In the heart of Paris, Chiara Conti is a Queen trapped in an Ivory Tower of haute couture, fortune and lovelessness. Lonely and dejected, she's longing for inspiration, for direction, for understanding. When Vi Courtenay falls at her feet, losing her shoe like a veritable Cinderella, events are set in motion that will unravel their carefully fashioned lives. With everything tainted, will the thin lines they rend ever be mended?

When professional soccer player Alex Grey goes on a vacation to the local South Carolina islands, she isn't anticipating any life-changing events. Just a relaxing weekend to prepare for the upcoming season. But that quickly changes when she finds herself the lone witness to a sailing accident and makes the decision to risk her own life to save a drowning woman—unwittingly coming to the rescue of a US senator's wife, Catharine Cleveland.

Ellie Beckett's life is simple and uncomplicated; she's on track to become a leading expert in biomedical engineering, she has a pub where she feels comfortable enough to hang out multiple times a week, and so what if she doesn't have time for . . . people? She doesn't need or want them. Until she meets Mia Sharpe. As it turns out, maybe Ellie does want at least one person.

Mac and Jamie had their life together all planned out. Until Jamie did the unforgivable and left Mac for another woman. Twenty years later, they meet again for the first time at a friend’s wedding. Mac’s pain lingers, while Jamie is still haunted by regret.

Stella Carter is a former criminal prosecutor and new widow facing down middle age alone in Los Angeles. Without being a prestigious lawyer and someone's wife, she's not sure who she is anymore or where her life is headed. When she invites her niece to move in with her, Stella accidentally reconnects with her former colleague, LAPD Captain Elizabeth Murphy. The woman is beautiful but cold; someone she was always at odds with on the job.

It’s an ordinary workday when intelligence analyst Lexie Martin learns about a horrific chemical weapon attack abroad. Just an ordinary day...until a stranger breaks into her house and warns her to forget what she saw and heard, setting off a chain of events Lexie thought only happened in movies. Falsely accused of stealing intelligence and unsure of who to trust, Lexie quickly realizes the significance of the intel and that she must do everything she can to keep it safe. And as she runs—maybe for her life—Lexie knows she needs something, or someone, to help her.

Cassie Quinn may only be twenty-three, but she knows a few things. One: money can’t buy happiness, but it’s certainly better to have it. Two: family matters most. Three: her younger brother Billy is not a rapist. When Billy, a junior at Princeton, is arrested for assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Cassie races home to Manhattan to join forces with her big brother Nate and their parents, Lawrence and Eleanor. The Quinns scramble to hire the best legal minds money can buy, but Billy fits the all-too-familiar sex-offender profile—white, athletic, and privileged—that makes headlines and sways juries.

Danielle Clark's life is going according to plan. She's in the middle of her surgical residency and she and her fiance, Will, are the perfect match. At least that's what everyone tells them. When Will brings home a rescue dog, it's hard to tell who's less enthused, Dani or her cat, Jinx. The dog wreaks havoc on the household and needs training, but who has time for that? Certainly not Dani.

After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Reggie Hawkins is used to living a lie. As the closeted lesbian daughter of a billionaire media mogul, the only luxury she can’t afford is being herself. She yearns to escape the toxic grasp of her family's global news empire, but her father’s latest demands once again threaten to plunge her deep into the corporate politics she despises.

Sasha Adams has it all. Fulfilling career, loving family, great friends, and . . . Who's she kidding? She lives at home with her aging mother, Fleur. She works as a massage therapist, and spends all her time with her best friend, Bobbi. But damn it, she's happy. Well, okay, maybe not happy, but she's content. It's enough. Until the well-meaning but meddlesome women in her life, Fleur and Bobbi, team up and enter Sasha into a writing competition with the potential to change her life.

Abby Porter has a high-flying job and the perfect fiancé in Marcus Montgomery. But Abby’s world turns on its head when he hires a professional bridesmaid to help her in the run-up to the wedding. When Abby meets Jordan, she can hardly breathe. Marcus is oblivious. The wedding is weeks away. Now the only question is: will Abby make it to the altar?

Neve Blackthorne, head of one of the most successful Studios in Hollywood, is the one to rule them all. Powerful, beautiful, and aloof, she's ruthless, yet irresistible. Above all, she has an unquenchable survival instinct. Surely a fleeting entanglement with one Audrey Avens, a bright, young, rising star in her company, won't bring down the Wicked Queen of Tinseltown. Or will it? Neve's public persona has no chink in the untouchable armor, but when the lights go out and the cameras stop rolling, what becomes of an Ice Queen whose heart is ruled by love and fear?

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated.

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding.

Aaron and Tillie don't know each other, but they are both feeling suicidal, and arrive at the George Washington Bridge at the same time, intending to jump. Aaron is a gay misfit struggling with depression and loneliness. Tillie isn't sure what her problem is - only that she will never be good enough. On the bridge, there are four things that could happen: Aaron jumps and Tillie doesn't. Tillie jumps and Aaron doesn't. They both jump. Neither of them jumps. Or maybe all four things happen....

Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young, and after years of trying, is finally pregnant. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia. But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager.

The Dolan brothers live by their wits, jumping freight trains, and lining up for day work at crooked job agencies. While 16-year-old Rye yearns for a steady job and a home, his dashing older brother Gig dreams of a better world, fighting alongside other union men for fair pay and decent treatment. Enter Ursula the Great, a vaudeville singer who performs with a live cougar, and who introduces the brothers to a far more dangerous creature: A wealthy mining magnate who will stop at nothing to keep his wealth and his hold on Ursula.

This is how Bernie, a film photographer, meets Leah, a writer, and from opposite sides of a thin bedroom wall in West Philadelphia, the two become closer than they ever could have imagined. When Leah volunteers to accompany Bernie on a road trip to settle a complicated inheritance, what ensues is an unexpected journey into the heart of America as the duo try to make sense of the times they are living in—falling in love with each other and rediscovering the power of making art along the way.

1918: As the Great War rages, Jessie Carson takes a leave of absence from the New York Public Library to work for the American Committee for Devastated France. Founded by millionaire Anne Morgan, this group of international women help rebuild destroyed French communities just miles from the front. Upon arrival, Jessie strives to establish something that the French have never seen—children’s libraries. She turns ambulances into bookmobiles and trains the first French female librarians. Then she disappears.

Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns that a local teenage girl has gone missing.

Where does the story of the Owens bloodline begin? With Maria Owens, in the 1600s, when she’s abandoned in a snowy field in rural England as a baby. Under the care of Hannah Owens, Maria learns about the “Nameless Arts". Hannah recognizes that Maria has a gift and she teaches the girl all she knows. It is here that she learns her first important lesson: Always love someone who will love you back.

For fifty years, Abe and Jane have been coming to Central Park, as starry-eyed young lovers, as frustrated and exhausted parents, as artists watching their careers take flight. They came alone when they needed to get away from each other, and together when they had something important to discuss. The Park has been their witness for half a century of love. Until now. Jane is dying, and Abe is recounting their life together as a way of keeping them going: the parts they knew.

This spellbinding novel by bestselling author Ann Napolitano is a poignant reminder of how connected we are to those we love, even when we cannot find the words to say it. The unforgettable story of three generations of an Irish American family, Within Arm’s Reach is another rich and deeply satisfying novel from the author who captured the many dimensions of grief in Dear Edward and the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood in Hello Beautiful.

Among the most celebrated and beloved novels of 2021, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.