Adult

As the holiday season lights up Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market, Pepper Reece’s beloved Spice Shop is brimming with cinnamon, nutmeg and shoppers eager to stuff their stockings. Add to the mix a tasty staff competition --- a peppermint bark-off --- along with Victorian costumes for this year’s Dickensian Christmas theme, and Pepper almost forgets to be nervous about meeting her fisherman boyfriend’s brother for the first time. But when a young woman working in her friend Vinny’s wine shop is brutally assaulted, costumed revelers and holiday cheer are the last things on Pepper’s mind. Who would want to hurt Beth? Or were they looking for Vinny instead?

In 1930s London, celebrity psychiatrist Anselm Rees is discovered dead in his locked study. There are no clues, no witnesses and no evidence of the murder weapon. The Scotland Yard detective on the case calls on retired stage magician-turned-part-time sleuth Joseph Spector, who has a knack for explaining the inexplicable, but even he finds that there is more to this mystery than meets the eye. When the investigation dovetails into that of an apparently impossible theft, the detectives consider the possibility that the two transgressions are related. And when a second murder occurs, this time in an impenetrable elevator, they realize that the crime wave will become even more deadly unless they can catch the culprit soon.

Down a narrow alley in the small coastal town of Mallow Island, South Carolina, lies a stunning cobblestone building comprised of five apartments. It’s called The Dellawisp, and it is named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy. When Zoey Hennessey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at The Dellawisp, she meets her quirky, enigmatic neighbors. Each with their own story. Each with their own longings. Each whose ending isn’t yet written. When one of them dies under odd circumstances the night Zoey arrives, she is thrust into the mystery of The Dellawisp, which involves missing pages from a legendary writer whose work might be hidden there.

As a psychologist specializing in domestic abuse, Naomi has found it hard to avoid becoming overly invested in her clients’ lives. But after helping Jacob make the decision to leave his wife, Naomi worries that she’s taken things too far. Then Jacob goes missing, and her files on him vanish. But as the police start asking questions about Jacob, Naomi’s own dark past emerges. And as the truth comes to light, it seems that it’s not just her clients who are in danger.

When John Frankel’s ex-wife is discovered dead on the floor of his Manhattan studio apartment, the NYPD detective instantly becomes the prime suspect in her murder. Then more information surfaces, linking his gun to the fatal bullet, a motive is discovered and Frankel flees the city, all of which further convinces his colleagues of his guilt. In spite of the mounting evidence, Frankel’s bride-to-be, Rachel Grant, and her father, Austin Grant, formerly of Scotland Yard, are certain of his innocence. But with the police under orders to use whatever force necessary to stop what they view as a dangerous criminal, the duo will have to act fast before the manhunt goes violently wrong.

Tom Thorne finally has it all. In Nicola Tanner and Phil Hendricks, Thorne has good friends by his side. His love life is newly reformed by a promising relationship, and he is happy in the job to which he has devoted his life. As he sets off hunting the woman responsible for a series of grisly murders, Thorne has no way of knowing that he will be plunged into a nightmare from which he may never wake. A nightmare that has a name. Thorne’s past threatens to catch up with him, and a ruinous secret is about to be revealed. If he wants to save himself and his friends, he will have to do the unthinkable. Tom Thorne finally has a lot to lose.

In 1990, three boys are born, unrelated but intertwined by circumstance: Dayo, Iseul and Youssef. They are adopted as infants and share a bedroom perched atop a mosque in one of Staten Island’s most diverse and underserved neighborhoods. The three boys are an inseparable trio, but conspicuous: Dayo is of Nigerian origin, Iseul is Korean, and Youssef is indeterminately Middle Eastern. Youssef shares everything with his brothers, except for one secret: he sees a hallucinatory double, an imaginary friend who seems absolutely real, a shapeshifting familiar he calls Brother. Brother persists as a companion into Youssef’s adult life, supporting him but also stealing his memories and shaking his grip on the world.

As a girl, Joanna Chase thrived on Rustling Willows Ranch in Montana until tragedy upended her life. Now 34 and living in Santa Fe, she begins to receive pleas: I am in a dark place, Jojo. Please come and help me. Heeding the disturbing appeals, Joanna is compelled to return to Montana, and to a strange childhood companion she had long forgotten. People from all walks of life have converged at the remote Montana ranch. They are haunted, on the run, obsessed and seeking answers to the same omniscient danger Joanna came to confront. All the while, on the outskirts of Rustling Willows, a madman lurks with a vision to save the future. Mass murder is the only way to see his frightening manifesto come to pass.

TV writer Yara Gibson is back in her hometown of Palmdale, California, to host her parents’ 20th anniversary party. Everything is going according to plan until she receives a disturbing text: I have information that will change your life. The message is from Felicia Campbell, who claims to be a childhood friend of Yara’s mother and insists on talking to Yara “before it’s too late.” But the next day is already too late for Felicia, whose body is found floating in Lake Palmdale. Before she died, Felicia left Yara a key to a remote lakeside cabin. In the basement are files related to a mysterious tragedy, unsolved since 1998. What secrets was Felicia hiding? How much of what Yara knows about her family has been true?

Chicago detective Annalisa Vega shattered her life, personally and professionally, when she turned in her ex-cop father for his role in a murder. Her family can’t forgive her. Her fellow officers no longer trust her. So when detective Leo Hammond turns up dead in a bizarre murder, Annalisa thinks she has nothing to lose by investigating whatever secrets he hid behind the thin blue line. Annalisa quickly zeroes in on someone who had good reason to want Hammond dead: a wealthy, fast-talking car salesman who’d gotten away with murder once and wasn’t about to let Hammond take a second shot. Moe Bocks remains the number one suspect in his girlfriend’s brutal unsolved death, and now he has a new woman in his sights --- Annalisa’s best friend.