Adult

Detective Dan Shields is rudely awakened in the middle of the night and responds to a report of two dead people at the Hartford City College radio station. Student DJ Gordon Gunderson's late Sunday evening jazz show ends abruptly. Listeners hear nothing but dead air. His death is an apparent drug overdose, but the other victim, security guard Christine Kole, appears to have been brutally murdered. The last text message on Gordon's cell phone leads Dan down a path of lies and deceptions. Adding to the detective's case load are the Halloween killings of two men, both costumed as Batman. The late-night shootings occur at different Hartford locations. Are these homicides related, or are they coincidental?

The weight of their family secrets could not have shaped Pearl and Ruby Crenshaw any differently. Ruby is a runner, living in Dallas and only reluctantly talking to their mother, Birdie, when she calls from prison. Pearl is still living in her mother's fixer-upper and finds herself facing a line in the sand: her weight is threatening to kill her. She's hundreds of pounds beyond the point where she can celebrate her curves or benefit from the body positivity movement, and unless she takes drastic action, the future looks dire. But when Ruby's buried rage explodes in a hilariously viral way, the mistake has life-altering consequences. Now the sisters are back living under the same roof and forced to put the pieces of their separate lives together again.

From the New York Times bestselling author of THE LOVE HYPOTHESIS comes a collection of steamy, STEMinist novellas featuring a trio of engineers and their loves in loathing --- with a special bonus chapter! An environmental engineer discovers that scientists should never cohabitate when she finds herself stuck with the roommate from hell --- a detestable big-oil lawyer who won’t leave the thermostat alone. A civil engineer and her nemesis take their rivalry --- and love --- to the next level when they get stuck in a New York elevator. A NASA aerospace engineer's frozen heart melts as she lies injured and stranded at a remote Arctic research station, and the only person willing to undertake the dangerous rescue mission is her longtime rival.

When Louise finds out that her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world. Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale. But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them.

Nineve Blackmoore, a powerful witch, goes on a date with Morty Gutierrez, the nonbinary co-owner of the Shamrock Cauldron. It’s awkward and terrible. To make matters worse, once Morty discovers Nina’s last name, he’s far from a fan. It turns out that the Blackmoores have been bullishly trying to buy the Shamrock out from under Morty and his family. But when Morty begins developing magical powers at the same time that Nina’s own magic surges beyond her control, Nina must manage Morty’s rude awakening to the hidden magical world, uncover its cause, and face the intensity of their own burgeoning connection. But what happens when that connection is tied to Nina’s power surge, a power she’s finding nearly as addictive as Morty’s presence in her life?

Maggie Mackay has been haunted her entire life. No matter what she does, she can’t shake the sense that something is wrong with her. And maybe something is. When she was five years old, Maggie announced that a man on the remote island of Kilmeray in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides --- a place she’d never visited --- was murdered. Her unfounded claim drew media attention and turned the locals against each other, creating rifts that never mended. Now, nearly 20 years later, Maggie is determined to discover what really happened and what the villagers are hiding. But everyone has secrets, and some are deadly. As she gets closer to the horrifying truth, the island’s legendary and violent storms begin to rage again, and Maggie’s own life is in danger.

Jessica Fletcher is quick to accept an invitation to replace a speaker who couldn’t attend a book festival in Belfast, Ireland. When her Cabot Cove neighbor, Maeve O'Bannon, hears about the trip, she asks Jessica to deliver some paintings to her family in the village of Bushmills. Happy to extend her travels and see more of the Irish countryside, Jessica agrees. The festival goes off without a hitch, and it seems like Jessica is in for a relaxing vacation. But then Maeve’s cousin, Michael, is discovered dead under suspicious circumstances. Jessica finds herself once again in the midst of a murder investigation, and she’ll have to dig into the O'Bannon family’s secrets to unmask the killer.

Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank. Seven years later, Maya’s past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. She heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer --- the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey. At her mother’s house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father’s book that didn’t stand out to her earlier. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born.

New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the curb, and in the blink of an eye five people are dead. It’s a rich man’s car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all --- just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold. Deftly shifting through time and perspective in contemporary India, AGE OF VICE is an epic, action-packed story propelled by the seductive wealth, startling corruption and bloodthirsty violence of the Wadia family --- loved by some, loathed by others, feared by all. In the shadow of lavish estates, extravagant parties, predatory business deals and calculated political influence, three lives become dangerously intertwined.

A young widow adheres to the expectations of wearing mourning clothes for nearly a year, though she's unsure what the traditions mean or whether she is ready to meet the world without their protection. An older sister returns home from a confusing time in America, only to explain at every turn why she’s left the land of opportunity. A younger sister hides her sexual exploits from her family, while her older brother openly flaunts his infidelity. The stories collected in CALL AND RESPONSE are strongly anchored in place --- in the village of Serowe, where the author is from, and in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana --- charting the emotional journeys of women seeking love and opportunity beyond the barriers of custom and circumstance.