Felix Hines is a data entry specialist, and that’s as exciting as it sounds. It’s only for the love of his coworker, Brittney Masterson, that keeps him pressing on throughout each day. Since childhood, Felix has battled an uncontrollable condition that keeps him from pursuing her, or anyone else, but it doesn’t stop him from being pursued. However, he has found a way around the issue of a real relationship.

In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all - beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn.

Jake Hayes is missing. This much is certain. At first, his wife, Nina, thinks he is blowing off steam at a friend’s house after their heated fight the night before. But then a day goes by. Two days. Five. And Jake is still nowhere to be found. Lily Scott, Nina’s friend and coworker, thinks she may have been the last to see Jake before he went missing. After Lily confesses everything to her husband, Christian, the two decide that nobody can find out what happened leading up to Jake’s disappearance, especially not Nina.

Lane McCord wakes up in a hospital having survived a near-fatal fall at a North Carolina beach cottage. Her boyfriend, Kyle, wasn’t so lucky. A senseless tragedy on their first romantic getaway. All Lane remembers is lying at the bottom of the stairs in Kyle’s pooling blood. Confused and grieving, Lane plans to return to the cottage, collect her personal belongings, and get out. Until a winter rainstorm leaves her stranded and vulnerable, but not alone. A concerned neighbor, who claims he heard a violent argument before the accident, has come out of the storm.

In the spring of 1981, the young Skinner siblings - fierce Renee, dreamy Caroline, golden boy Joe, and watchful Fiona - lose their father to a heart attack and their mother to a paralyzing depression, events that thrust them into a period they will later call “the Pause”. Caught between the predictable life they once led and an uncertain future that stretches before them, the siblings navigate the dangers and resentments of the Pause to emerge fiercely loyal and deeply connected. Two decades later, the Skinners find themselves again confronted with a family crisis....

Thirteen-year-old Julie Whitaker was kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night, witnessed only by her younger sister. Her family was shattered, but managed to stick together, hoping against hope that Julie is still alive. And then one night: the doorbell rings. A young woman who appears to be Julie is finally, miraculously, home safe. The family is ecstatic - but Anna, Julie's mother, has whispers of doubts. She hates to face them.

After a violent home invasion, Neve Maguire returns with her daughter to Black Lake, her childhood summer home, hoping for a fresh start. But when the body of a woman is found floating among the reeds in the lake behind her house, she fears she has made a horrible mistake. Neve is hiding secrets, though. Detective Jess Lambert can tell. Recently back after her own personal tragedy, Jess knows what it’s like to live with skeletons in your closet, and she’s sure Neve has a few of her own.

Family is content for Kaylee Volk. Her vlogs celebrate a happy home with her husband and their three foster children, Bethany, Mason, and Andrea. Everything is perfect until the day the family’s private plane plummets into the ocean. Only Kaylee manages to survive—with a shocking revelation: Andrea did it.

Aidan Thomas is a hard-working family man and a somewhat beloved figure in the small upstate New York town where he lives. He’s the kind of man who always lends a hand and has a good word for everyone. But Aidan has a dark secret he’s been keeping from everyone in town and those closest to him. He’s a kidnapper and serial killer. Aidan has murdered eight women and there’s a ninth he has earmarked for death: Rachel, imprisoned in a backyard shed, fearing for her life.

Mia Graydon's life looks picket-fence perfect; she has the house, her loving husband, and dreams of starting a family. But she has other dreams too - unexplained, recurring ones starring the same man. Still, she doesn’t think much of it, until a relocation to small-town Pennsylvania brings her face to face with the stranger she has been dreaming about for years. And this man harbors a jaw-dropping secret of his own - he's been dreaming of her too. Determined to understand, Mia and this not-so-stranger search for answers.

Following the death of his 10-year-old son, physician Peter Croft embarks on a desperate, seemingly random search for a missing child, risking his sanity, even his life in a grief-induced quest. His journey propels him into the darkest reaches of human suffering and pits him squarely against an adversary whose own obsession defies all reason.

For Duffy Sinclair, life boils down to one simple thing: maintaining his residence at the idyllic Centennial Assisted Living. Without it, he’s destined for the roach-infested nursing home down the road. So, he keeps his shenanigans to the bare minimum with the help of his straight-laced best friend and roommate, Carl Upton. But when Carl’s granddaughter Josie climbs through their bedroom window with booze on her breath and a black eye, Duffy’s faced with trouble that’s sticking around and hard to hide.

A godless miracle worker. A suicidal teenager. Can a young woman save the dying when the backlash whittles away at her life? Jane Davis isn’t a hero. A twenty-five-year-old rebellious vagabond, she’s stupefied when she discovers she’s developed supernatural powers. Desperate for answers, her search catapults her into the orbit of a disturbed teen carrying a devastating secret—magic and horrific monsters are spreading.

Ellie Brown thought she'd finally escaped her stifling hometown of Broadlands, Illinois; med school was supposed to be her ticket out. But when her father has a stroke, she must return home to share his care with her older sister, Amelia, who's busy with her own family. Working as a paramedic, Ellie's days are monotonous, driving an ambulance through streets she'd hoped never to see again.

Kabul, 1978: The daughter of a prominent family, Sitara Zamani lives a privileged life in Afghanistan’s thriving cosmopolitan capital. The 1970s are a time of remarkable promise under the leadership of people like Sardar Daoud, Afghanistan’s progressive president, and Sitara’s beloved father, his right-hand man. But the ten-year-old Sitara’s world is shattered when communists stage a coup, assassinating the president and Sitara’s entire family. Only she survives.

