Adult

For over 100 years, at least one concentration camp has existed somewhere on Earth. First used as battlefield strategy, camps have evolved with each passing decade, in the scope of their effects and the savage practicality with which governments have employed them. Even in the 21st century, as we continue to reckon with the magnitude and horror of the Holocaust, history tells us we have broken our own solemn promise of "never again." In this harrowing work based on archival records and interviews during travel to four continents, Andrea Pitzer reveals for the first time the chronological and geopolitical history of concentration camps.

Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. But when visa issues force them to close up shop, they give Lois their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. Soon, not only is she eating her own homemade bread, she’s providing loaves to the General Dexterity cafeteria every day. Then the company chef urges her to take her product to the farmer’s market --- and a whole new world opens up.

In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent. And while they sleep they go to another place, a better place, where harmony prevails and conflict is rare. One woman, the mysterious “Eve Black,” is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Eve a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain? Abandoned and left to their increasingly primal urges, the men divide into warring factions. All turn to violence in a suddenly all-male world.

Daniel Graham MacCormick is living in Key West, the proud owner of a 42-foot charter fishing boat, The Maine. But truth be told, his finances are more than a little shaky. Carlos, a hotshot Miami lawyer heavily involved with anti-Castro groups, wants to hire Mac and The Maine for a 10-day fishing tournament to Cuba. After meeting Carlos’ clients --- a beautiful Cuban-American woman named Sara Ortega, and a mysterious older Cuban exile, Eduardo Valazquez --- Mac learns there is 60 million American dollars hidden in Cuba by Sara’s grandfather when he fled Castro’s revolution. With the “Cuban Thaw” underway between Havana and Washington, Carlos, Eduardo and Sara know it’s only a matter of time before someone finds the stash --- by accident or on purpose.

Heiress Mae Malveaux made up her mind long ago that nobody would decide her fate. To have the pleasure she craves, control is paramount, especially control of the men Mae attracts. Valiant Jackson always gets what he wants --- and he’s wanted Mae for years. The door finally opens for him when Mae strikes a bargain: seduce her virginal young cousin, Cecily, who is engaged to Frank Washington. Frank values her innocence above all else. If successful, Val’s reward will be a night with Mae. But Val secretly seeks another prize. Elizabeth Townsend is fiercely loyal to her church and her civil rights attorney husband. Certainly there is something redeemable in Mr. Jackson. Little does she know that her worst mistake will be Val’s greatest triumph.

A decade ago, Ella Brooke’s older sister, Miranda, vanished without a trace. With every passing year, Ella has come to resemble more closely the sister she lost, and now she’s the same age Miranda was when she disappeared. Ella has never let go of her sister. She can still feel Miranda’s presence and hear her voice. She still talks to her. What holds Ella together is her love for her sister’s 10-year-old son and her work as a self-defense expert helping victims. Ella is certain that Miranda was taken and that one man is the key to her disappearance: Jason Thorne. Ignoring warnings from the police and the disapproval of her parents, she seeks Thorne out.

As the daughter of a respected general, Elizabeth Schuyler is accustomed to socializing with dignitaries and soldiers. But no visitor to her parents’ home has affected her so strongly as Alexander Hamilton, a charismatic, ambitious aide to George Washington. They marry quickly, and despite the tumult of the American Revolution, Eliza is confident in her brilliant husband and in her role as his helpmate. But it is in the aftermath of war, as Hamilton becomes one of the country’s most important figures, that she truly comes into her own.

From Syria’s tolerant past, with churches and mosques built alongside one another in Old Homs and members of different religions living harmoniously together, THE BATTLE FOR HOME chronicles the recent breakdown of social cohesion in Syria’s cities. With the lack of shared public spaces intensifying divisions within the community, and corrupt officials interfering in town planning for their own gain, these actions are symptomatic of wider abuses of power.

When Marcia, a driven, successful editor in New York with a loving husband, finds she can’t conceive a child, it rips the heart out of her seemingly perfect life. Her desire to be a mother has become her obsession, and after trying and failing to become pregnant by every known method, she focuses all of her energy on her one remaining option: surrogacy. Her husband resists and tries to convince her that they can be happy without a child. But faced with her unyielding determination, he relents and reluctantly goes along with the idea. Everything looks good…until an unexpected tragedy occurs that changes their plans, their marriage and their lives forever.

On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Lucy Stanhope, the granddaughter of an earl, is living a life of pampered luxury in Singapore until one reckless act will change her life forever. Exiled to England to stay with an aunt she barely remembers, Lucy never dreamed that she would be one of the last people to escape Singapore before war engulfs the entire island. Then she meets Bill, a young evacuee sent to the country to escape the Blitz, and in a moment of weakness, Lucy agrees to help him find his mother in London. The unlikely runaways take off on a seemingly simple journey across the country, but her world becomes even more complicated when she is reunited with an invalided soldier she knew in Singapore.