Adult

Lucia Stanton’s father is dead, her mother is in a mental hospital, and she’s recently been kicked out of school --- again. Living with her aunt in a garage-turned-bedroom, and armed with only a book, a Zippo lighter and a pocketful of stolen licorice, she spends her days riding the bus to visit her mom and following the only rule that makes any sense: Don’t do things you aren’t proud of. When Lucia discovers that her school has a secret Arson Club, her life is suddenly lit up; she’ll do anything to join.

“Are you happy with your life?” Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. He awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined --- one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

After a decade living in England, Jeremy O'Keefe returns to New York, where he has been hired as a professor of German history at New York University. Though comfortable in his new life and happy to be near his daughter once again, Jeremy continues to feel the quiet pangs of loneliness. But his life soon begins taking strange turns: boxes containing records of his online activity are delivered to his apartment, a young man seems to be following him, and his elderly mother receives anonymous phone calls slandering her son. Why would anyone want to watch him so closely, and why would they alert him to the fact that he was being watched?

Criminal psychologist Audrey Harte is returning home after seven years. She'll have to face the whispers and the rumors that have haunted her family since she left. Because when Audrey was 13, she and her best friend, Maggie, killed Maggie's abusive father. Her first night back in town ends in a fight with a drunken Maggie, with her old crush Jake to witness it all. Audrey can't believe it can get worse. Then Maggie turns up dead.

Three women --- Prinny, a shop owner who is in love with a married lawyer; Chelsea, whose dream of becoming a successful actress starts to seem more remote; and Diana, who needs to figure out whether she’d rather be lonely alone than lonely in love --- suddenly find themselves together at their own very different crossroads. It will take hope, love, strength and a little bit of magic for them to find their way together.

Faith Salie has done it all in the name of validation. Whether it’s trying to impress her parents with a perfect GPA, undergoing an exorcism in the hopes of saving her toxic marriage, or maintaining the BMI of “a flapper with a touch of dysentery,” Salie is the ultimate approval seeker --- an “approval junkie,” if you will. With thoughtful irreverence, Salie reflects on why she tries so hard to please others, and herself, highlighting a phenomenon that many people --- especially women --- experience at home and in the workplace.

Lately, defense lawyer Andy Carpenter has been involved in a county prison program where inmates help train dogs the Tara Foundation has rescued to make them more adoptable. One of the prisoners Andy has been working with is Brian Atkins, who has 18 months left on a five-year term for fraud. Brian has been helping to train Boomer, an adorable fox terrier the Tara Foundation rescued from a neglectful owner. But one day, Andy arrives at the prison to discover that Brian has used Boomer to make an ingenious escape. The next day, the man on whose testimony Brian was convicted is found murdered. Brian is caught and arrested for the crime, though he forcefully protests his innocence.

Tanya Kagan, a rising specialist in Russian art at a top New York auction house, is trying to entice Russia's wealthy oligarchs to bid on the biggest sale of her career, The Order of Saint Catherine, while making sense of the sudden and unexplained departure of her husband. As questions arise over the provenance of the Order and auction fever kicks in, author Irina Reyn takes us into the world of Catherine the Great, the infamous 18th-century empress who may have owned the priceless artifact and who, it turns out, faced many of the same issues Tanya wrestles with in her own life.

Forensic sculptor Eve Duncan risked it all to protect Cara Delaney from the enemies who want her dead. The journey has led them from California to a remote mountain in the Scottish highlands --- and earned Eve the distinction of becoming their next target. When, despite all precautions, Cara is taken, Eve must hunt down the very people who want to kill her in order to save the young girl. At a time in her life when she has more at stake than ever before, she unhesitatingly puts it all on the line in a pulse-pounding mission of rescue and survival.

Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is called upon by the sheriff's department in rural, upstate New York to assist on a developing situation that involves a reclusive Amish settlement and the death of a young girl. Unable to penetrate the wall of silence between the Amish and "English" communities, the sheriff asks Kate to travel to New York, pose as an Amish woman and infiltrate the community. In the coming days, she will unearth a world built on secrets, a series of shocking crimes, and herself, alone...trapped in a fight for her life.