Akron Public Library

Sandy Portman and Emily Barlow seem to lead a perfect life. Sandy is a successful businessman from an old-money family, and Emily, beautiful and smart, is quickly gaining respect in her career as a book editor. But Sandy is keeping a few secrets from Emily, and is hit by a car and killed before he has a chance to reveal the truth. In a Dickensian turn of events, he's given an otherworldly chance to make amends as a dog named Einstein.

Anna McNichol knows how to take charge. Raised by a single mother, she's worked to ensure her three children have every advantage she didn't. And while her marriage has its problems, she values commitment and believes in 'till death do us part.' Now an empty nester, she's at the peak of her career and ready to seize the opportunity to focus on her future. But life can change in an instant, and when her husband dies suddenly, Anna's carefully constructed...

After the death of his wife, Bernie Fine struggles to cope with his shattering loss and must endure further hardships until he meets a strong and caring woman who sympathizes with his ties to the past.

There is a book for everything. Somewhere in the vast Library of the Universe, as Natalie thought of it, there was a book that embodied exactly the things she was worried about. In the wake of a shocking tragedy, Natalie Harper inherits her mother's charming but financially strapped bookshop in San Francisco. She also becomes a caretaker for her ailing grandfather Andrew, her only living relative, not counting her scoundrel father. But the gruff,...

"Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances--in their house, on the roadway, in the market. Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron has spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, independent young woman, she is like a breath...

When Cody and his friends accept a challenge from a local gang to steal a park bench, their main concern is keeping themselves on the gang's good side. But Cody quickly learns that the theft is no harmless prank.

"The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He's also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental...

"Into the Wind is a middle-grade novel about the unlikely friendship between a boy and an elderly woman." --

Grieving the death of his wife, private investigator Mark Novak reluctantly accepts a case from a suspected murderer who may or may not be innocent. Novak knows all too well that some crimes never get solved. But it's not often that the man who many believe got away with murder is the one calling for the case to be reopened. Ten years ago, a teenage girl disappeared inside an elaborate cave system beneath rural farmland. Days later, Ridley Barnes...

"Devastated by the sudden death of her mother -- a quiet, loving and intensely private Southern seamstress called Miss Mabel, who overflowed with pearls of Ozarks wisdom but never spoke of her own family -- Sutton Douglas makes the impulsive decision to pack up and head north to the Michigan resort town where she believes she'll find answers to the lifelong questions she's had about not only her mother's past but also her own place in the world. Recalling...