Life is not as orderly as it seems amidst the soybean fields of 1970s Minnesota. Farm girl Raki Pederson finds that out the hard way. Homeless, cast out by her family, carrying a baby and a heavy secret, she redeems her life through the kindness of strangers. There's the hapless pastor, Sam, followed by a succession of women, each with her own dark secret: Margaret, guilt-ridden from her sister's death; Carol, a feminist Robin Hood; and Mrs. Anderson,...

Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts college. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was. Their three children passionately pursue their own paths: Levi quests after authentic blackness, Zora believes that intellectuals can redeem everybody, and Jerome...

"With youngest sister Hallie getting married, the three Walsh sisters reunite at their family's beach house for the big event. It's a celebratory affair, rife with cherished traditions. But families are complicated, and these sisters are no exception. Claire, the eldest, no longer believes in love after years working as a divorce attorney, and she resorts to taking her 'work husband' as her date to convince her family otherwise. Middle sister, Amy,...

Colony: "As aged Maude Chambliss waits to be taken home by her granddaughter, she recalls her summers at Retreat, a colony in Maine: from her arrival in 1921 as a young bride, fresh from South Carolina, a misfit amid these wealthy Bostonians, to her current struggle to keep the colony and its environs out of the hands of spoilers. She thinks of her mother-in-law, the imperious Hannah, who taught Maude that it is Retreat's women whose pride and backbone...

"Anna comes to New York from Poland at the turn of the century, a beautiful and impoverished teenager. She goes to work for the Werners -- a wealthy family -- and falls in love with Paul, the son of her employers. But it is Joseph Friedman, a hardworking, poor immigrant, whom Anna marries. The continuing passion between Anna and Paul breaks through their restraint only once, but that once results in a change of fortune for the Friedmans. Together,...

In the 1950s, the moral dilemma of a woman who becomes pregnant out of wedlock. She is Anna MacEwan, 30, a divorcee carrying a child by a married lawyer. He intends to divorce and marry her, but in the meantime he would prefer if she had an abortion, saving him embarrassment.

All the farm animals are where they should be, clucking and mucking, mewing and cooing, except for the missing goose. It's another cacophonous morning on the farm. From pasture to hayloft, cows moo, kittens mew, hens cluck, and pigs muck. As energetic text filled with rhyming barnyard noises invite young readers to chime in. This exuberant picture book, created with distinctive handmade-paper illustrations, bursts with color, texture, and playful...

"In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned--from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren--an enigmatic artist and single mother--who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter, Pearl, and a...

"Harper Anderson has a to-do list longer than the Colorado River and fields of tulips to tend at her family's flower farm in California. What she doesn't have is time for the arrogant tech mogul who makes her an offer to use their farm as his sister's wedding venue. No amount of money could make up for the destruction it would wreak on next season's crop. The sooner Luke Martin is on his way, the better. But Luke will do whatever it takes to make...

"Two sisters, one farm. A family is split when their father leaves their shared inheritance entirely to Helen, his younger daughter. Despite baking award-winning pies at the local nursing home, her older sister, Edith, struggles to make what most people would call a living. So she can't help wondering what her life would have been like with even a portion of the farm money her sister kept for herself. With the proceeds from the farm, Helen builds...