Adult

Dusty Baker walked with baseball legends and became one himself. After he signed with the Braves in 1968 at the age of 19 against his father’s wishes, no less than the great Hank Aaron promised to take Baker under his wing. Baker became a premier hitter, helping take the Dodgers to a World Series victory in 1981. He would bookend this with another championship in 2022, this time as a manager helping guide and redeem a Houston Astros team humbled by a cheating scandal. Respected by generations across the game, Baker has come to embody the spirit of the sport --- and yet, to discuss his baseball career is only to scratch the surface of a remarkable life. A true American original, Baker weaves a spell of life at the crossroads, where fate turns on our decisions and the unexpected answers that sometimes seek us out when we least expect it.

Joe is a golf reporter who has missed more Father’s Days than he cares to count because that’s when he has to cover the US Open. But his son, Buddy, has counted every single one. Their relationship is fractured at best. Then one day, at a garage sale, Buddy finds a woefully obsolete set of golf clubs that supposedly belonged to Jack Nicklaus and decides to give them to his father as an olive branch. When Joe takes the clubs out on a whim, he discovers something unbelievable: he’s hitting 400 yards. Max “Hard Way” Mitchell used to be one of the best caddies on the PGA Tour, but now he’s the owner of a run-down driving range. When Joe is laid off, and Hardway realizes that with this magical set of golf clubs he is better than anyone on the tour, he convinces Joe to do the seemingly impossible --- win the Masters as an amateur. To do this, they'll need each other.

As a 9-year-old schoolgirl, Franca tells Gino that she will marry him one day, and against all the odds her prophecy comes true. Set in a mountain village in Abruzzo in the early 2000s, DARK IS THE MORNING is the story of two ordinary young people who fall in love and seem destined for a life of happiness. But there is something in Franca’s past that haunts Gino. His curiosity gradually turns into obsession --- an obsession that will have heartbreaking consequences. DARK IS THE MORNING has a timeless, eternal quality, like a fable or a fairy-tale. In a world where women’s strength often holds communities together, it speaks to male fragility and to the insidious and corrosive power of jealousy. Shifting between tenderness and paranoia, between beauty and tragedy, this is an extraordinary novel from one of the UK’s most unpredictable and celebrated writers.

After a failed relationship and an unsettled teaching career, Sara Barlow returns to her childhood home in Arlington, Virginia, hoping for a fresh start. But when she applies for a job at her old high school, a chance glimpse into the gymnasium shakes her to the core --- she spots the man she suspects was involved in a classmate’s violent death a decade earlier. Haunted by the past, Sara confronts the memories she’s spent years trying to suppress: her sister Suzanne’s fatal car crash, her secret summer with the reckless Devlin Barrie and the anonymous 911 call she made after witnessing what she believes was a murder. As the construction of Interstate 66 physically fractures her community, Sara grapples with emotional fault lines of her own --- guilt, silence and buried truth.

Deputy Sheriff Alicia Moore is thrust into the center of a chilling murder investigation when she discovers a victim identifiable only by his hauntingly familiar tattoo. Years earlier, Alicia’s father, the then-Sheriff, had arrested a teenage occultist for a nearly identical murder. Now, doubts arise about whether the true culprit was ever caught. The mystery deepens with the arrival of Lucas Masterson, a PhD student studying the confluence between religious trauma and occult crime. As Lucas delves into the case, Alicia grapples with her suspicion towards his unsettling familiarity with the crimes. Caught between her strained relationship with her father, the community’s watchful eyes on a female deputy, and her own harrowing ties to the case, Alicia must navigate a maze of potential occultists, convicts, corrupt officials and clergy to prevent a gruesome history from repeating itself once again.

Fall 2008. The Waldorf Astoria New York. Two armed men storm the hotel’s famed bar and hold the occupants hostage: an American corporate raider, a Chinese tycoon, a British hedge fund manager, a Japanese housewife-turned-celebrity, a Mexican undocumented worker, a Wall Street bond salesman, and a Norwegian environmentalist. Who are these terrorists? What do they want? And what ties them to their captives? MERRY-GO-ROUND BROKE DOWN is a genre-breaking novel that explores globalization’s “butterfly effect”: how choices made in one corner of the world ignited an unstoppable chain of consequences that upended lives across continents.

Clark Rickert was once the most prolific big game poacher throughout the Rocky Mountain west, but when he lost his wife and son, he turned away from hunting. Now a game warden working for the very law enforcement officers who once pursued him so aggressively, Clark is overwhelmingly successful at his job. So when there’s a string of disappearances in rural Montana, Clark is selected to join a task force on an operation targeting a mysterious, violent cult in the area. As he works to uncover the truth, Clark begins to be plagued by visions and starts to realize that there is a deeper purpose to his assignment. The cult might be up to something far more terrifying than anyone could have guessed.

When the pandemic sends Krys Malcolm Belc and his young children home to live their lives on laptops, he turns to internet chefs for comfort and inspiration. It begins with Stella Parks and her 46 YouTube videos in which she teaches viewers how to make classic, nostalgic American treats. But the recipes aren’t enough --- Belc needs to watch her showcase each ingredient, explain its importance, and weigh each item on a scale. His fixation on recipe videos, and the women who produce them, start to feel like the only thing that makes sense. Belc captures the joy and pleasure of cooking for a large family, as well as the mundane reality and occasional frustrations that come with simply getting food on the table. In the midst of it all, he feels a spark of inspiration to carry a second baby, a decision that forces him to confront how he has used cooking to cope and distract.

Rational and cynical Aly Orlean’s life in her psychic hometown of Wyndale, Florida, couldn’t be more hectic. It’s all about running her business, raising a teenage sister, sending out holiday greetings --- and her new task: finding a killer. For her Museum of Unusual Occurrence not only houses odd curiosities but now has a brand-new display: the body of Rose Dempsey, a local 20-year-old, set up in one of the exhibits as if she has been ritually sacrificed. With the police clueless, Aly is worried that this is a vicious warning for her and her solitary way of life. Fearing for her sister Merope’s well-being, she’s determined to find out why the killer murdered Rose and how her body was placed in Aly’s museum. But might the killer be someone hiding in plain sight?

Julia Glover has brought her 23-year-old daughter, Piper, to Paris for the first time. Julia is dying, and as the mother and daughter desperately try to make memories together. Rock star Jackson Quick’s glory days are behind him. He had a handful of hit songs 30 years ago, but he hasn’t toured in a decade. This week, he’ll launch his reunion tour in Paris, the city where it all began. Henry McGee has been writing hit songs for decades. But his secret is that every love song he’s ever written is for a woman named Celeste, who he believed to be dead, but when a letter arrives telling him the opposite, he’s on the first flight to France. These intertwining stories --- plus several others --- unfold over a few breathtaking spring days, as an unforgettable group of Americans in Paris must find their way to their own versions of happily ever after in the City of Light.