Adult

Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, will grow to have a feisty and somewhat uncompromising character in adult life. But she is always a one-off, from her infancy. Young Elphie is shaped and molded by the behaviors of her promiscuous mother, Melena, and her pious father, Frex. She suffers ordinary childhood jealousies when her sister, saintly Nessarose, and her brother, junior felon Shell, arrive. She first encounters the mistreatment of the Animal populations of Oz, which live adjacent to but not intertwined with human settlements, haunted by a Monkey and receiving aid from Dwarf Bears. She thrashes through her first bruising attempts at friendship, a possible lifeline from her tricky family life. And she gleans the benefits of an education --- until she arrives at the doors of Shiz University, about to meet the radiant creature that is Galinda.

Thirty years old with a lifetime of dysphoria and irritating exes rattling around in her head, Max is plagued by a deep dissatisfaction. Shouldn't these be the best years of her life? Why doesn't it feel that way? After taking a spill down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party, she decides to make some changes. First: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity. Max thinks she’s found the answer in Vincent. While his corporate colleagues, trad friends and Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman, he cares for Max in a way she’d always dismissed as a foolish fantasy. But he is also carrying baggage of his own. When the fallout of a decades-old entanglement resurfaces, Max must decide what forgiveness really means.

When Abby steps foot on Isla Colel, she isn’t sure what she’ll find. She only knows that she needs to see the place where her fiancée, Eszter, died to try and make sense of the tragic accident. Though the island was once a bustling tourist hub, a hurricane has left it a shell of its former self, with only a handful of residents remaining. Even the once-daily ferry to the mainland now runs every week or so. There, Abby befriends an alluring group of expats, but her sense of unease surges when one of them says he knows the truth about Eszter’s final days. Before he can tell her more, though, he vanishes from the island. As her quest for the truth unearths dark secrets, shady pasts and a web of lies, Abby grows more determined than ever to find out what happened to the love of her life.

Sandy thought she was making her greatest mistake yet when she got unexpectedly pregnant in her mid-30s by a dating-app flop. Now, her baby Rosie is the love of her life. But trying to co-parent with her daughter’s dad, a wannabe rock star, is a challenge --- and seems to be veering into catastrophe territory when Sandy finds out through social media that her daughter has a half-sibling Sandy doesn’t know anything about. Enter her ex’s ex, Stephanie, the other mother. When the two women meet, they are shocked to learn how much they have in common. Now Sandy needs to figure out what her and Rosie’s family looks like with all these new additions. Could life in a “mommune” be the answer to her prayers, or just a new brand of chaos?

In San Francisco in 1866, an Irish nun, abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman. At the age of 17, she begins to publish pulp fiction using a man’s pen name. When these fictional worlds can no longer satisfy her sense of adventure, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at The Daily Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan. As Emilia proves herself, her restlessness returns, until an opportunity arises to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. While there, she meets her estranged father and delves into the violent confrontation in the country where her roots lie.

In these 12 new stories, Richard Bausch explores the passions of men and women facing unexpected circumstances and the complications of modern life and love. In “Donnaiolo,” the parents of a young divorcée who has returned from Italy and a failed marriage must deal with the completely different, and unappealing, person she has become. In “Broken House,” an elderly Catholic man recalls his part in the destruction of an old farmhouse by altar boys who believed a monk had given them permission to destroy it --- while also portraying his lifelong fascination with one of the boys, a gifted artist who has carried a secret for decades about the church they both wanted to serve as priests. And in “The Widow’s Tale,” a woman whose recently killed husband repeatedly visits her younger sister in dreams attends a séance.

Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s rise from humble beginnings coincided with young Henry VIII’s ascension to the throne in 1509, and they grew to be cherished friends. By 1515, Wolsey --- now a cardinal --- had become the controlling figure in all matters of church and state. Wolsey operated on an international stage and worked hard to broker universal peace. All was going dazzlingly well until Henry fell in love with Anne Boleyn and sought to end his marriage to his first wife, Katherine of Aragon. Swept up in the maelstrom of “the Divorce,” Wolsey, who successfully had given his master everything he wanted, found himself in an impossible situation. As he drew the ire of the future queen, the cardinal found his privileged life and his relationship with Henry crumbling around him.

In 2016, 34-year-old Mari Starwood travels to Martha’s Vineyard with nothing but a name on a piece of paper: Elizabeth Deveraux. Mari isn’t sure what to expect when she finally makes it to the reclusive artist’s stunning waterfront property, but she is shocked to find out that her relationship to the island runs deeper than she ever thought possible. In 1942, the Smith sisters are faced with the impossible task of holding their family farm together during WWII as the U.S. Army arrives on Martha’s Vineyard and their brother ships out to fight on the frontlines. In an attempt at normalcy, the girls start a book club that soon grows in both number and influence. But their lives are upended when a mysterious man washes up on the shore, and they find themselves questioning who they can truly trust in these turbulent times.

The secret of her divine heritage revealed, Freya finds herself on a path that will see thousands of lives lost to the magic in her blood. Desperate to avoid this dark fate, she risks an alliance with Skaland’s greatest enemy to seek answers from the seer who foretold her future --- the same seer who sent Bjorn to kill her. The blood oaths that bind Freya demand that she keep him close as she hunts for a way to avert the looming war. Her magic draws her to the front lines of an old enmity, embroiling her with Nordeland’s Unfated --- children of the gods who serve the king she was raised to fear. The same king who is now willing to fight at her back. Despite the desire that burns hot between Bjorn and Freya, his growing distrust of her chosen path threatens to drag them further apart.

The third of four children born to a middle-class Calcutta family, quiet Durga is surprisingly the first to leave the nest of her loving, overbearing family. But when she arrives in Ireland to work at a tech company, she finds that for the first time ever she is free --- to have fun, to stay out, to sample everything that life has to offer. Suddenly, Durga can be whoever she wants to be. And she wants it all. But freedom comes at a price. Durga falls in love with handsome, charismatic Jacob and grows close with his sister, Joy. But when Jacob breaks up with Durga, she’s unmoored. Will she stay in Ireland with her newfound identity and livelihood, or will she return to India, where she is comfortable? Perhaps neither option is enough.