Adult

Superintendent Teresa Battaglia, a trailblazing criminal detective on the Italian police force, is on sick leave, recovering from her recent brush with death in pursuit of a killer. But none of her colleagues, not even her partner, know that her Alzheimer’s is getting worse, and that she is unsure she will ever return to work. Teresa’s plans for retirement are shelved, however, when she is urgently summoned to meet with menacing serial killer Giacomo Mainardi. Refusing to speak with anyone but Teresa, whose investigative work 27 years prior landed him in maximum security prison, Mainardi has disconcerting news: somebody is after him, and only Teresa holds the key to keeping everyone, including herself, safe. To solve the case, Teresa must come face to face with a history she thought she’d buried.

In this first major biography since Ella Fitzgerald’s death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist. BECOMING ELLA FITZGERALD clears up long-enduring mysteries. Archival research and in-depth family interviews shed new light on the singer’s difficult childhood in Yonkers, New York, the tragic death of her mother, and the year she spent in a girls’ reformatory school --- where she sang in its renowned choir and dreamed of being a dancer. Rarely seen profiles from the Black press offer precious glimpses of Fitzgerald’s tense experiences of racial discrimination and her struggles with constricting models of Black and white femininity at midcentury.

Tracing the power dynamics that underlie tourism, AIRPLANE MODE parses who gets to travel and who gets to write about the experience. All the while, Habib threads the historic but ever-evolving dynamics of travel into her personal history as a child on family vacations in India, an adult curious about the world, and an immigrant for whom round trips are an annual fact of life. Woven throughout the book are inviting and playful analyses of obvious and not-so-obvious travel artifacts: passports, carousels, bougainvilleas, guidebooks, trains, the idea of wanderlust itself. Together, they tell a subversive history of travel as a Euro-American mode of consumerism. But as any traveler knows, travel is more than that. As an immigrant whose loved ones live across continents, Habib takes a deeply curious and joyful look at a troubled and beloved activity.

When Gemma gets dumped by her long-term boyfriend, she gets drunk with her sister, kooky aunt and best friend, Dax. After one too many margaritas, they decide to perform a love-cleansing spell, which promises to erase Gemma’s ex from her memory. They follow all the instructions, including a platonic kiss from Dax to seal the deal. When Gemma wakes up, she realizes that this silly spell has worked. Not only does it seem that she never dated her ex, the rest of her life is completely unrecognizable. The worst part: Dax has no idea who she is. To reverse the spell and get back to her old life, Gemma must convince her once-best-friend-now-near-stranger to kiss her. But as she carries out her plans, she finds herself falling for him --- hard. Soon, Gemma begins to wonder if she even wants to go back to the way things once were.

Eli Ward hasn’t been back to his suffocating hometown of New Port Stephen, Florida, in ages. Post-transition and sober, he’s a completely different person from the one who left years ago. But when a scandal threatens his career as a TV writer and comedian, he has no choice but to return home for the holidays. Just when he thinks this trip couldn’t get any worse, Eli bumps into his high school ex, Nick Wu, who’s somehow hotter than ever. Divorced and in his 40s, Nick’s world revolves around his father, his daughter and his job. But even a busy life can’t keep him from being intrigued by the reappearance of Eli. Against the backdrop of one weird Floridian Christmas, the two must decide whether to leave the past in the past…or move on together.

Archaeologist Dr. Socorro “Corrie” Mejía has a bone to pick. Literally. It’s been Corrie’s life goal to lead an expedition deep into the Mexican jungle in search of the long-lost remains of her ancestor, Chimalli, an ancient warrior of the Aztec empire. But when she is invited to join an all-expenses-paid dig to do just that, Corrie is sure it’s too good to be true...and she’s right. As the world-renowned expert on Chimalli, by rights Corrie should be leading the expedition, not sharing the glory with her disgustingly handsome nemesis. But as the dig begins, it becomes clear they’ll need to work together when they realize a thief is lurking around their campsite, forcing the pair to keep their discoveries --- and lingering attraction --- under wraps.

A few years after a reality TV show skyrocketed the Benedettos to pop-culture fame, the five twentysomething sisters are nearly broke and living together in their parents’ crumbling McMansion. Lilly, the sensible second-eldest sister, is all too aware that her family is viewed as a spectacle, but she’s focused on holding herself and her family together. The Benedettos’ fortunes finally appear to be brightening when Charlie Bingley, the dashing star of Captain Fantastic, moves into their Los Angeles neighborhood with his friend, Will Darcy, in tow. It isn’t long before Charlie falls for the warm and lovely eldest sister, June. Lilly has no such luck: the arrogant and judgmental Will Darcy, a man plagued by his own private demons, seems ready to clash with her at every turn --- yet the two can’t seem to stay away from each other.

Only a year out of residency, Mackenzie Carter has had some very bad dates lately. Out of options, it feels like a small thing to tell her grandmother that she’s met someone. That is, until she blurts out the name of the first man she sees and the last man she would ever date: Noah Taylor, the big bad wolf of Denver General. With outdated stigmas surrounding unmated alphas that have people wondering if they still howl at the moon, Noah has been careful to keep his designation under wraps. It’s worked for years, until an anonymous tip has everything coming to light. The chatty, overly friendly ER doctor asking him to be her fake boyfriend on the same day he’s called to meet the board has to be kismet, right? But when the fake-mate act turns into a very real friends-with-benefits arrangement, lines start to blur.

When 19-year-old Jill Moss goes missing near the Utah-Arizona border, everyone has an opinion. Only Norma Gallagher, a search-and-rescue volunteer, knows the real story. Norma already has found Jill, huddled in a cave and terrified that her abusive boyfriend, Jake, will kill her. To protect Jill from a dangerous man, Norma quietly delivers the girl to her grateful parents in California, even though she’s conflicted. Keeping Jill safe and hidden from Jake, the press and the public will be their secret. Five years later, the disappearance stirs a new media frenzy when Jake is arrested for the murder of Jill Moss --- and Norma knows he didn’t kill her. As Jake is about to stand trial, lust for retribution inflames public opinion, and Jill’s family refuses to come forward, forcing Norma to make a life-changing decision.

When eight-year-old Kathy Stone turns up on the side of the road a year after her abduction, the world awaits her harrowing story. But she doesn’t speak at all, not even to her own parents. Child therapist Robin Hart is the only one who’s had success connecting with the girl. Robin has been using play therapy to help Kathy process her memories. But as their work continues, Kathy’s playtime takes a grim turn: a doll stabs another doll, a tiny figurine is chained to a plastic toy couch. All of these horrifying moments, enacted within a Victorian doll house. Every session, another toy dies. But the most disturbing detail? Kathy seems to be playacting real unsolved murders. Soon Robin wonders if Kathy not only holds the key to the murders of the past but if she knows something about the murders of the future.