He’s lucky to even have a home and must keep his mouth shut and his ears open to stay in his uncle’s good graces. No one knows where his mother went or whether she’s coming back. Desperate to see her again, he must take matters into his own hands. From the farm, he embarks on a treacherous search that will take him to the squalid hideaways of Detroit and back again, through tawdry taverns, peep shows, and gambling houses.As he’s drawn deeper into an adult world of corruption, scandal, and murder, Jasper uncovers the shocking past still chasing his mother—and now it’s chasing him too.

    In Kathmandu, she struggles to launch a new career in international ai and to forge a connection with the country of her birth. Ava's work brings her into contact with Indira Sharma, a leading gender expert in Kathmandu. It also takes her to a small village where bright young Sapana Karki dreams of progress for herself, her community and her country. Sapana's world-weary half-brother Gyanu, who works in Dubai, is back to settle his sister's future after their father's death. Each person is on a journey of his or her own. These journeys intersect with a chance meeting between Ava and Gyanu. In the aftermath, her decisions alter the lives of the others.The novel delves into the cynical, monied world of international aid, and reflects on recent events in Nepal, including the devastating earthquake of 2015 and the subsequent drafting of a new constitution. It is ultimately a story about human interconnectedness and the unexpected ways in which strangers come to relate to one another."

    1 Kindle bestseller The Letter, comes The Secret - a heartbreaking novel of tragedy, hope and second chances. Readers who treasure the novels of Lesley Pearse and Susan Lewis will adore this author. Mary has been nursing a secret. Forty years ago, she made a choice that would change her world for ever, and alter the path of someone she holds dear.Beth is searching for answers. She has never known the truth about her parentage, but finding out could be the lifeline her sick child so desperately needs. When Beth finds a faded newspaper cutting amongst her mother's things, she realises the key to her son's future lies in her own past. She must go back to where it all began to unlock...The Secret.

    Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.#1 New York Times Bestseller

    . . . It's 2 A.M. on a Saturday night in the spring of 2001, and twenty-eight-year-old Cecily Gardner sits alone in a dive bar in New York's East Village, questioning her life. Feeling lonesome and homesick for the Midwest, she wonders if she'll ever make it as a reporter in the big city--and whether she made a terrible mistake in breaking up with her longtime boyfriend, Matthew.As Cecily reaches for the phone to call him, she hears a guy on the barstool next to her say, "Don't do it--you'll regret it." Something tells her to listen, and over the next several hours--and shots of tequila--the two forge an unlikely connection. That should be it, they both decide the next morning, as Cecily reminds herself of the perils of a rebound relationship. Moreover, their timing couldn't be worse--Grant is preparing to quit his job and move overseas. Yet despite all their obstacles, they can't seem to say goodbye, and for the first time in her carefully constructed life, Cecily follows her heart instead of her head.Then Grant disappears in the chaos of 9/11. Fearing the worst, Cecily spots his face on a missing-person poster, and realizes she is not the only one searching for him. Her investigative reporting instincts kick into action as she vows to discover the truth. But the questions pile up fast: How well did she really know Grant? Did he ever really love her? And is it possible to love a man who wasn't who he seemed to be?The Lies That Bind is a mesmerizing and emotionally resonant exploration of the never-ending search for love and truth--in our relationships, our careers, and deep within our own hearts.

    . . Inside the factory, Ephraim anxiously scans the growing crowd, looking for his two sons. As anxious questions swirl around him "Where are they taking us? How long will we be gone?" he can't quell the suspicion that it would be just like his oldest son to hole up somewhere instead of lining up for the Germans, and just like his youngest to follow . . .Yasia, a farmer's daughter who has come into town to sell produce, sees two young boys slinking through the shadows of the deserted streets and decides to offer them shelter . . . As these lives become more and more intertwined Rachel Seiffert's prose rich with a rare compassion, courage, and emotional depth, an unflinching story is told: of survival, of conflicting senses of duty, of the oppressive power of fear and the possibility of courage in the face of terror.

    This novel tells a story of sex and longing, love and loss, and of the deceit that can lie at the heart of family relationships. Set in California, Liars and Saints follows four generations of the Catholic Santerre family from World War II to the present. In a family driven as much by jealousy and propriety as by love, an unspoken tradition of deceit is passed from generation to generation. When tragedy shatters their precarious domestic lives, it takes astonishing courage and compassion to bring them back together. By turns funny and disturbing, irreverent and profound, Liars and Saints is a masterful display of Maile Meloy's prodigious gifts and of her penetrating insight into an extraordinary American family and into the nature of human love.

    These entertaining cozies are perfect quick reads. Enjoy these crime-solving adventures in waiting rooms, at the bus stop, or anywhere! "Meredith's stories are like yummy potato chips. You can't stop at one!" - K.M. Morgan "If you love clean mysteries (no swearing or adult content) with fun characters, and crimes that keep you guessing, you will love all of Meredith Potts' wonderful stories!" - Bridget Bowman Included in this wholesome collection: Murder in Happy Creek Killer Amnesia College Can Be Murder Deadpan Murder Murder in Happy Creek.

