For three ten-year-old girls, their once simple worlds are starting to feel too big. Painfully shy Grace dreads starting fifth grade now that her best friend has moved away. Jada hopes she'll stop feeling so alone if she finds the mother who left years ago. And Malia fears the arrival of her new baby sister will forever change the family she loves. When the girls each find a mysterious treasure box in their library and begin to fill the box with their...

"A heart-rending journey of epic proportion into the mind, body, and soul of Rosie: a woman stricken with a silent disease paralyzing her stomach. She leads you along an intimate path through complexities that push her across the pain barrier; stripping her of splendor, but never her will to keep fighting." -- back cover.

"Sam Hill always saw the world through different eyes. Born with red pupils, he was called Devil Boy or Sam Hell by his classmates; "God's will" is what his mother called his ocular albinism. Her words were of little comfort, but Sam persevered, buoyed by his mother's devout faith, his father's practical wisdom, and his two other misfit friends. Sam believed it was God who sent Ernie Cantwell, the only African American kid in his class, to be the...

"'You're married, you're getting older, and your parents are looking more and more like the grandparents they are pestering you to make them. It's getting embarrassing. Your pathetic renter's mailbox--the one with three former tenants' names crossed out--is stuffed with your friends' baby shower invitations. Just a few months ago, right after my grandmother died, five different people mentioned the word Ultrasound to me on the same day. It was both...

Following her brother's death and her mother's emotional breakdown, Laura now lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, in a lonely townhouse she shares with her old-world, strict, often querulous grandparents. But the arrangement may be temporary. The quiet, awkward teenager has been getting into trouble at home and has been expelled from her high school for throwing a record album at a popular girl who bullied her. When Christmas is over and the...

"It's 1916 when newspaper woman Anna McDowell learns her estranged father has suffered a stroke. Deciding it's time to repair bridges, Anna packs up her precocious adolescent daughter and heads for her hometown in Sunset Cove, Oregon. Although much has changed since the turn of the century, some things haven t. Anna finds the staff of her father s paper not exactly eager to welcome a woman into the editor-in-chief role, but her father insists he wants...

Bob Bell was a college student when an accident in the dorm changed his life in an instant. His neck was broken, his spinal cord damaged, and he became a quadriplegic. That did not stop Bob with his quest for life. He finished college and law school, became an accountant, worked for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and had a job as a Wall Street securities lawyer. He has traveled worldwide and shares his personal and professional stories,...

"Nina Hill's life may not seem like much, but for a person battling anxiety, it's more than enough. She enjoys her job at a bookstore and her small circle of friends. Until a visit from a lawyer changes everything ... The father that Nina never knew existed has died, leaving behind an enormous extended family. Nina now has innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, and cousins all living within a twenty-mile radius--some welcoming and some not...

A powerful and intimate memoir by the beloved best-selling author of The Prince of Tides about his father, the inspiration for The Great Santini, and a re-affirmation that love can conquer even the meanest of men. While the publication of The Great Santini brought Conroy much acclaim, the rift it caused with his father brought even more attention. Their long-simmering conflict burst into the open, fracturing an already battered family. But in the...

"Once upon a time, when her dad married Sage's mom, Daisy was thrilled to get a bright and shiny new sister. But Sage was beautiful and popular, everything Daisy was not, and she made sure Daisy knew it. Sage didn't have Daisy's smarts - she had to go back a grade to enroll in the fancy rich-kid school. So she used her popularity as a weapon, putting Daisy down to elevate herself. After the divorce, the stepsisters' rivalry continued until the final,...