Adult

Awaiting the return of her husband and young son from a road trip, Obiajulu Ejiofor receives shattering news. There’s been a fatal car crash, and one of them is dead. In WHERE THE CHILDREN TAKE US, Obiajulu’s daughter, Zain E. Asher, tells the story of her mother’s harrowing fight to raise four children as a widowed immigrant in South London. There is tragedy in this tale, but it is not a tragedy. Drawing on tough-love parenting strategies, Obiajulu teaches her sons and daughters to overcome the daily pressures of poverty, crime and prejudice --- and much more. With her relentless support, the children exceed all expectations --- becoming a CNN anchor, an Oscar-nominated actor (Asher’s older brother, Chiwetel Ejiofor, from 12 Years a Slave), a medical doctor and a thriving entrepreneur.

For more than two decades, there have been two golfers who have captivated, bemused, inspired, frustrated, fascinated and entertained us, and in doing so have demanded our attention --- Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Even with all the ink that has been spilled on Tiger, no one has ever written about his relationship with Phil and how their careers have been inextricably intertwined. Furthermore, very little has been written about Phil Mickelson, who is more than just an adversary. He is a fascinating Hall of Fame golfer in his own right. These two biggest names (and draws) in golf have, for better and for worse, been the ultimate rivals. But it is so much more complicated than that.

“Never again” became Queen Elizabeth II’s mantra shortly after Princess Diana’s tragic death. More specifically, there could never be “another Diana” --- a member of the family whose global popularity upstaged, outshone and posed an existential threat to the British monarchy. Picking up where Tina Brown’s THE DIANA CHRONICLES left off, THE PALACE PAPERS reveals how the royal family reinvented itself after the traumatic years when Diana’s blazing celebrity ripped through the House of Windsor like a comet. Brown takes readers on a tour de force journey through the scandals, love affairs, power plays and betrayals that have buffeted the monarchy over the last 25 years.

Set against the tropics and megacities of the Americas, MARIA, MARIA takes inspiration from wild creatures, tarot, and the porous borders between life and death. Motivated by love and its inverse, grief, the characters who inhabit these stories negotiate boldly with nature to cast their desired ends. As the enigmatic community college professor in “Brujería for Beginners” reminds us, “There’s always a price for conjuring in darkness. You won’t always know what it is until payment is due.” This commitment drives the disturbingly faithful widow in “Tijuca,” who promises to bury her husband’s head in the rich dirt of the jungle, and the sisters in “Moksha,” who are tempted by a sleek obsidian dagger once held by a vampiric idol.

Sisters Helen and Lutie have moved to Denver from Iowa after their parents’ deaths. They share a small, neat house and make a modest income from a rental apartment in the basement. When their tenant dies from the Spanish Flu, they are thrust into caring for the woman’s small daughter, Dorothy. Soon after, Lutie comes home from work and discovers a dead man on their kitchen floor and Helen standing above the body. She has no doubt Helen killed the man --- Dorothy’s father --- in self-defense, but she knows that will be hard to prove. Meanwhile, Lutie also worries about her fiancé “over there.” As it happens, his wealthy mother harbors a secret of her own and helps the sisters as the danger deepens.

In New York Times bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Jessi Klein’s second collection, she hilariously explodes the cultural myths and impossible expectations around motherhood and explores the humiliations, poignancies and possibilities of midlife. In interconnected essays like “Listening to Beyoncé in the Parking Lot of Party City,” “Your Husband Will Remarry Five Minutes After You Die,” “Eulogy for My Feet” and “An Open Love Letter to Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent,” Klein explores this stage of life in all its cruel ironies, joyous moments and bittersweetness.

Everyone comes from someplace. Everyone has somewhere they feel safe. Some people have found their home and are content where they are. Others feel trapped and yearn to go somewhere else. Many are somewhere else and yearn to go back. But even in these safest of places, sometimes crime hits home. What happens then? In this volume, Mystery Writers of America brings together some of today’s biggest crime writers --- and some of our most exciting new talents --- to consider this question. Each writer has defined home as they see fit: a place, a group, a feeling. The crime can come from without or within. What happens when crime hits home?

Earl Thomas, a straight-laced taxman with his fair share of police encounters, is the begrudging foreperson in a high-stakes trial in Miami. Laura Hurtado-Perez is a physician whose unassuming manner conceals a private pain. Joseph Cole is the founder of his local neighborhood watch, unduly obsessed with the families around him. Along with four others, these jurors of varying ages and walks of life whose paths likely never would have crossed otherwise must come together to make one of the most important decisions of their lives.

Natural-born healer Emma Starling once had big plans for her life, but she’s lost her way. A medical school dropout, she’s come back to Everton, New Hampshire, to care for her father, who is dying from a mysterious brain disease. Clive Starling has been hallucinating small animals, as well as having visions of the ghost of a long-dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, once known for letting wild animals live in his house. This ghost has been giving Clive some ideas on how to spend his final days. Emma arrives home knowing she must face her dad’s illness, her mom’s judgment and her younger brother’s recent stint in rehab. But she’s unprepared to find that her former best friend from high school is missing, with no one bothering to look for her.

On June 19, 1864, just off the coast of France, one of the most dramatic naval battles in history took place. On a clear day with windswept skies, the dreaded Confederate raider Alabama faced the Union warship Kearsarge in an all-or-nothing fight to the finish, the outcome of which would effectively end the threat of the Confederacy on the high seas. Award-winning and bestselling historians Phil Keith and Tom Clavin introduce some of the crucial but historically overlooked players in the deciding clash. Readers will sail aboard the Kearsarge as Winslow embarks for Europe with a set of simple orders from the Secretary of the Navy: "Travel to the uttermost ends of the earth, if necessary, to find and destroy the Alabama."