Akron Public Library

Caught at an awkward in-between age--too little to stay home alone but too big to enjoy playing with pesty Willa Jean at her sitter's house, Ramona just wants to be her mother's little girl forever.

"For fans of authors like Barbara Kingsolver and Leif Enger, a stunning new voice in contemporary literary fiction. "Tragedy and blessing. Leave them alone long enough, and it gets real hard to tell them apart." Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child, to her mother's abandonment, and now to an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Driven...

"A senior partner at a prestigious New York law firm, Kate Morgan couldn't be prouder of her three grown children. Tamara, Anthony, and Claire all went to great schools, chose wonderful career paths, and would have made their father proud. A single mother for years after the death of her husband, Kate keeps a tight rein on her family, her career, and even her own emotions, never once asking herself if she truly knows her children . . . or if her hopes...

"In October, 1947, after a summer-long drought, fires began near Bar Harbor and raced along the coast of Maine, ravaging two hundred thousand acres--the largest fire in Maine's history. In the southern part of the state, people were forced into the sea to escape the flames. Five months pregnant, Grace Holland is left alone to protect her two toddlers when her husband Gene joins the volunteers fighting to bring the fire under control. Along with her...

"International bestselling author Gayle Forman's trademark humor and insight abound in this masterful adult debut, showing us that sometimes you have to leave home in order to find it again. For every woman who has ever fantasized about driving past her exit on the highway instead of going home to make dinner, for every woman who has ever dreamed of boarding a train to a place where no one needs constant attention--meet Maribeth Klein, a harried working...

If driving a piece-of-crap tow truck through the seediest part of town with a Smith & Wesson beside her means putting a roof over her son's head, then Samantha Jones is going to be the best damn repo woman on the books. The streetwalkers, the drug pushers, and the bands of looking-for-trouble punks haunting the maen streets at midnight don't intimidate her. These are her people. The guy she finds bound and bloodied in the trunk of her latest conquest,...

A single mother whose ex-con father is released from prison after seventeen years and who unexpectedly moves in with her,