Adult

When Rachel Marin discovers an ominous email that her teenaged son’s teacher sent to her just before he was killed, she knows she must help bring the perpetrator to justice. But soon a figure from her past reappears, threatening to expose Rachel’s darkest secrets if she doesn’t tread lightly. And when her son is recruited by a shadowy businessman who may be connected to the murder, Rachel knows this has just gotten very, very personal. Someone out there is dead set on keeping this grisly cover-up good and buried, which means if Rachel isn’t careful, it’s only a matter of time before her dream life becomes her worst nightmare.

A catastrophic wildfire scorches the Santa Monica Mountains, exposing the charred remains of a woman who disappeared years ago. The investigation is assigned to Eve Ronin, the youngest homicide detective in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, a position that forces her to prove herself again and again. This time, though, she has much more to prove. Bones don’t lie, and these have a horrific story to tell. Eve tirelessly digs into the past, unearthing dark secrets that reveal nothing about the case is as it seems. With almost no one she can trust, her relentless pursuit of justice for the forgotten dead could put Eve’s own life in peril.

After her mother’s death, penniless May Kimble lives a lonely life until an aunt she didn’t know existed summons her to San Francisco. There she’s welcomed into the wealthy Sullivan family and their social circle. Initially overwhelmed by the opulence of her new life, May soon senses that dark mysteries lurk in the shadows of the Sullivan mansion. Her glamorous cousin often disappears in the night. Her aunt wanders about in a laudanum fog. And a maid keeps hinting that May is in danger. Then, on an early April morning, San Francisco comes tumbling down. Out of the smoldering ruins, May embarks on a harrowing road to reclaim what is hers. This tragic twist of fate, along with the help of an intrepid and charismatic journalist, puts vengeance within May’s reach. But will she take it?

Pregnant journalist Joan Harken is cautiously excited to follow her fiancé back to his Minnesota hometown. After spending a childhood on the move and chasing the screams and swirls of news-rich city life, she’s eager to settle down. Lilydale’s motto, “Come Home Forever,” couldn’t be more inviting. And yet, something is off in the picture-perfect village. The friendliness borders on intrusive. Joan can’t shake the feeling that every move she makes is being tracked. An archaic organization still seems to hold the town in thrall. So does the sinister secret of a little boy who vanished decades ago. And unless Joan is imagining things, a frighteningly familiar figure from her past is on watch in the shadows.

This multigenerational memoir explores author Elizabeth Wilcox's maternal history of repeated trauma, separation, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and their impact on mental health. Set against a 20-year dialogue with her mother Barbara, who suffers from long undiagnosed PTSD, THE LONG TAIL OF TRAUMA opens with the birth of Wilcox's illegitimate grandmother Violet to a German house servant outside London in 1904. With her mother’s encouragement, she goes on to trace the lives of Violet and Barbara, both of whom are deeply impacted by maternal separation and the complex trauma they have endured because of war. Through a dual timeline that is both present day and historic, Wilcox weaves together the documented and imagined voices of the women who precede her.

In a series of vignettes, this creative memoir narrated by a female voice draws on childhood memories of Dolores, the fourth-born daughter in a family of five girls, growing up in rural northeastern New Mexico. Themes of family life, cultural customs, language use, cross-cultural encounters and isolation provide the backdrop against which the narrator describes her observations and experiences from an early age to pre-adolescence. Because of its reflective themes, ATOP THE WINDMILL will appeal to both adult and young readers who have an interest in the rich Nuevomexicano linguistic and cultural heritage.

Maddy Donaldo, homeless at 20, lives with her dog and makeshift family in the hidden spaces of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. She thinks she knows how to survive and whom to trust until she accidentally witnesses the murder of a young man. Her world is upended as she has to face not only the killer but also the police and then the victim’s parents. In a desire to save her since they could not save their own son, they are determined to have Maddy reunite with her own lost family. But what makes a family? Is it the people who raised you if they don’t have the skills to look after you? Is it the foster parents whose generosity only lasts until things become more difficult? Or is it the family that Maddy has met in the park, young people who also have nowhere else to go?

When Charlie Boykin was young, he thought his life with his single mother on the working-class side of Nashville was perfectly fine. But when she arranges for him to be admitted as a scholarship student to an elite private school, he is suddenly introduced to what the world can feel like to someone cushioned by money. That world is an almost irresistible place where one can bend --- and break --- rules and still end up untarnished. As he gets drawn into a friendship with a charismatic upperclassman, Archer Creigh, and an affluent family that treats him like an adopted son, Charlie quickly adapts to life in the upper echelons of Nashville society. But over time, he is increasingly pulled into covering for Archer’s constant deceits and his casual bigotry.

Dreamwalker Paige Mahoney has eluded death again. Snatched from the jaws of captivity and consigned to a safe house in the Scion Citadel of Paris, she finds herself caught between those factions that seek Scion's downfall and those who would kill to protect the Rephaim's puppet empire. The mysterious Domino Program has plans for Paige, but she has ambitions of her own in this new citadel. With former enemy Arcturus Mesarthim at her side, she embarks on an adventure that will lead her from the catacombs of Paris to the glittering hallways of Versailles. Her risks promise high reward: the Parisian underworld could yield the means to escalate her rebellion to outright war.

After surviving a serial killer’s abduction as a young teenager, Ellery Hathaway is finally attempting a normal life. She has a new job as a rookie Boston detective and a fledgling relationship with Reed Markham, the FBI agent who rescued her years ago. But when a 12-year-old girl disappears on Ellery’s watch, the troubling case opens deep wounds that never fully healed. Chloe Lockhart walked away from a busy street fair and vanished into the crowd. Maybe she was fleeing the suffocating surveillance her parents put on her from the time she was born, or maybe the evil from her parents’ past finally caught up to her. For Chloe, as Ellery learns, is not the first child Teresa Lockhart has lost.