National Network for Equitable Library Service

After being hit by lightning, twelve-year-old Lilah, who has a crush on classmate Andrew Finkel, discovers that she can communicate with dead people, including her grandmother who wants Lilah to find a new wife for Lilah's divorced father.

Boston, 1868. The Civil War may be over but a new war has begun, one between the past and the present, tradition and technology. On a former marshy wasteland, the daring Massachusetts Institute of Technology is rising, its mission to harness science for the benefit of all and to open the doors of opportunity to everyone of merit. But in Boston Harbor a fiery cataclysm throws commerce into chaos, as ships' instruments spin inexplicably out of control. Soon after, another mysterious catastrophe devastates the heart of the city.

The most decorated homicide detective in NYPD history, Dave Gurney is still trying to adjust to his life of quasi-retirement in upstate New York when a young woman who is producing a documentary on a notorious murder spree seeks his counsel. Soon after, Gurney begins feeling threatened: a razor-sharp hunting arrow lands in his yard, and he narrowly escapes serious injury in a booby-trapped basement. As things grow more bizarre, he finds himself reexamining the case of The Good Shepherd, which ten years before involved a series of roadside shootings and a rage-against-the-rich manifesto.

A successful pediatrician believes she is finding her balance after a devastating divorce. She's newly engaged and her daughter is happy again after a period of turmoil on losing her stepfather in the divorce. But the relative peace is soon shattered when Jill Ruspoli's ex-stepdaughter arrives on her doorstep and announces that her father has died under suspicious circumstances, Jill is forced to choose between the past and the present, challenging her notions of motherhood and family.

Erin McKenna, a beautiful songwriter married to a crooked Los Angeles County sheriff 's deputy, is kidnapped by Benjamin Armenta, the ruthless leader of the powerful Gulf Cartel. But his demands turn out to be as unusual as the crumbling castle in which Erin is kept. She is ordered to compose a unique narcocoriddo, a modern-day folk ballad of the kind that have recorded the exploits of the drug dealers, gunrunners, and outlaws who have highlighted Mexican history for generations.

In a mining town in New Mexico Territory, three children left to their own devices by negligent parents meet regularly to try to school themselves, until they meet Whitey Grey, who attempts to win them over for his own purposes.

When Malcolm Theordore Puddle, a 21-year-old shipping clerk from way back East, takes over his late father's crumbling 600-acre ranch, he falls victim to a greedy and ruthless cattle baron and finds an ally in his neighbor, Smoke Jensen, who will fight alongside him to the death.

When Eulalee McBridge confesses to murdering her husband, she asks Sarah Booth Delaney to dig up the dirt on the violent man to prove he got what he deserved. Sarah Booth suspects Eulalee is lying, but why? Zinnia, Mississippi, is full of suspects. But as Sarah Booth begins to piece the case together, a killer prepares to strike again.

When Tabby Dewhurst arrives heartbroken and penniless on a picturesque, windswept island off the coast of France, her luck appears to change when she overhears a villager repeating aloud the access code to her front door. Hardly believing her own actions, Tabby waits for the woman to leave and then lets herself into the house. And so she enters the strange, hidden world of Emily Marr--or so her new friend introduces herself.

Louisiana businessman Jerry Earl Leland served only a fraction of his five-year sentence for white-collar crime, thanks to some political connections and a few greased palms. But he won't have long to enjoy his freedom. After Jerry Earl's early release, his wife, Margo--a much-married Garden District doyenne--throws an extravagant Get Out of Jail Free Party, complete with a Zydeco band, champagne ice luge, and waiters in ties and tails. The guest list includes many prominent New Orleans socialites, a swell as scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand and her best friend, Ava Gruiex.