Adult

As a child in Spain, Puri always knew her passion for chocolate was inherited from her father. But it’s not until his death that she learns of something else she’s inherited --- a cocoa estate in Vinces, Ecuador, a town nicknamed “París Chiquito.” Eager to claim her birthright and filled with hope for a new life after the devastation of World War I, she and her husband, Cristóbal, set out across the Atlantic Ocean. But it soon becomes clear that someone is angered by Puri’s claim to the estate. When a mercenary sent to murder her aboard the ship accidentally kills Cristóbal instead, Puri dons her husband’s clothes and assumes his identity, hoping to stay safe while she searches for the truth of her father’s legacy in Ecuador.

Aurel Timescu’s French is tinged with a Romanian accent, he has the disheveled air of a character from between the wars, and a past as a performer in piano bars. Nobody can quite understand how he got to be Consul. Now, he’s taken a position in French Guinea. He passes his time perspiring, drinking gallons of Tokay and composing librettos. Until, that is, a vacationer is found hanging from the mast of a sailboat. How did he end up dead, on a mast, on Aurel Timescu’s watch? Had his personal life been hanging by a thread? Was he hanging around waiting for love to be reciprocated? Had he been hanging out with the wrong crowd? Had he hung his hat on the peg of some quixotic dream?

Serving a 10-year sentence in a Nevada prison for armed robbery, Ethan Lockhart hopes that he can one day become a productive, law-abiding member of society. But society has other plans for Ethan. When he’s given a 48-hour furlough to attend his sister Abby’s funeral, he learns that her body was never found --- just enough blood to declare her dead instead of missing --- and he begins to suspect that there’s more to her death than was reported. Ethan decides to use his 48-hour window to find out what happened. But to get to the bottom of the mystery, he’ll have to return to his unsavory past.

Langston Brown is running out of time and options for clearing his name and escaping death row. Wrongfully convicted of the gruesome Mother's Day Massacre, he prepares to face his death. His final hope for salvation lies with his daughter, Liza, an artist who dreamed of a life of music and song but left the prestigious Juilliard School to pursue a law degree with the intention of clearing her father's name. Just as she nears success, it's announced that Langston will be put to death in 30 days. In a desperate bid to find freedom for her father, Liza enlists the help of Eli Stone, a jazz club owner. Devastated by the tragic loss of his wife, Eli is trying to find solace by reviving his club…while also wrestling with the longing to join her in death.

On her first day of kindergarten, five-year-old Tinsley disappeared without a trace. Five agonizing years later, her divorced mother, Dani Callahan, is a private investigator. She and Quinn Sullivan, a promising young assistant, are devoted to helping others find missing loved ones. And for Dani, finding Tinsley is still a never-ending obsession. Their newest case is Ali Cross, a teenager who vanished while walking home. A troubled boy’s eyewitness testimony to Ali’s abduction provides their only clues. And as their search for Ali gets underway, new information about Tinsley’s disappearance begins to surface too. As their investigations lead down two twisting paths, disturbing secrets are revealed and new victims find themselves in mortal danger.

Steven Katz is the son of prosperous landowners in rural California. Although his parents don’t approve, he has found true friends in Nick, Suki and Ollie, sons of field workers, and is beginning to acknowledge that his feelings for Nick amount to more than friendship. When the bombing of Pearl Harbor draws the US into World War II, Suki and his family are forced to leave their home for the internment camp at Manzanar. Ollie enlists in the army and ships out. And Nick must flee. Betrayed by his own father and accused of a crime he didn’t commit, he turns to Steven for help. Hiding Nick in a root cellar on his family’s farm, Steven acts as Nick’s protector and lifeline to the outside world. After Nick unexpectedly disappears one day, Steven’s life focus is to find him.

On the muddy banks of the Calumet River, a body has been found posed next to a series of mysterious glyphs and bearing wounds from a ritualistic slaying. Chicago detective Addie Bisset knows only one man who can decipher the message left by the killer: her friend, Dr. Evan Wilding. A brilliant forensic semiotician, Evan decodes the etchings as Viking Age runes. They suggest either human sacrifice or righteous punishment. But to what god? And for what sins? Only one thing is clear from the disturbing runic riddles: there are more victims to come. As Evan races to determine the identity of the Viking Poet, he and Addie uncover the killer’s most terrifying secret yet: the motive.

Late in the Cold War, a young woman escapes from Communist Hungary, vanishing into the night with a priceless painting and a baby girl --- setting events in motion from a decades-old secret that will change lives for generations to come. Many years later, classical pianist Maggie O’Shea is drawn to Cornwall in search of a long-lost Van Gogh and the truth behind her husband’s death. A journal from World War II Paris holds many of the answers, but only two people know where the Van Gogh is hidden now --- a courageous nun and a man presumed dead. Maggie finds herself on a collision course with three dangerous Russians who threaten all she holds dear --- including her life and the life of the man she has come to love.

Tabitha Walker, a 33-year-old Black woman, receives an unexpected diagnosis that brings her picture-perfect life crashing down, jeopardizing the keystone she took for granted: having children. With the help of her best friends, the irreverent and headstrong Laila and Alexis, the mom jeans-wearing former "Sexy Lexi," and the generational wisdom of her grandmother and the nonagenarian firebrand Ms. Gretchen, Tabby explores the reaches of modern medicine and tests the limits of her relationships. But the fight is all-consuming, demanding a steep price that forces an honest reckoning for nearly everyone in her life. As Tabby soon learns, her grandmother's age-old adage just might still be true: Black girls must die exhausted.

Colorful Christmas lights dapple the family homes in the idyllic lakeside town of Sweet Haven when Jennifer Dean, a young librarian at the local elementary school, is brutally murdered. There are witnesses, and her boyfriend, Travis Blake, confesses to the crime…but something doesn’t quite add up. Blake is a third-generation Army Ranger, awarded the Silver Star for his heroism in Afghanistan. How could a beloved son of this tight-knit burgh commit such a grisly deed? In steps Cameron Winter, a rugged and lonesome English professor haunted by the ghosts of his own Christmas past, whose former lover asks him to prove Blake innocent. If he can solve this small-town mystery, just maybe he can find peace from his inner demons as well.