After a painful divorce, Maisey Lazarow returns to the small island off the North Carolina coast where she grew up. Upon finding a box of old photographs, Maisey and her brother Keith begin to uncover distant memories of a little girl who they believe was their sister. Their mother claims there was no sister, but Maisey is convinced there was. So where is she now?

Brooklyn. Since Gravity "Doomsday" Delgado started working with Coach Thomas, she been breaking records, breaking her competitors, and breaking the walls inside her. Boxiing is taking her places. She makes friends with other boxers: flirtatious Lefty, hard-to-beat D-Minus, artistic Kimani "Monster" Browne, and a host of others. But things with her mother are reaching a tipping point, and Gravity has to look out for her little brother Ty. With a shot...

"Vera Violet O'Neely's home is in the Pacific Northwest - not the glamorous scene of coffee bars and craft beers, but the hardscrabble region of busted pickups and broken dreams. Vera's mother has left, her father is unstable, and her brother is deeply troubled. Against this gritty background, Vera struggles to establish a life of her own, a life fortified by her friends and her hard-won love. But the relentless poverty coupled with the twin lures...

"Finley McGowan is determined that the niece she's raising will always feel loved and wanted. Finley reacted to her chaotic childhood by walking the straight and narrow -- nose down, work hard, follow the rules. Her sister Sloane went the other way. Now Sloane is back, and she wants a relationship with her daughter. She says she's changed, but Finley's heart has been burned once too often for her to trust easily. But is her reluctance to forgive really...

""If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am," says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father is on his deathbed, Alex--a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister--feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be...

"There's always been a hole in Gio's life. Not because he's into both guys and girls. Not because his father has some drinking issues. Not because his friends are always bringing him their drama. No, the hole in Gio's life takes the shape of his birth mom, who left Gio, his brother, and his father when Gio was nine years old. For eight years, he never heard a word from her . . . and now, just as he's started to get his life together, she's back" --...

A septuagenarian business owner evaluates her grandchildren as possible successors to her multi-million-dollar beauty empire, including New York movie studio editor Daisy, womanizing sports PR representative Matt, and religious Legal Aid lawyer Raquel.

"In the book of Genesis, when God calls out, "Abraham!" to order him to sacrifice his son Isaac, Abraham responds, "Here I am." Later, when Isaac calls out, "My father!" to ask him why there is no animal to slaughter, Abraham responds, "Here I am." How do we fulfill our conflicting duties as father, husband, and son; wife and mother; child and adult? Jew and American? How can we claim our own identities when our lives are linked so closely to...

"The short story, Franny, takes place in an unnamed college town and tells the tale of an undergraduate who is becoming disenchanted with the selfishness and inauthenticity she perceives all around her. The novella, Zooey, is named for Zooey Glass, the second youngest member of the Glass family. As his younger sister, Franny suffers a spiritual and existential breakdown in her parents' Manhattan living room - leaving Bessie, her mother, deeply concerned...

"When Roisin and Joe join their friends for a weekend at a country house, it's a triple celebration--a birthday, an engagement, and the launch of Joe's shiny new TV show. But as the weekend unfolds, tensions come to light in the group and Roisin begins to question her own relationship. And as they watch the first episode of Joe's drama, she realizes that the private things she told him--which should have stayed between them--are right there on the...