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Vesper Wright left home at 18 and never looked back --- mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep. Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin, Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper has been given special treatment. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen. When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith.

BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN opens on a Saturday night in 1978, hours before a soon-to-be-infamous murderer descends upon a Florida sorority house with deadly results. The lives of those who survive --- including sorority president and key witness Pamela Schumacher --- are forever changed. Across the country, Tina Cannon is convinced her missing friend was targeted by the man papers refer to as the All-American Sex Killer --- and that he’s struck again. Determined to find justice, the two join forces as their search for answers leads to a final, shocking confrontation.

Twenty-one-year-old Hardy “Hardly” Reed, a minimum-wage scare actor at an amusement park, notices two children sitting all alone on a bench. He checks if they’re okay and sees injuries on both of them, so he reports the incident to Child Protective Services. But the more research he does, the less he trusts that they will do anything about it. Gradually, Hardly develops investigative skills and discovers he’s smarter and more capable than he ever imagined. But he also discovers that the situation is more dangerous than he ever expected. The abusive father who has been hurting these children isn’t just a lawyer --- he also runs a violent drug-dealing operation. The mother claims she wants to escape with the kids, but Hardly isn't sure he can trust her.

A visit to the local village fete for a spot of fun and relaxation turns into a nightmare for Agatha Raisin when she discovers the body of the local landowner in the woods --- with an arrow in his chest and trousers aound his ankles. Agatha’s old adversary, Detective Chief Inspector Wilkes, declares the death a tragic accident, believing the victim has been hit by a stray arrow from an archery demonstration. Agatha is convinced of foul play, however, and is shocked when Wilkes eventually agrees...with her as his prime murder suspect. Determined to clear her name and find the real killer, Agatha launches her own investigation, quickly becoming involved with a family at war, an unscrupulous gangster --- and a killer who is determined to make her the next victim.

On February 13, 2017, two teenage girls --- 13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German --- decided to enjoy a day off from school by exploring the popular hiking trails near the Monon High Bridge just a few minutes’ drive from Libby’s home in Delphi, Indiana. Libby’s sister, Kelsi, dropped the two girls off at the head of the trail. Less than 24 hours later, their bodies were found on the north bank of Deer Creek, about a mile from where they were last seen. There were few clues and little to go on in terms of physical evidence, except for the visual and audio remnants of a strange encounter the girls had with a stranger just hours before their disappearance. In DOWN THE HILL, longtime anchor and journalist Susan Hendricks digs deeper into the mystery that has captivated our nation for years.

Carol is a divorced teacher living in a small town in Ireland. A second chance at love brings her unexpected connection and belonging --- and sparks a flurry of speculation. What does a woman like her see in a man like that? What happened to his wife who abandoned him and his children all those years ago? Carol and Declan know their relationship is the talk of the town, but the gossip only serves to bring the couple closer. When Declan becomes ill, their relationship falters. His children are untrusting and cruel, and Carol is forced to leave their beloved home and move back with her parents. It seems there are secrets in Declan's past, strange rumors that were never confronted, and suddenly the house they shared takes on a more sinister significance that affects them all.

As a young girl, Hannah Stowe was raised at the tide’s edge on the Pembrokeshire coast of Wales, falling asleep to the sweep of the lighthouse beam. Now in her mid-20s, working as a marine biologist and sailor, Stowe draws on her professional experiences sailing tens of thousands of miles in the North Sea, North Atlantic, Mediterranean, Celtic Sea and the Caribbean to explore the human relationship with wild waters. Why is it, she asks, that she and so many others have been drawn to life at sea --- and what might the water around us be able to teach us? In MOVE LIKE WATER, Stowe invites readers to fall in love, as she has, with the sea and those that call it home, and to discover the majesty, wonder and vulnerability of the underwater world.

Sonny Lamb is an affable, if floundering, rancher with the unfortunate habit of becoming a punchline in his Texas hometown. But when a fire breaks out at a neighbor’s farm, Sonny bolts to the farm where his heroic actions make the evening news. A handsomely dressed lobbyist arrives at his ranch door and asks if he’d like to run for his West Texas district’s seat in the state legislature. Though Sonny has zero experience and doesn’t consider himself political at all, the fate of his ranch --- and perhaps his marriage to the lovely “cowgirl” Lola --- hangs in the balance. As he navigates life in politics, Sonny must learn the ropes, weighing his own ethics and environmental concerns against the pressures of veteran politicians, savvy lobbyists and his own party.

