Two jewish boys growing to manhood in Brooklyn discover that differences can strengthen friendship and understanding.

"There could be no doubt left in anyone's mind that my life had all the makings of a country-and-western song." The second of seven children (with another on the way), Hallie Palmer has one dream: to make it to Vegas. Normally blessed with an uncanny gift for winning at games of chance, she's just hit a losing streak. She's been kicked out of the casino she frequents during school hours, lost all her money for a car on a bad bet at the track, and...

“We’re approaching Cat in the Hat level chaos and no one’s even had breakfast yet.”
When the death of her father leaves her mother bereft and incapacitated, card shark Hallie Palmer returns home from college to raise Hallie’s eight younger siblings. Hallie’s older brother has a scholarship and a sensible major–which translates to free tuition and desperately needed future income for the family. So it’s...

"Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a humanitarian aid group. Surrounded by people whose skills--as doctors, nurses, and therapists--seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners...

"From the outside, Mill River looks like any sleepy little Vermont town where everyone knows everyone and people never need to lock their doors. There are newcomers for whom this appeals, from police officer Kyle Hansen and his daughter Rowen, who are starting over after heartache, to Claudia Simon, the schoolteacher who is determined to reinvent herself. But on closer inspection, there are those in Mill River--including a stealthy arsonist, a covetous...

"Henry IX, known as William, is the son of Anne Boleyn and now the leader of England, his regency period finally at an end. His newfound power, however, comes with the looming specter of war with the other major powers of Europe, with strategic alliances that must be forged on both the battlefield and in the bedroom, and with a court, severed by religion, rife with plots to take over the throne"--

"Boston, 2000. Calliope Notaris Brown receives a shocking phone call. Her beloved uncle Nestor has passed away, and now Callie must fly to Patras, Greece, to claim her inheritance. Callie's mother, Clio --with whom Callie has always had a difficult relationship--tries to convince her not to make the trip. Unsettled by her mother's strange behavior, and uneasy about her own recent engagement, Callie decides to escape Boston for the city of her childhood...

"For readers of Jodi Picoult, Heather Gudenkauf, and Elizabeth Flock comes a spellbinding tale of a girl gone missing--and the detective who will risk everything to find her. Detective Sergeant Andrea Lawrence is reluctant to take this emotionally charged case, but she can't help herself. In a small British seaside community, a fourteen-year-old girl has vanished. Sophie Monroe hasn't been seen since she fought--loudly, miserably--with her stepmother...

"In the Pennywort [farm], there is a garden of edible flowers, a garden meant for touching, and one in which the flowers only bloom at night ... Since her mother's death 5 years ago, Olivia has been carrying on her legacy, caring for Pennywort Gardens and running an informal program that provides safe haven to women in exchange for their help with the lush gardens. The townspeople hate having what they call a 'halfway house' around, and Olivia's neighbors...