Adult

A FEW OF THE GIRLS brings together, for the first time, 36 of Maeve Binchy’s very best stories --- some published in magazines, others written for friends as gifts, many for charity benefits, all of them filled with her trademark warmth, wisdom and humor. Written over a period of decades, these stories show that while times change, people often remain the same: they fall in love, sometimes unsuitably; they experience heartbreak, compassion and redemption; they hold to hopes and dreams; and they have friendships --- some that fall apart, and a few special ones that endure.

Relief pitcher/private investigator Johnny Adcock doesn't have an office; he has the bullpen. That's where he meets Tiff Tate, the femme-fatale stylist responsible for half the looks in Major League Baseball, from Brian Wilson's beard to Big Papi's gold ropes. Tiff has a problem. Her new client, the rookie phenom Yonel Ruiz, has been threatened by a cartel of smugglers. Adcock is her last best hope. As he embarks on this potentially deadly mission, Adcock tangoes with a mysterious, sexy assassin known only as La Loba. And he still has the playoffs to worry about.

Frieda Klein learns from her former classmate, Maddie Capel, that Maddie’s teenage daughter, Becky, claims she was raped in her own bed one night while her mother was downstairs. Becky’s story awakens dark memories of an eerily similar incident in Frieda’s own past that she’s been avoiding for decades. When Becky is found hanging from a beam in her bedroom, Frieda seeks out her old high school friends to ask what they remember about the night that prompted Frieda to leave town for good. But confronting the ghosts of the past turns out to be more dangerous than she ever expected.

A fixture in the literary canon, Charlotte Brontë is revered by readers all over the world. Her novels featuring unforgettable, strong heroines still resonate with millions today. Part of a remarkable family that produced three acclaimed female writers at a time in 19th-century Britain when few women wrote, and fewer were published, Brontë has become a great source of inspiration to writers, especially women, ever since. Now in READER, I MARRIED HIM, 20 of today’s most celebrated female authors have spun original stories, using the opening line from JANE EYRE as a springboard for their own flights of imagination.

Twenty years working undercover in the netherworld of drugs has left Jeff Buck burned out and grateful to assume the quiet job of police chief in the small town of Reminderville, Ohio. That is, until a simple domestic assault case turns out to have links to the murder of a drug runner in upstate New York and a syndicate smuggling billions of dollars in drugs across the US-Canada border. As Buck reluctantly plunges back into his old world of death and deceit, he uncovers a complex chain linking the Hells Angels to the Russian Mafia in a plot to use Native American tribal land to smuggle their deadly wares into the United States.

The 1911 New York Giants stole an astonishing 347 bases, a record that still stands more than a century later. That alone makes them special in baseball history, but as Maury Klein relates in STEALING GAMES, they also embodied a rapidly changing America on the cusp of a faster, more frenetic pace of life dominated by machines, technology and urban culture. Baseball, too, was evolving from the dead-ball to the live-ball era --- the cork-centered ball was introduced in 1910 and structurally changed not only the outcome of individual games but the way the game itself was played, requiring upgraded equipment, new rules and new ways of adjudicating.

Kyung Cho is a young father burdened by a house he can’t afford. For years, he and his wife, Gillian, have lived beyond their means. Now their debts and bad decisions are catching up with them. A few miles away, his parents, Jin and Mae, live in the town’s most exclusive neighborhood. Growing up, they gave him every possible advantage but never showed him kindness. Yet when an act of violence leaves Jin and Mae unable to live on their own, the dynamic suddenly changes, and he’s compelled to take them in. Tensions quickly mount as Kyung’s proximity to his parents forces old feelings of guilt and anger to the surface.

Jill Lassiter’s three-year-old daughter disappears from a playground only to return after 40 frantic minutes of searching, but the mother’s relief is short-lived --- there’s a tiny puncture mark on Sophia’s arm. When doctors can find no trace of drugs in Sophia’s system, Jill accepts she’ll never know what happened, but at least her child is safe. Except Sophia isn’t. Someone is watching the Lassiter home in an affluent Pennsylvania suburb, infiltrating the family’s personal and professional lives. As Jill faces every parent’s worst nightmare a second time, she must find out who has taken her daughter and why. Someone doesn’t just want Sophia for her own --- she’s out to destroy Jill’s entire family.

In 1947, the Indian subcontinent is partitioned into two separate countries: India and Pakistan. And with one decree, countless lives are changed forever. AN UNRESTORED WOMAN explores the fault lines in this mass displacement of humanity: a new mother is trapped on the wrong side of the border; a soldier finds the love of his life but is powerless to act on it; an ambitious servant seduces both master and mistress; a young prostitute quietly, inexorably plots revenge on the madam who holds her hostage. Caught in a world of shifting borders, these characters have reached their tipping points.

Supreme Court lawyer Sean Serrat’s life is changed forever when his daughter, Abby --- a talented and dedicated law student --- goes missing. When her body is found in the library of the Supreme Court, her boyfriend, Malik Montgomery --- a law clerk at the high court --- is immediately arrested. While the Serrat family works through their grief, Sean begins to suspect that the authorities arrested the wrong person. Stumbling over family secrets and the lies of some of the most powerful people in the country, Sean discovers that there are those who will stop at nothing to ensure that he never exposes them.