At Bristol High they were an elite clique known as the Five Firsts: Amanda, Bailey, Carmen, Delta and Zora...ABCD & Z. They could have accepted their classmate, Emmy, as "E", but with her bookish disposition and her embarrassing status of scholarship student to boot, they rejected her and chose wealthy Zora instead. At a pre-graduation party just before the end of senior year, Lance Ventura, the hottest guy in school, falls down an embankment toward the river and is barely rescued in time to save his life. One of the Five Firsts, Carman, rushes to save him, but isn't so lucky.

On the surface, Chief Dove Carnahan is a true trailblazer who would do anything to protect the rural Pennsylvanian countryside where she has lived all 50 of her years. Traditional and proud of her blue-collar sensibilities, Dove is loved by her community. But beneath her badge lies a dark and self-destructive streak, fed by a secret she has kept since she was 16.

Sam Acquillo is at the end of the line: he's a middle-aged corporate dropout living in a ramshackle cottage in Southampton's North Sea. But then the old lady next door ends up floating dead in her bathtub, and it seems that Sam is the only one who wonders why.

Tristan Mulligan knows how to get under my skin. He says this is his town and that I don’t belong. He says I’ll get eaten alive here. He’s arrogant and condescending and insanely sexy. He’s also a criminal. I knew better than to start something with him. I did it anyway. Tristan might shatter my heart. He might destroy my future. And there's something dangerously explosive about the way we are together. You can warn me about him all you want.

Persephone Wilder, a displaced genius posing as the wife of an American diplomat in Namibia, takes her job as a representative of her country seriously and comes up with an intricate set of rules to survive a range of problems: how to dress in hundred-degree weather without showing too much skin, how not to look drunk at embassy functions, and how to eat roasted oryx with grace. She also suspects her husband is not actually the ambassador’s general counsel but instead a secret agent in the CIA. She takes the new trailing spouse, Amanda Evans, under her wing....

It's been said that all great literature boils down to one of two stories—a man takes a journey, or a stranger comes to town. While mystery writers have been successfully using both approaches for generations, there's something undeniably alluring in the nature of a stranger: the uninvited guest, the unacquainted neighbor, the fish out of water. In the newest collection of stories by the Mystery Writers of America, each author weaves a fresh tale surrounding the eerie feeling that comes when a stranger enters our midst, featuring stories by prolific mystery writers.

Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, Massachusetts, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number 17 in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only victim who lived. When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around her birthday - the day she was kidnapped so long ago - Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous.

New York Times best-selling author Kat Martin launches a riveting contemporary romance series starring the Raines boys of Wind Canyon, Wyoming. Back in high school, Jackson Raines was humiliated by the beautiful Sarah Allen, who wanted out of Wind Canyon at any cost. Now Jackson reluctantly opens his ranch to the recently widowed Sarah. And as sparks ignite, he finds himself protecting her from her dead husband’s shady business partners.

Cimarron County knows the youngest son of the fabled Prince family as a womanizing hell-raiser, but Luca has changed, and he intends to prove it. There's just one problem - a woman with sparkling eyes and more fight than a barnyard cat. After a childhood of living in foster homes, Ella Kendall has exactly three things to her name: a dog, a pig, and the rundown house she just inherited. Luca may not remember her from high school, but she definitely remembers him. He is as seductive as he was then, but Ella isn't about to fall for his flirting.

When a local girl falls prey to a sadistic serial killer, Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson and her lover, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, find themselves in a joint investigation pursuing a vicious murderer. The Southern Strangler is slaughtering his way through the Southeast, leaving a gruesome memento at each crime scene – the prior victim’s severed hand.

Nobody knows what happened to Sarah Cook. The beautiful blonde teenager disappeared 15 years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend, Brad Stockton - black and from the wrong side of the tracks - was convicted of the murders and is now on death row. Though he's maintained his innocence all along, the clock is running out. His execution is only weeks away when his devoted sister insists she spied Sarah at an area gas station.

Reporter Eva Heart is sent to Cloud Lake to write an exposé on flying saucer sightings, a subject she is extremely familiar with. Nearly 20 years ago, Eva, then known as Jessica Carver, went missing, only to appear a week later, confused and frightened. A man went to jail for the crime. Now Eva must face demons from her past as she meets both old and new friends along the way. Will her real identity be exposed? Can history truly repeat itself?

Quinn Victoria Caine is back in her quirky town of Vienna, Virginia, starting her new life as a bookbinder in her family-owned bookshop. With her trusty German Shephard RBG - Ruff Barker Ginsburg - by her side, what can go wrong? Okay, sure, bumping into her ex Scott or her former high-school nemesis Tricia is a drag. It certainly doesn't help that they’ve acquired the new hobby of shoving their recent engagement in her face every chance they get. But that doesn't mean Quinn wanted to find Tricia dead in the road. So why does half the town think she may have done it?

Macy Tucker was five years old when her beloved grandfather dropped dead in his spaghetti. At 12, her father left his family in the dust. At 25, her husband gave his secretary a pre-Christmas bonus in bed, and Macy gave him the boot. To put things lightly, men have been undependable. That's why dating's off the menu. Macy is focused on putting herself through law school - which means being the delivery girl for Papa's Pizza.

Three best friends, all with the same birthday, are about to turn 40. They plan to share this momentous occasion together at a summerhouse in Maine, taking stock of their lives and loves, their wishes and choices. But none of them expect the gift that awaits them at the summerhouse: the chance for each of them to turn their "what might have beens" into reality.