Castlegar & District Public Library

"A mesmerizing, psychologically taut novel about a marriage's end and the secrets we all carry. A young woman has agreed with her faithless husband: it's time for them to separate. For the moment it's a private matter, a secret between the two of them. As she begins her new life, she gets word that Christopher has gone missing in a remote region in the rugged south of Greece; she reluctantly agrees to go and search for him, still keeping their split to herself. In her heart, she's not even sure if she wants to find him. Adrift in the wild landscape, she traces the disintegration of their relationship, and discovers she understands less than she thought about the man she used to love. A story of intimacy and infidelity, A Separation is about the gulf that divides us from the lives of others and the narratives we create for ourselves. As the narrator reflects upon her love for a man who may never have been what he appeared, Kitamura propels us into the experience of a woman on the brink of catastrophe. A Separation is a riveting stylistic masterpiece of absence and presence that will leave the reader astonished, and transfixed"--Provided by publisher.

"On the weekend of her wedding, Clare Hobbes meets an elderly woman named Edith Herron. During the course of a single conversation, Edith gives Clare the courage to do what she should have done months earlier: break off her engagement to her charming, yet overly possessive, fiancé. Three weeks later, Clare learns that Edith has died-- and has given her another gift. Nestled in crepe myrtle and hydrangea and perched at the marshy edge of a bay in a small seaside town in Delaware, Blue Sky House now belongs to Clare. Though the former guest house has been empty for years, Clare feels a deep connection to Edith inside its walls, which are decorated with old photographs taken by Edith and her beloved husband, Joseph. Exploring the house, Clare finds two mysterious ledgers hidden beneath the kitchen sink. Edith, it seems, was no ordinary woman-- and Blue Sky House no ordinary place."--publisher

"Reminiscent of the bestsellers of Laura Lippman and Harlan Coben—with a dose of Big Little Lies or Stranger Things—an absorbing, addictive tale of psychological suspense from the author of the highly acclaimed and Edgar Award-nominated What Remains of Me and the USA Today bestselling and Shamus Award-winning Brenna Spector series, in which a seemingly open-and-shut police case with a clear-cut hero and villain turns out to be anything but simple. Late one night in the quiet Hudson Valley town of Havenkill, a distraught woman stumbles into the police station—and lives are changed forever. Aimee En, once a darling of the ’80s pop music scene, claims that a teenage boy stole her car, then ran over another young man who'd rushed to help. As Liam Miller’s life hangs in the balance, the events of that fateful night begin to come into focus. But is everything as it seems? The case quickly consumes social media, transforming Liam, a local high school football star, into a folk hero, and the suspect, a high school outcast named Wade Reed, into a depraved would-be killer. But is Wade really guilty? And if he isn't, why won't he talk? Told from a kaleidoscope of viewpoints—Wade's mother Jackie, his younger brother Connor, Aimee En and Pearl Maze, a young police officer with a tragic past, If I Die Tonight is a story of family ties and dark secrets—and the lengths we'll go to protect ourselves."--Provided by the publisher.

The Feed is accessible everywhere, by everyone, at any time. It is the essential tool everyone relies on to know and understand the thoughts and feelings of partners, parents, friends, children, colleagues, bosses, employees - in fact, of anyone and everyone else in the world. Then the Feed collapses, taking modern society with it, leaving people scavenging to survive. In a world where survival of the fittest is a way of life, there is no one to depend upon except yourself - and maybe even that is no longer true.

"International bestselling author Ken Follett has enthralled millions of readers with The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, two stories of the Middle Ages set in the fictional city of Kingsbridge. The saga now continues with Follett's magnificent new epic, A Column of Fire. In 1558, the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn apart by religious conflict. As power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and Protestants, royalty and commoners clash, testing friendship, loyalty, and love. Ned Willard wants nothing more than to marry Margery Fitzgerald. But when the lovers find themselves on opposing sides of the religious conflict dividing the country, Ned goes to work for Princess Elizabeth. When she becomes queen, all Europe turns against England. The shrewd, determined young monarch sets up the country's first secret service to give her early warning of assassination plots, rebellions, and invasion plans. Over a turbulent half century, the love between Ned and Margery seems doomed as extremism sparks violence from Edinburgh to Geneva. Elizabeth clings to her throne and her principles, protected by a small, dedicated group of resourceful spies and courageous secret agents." -- Provided by publisher.

"After the disastrous attack on the Manticoran home system by forces unknown, the Royal Manticoran Navy stands on the brink of collapse. A shadowy enemy with the resources to hurl warships across hundreds of light years seeks to conquer the Star Kingdom for reasons unknown, while forces from within Manticore’s own government seek to discredit and weaken the Navy for reasons very much known: their own political gain. It’s up to officers like Travis Long and Lisa Donnelly to defend the Star Kingdom and the Royal Manticoran Navy from these threats, but the challenge is greater than any they have faced before. Weakened but not defeated, the mercenary forces and their mysterious employer could return at any time, and the anti-Navy faction within Parliament is growing. The situation becomes even more dire when fresh tragedy strikes the Star Kingdom. While the House of Winton faces their enemies at home, Travis, Lisa, and the other officers of the Royal Manticoran Navy must reunite with old friends and join new allies to hunt down and eliminate the forces arrayed against them in a galaxy-spanning conspiracy." --Provided by the publisher.

