Not yet ready to fully embrace adulthood, Simons finds himself surrendering to cynicism, as well as to the temptations of his “turned-out-well” first cousin, Patricia.To avoid sinking further into his rut, Simons embarks on a road trip through the South. After a disastrous stint as a Corpus Christi fisherman, he exits the Lone Star State, doubling back to the Louisiana bayou to spend some quality time with his former friend and mentor—and his mother’s ex-lover—Taurus. But as even Taurus’s once sought-after wisdom wears thin, Simons begins to suspect that the grass is not greener on the other side—it may be burnt, brown, and dead wherever he goes.

    Two wishes. One ancient curse.All her life, Barrie Watson has been a virtual prisoner in the house where she lives with her shut-in mother. When her mother dies, Barrie promises to put some mileage on her stiletto heels. But she finds a new kind of prison at her aunt’s South Carolina plantation instead—a prison guarded by an ancient spirit who long ago cursed one of the three founding families of Watson Island and gave the others magical gifts that became compulsions. Stuck with the ghosts of a generations-old feud and hunted by forces she cannot see, Barrie must find a way to break free of the family legacy. With the help of sun-kissed Eight Beaufort, who knows what Barrie wants before she knows herself, the last Watson heir starts to unravel her family's twisted secrets. What she finds is dangerous: a love she never expected, a river that turns to fire at midnight, a gorgeous cousin who isn't what she seems, and very real enemies who want both Eight and Barrie dead.

    With a nice house, a son in medical school, and a wife who's become one of the top brokers stoking the heedless real estate rush in north Raleigh, Will has the perfect life. But overnight a nasty conglomerate buys his station and throws him out, he's arrested for running a red light, he badly injures his knee, and he begins to see both that his marriage is in danger of crumbling, and that his son doesn't like him much. Then the past he thought he didn't have comes calling, in the person of his cousin Wingfoot Baggett, who collects a bewildered Will for some R&R back home, on the banks of the Cape Fear River. How Will comes to terms with his history, sorts out his legal dilemmas, reinvents himself, gets to know his son, and maybe, just maybe, reconciles with his wife, is the subject of Bob Inman's graceful, comic, and poignant novel. In a larger sense, this is also a novel about how the New South, with its booming economy and newly minted cities, is stamping out the Old South, losing in the process a sense of tradition and identity.

    After a long absence, A. J. Longstreet finds his best friend since childhood, Eugene Purdue, on his doorstep. Eugene now has terminal cancer, and he confronts A. J. with the dilemma of executing a mercy killing when the time arrives. An adventure into the past begins for the both of them, and soon one must make a decision that will alter his life forever.

    Under a boundless starry sky, the unforgettable Sylvia Carr reconnects with the ancient past and discovers what it really means to be young in the world today.Sylvia, brave hearted and rebellious, moves into wild Northumberland from the city of Newcastle. She feels alien in this huge, silent, seemingly empty landscape, but then she meets Gabriel, a strange yet familiar boy. As they roam the forests and fells together, she sees nature with new eyes. She becomes aware that the past is all around her, and is deep inside herself. From the wing of a dead buzzard, they create a hollow bone - the kind of flute that was created and used in rituals in the distant past. This is a book of hope and joy - a book that celebrates humanity and explores the deep connections between ourselves and nature. It is timely and original. It speaks to young people about what it really is to be a human being alive today.

    This is the official guide, with photostories, character profiles, song lyrics and all the gossip from Georgia and the Ace Gang.

    Set in a small town well below the Mason-Dixon line, River Jordan features an improbable friendship among three people who come to depend on one another like family. Jordan, a girl with an adventurous imagination, is hungry for warmth and companionship, since she gets no more than scolding from her strict mother and stepfather. When Jordan’s step-grandmother, Miss Amylee, needs a live-in nurse, the family’s housekeeper suggests her sister, Pansy—newly saved and released from prison—for the job. Pansy, Jordan, and Miss Amylee form an unlikely trio, and through small and large triumphs, each recovers a part of herself that was lost.

