Adult

From her Italian-American childhood, through raising and feeding a growing family and cooking with her new husband, food writer Michael Ruhlman, Ann Hood has long appreciated the power of good food. In KITCHEN YARNS, pairing her signature humor and tenderness with simple, comforting recipes, Hood spins tales of loss and starting from scratch, family love and feasts with friends, and how the perfect meal is one that tastes like home.

As a housegirl, Belinda knows how to follow the rules. Mary, a young housegirl-in-training, is still learning the rules. Amma has had enough of the rules. A straight-A student at her exclusive London school, she has always been the pride of her Ghanaian parents --- until now. Watching their once-confident teenager grow sullen and wayward, they decide that sensible Belinda is the shining example Amma needs. So Belinda must leave Mary behind as she is summoned from Ghana to London, where she tries to impose order on her unsettling new world. As summer turns to autumn, Belinda and Amma are surprised to discover common ground. But when the cracks in their defenses open up, the secrets they have both been holding tightly threaten to seep out.

One night in an isolated college town, a first-year student stumbles into her dorm room, falls asleep --- and doesn’t wake up. Her roommate, Mei, cannot rouse her. Neither can the paramedics, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital. When a second girl falls asleep, and then a third, Mei finds herself thrust together with an eccentric classmate as panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. A young couple tries to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. Two sisters turn to each other for comfort as their survivalist father prepares for disaster. Those affected by the illness are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, higher than has ever been recorded before. They are dreaming heightened dreams --- but of what?

On a scorching July night in 1983, a group of teenagers goes camping in the forest. When they wake in the morning, the youngest of their group, Aurora Jackson, has disappeared. An exhaustive investigation is launched, but no trace of the teenager is ever found. Thirty years later, Aurora’s body is unearthed in a hideaway that only the six friends knew about, and Jonah Sheens is put in charge of solving the long-cold case. His investigation brings the members of the camping party back to the forest, where they will be confronted once again with the events that left one of them dead and all of them profoundly changed forever.

Straight from a Hollywood movie script, Kathi and Don Koll built a life of adventure traveling to far off lands at the behest of royalty and heads of state, surviving a carjacking, and cracking jokes with the president. Their joie de vivre made everything feel possible until Don woke up "locked in" after his catastrophic stroke. With unflinching honesty and humor, Kathi shares the realities of a life in uncharted territory as a full-time caregiver. Her ability to share sorrows while laughing at herself helped her find a "New Normal" where she and Don could live each day to its fullest.

An unnamed narrator writes a letter to an old college friend, Adam, at whose place he has been crashing since his abrupt return to the States from Israel. Now that the narrator is moving on to a new location, he finally reveals the events that led him to Adam's door, set in motion by a chance encounter with Uzi, an older man with whom the narrator has just had an intense sexual relationship. From his first meeting with Uzi, the narrator is overwhelmed by an animal attraction that will lead him to derail his life, withdraw from friends and extend his stay in a small town north of Tel Aviv. As he becomes increasingly entangled in Uzi's life --- and, by extension, the lives of Uzi's ex-wife and children --- his passion turns sinister, ultimately threatening all around him.

Crossing the Atlantic Ocean and the American continent, from Sicily to New York City and San Francisco, the fierce hostility and mistrust between the Agnello and Leone families parallel the turbulent events of the 20th century in a nation struggling to find its identity in the wake of two world wars. A multi-generational saga of loyalty and deceit, law breakers and enforcers, and families torn apart or bound together in a 100-year battle for survival. AMERICAN HISTORY is a historical novel and an epic crime novel in the tradition of EAST OF EDEN, THE IMMIGRANTS and THE GODFATHER.

As winter deepens over the Blue Ridge Mountains, even the threat of snowstorms cannot derail this year’s Christmas run, not as long as Sister Jane has a say in it. With spirits high and traditions strong, a glorious parade of hunters in full holiday regalia gathers on the grounds of Tattenhall Station. But a blinding blizzard brings an early end to the sport. More disturbing: A horse soon returns without its rider. Gregory Luckham, the president of a powerful energy company pushing for a pipeline through central Virginia, is the missing hunter. A search is organized for what is presumed will be a dead, frozen body. What is discovered, however, chills everyone to the bone --- and points toward murder.

Winona Farmington once dreamed of graduating from college, moving to New York City and pursuing a career in publishing. Then real life got in the way when she left college and returned to her small Michigan hometown to care for her sick mother. Years later, stuck in a dead-end job and an unsatisfying relationship, Winnie has concluded that dreams were meant for others. She consoles herself by binge-watching the British television series “Beauchamp Hall,” enthralled by the sumptuous period drama set on a great Norfolk estate in the 1920s. On the day Winnie is passed over for a long-overdue promotion, she is also betrayed by her boyfriend and her best friend. Heartbroken, she makes the first impulsive decision of her conventional life --- which changes everything.

Fox 8 has always been known as the daydreamer in his pack, the one his fellow foxes regard with a knowing snort and a roll of the eyes. That is, until he develops a unique skill: He teaches himself to speak “Yuman” by hiding in the bushes outside a house and listening to children’s bedtime stories. The power of language fuels his abundant curiosity about people --- even after “danjer” arrives in the form of a new shopping mall that cuts off his food supply, sending Fox 8 on a harrowing quest to help save his pack.