National Network for Equitable Library Service

There are those who never grow old because they are taken too soon.There are those who grow old without worries, enjoying everything life has to offer. There are those who desperately try to slow down the ticking clock. And then there's Betty-Betty, who mysteriously stops growing old on her thirtieth birthday, the same age at which her mother died. The years leave no trace on Betty's face, but as everyone around her is transformed by the relentless march of time, her once golden life begins to come apart.

When Meagan was five years old, her mother was viciously attacked and murdered.Now an adult, she herself is the victim of an abusive relationship. She's desperate to escape but doesn't have the courage to leave.So when Meagan meets Oliver, a decent guy who is on the rebound after a failed relationship, the two strike up a connection. But when Meagan confesses that her husband is abusive, it leads Oliver down a dark and dangerous path. Just how far would you go to protect someone? Oliver is about to find out and be pushed to his very limits...

With the rapidly cascading Asian Financial Crisis threatening to go global and Korea in imminent meltdown, investment banker Dae Joon finds himself back in his native Seoul as part of an international team brought in to rescue the country from sovereign default. For Dae Joon-also known by his American name of Shane, after the cowboy movie his father so loved-the stakes are personal.Raised in the US and Harvard Business School-educated, Dae Joon is a jangnam, a firstborn son, bound by tradition to follow in the footsteps of his forebears.

A serial rapist is kidnapping teenage girls. But he's not interested in just any teenage girls-only virgins. He hunts them by following their status updates and check-ins on social media. Once he's captured them, they're locked away in his sound-proof basement until they're groomed and ready. He throws them away like pieces of trash after he's stolen their innocence. Nobody escapes alive.Until Ella.Ella risks it all to escape, setting herself and the other girls free. But only Sarah-the girl who's been held captive the longest-gets out with her.

Family secrets run deep for Grace, a young girl growing up in Cape Town during the 1980s. Her family secrets spill over into adulthood and threaten to ruin the respectable life she has built for herself. When an old childhood friend emerges after disappearing a decade earlier during a clash with apartheid riot police in the Cape Flats, where South Africa's coloured community makes its home, Grace's memories of her childhood come rushing back, and she is confronted, once again, with the loss that has shaped her.

Other than her bonsai trees, twenty-year-old arborist Silvania August Moonbeam Merigal is alone in the world. After her mother dies and then her grandfather-the man who raised her and the last of her family-Silva suffers a sexual assault and becomes pregnant. Then, ready to end her own life, she discovers evidence of a long-lost artist grandmother, Isabelle.

While on vacation in India, Trina Holmgard meets and marries Sam, a poor but charming man. She returns home to New York to arrange his entry into the U.S. and leaves him with her heirloom locket as a pledge of her commitment. But as time passes, she begins to question his motives. Does he really love her or is it life in America that he wants? Deciding she has been deceived, Trina cuts off all contact and marries another man. Driven by rage when he realizes his dreams have been shattered, Sam dedicates his life to getting revenge. But, how far will he go?

On a bright summer's day in 2013, Freya Rivers disappears, leaving twin sister Imogen behind. Did Freya leave to travel alone without telling anyone? When friend Emily also disappears three days later, Imogen knows there's something dark lurking beneath the surface. Five years later, Imogen is living in Australia, having searched the world for her sister. So when her mother calls, she knows it's time to return home... because Emily is back and she has a child with her. Where has Emily been and why did she disappear? Does she know Freya's whereabouts?

Journalist Emily Blake is sent back to her hometown to investigate the disappearance of a young girl called Becky Clarke. Emily takes the assignment willingly as the case echoes the disappearance of her childhood friend, Alice Abbott, twenty-five years earlier. Returning to the village, Emily renews old acquaintances and rivalries. She reconnects with her estranged brother Adam, who has never quite recovered from tragic events in their past. While she looks into the disappearance of Becky Clarke, Emily revisits Alice's case but not everyone welcomes her investigation.

When she was nine years old, Melody Browne's house burned down, and it took all of her childhood memories with it. Now she's a single mother of a teenage boy living in Central London. She hasn't seen her parents since she left home at fifteen, but she doesn't mind. She's better off on her own. She works as a dinner lady at her son's school and has no idea where her humdrum life is heading. But one summer's night, a hypnotist inadvertently unlocks memories of her childhood, and her whole life is turned upside down.