Adult

Thirteen days. That’s all Bernadette “Bird” Sincavage has left to go until she’s done with her probation and can be free again. Her impending freedom is so close she can almost taste it. Trouble soon follows, though, in the form of James Rittenhouse, who she worked with a few years ago. Bird is stunned to see James make the evening news when he’s arrested for assault. But that’s nothing compared to the shock she gets when she discovers James hiding out in an abandoned church choir loft with a gun pointed at her. Will Bird jeopardize her future for someone who helped her out in the past? Or will she turn a blind eye and learn to live with the consequences?

A house is burning, threatening the existence of its six tenants --- including a failed priest; a naturalist; a neurosurgeon; an invalid dreaming of his anxious boyhood; and their landlord, whose relationship to the tenants is both intimate and shadowy. In NIGHT OF FIRE, the passions and obsessions in a dying house loom and shift, from those of the hallucinating drug addict in the basement to the landlord training his rooftop telescope on the night skies. As the novel progresses, the tenants’ diverse stories take us through an African refugee camp, Greek Orthodox monasteries, and the cremation grounds of India. Haunting the edges of their lives are memories. Will these remembrances be consumed forever by the flames? Or can they survive in some form?

A middle-aged Irish immigrant, Billy has a gift for illusion --- making damaged objects look new. His companion, Charles, the smooth-tongued teenage son of a prostitute, is a natural salesman, just like the mythical father he’s never met. Longtime horse traders and partners, they’ve recently turned their talents to trading mules. But in the summer of 1916, these seasoned grifters skilled in the art of the underhanded deal have just been swindled themselves. They’re saddled with the one thing they may not be able to unload: a gorgeous, murderous black mare named The Midnight Cool.

From acclaimed biographer Patricia Bosworth comes a series of vivid confessions about her remarkable journey into womanhood. Married and divorced from an abusive husband before she’s 20, she joins the famed Actors Studio. She takes classes with Lee Strasberg alongside Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman and others; she works on Broadway opposite Paul Muni, Helen Hayes and Elaine Stritch; Gore Vidal and Elia Kazan become her mentors. Her anecdotes of theatre’s Golden Age have never been told before. At the zenith of her career, about to film The Nun’s Story with Audrey Hepburn, Patricia faces a decision that changes her forever.

In 1908, seven-year-old Jialing is abandoned in the courtyard of a once-lavish estate outside Shanghai. Jialing is Eurasian and faces a lifetime of contempt from both Chinese and Europeans. Without her mother’s protection, she can survive only if the estate’s new owners, the Yang family, agree to take her in. Jialing finds allies in Anjuin, the eldest Yang daughter, and Fox, an animal spirit who has lived in the courtyard for centuries. But Jialing’s life as the Yangs’ bondservant changes unexpectedly when she befriends a young English girl who then mysteriously vanishes. Jialing grows into womanhood guided both by Fox and by her own strength of spirit, away from the shadows of her past and toward a very different fate --- if she has the courage to accept it.

Serge A. Storms and Coleman’s adventure traveling the byways of the Sunshine State’s underbelly is about to take a detour. Someone is trying to tilt the odds in the state lottery amidst a conga line of huge jackpots, spinning off more chaos than any hurricane season. With this much at stake, of course every shady character wants in. Crooked bodega owners, drug cartels laundering money through the lottery, and venture capitalists are all trying to game the system --- and lining up to get their cut. They’re also gambling with their lives, because when Serge and Coleman get hip to this timely (and very lucrative) trip, there’s no telling whose number is up next.

When 15-year-old Yasmin --- obese, obsessive and deemed a freak by her peers --- sees a sinister man watching Alice Taylor from the school fence, she becomes convinced he’s planning to take her. After all, who wouldn’t want the popular and perfect Alice? Then Yasmin realizes if she can find out who he is before he acts, she’ll be the only one who can tell the police, save Alice and become Alice’s heroine. But as Yasmin discovers more about this man, her affections begin to shift. Perhaps she was wrong about him. Perhaps she doesn’t need Alice after all. And then Alice vanishes.

When Rebus starts reexamining the facts behind the long-ago murder of a glamorous woman at a luxurious hotel --- on the same night a famous rock star and his entourage were also staying there --- the past comes roaring back to life with a vengeance. And as soon as Rebus starts asking questions about the long forgotten crime, a fresh body materializes. His inquiries reunite him with his old pals --- Siobhan Clarke and Malcolm Fox --- as they attempt to uncover the financial chicanery behind the savage beating of an upstart gangster, a crime that suggests the notorious old school crime boss Big Ger Cafferty has taken to retirement as poorly as Rebus himself.

When a pile of bodies is found in Paris, CIA Agent Tom Blake hustles his way onto a major case: tracking a man with enhanced abilities, the test subject of a secret government program. There's just one problem: the man using Agent Blake's identity is not Agent Blake. He's Tom Reese, a man without a family or a home. Reese is searching for his brother's killer. He stole Agent Blake's identity two months ago and has bluffed his way onto the team investigating his only lead. But soon the CIA will find out that Agent Blake is in two places at once. Soon the augmented man will come looking for him. And soon both will discover that Tom Reese carries a secret even he doesn't know about. He is the last test subject of Project Prometheus.

Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God --- but then committed suicide without revealing its location. Three quarters of a century later, Douglas Preston joined a team of scientists on a flight that revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted a horrifying, sometimes lethal --- and incurable --- disease.