Adult

When Robert Bunch arrived in Charleston to take up the post of British consul in 1853, he was young and full of ambition, but even he couldn’t have imagined the incredible role he would play in the history-making events to unfold. In an age when diplomats often were spies, Bunch’s job included sending intelligence back to the British government in London. Yet as the United States threatened to erupt into Civil War, Bunch found himself plunged into a double life, settling into an amiable routine with his slavery-loving neighbors on the one hand, while working furiously to thwart their plans to achieve a new Confederacy.

Originally conceived as a novel, but then transformed into a play by Ayn Rand, IDEAL is the story of beautiful but tormented actress Kay Gonda. Accused of murder, she is on the run and turns for help to six fans who have written letters to her, each telling her that she represents their ideal. Each reacts to her plight in his own way, their reactions a glimpse into their secret selves and their true values. In the end, their responses to her pleas give Kay the answers she has been seeking.

Raised in a poor yet genteel household, Rachel Woodley is working in France as a governess when she receives news that her mother has died suddenly. Grief-stricken, she returns to the small town in England where she was raised to clear out the cottage...and finds a cutting from a London society magazine, with a photograph of her supposedly deceased father dated all of three months before. He is an earl, and is standing with another daughter --- his legitimate daughter. Everything Rachel thought she knew about herself and her past --- even her very name --- is a lie.

When Rory McGovern’s husband, Blake, loses his dream job, he announces that he feels like “taking a break” from being a husband and father. Without him, her only hope is to accept a full-time position working for two twenty-somethings. These girls think they know it all and have been given the millions from venture capitalists to back up their delusion: that the future of digital media is a high-end “lifestyle” site --- for kids! Can Rory learn to decipher her bosses’ lingo, texts that read like license plates, and arbitrary mandates? And is there any hope of saving her marriage?

Professor Bertram von Ohler has been awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine. This news causes problems in his otherwise quiet upper-class neighborhood in Uppsala, Sweden, as not everybody is happy with the choice of winner. Mysterious incidents start to occur. “Boyish pranks” say the police, but what follows is certainly not innocent amusement. Detective Inspector Ann Lindell becomes involved in the case and immediately is transported back into her own past.

Professional assassin John Lago and his former nemesis, Alice, execute a hostile takeover of Human Resources, Inc., the “placement agency” that trains young assassins to infiltrate corporations disguised as interns and knock off high-profile targets. As HR’s former top operatives, they are successful until conflicting management styles cause an ugly breakup that locks John out of the bedroom and the boardroom. But when Alice takes on a new HR target, John is forced to return to the office battlefield in a role he swore he would never play again: the intern.

One moment Angie Morse is standing on the deck of a large luxury yacht, and the next she feels a stinging blow to her head. And then a push. She is in the water. She can see people on the yacht, but they don't seem to notice that she's gone. These are her friends, and one is her love. Each one had a reason for getting rid of her, though she never would have thought it would come to this. Revenge burns so deeply inside her that she knows she will survive somehow. She will get them all. One way or another.

In July 1970, actress Elaina Styles was slain in her rented Seattle mansion along with her husband and their son’s nanny. When the baby’s remains were found buried in a shallow grave close to a hippie commune, police moved in --- only to find all its members already dead in a grisly mass suicide. Now, decades later, a film about the murders is shooting at the mansion. As on-set caterer Laurie Trotter digs deep into what happened all those years ago, a legacy of brutal vengeance reaches its terrifying climax.

Morgan Prager, who is completing her thesis on victim psychology, is newly engaged to Bennett, a seductive but possessive and secretive man. She returns from class one day to find Bennett mauled to death and her dogs covered in blood. When Morgan tries to locate Bennett’s parents to tell them about their son’s hideous death, she discovers he was not the man he said he was. Suddenly Morgan’s research into Bennett takes on the urgency of survival: to stay alive, she must find out who is killing the women to whom Bennett was closest.

Isabel Dalhousie, the insatiably curious Edinburgh sleuth and philosopher, takes on a case unlike any she’s had before: a six-year-old boy has been experiencing vivid recollections of a past life. His visions include a perfect description of a Scottish island and a house where he claims to have lived. The boy’s mother asks Isabel to investigate, but her findings continue to perplex as her efforts to seek rational explanations are thwarted by the unusual mystery unfolding before her.