Adult

Andrew Morton tells the story of the feckless Edward VIII, later Duke of Windsor; his American wife, Wallis Simpson; and the bizarre wartime Nazi plot to make him a puppet king after the invasion of Britain and the attempted cover-up by Churchill, General Eisenhower and King George VI of the duke's relations with Hitler. From the alleged affair between Simpson and the German foreign minister to the discovery of top secret correspondence about the man dubbed "the traitor king" and the Nazi high command, 17 CARNATIONS is a saga of intrigue, betrayal and deception.

Famed detective and mystery writer Lawrence Block takes the helm as guest editor for DARK CITY LIGHTS, the fourth edition of the Have a NYC series. Here are 23 thrilling, hilarious and poignant short stories --- all based in New York City --- written by new and acclaimed fiction masters, including Robert Silverberg, Ed Park, Jim Fusilli, Parnell Hall, SJ Rozan, Brian Koppelman, Elaine Kagan and more. Additional authors include Thomas Pluck, Warren Moore, Erin Mitchell and Tom Callahan.

A powerful historical novel by the late Ariana Franklin and her daughter, Samantha Norman, THE SIEGE WINTER is a tour de force mystery and murder, adventure and intrigue, a battle for a crown, told by two courageous young women whose fates are intertwined in 12th-century England’s devastating civil war.

Alice is a young woman living on her father-in-law’s farm on the edge of an Australian country town, while her husband is held prisoner in Europe. When Giancarlo, an Italian anarchist at the prisoner-of-war camp down the road, is assigned to work on the farm, she hopes that being kind to him will somehow influence her husband’s treatment. What she doesn’t anticipate is how dramatically Giancarlo will expand her outlook and self-knowledge.

Twin boys grow up in the same family and in the same town. Dramatically different, they become bitter enemies, even as children. One leaves his peaceful hometown, but when all else fails, the prodigal son returns 20 years later. The reunion of brothers, sweet and healing at first, exposes shattering revelations of good and evil. Danielle Steel tells a story of suspicion, betrayal and a life-and-death struggle for survival. Which twin is good and which is evil, as the tables turn again and again?

When Harry Clifton visits his publisher in New York, he learns that he has been elected as the new president of English PEN, and immediately launches a campaign for the release of a fellow author, Anatoly Babakov, who's imprisoned in Siberia. Babakov's crime? Writing a book called Uncle Joe, a devastating insight into what it was like to work for Stalin. So determined is Harry to see Babakov released and the book published that he puts his own life in danger.

A hundred years after her sinking, Lusitania remains an evocative ship of mystery. Was she carrying munitions that exploded? Did Winston Churchill engineer a conspiracy that doomed the liner? Lost amid these tangled skeins is the romantic, vibrant and finally heartrending tale of the passengers who sailed aboard her. Authors Greg King and Penny Wilson resurrect this lost, glittering world to show the golden age of travel and illuminate the most prominent of Lusitania’s passengers.

Jonathan Lethem’s third collection of stories uncovers a father’s nervous breakdown at SeaWorld; a foundling child rescued from the woods during a blizzard; a political prisoner in a hole in a Brooklyn street; and a crumbling, haunted “blog” on a seaside cliff. As in his novels, Lethem finds the uncanny lurking in the mundane, the irrational self-defeat seeping through our upstanding pursuits, and the tragic undertow of the absurd world(s) in which we live.

When human rights journalist Mac McClelland leaves Haiti after reporting on the devastating earthquake of 2010, it becomes clear that she is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She also can’t deny the intensity of her feelings for Nico, a French soldier she met in Port-au-Prince and with whom she connected instantly and deeply. With inspiring fearlessness, McClelland tackles perhaps her most harrowing assignment to date: investigating the damage in her own mind and repairing her broken psyche.

The moment just before Radar Radmanovic is born, all of the hospital’s electricity mysteriously fails. When the lights come back on, the staff sees a healthy baby boy --- with pitch-black skin --- born to the stunned white parents. No one understands the uncanny electrical event or the unexpected skin color. I AM RADAR begins with Radar’s perplexing birth but rapidly explodes outward, carrying readers to unknown regions where radio waves and subatomic particles dance to their own design.