Under the Stars
by Beatriz Williams (read by Helen Laser, Xe Sands, Johnathan McClain, Rachel F. Hirsch, Adam Verner and Will Damron)

Audrey Fisher has struggled all her life to emerge from the shadow of her famous mother by forging a career as a world-class chef. Meredith Fisher’s glamorous screen persona disguises the trauma of the tragic accident that haunts her dreams. Neither woman wants to return to the New England island they left behind and its complicated emotional ties, but Meredith has one last chance to sober up and salvage her big comeback, and where else but discreet, moneyed Winthrop Island can a famous actress spend the summer without the intrusion of other people? Until Audrey discovers an old wooden chest among the belongings of her estranged bartender father, Mike Kennedy, and the astonishing contents draw the women deep into Winthrop’s past and its many secrets…attracting the interest of their handsome neighbor, Sedge Peabody. How did a trove of paintings from one of America’s greatest artists wind up in the cellar of the Mohegan Inn? And who is the mysterious woman portrayed on every canvas?

On a stormy November night in 1846, Providence Dare flees Boston and boards the luxury steamship Atlantic one step ahead of the law….or so she believes. But when a catastrophic accident leaves the ship at the mercy of a mighty gale, Providence finds herself trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the one man who knows her real identity—the detective investigating the suspicious death of her employer, the painter Henry Irving. As the Atlantic fights for her life and the rocky shore of Winthrop Island edges closer, a desperate Providence searches for her chance to escape…before the sea swallows her without a trace.

The Emperor of Gladness
by Ocean Vuong (read by James Aaron Oh)

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

Coyote Hills
by Jonathan Kellerman (read by Dennis Boutsikaris)

Clay Edison has left behind the Alameda County coroner’s office to strike out on his own as a private investigator. He’s perfectly happy working low-stakes embezzlement cases—that is, until PI Regina Klein calls him with a mystery only he can solve. The son of a wealthy couple has washed up dead on the shores of San Francisco Bay with a head injury and drugs in his system. The police are calling it an accident. But the parents are adamant something's not right—and as Clay digs deeper, he uncovers a horrifying tangle of betrayal and lies.

Queen Esther
by John Irving (read by Ari Fliakos)

Esther Nacht is born in Vienna in 1905. Her father dies on board the ship to Portland, Maine; her mother is murdered by anti-Semites in Portland. Dr. Larch knows it won’t be easy to find a Jewish family to adopt Esther; in fact, he won’t find any family who’ll adopt her.

When Esther is fourteen, soon to be a ward of the state, Dr. Larch meets the Winslows, a philanthropic New England family with a history of providing foster care for unadopted orphans. The Winslows aren’t Jewish, but they despise anti-Semitism. Esther’s gratitude for the Winslows is unending; even as she retraces her roots back to Vienna, she never stops loving and protecting the Winslows. In the final chapter, set in Jerusalem in 1981, Esther Nacht is seventy-six.

The Portrait
by Danielle Steel (read by Michael Braun)

Devon Darcy’s reputation precedes her. As a highly sought-after portrait artist, she seems to have the ability to peer into the souls of her subjects and then capture them on canvas. But the world doesn’t know about the devastating losses she has endured, first as an orphan, then as a far-too-young widow.

When entrepreneur Charles Mackenzie Taylor sees her at a New York gallery event, he is instantly haunted by her beauty and her talent. Having lost his mother when he was thirteen, and still living in the cold shadow of his late banker father’s disapproval, Charlie has given up on love. He’s resigned himself to a loveless marriage to avoid the inconvenience of divorce.

But Devon awakens something in him across that crowded gallery, and she is in turn intrigued by Charlie. He approaches her to paint his portrait, and while her schedule is booked for many months before she can accommodate him, with the electricity between them palpable.

The Intruder
by Freida McFadden (read by Joe Hempel, Patricia Santomasso, and Tina Wolstencroft)

Casey's cabin in the wilderness is not built for a hurricane. Her roof shakes, the lights flicker, and the tree outside her front door sways ominously in the wind. But she's a lot more worried about the girl she discovers lurking outside her kitchen window.

She’s young. She’s alone. And she’s covered in blood.

The girl won't explain where she came from or loosen her grip on the knife in her right hand. And when Casey makes a disturbing discovery in the middle of the night, things take a turn for the worse.

The girl has a dark secret. One she’ll kill to keep. And if Casey gets too close to the truth, she may not live to see the morning.

Bonded in Death
by J. D. Robb (read by Susan Ericksen)

Lieutenant Eve Dallas finds the Rossi case frustrating. She’s got an elderly victim who’d just arrived from Rome; a widow who knows nothing about why he’d left; an as-yet unidentifiable weapon; and zero results on facial recognition. But when she finds a connection to the Urban Wars of the 2020s, she thinks Summerset―fiercely loyal, if somewhat grouchy, major-domo and the man who’d rescued her husband from the Dublin streets―may know something from his stint as a medic in Europe back then.

When Summerset learns of the crime, his shock and grief are clear―because, as he eventually reveals, he himself was one of The Twelve. It’s not a part of his past he likes to revisit. But now he must―not only to assist Eve’s investigation, but because a cryptic message from the killer has boasted that others of The Twelve have also died. Summerset is one of those who remain―and the murderous mission is yet to be fully accomplished…