Ten years after the deadly virus nicknamed Henny Penny, the world has largely recovered -- there's at least an interim government and law and order for its greatly reduced population. But even though there's been a vaccine for years, the law still requires people to wear protective masks and gloves at all times in public. Soft fabrics are dangerous. And people who haven't been touched in years are going crazy from skin hunger. Lily has lived in isolation...

Man-woman relationships

Haley and Ben live with their mother. When their dad is convinced there's a new, much deadlier pandemic coming, he kidnaps them. Confined in his prepper hideaway far off the grid, he believes they will be safe from other people. Haley and Ben have no contact with the outside world, and are worried about their mother. Is the threat even real-- or is this all just a dark fantasy brought on by their conspiracy obsessed father's warped imagination? --...

A devastating virus. A nation-wide quarantine. A ruthless government at war with the world. And it's all seventeen-year-old Lyra Harmon's fault. Lyra is the only person known to have "phoenix cells," which regenerate no matter the injury or illness. If she had just let the doctors clone her cells when Hecate's Plague was first discovered, she could have stopped the pandemic--and the war. But her parents knew the government would also use her cells...

"Watsonville, 1930. Francisco Maghabol barely ekes out a living in the fields of California. As he spends what little money he earns at dance halls and faces increasing violence from white men in town, Francisco wonders if he should’ve never left the Philippines. Stockton, 1965. Between school days full of prejudice from white students and teachers and night shifts working at his aunt’s restaurant, Emil refuses to follow in the footsteps of his...

Faith Fairchild joins the rest of the world in lockdown mode when reality flips in March 2020. As the pandemic spreads, Faith and her family readjust to life together in Aleford, Massachusetts. Her husband, Tom, continues his sermons from Zoom; their children, Ben, who's in college, and Amy, a high school senior, are doing remote learning at home. Faith is happy to have her family under the same roof and grateful for her resilient community, friends,...

"The Reservoir follows an unexceptional man in an exceptional time. We see our present-day pandemic world and New York City through the eyes of a former Wall Street veteran, Ridley, as he, in his enforced quarantined solitude, looks back upon his life. He examines his wins, his failures, the gnawing questions-his career, his divorce, his estranged daughter-and wonders what it all means and who he really is. Sitting and brooding night after night,...

Darcy Gray is a successful influencer with her blog, The Gray Zone, trusted by more than a million followers for her integrity and taste. At forty-two, she has the life she wants in many ways. Darcy and her husband, department store magnate Charles Gray, are a power couple in Manhattan and on the international stage. Their beloved twin daughters are each enjoying their junior year abroad, Penny in Hong Kong and Zoe at the Sorbonne in Paris. To celebrate...

"With her trademark spare, crystalline prose-a voice infused with 'intimate, fragile, desperate humanness' (The Washington Post)-Elizabeth Strout turns her exquisitely tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton through the early days of the pandemic. As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine...

When the world is brought to a standstill in the early days of a global pandemic, Etta Wilmont finds herself suddenly stranded in Kansas City. Desperate to secure a roof over her head, Etta crosses paths with Henry Logan, a lonely older man in need of a caretaker. His invitation for Etta to stay with him seems to be the solution to both their problems - and maybe the spontaneous adventure Etta's life has been missing. As Etta and Henry settle into...