And now that an embarrassing photo has appeared in the paper, he's stuck with a lame nickname too.Charity is back in the United States after several years in Africa. And she's learning that home can be a strange place when you've been away for a while.Neither of them knows what's up with Brian. He spends whole afternoons alone on his trampoline.From the first day of school, Sylvan knows he doesn't want to hang out with weirdos like Charity or Brian. He'd rather just be a normal kid. But when the principal gets ready to fire their favorite teacher, Sylvan, Charity, and Brian have to find a way to work together.

    Having left behind her loving fiancé without knowing when she can return, Flan learns that her sister, Molly, has begun to show signs of the crippling genetic disease that slowly killed their mother. As their close-knit circle of friends struggles with Molly’s diagnosis, Flannery must grapple with what her future will hold: an ambitious life of love and the pursuit of scientific discovery in West Africa, or the pull of a life surrounded by old friends, the comfort of an old flame, family obligations, and the home she’s always known. But she is not the only one wrestling with uncertainty. Since their college days, each of her friends has faced unexpected challenges that make them reevaluate the lives they’d always planned for themselves.A mesmerizing debut from an exciting young writer, Migratory Animals is a moving, thought-provoking novel, told from shifting viewpoints, about the meaning of home and what we owe each other—and ourselves.

    A kidnapping. Escape.... University student Jemma Howell's life has turned upside down: she's pregnant and her boyfriend has just died. A lawyer has Jemma sign away the child to her dead boyfriend's parents, the wealthy Winchesters. Some six months after giving birth, Jemma is still obsessed with her baby's welfare. A chance opportunity occurs. She makes a split-second decision. She is now a kidnapper and on the run. Detective Constable Tim Findlay is assigned to the Winchester kidnapping, his first big case. In the course of the investigation, he and his partner uncover deeply hidden secrets of the Winchester family. For Tim, the difference between right and wrong becomes blurred. BYE BABY BUNTING is a page-turning psychological thriller that explores society's attitudes to single parenting and adoption and the laws that apply to birth-mother, child and adoptive parents. The story takes place in Auckland, New Zealand, Hawaii and Winnipeg, Canada between 1963 and the present.

    Visually impaired and abandoned by her parents, she was raised by her tenacious, bootlegging aunt in rural Tanner, Nova Scotia. After Cammie and her best friend, Evelyn Merry, destroy the local moonshine still, Cammie convinces her aunt to send her to the Halifax School for the Blind.Cammie Takes Flight finds Cammie navigating life at her new school, armed with an envelope with her estranged mother’s address on it. Unsure if she can trust her new friend, Nessa, Cammie enlists her help in tracking to help track her mother down. Will Cammie finally learn why she was abandoned and be able to start her new life? Or will she find too many secrets to count, and realize that she might never put the past behind her?A heartfelt coming-of-age story, Cammie Takes Flight explores the values of perseverance, unlikely friendships, and what it means to be a family.

    You'll also get to see a little of his "staycations" and life at home between travels.Jet-setting is what dachshunds do best. From Switzerland’s Alps and Mexico’s Mayan temples to Italy’s seaside villages and France’s Eiffel Tower—as well as various locales throughout the U.S. and Canada—Crusoe shares his wit and wisdom on appreciating culture, fine wine, and haute cuisine, always dressing for the occasion, and maybe learning a thing or two about what really matters most in life along the way.In hundreds of brilliant color photographs, see the charming and charismatic mini-doxie embark on such thrilling adventures as…* Hitting the streets of New York City as The Wiener of Wall Street* Stalking evildoers as Batdog * Strolling Hollywood’s Walk of Fame (with his own star)* Going out on a dinner and movie date with the lovely Paisley* Digging for fossils at Dinosaur Provincial Park* Playing doctor and dentist to his sidekick brother, Oakley* Drinking at the notorious Bar Vitelli, shooting location of The Godfather* Recovering from back surgery with lots of love and rehabilitating in style * Tasting a beignet at New Orleans’s famous Café du Monde* Exploring his German heritage as a “badger dog”—and discovering what wiener schnitzel actually is…And so much more!

    She’s enjoying some mommy time, with husband Ken at home tending their brood of four young boys, when she’s utterly charmed by the one-of-a kind globe containing figures of three dogs and a little girl with hair the color of her own. She can’t resist taking the unique globe home– even if means wrestling another shopper for it!The beautiful snowglobe sparks long-dormant memories for Cassie, of her beloved Grandpa Wonky, the stray she rescued as a child, and the painful roots of her combative relationship with her mother, “Bad Betty” Kamrowski. Life in Wanonishaw, Minnesota is never dull, though, and Cassie keeps the recollections at bay, busy balancing her boys, her home daycare operation, and being a good friend to best pal Margret. But after a strange–flurrious, as Cassie deems it–moment happens with the remarkable snowglobe, Cassie and the people she loves are swirled into a tumultuous, yet grace-filled, and life-changing journey.With the quirky, close-knit Midwestern small-town feel that made Charlene Ann Baumbich’s acclaimed Dearest Dorothy novels so popular, Stray Affections invites you to experience the laughter and the healing of second chances.

