Adult

When a remote camera on a large, rugged expanse held by the Land Trust for Wildlife Conservation picks up a blurry image of what could be a mountain caribou, they contact Alex Carter to investigate. After all, mountain caribou went extinct in the contiguous U.S. years ago, and if one has wandered down from Canada, it’s monumental. But when Alex arrives on scene in the Selkirk mountains of northeastern Washington state, she quickly learns that her only challenge isn’t finding an elusive caribou on a massive piece of land. The murdered body of a forest ranger is found strung up in the town’s park, and Alex learns of a backcountry hiker who went missing in the same area the year before.

After winning her mother’s freedom from the Celestial Emperor, Xingyin thrives in the enchanting tranquility of her home. But her fragile peace is threatened by the discovery of a strange magic on the moon and the unsettling changes in the Celestial Kingdom as the emperor tightens his grip on power. While Xingyin is determined to keep clear of the rising danger, the discovery of a shocking truth spurs her into a perilous confrontation. Forced to flee her home once more, Xingyin and her companions venture to unexplored lands of the Immortal Realm, encountering legendary creatures and shrewd monarchs, beloved friends and bitter adversaries.

Despite losing her parents in a tragic accident just before her 14th Christmas, Susan Norcross has had it better than most, with loving grandparents to raise her and a gang of quirky, devoted friends to support her. Now a successful bookstore owner in a tight-knit Michigan lakeside community, Susan is facing down 40 --- the same age as her mother when she died --- and can’t help but see everything she hasn’t achieved, including finding a love match of her own. To add to the pressure, everyone in her small town believes it’s Susan’s destiny to meet and marry a man dressed as Santa, just like her mother and grandmother before her. So it seems cosmically unfair that the man she makes an instant connection with at an annual Santa Run is lost in the crowd before she can get his name.

Guided by the Dark Lord Sauron, the Elves of Eregion forge the Rings of Power. Yet in secret, he has begun building the Barad-dûr in Mordor. And here, in the fires of Mount Doom, he makes the One Ring. Seeking to rule Middle-earth, Sauron begins to wage terrible war upon them. On the island-kingdom of Númenor, the Men of the West become mighty, building great ships to increase their influence throughout Middle-earth. But as their power grows, the seed of their downfall is sown. Only by uniting in alliance with the Elves can they hope to overcome Sauron. Adhering to “The Tale of Years” timeline in The Lord of the Rings, Brian Sibley assembles a new chronicle of Middle-earth. It's a tragic tale of pride, envy and downfall told substantially in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien from the various published texts originally edited by Christopher Tolkien, and illustrated with pencil drawings by Alan Lee.

Maria’s one-night-stand --- the thick-thighed, sexy Viking of a man she left without a word or a note --- just reappeared. Apparently, Peter is her surly “Gods of the Gates” co-star, and they’re about to spend the next six years filming on a desolate Irish island together. She still wants him…but he now wants nothing to do with her. Peter knows this role could finally transform him from a forgettable character actor into a leading man. He also knows a failed relationship with Maria could poison the set. Given time, maybe they can be cooperative colleagues or friends, but not lovers again. No matter how much he aches for her. For years, they don’t touch off-camera. But on their last night of filming, their mutual restraint finally shatters, and all their pent-up desire explodes into renewed passion.

After her husband Alan’s decades of financial fraud are exposed, Suzanne’s wealthy, comfortable life shatters. Alan goes to prison. Suzanne files for divorce, decamps to a barely middle-class Massachusetts beach town, and begins to create a new life and identity. Then Alan is released early, and the many people whose lives he ruined demand restitution. But when Suzanne finds herself awestruck at a major whale stranding, she makes an apparently high-minded decision that ripples with devastating effect not only through Alan’s life as he tries to rebuild but also through the lives of Suzanne and Alan’s son, Alan’s new wife, his estranged mother and, ultimately, Suzanne herself. When damage is done, who pays? Who loses? Who is responsible?

An unnamed male narrator has hit the road. Rid of any possible identifiers, his possessions amount to $168,548 in cash stashed in an envelope under his car seat. Vigilantly avoiding security cameras, he drives until he hits a city where his past is unlikely to track him down, and finds a room to rent from a less-than-stable landlady whose need for money outweighs her desire to ask questions. He seems to have escaped his former self. But can he? In a story that moves with swift dark humor and insight, Jonathan Dee takes us through his narrator’s attempt to disavow his former life of privilege and enter a blameless new existence.

Edith and Ashley have been best friends for over 42 years. They’ve shared the mundane and the momentous together: trick or treating and binge drinking; "Gilligan’s Island" reruns and REM concerts; hickeys and heartbreak; surprise Scottish wakes; marriages, infertility and children. But now Edi is dying of ovarian cancer and spending her last days at a hospice near Ash, who stumbles into heartbreak surrounded by her daughters, ex(ish) husband, dear friends, a poorly chosen lover (or two), and a rotating cast of beautifully, fleetingly human hospice characters. As the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack blasts all day long from the room next door, Edi and Ash reminisce, hold on and try to let go. Meanwhile, Ash struggles with being an imperfect friend, wife and parent.

From the archives of the American Film Institute comes a unique picture of what it was like to work in Hollywood from its beginnings to its present day. Gleaned from nearly 3,000 interviews, involving 400 voices from the industry, HOLLYWOOD lets a reader “listen in” on candid remarks from the biggest names in front of the camera (Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Harold Lloyd) to the biggest behind it (Frank Capra, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Jordan Peele), as well as the lesser known individuals who shaped what was heard and seen on screen. The result is like a conversation among the gods and goddesses of film: lively, funny, insightful, historically accurate and, for the first time, authentically honest in its portrait of Hollywood. It’s the insider’s story.

Sixteen-year-old Frankie Budge is determined to make it through yet another summer in Coalfield, Tennessee, when she meets Zeke, a talented artist who has just moved into his grandmother’s house. Romantic and creative sparks begin to fly, and when the two jointly make an unsigned poster, it becomes unforgettable to anyone who sees it. The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us. When the posters begin appearing everywhere, people wonder who is behind them and start to panic. Twenty years later, Frances Eleanor Budge gets a call that threatens to upend her carefully built life: a journalist named Mazzy Brower is writing a story about the Coalfield Panic of 1996. Might Frances know something about that?