Adult

When WWII ended, the allies discovered that a huge amount of gold bullion plundered by Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering had gone missing. Some believed the gold had been hidden in a train box car in Poland. Others that it was secreted in Lake Toplitz in the Austrian Alps. And a few thought it was buried in the Republic of Ireland, which was neutral during the war. When ex-IRA soldier Ructions O'Hare stumbles on a piece of Nazi memorabilia once owned by Goering, he begins to think that those who suspect the gold was in Ireland just might be on to something. But for Ructions to return to Ireland is easier said than done.

Under cover of darkness, two very different men --- Calvert, an ex-soldier traumatized by his experience in the Falklands War, and his affable friend, Redbone --- traverse the fields of rural England in secret, forming crop circles in elaborate and mysterious patterns. As the summer wears on, and their designs grow ever more ambitious, they find that their work has become a cult international sensation --- and that an unlikely and beautiful friendship has taken root as the wheat ripens from green to gold. But as harvest-time beckons --- and as media and the authorities begin to take too much interest in their work --- Calvert and Redbone have to race against time to finish the most stunning and original crop circle ever conceived: the Honeycomb Double Helix.

As Melissa Bond raises her infant daughter and a special-needs one-year-old son, she suffers from unbearable insomnia. She loses her job as a journalist (a casualty of the 2008 recession), and her relationship with her husband grows distant. Her doctor casually prescribes benzodiazepines --- a family of drugs that includes Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan --- and increases her dosage on a regular basis. Following her doctor’s orders, Melissa takes the pills night after night; her body begins to shut down, and she collapses while holding her infant daughter. Only then does Melissa learn that her doctor --- like many doctors --- has over-prescribed the medication, and quitting cold turkey could lead to psychosis or fatal seizures.

What if you knew exactly when you’d meet the love of your life? Edie Meyer knows. When her Grandma Gloria was a young woman, she had a vision of the exact day she would meet her soul mate --- and then Grandpa Ray showed up. Since then, Gloria has accurately predicted the day every single member of the family has met their match. Edie’s day arrives on June 24, 2022, when she’s 29 years old. That morning, she boards an airplane to her twin sister’s surprise engagement, and when a handsome musician sits beside her, she knows it’s meant to be. But fate comes with more complications than Edie expected, and she can’t fight the nagging suspicion that her perfect guy doesn’t have perfect timing.

It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee and head out. But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise? As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?

Three years after her mother’s death, Ruth Galloway is finally sorting through her things when she finds a curious relic: a decades-old photograph of her own Norfolk cottage --- before she lived there --- with a peculiar inscription on the back. Ruth returns to the cot­tage to uncover its meaning as Norfolk’s first cases of COVID-19 make headlines, leaving her and Kate to shelter in place there and befriend a kind neighbor, Zoe. Meanwhile, Nelson is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links a case to an archaeological dis­covery, he breaks curfew to visit Ruth and enlist her help. But the further Nelson investigates the deaths, the closer he gets to Ruth’s isolated cottage --- until Ruth, Zoe and Kate all go missing, and Nelson is left scrambling to find them before it’s too late.

After losing her husband, Derrick, in what appears to have been a random street crime, thirtysomething Emma has built a new life with widower Tom, who is kind, handsome, driven and successful. Emma is finally able to feel safe again, both in her relationship with Tom and in the home they've made together on the Connecticut shore. Then one day a homicide detective shows up at Emma and Tom’s door asking questions. Though Emma had been cleared of her husband’s murder, it appears that law enforcement is taking another look at her and the case. What do they know? Are they on the right track this time? And most importantly, will the renewed investigation ruin Emma’s chances of a happy life?

We all live like we’re famous now, curating our social media presences, performing our identities, withholding those parts of ourselves we don’t want others to see. In Jess Walter’s collection of stories, a teenage girl tries to live up to the image of her beautiful, missing mother. An elderly couple confronts the fiction writer eavesdropping on their conversation. A son must repeatedly come out to his senile father while looking for a place to care for the old man. A famous actor in recovery has a one-night stand with the world's most surprising film critic. And in the romantic title story, a shy 21-year-old studying Latin in Rome during “the year of my reinvention” finds himself face-to-face with the Italian actress of his adolescent dreams.

Berlin, Germany, 1930. When the Nazis rise to power, Sofie von Meyer Rhodes and her academic husband benefit from the military ambitions of Germany’s newly elected chancellor when Jürgen is offered a high-level position in their burgeoning rocket program. Although they fiercely oppose Hitler’s radical views, it soon becomes clear that if Jürgen does not accept the job, they will lose their lives. Huntsville, Alabama, 1950. Twenty years later, Jürgen is one of many German scientists pardoned and granted a position in America’s space program. But when rumors about the Rhodes family’s affiliation with the Nazi party spread among her new American neighbors, idle gossip turns to bitter rage, and the act of violence that results tears apart a family.

What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known that the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured commonplace book. In the waning days of World War II, Eleanor's daughter, Alice, is unexpectedly presented with her birthright: the deed to Evertell, her abandoned family home. Determined to sell the property and step into a future free of the past, Alice returns to Savannah with her 13-year-old daughter, Penn. But when Penn’s curiosity over the lineage she never knew begins to unveil secrets, and Eleanor’s book is finally found, Alice is forced to reckon with the sacrifices made for love and the realities of their true inheritance as daughters of Eleanor Dare.