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Featured Guide

Melissa Fu, author of Peach Blossom Spring

It is 1938 in China. As a young wife, Meilin’s future is bright. But with the Japanese army approaching, Meilin and her four-year-old son, Renshu, are forced to flee their home. Relying on little but their wits and a beautifully illustrated hand scroll, filled with ancient fables that offer solace and wisdom, they must travel through a ravaged country, seeking refuge. Years later, Renshu has settled in America as Henry Dao. Though his daughter is desperate to understand her heritage, he refuses to talk about his childhood. How can he keep his family safe in this new land when the weight of his history threatens to drag them down? Yet how can Lily learn who she is if she can never know her family’s story?

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Simone St. James, author of The Book of Cold Cases

In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders. Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect, but she was acquitted and retreated to the isolation of her mansion. Oregon, 2017. Shea Collins is a receptionist who runs a true crime website, the Book of Cold Cases. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea’s surprise, Beth says yes. They meet regularly at Beth’s mansion, though Shea is never comfortable there. Is she making friends with a manipulative murderer, or are there other dangers lurking in the darkness of the Greer house?

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John Searles, author of Her Last Affair

Ever since her husband’s death in a freak accident the year before, Skyla spends her nights ruminating about the regrets and deceptions in her long marriage. That is, until she rents a cottage to a charming British man, Teddy Cornwell. A thousand miles away, Linelle is about to turn 50. Bored by her spouse and fired from her job, her only source of joy is an online affair with her very first love, a man she’s not seen in nearly 30 years, Teddy Cornwell. While in New York City, Jeremy, a failed and bitter writer, accepts an assignment to review a new restaurant in Providence. Years ago, Providence was the site of his first great love and first great heartbreak --- and maybe, just maybe, he’ll look her up when he’s back in town.

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Anne Tyler, author of French Braid

The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation.

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Susan Mallery, author of The Summer Getaway

Single mom Robyn Caldwell has always put her family first. Now, with her kids grown, she yearns for a change. When her great-aunt Lillian invites her to Santa Barbara for the summer, Robyn hops on the first plane to sunny California. But it’s hard to get away when you’re the heart of the family. One by one, everyone she loves follows her across the country. Somehow, their baggage doesn’t feel as heavy in the sun-drenched, mishmash mansion. The more time Robyn spends with free-spirited Lillian, the more possibilities she sees --- for dreams, love, family. She can have everything she ever wanted, if only she can muster the courage to take a chance on herself.

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Adele Myers, author of The Tobacco Wives

Maddie Sykes is a burgeoning seamstress who has just arrived in Bright Leaf, North Carolina --- the tobacco capital of the South --- where her aunt has a thriving sewing business. After years of war rations and shortages, Bright Leaf is a prosperous wonderland in full technicolor bloom, and Maddie is dazzled by the bustle of the crisply uniformed female factory workers, the palatial homes and, most of all, her aunt’s glossiest clientele: the wives of the powerful tobacco executives. But she soon learns that a trail of misfortune follows many of the women, including substantial health problems. Although Maddie is quick to believe that this is a coincidence, she inadvertently uncovers evidence that suggests otherwise.

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Allison Pataki, author of The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post

Marjorie Merriweather Post’s journey began gluing cereal boxes in her father’s barn as a young girl. No one could have predicted that C. W. Post’s Cereal Company would grow into the General Foods empire, with Marjorie as its heiress and leading lady. Not content to stay in her prescribed roles of high-society wife, mother and hostess, Marjorie dared to demand more, making history in the process. Before turning 30, she amassed millions, becoming the wealthiest woman in the United States. But it was her life-force, advocacy, passion and adventurous spirit that led to her stunning legacy. And yet Marjorie’s story, though full of beauty and grandeur, set in the palatial homes she built such as Mar-a-Lago, was equally marked by challenge and tumult.

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Ellery Lloyd, author of The Club

The Home Group is a glamorous collection of celebrity members' clubs dotted across the globe, where the rich and famous can party hard and then crash out in its five-star suites. The most spectacular of all is Island Home, a closely guarded, ultraluxurious resort just off the English coast. But behind the scenes, tensions are at a breaking point: the ambitious and expensive project has pushed the Home Group's CEO and his long-suffering team to their absolute limits. All of them have something to hide --- and that's before the beautiful people with their own ugly secrets even set foot on the island. As tempers fray and behavior worsens, as things get more sinister by the hour and the body count piles up, some of Island Home’s members will begin to wish they’d never made the guest list.

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Rosie Walsh, author of The Love of My Life

Emma loves her husband, Leo, and their young daughter, Ruby. But almost everything she's told them about herself is a lie. And she might just have gotten away with it if it weren’t for her husband’s job. Leo is an obituary writer; Emma is a well-known marine biologist. When she suffers a serious illness, Leo copes by doing what he knows best --- researching and writing about his wife’s life. But as he starts to unravel the truth, he discovers the woman he loves doesn’t really exist. Even her name isn’t real. When the very darkest moments of Emma’s past finally emerge, she must somehow prove to Leo that she really is the woman he always thought she was. But first, she must tell him about the other love of her life.

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Rebecca Serle, author of One Italian Summer

When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. To make matters worse, their planned mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: to Positano, the magical town where Carol spent the summer right before she met Katy’s father. Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone. But as soon as she steps foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. And then Carol appears --- in the flesh, healthy, sun-tanned and 30 years old. Over the course of one Italian summer, Katy gets to know Carol, not as her mother, but as the young woman before her. Soon Katy must reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young lady who does not yet have a clue.

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