In 1874, in the wake of the War, erasure, trauma and namelessness haunt civilians and veterans, renegades and wanderers, freedmen and runaways. Twelve-year-old ConaLee, the adult in her family for as long as she can remember, finds herself on a buckboard journey with her mother, Eliza, who hasn’t spoken in more than a year. They arrive at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia, delivered to the hospital’s entrance by a war veteran who has forced himself into their world. There, far from family, a beloved neighbor, and the mountain home they knew, they try to reclaim their lives. They get swept up in the life of the facility --- the mysterious man they call the Night Watch; the orphan child called Weed; the fearsome woman who runs the kitchen; and the remarkable doctor at the head of the institution.

When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave --- only to discover that the earth refuses to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

When acclaimed naturalist Sy Montgomery and wildlife artist Matt Patterson arrive at Turtle Rescue League, they are greeted by hundreds of turtles recovering from injury and illness. Endangered by cars and highways, pollution and poachers, these turtles --- with wounds so severe that even veterinarians would have dismissed them as fatal --- are given a second chance at life. The League’s founders, Natasha and Alexxia, live by one motto: Never give up on a turtle. Ancient and unhurried, long-lived and majestic, their lineage stretches back to the time of the dinosaurs. Some live to 200 years or longer. Others spend months buried under cold winter water. Montgomery turns to these little understood yet endlessly surprising creatures to probe the eternal question: How can we make peace with our time?

Sadie Grace is wanted for witchcraft, dead (or alive). And every hired gun in Kansas is out to collect the bounty on her head, including bona fide witch hunter Old Tom and his mysterious, mute ward, Rabbit. On the road to Burden County, they’re joined by two vagabond cowboys with a strong sense of adventure --- but no sense of purpose --- and a recently widowed schoolteacher with nothing left to lose. As their posse grows, so too does the danger. Racing along the drought-stricken plains in a stolen red stagecoach, they encounter monsters more wicked than witches lurking along the dusty trail. But the crew is determined to get that bounty, or die trying.

When Boady Sanden first receives the case of Elijah Matthews, he’s certain there’s not much he can do. Elijah, who believes himself to be a prophet, has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital for the past four years, convicted of brutally murdering the pastor of a megachurch. But as a law professor working for the Innocence Project, Boady agrees to look into Elijah’s file. When he does, he is alarmed to find threads that lead back to the death of his colleague and friend, Ben Pruitt, a man shot to death four years earlier in Boady’s own home. Ben’s daughter, Emma, has lived with Boady and Boady’s wife, Dee, ever since that awful night. Now 14 years old, Emma has been growing distant and soon makes a fateful choice that takes her far from the safety of her godparents.

Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital. It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains.

In Ross Gay’s new collection of small, daily wonders, again written over the course of a year, one of America’s most original voices continues his ongoing investigation of delight. For Gay, what delights us is what connects us, what gives us meaning --- from the joy of hearing a nostalgic song blasting from a passing car to the pleasure of refusing the “nefarious” scannable QR code menus, from the tiny dog he fell hard for to his mother baking a dozen kinds of cookies for her grandchildren. As always, Gay revels in the natural world --- sweet potatoes being harvested, a hummingbird carousing in the beebalm, a sunflower growing out of a wall around the cemetery, the shared bounty from a neighbor’s fig tree --- and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us.

In Berkeley, California, in 1944, Homicide Detective Al Sullivan has just left the swanky Claremont Hotel after a drink in the bar when a presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms upstairs. A rich industrialist with enemies among the anarchist factions on the far left, Walter Wilkinson could have been targeted by any number of groups. But strangely, Sullivan’s investigation brings up the specter of another tragedy at the Claremont 10 years earlier: the death of seven-year-old Iris Stafford, a member of the Bainbridge family, one of the wealthiest in all of San Francisco. Some say she haunts the Claremont still. The many threads of the case keep leading Sullivan back to the three remaining Bainbridge heiresses, now adults: Iris’ sister, Isabella, and her cousins, Cassie and Nicole.

Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident --- a body without a spirit. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud the fairy stories Phoebe loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world. But an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, to journey to a land colored by the memories of childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father --- a land of witches and dryads, giants and mandrakes; a land where old enemies are watching and waiting. The Land of Lost Things.

