Adult

Julia Bennett has worked hard to create a stable life for her daughter, Cora. So when Cora leaves for college, the worst thing Julia expects on move-in day is an argument with her ex-husband and his new wife. But a sudden attack leaves the campus stunned --- and only Julia’s quick actions save Cora’s life. Shaken in the aftermath and haunted by a dark secret, Julia starts to wonder: What if the attack wasn’t as random as everyone believes? Newly pregnant Ren Petrovic is a trained assassin. She wasn’t on campus that day but knows who was: her husband, Nolan. What she doesn’t know is why Nolan has broken their rules by not telling her about the job in advance. Who really hired Nolan? And why did one woman in the crowd respond so differently from all the rest?

Dora Frenhofer, a once successful but now aging and embittered novelist, knows her mind is going. But she is determined to finish her final book and reverse her fortunes before time runs out. Alone in her London home during the pandemic, she creates, and is in turn created by, the fascinating real characters from her own life. Her chapters trot the globe, inhabiting the perspectives of her missing brother, her estranged daughter, her erstwhile lover and her last remaining friend, among others in her orbit. As her own life comes into ever sharper focus, so do the signal events that have made her who she is, leaving us in Dora’s thrall until, with an unforeseen twist, she snaps the final piece of the puzzle into place.

Luke Daniels receives a frantic call from an old friend. Jillian Stein made a mistake, and now her life may be in danger. A shadow team of highly trained operatives are on the hunt in Belgium. Intervening, Luke finds himself embroiled in a war between two determined sides --- one seeking the truth, the other trying to escape the past. Thomas Rowland is a Washington insider but also a man with a past. For him, everything turns with what happened on November 22, 1963. What history has recorded is wrong. There is much more to the story, and Rowland is at the center of that terrible reality. He will do anything to keep the world from learning what actually occurred on that fateful day --- including killing Luke, Jillian and anyone else who might be a threat.

Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’ perfect life --- her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline --- grow deeper. So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend” --- one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her 20s, her 30s and midlife --- she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend. But the weekend doesn’t turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.

On a cold January morning, Jack Morgan stands inside the New York Stock Exchange with his former US Marine comrade whose company is being launched onto the market, eagerly awaiting the opening bell. But before the bell rings, a bullet rips through the air and finds its mark. In the aftermath of the murder, the victim's wife hires Jack to find the killer. As the head of Private, Jack has at his disposal the world's largest investigation agency. What he discovers shakes him to his core. Jack identifies another murder in Moscow that appears to be linked. So he heads to Russia and begins to uncover a conspiracy that could have global consequences. With powerful forces plotting against him, will Jack Morgan make it out alive?

Early one morning, Lee Gulliver sees a sobbing woman throw herself into the ocean. She hauls the woman back to the surface, but instead of appreciation, she is met with fury. Hazel tells her that she wanted to die, that she’s trapped in a toxic, abusive marriage, that she’s a prisoner in her own home. Out of options, Hazel retreats to her gilded cage, and Lee thinks she’s seen the last of her --- until her unexpected return the next morning. Bonded by disparate but difficult circumstances, the women soon strike up a close and unlikely friendship. And then one day, Hazel makes a shocking request: she wants Lee to help her disappear. It’ll be easy, Hazel assures her, but Lee soon learns that nothing is as it seems and Hazel may not be the friend Lee thought she was.

Sam’s life is on track. She has the perfect doctor fiancé, Jack, a great job in Manhattan, and is about to tour a wedding venue near her family’s Long Island beach house. Yet the minute she arrives, Sam senses something is off. Wyatt is here. Her Wyatt. But there’s no reason for a 30-year-old engaged woman to feel panicked around the guy who broke her heart when she was 17. Right? Yet being back at this beach, hearing notes from Wyatt’s guitar float across the night air from next door as if no time has passed --- Sam’s memories come flooding back: the feel of Wyatt’s skin on hers, their nights in the treehouse, and the truth behind their split. Sam remembers who she used to be, and as Wyatt reenters her life their connection is as undeniable as it always was. She will have to make a choice.

Even before she is born, Selam Asmelash has a wry, bewitching omniscience that animates life in her Small Town in southwestern Ethiopia in the 1980s. Selam and her father listen to the radio in secret as the socialist military junta that recently overthrew the government seizes properties and wages civil war in the North. The Asmelashes, once an enterprising, land-owning family, are ostracized under the new regime. In the Small Town where they live, nosy women convene around coffee ceremonies multiple times a day. As Selam’s mother grows ill, she embraces a persecuted, Pentecostal God and insists her family convert alongside her. The Asmelashes stand solidly in opposition to the times, and Selam grows up seeking revenge on despotic comrades, neighborhood bullies and a ruthless God.

It’s the 1960s, and the air is electric. On the cusp of adulthood, two biracial siblings --- one strong-willed and strait-laced, the other free-spirited and self-destructive --- search for their place in a newly independent Morocco. But soon they find the ideals of their youth colliding with the realities of racism and corruption, as Moroccans once united against their colonizer make a grab for wealth and influence, and the national spirit of communal celebration gives way to elites telling everyone else to “watch us dance.”

On Harlow Street, the well-to-do neighborhood couples and their children gather for a catered barbecue as the summer winds down. Drinks continue late into the night. Everything is fabulous until the picture-perfect hostess explodes in fury because her son disobeys her. Everyone at the party hears her exquisite veneer crack --- loud and clear. Before long, that same young boy falls from his bedside window in the middle of the night. And then, his mother can only sit by his hospital bed, where she refuses to speak to anyone, and his life hangs in the balance. What happens next, over the course of a tense three days, as each of these women grapple with what led to that terrible night?