"Who is Nola Brown? Nola is a mystery. Nola is trouble. And Nola is supposed to be dead. Her body was found on a plane that mysteriously fell from the sky as it left a secret military base in the Alaskan wilderness. Her commanding officer verifies she's dead. The US government confirms it. But Jim "Zig" Zigarowski has just found out the truth: Nola is still alive. And on the run. Zig works at Dover Air Force Base, helping put to rest the bodies of those who die on top-secret missions. Nola was a childhood friend of Zig's daughter and someone who once saved his daughter's life. So when Zig realizes Nola is still alive, he's determined to find her. Yet as Zig digs into Nola's past, he learns that trouble follows Nola everywhere she goes. Nola is the US Army's artist-in-residence, a painter and trained soldier who rushes into battle, making art from war's aftermath and sharing observations about today's wars that would otherwise go overlooked. On her last mission, Nola saw something nobody was supposed to see, earning her an enemy unlike any other, one who will do whatever it takes to keep Nola quiet. Together, Nola and Zig will either reveal a sleight of hand being played at the highest levels of power or die trying to uncover the US Army's most mysterious secret, a centuries-old conspiracy that traces back through history to the greatest escape artist of all: Harry Houdini"--

Another golden morning in a seedy town, and a new memory tape and assignment for intrepid PI-turned-hitman--and last robot left in working order--Raymond Electromatic. But, in Killing Is My Business, he finds his skills may be rustier than he remembered.

Twenty years ago, Dennis Danson was arrested and imprisoned for the brutal murder of a young girl. Now he's the subject of a true-crime documentary that's whipping up a frenzy online to uncover the truth and free a man who has been wrongly convicted. A thousand miles away in England, Samantha is obsessed with Dennis's case. She exchanges letters with him, and is quickly won over by his apparent charm and kindness to her. Soon she has left her old life behind to marry him and campaign for his release. When the campaign is successful and Dennis is freed, however, Sam begins to discover new details that suggest he may not be quite so innocent after all. But how do you confront your husband when you don't want to know the truth?

Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the isolated travelers to the brink of madness. Though they dream of what awaits them in the West, long-buried secrets begin to emerge, and dissent among them escalates to the point of murder and chaos. They cannot seem to escape tragedy...or the feelings that someone -- or something -- is stalking them. Whether it’s a curse from the beautiful Tamsen Donner (who some think might be a witch), their ill-advised choice of route through uncharted terrain, or just plain bad luck, the ninety men, women, and children of the Donner Party are heading into one of one of the deadliest and most disastrous Western adventures in American history. As members of the group begin to disappear, the survivors start to wonder if there really is something disturbing, and hungry, waiting for them in the mountains...and whether the evil that has unfolded around them may have in fact been growing within them all along. Effortlessly combining the supernatural and the historical, The Hunger is an eerie, thrilling look at the volatility of human nature, pushed to its breaking point.

One day Enrique, a high-profile businessman, receives a visit from Rolando Garro, the editor of a notorious magazine that specializes in salacious exposés. Garro presents Enrique with lewd pictures from an old business trip and demands that he invest in the magazine. Enrique refuses, and the next day the pictures are on the front page. Meanwhile, Enrique's wife is in the midst of a passionate and secret affair with the wife of Enrique's lawyer and best friend. When Garro shows up murdered, the two couples are thrown into a whirlwind of navigating Peru's unspoken laws and customs, while the staff of the magazine embark on their greatest exposé yet.

A smoldering debut about an insular community on an island at the end of the world and the girls who start to question the rules that bind them.

A thriller that alternates between the glamorous fashion world of Paris and the rugged beauty of the Isle of Harris in the Scottish Hebrides. When a fabric entrepreneur is killed in a car explosion in Paris, Niamh, his wife and business partner, becomes the prime suspect. The Parisian police continue to hound her when she returns to Harris to bury her husband's remains. After an attempt is made on her life, Niamh has to wonder if the motive is simply money, or something far more personal.

A city kid, Katie Normet's fascination for large animals led her to study animal sciences at university. Today, she and her family run river's Edge Goat Dairy where Katie oversees a herd of some 75 goats that produce more than 50,000 liters of milk a year. Much of this milk is transformed into delicious yogurt, cheese, soaps and moisturizing creams, which Normet sells at local markets. Raising and Keeping Dairy Goats is Normet's account of the daily challenges and rewards of life as a goat farmer. She explores all the big-picture issues in goat husbandry, including purchasing, housing, feeding, breeding, kidding, milking,and diseases. There are also chapters on cheese making and soap making with tips and recipes.

"For fans of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, an arresting literary puzzle that introduces an unforgettable young heroine plunged into the twisted world of a secret society occupying the derelict buildings of Philadelphia, which heralds the arrival of an astoundingly imaginative and propulsive new voice in fiction. Lee Cuddy is 17 years old and on the run, alone on the streets of Philadelphia. After taking the fall for a rich friend, Lee reluctantly accepts refuge in the Crystal Castle - a cooperative of homeless kids squatting in an austere, derelict building. But homeless kids are disappearing from the streets of Philadelphia in suspicious numbers, and Lee quickly discovers that the secret society's charitable facade is too good to be true. She finds an unexpected ally in Tomi, a young artist and hacker whose knowledge of the Internet's black market is rivaled only by his ability to break into and out of buildings. From abandoned aquariums to highly patrolled museums to the homes of vacationing Philadelphians, Tomi and Lee can always chart a way to the next, perfect hide-out" --

"Thanksgiving has a way of thawing the frostiest hearts in Lake Eden. But that won’t be happening for newlywed Hannah Swensen Barton—not after her husband suddenly disappears . . . Hannah has felt as bitter as November in Minnesota since Ross vanished without a trace and left their marriage in limbo. Still, she throws herself into a baking frenzy for the sake of pumpkin pie and Thanksgiving-themed treats while endless holiday orders pour into The Cookie Jar. Hannah even introduces a raspberry Danish pastry to the menu, and P.K., her husband’s assistant at KCOW-TV, will be one of the first to sample it. But instead of taking a bite, P.K., who is driving Ross’s car and using his desk at work, is murdered. Was someone plotting against P.K. all along or did Ross dodge a deadly dose of sweet revenge? Hannah will have to quickly sift through a cornucopia of clues and suspects to stop a killer from bringing another murder to the table . . ."--

"In this chilling debut thriller, in the vein of Dexter and The Talented Mr. Ripley, a family man obsessed with digging up the undiscovered remains of serial killer victims catches the attention of a murderer prowling the streets of Seattle. Martin Reese is obsessed with murder. For years, he has been illegally buying police files on serial killers and studying them in depth, using them as guides to find missing bodies. He doesn't take any souvenirs, just photos that he stores in an old laptop, and then he turns in the results to the police anonymously. Martin sees his work as a public service, a righting of wrongs that cops have continuously failed to do. Detective Sandra Whittal sees it differently. On a meteoric rise in police ranks due to her case-closing efficiency, Whittal is suspicious of the mysterious caller--the Finder, she names him--leading the police to the bodies. Even if the Finder isn't the one leaving bodies behind, who's to say that he won't start soon? On his latest dig, Martin searches for the first kill of Jason Shurn, the early 1990s murderer who may have been responsible for the disappearance of his sister-in-law, whom he never met. But when he arrives at the site, he finds a freshly killed body--a young and recently disappeared Seattle woman--lying among remains that were left there decades ago. Someone else knew where Jason Shurn buried his victims ... and that someone isn't happy that Martin has been going around digging up his work. When a crooked cop with a tenuous tie to Martin vanishes, Whittal begins to zero in on the Finder. Hunted by a real killer and by Whittal, Martin realizes that in order to escape the killer's trap, he may have to go deeper into the world of murder than he ever thought."-- Publisher

Gathering in Summer Hill, Virigina, three women from different generations reflect on their experiences with love and support one another through marital woes.

Summer has ended, but the heat will not let up. Ash has covered everything. Weeds and wheat grow around the cars abandoned in the road. Anna and Astor live in the house behind the fence, surviving in a world stripped of adults. The rooms are piled high with rubbish. Their mother's skeleton lies perfect on the bed. And every few days, Anna must head out beyond the fence for provisions and medicine. Each time she goes, she may never come back.

"In this riveting sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller, Maestra, femme fatale Judith Rashleigh once again leads readers into the mesmerizing and dangerous underworld of Europe's glamorous elite. Since opening her own art gallery in Venice, Judith Rashleigh--now Elisabeth Teerlinc--can finally stop running. She's got the paycheck, lifestyle, and wardrobe she always dreamed of, not to mention the interest of a Russian billionaire. But when a chance encounter in Ibiza leads to a corpse that is, for once, not her own doing, she finds her life is back on the line--and she's more alone than ever. It seems Judith's become involved with more than just one stolen painting, and there is someone else willing to kill for what's theirs. From St. Moritz to Serbia, Judith again finds herself maneuvering the strange landscapes of wealth, but this time there's far more than her reputation at stake. How far will Rage take Judith? Far enough to escape death? The second installment in an unforgettable trilogy, Domina is the next sexy, ruthless, and decadent thriller from mastermind L. S. Hilton, and an adventure that will push Judith further than even she imagined she could go"--Provided by publisher.

Sometimes calculating, other times bewildered, Catapult's characters orbit around each other enacting the deeply human tragicomedy of wit and misunderstanding and loss. With dexterous, atmospheric, and darkly comic prose, Fridlund conjures worlds where longing is open-ended, intentions misfire, and the line between comfort and cruelty is often difficult to discern. A gripping collection, unsettling in its familiar strangeness.

A girl. A boy. His mother. And the lie she'll wish she'd never told. Laura has it all. A successful career, a long marriage to a rich husband, and a 23-year-old son, Daniel, who is kind, handsome and talented. Then Daniel meets Cherry. Cherry is young, beautiful and smart, but she hasn't had the same opportunities as Daniel. And she wants Laura's life. Cherry comes to the family wide-eyed and wants to be welcomed with open arms, but Laura suspects she's not all that she seems. When tragedy strikes, one of them tells an unforgivable lie - probably the worst lie anyone could tell. It is an act of desperation, but the fall-out will change their lives forever.

"There is a dark secret that is hiding at the heart of New York City and diminishing the city's magicians' power in this fantasy thriller by acclaimed author Kat Howard. In New York City, magic controls everything. But the power of magic is fading. No one knows what is happening, except for Sydney--a new, rare magician with incredible power that has been unmatched in decades, and she may be the only person who is able to stop the darkness that is weakening the magic. But Sydney doesn't want to help the system, she wants to destroy it. Sydney comes from the House of Shadows, which controls the magic with the help of sacrifices from magicians"-- Provided by publisher.

A powerful novel about a gutsy showgirl who tries to conquer her past amongst the glamour of 1960s Las Vegas — and finds unexpected fortune, friendship, and love. It was unimaginable. When she was eight years old, Lily Decker somehow survived the auto accident that killed her parents and sister, but neither her emotionally distant aunt nor her all-too-attentive uncle could ease her grief. Dancing proves to be Lily’s only solace, and eventually she receives a “scholarship” to a local dance academy—courtesy of a mysterious benefactor. Grown and ready to leave home for good, Lily changes her name to Ruby Wilde and heads to Las Vegas to be a troupe dancer, but her sensual beauty and voluptuous figure land her work instead as a showgirl performing everywhere from Les Folies Bergere at the Tropicana to the Stardust’s Lido de Paris. Wearing sky-high headdresses, five-inch heels, and costumes dripping with feathers and rhinestones, Ruby may have all the looks of a Sin City success story, but she still must learn to navigate the world of men—and figure out what real love looks like. With her uncanny knack for understanding the hidden lives of women, Elizabeth J. Church captures both the iconic extravagance of an era and the bravery of a young woman who dances through her sadness to find connection, freedom, and, most important, herself.

It begins with the heroic Egyptian pharaoh Ramses the Damned mysteriously awakened after centuries of slumber to the mystifying and dizzying world of Edwardian England, seeking to wed the great beauty and heiress Julie Stratford, whom Ramses has given the same elixir that has rendered him immortal. Now, with his bride-to-be, he is swept up in a fierce battle of will against an ancient love, the exquisite and dangerous Queen Cleopatra, whose mummy he has recklessly brought back to life. As these two magnificent rulers are caught up in a furious struggle to understand the powers of the extraordinary and wondrous potion, another, more ominous spirit makes its presence known, drawn forth from the mists of history - an ancient queen, possessor of the true origins of the elixir, who has an unrelenting fascination with the fates of Ramses II and Queen Cleopatra; the only force who can make known to these golden monarchs the key to their immortality and the secrets of the miraculous expanse of the universe...

"With a murder during the Gaslights and Galleons boat parade, and then strange goings-on at the Carolina Cat Show and Rare Weapons Show, what else could possibly happen to rock Theodosia’s world – except perhaps a second murder?"--

When the bodies of missing schoolgirls start turning up, former DCI Kate Burrows is dragged out of retirement. A new Grantley serial killer is in town and DCI Annie Carr turns to Kate for help. She welcomes the distraction from her home life with former gangster, Patrick Kelly, whose long-lost son has appeared out of the blue, bringing trouble with him. It soon becomes clear the killer is on their doorstep and as the body count grows, Kate and Annie face a race against the clock. But they have no real leads...and there's more to these murders than meets the eye. Can Kate take the killer down before another schoolgirl dies?

"The King, near death, lies in a magically induced coma. To save their father, and prevent chaos across the kingdom, five daughters set out on a journey to find a cure--even as their conniving step-brother seeks to gather power to himself. The sisters are in search of a lost relative in the wilds of the north who may hold the key to their father's survival, but their journey will not be an easy one. For each of these very different women harbors secrets unknown to the rest--secrets that could decide the fate of the family, and the kingdom"--

In 1950s Quebec, when Maggie Hughes becomes pregnant at fifteen, her parents force her to give baby Elodie up for adoption. Elodie is raised in Quebec's impoverished orphanage system. A tragic turn when Elodie, along with thousands of other orphans, is declared mentally ill as the result of a new law that provides more funding to psychiatric hospitals than to orphanages. As time passes, the stories of Maggie and Elodie intertwine but never touch, until Maggie realizes she must take what she wants from life and go in search of her long-lost daughter.

Amos Decker and his journalist friend Alex Jamison are visiting the home of Alex's sister in Barronville, a small town in western Pennsylvania that has been hit hard economically. When Decker is out on the rear deck of the house talking with Alex's niece, a precocious eight-year-old, he notices flickering lights and then a spark of flame in the window of the house across the way. When he goes to investigate he finds two dead bodies inside and it's not clear how either man died. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. There's something going on in Barronville that might be the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the country. Faced with a stonewalling local police force, and roadblocks put up by unseen forces, Decker and Jamison must pull out all the stops to solve the case. And even Decker's infallible memory may not be enough to save them.

"A series of shootings exposes San Francisco to a methodical yet unpredictable killer, and a reluctant woman decides to put her trust in Sergeant Lindsay Boxer. The confidential informant’s tip leads Lindsay to disturbing conclusions, including that something has gone horribly wrong inside the police department itself. The hunt for the killer lures Lindsay out of her jurisdiction, and gets inside Lindsay in dangerous ways. She suffers unsettling medical symptoms, and her friends and confidantes in the Women’s Murder Club warn Lindsay against taking the crimes too much to heart. With lives at stake, the detective can’t help but follow the case into ever more terrifying terrain. A decorated officer, loving wife, devoted mother, and loyal friend, Lindsay’s unwavering integrity has never failed her. But now she is confronting a killer who is determined to undermine it all." -- Provided by publisher.

In the early hours of a quiet, weekend morning in Manhattan's Diamond District, a brutal triple murder shocks the city. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs quickly take the case. Curiously, the killer has left behind a half-million dollars' worth of gems at the murder scene, a jewelry store on 47th street. As more crimes follow, it becomes clear that the killer's target is not gems, but engaged couples themselves. The Promisor vows to take the lives of men and women during their most precious moments - midway through the purchase of an engagement ring, after a meeting with a wedding planner, trying on the perfect gown for a day that will never come. The Promisor arrives silently, armed with knife or gun, and a time of bliss is transformed, in an instant, to one of horror. Soon the Promiser makes a dangerous mistake: leaving behind an innocent witness, Vimal Lahori, a talented young diamond cutter, who can help Rhyme and Sachs blow the lid off the case. They must track down Vimal before the killer can correct his fatal error. Then disaster strikes, threatening to tear apart the very fabric of the city -- and providing the perfect cover for the killer to slip through the cracks.

"Investigating the disappearance of an apprentice craftsman who had been working on a secret government contract, Maisie Dobbs discovers suspicious links to the London underworld and another boy close to her heart."--

London. A fox makes its way across Waterloo Bridge. The distraction causes two pedestrians to collide - Jean, an American studying the habits of urban foxes, and Attila, a Chanaian psychiatrist. Attila has arrived in London with two tasks: to deliver a keynote speech on trauma, one he has delivered many times before; and to make contact with the daughter of his friends, his "niece" who hasn't called home in a while. Ama has been swept up in an immigration crackdown, and now her young son Tano is missing. When, by chance, Attila runs into Jean again, she mobilizes the nerwork of rubbish men she uses as volunteer fox spotters. Security guards, hotel doormen, traffic police - mainly West African immigrants who work the myriad streets of London - come together to help. As the seach for Tano continues, a deepening friendship between Attila and Jean unfolds. Meanwhile a consulting case causes Attila to question the impact of his own ideas on trauma, the values of the society he finds himself in, and a grief of his own.

In this imaginative novel rooted in the rich soil of early-nineteenth-century German Romanticism, bestselling author Gregory Maguire twins an origin legend of the famous Nutcracker with the life of Drosselmeier, the toymaker who carves him. Maguire discovers in the flowering of German Romanticism a migrating strain of a Hellenic mystery-cult, and ponders a profound question: how a person who is abused by life, short-changed and challenged, can access secrets that benefit the disadvantaged and powerless.

"A Navy SEAL has nothing left to live for and everything to kill for after he discovers that the American government is behind the deaths of his team"--

Poornima and Savitha have three strikes against them: they are poor, they are ambitious, and they are girls. After her mother’s death, Poornima has very little kindness in her life. She is left to care for her siblings until her father can find her a suitable match. So when Savitha enters their household, Poornima is intrigued by the joyful, independent-minded girl. Suddenly their Indian village doesn't feel quite so claustrophobic, and Poornima begins to imagine a life beyond arranged marriage. But when a devastating act of cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she has ever known to find her friend. Her journey takes her into the darkest corners of India's underworld, on a harrowing cross-continental journey, and eventually to an apartment complex in Seattle. Alternating between the girls’ perspectives as they face ruthless obstacles, Girls Burn Brighter introduces two heroines who never lose the hope that burns within.

Before she disappeared, Alexandra Southwood lived an average, happy life: devoted to her wonderful husband, Marc, and caring for her two beautiful daughters. But now, held in a room against her will, Alexandra is forced to think about all she’s lost, and imagine how Marc and her daughters are coping in the wake of her disappearance. She's shown news clips of Marc, desperately appealing to the public for information on her whereabouts. She tortures herself with visions of her family's devastated new reality. And as she envisions Marc’s distress, she can’t help but remember their courtship, their marriage — all that he saved her from and all that they’ve built together. Marc's pain is visceral. He thinks of nothing but her. Even when the police discover Alexandra's bloody belongings by the river, turning their missing-persons case into a murder investigation, he cannot accept that she is lost to him. He shifts from total despair to frantic action, embarking on his own journey through the dark maze of secrets she kept and passions he never understood. Following a trail that leads him to find answers to questions he never meant to ask, he’s forced to confront how frighteningly little he’s grasped about the woman he loves.

After she hires an archivist to help her research a treasure map that she found at the Chadwick estate in Moosetookalook, Maine, Scottish Emporium owner Lisa MacCrimmon is horrified when the archivist is murdered, and takes it upon herself to find the killer.

"Essie's life looks idyllic: a loving husband, a beautiful house in a good neighborhood, and a nearby mother who dotes on her grandchildren. When a new woman named Isabelle moves in next door to Essie, she is an immediate object of curiosity in the neighborhood. When the two women grow close and Essie's friends voice their disapproval, it becomes clear that Isabelle's choice of neighborhood was no accident, and that her presence threatens to bring shocking secrets to light."--Provided by the publisher.

A flight attendant wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man--and no idea what happened.

"Inspired by the 1970 Bhola Cyclone, in which half a million people perished overnight, The Storm seamlessly interweaves five love stories that, together, chronicle fifty years of Bangladeshi history. Shahryar, a recent Ph.D. graduate and father of nine-year-old Anna, must leave the US when his visa expires. As father and daughter spend their last remaining weeks together, Shahryar tells Anna the history of his country, beginning in a village on the Bay of Bengal, where a poor fisherman and his Hindu wife, who converted to Islam out of love for him, are preparing to face a storm of historic proportions. Their story intersects with those of a Japanese fighter pilot, a British female doctor stationed in Burma during World War II, a Buddhist monk originally from Austria, and a privileged couple in Calcutta who leave everything behind to move to East Pakistan following the Partition of India. The structure of this riveting novel mimics the storm itself -- building to a series of revelatory and moving climaxes as it explores the many ways in which families love, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another. At once grounded in history and fantastically imaginative, The Storm is a sweeping epic in the tradition of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance by an immensely talented new voice in international fiction."--

When Eleanora's father is shot dead in the streets of Albania in 1910, she must abandon her dreams and struggle to survive in a remote mountain village with her stepmother Meria. Nearing starvation, Meria secretly sells Eleanora into marriage with the cruel heir of a powerful clan. Intent on keeping her freedom, Eleanora takes an oath to remain a virgin for the rest of her lifea tradition that gives her the right to live as a man: she is now head of her household and can work for a living as well as carry a gun. When an injured stranger stumbles into her life, Eleanora nurses him back to health, saving his lifeyet risking her own.

"Ellie Mack was the perfect daughter. She was fifteen, the youngest of three. She was beloved by her parents, friends, and teachers. She and her boyfriend made a teenaged golden couple. She was days away from an idyllic post-exams summer vacation, with her whole life ahead of her. And then she was gone."--

"An exceptional storyteller, #1 New York Times bestselling author Robyn Carr beautifully captures the emotionally charged, complex dynamics that come with being part of any family. Readers will laugh and shed a few tears as they discover what it means to be loved, supported and accepted by the people who mean the most. Having left the military, Dakota Jones is at a crossroads in his life. With his elder brother and youngest sister happily settled in Sullivan’s Crossing, he shows up hoping to clear his head before moving on to his next adventure. But, like every visitor to the Crossing, he’s immediately drawn to the down-to-earth people and the seemingly simple way of life. Dakota is unprepared for how quickly things get complicated. As a newcomer, he is on everyone’s radar -- especially the single women in town. While he enjoys the attention at first, he’s really only attracted to the one woman who isn’t interested. And spending quality time with his siblings is eye-opening. As he gets to know them, he also gets to know himself and what he truly wants. When all the Jones siblings gather for a family wedding, the four adults are drawn together for the first time in a way they never were as children. As they struggle to accept each other, warts and all, the true nature and strength of their bond is tested. But all of them come to realize that your family are the people who see you for who you really are and love you anyway. And for Dakota, that truth allows him to find the home and family he’s always wanted."

There's nothing left for Adelia Cunnane in Ireland. The aunt she cared for has passed, and the family farm has been sold in order to pay taxes. But her uncle Paddy has written her: "Come to America...." The Maryland horse farm where Paddy lives and works is more than Dee dared to dream about. She has always had a magical touch with animals, and here she finds employment in the stables and a chance to fly on the muscular back of Travis Grant's chestnut thoroughbred. It's easy to put aside a passing pang of homesickness when she can spend her first paycheck - which feels like a veritable fortune - on the feminine frivolities that were never a part of her life in the old country. But the most unfamiliar territory of all is her relationship with her boss, the man who has made all this possible. Spirited but innocent, Dee is disconcerted by the way he treats her - and the way she responds. America may be the land of opportunity, a place where even those from the humblest background can pursue what they want - and, perhaps, even one day find themselves attending the Kentucky Derby - but some divides may be too wide to cross, and Dee fears that demanding more could cost her all that she's already gained.

"How do you move on when the world won’t let you? 12:46: Claire Bingley stands alone at a bus stop. 12:47: Ted Conkaffey parks his car beside her. 12:52: The girl is missing... Six minutes in the wrong place at the wrong time -- that’s all it took to ruin Sydney detective Ted Conkaffey’s life. Accused but not convicted of a brutal abduction, Ted is now a free man -- and public enemy number one. Maintaining his innocence, he flees north to keep a low profile amidst the steamy, croc-infested wetlands of Crimson Lake. There, Ted’s lawyer introduces him to eccentric private investigator Amanda Pharrell, herself a convicted murderer. Not entirely convinced Amanda is a cold-blooded killer, Ted agrees to help with her investigation, a case full of deception and obsession, while secretly digging into her troubled past. The residents of Crimson Lake are watching the pair's every move...and the town offers no place to hide." -- Provided by publisher.

An unnamed visitor travels to wartime Berlin, where she learns about the city through the things she sees and the disparate people she meets.

"In this irresistible historical novel set in the turbulent world of the Medicis, a young woman finds herself driven from pick-pocketing to espionage when she meets a mysterious man."--Provided by the publisher.

"Sixteen never-before-published chilling tales that explore every aspect of our darkest holiday, Halloween, co-edited by Ellen Datlow, one of the most successful and respected genre editors, and Lisa Morton, a leading authority on Halloween. In addition to stories about scheming jack-o'-lanterns, vengeful ghosts, otherworldly changelings, disturbingly realistic haunted attractions, masks that cover terrifying faces, murderous urban legends, parties gone bad, cult Halloween movies, and trick or treating in the future, Haunted Nights also offers terrifying and mind-bending explorations of related holidays like All Souls' Day, Dia de los Muertos, and Devil's Night. "With Graveyard Weeds and Wolfbane Seeds" by Seanan McGuire "Dirtmouth" by Stephen Graham Jones" "A Small Taste of the Old Countr" by Jonathan Maberry "Wick's End" by Joanna Parypinski "The Seventeen Year Itch" by Garth Nix "A Flicker of Light on Devil's Night" by Kate Jonez "Witch-Hazel" by Jeffrey Ford "Nos Galen Gaeaf" by Kelley Armstrong "We're Never Inviting Amber Again" by S. P. Miskowski "Sisters" by Brian Evenson "All Through the Night" by Elise Forier Edie "A Kingdom of Sugar Skulls and Marigolds" by Eric J. Guignard "The Turn" by Paul Kane "Jack" by Pat Cadigan "Lost in the Dark" by John Langan "The First Lunar Halloween" by John R. Little."--From publisher.

It's August 2011, and Tropical Storm Irene has just wreaked havoc on Vermont, flooding rivers and destroying homes. One thousand miles away - while tending bar in New Orleans - Vale receives a call saying that her mother, Bonnie, has disappeared. Despite a years-long estrangement from Bonnie, Vale drops everything and returns home to look for her. But the hometown that Vale comes back to is not the one she left eight years earlier, and she finds herself falling back into the lives of the family she thought she'd long since left behind. As Vale begins her search, the narrative opens up and pitches back and forth in time to follow three generations of women - a farming widow, a back-to-the-land dreamer, an owl-loving hermit - as they seek love, bear children, and absorb loss. All the while, Vale's search has her unwittingly careening toward a family-origin secret more stunning than she ever imagined.

Marine biologist Doc Ford has been known to help his friends out of jams occasionally, but he’s never faced a situation like this. His old pal Carl Fitzpatrick has been chasing sunken wrecks most of his life, but now he’s run afoul of the Florida Division of Historical Resources. Its director, Leonard Nickelby, despises amateur archaeologists, which is bad enough, but now he and his young 'assistant' have disappeared - along with Fitzpatrick’s impounded cache of rare Spanish coins and the list of uncharted wreck sites Fitz spent decades putting together. Some of Fitz’s own explorations have been a little...dicey, so he can’t go to the authorities. Doc is his only hope. But greed makes people do terrible things: rob, cheat, even kill. With stakes this high, there’s no way the thieves will go quietly - and Doc’s just put himself in their crosshairs.

"American-born spy and code-breaker extraordinaire Maggie Hope secretly navigates Nazi-occupied France to find two brave women during the darkest days of World War II in the latest novel in this New York Times bestselling series--"a treat for WWII buffs and mystery lovers alike." (Booklist, on The Prime Minister's Secret Agent) Maggie Hope has come a long way since serving as a typist for Winston Churchill. Now she's working undercover for the Special Operations Executive in the elegant but eerily silent city of Paris, where SS officers prowl the streets in their Mercedes and the Ritz is draped with swastika banners. Walking among the enemy is tense and terrifying, and even though she's disguised in chic Chanel, Maggie can't help longing for home. But her missions come first. Maggie's half sister, Elise, has disappeared after being saved from a concentration camp, and Maggie is desperate to find her--that is, if Elise even wants to be found. Equally urgent, Churchill is planning the Allied invasion of France, and SOE agent Erica Calvert has been captured, the whereabouts of her vital research regarding Normandy unknown. Maggie must risk her life to penetrate powerful circles and employ all her talents for deception and spycraft to root out a traitor, find her sister, and locate the reports crucial to planning D-Day in a deadly game of wits with the Nazi intelligence elite. "You'll be [Maggie Hope's] loyal subject, ready to follow her wherever she goes."--O: The Oprah Magazine"-- Provided by publisher.

Amanda Doucette's cross-Canada charity tour is in for a cold snap when she organizes a winter camping trip for inner-city young people in the stunning setting of the Laurentian Mountains. With a view to bridging cultural divides, she brings along a mixture of Canadian-born and immigrant youth. Trouble begins when two of the teenagers disappear into the wilderness during the night: Luc, a French/English-Canadian with a history of drug use, and Yasmina, an adventurous young woman from Iraq who dreams of becoming a human rights lawyer. Although frantic, their parents are strangely secretive amid suspicions of drug use and forbidden romance. But when a local farmer turns up dead and terrorist material is found on Luc's computer, the dangers turn deadly.