Following the death of his 10-year-old son, physician Peter Croft embarks on a desperate, seemingly random search for a missing child, risking his sanity, even his life in a grief-induced quest. His journey propels him into the darkest reaches of human suffering and pits him squarely against an adversary whose own obsession defies all reason.

Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Holt has spent over a decade fighting for justice, but when DNA evidence cracks a cold case will justice finally be served? Someone is watching. Just months from her college graduation, Elizabeth Holt is in love and her future is brighter than the sun. But all that changes when, after a romantic birthday with her fiancée, Elizabeth returns home, unaware a secret watcher has unimaginably horrible plans for her.

Poke Rafferty was writing offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored when Bangkok stole his heart. Now the American expat is assembling a new family with Rose, the former go-go dancer he wants to marry, and Miaow, the tiny, streetwise urchin he wants to adopt. But trouble in the guise of good intentions comes calling just when everything is beginning to work out.

Building on the tradition of Little Bee, Chris Cleave again writes with elegance, humor, and passion about friendship, marriage, parenthood, tragedy, and redemption. Gold is the story of Zoe and Kate, world-class athletes who have been friends and rivals since their first day of Elite training. They've loved, fought, betrayed, forgiven, consoled, gloried, and grown up together. Now on the eve of London 2012, their last Olympics, both women will be tested to their physical and emotional limits.

In I’m Telling the Truth, but I’m Lying, Bassey Ikpi explores her life - as a Nigerian-American immigrant, a black woman, a slam poet, a mother, a daughter, an artist - through the lens of her mental health and diagnosis of bipolar II and anxiety. Her remarkable memoir in essays implodes our preconceptions of the mind and normalcy as Bassey bares her own truths and lies for us all to behold with radical honesty and brutal intimacy.

Tess McBray was dying. The solstice syndrome had no cure, and she resigned herself to an early grave. But just when she gave up on survival, all her symptoms mysteriously disappeared. All but one symptom, anyway. Something is wrong with Tess’ hands. They absorb any material they touch, and her skin turns to wood, steel, or concrete. It doesn’t take this comic book obsessed 21-year-old long to figure out what’s going on: somehow, she’s developed super powers. And she’s not the only one; across the country, people are coming forward and sharing their gifts with the world.

A goldfish named Ian is falling from the 27th-floor balcony on which his fishbowl sits. He's longed for adventure, so when the opportunity arises, he escapes from his bowl, clears the balcony railing and finds himself airborne. Plummeting toward the street below, Ian witnesses the lives of the Seville on Roxy residents.

Clara Brodeur has spent her entire adult life pulling herself away from her famous mother, the renowned and controversial photographer Ruth Dunne, whose towering reputation rests on the unsettling nude portraits she took of her young daughter from the ages of three to 14. As Clara charts a path connecting her childhood with her adult life, Shapiro's novel weaves together past and present in images as stark and intense as the photographs that tore the Dunnes apart.

Venus Johnston has a great job and a long-term, live-in boyfriend who happens to be a drop-dead gorgeous doctor. She also has a weekly beauty-parlor date to keep her long, nappy hair slick and straight. But the tedious hours and harsh chemicals in the salon have long grated on Venus. One frustrating day, she trades in the long hair for a dramatically short, natural cut and sends her commitment-balking boyfriend packing. It's a bold declaration of independence and one that has effects she never could have imagined.

It starts with a simple wish, and Emma Davies hardly notices when it comes true. She’s too preoccupied with a life she isn’t happy in - the spark in her marriage has fizzled, her career is headed nowhere and her boss is a misogynist. Her teenage daughter has grown distant, and her heart breaks daily for her teenage son with cerebral palsy. But soon Emma discovers her wishes are coming true, and she realizes that she has been given the power to change her life. Either that, or she’s going insane.

Liz Murray was born to loving but drug-addicted parents in the Bronx. In school she was taunted for her dirty clothing and lice-infested hair, eventually skipping so many classes that she was put into a girls' home. At age 15, Liz found herself on the streets when her family finally unraveled. She learned to scrape by, foraging for food and riding subways all night to have a warm place to sleep. Then, when Liz's mother died of AIDS, she decided to take control of her own destiny.

The Forge School is the most prestigious arts school in the country. The secret to its success: every moment of the students' lives is televised as part of the insanely popular Forge Show, and the students' schedule includes twelve hours of induced sleep meant to enhance creativity. But when first-year student Rosie Sinclair skips her sleeping pill, she discovers there is something off about Forge. In fact, she suspects that there are sinister things going on deep below the reaches of the cameras in the school.

When she arrived in New York on her eighteenth birthday carrying nothing but $600 cash and a stolen camera, Alice Lee was looking for a fresh start. Now, just one month later, she is the city’s latest Jane Doe. She may be dead but that doesn’t mean her story is over. Meanwhile, Ruby Jones is also trying to reinvent herself. After travelling halfway around the world, she’s lonelier than ever in the Big Apple. Until she stumbles upon a woman’s body by the Hudson River, and suddenly finds herself unbreakably tied to the unknown dead woman.

Eleven minutes passed before Delaney Maxwell was pulled from the icy waters of a Maine lake by her best friend, Decker Phillips. By then her heart had stopped beating. Her brain had stopped working. She was dead. And yet she somehow defied medical precedent to come back seemingly fine - despite the scans that showed significant brain damage. Everyone wants Delaney to be all right, but she knows she's far from normal. Pulled by strange sensations she can't control or explain, Delaney finds herself drawn to the dying. Is her altered brain now predicting death, or causing it?

No world is like the other. Within this masterful collection, each setting is more strange and wonderful than the last, brimming with new technologies and beings. And yet, for all the advances in these futuristic lands, the people still must confront deeply human problems. In these six stories, Veronica Roth reaches into the unknown and draws forth something startlingly familiar and profoundly beautiful.