Adult

Malcolm Gephardt, the longtime bartender at the Half Moon, has always dreamed of owning a bar. When his boss finally retires, Malcolm stretches to buy the place. He sees unquantifiable magic and potential in the Half Moon and hopes to transform it into a bigger success but struggles to stay afloat. His smart and confident wife, Jess, has devoted herself to her law career. After years of trying for a baby, she is facing the idea that motherhood may not be in the cards for her. Like Malcolm, she feels her youth beginning to slip away and wonders how to reshape her future. THE HALF MOON takes place over the course of one week when Malcolm learns shocking news about Jess, a patron of the bar goes missing, and a blizzard hits the town of Gillam, trapping everyone in place.

In the war-torn London of 1939, 14-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Hazel distracts her young sister with a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own. When Flora suddenly vanishes while playing near the banks of the river, Hazel blames herself, and she carries that guilt into adulthood. Twenty years later, Hazel lives in an elegantly timeworn Bloomsbury flat with her charming boyfriend. But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing an illustrated book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive?

Esme Cahill thinks she has failed spectacularly. Fired from her New York City publishing job, divorced from her husband, and possessing little more than a broken-down car and a pile of unfinished manuscripts, she drives home to Asheville at the request of her late grandmother, Adele. There she discovers that the once-charming lakeside retreat run by her family is sliding toward financial ruin, so with the help of her grandfather, her estranged mother and a traveling chef, they set to work. In the attic, Esme unearths a trove of museum-worthy art quilts, sewn by Adele. Piecing together the inspiration behind them, Esme discovers a forgotten chapter in her family history and her grandmother’s untold story --- that of a gifted artist who never received her due.

For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements. Half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect these books of magic. All magic comes with a price, though, and for years they have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna has isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book that Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they’ll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined.

Sophie Dix fled Stuttgart with her brother as the Nazi regime gained power in Germany. Now, with her brother gone and her adopted home city of Paris conquered by the Reich, Sophie reluctantly accepts a position restoring damaged art at the Jeu de Paume museum under the supervision of the ERR --- a German art commission using the museum as a repository for art they’ve looted from Jewish families. Fabienne Brandt was a rising star in the Parisian bohemian arts movement until the Nazis put a stop to so-called “degenerate” modern art. She has resolved to muddle her way through the occupation until her estranged sister-in-law, Sophie, arrives at her door with a stolen painting in hand. Soon the two women embark upon a plan to save Paris’s “degenerates.”

Someone wants Morgan Shaw dead --- or so the hugely popular evening news anchor of top-rated Chicago TV station WLTV believes. Fearing for her safety, she turns to P.I. Ashe Cayne for protection. Though he sympathizes, Ashe turns her down --- he’s not a bodyguard. But when Morgan’s car tires are slashed and she’s threatened again, he agrees to help her. Meanwhile, Morgan refuses to lose to her crosstown rival in the ratings and will risk everything to stay on top, including an audacious investigation into the suspicious shooting of an unarmed African American man by a white cop. The explosive case and her discoveries boost her ratings --- and create powerful enemies eager to protect their secrets.

Amy Trevino, a high school teacher and occasional theater director, has stayed close to her Rhode Island hometown, while her famous brother, Timothy, pursued and achieved his Hollywood dreams. When Timothy returns to Block Island to direct a summer play, Amy agrees to be the production manager in an effort to mend rifting family relationships. Sam, Amy’s daughter, was a Disney child star who continued her pursuit for fame in a Manhattan TikTok house. Now she also has returned home unexpectedly but refuses to open up to her mother, deciding instead to live with her uncle for the summer. As they work together to ensure the production is a success, Amy, Sam and Timothy are forced to grapple with their desires for recognition and fortune, stand up for what they believe art and fame actually mean, and discover what they really want out of life.

In 1950s Dublin, young history scholar Rosa Jacobs is found dead in her car. Renowned pathologist Dr. Quirke and DI St. John Strafford begin to investigate the death as a murder, but it’s the victim’s older sister Molly, an established journalist, who discovers a lead that could crack open the case. One of Rosa’s friends, it turns out, is from a powerful German family that arrived in Ireland under mysterious circumstances shortly after World War II. But as Quirke and Strafford close in, their personal lives may put the case --- and everyone involved --- in peril, including Quirke’s own daughter.

Bianca Bridge is like an eyeshadow palette. She's a vibrant kaleidoscope of big personality and even bigger dreams, with a tendency towards messiness and fallout. Case in point: losing her job and ruining her reputation by having an affair with a married government official. Her fiercely confident and tyrannical new boss, Obadiah Cortland --- a legend in Trinidad's beauty scene --- is like a statement red lipstick. Dubbed the God of Good Looks, Obadiah has perfected his hotshot façade after years of navigating the island's rigid class barriers. He knows as well as Bianca that the tiniest smudge can ruin your image. When Bianca's ex threatens both their futures, they must find a way to work together to save everything they care about. But as they put their differences aside, will they find they actually bring out the best in each other?

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But while Athena is a literary darling, June is literally nobody. When June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I. So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song --- complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her.