National Network for Equitable Library Service

When the husband and wife team of Walt and Jocelyn Gaines travel to South America to contribute their archaeological expertise at a newly uncovered Mayan site, no one could predict what happens next. Fallen Idols is a riveting novel of uncommon discoveries.

Recently widowed, Love Mercy Johnson longs to make amends with her estranged grandchildren. She gets an unexpected chance to do just that when her lovelorn 18-year-old granddaughter Rett shows up at the family ranch seeking solace.

Chance Carter doesn't like his Grandmother Rista. When he learns her health is failing, the only thing compelling him to leave Florida for Texas is his status as the sole heir to her million-dollar ranch. Yet when he pays her a visit, he learns the reality of the past -- including why Rista shot both her husband and the man who may have been Chance's father.

When a young Korean girl known as Regret leaves her homeland for a better life in Hawaii, as a "picture bride," she expects to find prosperity and a chance at education. But the rich husband she is promised turns out to be a poor plantation worker with drinking and gambling problems, and the girl now known as Jin is forced to seek her own path. Joining with her fellow picture brides to start a business, Jin must shed her naieveté and overcome prejudice to succeed in this foreign land.

Mr. and Mrs. Cook-Goldman need a nanny for their two children. When they hire Randi, they fail to check her references. The convenient new arrangement soon leads to a string of troubling events.

T. Coraghessan Boyle weaves together the stories of two families in Southern California--one affluent, the other destitute. As Boyle creates a counterpoint of personal needs, civic responsibility, and social custom, each family's quest for the American Dream fuels a deep fear and anger that ultimately lead to a perilous confrontation.

Beginning with an engagement announcement and ending with the birth of a son, the author gives a charming and utterly convincing snapshot of the first few years of a modern Southern marriage.

October Brown, an African-American teacher at a private school in Kansas, becomes pregnant by the father of a student and returns home to Ohio, where she and her sister were raised by their aunts after their father killed their mother 20 years before. Confused and unhappy, October gives the baby to her sister and goes back to teaching. Then she regrets her decision.

On a train bound for Nalgitas, New Mexico, hookhouse proprietor Addie French encounters Emma Roby, a prim and proper lady seeking a new life with a man she's never met. But when they reach Nalgitas, all that awaits the bride-to-be is a "Dear Emma" note left with the stationmaster. Alone and forlorn, Emma seeks lodging at Addie's Chili Queen, a bordello she assumes is a bording house. At first, the residents enjoy the delicious irony of Emma's naïveté. And yet as the yarn unravels, it's unclear who will have the last laugh.

In this charming tale of second chances, renewed faith, and forgiveness, a captivating heirloom triggers inexplicable changes.