Adult

When her grandfather dies, Emily Dawson --- the poor cousin in a prosperous English merchant clan --- receives an unexpected inheritance: Peverills, a sugar plantation in Barbados that her grandfather never told anyone he owned. When Emily accompanies her cousin and his new wife to Barbados, she finds Peverills a burnt-out shell, reduced to ruins in 1816, when a rising of enslaved people sent the island up in flames. Why would her practical-minded grandfather leave her a property in ruins? Why are the neighboring plantation owners, the Davenants, so eager to acquire Peverills? The answer lies in the past --- a tangled history of lies, greed, clandestine love, heartbreaking betrayal and a bold bid for freedom.

While undergoing a routine medical procedure, multibillionaire Richard “Dodge” Forthrast is pronounced brain dead and put on life support. Long ago, when a much younger Dodge drew up his will, he directed that his body be given to a cryonics company now owned by enigmatic tech entrepreneur Elmo Shepherd. Dodge’s family has his brain scanned and its data structures uploaded and stored in the cloud, until it can eventually be revived. In the coming years, technology allows Dodge’s brain to be turned back on. An eternal afterlife --- the Bitworld --- is created, in which humans continue to exist as digital souls. But this brave new immortal world is not the Utopia it might first seem.

Timothy Blake, ex-consultant for the FBI, now works in body disposal for a local crime lord. One night he stumbles across a body he wasn’t supposed to find and is forced to hide it. When the FBI calls Blake in to investigate a missing university professor, Blake recognizes him as the dead man in his freezer. Then another man goes missing. And another. There’s a serial killer in Houston, Texas, and Blake is running out of time to solve the case. His investigation takes him to a sex doll factory, a sprawling landfill in Louisiana and a secret cabin in the woods. As they hunt the killer together, FBI agent Reese Thistle starts to warm to Blake --- but she also gets closer and closer to discovering his terrible secret.

Becc was the good girl. Until a secret affair with the charming Cal one summer in college cost her everything she held dear. Now, Becc’s past is back front and center as she travels up the scenic California coast to a wedding --- with a man she hasn’t seen in a decade. As each mile flies by, Becc can’t help but feel the thrilling push and pull of memories, from infinite nights at beach bonfires and lavish boat parties to secret movie sessions. But the man beside her is not so eager to recreate history. And as the events of that heartbreaking summer come into view, Becc must decide if those dazzling hours they once shared are worth fighting for or if they’re lost forever.

Inside the walls of the Dead Letters Depot, letter detectives work to solve mysteries. They study missing zip codes, illegible handwriting, rain-smudged ink, lost address labels, torn packages, forgotten street names --- all the many twists of fate behind missed birthdays, broken hearts, unheard confessions, pointless accusations, unpaid bills, unanswered prayers. Their mission is to unite lost mail with its intended recipients. But when letters arrive addressed simply to “My Great Love,” longtime letter detective William Woolf faces his greatest mystery to date. Written by a woman to the soulmate she hasn’t met yet, the missives capture William’s heart in ways he didn’t know possible.

MY LIFE AS A RAT follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age 12, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African-American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes, Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement.

Abbie awakens in a daze with no memory of who she is or how she landed in this unsettling condition. The man by her side claims to be her husband. He’s a titan of the tech world, the founder of one of Silicon Valley’s most innovative start-ups. He tells Abbie that she is a gifted artist, an avid surfer, a loving mother to their young son, and the perfect wife. He says she had a terrible accident five years ago and that, through a huge technological breakthrough, she has been brought back from the abyss. But as Abbie pieces together memories of her marriage, she begins questioning her husband’s motives --- and his version of events. Can she trust him when he says he wants them to be together forever? And what really happened to Abbie half a decade ago?

The day Anna McDonald's quiet, respectable life explodes starts off like all the days before: packing up the kids for school, making breakfast, listening to yet another true-crime podcast. Then her husband comes downstairs with an announcement, and Anna is suddenly, shockingly alone. Reeling and desperate for distraction, she returns to the podcast. Other people's problems are much better than one's own. But this case actually is Anna's problem. She knows one of the victims from an earlier life, a life she's taken great pains to leave behind. And she is convinced that she knows what really happened. Then an unexpected visitor arrives on her front stoop, a meddling neighbor intervenes, and life as Anna knows it is well and truly over.

It's 1969, and for the Levin family, the times they are a-changing. Every year the children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic home in downtown Nantucket. But like so much else in America, nothing is the same. Blair, the oldest sister, is marooned in Boston, pregnant with twins and unable to travel. Middle sister Kirby, caught up in the thrilling vortex of civil rights protests and determined to be independent, takes a summer job on Martha's Vineyard. Only-son Tiger is an infantry soldier, recently deployed to Vietnam. Thirteen-year-old Jessie suddenly feels like an only child, marooned in the house with her out-of-touch grandmother and her worried mother, each of them hiding a troubling secret.

It has been a while since seven-year-old Dolly’s dad has spent time with her, just the two of them. So when he scoops her up and promises to take her on the adventure of a lifetime, Dolly is thrilled. The first days on the road are incredibly exciting. Every pit stop promises a new delight for Dolly and her favorite plastic horse, Clemesta, who she's brought along for the adventure. For the first time, she has her father's attention all to herself. But as they travel further south, into a country Dolly no longer recognizes, her dad's behavior grows increasingly erratic. He becomes paranoid and irresponsible, even a little scary. The adventure isn't fun anymore, but home is ever farther away. And Dolly isn't sure if she'll ever get back.