Adult

In 1998, desperate loneliness pushes preteen Amber to ignore the misgivings of her family, particularly her younger sister, when she befriends the troubled new kid in the neighborhood. Their turbulent relationship is brief but creates lasting consequences. Twenty-two years later, he resurfaces to kill Amber’s parents, and is in turn betrayed by his accomplice and killed in Amber's childhood home. After the deaths, Amber inherits the house and moves in with her husband and two children. She finds that the familiar walls are haunted by more than just bitter memories and lockdown stress. Although she tried to brush off the strange happenings as stress-fueled hallucinations, Amber is soon forced to admit that something much more real haunts her family. But Amber has deadly secrets of her own, and she must resolve these long-buried truths or lose the life she’s contrived for herself.

Historian Alison Sage has made a groundbreaking archival discovery --- she found a manuscript containing the prophecies of a 16th-century nun, Elizabeth Barton. Barton’s prophecy condemning Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn led to her execution and the destruction of all copies of her prophecies --- or so the world believed. With Alison’s discovery, she is catapulted to academic superstardom and scores an invitation to the exclusive Codex Consortium, a week of research among a select handful of fellow historians at a crumbling manor in England. What begins as a promising conference turns into a nightmare as the eerie house becomes the site of a murder. Suddenly, everyone is a suspect. Alison’s research makes her best-suited to solve the mystery --- but when old feelings resurface for a former colleague, and the stakes of the search skyrocket, everyone's motives become murky.

Homicide Detective Godai of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is assigned to investigate the death of a lawyer, Kensuke Shiraishi, whose body was found on a Central Tokyo riverbank. His investigations leads him to one Tatsuro Kuraki, who claims to have had limited contact with Shiraishi --- but, surprising the investigators, Kuraki not only confesses to the lawyer's murder, but another one from 30 years ago --- for which another man was arrested and died in custody before trial. This brings unexpected resolution to two cases but there is one problem: to Detective Godai the confession rings false. And Godai is not the only one who cannot accept Kuraki's explanation of both murders and his professed motives. The confessed murderer's son and the victim's daughter both feel strongly that both the act and the motive claimed are untrue.

Avalon Dale is a masterful grifter. She researches her victims thoroughly, kidnaps and sedates them, cleans out their bank accounts, and uses injections and hair clippers to change their appearance so that when they wake up, they can't easily prove who they are. For her last great score, Avalon's targeted Primrose Meath, and then she'll fade away to a life of ease and luxury --- something she's dreamed of since a very tough childhood. On paper, Prim is the perfect target: wealthy, workaholic, and distracted by her cheating husband. But when Avalon finds Prim's husband dead, she can't escape so easily --- not when she's been mistaken for Prim who's now wanted for murder. The two women --- opposites, enemies --- are suddenly on the run together, and must learn to get along, to depend on each other --- in order to get away.

Trace Temple is looking for revenge. He’s living out of his truck when a shadowy militia movement hires him to take down the legendary she-wolf of the Dark Canyon pack, One-Eleven. Cunning, fiercely protective of her young, and seasoned in the ways of men, she leads her pack deep into the forbidding desert peaks and canyons, always one step ahead of pursuit. After a harrowing brush with death in the backcountry, Trace has a change of heart --- only to be replaced by a professional hunter and assassin named Murdoch, who ruthlessly pursues his animal quarry while stalking Trace himself. To survive, Trace must join forces with a pair of unlikely allies. Together, they must fight to protect not only themselves and the Dark Canyon pack, but ultimately, the Gila Wilderness itself --- the world’s first designated wilderness area.

Remy is lucky. Her debut novel, based on her three best friends, became an instant bestseller when it was released, and her agent and publisher are clamoring for a follow-up. But just as Remy’s creative inspiration seems to leave her, so too do her friends: one moves to New York, one gets pregnant, and one gets back together with her (awful) boyfriend. Simone is successful. A kindergarten teacher with a passion for kids, and a well-paying side hustle that affords her all the material comforts she desires, she doesn't have time for a robust social life. All Simone needs is her close-knit family --- but after the true nature of her work is revealed, they cut her off. When Simone and Remy bump into each other (literally) in a bookstore, it isn’t exactly soulmates at first sight. Each woman is harboring a secret. And yet they might just be the missing piece the other has been searching for --- if only they can let each other in.

It’s time for Ali, a good-natured Mumbai party-boy, to grow up. The first step to settling down is an arranged marriage to Maryam, the daughter of Abbas Khan, a New York real estate tycoon. She’s pretty, demure and respectable --- unlike her sister, Farhan, a sexy, rebellious divorcée. After the wedding, Ali moves to New York and enjoys the privileges of being an honorary Khan: private helicopters, super tall skyscrapers, and a Gatsbyesque house in the Hamptons. But soon rumors begin to surface about Abbas Khan --- accusations of corruption and hidden affairs --- and Farhan hints that a violent secret underlies Abbas's success. Though Ali's wife insists the insinuations are unfounded, he can't shake the feeling that there's something he doesn't know. To uncover the truth, Ali launches his own investigation, which takes him deep into Abbas’ dealings and past.

The narrator of Ben Lerner’s new novel has traveled to Providence, Rhode Island, where he is to conduct what will be the final published interview with Thomas, his 90-year-old mentor and the father of his college friend Max. Thomas is a giant in the arts who seems to hail “from the future and the past simultaneously” and who “reenchants the air” when he speaks. But the narrator drops his smartphone in the hotel sink. He arrives at Thomas’s house with no recording device, a fact he is mysteriously unable to confess. What unfolds from this dreamlike circumstance is the unforgettable story of the triangle formed by Thomas, Max, and the narrator, and an exploration of fathers and sons, male friendship and rivalry, and the challenges of parenting in a burning world.

Ellie’s universe, and this one, is falling apart. Her ailing mother is in a coma; her sister, Chris, accuses her of being insufficiently Chinese between assassination attempts; and a shadowy cabal of engineers is trying to hijack the skunkworks, the machinery that keeps the physics of each universe working the way it’s supposed to. Daniel, Ellie's cousin, has found an illicit device in the skunkworks --- one that keeps Ellie's comatose mother alive while also creating destabilizing bugs in the physics of this universe. It's not a good day. If she can confront her mother’s legacy and overcome her family’s generational trauma, she just might find a way to preserve the skunkworks and reconcile with her sister. But digging into her family’s past is thornier than it seems, and the secrets she uncovers will force Ellie to choose between her family and the universe itself.

Los Angeles, right now. America with its back up against the wall. This Frankenstein's monster of crimes and lurid dreams sewn together into something like a city.  A city ready to explode: A Hollywood pedophile is arrested, and is ready to tear down the city to get his freedom. A young woman goes missing --- and men in black rubber gloves who look like cops clean out her apartment in the middle of the night. And the serial killer known as the LA Ripper is on the loose, leaving tragic/graphic/brutal crime scenes in his wake. Three people trying to keep their heads above the dirty water will find themselves coming together to unite these strands into one enormous, unspeakable crime.