    But Eli's tragic accident changes the trajectory of their lives and of those connected to them. Shunned and even tortured by his peers for his disfigurement and frailty, Eli struggles for acceptance in childhood as Delia passionately defends him. Delia's narrative voice presents Eli as a confident young man in adolescence, but underneath he hides indelible wounds harboring pain and insecurity, scars that rule his impulses. And while Eli cherishes Delia and attempts to protect her from her own troubles, he cares not for protecting himself. In this compelling coming of age story, culture, family, friends, bullies, and lovers propel two young people to unite to guard each other in a world where love, hope, and connectedness ultimately triumph.

    She has a keen knowledge of antiques, a special fondness for collectibles, and a canny acquaintance with the criminal mind. Original.

    Now Wells is back, writing about his favorite subject–the exotic, beleaguered Louisiana wetlands–in a sharp, rollicking tale of corporate corruption and political shenanigans. The fight over one man’s tract of sacred marsh fronts a deeper story of our place in the environment and our obligations to it. Justin Pitre’s marsh island, a legacy of his trapper grandfather, is a scenic rival to anything in the Everglades, and he has promised to protect it from all harm. But he hasn’t counted on oil bigwig Tom Huff’s plans to wreck his bayou paradise by ramming a pipeline through it. When cajolery doesn’t sway Justin to sign the land over, Huff turns to darker methods. But Justin and his spirited wife, Grace, prove to be formidable adversaries–and the game is on.Into the fray comes the charismatic Cajun governor Joe T. Evangeline, who seems more interested in chasing skirts than saving Louisiana’s eroding coast. The Guv, though, is a man on the edge, upended by a midlife crisis and torn between a secret political obligation to Big Oil and the persuasive powers of Julie Galjour, a feisty environmentalist. Julie is clearly out to reform more than the Guv’s ecopolitics, but will his tragicomic Big Oil deals wreck both his career and his chances with the brash and beautiful activist?As Justin and Grace battle to stop this Big Oil assault, the plot thickens–and the Guv becomes snared in the web. Featuring a gumbo of eccentrics and lowlifes, a kidnapping, a sexy snitch, a toxic-waste-dumping scheme, a boat chase, and a fishing trip gone horribly awry, Crawfish Mountain, spiced with Ken Wells’s keen eye for locale, showcases his adventurous storytelling.

     When Claire Bennett's husband died, she felt directionless. Their thriving antiques business and beautiful house in the Hamptons, the social scene and her volunteer work -- all seemed empty without Phillip. Estranged from her adult daughter and son, Claire knows that in the depths of her heart she still mourns a terrible loss from a tragic accident years ago. Fleeing her memories, Claire moves to a condo in Florida, then impulsively leaves to visit her engaged daughter in North Carolina. From the sandy beaches of Boca Raton to a tiny farm tucked high in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Claire gains self-awareness through the unexpected kindness of strangers, and finally forces herself to confront some hard truths from the past. Finding a joy in life that has been missing for many years, Claire at last reaches out to her son and daughter. And when the healing of old wounds leads her to a new love, Claire realizes that her travels have brought her to a place where she will never again walk alone.

    The last volume in an unforgettable trilogy (with A Short History of a Small Place and Off for the Sweet Hereafter)

    Who is Mokee Joe? And what has Hudson done to make him so mad? There's only one course of action—Hudson must destroy this monster before it destroys him!

    His ex-wife is demanding more money. A woman he can’t even remember accuses him of fathering her child. Newspaper reporter Mitch Corsini shrugs and takes another drink. However, when his estranged teenaged daughter mysteriously disappears, his life finally has a purpose: find the child he's neglected for too long and rekindle the love they once shared. Mitch’s quest takes him to the Virginia mountains and his ancestral home. There, he finds himself locked in a life or death struggle to save his daughter as seventy-year-old family secrets and the fate of a long-forgotten railroad worker combine to shatter the very foundations of his world.

    In the first story she's living in a children's home but wants a real family. In the second story she is living with foster mum Cam, but all is not as well as it should be.