"With the quiet precision of Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres and the technical clarity of Mary Roach’s Stiff, this is a novel about a young woman who comes most alive while working in her father’s mortuary in a small, forgotten Western town. 'The dead come to me vulnerable, sharing their stories and secrets...' Mary Crampton has spent all of her thirty years in Petroleum, a small Western town once supported by a powerful grain company. Living at home, she works as the embalmer in her father’s mortuary: an unlikely job that has long marked her as an outsider. Yet, to Mary there is a satisfying art to positioning and styling each body to capture the essence of a subject’s life. Though some townsfolk pretend that the community is thriving, the truth is that Petroleum is crumbling away -- a process that began twenty years ago when an accident in the grain elevator killed a beloved high school athlete. The mill closed for good, the train no longer stopped in town, and Robert Golden, the victim’s younger brother, was widely blamed for the tragedy and shipped off to live elsewhere. Now, out of the blue, Robert has returned to care for his terminally ill mother. After Mary -- reserved, introspective, and deeply lonely -- strikes up an unlikely friendship with him, shocking the locals, she finally begins to consider what might happen if she dared to leave Petroleum. Set in America’s heartland, The Flicker of Old Dreams explores themes of resilience, redemption, and loyalty in prose as lyrical as it is powerful." -- Provided by publisher.

An alarming rise in the world's sea levels--much larger than could be accounted for by glacier melt--sends Kurt Austin, Joe Zavala, and the rest of the NUMA scientific team rocketing around the globe in search of answers. What they find at the bottom of the East China Sea, however, is even worse than they imagined: a diabolical plan to upset the Pacific balance of power--and in the process displace as many as a billion people. A rare alloy unlike anything else on Earth, a pair of five-hundred-year-old Japanese talismans, an assassin so violent even the Yakuza has disowned him, an audacious technological breakthrough that will become a very personal nightmare for Kurt Austin - from the shark-filled waters of Asia to the high-tech streets of Tokyo to a forbidden secret island, the NUMA team must risk everything to head off the coming catastrophe.

In Alaska, the winters are long and dark, the land untamed. Tracy Petrikoff has always loved her family's remote home and her parents' business training and racing sled dogs: cold days out in the woods on a sled, warm nights inside by the fire, a family built of four hardworking humans and forty willing dogs. It seemed only a matter of time before Tracy's father won the Iditarod - and perhaps, not too long after, Tracy herself would win. But not everything is different. Tracy's mother was killed in a hit-and-run the year before, and the family is mired in grief and struggling to keep the business alive. Tracy holds tight to the rules her mother told her never to break: Never lose sight of the house. Never come home with dirty hands. Never make a person bleed... She tries not to think about the questions to which she will never have answers - questions about the natural instinct she inherited from her mother for working with dogs, questions about why her mother was walking by the side of the road the night she died. When a stranger attacks Tracy in the woods and knocks her unconscious, she does not tell her father. She does not want to give him another reason to worry - nor does she want him to keep her close to home. But shortly thereafter, another stranger emerges from the woods, looking for a job, and Tracy's omission becomes the first strand in a web drawing tightly over her family. Now the isolation Tracy has always valued in her home has begun to seem like a threat, and Tracy has to decide what she must do to protect those she loves best.

"As she drives her mobile library van between villages of Ireland's West Coast, Hanna Casey tries not to think about a lot of things. Like the sophisticated lifestyle she abandoned after finding her English barrister husband in bed with another woman. Or that she's back in Lissbeg, the rural Irish town she walked away from in her teens, living in the back bedroom of her overbearing mother's retirement bungalow. Or, worse yet, her nagging fear that, as the local librarian and a prominent figure in the community, her failed marriage and ignominious return have made her a focus of gossip. With her teenage daughter, Jazz, off traveling the world and her relationship with her own mother growing increasingly tense, Hanna is determined to reclaim her independence by restoring a derelict cottage left to her by her great-aunt."--Page 4 of cover.

Nate Cooper is an old-school cowboy who has spent nearly thirty years in a Montana prion. Nate's moral compass is true and unwavering; he does all the wrong things for all the right reasons. While the country has changed considerably over three decades, Nate has not. He returns to his northern Montana ranching town a free man and immediately stirs the pot - seeking justice, evading hired guns, brawling in saloons, and righting past wrongs with the help of a young newspaper reporter and the woman heused to love..

My name is Ruby. I live with Barbara and Mike. They're not my real parents, but they tell me what to do, and what to say. I'm supposed to say that the bruises on my arms and the black eye came from falling down the stairs. But there are things I won't say. I won't tell them I'm going to hunt for my real parents. I don't say a word about Shadow, who sits on the stairs, or the Wasp lady I saw on the way to bed. I did tell Mike that I saw the woman in the buttercup dress, hanging upside down from her seat belt deep in the forest at the back of our house. I told him I saw death crawl out of her. He said he'd give me a medal for lying. I wasn't lying. I'm a hunter for lost souls and I'm going to be with my real family. And I'm not going to let Mike stop me.

"A sequel to the H.G. Wells classic THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, brilliantly realized by award-winning SF author and Wells expert Stephen Baxter It has been 14 years since the Martians invaded England. The world has moved on, always watching the skies but content that we know how to defeat the Martian menace. Machinery looted from the abandoned capsules and war-machines has led to technological leaps forward. The Martians are vulnerable to earth germs. The Army is prepared. So when the signs of launches on Mars are seen, there seems little reason to worry. Unless you listen to one man, Walter Jenkins, the narrator of Wells' book. He is sure that the Martians have learned, adapted, understood their defeat. He is right. Thrust into the chaos of a new invasion, a journalist - sister-in-law to Walter Jenkins - must survive, escape and report on the war. The Massacre of Mankind has begun"--Provided by publisher.