Nicholas Arthur Frederick Edward Pembrook, Crowned Prince of Wessco, aka His Royal Hotness, is wickedly charming, devastatingly handsome, and unabashedly arrogant - hard not to be when people are constantly bowing down to you. Then, one snowy night in Manhattan, the prince meets a dark-haired beauty who doesn't bow down. Instead she throws a pie in his face.

Autumn Franklin is an awkward, biracial girl growing up in a suburb of Detroit. Already disconnected from her peers at an early age because of her background, she becomes even more withdrawn when her young parents divorce. Ever-changing but stubbornly tenacious, she survives the cards she's been dealt by playing them against the odds. Transplanting herself from her factory-driven hometown to the alluring City of Angels, she has but one goal: to find herself.

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.

Charles Ripley has a good job as an engineer, a pretty wife, and an expensive house in a fashionable San Diego suburb. But it isn't until Ruskin Marsh moves in next door that Ripley realizes how passionless his life really is. Marsh, a connoisseur of the arts, high-powered lawyer, model husband and father, and effortless seducer of women, is so supremely alive that Ripley finds himself irresistibly drawn to him. But after Marsh's arrival, local girls begin to vanish, marriages end violently, and horribly mutilated corpses are found.

Every cowboy at the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo is hot for rising music star Maggie Killian. But Maggie is laser-focused on her songs, her next show, and her future. She’s not going to be any cowboy’s buckle bunny. Down-and-out bull-rider Hank Sibley needs big money fast, so he strikes a deal with the devil to lose in Cheyenne for cash. When Hank reneges to get Maggie to go out with him, the only thing standing between him and deadly payback is a pissed-off, buckle-wearing Maggie.

Though beautiful, cunning, and privileged, nineteen-year-old Mickey finds herself with a stalled modeling career, an escalating drinking problem, few friends, and next to nothing in the bank. To numb her growing despair, she spends her days frantically refreshing her Instagram feed, obsessively tracking the movements of Insta-famous model Gemma Anton. Mickey sees Gemma as a perfected version of herself. Gemma is living a seemingly perfect life: a skyrocketing career, a famous boyfriend, and adoring followers. It’s the life Mickey wants more than anything.

Cassidy Burke has the best of both worlds - a driven and successful husband and a wild, impulsive best friend. But after a decadent Mardi Gras party, Cassidy finds both men pulling away from her. Did the three of them awaken secret desires during a split second of alcohol-fueled passion? Or is Mardi Gras a time when rules are meant to be broken without consequence? Only one thing is for certain: the chill that's descended over her marriage and her most important friendship will soon turn into a deep freeze if she doesn't do something. And soon.

In the 12 unforgettable tales of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, the strange is made familiar and the familiar strange, such that a girl growing wings on her legs feels like an ordinary rite of passage, while a bug-infested house becomes an impossible Kafkaesque nightmare. Each story builds a new world all its own: A group of children steal a haunted doll; a runaway bride encounters a sea monster; a vendor sells toy boxes that seemingly control the passage of time; an insomniac is seduced by the Sandman.

Mary Karr told the prize-winning tale of her hardscrabble Texas childhood with enough literary verve to spark a renaissance in memoir. The Liar's Club rode the top of The New York Times bestseller list for more than a year, and publications ranging from The New Yorker to People picked it as one of the best books of the year. But it left people wondering: How'd that scrappy kid make it outta there? Cherry dares to tell that story. Karr picks up the trail and dashes off into her teen years with customary sass, only to run up against the paralyzing self-doubt of a girl in bloom.

In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. Bernice grapples with the fallout of dating a psychopathic, blue-bearded billionaire. Ruby, once devoured by a wolf, now wears him as a coat. Gretel questions her memory of being held captive in a house made of candy. Ashlee, the winner of a Bachelor-esque dating show, wonders if she really got her promised fairy tale ending. And Raina's love story will shock them all.

Fifteen-year-old Ilya arrives in Louisiana from his native Russia for what should be the adventure of his life: a year in America as an exchange student. But all is not right in Ilya's world: He's consumed by the fate of his older brother, Vladimir, the magnetic rebel to Ilya's dutiful wunderkind, back in their tiny Russian hometown. Just before Ilya left, the murders of three young women rocked the town's usual calm, and Vladimir found himself in prison. With the help of Sadie, who has secrets of her own, Ilya embarks on a mission to prove Vladimir's innocence.

Steph Jagger had always been a force of nature. Dissatisfied with the passive, limited roles she saw for women growing up, she emulated the men in her life - chasing success, climbing the corporate ladder, ticking the boxes, playing by the rules of a masculine ideal. She was accomplished. She was living "The Dream". But it wasn't her dream. Then the universe caught her attention with a sign: Raise Restraining Device.

Children of the New World introduces listeners to a near-future world of social media implants, memory manufacturers, dangerously immersive virtual reality games, and alarmingly intuitive robots. Many of these characters live in a utopian future of instant connection and technological gratification that belies an unbridgeable human distance, while others inhabit a post-collapse landscape made primitive by disaster, which they must work to rebuild as we once did millennia ago.

Ainsley Daniels wasn't the first girl to crawl out of my bed; she's just the first one I was dying to drag back in. As lead singer of the most notorious rock band in the world, people kiss the ground I walk on. I could have anyone I want. Any time. Any place. But I want her. And I'm going to have her. It's been over a year since I first laid eyes on her; one long year this storm has been brewing. A twist of fate finally hands me the chance I've been waiting for. I'm about to remind Ainsley just who Kade Black is, and this time...I won't let her walk away.

At a boxing gym in Chicago, Mary Monahan accidentally knocks out the most handsome man she's ever met. After she wakes him up with a few slaps and some smelling salts, the very first thing he does is ask her out for ribs and beer. His name is Jimmy. He looks like a Gillette model. And he's just too hunky to resist. Jimmy "The Falcon" Falconi is mystified that Mary has absolutely no idea who he is. Mystified and refreshed.