    When one of his release sites was raided by a golden eagle, he managed to save a peregrine chick, and decided to make an improbable two-thousand-mile trip with the surviving young falcon, Dolly. From the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, following the autumnal migration of waterfowl, O'Brien taught her to hunt as a wild falcon would, in the hopes of releasing her into the natural world. The Rites of Autumn is the riveting account of their incredible journey. (51/2 X 81/4, 208 pages, map)

    But soon enough he finds himself starring in a drama of his own creation. Nothing in Jake's life is the same after Vanni, a whip-smart, wisecracking Indian-Irish-Canadian joins his class, and after Jake meets the unforgettable Alba, who is as stunning as she is unattainable. Jake is tongue-tied around Alba and enlists Vanni's help. All of a sudden — like the Shakespeare play Jake's school is putting on — Jake finds himself entwined in a love triangle of sorts, complete with secrets and suppressed passions, contrived plots, miscues and misunderstandings. By the end, as in any good comedy, tensions are resolved and Jake's world has been re-made, though in a way he could not have anticipated.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    And the further they travel, the more Shelby questions everything about her past—and her current reality. Forced to take advantage of the kindness of unsuspecting travelers, Shelby grapples with what’s real, what isn’t, and who she can trust . . . if anybody.Award-winning author Nick Lake proves his skills as a master storyteller in this heart-pounding new novel. This emotionally charged thrill ride leads to a shocking ending that will have readers flipping back to the beginning.

    It’s not like her mom hasn’t disappeared before. So why is Aunt Mindy making such a big deal of it now? It’s not like Mom’s really doing meth. Stevie makes sure of that. Whatever. She’ll go home with Aunt Mindy if it will keep her from calling Child Protective Services—but it doesn’t mean she’ll stay. Mom will come back. Mom always comes back. And Stevie will be there when she does.But when Stevie meets Alan—frustrating and fascinating and so-different-from-everyone-she-knows Alan—and she starts helping out at the bird rehab center, things begin to look different. Even the tutoring and the ridiculous outfits Aunt Mindy’s forcing her into might not be so bad. Not that Stevie would say it out loud. She can’t. Because how can anything be good if it doesn’t include Mom?

    But the bank is about to foreclose, so Prudence must turn things around fast! Fortunately she'll have help from Earl, her banjo-playing foreman with a family secret; Seth, the neighbor who hasn't left the house since a high school scandal; and Sara Spratt, an eleven-year-old who's looking for a home for her prize-winning chickens.Home to Woefield is about learning how to take on a challenge, face your fears, and find friendship in the most unlikely of places.

    He's the school's star athlete, in the National Honor Society, invited to every party, contributes to the school paper (where Charlie is co-editor), and is about to be featured as One to Watch in a teen magazine basically, he's exactly the type of guy Charlie s meant to be with. The only problem he barely knows she exists.But Charlie is determined to be Teo's date to the Christmas ball. And she has a plan: To rig the paper's Secret Santa so that she can win his heart with five perfect gifts. But to do that she needs help. Enter J.D. Ortiz Teo s cousin, and possibly the most annoying person on the planet. He's easy going, laid back, unorganized, spontaneous, and makes a joke out of everything the exact opposite of Charlie (and Teo). But he's willing to provide insight into what Teo wants, so she s stuck with him.Yet, the more time Charlie spends with J.D., the more she starts to wonder: Does she really know what, or rather who, she wants for Christmas?

    In a stroke of good fortune, he'd stumbled onto a way to cobble together those two loves into a career, writing books about rare birds. He was as free as a bird--until a chase for a rare White-winged Tern takes him to the one place on earth he planned to never return: his Amish home in Stoney Ridge.Desperate for photographs of the elusive tern, Ben hires a local field guide, Micah Weaver, and boards at Micah's farm, planning to "bag the bird" and leave Stoney Ridge before anyone recognizes him. But he neglected to plan for Micah's sister, Penny. One long-ago summer, Penny had introduced Ben to birding, even sharing with him a hidden eagle aerie. That eagle became his spark bird--the one that inspired his lifelong love.Ben. He was Penny's spark bird. That was when she knew true love. She'd always hoped Ben would come back to Stoney Ridge. Back to his Amish roots. Back to her. The only problem? Ben has absolutely no memory of Penny.Bestselling author Suzanne Woods Fisher welcomes her readers to the Amish community at Stoney Ridge in this engaging story of discovering just who the rare birds are in life.

    A cryptic picture message from their mother leads them to a familiar gate in the woods, but comfortable sights quickly give way to a new world entirely—Down—one inhabited by talking birds and the evil Puppeteer queen. Summer and Bird are quickly separated, and their divided hearts lead them each in a very different direction in the quest to find their parents, vanquish the Puppeteer, lead the birds back to their Green Home, and discover the identity of the true bird queen.With breathtaking language and deliciously inventive details, Katherine Catmull has created a world unlike any other, skillfully blurring the lines between magic and reality and bringing to life a completely authentic cast of characters and creatures.

    When his beloved grandmother passes away a few weeks before Christmas, Garrison goes to her house to sort out her belongings, including six cats who need new homes. While Garrison hopes to dispense with the task quickly, his grandmother's instructions don't allow for speed. She has left Garrison with some challenging requirements for the future homes of her furry friends--plus a sizeable monetary gift for the new owners. Garrison's job is to match the cats with the right owners without disclosing the surprise gift. Along the way, he may just meet someone who can make him stay. Humorous and heartwarming, this latest Christmas story from bestselling author Melody Carlson is the perfect gift for pet lovers and anyone in whose heart Christmas holds a special place.