Adult

Elizabeth Arden was a household name on six continents and a millionaire several times over before her death in 1966. Arden counted British royalty and social elites from the overlapping worlds of New York, Hollywood, London and Paris among her clients. She revolutionized skin care and cosmetics, making it acceptable for all women to embrace glamour and wear makeup. She created a successful international business empire before women gained the vote and at a time when virtually no woman owned or ran a national company. She developed the first luxury spa and insisted on a holistic understanding of health and beauty. In BECOMING ELIZABETH ARDEN, acclaimed biographer Stacy Cordery does full justice to one of America’s greatest entrepreneurs.

Emma Makepeace is headed to Edinburgh for the global G7 Summit when her team is tipped off about a high-profile assassination the Russians are planning. But they have no idea who the target is. Surrounded by the world’s most powerful political leaders in a gridlocked city, Emma must set a trap and use herself as bait. With time running short, Emma faces the most perilous mission of her career. How far will she go to catch the killer?

In present-day New York City, an Albanian interpreter reluctantly agrees to work with Alfred, a Kosovar torture survivor, during his therapy sessions. Despite her husband’s cautions, she soon becomes entangled in her clients’ struggles: Alfred’s nightmares stir up her own buried memories, and an impulsive attempt to help a Kurdish poet leads to a risky encounter and a reckless plan. As ill-fated decisions stack up, jeopardizing the nameless narrator’s marriage and mental health, she takes a spontaneous trip to reunite with her mother in Albania, where her life in the United States is put into stark relief. When she returns to face the consequences of her actions, she must question what is real and what is not.

At the age of seven, Jennifer Coleman is severely burned in a house fire that kills her sister. Despite the barriers of her scarred face and her tragic childhood, she reaches the pinnacle of achievement as a classical concert pianist, but at a deep psychological cost. During Jennifer's meteoric rise as a virtuoso pianist, her disfigurement takes on mythic proportions. She is internationally loved and admired, but unable to love herself. At a pivotal point in her career, she meets an extraordinarily creative, suicidal musician named Felix, who challenges Jennifer's beliefs and falls deeply in love with her. Will Jennifer be able to learn from Felix's example before she self-destructs?

In the 1930s, Germany was a hotbed of scientific thought. But after the Nazis took power, Jewish and female citizens were forced out of their academic positions. Hedwig Kohn, Lise Meitner, Hertha Sponer and Hildegard Stücklen were eminent in their fields, but they had no choice but to flee due to their Jewish ancestry or anti-Nazi sentiments. Their harrowing journey out of Germany became a life-and-death situation that required Herculean efforts of friends and other prominent scientists. Lise fled to Sweden, where she made a groundbreaking discovery in nuclear physics, and the others fled to the United States, where they brought advanced physics to American universities. No matter their destination, each woman revolutionized the field of physics when all odds were stacked against them, galvanizing young women to do the same.

Emma is an alcoholic, but she’s been officially sober for an entire year. That’s 12 months of better health. But it’s also been 365 days of not dating. And with her new dating profile, Emma is ready to put herself back out there. Being assigned to plan her office’s holiday party feels like icing on the suddenly very overwhelming cake until her estranged father reappears with devastating news. But then there’s Ben, the charming IT guy who, despite Emma’s awkwardness and shortcomings, seems to maybe actually get her. Sobriety is turning out to be far from the flawless future Emma had once envisioned for herself. But as she allows herself to open up to Ben and confront difficult past relationships, she’s beginning to realize that taking things one day at a time just might be the perfectly imperfect path she’s meant to be on.

Eddie Winston is 90 years old. He has lived and he has loved, but he has never been kissed. A true gentleman and an incurable romantic, Eddie spends his days volunteering at a charity shop, where he sorts through the donations of the living and the dead, preserving letters and tokens of love along the way. And it is here that he meets Bella, a troubled young woman who, at 24 years old, has just lost the love of her life. When Bella learns that Eddie is yet to have his first kiss, she resolves to help him finally find love. This sparks an adventure that will take them to unexpected places and, they hope, bring Eddie to the moment he has waited for all his life.

Madison Bettencourt has moved back home to Montana to care for her grandmother, who is slipping further and further away. She has called off her wedding and worries that her dreams of a family are fading with it. Bliss Morgan transformed eight-year-old Madison with her loyalty, and for a while, the two girls were as close as can be. But Madison never understood why Bliss suddenly vanished, leaving only a friendship bracelet and a message etched into a matchbook. Before she can begin again, Madison must uncover what happened to Bliss, and Liam McKettrick --- a widowed dad trying to repair his relationship with his two children --- becomes her unlikely ally. Yet there are mysteries that Madison hesitates to explore with anyone, and strange energies in Bettencourt Hall that blur the lines between past and present.

Dr. Richmond Dougherty is a renowned pediatric surgeon and an infamous tragedy survivor. He’s also very dead, thanks to a fall down the stairs. His neighbors angrily point a finger at the newest Ms. Dougherty, Addison. The sudden marriage to the mysterious young woman only lasted 97 days, and he’d had two suspicious “accidents” during that time. Now Addison is a very rich widow. As law enforcement starts to circle in on Addison and people in town become increasingly hostile, sides are chosen with Kathryn, wife number one and the mother of his children, leading the fray. Despite rising tensions, Addison is even more driven to forge ahead on the path she charted years ago. Determined at all costs to unravel Richmond’s legacy, she soon becomes a target --- with a shocking note left on her bedroom wall: You will pay.

Nothing is going well for Eve: she’s single, turning 40, stressed at work and anxious about a recent series of increasingly creepy incidents. Most devastatingly, her beloved father died last year, and her family still won’t acknowledge their sorrow. With her younger sister’s wedding rapidly approaching, Eve is on the verge of panic. She can’t bear to attend the event alone. That’s when she recalls a strange story her Yiddish grandmother once told her, about a protector forged of desperation…and Eve, to her own shock, manages to create a golem. At first, everything seems great. The golem is indeed protective --- and also attractive. But when they head out to a rural summer camp for the family wedding, Eve’s lighthearted rom-com fantasy swiftly mudslides into something much darker.