Adult

On the outskirts of a town 30 miles from Istanbul, a well digger and his young apprentice --- a boy fleeing the confines of his middle class home --- are hired to find water on a barren plain. As they struggle in the summer heat, excavating without luck meter by meter, they develop a filial bond neither has known before. But when the boy catches the eye of a stunning red-haired woman who seems as fascinated by him as he is by her, the events that ensue change the young man’s life forever and haunt him for the next 30 years.

Marion Palm prefers not to think of herself as a thief but rather "a woman who embezzles." Over the years she has managed to steal $180,000 from her children’s private school, money that has paid for European vacations, a Sub-Zero refrigerator they had to have, and state-of-the-art exercise equipment, gathering dust. When the school faces an audit, Marion pulls piles of rubber-banded cash from her basement and runs. Leaving her husband and two daughters to grapple with the consequences of her crime, and the mother-shaped hole in their house, Marion is on the lam, hiding in plain sight.

It has been 14 years since the Martian invasion. Our technology has taken great leaps forward, thanks to machinery looted from abandoned war-machines and capsules. So when the signs of launches on Mars are seen, there seems little reason to worry. Unless you listen to one man: Walter Jenkins, the narrator of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. He is sure that the Martians have learned from their defeat, adapted their methods, and now pose a greater threat than ever before. He is right. Thrust into the chaos of a new worldwide invasion, journalist Julie Elphinstone --- Walter Jenkins' sister-in-law --- struggles to survive the war, report on it, and plan a desperate effort that will be humanity’s last chance at survival.

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery --- or at least, that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from --- and over his many years will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

On a summer evening in the blue-collar town of Amicus, Kansas, the Campbell family gathers for a birthday dinner for their ailing patriarch, retired judge Abel Campbell, prepared and hosted by their still-hale mother Hattie. But when Billy, the youngest sibling --- with a history of addiction, grand ideas and misdemeanors --- passes out, the family takes up the unfinished business of Billy’s sobriety. Billy’s wayward adventures have too long consumed their lives, in particular Hattie’s, who has enabled his transgressions while trying to save him from Abel’s disappointment. As the older children contend with their own troubles, they compete for the approval of the elderly parents they adore but can’t quite forgive.

In 2007, Deborah Campbell travels undercover to Damascus to report on the exodus of Iraqis into Syria, following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. There she meets and hires Ahlam, a refugee working as a “fixer” --- providing Western media with trustworthy information and contacts to help get the news out. Ahlam has fled her home in Iraq after being kidnapped while running a humanitarian center. She supports her husband and two children while working to set up a makeshift school for displaced girls. But one morning, Ahlam is seized from her home. Campbell spends the months that follow desperately trying to find her --- all the while fearing she could be next.

Just before dawn in the hills near the Scottish border, a man murders a young woman. At the same time, a hot-air balloon crashes out of the sky. There’s just one survivor. She’s seen the killer’s face --- but he’s also seen hers. And he won’t rest until he’s eliminated the only witness to his crime. Alone, scared and trusting no one, she’s running to where she feels safe --- but it could be the most dangerous place of all.

In 2011, when she was in her late 50s, beloved author and journalist Joyce Maynard met the first true partner she had ever known. Jim was not the husband Joyce imagined, but he quickly became the partner she had always dreamed of. Before they met, both had believed they were done with marriage, and even after they married, Joyce resolved that no one could alter her course of determined independence. Then, just after their one-year wedding anniversary, her new husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. During the 19 months that followed, as they battled his illness together, Joyce discovered for the first time what it really meant to be a couple --- to be a true partner and to have one.

Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can’t otherwise afford them. But her latest drug hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses as people become addicted to their work, doing repetitive tasks until they become unsafe or insane. Hot on her trail, an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his robotic partner, Paladin. As they race to stop information about the sinister origins of Jack’s drug from getting out, they begin to form an uncommonly close bond that neither of them fully understand.

The Greenbrier Ghost is renowned in American folklore, but Sharyn McCrumb is the first author to look beneath the legend to unearth the facts. Using a century of genealogical material and other historical documents, McCrumb reveals new information about the story and brings to life the personalities in the trial: the prosecutor, a former Confederate cavalryman; the defense attorney, a pro-Union bridgeburner, who nevertheless had owned slaves; and the mother of the murdered woman, who doggedly sticks to her ghost story --- all seen through the eyes of a young black lawyer on the cusp of a new century, with his own tragedies yet to come.