Mary Mulligan has two problems: her wisdom teeth…and everything else. Her only daughter is moving overseas. Her husband would rather go golfing than spend time with her. And Mary’s left to wonder why she abandoned her career ambitions when loneliness is all she has to show for it. Plus her teeth really, really hurt. But that’s one problem she can fix—never mind the stories that say if she gets her wisdom teeth removed, the last thirty years of her life will be erased. In fact, Mary wouldn’t mind if the Mulligan curse were actually true.

It's 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti plains of Tanzania. Here, seventy-year-old Mary Leakey enlists Grace to sort and pack her fifty years of work and memories. Their interaction reminds Mary how she pursued her ambitions of becoming an archeologist in the 1930s by sneaking into lectures and working on excavations.

Florence, South Carolina 1944: Lieutenant Raymond Sellers bids farewell to his brother Jimmie, the weight of what lies ahead hanging heavy in the air. The brothers have always been inseparable—Raymond, the steady protector, Jimmie, the wild-hearted dreamer. But as Raymond embraces his pregnant wife Evelyn one last time, war is about to test the bonds of family in ways they never imagined. As a summer storm shakes the windows, Evelyn brings her baby into a world at war.

Marion and Huguette Müller’s family was torn apart when the Nazis invaded France in 1940. After their mother was deported to Auschwitz, the sisters fled to the small Alpine ski resort village of Val d'Isère, where they were rescued by a brave young doctor. Through intrepid reporting and meticulous research, Whitehouse traces the story of the Müller sisters, solving decades-old mysteries in her attempt to deliver both closure and justice. With skill and urgency, Whitehouse raises moral questions at the heart of the tragedy of the Shoah.

What does it take to escape the plotlines mapped onto us? Searching for clues in the work of her literary foremothers, Lipson untangles what it means to be a girl, a woman, a lover, a partner, a daughter, and a mother in a world all too ready to reduce us to stock characters.

Jill Ellington's twin sister hasn't spoken a word since she allegedly murdered her husband, and her three-year-old son is missing. No one in the small, idyllic town of Paradise saw or heard a single thing. The chief of police already has Jill's twin convicted and her nephew dead and buried. Jill is going to need a miracle to uncover the truth.

Taylor Smith hasn’t always had it easy, but she worked hard for her college scholarship and makes do with her job—all to avoid ending up like her parents. Claire, her roommate and best friend, is the exact opposite, rich beyond Taylor’s comprehension and maybe a little high maintenance. When a charming man named Dylan shows up at Taylor’s work and asks her out on a date, she is flustered, but flattered.

Seventeen-year-old Margaux doesn’t realize one photo could change the course of her life. But in German-occupied Paris, nothing makes sense anymore. Margaux fears the worst when her lover is arrested. And when her photo appears in Nazi propaganda, her family’s reputation and prospects suffer the consequences. In 2008, Margaux has moved into a retirement home, and her granddaughter Barbara continues to live in the Paris apartment they used to share.

When her husband goes missing, Marissa Creighton fears the worst. Tell me you trust me was the last thing Ethan said to her, and she’d shrugged it off. Now she can’t get those words out of her head. Marissa’s family has always been her rock. But when they come to help her with eighteen-month-old Logan, their overprotectiveness borders on oppression—occupational hazard of the family’s surveillance business, or is it? Seeking comfort in the playlist she and Ethan share, Marissa is shocked to find a new song there: “Trust Me.” She’s certain it’s a message.

As a relationship therapist, Nora helps patients explore their feelings honestly. But she’s hiding an embarrassing relationship secret of her own: she’s in love with someone she’s never even met. J edits the advice column Nora’s been writing anonymously for the last seven years. He’s in London, she’s in New York, and they communicate solely through shared files. When he confides that his girlfriend’s out of the picture, and her boss asks her to come to London, Nora takes both as a sign.

On the surface, Denny Voss’s life in rural Minnesota is a quiet one. At thirty years old, he lives at home with his elderly mother and his beloved blind and deaf Saint Bernard, George. He cleans up roadkill to help pay the bills. Though his prospects are limited by a developmental delay—the result of an accident at birth—Denny has always felt that he has “a good life.” So how did he wind up being charged with the murder of a mayoral candidate—after crashing a sled full of guns into a tree?

When Emma meets Matthew, a kind, handsome widower, he seems to be just what she needs. Yet as their relationship moves fast, Emma’s friends worry she might be exploited. She’s a rich woman after all. Emma doesn’t care Matthew has no money. But as the memory of his perfect first wife hangs over them, Emma does have one tiny doubt. If Matthew’s wife hadn’t died, he wouldn’t be with her. And Emma wonders if she’s second best. Can she ever fill the dead woman’s shoes?

Magnolia "Mack" Bishop is staring down the barrel at single motherhood--thanks to an unsolicited personal picture her husband texted another woman that quickly went viral among every mom group in town. But she's determined to not let it distract her from the professional victory she's inches away from: securing Charleston's prestigious Historic Preservation Design Fellowship, the apple of every local designer's eye.

In this 2018 New York Times Notable Book,Paige Williams "does for fossils what Susan Orlean did for orchids" (Book Riot) in her account of one Florida man's attempt to sell a dinosaur skeleton from Mongolia—a story "steeped in natural history, human nature, commerce, crime, science, and politics" (Rebecca Skloot).

Devon Mayes thought she was done with the small conservative town she once called home. She fled when she was eighteen after her best friend Summer took her own life, leaving Summer’s twin brother, Keaton, lost in his grief. But when tragedy strikes again, Devon has nowhere to turn but back to the place that first broke her heart. Being back in Arkana means struggling with the old guilt that shrouds her bisexuality and her feelings for Keaton. There’s so much she’s still hiding from him—and so much of their shared past that’s now resurfacing.