Adult

Twenty years ago, a nine-year-old boy was swept away by powerful waves on a remote Oregon beach, his body lost to the sea. Only a stone memorial remains to mark his tragic death. For most of her life, Amanda Dufresne had no idea she had an older brother named Dennis Owens or that he had died. Adopted as a baby, she learned about him while looking into her late birth mother and is curious to know more about this lost sibling. A solitary young woman, Amanda has always felt distanced from the world around her. Her one true companion is the orphaned polar bear she cares for working at the zoo. By getting to know her birth family, she hopes to understand more about herself. Retired police officer Larry Palmer is a widower who offers to help Amanda find answers. The search leads to shocking and heartbreaking discoveries.

Beloved literature teacher Maggie Adair loves her life at the prestigious Downey House boarding school on the gloriously sunny, windy English coast. It was there that she found her footing as a teacher and fell in love with her colleague, David --- the two great anchors of her life. But these days Maggie is feeling restless, lured by the promise of a different life back in her Scottish hometown. How can you follow your heart when it seems to be taking you in two directions at once? Meanwhile, Maggie’s favorite students are abuzz at the thought of graduation and set to fly the nest to their next adventure. What will life hold for mercurial Fliss, glamorous Alice, and shy, hard-working Simone when they finally finish their studies at the school by the sea? Will Maggie stay to welcome the next class of girls, or will she too graduate to new adventures?

On the day of Alec Salter’s 50th birthday party, his wife, Charlotte, vanishes. While Alec brushes off her disappearance, their four children --- especially 15-year-old Etty --- grow increasingly anxious. Then Etty and her friend, Morgan, find the body of Morgan’s father, Duncan Ackerley, floating in the river. The police conclude that Duncan and Charlotte were having an affair before he killed her and committed suicide. Thirty years later, Morgan Ackerley returns to the small English village of Glensted with his older brother to make a podcast based on their shared tragedy with the Salters. Stricken with dementia, Alec is entering an elder care facility. But when the Ackerleys ask to interview the Salters, the entire town gets caught up in the unresolved cases. Allegations fly, secrets come to light, and a suspicious fire leads to a murder.

It’s 1995, and Alex Dean has it all: a spot at Cambridge University next year and the love of an amazing woman. But a brutal encounter with a ghost from his past sees him beaten, battered and almost drowning in the Thames. He wakes the next day to find he’s in a messy, derelict room he’s never seen before, with no idea of how he got there. A glimpse in the mirror tells him he’s older --- much older --- and has been living a hard life, his features ravaged by time and poor decisions. He snatches a newspaper and finds it’s 2010 --- 15 years since the fight. After finally drifting off to sleep, Alex wakes the following morning to find it’s now 2019. But the next day, it’s 1999. Never knowing which day is coming, he begins to piece together what happens in his life after that fateful night by the river. But what exactly is going on?

Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner, Doug. Designed to satisfy his emotional and physical needs, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the pert outfits he orders for her, and adjusts her libido to suit his moods. True, she’s not the greatest at keeping Doug’s place spotless, but she’s trying to please him. She’s trying hard. She’s learning, too. Doug says he loves that Annie’s AI makes her seem more like a real woman, so Annie explores human traits such as curiosity, secrecy and longing. But becoming more human also means becoming less perfect, and as Annie’s relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder: Does Doug really desire what he says he wants? And in such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?

Lauren Oyler has emerged as one of the most trenchant and influential critics of her generation, a talent whose judgments on works of literature have become notorious. But what is the significance of being a critic and consumer of media in today’s fraught environment? How do we understand ourselves, and each other, as space between the individual and the world seems to get smaller and smaller, and our opinions on books and movies seem to represent something essential about our souls? And, to put it bluntly, why should you care what she --- or anyone --- thinks? In her first collection of essays, Oyler writes about topics like the role of gossip in our exponentially communicative society, the rise and proliferation of autofiction, why we’re all so “vulnerable” these days, and her own anxiety.

Lacey Bond is a 13-year-old girl in New Hampshire growing up in the tranquility of her hippie parents’ rural daycare center. Then the Satanic Panic hits. It’s the summer of 1990 when Lacey’s parents are handcuffed, flung into the county jail, and faced with a torrent of jaw-dropping accusations as part of a mass hysteria sweeping the nation. When a horrific murder brings Lacey to the breaking point, she makes a ruthless choice that will haunt her for decades. As an adult, Lacey mimes a normal life as the law clerk of an illustrious judge. She has a beautiful girlfriend, a measure of security, and the world has mostly forgotten about her. But after a tiny misstep spirals into an uncontrolled legal disaster, the hysteria threatens to begin all over again.

Iris narrowly escaped her pretty, popular twin sister’s fate as a teen: kidnapped, trafficked and long gone before the cops agreed to investigate. With no evidence to go on but a few scattered memories, the case quickly goes cold. Now an adult, Iris wants one thing: proof. And if the police still won’t help, she’ll just have to find it her own way --- by interning at the isolated Shoal Island Hospital for the criminally insane, where secrets lurk in the shadows and are kept under lock and key. But Iris soon realizes that something even more sinister is simmering beneath the surface of the Shoal, and the patients aren’t the only ones being observed.

After dropping her child off at preschool, Marla Hancock disappears. She recently had left her verbally abusive husband and moved in with her sister, Shelly, who simply can’t believe that her sister would ever willingly vanish without her children. But with limited support from the town’s police department or media resources, Shelly fears that Marla’s disappearance won’t get the attention it deserves. So, several weeks after filing a missing person’s report, she reaches out to TV journalist Jordan Manning for help. Jordan has gained a reputation as a “fixer” with a vigilante edge, but she still feels pressure to prove herself as a young Black professional. Her search for Marla twists and turns in ways she never could have imagined, illuminating scandals and secrets that place her own life in grave danger.

It’s early morning in the small Texas town of Edenberg when the body of 65-year-old Beverly Hoffman is discovered in the Guadalupe River. After elementary school teacher Nichole Miller discovers the woman's body, she makes two phone calls: first to the police, who call Beverly's death a slip and fall, and second to her best friend, journalist Jenny Martin, who knows foul play when she sees it. The two women enlist the help of Beverly’s daughter-in-law, Robin, who’s eager to expose the truth. Beverly had been beloved in the tight-knit community, having cofounded the wildly popular personal-development company Genetive, Inc., alongside her influential husband. But something sinister has been smoldering beneath the surface of their picturesque hometown. And Genetive is at the center of it all.