well in hand…and is taking steps to bring her captors to justice for crimes far worse than kidnapping. But the rogues, as cunning as they are deadly, are not to be underestimated.

While on an epic trip across America, Jack Reacher sees a sign to a place he has never been: the town where his father was born. He takes the detour. At the same moment, in the same isolated area, a car breaks down. Two young Canadians had been on their way to New York City to sell a treasure. Now they’re stranded at a lonely motel in the middle of nowhere. The next morning, in the city clerk’s office, Reacher asks about the old family home. He’s told no one named Reacher ever lived in town. He’s always known his father left and never returned, but now Reacher wonders, Was he ever there in the first place? As Reacher explores his father’s life, and as the Canadians face lethal dangers, strands of different stories begin to merge.

Korede’s sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola's third boyfriend in a row is dead. Korede's practicality is the sisters' saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her "missing" boyfriend. Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works. She dreams of the day when he will realize that she's exactly what he needs. But when he asks Korede for Ayoola's phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she's willing to go to protect her.

Lisa Balamaro is an ambitious arts lawyer with a secret crush on her most intriguing client: former rodeo rider and reformed art forger Tuck Mercer. In his newfound role as an expert in Old West artifacts, Tuck gains possession of the supposedly destroyed correspondence between Doc Holliday and his cousin and childhood sweetheart, Mattie. Given the unlikelihood the letters can ever be fully authenticated, Tuck retains Lisa on behalf of the letters' owner, Rayella Vargas, to sell them on the black market. But the buyer Tuck finds, a duplicitous judge from the Tombstone area, has other, far more menacing ideas. As Lisa works feverishly to make things right, Rayella secretly enlists her ex-marine boyfriend in a daring scheme of her own.

Charlie is a Husker on the prowl in the New Hampshire wilderness when he falls in love with one of them: a girl named Jill. Loving Jill means leaving the Husk clan, with its gruesome cannibalistic rituals, and that will be far more difficult --- and dangerous --- than Charlie could have foreseen. It’s only in New York City that the secret to ending his terrible cravings may reveal itself --- if it doesn’t kill him and everything he has grown to love first.

Want to see the future? Ask an English teacher. If you can't remember the last time you were filled with wonder or read anything you loved, read on. Here you won't just find helpful reading and writing tips. You'll also learn about how literacy brings us back from the abyss of modernity and into the heart of what matters. In conversations with Dante, Bradbury, McCarthy, Michelangelo and more, you'll encounter wisdom of the ages, and discover what these greats teach us about our own world: approval addiction, bullying, Kevin Bacon, narcissism, Darth Vader, and the dangerous allure of nihilism.

Safely back in his own time, Shawn is steadily regaining all he lost --- his career as a world-traveling musician, the son he feared he would never know, and finally, maybe, even Amy’s heart. But as he does, he learns of the dangers still lurking in 14th-century Scotland: to Niall who will pay the price for the deed Shawn committed; to his own son, the subject of prophecy and an ancient letter predicting a fateful battle; even danger to the whole world as the Butcher of Berwick uses his knowledge of the future to destroy it. In this gripping conclusion to The Blue Bells Chronicles, Shawn faces the ultimate test. His selfishness once cost him everything. His newfound selflessness may do the same.

During Sarah Smarsh’s turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, she enjoyed the freedom of a country childhood, but observed the painful challenges of the poverty around her --- untreated medical conditions for lack of insurance or consistent care, unsafe job conditions, abusive relationships, and limited resources and information that would provide for the upward mobility that is the American Dream. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves with clarity and precision but without judgment, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country.

Fans fell in love with Eliza Hamilton --- Alexander Hamilton’s devoted wife --- in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s phenomenal musical “Hamilton.” But they don’t know her full story. A strong pioneer woman, a loving sister, a caring mother and, in her later years, a generous philanthropist, Eliza had many sides. Tilar J. Mazzeo’s biography follows Eliza through her early years in New York, into the ups and downs of her married life with founding father Alexander Hamilton, beyond the aftermath of his tragic murder, and finally to her involvement in many projects that cemented her legacy as one of the unsung heroes of our nation’s early days.