    43 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more – everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of A Case of Need. This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on A Case of Need by Michael Crichton.

    She is taught only to obey, but she always finds ways to rebel—gossiping with her sister among the fragrant roses of her mother’s walled garden, venturing to the forbidden rooftop to roughhouse with her three brothers, writing poems to impress her strict, disapproving father, and sneaking out to flirt with a teenage paramour over café glacé. It’s during the summer of 1950 that Forugh’s passion for poetry really takes flight—and that tradition seeks to clip her wings. Forced into a suffocating marriage, Forugh runs away and falls into an affair that fuels her desire to write and to achieve freedom and independence. Forugh’s poems are considered both scandalous and brilliant; she is heralded by some as a national treasure, vilified by others as a demon influenced by the West. She perseveres, finding love with a notorious filmmaker and living by her own rules—at enormous cost. But the power of her writing grows only stronger amid the upheaval of the Iranian revolution. Inspired by Forugh Farrokhzad’s verse, letters, films, and interviews—and including original translations of her poems—Jasmin Darznik has written a haunting novel, using the lens of fiction to capture the tenacity, spirit, and conflicting desires of a brave woman who represents the birth of feminism in Iran—and who continues to inspire generations of women around the world.

    For twelve years, it remained untouched.Now a near fatal riding accident has shattered Piper’s dreams of Olympic glory. After her grandfather’s death, she inherits the house and all its secrets, including a key to a room that doesn’t exist—or does it? And after her grandmother is sent away to a nursing home, she remembers the box buried in the backyard. In it are torn pages from a scrapbook, a charm necklace—and a newspaper article from 1939 about the body of an infant found floating in the Savannah River. The necklace’s charms tell the story of three friends during the 1930s— each charm added during the three months each friend had the necklace and recorded her life in the scrapbook. Piper always dismissed her grandmother as not having had a story to tell. And now, too late, Piper finds she might have been wrong.

    Storms are common in the Atlantic between June and November. Most weather disturbances falter and die, no sooner born than ended.Wind blowing from the east six miles high may collide with wind blowing from the opposite direction, creating a shear that will decapitate a storm and rip it apart before an eye can solidify. Warm waters fuel a hurricane, but cold ocean currents can destroy the system before it gains strength.For the moment, this particular disturbance has no name. Meteorologists say she is a tropical depression that should be watched, but five days east of Florida, with gale force winds, she is worthy of no more than a warning to seafaring ships. When winds reach hurricane force, they will dignify her with a name: Katrina. Nine-year-old Thelonious Monk DeCay lives in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward with his grandmother. His mother dead and his father missing, Monk is determined to find his father.With their harmonicas and bottle-cap taps, Monk and his best friend entertain the tourists in Jackson Square under the watchful eyes of eccentric historian Quinton Toussaint, who knows where to find Monk’s father.Hurricane Katrina changes everything. Left homeless and alone after the storm, Monk befriends a deranged man and survives by sneaking across the rooftops and courtyards of the French Quarter, stealing food and supplies while hiding from both a murderer and the police.In the midst of the storm and its aftermath, a woman Monk has never met appears in New Orleans with answers to his questions about his long-lost father.

    Estelle invites Christa to De Eikenhoeve, her family's idyllic country estate. There, Christa encounters Estelle's two brothers - brooding, tempestuous Robbe and dependable, golden-haired Pieter - and during that long hot summer, passions run high. When war breaks out Christa is forced to return home, but not before she has done something she will regret for the rest of her life.Christa arrives back in England a changed woman, while Estelle decides to follow in her mother's footsteps and join the Resistance. Little do they dream that Fleur was betrayed by someone close to them, and that the legacy of this betrayal will have heartbreaking consequences for them all.

    In the 1920s, Josh Goff runs away from school and enlists under another name in the ranks of what to his family was always simply known as The Regiment.Soon enough, he finds himself on the front lines in the Second World War, from France to the Western Desert, from the D-Day beaches to Nazi Germany.The time of cavalrymen has long since passed, but Josh finds himself thinking that the mindset still prevails. Though the weapons have changed, the men have not, and so he moves forward bravely, in his iron stallion. The awe-inspiring finale to the Goff war trilogy, perfect for fans of Alistair MacLean, Jack Higgins and Frederick Forsyth.

    Determined to keep the family together, Zetta and their toddlers join Asa and her brothers at the Golden Gate coal camp just before Christmas 1922. She is eight months pregnant. During the first week in the dismal camp, Zetta suffers fearful nightmares of cut trees and fresh dirt--Appalachian signs of trouble. Asa dismisses his wife's pleas to return to their farm, insisting their three-month stay will provide the $400 they need to give their children better lives. Disappointed, Zetta draws strength from her plump red-haired neighbor, Dosha, and the strong willed granny woman, Clarie, who will deliver her baby. And each morning, she thanks the Lord they are one more day closer to home. Or are they?