National Network for Equitable Library Service

Thea's son was just seventeen when he went to prison for the murder of his girlfriend, a crime he has no memory of committing. Three years later, he's released to a world that refuses to let him move on.

When their mother passed away, Evie Ross and her sister were each given a stack of letters, one to be opened every year on their birthday, to inspire and guide them through adulthood. But although Evie has made a successful career, her desire for stability and security has meant she's never experienced the best life has to offer. But the discovery of more letters hidden in a safe-deposit box points to secrets her mother held close, and possibly a new way for Evie to think about her family, her heart and her dreams.

Every year on her birthday, Suda Kaye opens another of the letters her mother penned before she passed. But on her twenty-eighth birthday, she opens the letter that sends her home.

Judith Kratt inherited all the Kratt family had, including the murder that no one talks about. Then her wayward sister suddenly returns, determined to expose the Kratts' skeletons.

The trauma of childbirth and shock of motherhood compel Amanda to show up unannounced on the doorstep of her estranged best friend, and to trace the tangled roots of friendship and family in her own life.

Meet the Brunsons of Downers Grove, Illinois: Henry, the once-magical father; his wife, Julie; Charlie, the golden-boy son; and Barkley, the bumbling youngest. When Henry's health abruptly declines, each moves toward a new understanding of what family can and cannot be.

Fourteen-year-old Carey and six-year-old Jenessa have lived in the woods with their mother for as long as they can remember. Rescued by Carey's father, they are thrust into a strange world of comfort. But there's a secret that haunts Carey--the reason Jenessa hasn't spoken in over a year.

Elise knows every inch of the house. She knows which parts can take her in, hide her away. It's home, after all. The home her parents made for her, before they were taken from her in a car crash. And home is where you stay, no matter what. Eddie is a teenager trying to forget about the girl he sometimes sees out of the corner of his eye. But when his hotheaded older brother senses her, too, they are faced with the question of how to get rid of someone they aren't sure even exists.

On the same day that Priya is booked for her next IVF cycle, Grace goes in for her final, last-chance embryo transfer. Two weeks later, both women get their results. A year on, angry and heartbroken, one of the women learns her embryo was implanted in the other's uterus and must make a devastating choice: live a childless life knowing her son is being raised by strangers or seek custody of a baby who has been nurtured and loved by another couple.

In Baxter Beach, Barbados, moneyed ex-pats clash with the locals who often end up serving them. Lala lives on the beach with her husband, Adan, a petty criminal with endless charisma whose thwarted burglary of one of the Baxter Beach mansions sets off a chain of events with terrible consequences.