Mother of Pearl revolves around twenty-eight-year-old Even Grade, a black man who grew up an orphan, and Valuable Korner, the fifteen-year-old white daughter of the town whore and an unknown father. Both are passionately determined to discover the precious things neither experienced as children: human connection, enduring commitment, and, above all, unconditional love. A startlingly accomplished mixture of beauty, mystery, and tragedy, Mother of Pearl marks the debut of an extraordinary literary talent. (Oprah's Book Club)

    When the Goodwins took over the last dairy farm in the small Midwestern town of Prairie Center, they envisioned their home a self-made paradise. But these days, as Alice is all too aware, her elder daughter Emma is prone to inexplicable fits of rage, her husband Howard distrusts her maternal competence, and Prairie Center's tight-knit suburban community shows no signs of warming to "those hippies who think they can run a farm." A loner by nature, Alice is torn between a yearning for solitude coupled with a deep need to be at the center of a perfect family. On this particular day, Emma has started the morning with a violent tantrum, her little sister Claire is eating pennies, and it is Alice's turn to watch her neighbor's two small girls as well as her own. She absentmindedly steals a minute alone that quickly becomes ten: time enough for a devastating accident to occur. Her neighbor's daughter Lizzy drowns in the farm's pond, and Alice - whose own volatility and unmasked directness keep her on the outskirts of acceptance - becomes the perfect scapegoat. At the same time, a seemingly trivial incident from Alice's past resurfaces and takes on gigantic proportions, leading the Goodwins far from Lizzy's death into a maze of guilt and doubt culminating in a harrowing court trial and the family's shattering downfall.

    But nothing was more precious to Faye than her five children. In a changing world, a milieu where family values are constantly challenged from without and within, the Thayers would face the greatest challenges and harshest test a family can endure, to emerge stronger, bound forever by loyalty and love. It is only when Faye is gone that they can each assess how far they have come, and how important their family album is.(

    Utterly compelling, brilliantly written, You Deserve Nothing is a captivating tale about teachers and students, of moral uncertainties and the coming of adulthood. It heralds the arrival of a brilliant new voice in fiction.

    For forty-six years Sterling has been awaiting his summons into Heaven. Will he be deemed fit for entrance into heaven this year? At last the day comes and the Heavenly Council settles on a test for Sterling - he will be sent back to earth and given an opportunity to prove his worthiness by helping someone else. Sterling Brooks finds himself in Manhattan, at the skating rink in Rockefeller Center. Among the skaters is a heartbroken seven-year-old named Marissa. Her sadness comes from her separation from the father she adores, a talented singer, and her sparkling grandmother, owner of a popular restaurant. Both have been forced into the Witness Protection Program because two mobsters, the Badgett brothers, have put a price on their heads to prevent their testifying against them in an arson case. As Sterling soon realizes, it is Marissa he has been sent to help. Sterling, who is able to move back and forth in time and place, masterminds a plan to eliminate the threat from the Badgett brothers and reunite Marissa with her loved ones. Filled with suspense and humour, HE SEES YOU WHEN YOU'RE SLEEPING is a delightful and warmhearted tale of perseverance, redemption, and love.

    He must fight for his place against the bullies in his Depression-shadowed Bronx neighborhood and his own frail health. As a young man, he must start anew and define his own path of personal belief that diverges sharply with his devout father and everything he has been taught...

    Grief-stricken, his estranged parents Frank and Eleanor set out on the arduous journey to bring their wayward son home. It's a quest that will have profound consequences: in this hauntingly beautiful land of poetry, guns and frantic salsa music, nothing is quite what it seems ...

