Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day, she sees a slip containing the word bondmaid flutter to the floor unclaimed. Esme seizes the word and hides it in an old wooden trunk that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house.

When Indian American journalist Smita returns to India to write the story of a young widow Meena and the murder of her husband, it’s Smita’s first time back since her family left when she was a child. Both Smita and Meena were raised in a culture where a woman exercising a basic human right - the right to love and marry whoever she chooses - is met with brutal punishment. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita must reckon with the privilege that becoming an American has given her, as well as face the trauma that shaped her as a child and led to her family leaving.

True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history finals and have politicians, doctors and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges listeners into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they'll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who's never met another deaf person before, Austin, the school's golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing and February, the headmistress, who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact.

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 is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry. Jack Currer is a resurrection man who's just trying to survive in a city where it's too easy to die. When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist's Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr Beecham's lectures for being the wrong gender, she realises that her new acquaintance might be more helpful than she first thought. Because Hazel has made a deal with Dr Beecham.

Lucky Armstrong is tough, talented and in real trouble. Having just pulled off a million-dollar heist with her boyfriend, she's preparing to start a brand-new life, complete with new identity, when everything goes sideways. Suddenly Lucky finds herself completely alone, without the help of either her father or her boyfriend, the two figures from whom she's learned the art of the scam. When Lucky discovers that a lottery ticket she bought on a whim is worth millions, her elation is tempered by one big problem: cashing in the winning ticket means she'll be arrested for her crimes.

Molly the maid is all alone in the world. A nobody. She’s used to being invisible in her job at the Regency Grand Hotel, plumping pillows and wiping away the grime, dust and secrets of the guests passing through. She’s just a maid—why should anyone take notice? But Molly is thrown into the spotlight when she discovers an infamous guest, Mr Black, very dead in his bed. This isn’t a mess that can be easily cleaned up. 

Welcome to No.12 rue des Amants. A beautiful old apartment block, far from the glittering lights of the Eiffel Tower and the bustling banks of the Seine. Where nothing goes unseen, and everyone has a story to unlock.

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant Nobel-prize-nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

Lyla has always believed that life is a game she is destined to win, but her husband, Graham, takes the game to dangerous levels. The wealthy couple invites self-made success stories to live in their guesthouse and then conspires to ruin their lives. After all, there is nothing worse than a bootstrapper.  Demi has always felt like the odds were stacked against her. At the end of her rope, she seizes a risky opportunity to take over another person’s life and unwittingly becomes the subject of the upstairs couple’s wicked entertainment. 

Andromeda is a debtera — an exorcist hired to cleanse households of the Evil Eye. She would be hired, that is, if her mentor hadn’t thrown her out before she could earn her license. Now her only hope of steady work is to find a Patron — a rich, well-connected individual who will vouch for her abilities.

Emily is on holiday with her best friend, Kristen, in the stunning mountains of Chile. They're having the time of their lives until, on the last night of the trip, Emily enters their hotel suite to find it covered in blood. Kristen claims a backpacker attacked her. She shouted, but no-one heard. She struggled, but he was too strong. She had no option but to kill him. With no evidence of the assault, Emily must help her hide the body. Back home, Emily tries to forget what happened, but a surprise visit from Kristen forces her to confront the events of that night. 

In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect - a rich, eccentric 23-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. But she was acquitted, and she retreated to the isolation of her mansion.

Anna is at a stage of her life when she's beginning to wonder who she really is. She has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up and her mother - the only parent who raised her - is dead. Searching through her mother's belongings, she finds clues about the West African father she never knew. Through reading his student diary, chronicling his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London, she discovers that he eventually became the president - some would say the dictator - of a small nation in West Africa. And he is still alive. 

On a perfect August morning, Elle Bishop heads out for a swim in the pond below 'The Paper Palace'—her family's holiday home in Cape Cod. As she dives beneath the water she relives the passionate encounter she had the night before, against the side of the house that knows all her darkest secrets, while her husband and mother chatted to their guests inside.... So begins a story that unfolds over 24 hours and 50 years, as Elle's shocking betrayal leads her to a life-changing decision—and an ending you won't be able to stop thinking about.