Adult

In 1919, high school teacher Jessie Redmon Fauset has been named the literary editor of The Crisis. The first Black woman to hold this position at a preeminent Negro magazine, Jessie is poised to achieve literary greatness. But she holds a secret that jeopardizes it all. W. E. B. Du Bois, the founder of The Crisis, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover. And neither his wife nor their 14-year age difference can keep the two apart. Amidst rumors of their tumultuous affair, Jessie is determined to prove herself. She attacks the challenge of discovering young writers with fervor. Under her leadership, The Crisis thrives. When her first novel is released to great acclaim, it’s clear that Jessie is at the heart of a renaissance in Black music, theater and the arts. But as she strives to preserve her legacy, she’ll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.

For 50 years, Abe and Jane have been coming to Central Park. They came alone to get away from each other and together for important discussions and pivotal life moments. The Park has been their witness for half a century of love. Until now. Jane is dying, and Abe is recounting their life together as a way of keeping them going: the parts they knew --- their courtship and early marriage, their blossoming creative lives --- and the parts they didn’t always want to know --- the determined young student of Abe’s looking for a love story of her own, and their son, Max, who believes his mother chose art over parenthood, and who has avoided love and intimacy at all costs.

A peculiar pet shop in Tokyo has been known to offer customers the unique opportunity to take home one of seven special cats. But there are rules: these cats must be returned after three days. They must eat only the food supplied by the owner, and they must travel to their new homes with a distinctive blanket. In THE BLANKET CATS, we meet seven customers hoping a temporary feline companion will help them escape a certain reality, including a couple struggling with infertility, a middle-aged woman on the run from the police and two families in very different circumstances simply seeking joy. But like all their kind, the "blanket cats" are mysterious creatures with unknowable agendas, who delight in confounding expectations. And perhaps what their hosts are looking for isn't really what they need.

Two women from different worlds, Grace and Anh, are indelibly changed when a runaway boy is found on a street in their small Long Island town. Brought together by the love of this child displaced by war, the women find friendship and healing from their own painful pasts when their lives intersect with a mysterious wounded Vietnam vet. The vet, Jack, works at the Golden Hours, a watch store that mends timepieces --- and might even mend damaged souls. Inspired by the true story of a Vietnamese refugee who entrusted the dramatic account of her escape from Vietnam to the author, and also that of a wounded veteran, Alyson Richman sheds light on those whose lives were forever impacted by the devastation of that war.

In the heart of a small mountain town where football reigns supreme and tradition casts long shadows, Ms. Chelsea Deal defies the norm. Amid the echoes of clashing helmets and the roar of a crowd, Chelsea, a former big-city lawyer now cast as the interim head coach for the undefeated Rabon Knights, becomes the unexpected mentor for two young players whose dreams echo her own. Palmer, a reclusive teenager brimming with untapped talent, and Ty, an old soul fighting the gravest of battles, join forces with Chelsea to overcome their differences and fight for a championship. As the season unfolds, so do the lives of these characters as each one strives to defeat personal challenges.

The campaign of destruction that Axel Soledad and Dallas Cates wreaked on Nate Romanowski and Joe Pickett left both men in tatters, especially Nate, who lost almost everything. Wondering if the civilized life left him vulnerable to attack, Nate dropped off the grid with his falcons in tow to prepare for vengeance. When Joe gets a call from the governor asking for help finding his son-in-law, who has gone missing in the Sierra Madre mountain range, he enlists the help of a local, a rookie game warden named Susan Kany. As Nate and fellow falconer Geronimo Jones circle closer to their prey, Joe and Susan follow the nearly cold trail to Warm Springs. Little do Nate and Joe know that their separate journeys are about to converge…at Battle Mountain.

Chief of Police Jesse Stone is on his way home from a long shift when a call comes in for a welfare check on an elderly resident of the wealthy seaside town of Paradise, Massachusetts. Inside a house packed with junk and trash is a man’s dead body. It’s a sad, lonely end, but nothing criminal…until Jesse finds the photos of murder victims strewn around the corpse, on top of a treasure trove of $2 million in cash. Jesse takes on the case and finds a trail leading to an aging mobster who will do whatever it takes to keep the past from coming to light. Before long, Jesse has a price on his head as hit men converge on Paradise to take back the cash and destroy any remaining evidence. But the real danger might be coming from inside his own department.

When Sonya MacTavish inherits the huge Victorian mansion on the coast of Maine, she has no idea that the house is haunted. The footsteps she hears at night, the doors slamming and the music playing are not figments of her imagination. In her dreams she sees glimpses of the past. In the present she finds portraits of brides. And when she has visions of an antique mirror, she is drawn to it, sensing it holds dark family secrets. Then one night the mirror appears, and Sonya glides through this looking glass, into the past --- and sees a bride murdered on her wedding day, the circle of gold torn from her finger. It is a scene that will play out again and again --- a centuries-old curse that must be broken, and a puzzle she must solve if there is any hope of breaking the curse.

After years apart from his criminal family, young Luke Crosswhite returns to their flock deep in the California desert. Luke’s father is serving time for a brutal murder that Luke himself witnessed. Now, his uncle vies for power and rival biker gangs encroach on the family’s various criminal enterprises. A sensitive boy grown hard man, Luke navigates the vicious pressures of “home,” and the loyalties to his cousin, Callie, who has hatched a scheme with her boyfriend, Pretty Baby, to escape the control of the gang, the Combine. Hanging over these desperate, lonesome parties is the gang’s motto, tattooed indelibly across the heart: Blood is Love.

After more than 70 years of fighting to live her life on her own terms, Cher finally reveals her true story in intimate detail, in a two-part memoir. As a dyslexic child who dreamed of becoming famous, Cher was raised in often-chaotic circumstances, surrounded by singers, actors and a mother who inspired her in spite of their difficult relationship. With her trademark honesty and humor, CHER traces how this diamond in the rough succeeded with no plan and little confidence to become the trailblazing superstar the world has been unable to ignore for more than half a century. It follows her extraordinary beginnings through childhood to meeting and marrying Sonny Bono --- and reveals the highly complicated relationship that made them world-famous but eventually drove them apart.