Akron Public Library

In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis' parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there's no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents - telekinesis and telepathy - who got to this place the same...

"The Civil War South comes to vivid life in this electrifying story of a woman's plight and a legacy of deceit that echoes for generations. When Major Gryffth Hockaday is called to the front lines of the Civil War, his new bride is left to care for her husband's three-hundred-acre farm and infant son. Placidia, a mere teenager herself living far from her family and completely unprepared to run a farm or raise a child, must endure the darkest days...

Teresa "Toots" Amelia Loudenberry has crammed a great deal of living--not to mention eight much-loved husbands--into her varied and rewarding life. Newly single, Toots is ready to taste life again, and fate has just handed her the perfect opportunity. The owner of the gossip rag where Toots's daughter works is about to lose the paper to his gambling debts. Eager to find a way to keep her daughter employed among the movers and shakers of Hollywood,...

"Best friends since the first day of classes at The College of Charleston, Ashley Anne Waters and Mary Beth Smythe, now 23 years old, live in Ashley's parents' beach house rent-free. Ashley is a gallery assistant who aspires to become an artist. Mary Beth, a gifted cook from Tennessee, works for a caterer while searching for a good teaching job. Though they both know what they want out of life, their parents barely support their dreams and worry for...

Tory Bodeen grew up in a small, rundown house where her father ruled with an iron fist and a leather belt and where her dreams and talents had no room to flourish. But she had Hope, who lived in the big house, just a short skip away, and whose friendship allowed Tory to be something she wasn't allowed to be at home: a child

The impact on a religious community in the South when the 14-year-old granddaughter of the founder becomes pregnant. The community is the Church of Fire and Brimstone where sin is punished by whipping. The girl insists she is not guilty of the sin of fornication and no amount of punishment will make her recant. When the baby is born with a birth defect, her grandfather takes that as a sign the baby is the New Messiah. By the author of Bitterroot Landing....

Caro personifies southern hospitality as the hostess of a magnificent home and to her husband Clay's wealthy friends and prospective clients, and as the official "welcome wagon" for the talent Clay recruits to work for the family business.

South Carolina is blessed with an abundance of water, although its distribution is uneven across the state and from season to season. These disparities were made especially clear during a once-in-a-hundred-year drought lasting from June 1998 through December 2000, and still continuing in 2001. This study was undertaken to provide a current "snapshot" of the state's primary drought concerns, impacts, and mitigation and response measures.

Callie Parker's childhood companions gather for her marriage and discover howlittle they know of their beloved yesterday...and how one woman's darkest secret can tear them apart.

Anny Butler is a caretaker, a nurturer, first for her own brothers and sisters, and then as a director of an agency devoted to the welfare of children. What she has never had is a real family. That changes when she meets and marries Lewis Aiken, an exuberant surgeon fifteen years older than Anny. When they marry, she finds her family -- not a traditional one, but a group of Charleston childhood friends who are inseparable, who are one another's surrogate...