Home Fiction

Freedom fighter, brilliant businessperson, devoted wife, master of languages, and ultimately, savior of a European dynasty. Claudia Patterson would become all of these—spurred on by the fiercely powerful loves and losses along the way … Denny Clark. An abused thirteen-year-old White boy whose life twelve-year-old Claudia saves—complicating her own life for years to come.

In A Measure of Mercy by acclaimed author Lauraine Snelling, 18-year-old Astrid Bjorklund’s opportunity for formal medical study in Chicago doesn’t arrive until shortly after her heartthrob Joshua Landseer returns to Blessing, North Dakota. They agree to exchange letters while she’s in Chicago. And, for a time, love blossoms—until the letters from Joshua stop coming. Convinced he no longer loves her, Astrid makes an impetuous and heart-wrenching decision.

Jude never thought she’d be leaving her beloved older brother and father behind, all the way across the ocean in Syria. But when things in her hometown start becoming volatile, Jude and her mother are sent to live in Cincinnati with relatives. At first, everything in America seems too fast and too loud. The American movies that Jude has always loved haven’t quite prepared her for starting school in the US - and her new label of “Middle Eastern”, an identity she’s never known before. But this life also brings unexpected surprises.

After running away across the country, Brie Masters is finally settling into her life in California. She's surrounded by loving friends and her brother, who is there to keep her safe - specifically, to protect her from a man from her past who won't let her go. But, as the danger starts affecting those around her, she flees back home, back to the life of Gabby Mastreoni. When her stalker goes after the one thing that could hurt her forever, she has no choice but to run to the last person she wants to ask for help. And then all of her secrets will be exposed.

When a little girl gets a plush stingray for her birthday, it makes friends with some of her other toys as they all try to navigate in the world of real people.

Maddie Townsend might live in a town called Serenity, but there's been nothing calm or peaceful about her life since her marriage broke up. This stay-at-home mom has no job skills, an out-of-control 16-year-old son, a talkative 14-year-old who's suddenly gone silent, a six-year-old daughter whose heart is broken, an ex-husband whose younger girlfriend is expecting their baby, and two best friends who think she's somehow qualified to help them open a fitness spa for women.

Since their mama died and their pa left, Ethan, Alice, Simon, and Will Cooper have not known much of a home. But now that the orphan train has taken them to Mr. and Mrs. Rush in Nebraska, their dreams of home may become a reality. The kids discover that life on a farm is full of challenges. Ethan learns how to drive a plow, watch for snakes, and deal with bullies at the country school. Alice learns to slop the hogs and live with a big sister who isn't exactly welcoming. Will seems to be the only one of the four that their new mother likes.

While taking her morning run, Amish schoolteacher Jodi Winfield makes a startling find on the side of the road - a preschool-aged girl, crying and clad only in her undergarments. Jodi takes the girl with her, but no one knows who she is. Then fate brings Jodi to Hickory Hollow’s Lancaster Old Order Amish, and she finds clues to the girl’s identity.

It’s been nearly a year since everything happened between Magnolia Parks and BJ Ballentine on the steps of the Mandarin Oriental, and since then it seems like everything has changed. Magnolia has a life in New York now and BJ appears to have finally let go and moved on. But when they both wind up back in London and are thrust together once again, they find themselves asking their age-old question: How many loves do you actually get in a lifetime, and, most important—are they each other’s?

The only possible thing that could make Morgan's world even more difficult happened. The Japanese fleet off the coast of California was wiped out. An even that Morgan and friends and family only knew about because of the radio broadcasts from the Radio Free Redoubt. So far removed from them it barely warranted notice. That is until the Chinese retaliated by launching a nuclear counter-strike against Mac Dill Air Force base. This, did warrant their attention and had the potential to profoundly impact their lives.

Ellie Avery balances motherhood, marriage, and her own business - Everything in Its Place - with cheerful efficiency. A maestro of organization, she sees her life as an easy checklist that does not include the untimely death of Penny Follette. Unlike the police, Ellie isn't convinced Penny's death was suicide. But it's an uphill battle getting the officials to take her seriously. Then another spouse is strangled, and someone tries to poison an outspoken female Air Force pilot. Poking about in closets and drawers, Ellie hopes to find the common thread tying the crimes together.

The BFG is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and jumbly. It's lucky for Sophie that he is. Had she been carried off in the middle of the night by the Bloodbottler, or any of the other giants - rather than the BFG - she would have soon become breakfast. When Sophie hears that the giants are flush-bunking off to England to swollomp a few nice little chiddlers, she decides she must stop them once and for all. And the BFG is going to help her!

In this powerful and wide-ranging collection of essays, Rebecca Solnit turns her attention to the war at home. This is a war, she says, "[W]ith so many casualties that we should call it by its true name, this war with so many dead by police, by violent ex-husbands and partners and lovers, by people pursuing power and profit at the point of a gun or just shooting first and figuring out who they hit later."

In a quiet suburban neighborhood, in the house next door, a family is brutally murdered for no apparent reason. You can't help thinking, "That could have been us". And you start to wonder, "What if we're next?" That's the question Jim and Ellen Cutter are asking, and the answers aren't reassuring.

A decade ago, kidnappers grabbed two boys from wealthy families and demanded ransom, then went silent. No trace of the boys ever surfaced. For 10 years their families have been left with nothing but painful memories and a quiet desperation for the day that has finally, miraculously arrived: Myron Bolitar and his friend Win believe they have located one of the boys, now a teenager. Where has he been for 10 years, and what does he know about the day, more than half a life ago, when he was taken?

The setting is the beginning of an Amish settlement in colonial America in the forests of eastern Pennsylvania. There, a young Amish couple, Hans and Kate Zug, are in their ninth year of marriage, still waiting to have a child. Then, one April morning, Kate finds a Native infant, wrapped in deerskin and placed next to the spring where she went to fill her water bucket.

After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to sort out her estate. Beth, the oldest, never left home. She stayed with her mom, caring for her until the very end. Nicole, the middle child, has been kept at arm’s length due to her ongoing battle with a serious drug addiction. Michael, the youngest, lives out of state and hasn’t been back to their small Wisconsin town since their father ran out on them seven years before.

It’s my final season to prove myself before the MLB Draft. The last thing I need is a distraction–and especially not one as tantalizing as Mia di Angelo. She’s the drop-dead gorgeous astrophysicist-in-training who ditched me the moment I wanted to take us from casual to committed. Yeah. Ouch. But when she needs somewhere to stay for the summer… well. I offer her my place. Being roommates shouldn’t be so hard. Not distracting at all. Not the least bit challenging.

Flo lives an eccentric life - she travels with a popular circus in which the main acts star orphaned children with secret shape-shifting abilities. Once Flo turns 16, she must perform, but she's not ready. While practicing jumping a flaming hurdle in a clearing beside the circus, she spots a dark figure in the trees and fears he saw her shift. The news sends the circus into a panic.

It's summer at the Heartwood Hotel, and everyone is in a flurry getting ready for Ms. Prickles's wedding to Mr. Quillson! Meanwhile, a new mouse guest named Strawberry comes to stay. She's sweet and soft-spoken like Mona, and gifted in the kitchen just as Mona's mother was—could Strawberry be a long-lost relative? But when lightning strikes part of Fernwood Forest and starts a fire, all thoughts go to the guests and staff hurrying to leave to make sure their homes and families are safe. Mona works to protect the Heartwood from harm, but as the fire rages on, it's becoming dangerous to stay.