When Dr. Alex Taylor opens her eyes, she is hooked up to an IV, is bound to an operating table, and her legs are raised in stirrups. A man in the room claiming to be a doctor calmly and methodically tells her how he's about to attack her. Before Alex can even scream for help, she succumbs to another dose of anesthesia, rendering her unable to defend herself. When she wakes up, she immediately reports the attack and rape. The police are skeptical of...

The elite New England boarding school Lycroft Phelps is one of the most prestigious private high schools in the nation. Over 150 years is plenty of time for traditions to bake into the campus's bricks and ivy: ceremonies, athletic rivalries, secret societies. Charlotte is the perfect straight-A student. Max is a scholarship kid and STEM whiz. Quinn is an artist, dreamer, and Lycroft legacy. They must question all they thought they knew about themselves--...

"Daisy Shoemaker can't sleep. With a thriving cooking business, full schedule of volunteer work, and a beautiful home in the Philadelphia suburbs, she should be content. But her teenage daughter can be a handful, her husband can be distant, her work can feel trivial, and she has lots of acquaintances, but no real friends. Still, Daisy knows she's got it good. So why is she up all night? While Daisy tries to identify the root of her dissatisfaction,...

Fifteen years ago, Sara Linton's life changed forever when a celebratory night out ended in a violent attack that tore her world apart. Since then, Sara has remade her life. A successful doctor, engaged to a man she loves, she has finally managed to leave the past behind her. Until one evening, on call in the ER, everything changes. Sara battles to save a broken young woman who's been brutally attacked. But as the investigation progresses, led by...

"When Billy Summers was twelve years old, He shot and killed his mother's boyfriend after he kicked Billy's sister to death. At 17, he enlisted in the army. At 18, he was a sniper in Iraq and involved in the deadly battle to recapture Fallujah. For nearly twenty years, he's worked as a paid assassin. He's a good guy in a bad job, and he wants out. He takes on a very complicated, very lucrative job that he hopes will be his last. He's got a perfect...

17-year-old Jay wakes up in a park, battered and confused and unable to remember what happened the night before. But he has his suspicions. His best friend takes him to hospital, and Jay is referred to the sexual assault unit. At first Jay refuses to believe that he was raped. And yet Jay becomes overwhelmed when the weight of what has happened starts to dawn on him. He wants answers, and his search leads him down a dark and dangerous path.

Someone is helping rape victims exact revenge on their attackers, and it's hard to investigate when everyone on the police force seems to be rooting for the killer. But when innocent people start to die, Tate and Schroder find themselves with different objectives, and soon they're battling something they never would've expected-- each other.

"Twenty-eight-year-old New Yorker Ani FaNelli seems to have it all: she's a rising star at The Women's Magazine, impossibly fit, perfectly groomed, and about to marry Luke Harrison, a handsome blueblood. But behind that veneer of perfection lies a vulnerability that Ani holds close and buries deep--a very violent and public trauma from her past that has left her constantly trying to reinvent herself. And only she knows how far she would go to keep...

"In Holler, Child's eleven brilliant stories, LaToya Watkins presses at the bruises of guilt, love, and circumstance. Each story introduces us to a character irrevocably shaped by place and reaching toward something-hope, reconciliation, freedom. In 'Cutting Horse,' the appearance of a horse in a man's suburban backyard places a former horse breeder in trouble with the police. In 'Holler, Child,' a mother is forced into an impossible position when...