Eight years ago, Anne Elliot broke off her engagement to the dashing young naval officer Frederick Wentworth. Though she loved him with all her heart, she followed the advice of Lady Russell, her only true friend, whose greater experience and wisdom she trusted. Lady Russell was as worried by Wentworth's self-confident manner as by his lack of any title, land, or money. Wentworth was crushed and embittered by Anne's rebuke. Anne was only crushed.

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Coworkers, acquaintances and former lovers know Rourke Kilpatrick as a dashing district attorney who doesn't let emotions get in his way. If he breaks a heart or bends the law to prosecute a criminal, he does so without apology. That's why he is the first person twenty-four-year-old Rebecca Cullen calls for advice when the younger brother she's been forced to raise by herself gets arrested on trumped-up drug charges. To her surprise, Rourke returns...

Born with no air in his lungs, it was only when Reuben Land's father, Jeremiah, picked him up and commanded him to breathe that Reuben's lungs filled. Reuben struggles with debilitating asthma from then on, making him a boy who knows firsthand that life is a gift, and also one who suspects that his father is touched by God and can overturn the laws of nature.

The quiet 1960's midwestern life of the Lands is upended when Reuben's brother Davy

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Five-year-old Sloane McBride couldn't sleep that night. Her parents were arguing again, their harsh words heating the cool autumn air. And then there was that other sound--the ominous thump before all went quiet. In the morning, her mother was gone. The official story was that she left. Her loving, devoted mother! That hadn't sat any better at the time than it did when Sloane moved out at eighteen, anxious to leave her small Texas hometown in search...

Having been abandoned by his beautiful wife, Henry and their two young children, spend the summer in a tent on the edge of Black Pond. Henry, devastated by the desertion, struggles to provide for them. When Mrs. Phyllis Farley, a prosperous neighbour, begins to woo the children as companions for her strange, housebound son, Henry must weigh an unusual proposition, the consequences of which may cost him everything.

This novel takes us to the swamps of the Florida Everglades, and introduces us to Ava Bigtree, an unforgettable young heroine. The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator wrestling theme park, formerly no. 1 in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Ava's mother, the park's indomitable headliner, has just died; her...

In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness. In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow-- antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This sentimental bird is drawn to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and the pain of...

Meet the dysfunctional Gallagher family. Dad's a drunk, Mom split long ago, eldest daughter Fiona tries to hold the family together. Eldest son Philip (Lip) trades his physics tutoring skills for sexual favors from neighborhood girls. Middle son Ian is gay. Youngest daughter Debbie is stealing money from her UNICEF collection. Ten-year-old Carl is a budding sociopath and an arsonist, and toddler Liam is, well, he might actually be black, but nobody...

Growing up on a farm in rural Kentucky, fifteen-year-old Albertina "Bertie" Winslow knows how to do a lot, but when her mom dies after a long illness, Bertie finds herself in charge of four younger siblings and struggling to keep the family together.

In this retelling Ann Elliot decides to break the engagement to naval officer Frederick Wentworth when she is persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that the match is unworthy.