Adult

At the turn of the century, Paris was a hotbed of creativity. Technology boomed, delivering to the world electric light, the automobile and new ways to treat disease, while imagination blossomed, creating Art Nouveau, motion pictures and modernist literature. A pivotal figure during this time, yet largely forgotten today, Loie Fuller was an American performance artist who became a living symbol of the Art Nouveau movement with her hypnotic dances and stunning theatrical effects. In the early 1900s, she heard about Marie Curie's discovery of a glowing blue element and dreamed of using it to dazzle audiences on stage. While Loie's dream wouldn't be realized, her connection with Marie and their shared fascination with radium endured.

West Virginia Congresswoman Victoria Emerson has always put the needs of her community before the power games of Washington, D.C. Then an Army officer appears on her doorstep, deploying the code words “Crimson Phoenix” --- meaning this is not a drill. The United States is on the brink of nuclear disaster. The major will escort her to a secure bunker. She cannot bring her family. A single mother, Victoria refuses to abandon her teenage sons. Denied entry to the bunker, the family somehow survives the unthinkable. In the aftermath, the nation is in chaos. Against this total collapse, Victoria creates a new home in a small Appalachian mountain town. The community she builds around her shines like a beacon in a dark wasteland. Now she must defend it with her life --- to give hope to a new America.

Of all the women and men Noni Blake has pleased in her life, there’s one she’s often overlooked --- herself. After the end of a decade-long relationship, Noni decides it’s time for that to change. She’s finally going to prioritize her wants and desires and only do things (and people) that feel good in the moment. As she embarks on a pleasure-seeking quest that takes her halfway around the world, she discovers that maybe she can have everything --- and everyone --- she’s ever wanted.

The Plantagenet queens of England played a role in some of the most dramatic events in our history. Crusading queens, queens in rebellion against their king, seductive queens, learned queens, queens in battle, queens who enlivened England with the romantic culture of southern Europe --- these determined women often broke through medieval constraints to exercise power and influence, for good and sometimes for ill. This second volume of Alison Weir’s history of the queens of medieval England now moves into a period of even higher drama, from 1154 to 1291: years of chivalry and courtly love, dynastic ambition, conflict between church and throne, baronial wars, and the ruthless interplay between the rival monarchs of Britain and France.

Hannah Swensen is up to her ears with Easter orders rushing in at The Cookie Jar, plus a festive meal to prepare for a dinner party at her mother’s penthouse. But everything comes crashing to a halt when Hannah receives a panicked call from her sister, Andrea --- Mayor Richard Bascomb has been murdered…and Andrea is the prime suspect. Even with his reputation for being a bully, Mayor Bascomb had been unusually testy in the days leading up to his death, leaving Hannah to wonder if he knew he was in danger. There are plenty of suspects to sift through for sure. And as orders pile up at The Cookie Jar --- and children line up for Easter egg hunts --- Hannah must spring into investigation mode and identify the real killer…before another murder happens!

For seven-year-old M, the world is guided by a firm set of principles, based on her father D’s life as a traveling salesman. Enchanted by her father’s trade, M convinces him to take her along on his routes, selling hardware supplies against the backdrop of Pinochet-era Chile. As father and daughter trek from town to town in their old Renault, M’s memories and thoughts become tied to a language of rural commerce, philosophy, the cosmos, hardware products and ghosts. M, in her innocence, barely notices the rising tensions and precarious nature of their work until she and her father connect with an enigmatic photographer, E, whose presence threatens to upend the unusual life they’ve created.

What is the right way to handle an abusive partner? An unexpected pregnancy? A toxic friendship? Chronic unemployment? Gender dysphoria? A family member going to war? A disability? Anger? Loneliness? Finding themselves in disempowering, frightening or otherwise unendurable circumstances, the girls, women and non-binary characters in Maria Adelmann's stories look for ways to free themselves into new lives or, at the very least, new states of feeling. Sometimes they do this by hurting someone else or getting hurt; sometimes by submitting, other times by mounting a rebellion. With a special talent for pressing the sharp up against the tender, Adelmann explores the many pathways through the titular condition.

London, 1878. With faith in Scotland Yard shattered after a damning corruption investigation, Charles Lenox's detective agency is rapidly expanding. The gentleman sleuth has all the work he can handle, two children and an intriguing new murder case. But when Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli offers him the opportunity to undertake a diplomatic mission for the Queen, Lenox welcomes the chance to satisfy an unfulfilled yearning: to travel to America. Arriving in New York, he begins to receive introductions into both its old Knickerbocker society and its new robber baron splendor. Then a shock: the death of the season's most beautiful debutante, who appears to have thrown herself from a cliff. Or was it a suicide?

Emma loves her life. She’s the mother of a precocious kindergartener, married to her soulmate --- a loyal and loving police detective --- and has a rewarding career as a doctor at the local hospital. But everything comes crashing down when her son, Josh, is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Determined to save him, Emma makes the risky decision to sell opioids to fund the life-saving treatment he needs. But when somebody ends up dead, a lethal game of cat and mouse ensues, her own husband leading the chase. With her son’s life hanging in the balance, Emma is dragged into the dark world of drugs, lies and murder. Will the truth catch up to her before she can save Josh?

For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity --- an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’ distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative.