Adult

The wide-ranging and inventive stories that make up Helen Schulman’s FOOLS FOR LOVE are funny, sexy, sometimes sad and always surprising. A single American mother and a French Orthodox rabbi fall in love over poetry, as she helps to dismantle a shuttered bookstore in Paris. A rebellious young woman marries a series of men who are all wrong for her and proceeds to cheat on each of them; her widowed mother finds her deceased husband’s sex diaries and decides she needs to make up for lost time. And in the title story, a blossoming East Village playwright realizes that her marriage to a brilliant actor is doomed, after watching his performance in an alternative production of Sam Shepard’s iconic play.

Seven years ago, Adri left the running world after a major scandal. She leveled an explosive and career-ending accusation at one of the world’s most celebrated coaches --- and then he died suddenly. Now, she's ready to race again. Adri has picked one of the toughest events imaginable: a 250-mile trek through the Sahara Desert organized by a mysterious and famously sadistic race director. She’s also there to get closure on the mysteries that cloud her past. Was her family targeted by one of her coach’s defenders? Was his death due to natural causes? But clarity is hard to come by out in the Sahara’s extreme conditions. And as a number of runners start dropping out, it becomes clear that there’s someone out there in the desert trying to stop anyone from winning --- by any means necessary.

Frankie is a good daughter, a loyal best friend and a model student, coasting through her final semester at an elite Catholic prep school in a wealthy Pittsburgh enclave. But acceptance to her dream college leaves her unmoored. When a classmate takes his life after posting a cryptic message about Woolf Whiting --- a former student hockey player who died in a presumed suicide years earlier --- Frankie and her best friend, Shiv, decide to investigate Woolf’s death as part of their journalism class project. As the community mourns, a muffled conversation between Frankie's mom, who teaches history at the school, and the priest who teaches her philosophy class draws the girls further into unraveling the mysterious life and death of Woolf.

A year ago, a father and his fiancée were brutally murdered in their opulent London townhouse, sparking the most high-profile murder investigation in recent history. Blood spatter expert Doctor Claudia O’Sheil’s evidence put the killer behind bars --- or so everyone believes. But since the trial, Claudia has learned a horrific truth: her evidence and her testimony were wrong. And someone she knows made sure of it. Now, as she takes the stage to give a career-defining speech before London’s elite, Claudia faces a devastating choice. Protect her children and her career with her continued complicity, or blow the whole conspiracy apart and reveal the truth: not only is the real murderer still out there, but they’re in the audience.

After a 10-year self-imposed exile, Brent Walker is returning home to Concord, a quaint town in central Georgia. His father died two years ago, and now Brent --- hired by Southern Republic Pulp and Paper Company as its assistant general counsel --- is returning to care for his ailing mother. Southern Republic’s success is based largely on a highly unorthodox and deadly system to control costs, known only to the three owners of the company. Now, one of them, Christopher Bozin, has had a change of heart. Brent’s return to Concord, a move Bozin personally orchestrated, provides his conscience with a chance at redemption. So a plan is set into motion, one that not only will criminally implicate Bozin’s two partners but also will place Brent square in the crosshairs of men who want him dead --- with only one course left available.

The war is over, the dark forces have won, and the hero who was supposed to save them is dead.  Captured as her castle is overrun by the enemy, the world as Briony Rosewood knows it is changed forever. Evil has won, and her people face imminent servitude, imprisonment or death. Stripped of her Magic and her freedom, Briony and the other survivors are quickly sold off to the highest bidders in an auction --- and as Evermore's princess, she fetches the highest price. After a fierce bidding war, she’s sold to none other than Toven Hearst, scion of a family known for their cruelty. Yet despite the horrors of her new world and the role she must learn to play within it, all is not lost. Help --- and hope --- may yet arise in the most unlikely of places.

When a young mother, Anna Weston, is brutally murdered and her body is found near Reno’s infamous silver mines, law school graduate Santi Elcano and his mentor in the public defender’s office, C.J., are tasked with defending Michael Atwood, a man arrested for Anna's murder on scant physical evidence. Eight years later, a shocking letter from Atwood --- now on death row --- forces Santi to reexamine his role in the case. At the time, public obsession with Anna’s disappearance and intense pressure on the police to make an arrest led to a rushed trial. As they investigated the case, Santi and C.J. became increasingly convinced they were defending an innocent man. Now, a horrific discovery leads Santi to reconsider everything he once believed, and all that it has cost him.

Thirteen years ago, Assemblyman Derrick Bell was murdered in his home by an intruder. His wife, Noelle Marshall, was left for dead. The crime was unsolved, but it wasn’t forgotten. Today the FBI is tackling a fresh perspective on the case and looking to Noelle, now a detective for the Deschutes County sheriff’s office, for new clues. It is reopening everything Noelle thought was behind her. Memories of her escape from a traumatic childhood. A marriage that wasn’t the perfect love story she’d been promised. And a husband whose charm and privilege hid a dark side. But Noelle has been hiding something too: a secret about the night Derrick died that she has never told anyone.

Almost everyone looks back on their youth and thinks, I wish I knew then what I know now. FINDING HAPPY is for young adults starting their adult journey, and for those well into theirs who have not yet sighted land. It is written by a master storyteller who learned to scale walls and blew them up rather than be stopped, and who learned in the process that our happiness flows from leaving the world a better place than we found it. Ultimately, it’s about how best to channel this glorious life we are each privileged to enjoy and to make it truly happy. The book is filled with gripping adventures and misadventures that demonstrate just how possible the seemingly impossible often is.

Lucy’s hometown of Dallas has gone from home sweet home to vicious snake pit in the blink of an eye after her son makes a mistake he can’t undo. Greta’s beloved flat in Berlin is suddenly up for grabs when her husband, Otto, takes a dream job in Texas without even telling her. In their rush to leave town, Lucy and Greta make a deal, pack their bags, and have absolutely no idea what they’re getting themselves into. Trading Southern charm and barbecue for European sophistication and schnitzel, the two women get a lot more than a change of scenery as they move into each other’s houses, neighborhoods and lives. Through jet lag, culture shock, suspiciously nice neighbors, and scandals that refuse to be left behind, Lucy and Greta will have to decide if they can ever go home again.