"...set in rural Mississippi. In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in movie, and she was never heard from...

Claire Limyé Lanmé -- Claire of the Sea Light -- is an enchanting child born into love and tragedy in Ville Rose, Haiti. Claire's mother died in childbirth, and on each of her birthdays Claire is taken by her father, Nozias, to visit her mother's grave. Nozias wonders if he should give away his young daughter to a local shopkeeper, who lost a child of her own, so that Claire can have a better life. But on the night of Claire's seventh birthday,...

Birmingham real estate agent and former Miss Alabama Maggie Fortenberry learns valuable lessons about the nature of friendship, the challenges of modern life, and the dangers of impossible dreams as she struggles to keep Red Mountain Realty afloat and bury the heartbreaking secrets of her past.

Philip Gulley takes us to Harmony, Indiana, at Christmastime as inspiration strikes the inimitable Dale Hinshaw. Always looking for a way to increase the church's profit margins, Hinshaw brainstorms a progressive nativity scene that will involve the whole town, complete with a map like those for the Hollywood stars. Neither Pastor Sam Gardner nor the other members of the Harmony Friends meeting express any enthusiasm for this idea, but Dale is unstoppable....

One of the most beloved novels in recent years, Plainsong was a best-seller from coast to coast—and now Kent Haruf returns to the High Plains community of Holt, Colorado, with a story of even more masterful authority.
When the McPheron brothers see Victoria Roubideaux, the single mother they’d taken in, move from their ranch to begin college, an emptiness opens before them—and for many other townspeople it also promises...

"Former police officer Cassie Dewell is trying to start over with her own private investigation firm. Guilty about not seeing her son and exhausted by the nights on stakeout, Cassie is nonetheless managing...until an old friend calls in a favor: she wants Cassie to help exonerate a man accused of assaulting a young girl from an influential family. Against her own better judgment, Cassie agrees. But out in the Big Sky Country of Montana, twisted family...

"The woman on the bed was barely out of her teens. She wasn't exactly beautiful, but she'd tried to make the most of her looks. And now, alone in a seedy beachfront motel, she was dead. Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone doesn't know her name. Whoever she is, she didn't deserve to die. Jesse starts digging, only to find himself caught in the crosshairs of a bitter turf war between two ruthless pimps. And more blood will spill before it's over"--

Little Lobo, a Mexican American, and Bernabe, his dog, deliver supplies to vendors at the Mercado, a busy border town market.

Cilla, a former child star who has found more satisfying work as a restorer of old houses, has come to her grandmother's Shenandoah Valley farmhouse, tools at her side, to rescue it from ruin. In the attic, she finds a cache of unsigned letters suggesting that her grandmother was pregnant when she died and that the father was a local married man. When Cilla becomes the target of a series of intimidating acts and a frightening, violent assault, her...

A young boy, CJ, rides the bus across town with his grandmother and learns to appreciate the beauty in everyday things.