Adult

After a string of betrayals and the loss of her legacy, Portia Cuthcart is determined to start a new life with her sisters in Manhattan…and never cook again. But when Portia moves into a dilapidated brownstone on the Upper West Side, she meets 12-year-old Ariel and her widowed father, Gabriel. Soon, a promise made to her sisters forces Portia back into a world of magical food and swirling emotions, where she must confront everything she has been running from.

The Nash family is close-knit. However, their seeming stability is thrown into chaos when Deenie's best friend is struck by a terrifying, unexplained seizure in class. Rumors of a hazardous outbreak spread through the family, school and community. As hysteria and contagion swell, a series of tightly held secrets emerges, threatening to unravel friendships, families and the town's fragile idea of security.

Soon after Billie Breslin takes a job at Delicious!, New York’s most iconic food magazine is abruptly shut down. Billie agrees to stay on in the empty office, maintaining the hotline for reader complaints in order to pay her bills. In a hidden room in the magazine’s library, Billie finds a cache of letters written during World War II. They provide her with a feeling of deep connection to the young writer whose courage in the face of hardship inspires her to come to terms with her fears.

Patterson Wells works alongside dangerous, desperate itinerant men as a tree clearer in disaster zones, and he’s still dealing with the loss of his young son. Writing letters to the boy offers solace, but the bottle gives more. In Colorado, Patterson stops to go fishing with an old acquaintance, only to find him in a meth-induced delirium with a woman tied up in the bathtub. Patterson tries to do the right thing, but in the lives of those he knows, violence and justice are strange, intoxicating bedfellows.

When Didi discovers that her husband, the Masterji, has been hiding his beautiful lover and their young son Tarun in a nearby city, she takes the Masterji back into her grasp and expels his second family. Tarun’s mother slowly begins to lose her mind, and Tarun turns to Didi for the mothering he longs for. But as Tarun gets older, Didi’s domination of the boy threatens to destroy his one chance at true happiness.

Because they are two sets of twins, the four Latimer sisters are as close as can be. Together they decide to enroll in a training program for nurses --- a new option for women of their time, who previously have been largely limited to the role of wives, and preferably mothers. As the sisters become immersed in hospital life and the demands of their training, they meet people and encounter challenges that spark new maturity and independence.

Flora is not like other bees. With circumstances threatening her hive’s survival, Flora’s curiosity is regarded as a dangerous flaw, but her courage and strength are an asset. However, when she breaks the most sacred law of all --- daring to challenge the Queen’s fertility --- enemies abound. Her deepest instincts to serve and sacrifice are now overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce maternal love that will lead her to unthinkable deeds.

Rock star Anna Brundage went down as fast as she went up, and then walked off the scene for seven years. Without a record deal or clamoring fans, she sells a piece of her famous father’s art to finance just one more album and a European comeback tour. Anna is now 44. This may be her last chance to cement her place in the life she chose, the life she struggled for, the life she’s not sure she can sustain.

Alan Christoffersen’s daring cross-country journey --- a walk across America, from Seattle to Key West, with only the pack on his back --- has taught him lessons about love, forgiveness and, most of all, hope. Now Alan must again return west to face yet another crisis, one that threatens to upend his world just as he had begun to heal from so much loss, leaving him unsure of whether he can reach the end of his journey.

Home on leave, Bess Crawford is asked to accompany a wounded soldier confined to a wheelchair to Buckingham Palace, where he is to be decorated by the King. The next morning when Bess goes to collect Wilkins, he has vanished. Then comes disturbing word from the Shropshire police, complicating the already-difficult situation: Wilkins has been spotted, and he’s killed a man. If Bess is to save her own reputation, she must find Wilkins and uncover the truth.