Narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday. They live in a tiny, 11-foot-square soundproofed cell in a converted shed in the kidnapper's yard. The sociopath, whom Jack has dubbed Old Nick, visits at night, grudgingly doling out food and supplies. But Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful--and attempts a nail-biting escape.

Beloved author Elizabeth Berg tells the story of the recently widowed Helen Ames and of her twenty-seven-year-old daughter Tessa. Helen is shocked to discover that her mild-mannered and loyal husband had been leading a double life. The Ames's had saved money for a happy retirement, planned in minute detail, but that money has disappeared in several big withdrawals spent by Helen's husband before he died.

In this heartfelt and incisive new novel, Danielle Steel celebrates the virtues of unconventional beauty while exploring deeply resonant issues of weight, self-image, sisterhood, and family. Landing her dream job as a high school teacher, Victoria Dawson loves working with her students and wages war on her weight at the gym. Despite tension with her parents, Victoria remains close to her sister, Gracie, and when Grace announces her engagement to...

Draws on the author's Positive Parenting Solutions online course to explain how to correct negative behaviors in children, introducing the psychological theories of Alfred Adler on using empowerment to promote healthy child development.

When the call comes, the Men of the Sisterhood drop everything to help their friends. This time it's Cyrus, their four-legged hound dog and unofficial mascot. While member Joe Espinosa is driving along an isolated country road with Cyrus in tow, he catches a glimpse of movement in the woods bordering the road and notes Cyrus pawing desperately at the car window. As soon as he pulls over to investigate, Cyrus bolts out the door and leads Joe to three...

"From Kelly Rippon, single mother of six super achievers, including an Olympic medalist, comes a breakthrough parenting philosophy. Parent Up is a call to action for all parents to realize the power of being the most important, positive shaping force in your children's lives. Broken down into ten chapters that each present a key influence (from the influence of optimism to loyalty), Kelly shares her philosophy as well as relatable anecdotes from her...

Eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, an African-American girl in an America whose love for blonde, blue-eyed children can devastate all others, prays for her eyes to turn blue, so that she will be beautiful, people will notice her, and her world will be different. The story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, the tragic heroine of Toni Morrison's haunting first novel, grew out of her memory of a girlhood friend who wanted blue eyes. Shunned by the town's...

Marissa Fordham had a past full of secrets, a present full of lies. Everyone knew of her, but no one knew her. When Marissa is found brutally murdered, with her young daughter, Haley, resting her head on her mother's bloody breast, she sends the idyllic California town of Oak Knoll into a tailspin. Already on edge with the upcoming trial of the See- No-Evil killer, residents are shocked by reports of the crime scene, which might not have been discovered...

Child psychologist Alex Delaware examines a disturbed young girl and uncovers evidence of a brutal double murder, a child molester's grisly suicide, and a horrible forty-year old secret that continues to have an effect today.

Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church -- the only available shelter from the rain -- and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the days of suffering that preceded her newfound security. Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and...