Adult

Riley Griggs has a season of good times with friends and family ahead of her on the idyllic island of Belle Isle, North Carolina, when things take an unexpected turn. While waiting for her husband to arrive on the ferry one Friday afternoon, Riley is confronted by a process server who thrusts papers into her hand. And her husband is nowhere to be found. So she turns to her island friends for help and support, but it turns out that each of them has their own secrets. The clock is ticking as the mystery deepens...in a murderous way. Riley must find a way to investigate the secrets of Belle Island, the husband she might not really know, and the summer that could change everything.

As the freedom of the Jazz Age transforms New York City, the iridescent Mrs. Theresa Marshall has done the unthinkable: she’s fallen in love with her young paramour, Captain Octavian Rofrano, a handsome aviator and hero of the Great War. While times are changing and she does adore the Boy, divorce for a woman of Theresa’s wealth and social standing is out of the question, and there is no need; she has an understanding with Sylvo, her generous and well-respected philanderer husband. But their relationship subtly shifts when her bachelor brother, Ox, decides to tie the knot with the sweet younger daughter of a newly wealthy inventor.

Ranging from Australia to Greece, England to a Pacific island, the stories in Fiona McFarlane’s story collection journey across continents, eras and genres, charting the pivotal moments of people’s lives. In “Mycenae,” a middle-aged couple embarks on a disastrous vacation in the company of old friends. In “Good News for Modern Man,” a scientist conducts research on a small, remote island, where he is haunted by a colossal squid and the ghost of Charles Darwin. And in the title story, an Australian farmer turns to Old Testament methods to relieve a fatal drought. All are confronted with events that make them see themselves and their lives from a fresh perspective --- and what they do as a result is as unpredictable as life itself.

It's the early 1950s, and Joe McCarthy is campaigning to rid America of the Red Menace. Nate Heller is doing legwork for the senator, though the Chicago detective is disheartened by McCarthy's witch-hunting tactics. He's made friends with a young staffer, Bobby Kennedy, while trading barbs with a potential enemy, the attorney Roy Cohn, who rubs Heller the wrong way. Not the least of which for successfully prosecuting the so-called Atomic Bomb spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. When Dashiell Hammett comes to Heller representing a group of showbiz and literary leftists who are engaged in a last-minute attempt to save the Rosenbergs, Heller decides to take on the case.

For the first time since the death of his wife, the Duke of Stanbrook is considering remarrying and finally embracing happiness for himself. With that thought comes the treasured image of a woman he met briefly a year ago and never saw again. Dora Debbins relinquished all hope to marry when a family scandal left her in charge of her younger sister. Earning a modest living as a music teacher, she’s left with only an unfulfilled dream. For both George and Dora, that brief first encounter was as fleeting as it was unforgettable. Now is the time for a second chance. And while even true love comes with a risk, who are two dreamers to argue with destiny?

In the aftermath of the Steroid Era that stained the game of baseball, at a time when so many players are so rich and therefore have a sense of entitlement that they haven't earned, ESPN baseball commentator Tim Kurkjian shows readers how to love the game more than ever, with incredible insight and stories that are hilarious, heartbreaking and revealing. From what Pete Rose was doing in the batting cage a few minutes after getting out of prison, to why everyone strikes out these days and why no one seems to care, I’M FASCINATED BY SACRIFICE FLIES will surprise even longtime baseball fans.

The death of clan patriarch MacGregor Tulloch has thrown the tiny Shetland Islands community of Whales Reef into turmoil. Everyone assumed Tulloch's heir to be his much-loved grandnephew, David. But when no will is discovered, David's calculating cousin, Hardy, submits his own claim to the inheritance, an estate that controls most of the island's land. And Hardy knows a North Sea oil investor who will pay dearly for that control. The future of the island --- and its traditional way of life --- hangs in the balance.

Former con artist turned lawyer Eddie Flynn vowed never to set foot in a courtroom again after a case went disastrously wrong. But today Eddie doesn’t have a choice. Because this time, it’s personal. The head of the Russian mob in New York City, on trial for murder, has kidnapped Eddie’s beloved 10-year-old daughter. Now Eddie has exactly 48 hours to draw upon his razor-sharp instincts and use every con, bluff, grift and trick in the book to defend an impossible trial and save his daughter --- or die trying.

Michael Cassidy, a New York cop plagued by dreams that sometimes come true, escorts a prisoner accused of murder to Havana on the cusp of Fidel Castro's successful revolution against the Batista dictatorship. After delivering the man to La Cabaña prison and rescuing Dylan McCue, a Russian KGB agent and his now-married former lover, from her scheduled execution, Cassidy returns to New York and retreats into the comforts of alcohol and sex. The arrival of Castro in New York three months later complicates the cop's life once more. Cassidy's investigation of a young man's murder in Central Park is interrupted when he is assigned to Castro's protective detail.

They are two sisters who couldn’t be more different. Win, organized and responsible, plans her life with care. Poppy, impulsive and undependable, leaves others to pick up the pieces. But despite their differences, they share memories of the idyllic childhood summers they spent together on the shores of Butternut Lake. Now, 13 years later, Win, recovering from a personal tragedy, has taken refuge on Butternut Lake, settling into a predictable and quiet life. Then, one night, Poppy unexpectedly shows up on her sister’s doorstep. Their blissful nostalgia soon gives way to conflict, and painful memories and buried secrets threaten to tear them apart.