Akron Public Library

After her mother's death, Julie goes to live with Aunt Cordelia, a spinster schoolteacher, where she experiences many emotions and changes as she grows from seven to eighteen.

When fifteen-year-old Mosey Slocumb searches for the truth behind a grave that is unearthed in her backyard, her mother Ginny tries to keep long-buried secrets hidden. Only grandmother Liza, silenced by a stroke, knows the truth; and if it's discovered, it could affect all three generations of the Slocumb family.

"When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition ... Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is [their center of gravity] Jude, ... by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body...

"A dazzling debut novel from an exciting new voice, The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community--and the things that ultimately haunt us most. Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett's mesmerizing first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition. It begins with a secret. "All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd...

Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in Worchestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But author David Mitchell creates an exquistitely observed world that is anything but sleepy: a world of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigre; of first cigarettes, first kisses, and first...

The coming-of-age story of Randolph Colfax (Rann for short), an extraordinarily gifted young man whose search for meaning and purpose leads him to New York, England, Paris, and Korea. While in Paris Rann falls for the beautiful and equally brilliant Stephanie Kung, who lives with her Chinese father and has not seen her American mother since she abandoned the family when Stephanie was six years old. Separated for long periods of time, their final...

"A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris, by the acclaimed and award-winning author Rebecca Makkai In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic...

The story of a young couple in love and their struggle to maintain a relationship while the young man is incarcerated for a horrendous crime. In their letters beginning in 1990, Natasha and Antonio look back at their courtship against the landscape of their beloved Harlem.

Devastated when her best friend moves away, sixteen-year-old Jessica Darling feels isolated at school and at home, as she struggles to deal with her father's obsession with her track meets, her boy-crazy peers, and her own nonexistent love life.

England, 1976. Mrs. Creasy is missing and the Avenue is alive with whispers. The neighbors blame her sudden disappearance on the heat wave, but ten-year-olds Grace and Tilly aren't convinced. As the summer shimmers endlessly on, the girls decide to take matters into their own hands. Inspired by the local vicar, they go looking for God--they believe that if they find Him they might also find Mrs. Creasy and bring her home. Spunky, spirited Grace and...