Adult

In a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business, down-on-her-luck single mother Jenny Newberg is on a first-name basis with the debt collector at the bank, who is moving toward foreclosure. She is constantly apologizing to her precocious young daughter, Billie Starr, who is filling a book with her mother’s sorries. Then a pair of strangers in black suits offers her a hefty check to seduce someone known as the Candidate. But nothing ever goes as Jenny plans, and she is swept into the Candidate’s orbit. Surrounded by a wide universe of new ideas, she realizes how constrained her life has been by the expectations of everyone around her, and she starts to see how much more she might be capable of.

The World Series is the most enduring showcase in American team sports. It’s the place where legends are made, where celebration and devastation can hinge on a fly ball off a foul pole or a grounder beneath a first baseman’s glove. In THE GRANDEST STAGE, New York Times national baseball columnist Tyler Kepner delivers an indelible portrait of baseball’s signature event. He digs deep for essential tales dating back to the beginning in 1903, adding insights from Hall of Famers like Reggie Jackson, Mike Schmidt, Jim Palmer, Dennis Eckersley and many others who have thrived --- and failed --- when it mattered most.

Lady Emily and her husband, Colin Hargreaves, have joined his formidable mother on a holiday to visit the exotic treasures of Egypt. Their host, Lord Bertram Deeley, is a renowned amateur British collector of antiquities, who has invited his closest friends on a lavish cruise up the Nile to his home at Luxor. But on the first night of their journey, he suddenly collapses after offering a welcome toast, a victim of the lethal poison cyanide. Who amongst this group of his nearest and dearest would want to kill their generous host? Emily and Colin’s investigation soon reveals that even his closest friends had reasons to want him dead. A key clue may lie with several ancient ushabtis, exquisite 3,000-year-old sculptures that played a role in a hidden story from the time of Ancient Egypt.

Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his pile of debts have forced them to flee Glasgow for a fresh start in the New World. But only days after they've arrived in Salem, Edward abruptly joins a departing ship as a medic --- leaving Isobel penniless and alone in a strange country. When she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two are instantly drawn to each other. As the weeks pass and Edward's safe return grows increasingly unlikely, Nathaniel and Isobel grow closer and closer. Together, they are a muse and a dark storyteller; the enchanter and the enchanted. But which is which?

It is April 1900 on the imaginary island of Mingheria --- a state of the Ottoman Empire --- located between Crete and Cyprus. Half the population is Muslim, the other half are Orthodox Greeks, and tension is high between the two. When a plague arrives, the island revolts. To stop the epidemic, an accomplished quarantine expert races to the island. What follows is a shocking murder. The plague continues its rapid spread and stricter quarantine measures are declared, but the incompetence of the island’s governor, increased hostility between the two religions, and the people’s refusal to respect the bans doom the quarantine to failure. As the death count rises, warships blockade the island to keep the disease from spreading. Now the people of Mingheria are on their own, and they must find a way to defeat the plague themselves.

A precise killer, he always moves under the cover of darkness, flawlessly triggering no alarms, leaving no physical evidence. Alex Cross and John Sampson aren’t the only ones investigating. Also in on this most intriguing case is the world’s bestselling true-crime author, who sees patterns everyone else misses. The writer, Thomas Tull, calls the Family Man murders the perfect crime story. He believes the killer may never be caught. Cross knows there is no perfect crime. And he’s going to hunt down the Family Man no matter what it takes. Until the Family Man decides to flip the narrative and bring down Cross and his family.

One blustery night in 1928, a whale washes up on the shores of the English Channel. By law, it belongs to the King, but 12-year-old orphan Cristabel Seagrave has other plans. She and the rest of the household --- her sister, Flossie; her brother, Digby, long-awaited heir to Chilcombe manor; Maudie Kitcat, the kitchen maid; and Taras, a visiting artist --- build a theatre from the beast’s skeletal rib cage. Within the Whalebone Theatre, Cristabel can escape her feckless stepparents and brisk governesses. As Cristabel grows into a headstrong young woman, World War II rears its head. She and Digby become British secret agents on separate missions in Nazi-occupied France --- a more dangerous kind of playacting that threatens to tear the family apart.

Thomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” John Adams thought his cousin was “the most sagacious politician” of all. With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history. Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Stacy Schiff returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd, eloquent and intensely disciplined man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution.

Chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta is the reluctant star witness in a sensational murder trial when she receives shocking news. The judge’s sister has been found dead. At first glance, it appears to be a home invasion. But then why was nothing stolen, and why is the garden strewn with dead plants and insects? Although there is no apparent cause of death, Scarpetta recognizes telltale signs of the unthinkable, and she knows the worst is yet to come. The forensic pathologist finds herself pitted against a powerful force that returns her to the past, and her time to catch the killer is running out.

John Rebus stands accused: on trial for a crime that could put him behind bars for the rest of his life. But what drove a good man to cross the line? Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke may well find out. Clarke is tasked with the city’s most explosive case in years: an infamous cop, at the center of decades of misconduct, has gone missing. Finding him will expose not only her superiors, but her mentor, John Rebus. And Rebus himself may not have her own interests at heart, as the repayment of a past debt places him in the crosshairs of both crime lords and his police brethren.