Adult

It is the early 19th century, and the land recently purchased by President Thomas Jefferson stretches west for thousands of miles. Who inhabits this vast new garden of Eden? What strange beasts and natural formations can be found? Thus was the birth of Manifest Destiny and the resulting bloody battles with Indigenous tribes encountered by white explorers. Also in this volatile mix are the grizzled fur trappers and mountain men, waging war against the Native American tribes whose lands they traverse. This is the setting of THRONES OF GRACE, and the guide to this epic narrative is arguably America’s greatest yet most unsung pathfinder, Jedediah Smith. His explorations into the forested frontiers on both sides of the Rocky Mountains and all the way to the West Coast would become the stuff of legend.

Traci Eddings was one of those outsiders whose family wasn’t rich enough or connected enough to vacation at St. Cecelia. But she could work there. One fateful summer she did, and she married the boss’s son. Now, she’s the widowed owner of the hotel, determined to see it return to its glory days, even as staff shortages and financial troubles threaten to ruin it. Plus, her greedy and unscrupulous brother-in-law wants to make sure she fails. Enlisting a motley crew of recently hired summer help --- including the daughter of her estranged best friend --- Traci has one summer season to turn it around. But new information about a long-ago drowning at the hotel threatens to come to light, and the tragic death of one of their own brings Traci to the brink of despair.

Outside the island, there is nothing. The world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island, it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists are living in peaceful harmony. Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn't solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island --- and everyone on it. But the security system also has wiped everyone's memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer --- and they don't even know it. And the clock is ticking.

Professor William Dresden has found solitude in the south of France to grapple with his troubled past --- a neglected upbringing, failed romances, the recent demolition of his life’s work in academia, and even witnessing genocide. But he soon learns that he has much larger problems when an adrift MI6 officer, Adeline Parker, insists on a meeting, revealing shocking information about his family. Then a bomb explodes. William and Adeline narrowly escape the attempt on their lives and find themselves battling a group of neofascists and extreme nationalists who are inciting violent divisions across Europe. They are pulled into a shadowy war against a cabal called the Strasbourg Executive and pushed to the brink by family betrayals, corrupt institutions, and the Executive’s subversive plots against the fabric of Western society.

In 2011, Eunju Oh opens her door to greet a stranger: a young Korean American woman holding a familiar-looking knife --- a knife Eunju hasn’t seen in 30 years. In South Korea in the 1980s, young Eunju and her mother are homeless on the street. After being captured by the police, they’re sent to live within the walls of a state-sanctioned reformatory center that claims to rehabilitate the nation’s citizens but hides a darker, more violent reality. While Eunju and her mother form a tight-knit community with the other women in the kitchen, two teenage brothers, Sangchul and Youngchul, are compelled to labor in the workshops and make increasingly desperate decisions --- and all are forced down a path of survival, the repercussions of which will echo for decades to come.

Deep in the Florida Everglades, the body of a woman is discovered in pieces, presumably ravaged by an alligator. Upon closer inspection, it’s determined no animal could make such perfectly precise cuts. Only a blade could do that. Soon, dozens of oil drums emerge amid the river of grass, each one packed to the brim with body parts. FDLE special agent Amy Larson and her partner, FBI special agent Hunter Forrest, have seen this kind of sadistic killing before. And when a small beige horse is discovered at the bottom of one of the barrels, they know exactly what it means. The fourth horseman of the apocalypse rides a pale horse --- and his name is Death. With so many bodies to identify, connecting one victim to the next is easier said than done.

London, 1924. When shy academic Lao She meets larger-than-life Judge Dee Ren Jie, his quiet life abruptly turns from books and lectures to daring chases and narrow escapes. Dee has come to London to investigate the murder of a man he’d known during World War I when serving with the Chinese Labour Corps. No sooner has Dee interviewed the grieving widow than another dead body turns up. Then another. All stabbed to death with a butterfly sword. Will Dee and Lao be able to connect the threads of the murders --- or are they next in line as victims?

The end is nigh. It has been nearly 200 years since Hadrian Marlowe assaulted the person of the Emperor and walked away from war. From his Empire. His duty. From the will and service of the eldritch being known only as the Quiet. The galaxy lies in the grip of a terrible plague, and worse, the Cielcin have overrun the realms of men. A messenger has come to Jadd, bearing a summons from the Sollan Emperor for the one-time hero. A summons, a pardon and a plea. HAPSIS, the Emperor’s secret first-contact intelligence organization, has located one of the dreadful Watchers, the immense, powerful beings worshipped by the Pale Cielcin. Called out of retirement and exile, the old hero --- accompanied by his daughter, Cassandra --- must race across the galaxy and against time to accomplish one last, impossible task: To kill a god.

Los Angeles, August 1965. Anger and pent-up frustrations boil over in the Watts neighborhood after a traffic stop of two Black motorists. As the Watts riots explode, crime photographer Harry Ingram snaps photos at the scene. When he captures the image of an unarmed activist being shot down by the cops, he winds up in the hospital, beaten, his camera missing. Proof of the unjust killing seems lost --- until Ingram’s girlfriend, Anita Claire, retrieves the hidden film in a daring rescue. A recuperating Ingram is approached by Betty Payton, a comrade of Anita’s mother, who wants Ingram’s help tracking down her business associate, Moses “Mose” Tolbert, who was last seen during the riots. Ingram follows the investigation down a rabbit hole of burglary rings, bank robberies, looted cash and clandestine agendas.

Philadelphia, 1837. After Charlotte escaped from the crumbling White Oaks plantation down South, she’d expected freedom to feel different from her former life as an enslaved housemaid. Instead, she’s locked away playing servant to her white-passing father, as they attempt to hide their identities from slavecatchers who would destroy their new lives. Longing to break away, Charlotte befriends Nell, a budding abolitionist from one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest Black families. Just as Charlotte starts to envision a future, a familiar face from her past reappears. Evie, her friend from White Oaks, has been brought to the city by the plantation mistress and is desperate to escape. But as Charlotte and Nell conspire to rescue her, they soon discover that fighting for Evie’s freedom may cost them their own.