    She opens the door to see a teenage girl standing in the shadow beyond the porch light—and in an instant she knows who it is. Daisy, the daughter she gave up as a baby. Daisy steps forward, as she says tearfully “I’m sorry I didn’t call first. But something happened. And I really needed… you.”Seventeen years before, knowing she couldn’t possibly give her beautiful little girl Daisy the future she deserved, Mia made the hardest decision of her life—to give her up. And Suzanne seemed the perfect adoptive mother: calm, stable, and full of love for the daughter she’d always dreamed of having. The two mothers promised to keep communication open, so Daisy could have Mia’s love and support along with Suzanne’s. But as the years passed, Mia moved away, and their visits happened less. Now Daisy is almost a stranger to Mia—angry, closed and broken—nothing like the tiny girl she once couldn’t bear to say goodbye to.But now Daisy has arrived on Mia’s doorstep, and she says she has a terrible secret. One she can never tell Suzanne. And she believes the only person who can help her is Mia. Her birth mother.Mia, however, has secrets of her own. Ones she is afraid to let Daisy or anyone else know. And while Suzanne desperately seeks a way to bring her child home, can Mia overcome her past to help the girl they both call their daughter in her darkest hour before it’s too late? Totally gripping emotional women’s fiction from the author guaranteed to make readers cry. Kate Hewitt’s story will grab you by the heartstrings and never let you go. Perfect for fans of Jodi Picoult, Diane Chamberlain and Jojo Moyes.

    A famous short story

    When a new highway threatens to bypass the town of Rossmore and cut through Whitethorn Woods, everyone has a passionate opinion about whether the town will benefit or suffer. But young Father Flynn is most concerned with the fate of St. Ann's Well, which is set at the edge of the woods and slated for destruction. People have been coming to St. Ann's for generations to share their dreams and fears, and speak their prayers. Some believe it to be a place of true spiritual power, demanding protection; others think it's a mere magnet for superstitions, easily sacrificed. Not knowing which faction to favor, Father Flynn listens to all those caught up in the conflict, and these are the voices we hear in the stories of "Whitethorn Woods"--men and women deciding between the traditions of the past and the promises of the future, ordinary people brought vividly to life by Binchy's generosity and empathy, and in the vivacity and surprise of her storytelling. Maeve Binchy is at the very top of her form in this irresistible tale.

    Eric, a Nordic Adonis, is graced by a seemingly endless supply of good fortune. Tommy is a lame black boy, cursed with health problems, yet he remains optimistic and strong.After tragedy rips their makeshift family apart, the lives of these boys diverge astonishingly: Eric, the golden youth, is given everything but trusts nothing; Tommy, motherless and impoverished, has nothing, but feels lucky every day of his life. In a riveting story of modern-day resilience and redemption, the two confront separate challenges, and when circumstances reunite them years later, they draw on their extraordinary natures to confront a common enemy and, ultimately, save their lives.

    Usually on a Greyhound bus, right before his life falls apart again. Just like he planned. But this time it's complicated: there's a sadistic corporate climber who thinks she's his girlfriend, a rent-subsidized affair with his landlord's wife, and the bizarrely appealing deaf assistant to Shane's cosmically unstable dentist. When one of the women is murdered, and Shane is the only suspect who doesn't care enough to act like he didn't do it, the question becomes just how he'll clear the good name he never had and doesn't particularly want: his own.

    But when Adam Berendt, a charismatic, mysterious sculptor, dies suddenly in a brash act of heroism, shock waves rock the town. But who was Adam Berendt? Was he in fact a hero, or someone more flawed and human?

    Such a one was Nancy Ann Hazel, the young and high-spirited daughter of a country parson. He was a good man and she loved him dearly, but his Sunday sermons could seem long indeed when beyond the church door the sunshine beckoned her into the fields of this pleasant corner of County Durham.Two older brothers had taught Nancy Ann how to look after herself, so that she could, when necessary, hold her own with the roughest of the village children, eventhough such escapades might not be considered altogether fitting in a daughter of the vicarage; but they foreshadowed the courage and fortitude she would soon enough have to muster when the greater challenges of a controversial marriage thrust her into womanhood, and when conflict and tragedy alike had to be faced and overcome.THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER is a major novel spanning the last quarter of the nineteenth century and introduces one of Catherine Cookson's most memorable heroines. Its strong and vibrant narrative will captivate this great storyteller's readers throughout the world.

    Book by Patricia Cornwell