Akron Public Library

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 teenaged daughter Pearl, and...

Episcopal priest Father Tim Kavanagh, recently retired from service at Lord's Chapel in Mitford, accepts a post as interim priest at a small parish on an island off the Atlantic Coast where he and his wife Cynthia quickly become involved in the lives of a whole new community of people.

This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks' and the Hamilton's--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. The story of two brothers, Aron is a clean-cut model student, engaged to be married, the pride of his hardworking father. Cal is a rebellious loner, sternly rejected...

The tree is decorated, the cookies are baked, and the packages are wrapped, but the biggest celebration this Christmas is Gaby Summerhill's wedding. Since her husband died three years ago, Gaby's four children have drifted apart, each consumed by the turbulence of their own lives. They haven't celebrated Christmas together since their father's death, but when Gaby announces that she's getting married--and that the groom will remain a secret until...

Set in Denver, the separate lives of a school teacher, a pregnant teenage girl, and two elderly bachelors become one small community.

Once, a long time ago, I walked down a night-darkened road called Firefly Lane, all alone, on the worst night of my life, and I found a kindred spirit. That was our beginning. More than thirty years ago. TullyandKate. You and me against the world. Best friends forever. But stories end, dont they? You lose the people you love and you have to find a way to go on. . . . Tully Hart has always been larger than life, a woman fueled by big dreams and driven...

Forced to learn things about the mother she's hated for years, Ruby Bridge learns some tough lessons about love, forgiveness, and understanding. But it's a lesson that comes at a painfully high cost.Nora Bridge has built a highly successful career as an advice columnist valued for her frank honesty and high moral standards. She is nationally syndicated in the newspapers and has a radio talk show on a Seattle station. But when a devastating scandal...

When confronted by raging fires or deadly accidents, volunteer fireman Taylor McAden feels compelled to take terrifying risks to save lives. But there is one leap of faith Taylor cant bring himself to make: he cant fall in love. For all his adult years, Taylor has sought out women who need to be rescued, women he leaves as soon as their crisis is over and the relationship starts to become truly intimate. When a raging storm hits his small Southern...

With more than 2 million copies of the Mitford Years titles in print, the endearing and eccentric residents of the little town with the big heart have become like family members to hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic readers. Fans just can't get enough--they swarm to Jan Karon's author appearances and flock to Mitford events hosted by bookstores. Annotation. First time in Viking hardcover--the second book in the popular Mitford series. "After you've...

"A most untraditional love story, this is the celebrated tale of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who inadvertently travels through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap that tests the strength of fate and basks in the bonds of love. The Time Traveler's Wife is an odd and enchanting...