Thelonius "Monk" Ellison is an erudite, accomplished but seldom-read author who insists on writing obscure literary papers rather than the so-called "ghetto prose" that would make him a commercial success. He finally succumbs to temptation after seeing the Oberlin-educated author of We's Lives in da Ghetto during her appearance on a talk show, firing back with a parody called My Pafology, which he submits to his startled agent under the gangsta pseudonym...

Ben Burns, a drug-addicted teenager, shows up unexpectedly to visit his family on Christmas Eve. His wary mother welcomes him, but after finding out he's still in danger, she must to do everything she can to help her family.

While his life seems perfectly good as it is, Cardell, a young coyote, learns to tolerate--and even like--the coyote that is courting his mother.

"Nina Browning is living the good life after marrying into Nashville's elite. Her husband's tech business is booming, and her adored son, Finch, is bound for Princeton. Tom Volpe is a single dad working multiple jobs. His adored daughter, Lyla, attends Nashville's most prestigious private school on a scholarship. But amid the wealth and privilege, Lyla doesn't always fit in. Then one devastating photo changes everything. Finch snaps a picture of Lyla...

"Known as the Roadkill Kid due to his mother's job, middle schooler Jack becomes his mom's assistant as he deals with his parents' divorce, even though he just wants to finally talk to Zoe, his conservationist classmate with the bright green eyes."--

No one wants to be the mother whose child disappears. It's the stuff of nightmares. But more than a year after Carrie Morgan turned her back to pay a parking meter and became that mother, it's clear that her son Ben is never coming back. Until he does . . . for just twenty-four hours.

How far would you go to reconnect with your teenager? What happens when a mother and her 16-year-old son drop everything to bike across the country? On the TransAmerica Bicycle Trail, they struggle up hills in the pouring rain, they feel soreness in muscles they didn't know they had, and they learn more about each other than they ever knew before. When licensed clinical therapist and self-proclaimed "reluctant adventurer" Leah Day felt herself drifting...

As he gets into bed, Timmy Bear asks his mother to play a game with him in which they remember everything he did during the day, but in reverse order.

In the heyday of the 1970s underground, Bobby DeSoto and Mary Whittaker-passionate, idealistic, and in love-design a series of radical protests against the Vietnam War. When one action goes wrong, the course of their lives is forever changed. The two must erase their past, forge new identities, and never see each other again. Now it is the 1990s. Mary lives in the suburbs with her fifteen-year-old son, who spends hours immersed in the music of his...

Rachel Jenner is walking in a Bristol park with her eight-year-old son Ben when he asks if he can run ahead. It's an ordinary request on an ordinary Sunday afternoon, and Rachel has no reason to worry--until Ben vanishes. Police are called, search parties go out, and Rachel, already insecure after her recent divorce, feels herself coming undone. As hours and then days pass without a sign of Ben, everyone who knew him is called into question, from...