Adult

In a first-class lounge at JFK airport, our narrator listens as Jeff Cook, a former classmate he only vaguely remembers, shares the uncanny story of his adult life --- a life that changed course years before, the moment he resuscitated a drowning man. Jeff reveals that after that traumatic, galvanizing morning on the beach, he was compelled to learn more about the man whose life he had saved. Upon discovering that the man is renowned art dealer Francis Arsenault, Jeff begins to surreptitiously visit his Beverly Hills gallery. Although Francis does not seem to recognize him as the man who saved his life, he nevertheless casts his legendary eye on Jeff and sees something worthy. Their paths come together and diverge in dizzying ways until the novel’s staggering ending.

When Ginger Zee opened her life to readers in NATURAL DISASTER, the response was enormous. She put a very relatable if surprising face on depression and has helped lessen the stigma surrounding mental health issues. But Ginger tells us, the book was "Ginger Lite" and only scratched the surface. In this moving follow-up, Ginger shares her truest self. She spent most of her life shielding her vulnerabilities from the world all while being a professional people pleaser. Her stormy childhood, her ongoing struggles with crippling depression, her suicide attempts and many other life experiences will resonate with readers who are likely to see themselves along the way.

When Chloe Davis was 12, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, her own father had confessed to the crimes and was put away for life, leaving Chloe and the rest of her family to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath. Now, 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. While she finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to achieve, she sometimes feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. So when a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, that terrifying summer comes crashing back.

Growing up on the moon, Xingyin is accustomed to solitude, unaware that she is being hidden from the powerful Celestial Emperor who exiled her mother for stealing his elixir of immortality. But when Xingyin’s magic flares and her existence is discovered, she is forced to flee her home, leaving her mother behind. Alone, untrained and afraid, she makes her way to the Celestial Kingdom, a land of wonder and secrets. Disguising her identity, she seizes an opportunity to learn alongside the Crown Prince, mastering archery and magic, even as passion flames between her and the emperor’s son. To save her mother, Xingyin embarks on a perilous quest, confronting legendary creatures and vicious enemies across the earth and skies.

In 1960, Carl Bernstein was just a 16-year-old at considerable risk of failing to graduate high school. Inquisitive, self-taught --- and, yes, truant --- Bernstein landed a job as a copyboy at the Evening Star, the afternoon paper in Washington. By 19, he was a reporter there. In CHASING HISTORY: A Kid in the Newsroom, Bernstein recalls the origins of his storied journalistic career as he chronicles the Kennedy era, the swelling civil rights movement, and a slew of grisly crimes. He spins a buoyant, frenetic account of educating himself in what Bob Woodward describes as “the genius of perpetual engagement.”

Tinged with melancholy but rooted in resiliency, the exquisite stories in Bernard MacLaverty’s BLANK PAGES display the perseverance of the human spirit. In “A Love Picture,” a middle-aged woman, already no stranger to loss, consults a World War II newsreel to determine the fate of her son. “Blackthorns” tells of a poor, out-of-work Catholic man who falls gravely ill in the sectarian Northern Ireland of 1942 but is brought back from the brink by an unlikely savior. The harrowing but transcendent “The End of Days” imagines life in another pandemic as artist Egon Schiele and his wife, both stricken with the Spanish flu, spend their final days together. And in the poignant title story, an elderly writer takes stock of what remains after losing his life partner.

Plum Lockhart went out on a limb when she ditched her corporate job in New York City and moved to the Caribbean island of Paraiso. Now the head of her own villa broker agency, Plum spends her days chasing down clients and lounging on white sand beaches. But the sweet life turns sour when a publishing heiress is found dead at the mansion of an eccentric tycoon, Dieter Friedrich. Even worse, Plum's old colleague cashes in a favor and asks her to investigate. Friedrich is known for his shady dealings, but he's not the only bad apple on the island. Plum will have to contend with a scheming millionaire, a sleazy rock star and devious B-list celebrities. And joining Plum once again is Juan Kevin Munoz, the distractingly gorgeous Director of Security.

For Rae Lynn Cobb, a young woman disguised as a man, the Swallow Hill turpentine camp offers distance and anonymity from those who would wrongly imprison her for killing her husband. For charming bachelor Del Reese, it’s a place where backbreaking work might drown out memories of a recent trauma. The squalid camp is ruled by a sadistic boss named Crow and the greedy commissary owner Otis Riddle, a man who takes out his frustrations on his browbeaten wife, Cornelia. As Rae Lynn forges a deeper friendship with both Del and Cornelia, she begins to envision a path out of the camp. But she will have to come to terms with her past before she can open herself to a new life and seize the chance to begin again.

England, 1364: When married off at the age of 12 to an elderly farmer, brazen redheaded Eleanor quickly realizes it won’t matter what she says or does. She was born under the joint signs of Venus and Mars, making her both a lover and a fighter. Aided by a head for business (and a surprisingly kind husband), Eleanor manages to turn her first marriage into success, and she rises through society from a cast-off farm girl to a woman of fortune who becomes a trusted friend of the social-climbing poet Geoffrey Chaucer. But more marriages follow, several pilgrimages, numerous lovers, murder, mayhem and many turns of fortune’s wheel as Eleanor pursues the one thing that all women want: control of their own lives.

Ema and Paul are lovers. Like so many others before them, they met through work. Both are married with children, and they arrange hurried meetings away from prying eyes --- Paul’s car, a corner of Ema’s house, a hotel room. But their relationship soon suffers from this too-restricted sphere, and Ema decides to put them both in danger, at the risk of losing everything.