National Network for Equitable Library Service

Strong female voice, a clear-eyed narrator examining self and family.Ash from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano fills the skies. Flights are grounded throughout Europe. Dessie, a cosmopolitan flight attendant from Canada, finds herself stranded in Addis Ababa - her birth place.Grieving her mother's recent death, Dessie heads to see her grandfather, the Shaleqa - compelled as much by duty as her own will. But Dessie's conflicted past stands in her way.

Having retreated to the idyllic Polynesian island of Bora Bora to savour and lament the lost past, Harry Lindstrom finds himself drawn into a strange relationship with a raven-haired, B-list movie actress and her invalid husband. Harry learns from the amiably grotesque Inspector Theophil Queequeg that they are leaders of a virulent religious movement, and that the woman is far more dangerous than he could ever have imagined. Back in Toronto, she reappears with a disturbing capacity to make Harry wonder about the moral justifications for murder.

As the only survivor of a horrific car crash, Lila Amberson believes she is on the road to recovery after she is released from the hospital. Her memories of the accident are blurred though and a series of unsettling incidents leave her fearing for her safety. Does she have survivor's guilt or is something more sinister at play? Jack Foley is reeling from the shock of losing his sister in the crash, so when he first meets Lila, he lashes out, blaming her for Stephanie's death. But when Lila gives him a locket that she believes belonged to his sister, it presents more questions than answers.

This is the predicament Polly Cooke faces when she returns to her new home. The first weeks in the house had been idyllic, but soon Jacob, a local man, is watching her. What does he want and why is he so obsessed with Polly? In a situation where nothing is what it seems, you might end up regretting letting some people in.

Ruby Dunkin is in an abusive marriage. Her best efforts aren't enough to shield her two children from an abusive father whose cruelty knows no bounds. Their volatile situation ends in tragedy when Ruby's eldest son, Billy, is torn away from everything he loves. Consumed by hatred and self-loathing, Billy becomes the thing he hates the most-his father. Chelsea Wyatt, a senior in high school, goes missing after work one night, never to return. Her parents are devastated, only knowing this kind of tragedy from the news.

Teenage burn survivor Wilder Tate begins high school ashamed of his disfigurement. He finds an outlet tapping into his one-dimensional basketball talent as a shutdown defender and courts his cheerleader dream girl, only to endure heartbreak and setbacks that drive him to have a tissue-expander operation to rid himself of his scar tissue for good, but at what price? The operation costs him his basketball career and puts a wedge between him and his best friend, his mother, and his classmates.

Harry Gilmore has no idea of the terrible danger he faces when he meets a beautiful girl in a local student bar. Drugged and abducted, Harry wakes up in a secure wooden compound deep in the Welsh countryside, where he is groomed by the leaders of a manipulative cult, run by the self-proclaimed new messiah known as The Master. When the true nature of the cult becomes apparent, Harry looks for any opportunity to escape. But as time passes, he questions if the master's extreme behavior and teachings are the one true religion.

Good neighbors invite you over for dinner, bring you baked goods to welcome you to the neighborhood, and wave hello at the mailbox. Good neighbors do not destroy your life. When Bryant and Harper Page move to Lancaster Mills, their first encounter with their new neighbors-Jason and Tori Fuller, who are beautiful, strange, and terrifying-is anything but a warm welcome. Despite their hesitations, the Pages are intrigued by the people they now share a street with. As their curiosity gets the best of them, they discover that there's much more to the Fullers than meets the eye.

Rachel, the mother of the aging professor Thomas Vanderlinden, shared her life with two men. Both went by the name of Rowland Vanderlinden. The first husband went abroad and never returned. The second, whom Rachel also unquestioningly accepted as her husband, was a mystery. In an attempt to understand his mother's adventurous decisions regarding love and marriage, Thomas sets out on a journey to the far reaches of the Pacific to find the first Rowland, and his real father.

Learning of a horrifying family crime from his grandfather, journalist Ezra Stevenson tries to verify the story by tracking down four brothers and sisters, alleged victims of abuse. "Full of death and suffering, the novel exhilarates rather than depresses, its stark dourness vivifying rather than dulling the reading appetite," concluded PW. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Incorporated.