Adult

Years ago, Alex Marks escaped to New York City for a fresh start. But her carefully cultivated world is upended when her childhood hero, Francis Keen, is brutally murdered. Francis was the woman behind the famous advice column "Dear Constance," and her words helped Alex through some of her darkest times. When Alex sees an advertisement searching for her replacement, she impulsively applies. Against all odds, she is given the position and quickly proves herself skilled at solving other people’s problems. But she soon begins to receive strange, potentially threatening letters at the office. Francis’ murderer was never identified, turning everyone around her into a threat. As Alex is drawn into the details surrounding her predecessor’s murder, her own dark secrets begin to rise to the surface.

In a near-future world addled by climate change and inhabited by intelligent robots called “hums,” May loses her job to artificial intelligence. Desperate to resolve her family’s debt and secure their future for another few months, she becomes a guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face so it cannot be recognized by surveillance. Seeking reprieve from her recent hardships and her family’s addiction to their devices, May splurges on passes for her family to spend three nights' respite in the Botanical Garden: a rare green refuge where forests, streams and animals still thrive. But when her children come under threat, May is forced to put her trust in a hum of uncertain motives to save her family.

Maddy Wight is hired to ghostwrite the memoir of world-renowned cosmetic surgeon Dr. Angela Reynolds. She travels to Angela’s remote estate in the Scottish Highlands to hunker down and learn everything she can. Sharing the estate is Angela’s enigmatic business partner, Scott, whose mercurial moods change as quickly as the conditions on the darkening moors outside --- and Maddy finds herself drawn ever closer to him. Returning to London once the book is finished, Maddy is excited for their future together. But her dreams are shattered at the book launch when Angela learns that Scott has leapt to his death from the Scottish cliffs. Which is why Maddy is completely blindsided months later when she sees Scott entering the Tube station just in front of her. It can’t be him, can it?

June, 1916. With a world war raging on the continent, exhausted John H. Watson, M.D. is operating on the wounded full-time when his labors are interrupted by a knock on his door, revealing Sherlock Holmes, with a black eye, a missing tooth and a cracked rib. The story he has to tell will set in motion a series of world-changing events in the most consequential case of the detective’s career. Amid rebellion in Ireland and revolution in Russia, Germany has a secret plan to win the war, and Sir William Melville of the British Secret Service dispatches the two aging friends to learn what the scheme is before it can be put into effect. In pursuit of a mysterious coded telegram sent from Berlin to an unknown recipient in Mexico, Holmes and Watson seek to foil the schemes of Holmes’ nemesis, the escaped German spymaster Von Bork.

An influencer attempts to derail a viral TV marketing campaign with her violent cult following. A marriage between two ghost hunters is threatened when one of them loses her ability to see spirits. The lives of a famous painter in the twilight of her career and a teenage UFO enthusiast converge when a mysterious glowing orb appears in their small desert town. And a slasher-flick screenwriter looking for inspiration escapes a pack of wild dogs only to find herself locked in an SUV with a strange man beside her. Set primarily in deserts throughout the American Southwest, Lena Valencia’s MYSTERY LIGHTS is a debut collection of stories about women and girls at the crossroads of mundane daily life and existential dread.

Along the glittering coast of southern France, a white villa rose from an earthen terrace. Eileen, a new architect previously known for her elegant chairs and furniture, built it as a haven for her and her lover. She realized each detail, designing the villa around their movements and habits. When the outspoken Le G, a founder of Modernist architecture, first laid eyes on the house, he could see his influence in the sleek lines. Affronted and impassioned, he took a paintbrush to the villa’s clean, white walls. Now, Le G is in the final week of his life. He has spent the last 30 years infiltrating Eileen’s house, erasing her presence and forgetting her name. But finally, the tide has come in, and Eileen is called back to her beloved coastline, where both artists will contend with the transformative power of memory.

The woman in white --- surreal artist Damaris Gethin --- has invited a select group to the opening of her exhibit, "Artist in Crime," held in the eerie subterranean Hades Gallery. As costumed models reenact famously violent deaths, the artist herself portrays Marie Antoinette on the day of her execution, complete with a guillotine on the stage. It's not a prop. Within 10 minutes of Rachel's promise to solve Damaris' future murder, the artist slips her neck into the collar of the device, and the very real blade sends her head rolling at the feet of her horrified audience. As everyone reels from the shock, Rachel quickly learns that Damaris herself accomplished the deed with the push of a button --- a suicide. So then why did she ask Rachel to solve her "murder?"

Special Agent Tucker Snow knows there's big money roaming the fields under the wide Texas sky --- and the cattle rustlers committing large-scale thefts on remote ranches know it, too. But when a prominent local rancher dies unexpectedly and his property is quietly sold to an unknown buyer, Tucker suspects there's something more sinister going on in his jurisdiction than the usual steal-and-resell racket. Still raw after the tragic death of his wife and young daughter, the lawman can't bear the thought of more innocent lives destroyed by people whose greed poisons everything around them. Working alongside his brother, Harley, Tucker uncovers a dark ring of organized crime that goes well beyond cattle rustling --- a breed of deception and greed that has turned into a silent killer and will take down anyone who crosses its path.

The small, rundown village of Great Diddling is full of stories. The way the villagers avoid outsiders, the furtive stares and whispers in the presence of newcomers --- author Berit Gardner can sense the edge of a story waiting to be unraveled, and she's just the person to do it. In fact, with a book deadline looming over her and no manuscript, Berit doesn't just want this story. She needs it. Then, while attending a village tea party, Berit becomes part of the action herself. An explosion in the library of the village's grand manor kills a local man, and the resulting investigation and influx of outsiders sends the quiet, rundown community into chaos. The residents of Great Diddling rewrite their own narrative and transform the death of one of their own from a tragedy into a new beginning.

When Stephanie Kiser moves to New York City after college to pursue a career in writing, she quickly learns that her entry-level salary won't cover the high cost of living --- never mind her crushing student loan debt. But there is one in-demand job that pays more than enough to allow Stephanie to stay in the city: nannying for the 1%. Desperate to escape the poverty of her own childhood and jump social classes, Stephanie falls into a job that hijacks her life for the next seven years: a personal assistant to toddlers on Manhattan's Upper East Side. In WANTED: TODDLER’S PERSONAL ASSISTANT, Stephanie chronicles her journey from newbie nanny to beloved caregiver --- and the painful decision to eventually say goodbye to the children she has grown to love.