It's rarely a quiet day for the Thursday Murder Club. Shocking news reaches them --- an old friend has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing. The gang's search leads them into the antiques business, where the tricks of the trade are as old as the objects themselves. As they encounter drug dealers, art forgers and online fraudsters --- as well as heartache close to home --- Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim have no idea whom to trust. With the body count rising, the clock ticking down, and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out? And who will be the last devil to die?

September 29, 1913. The steamship Dresden is halfway between Belgium and England. On board is one of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, whose new internal combustion engine is on the verge of revolutionizing global industry forever. But Diesel never arrives at his destination. He vanishes during the night, and headlines around the world wonder if it was an accident, suicide or murder. In THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF RUDOLF DIESEL, New York Times bestselling author Douglas Brunt reopens the case and provides an astonishing new conclusion about Diesel’s fate.

Wittold Walccyzkiecz is a vigorous, extravagantly white-haired pianist and interpreter of Chopin who becomes infatuated with Beatriz, a stylish patron of the arts, after she helps organize his concert in Barcelona. Although Beatriz, a married woman, is initially unimpressed by Wittold, she soon finds herself pursued and ineluctably swept into his world. As the journeyman performer sends her countless letters, extends invitations to travel, and even visits her husband’s summer home in Mallorca, their unlikely relationship blossoms, though only on Beatriz’s terms. The power struggle between them intensifies, eventually escalating into a full-fledged battle of the sexes. But is it Beatriz who limits their passion by paralyzing her emotions? Or is it Wittold trying to force into life his dream of love?

In THE WHICH OF SHAKESPEARE'S WHY, a 21st-century playwright named Harry Haines makes the case for a major contender via a play he himself is writing for a struggling New Jersey theater company. Faced with strong disapproval from the “Stratfordites” and with the backing of supporters that sometimes takes some unusual forms, Harry attempts, against great odds, to get the play written and staged. In the process, he has to overcome his own doubts, stay on the right side of the right people, keep his romantic life under control, and deal with not only a difficult actress or two but a flock of opinionated Rockettes.

In 1986, Syvert Løyning returns from the military to his mother’s home in southern Norway. One evening, his dead father comes to him in a dream. Realizing that he doesn’t really know who his father was, Syvert begins to investigate his life. What he learns changes his past and undermines the entire notion of who he is. But when his mother becomes ill, he no longer has time or space for lofty speculations. In present-day Russia, Alevtina Kotov, a biologist working at Moscow University, is traveling with her young son to the home of her stepfather to celebrate his 80th birthday. When she finally starts looking into her biological father, she learns that he died many years ago and left two sons, Joar and Syvert. Years later, when Syvert and Alevtina meet in Moscow, two very different approaches to life emerge.

Nell McDaragh never knew her grandfather, the celebrated Irish poet Phil McDaragh. But his love poems seem to speak directly to her. Restless and wryly self-assured, at 22 Nell leaves her mother Carmel’s orderly home to find her own voice as a writer. As she chases obsessive love, damage and transcendence, her grandfather’s poetry seems to guide her home. Carmel knows the magic of her Daddo’s poetry too well. In his poems to her, Phil envisions his daughter as a bright-eyed wren ascending in escape from his hand. But it is Phil who departs, abandoning his wife and two young daughters. Carmel struggles to reconcile “the poet” with the father whose desertion scars her life, along with that of her fiercely dutiful sister and their gentle, cancer-ridden mother.

TURNING PAGES is the well-told story of 40 years in the publishing business. For 24 of those years, John Sargent ran one of America’s largest publishing companies. Rather than a straight chronological narrative, Sargent uses the best stories of those years to give us an intimate look inside book publishing. In weaving these stories together, he brings the reader with him through triumph and despair, and a very interesting daily life. The reader will meet his odd publishing family, his interesting authors, and the celebrities with whom he worked. Sargent tells the tale of publishing Monica Lewinsky and recounts what it was like to have an author meeting in Buckingham Palace. He takes the reader with him into the Macmillan battles with Amazon, the Department of Justice and President Donald Trump.

In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned. Having recently celebrated her 80th birthday, Leon poignantly confronts the dual challenges and pleasures of aging. Complete with a brief letter dissuading those hoping to meet Guido Brunetti at the Questura, and always suffused with music, food and her sharp sense of humor, WANDERING THROUGH LIFE offers Donna Leon at her most personal.