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Adult

by Paterson Joseph - Fiction, Historical Fiction

It’s 1746, and Georgian London is not a safe place for a young Black man. Charles Ignatius Sancho must dodge slave catchers and worse, and his main ally --- a kindly duke who taught him to write --- is dying. Sancho is desperate and utterly alone. So how does the same Charles Ignatius Sancho meet the king, write and play highly acclaimed music, become the first Black person to vote in Britain, and lead the fight to end slavery? Through every moment of this rich, exuberant tale, Sancho forges ahead to see how much he can achieve in one short life: “I had little right to live, born on a slave ship where my parents both died. But I survived, and indeed, you might say I did more.”

by Mark Bowden - Nonfiction, True Crime

Sandtown is one of the deadliest neighborhoods in the world. It earned Baltimore its nickname Bodymore, Murderland, and was made notorious by David Simon’s classic HBO series “The Wire.” Drug deals dominate street corners, and ruthless, casual violence abounds. Montana Barronette was the leader of the gang “Trained to Go” (or TTG), and when he was finally arrested and sentenced to life in prison, he had been nicknamed “Baltimore’s Number One Trigger Puller.” After a string of murders are linked to TTG, three detectives set out to put Tana in prison for life. Now an acclaimed journalist who spent his youth in the white suburbs of Baltimore, Mark Bowden returns to the city with exclusive access to the FBI files and unprecedented insight into one of the city’s deadliest gangs and its notorious leader.

by Anissa Gray - Fiction, Women's Fiction

It’s a warm, bright October afternoon, and Ozro Armstead walks out into the brilliant sunshine on his 37th birthday. At home, his wife Deborah and daughter Trinity prepare a surprise celebration; down the street, his brother waves as Oz heads back to his office after having lunch together. But he won’t make it to the party or even to his briefcase back at his desk. He's about to disappear. In the days, months and years to follow, Deborah and Trinity look backward and forward as they piece together the life of the man they love, but whom they come to realize they might never have truly known.

by Renée Rosen - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

In New York City, you can disappear into the crowd. At least that’s what Gloria Downing desperately hopes as she tries to reinvent herself after a devastating family scandal. She’s ready for a total life makeover and a friend she can lean on --- and into her path walks a young, idealistic woman named Estée. Before she knows it, Gloria is swept up in her new friend’s mission. While Estée rolls up her sleeves, Gloria begins to discover her own talents. After landing a job at Saks Fifth Avenue, Gloria finds her voice, which proves instrumental in opening doors for Estée’s insatiable ambitions. But in a world unaccustomed to women with power, they’ll each have to pay the price that comes with daring to live life on their own terms and refusing to back down.

by Adam Sternbergh - Domestic Thriller, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Daisy and Craig’s marriage is in serious trouble. That’s why Daisy has signed up for the Eden Test, a week-long getaway for couples in need of a fresh start. Yet even as she’s struggling to salvage her marriage, it seems Craig has plans to leave her for another woman. In fact, his bags are already packed --- long before he arrives to meet Daisy in this remote cabin in the woods of upstate New York. At first, their week away is marked by solitude, connection and natural beauty --- and only a few hostile locals. But what Craig doesn’t know is that Daisy, a slyly talented actress, has her own secrets, including a burner phone she’s been using for mysterious texts. Not to mention the Eden Test itself, which poses a searing new question to the couple every day, each more explosive than the last.

by Kim Hays - Fiction, Mystery

Walking his dog along Bern’s Aare river on an icy November night, a surgeon in his 70s is hit in the face and thrown into the river to drown. When his bruised corpse is found, his watch is missing. The more Swiss police detective Giuliana Linder and her assistant, Renzo Donatelli, learn about Johann Karl Gurtner, the more convinced they are that his death was not random. Talking to Gurtner’s family raises as many questions as it answers, but one thing becomes clear: the surgeon’s relationship with his middle son, Markus, was grim. Tracking others who might have had reason to hate Gurtner, Giuliana and Renzo find themselves once again dealing with their attraction to one another and their ambivalence about having an affair.

by Lee Smith - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Herb’s charmed life with his dear wife, Susan, in their Key West house is coming undone. Susan now needs constant care, and Herb is in denial about his own ailing health. The one bright spot is the arrival of an endlessly optimistic manicurist calling herself Renee. But then Herb and Susan’s adult children arrive to stage an intervention with their stubborn, independent father. As a consequence, Renee’s gig with Susan --- and her grand plans for her own life --- start to unravel as well. Herb isn't ready to let go of all that he has ever had, and it turns out that Renee is not the happy, uncomplicated girl she pretends to be. She is not even Renee; she is really Dee Dee, and she, too, has reasons of her own to hit the road. So when Herb suggests one last joy ride in his Porsche with Dee Dee riding shotgun, they take off for parts north, setting off a Silver Alert.

by J. Ryan Stradal - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Mariel Prager’s husband, Ned, is having an identity crisis; her spunky, beloved restaurant is bleeding money by the day; and her mother, Florence, is stubbornly refusing to leave the church where she’s been holed up for more than a week. The Lakeside Supper Club has been in her family for decades, and while Mariel’s grandmother embraced the business, Florence never took to it. When Mariel inherited the restaurant, skipping Florence, it created a rift between mother and daughter that never quite healed. Ned is also an heir --- to a chain of home-style diners --- and knows his family's chain could provide a better future than his wife's fading restaurant. In the aftermath of a devastating tragedy, Ned and Mariel lose almost everything they hold dear, and the hard-won victories of each family hang in the balance.

by Susan Meissner - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

California, 1938. When she loses her parents in an accident, 16-year-old Rosanne is taken in by the owners of the vineyard where she has lived her whole life as the vinedresser’s daughter. She moves into Celine and Truman Calvert’s spacious house with a secret, however: Rosie sees colors when she hears sound. She promised her mother she’d never reveal her little-understood ability to anyone, but the weight of her isolation and grief prove too much for her. Driven by her loneliness, she not only breaks the vow to her mother, but in a desperate moment she lets down her guard and ends up pregnant. Banished by the Calverts, Rosanne believes she is bound for a home for unwed mothers. But she soon finds out she is not going to a home of any kind, but to a place far worse than anything she could have imagined.

by Emily Hourican - Fiction, Historical Fiction

It's the dawn of the 1930s, and the three privileged Guinness sisters settle into becoming wives and mothers. But while Britain becomes increasingly politically polarized, Aileen, Maureen and Oonagh discover conflict within their own marriages. Oonagh's dream of romantic love is countered by her husband's lies; the intense nature of Maureen's marriage means passion, but also rows; and Aileen begins to discover that, for her, being married offers far less than she had expected. Meanwhile, Kathleen, a housemaid from their childhood home in Glenmaroon, travels between the three sisters, helping, listening and watching --- even as her own life brings her into conflict with the clash between fascism and communism.