Adult

At a Texas county fair, children’s book author Elle Portman is enjoying a rare night out with her two-year-old son, Charlie. Just as they’re about to head home, a shooter opens fire into the crowd. Also caught in the melee is corporate consultant Calder Hudson. He’s frustrated and confused when he wakes up in the hospital after undergoing emergency surgery on his arm. The doctor tells him that he was lucky, but others weren’t, which instills in Calder a furious determination to get justice…a goal shared by Elle. Their chance encounter at the police station leads to a surprising and inexplicable gravitation to one another. But Elle and Calder can’t help but wonder if the unimaginable tragedy that brought them together is too painful and too complicated to sustain --- especially while the shooter remains at large.

It is 1914, and as the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, women must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who live on a narrow boat in Oxford and work in the bindery at the university press. Peggy has been told for most of her life that her job is to bind the books, not read them. But as she folds and gathers pages, her mind wanders to the opposite side of Walton Street, where the female students of Oxford’s Somerville College have a whole library at their fingertips. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has: to spend her days folding the pages of books in the company of the other bindery girls. Then refugees arrive from the war-torn cities of Belgium, sending ripples through the Oxford community and the sisters’ lives.

One June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. THE SCARLET LETTER was written almost 200 years earlier, but it seems to tell the story of Mia’s mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community --- an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside world is forbidden, and books are considered evil. But how could this be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her? Through a journey of heartbreak, love and time, Mia must abandon the rules she was raised with at the Community. As she does, she realizes that reading can transport you to other worlds or bring them to you, and that readers and writers affect one another in mysterious ways.

Emi Vargas, whose parents helped save the world, is tired of being told how lucky she is to have been born after the climate crisis. But following the public assassination of a dozen climate criminals, Emi’s mother, Kristina, disappears as a possible suspect. A determined Emi and her father, Larch, journey from their home in Nuuk, Greenland, to New York City, now a lightly populated storm-surge outpost built from the ruins of the former metropolis. Thirty years earlier, Larch first came to New York with a team of volunteers to save the city from rising waters and torrential storms. Kristina was fighting massive wildfires that ravaged the western United States. They became part of a movement that changed the world --- The Great Transition --- forging a new society and finding each other in the process.

When a young family moves into an unfinished development community, cracks begin to emerge in both their new residence and their lives, as a mysterious online DIY instructor delivers dark subliminal suggestions about how to handle any problem around the house. The trials of home improvement, destructive insecurities and haunted house horror all collide in this thrilling story perfect for fans of Nick Cutter’s bestsellers THE TROOP and THE DEEP.

London, April 1943. A little over a year since she married Captain Charles Mayhew and he went away to war, Emmy Lake is now in charge of “Yours Cheerfully,” the hugely popular advice column in Woman’s Friend magazine. She is dedicated to helping readers face the increasing challenges brought about by over three years of war. But Emmy’s world is turned upside down when a glamorous socialite, the Honorable Mrs. Cressida Porter, becomes the new publisher of the magazine and wants to change everything the readers love. Mrs. Porter fills the pages with expensive clothes and frivolous articles about her friends. Worst of all, she announces that she is cutting the “Yours Cheerfully” column. With the stakes higher than ever, Emmy and her friends must find a way to save the magazine that they love.

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand --- to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year. The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out --- one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.

Celebrating her 45th birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie is also celebrating her 45th birthday. A few days later, they bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and Alix can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realize that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets. Before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life --- and into her home. But as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix realize that her life and her family’s lives are under mortal threat.

For Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He will retain most of his consciousness, memories and intellect, but his physical body will gradually turn into a great white shark. As Lewis develops the features and impulses of one of the most predatory creatures in the ocean, his complicated artist’s heart struggles to make peace with his unfulfilled dreams. At first, Wren internally resists her husband’s fate. Then a glimpse of Lewis’ developing carnivorous nature activates long-repressed memories for Wren, whose story vacillates between her childhood living on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her time with a college ex-girlfriend, and her unusual friendship with a woman pregnant with twin birds.

When Shane McCrae was three years old, his grandparents kidnapped him and took him to suburban Texas. His mom was white and his dad was Black, and to hide his Blackness from him, his maternal grandparents stole him from his father. In the years that followed, they manipulated and controlled him, refusing to acknowledge his heritage. For their own safety and to ensure the kidnapping remained a success, Shane’s grandparents had to make sure that he never knew the full story, so he was raised to participate in his own disappearance. But despite elaborate fabrications and unreliable memories, Shane begins to reconstruct his own story and forge his own identity. Gradually, the truth unveils itself, and with the truth comes a path to reuniting with his father and finding his own place in the world.