Adult

When Mona Ramsey married Lord Teddy Roughton to secure his visa --- allowing him to remain in San Francisco to fulfill his wildest dreams --- she never imagined that by age 48, she would be the sole owner of Easley House, Teddy’s grand, romantic country manor in the UK. She also didn't imagine that she’d need to open the manor’s doors to paying guests to afford the electric bill and repair the leaking roof. Yet somehow, she and her young friend, Wilfred --- whom guests assume is serving as Easley’s charming-but-clumsy butler --- and the loopy old gardener, Mr. Hargis, are making it work. This delicate equilibrium is upended when Americans Rhonda and Ernie Blaylock arrive for a weekend vacation at Easley, and Wilfred stumbles onto their terrible secret.

When aspiring musician Twyla Higgins arrives in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1977, the 19-year-old Texan is dazzled by the fringe-and-rhinestones country music scene. Live music flows from bars, open mic nights tempt with the chance of stardom, and record label execs seek the next hot new act. With nothing but the songs in her head and her daddy's guitar, Twyla finds her way in the vibrant but cutthroat music business. A chance meeting with a rakish singer and son of blue-blooded Nashvillians veers Twyla off path and into a dizzying romance. Caught between the dream she’s always wanted and the affection she's always craved, Twyla must decide what future she wants for herself. But when her song is stolen by a rival and hits the country music charts, how much will she sacrifice to take back what's hers?

It’s a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die. Cal Hooper took early retirement from the Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He’s found it, more or less: he’s built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he’s gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey’s long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn’t want protecting. What she wants is revenge.

For the last 17 years, Harry and Zara King’s lives have revolved around their only daughter, Sophie. One day, Sophie leaves the house and doesn’t come home. Six weeks later, the police are no closer to finding her than when they started. Harry and Zara have questioned everyone who has ever had any connection to Sophie, to no avail. Except there’s one house on their block --- number 210, across the street --- whose occupant refuses to break his silence. As the question mark over number 210 devolves into obsession, Harry and Zara are forced to examine their own lives. They realize they have grown apart, suffering in separate spheres of grief. And as they try to find their way back to each other, they must face the truth about their daughter: who she was, how she changed and why she disappeared.

Sisters Samantha and Monte Waters are vacationing together in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, enjoying a festival and planning to meet with their brother, Cal. But the idyllic plans are short-lived. When terrorists’ attacks rock the city around them, Monte, a U.S. foreign service officer, and Samantha, an international television correspondent, are separated, and one of them is whisked away in the frenzy. The family mobilizes, using all their contacts to try to find their missing sister, but to no avail. She has vanished. As time presses on, the outlook darkens. Can she be found, or is she a lost cause? And even if she returns, will the damage to her and those around her be irreparable?

As a new nurse practitioner at a maximum-security prison, Brooke Sullivan is taught three crucial rules: 1) Treat all prisoners with respect. 2) Never reveal any personal information. 3) Never EVER become too friendly with the inmates. But nobody knows that Brooke has already broken the rules. Nobody knows about her intimate connection to Shane Nelson, one of the penitentiary's most notorious and dangerous inmates. They certainly don't know that Shane was Brooke's high school sweetheart --- the star quarterback, the golden boy who's serving a life sentence for a series of grisly murders. Or that Brooke's testimony was what put him there. But Shane knows. He knows more than anyone. And he will never forget.

When Clare Mackintosh lost her five-week-old son, she soon discovered there are no neat, labeled stages of grief like so many books insist. The shape of each loss is different; when a parent, relative or friend passes, we grieve the person in all their beauty, humanity and imperfections. For Clare, there was no preparing for the anger and excruciating ache of knowing her child's life would remain unlived. This is the book she needed then. Inspired by a viral Twitter thread Clare wrote on the anniversary of her son's death, this deeply honest, compassionate memoir will bring solace and encouragement to anyone who finds themselves walking with grief, whether for a season or for several years.

Unlikely best friends since the age of six, Billy and Dogge live in suburbs separated only by a highway, yet a world apart. From the outside, Dogge looks privileged: his family has a large home and plenty of money --- at first. But his parents are addicts whose negligence becomes a form of abuse. Meanwhile, Billy’s family are poor first-generation immigrants unable to escape the no-go zone where they live, but their cramped apartment is nonetheless a bastion of love. A ruthless small-time crime boss seeks recruits, and both Billy and Dogge become runners by the time they’re 12. Fast cash, easy access to drugs, and dreams of gaining status draw them in. But when Billy wants to leave the gang and finds himself trapped, the boys must face the violent rules of the adult game they tried to play.

1952: Ella Fitzgerald is a renowned jazz singer whose only roadblock to longevity is society’s attitude toward women and race. Marilyn Monroe’s star is rising despite ongoing battles with movie studio bigwigs and boyfriends. When she needs help with her singing, she wants only the best --- and the best is the brilliant Ella Fitzgerald. But Ella isn’t a singing teacher and declines. Then the two women meet, and to everyone’s surprise but their own, they become fast friends. On the surface, what could they have in common? Yet each was underestimated by the men in their lives --- husbands, managers, hangers-on. And both were determined to gain. Each fought for professional independence and personal agency in a time when women were expected to surrender control to those same men.

Luisa Voekler is expected to quickly climb the career ladder at the CIA. But while her coworkers have moved on to thrilling Cold War assignments, Luisa’s work remains stuck in the past, decoding messages from World War II. Journalist Haris Voekler grew up a proud East Berliner but realizes that the Soviet promises of a better future are not coming to fruition. After the Berlin Wall goes up, Haris finds himself separated from his young daughter and all alone after his wife dies. There’s only one way to reach his family --- by sending coded letters to his father-in-law, who lives on the other side of the Iron Curtain. When Luisa discovers a secret cache of letters written by the father she has long presumed dead, she journeys to Berlin and risks everything to free him. As Luisa and Haris take turns telling their stories, events speed toward the fall of the Berlin Wall.