True Girl

Ava Thomas knew leaving was the right decision. Trapped and manipulated in her relationship, and after yet another violent beating whilst she was pregnant, Ava was helped to a women's refuge with her children. Listening to the stories of other women there, Ava began thinking back to where it all started to go wrong. Brought up by a mother who never loved her, Ava sought that missing care and warmth elsewhere. Running away to her father's home as a teenager, she thought she might finally be safe. But after being abused by her own brother, she was thrown out onto the streets.

My best friend’s brother is a total pain in my ass. He’s also my only hope. Maddox “Mad Dog” Wilson is a neighborhood legend. The boxing champ runs the grittiest fighting gym in the city. His left hook is as deadly as his smile. I’ve known Maddox for years. He’s pushy, possessive, and stubborn as hell. The last thing I want to do is beg for his help. But I’m desperate. I’m here to learn how to take care of myself. Maddox has other ideas. Once he gets me up against the ropes— Fighting is the last thing on my mind.

My name is Hazel Lamb…Lindsey, but my momma called me Fireball. I am 84 years old. I only got one year of schooling, but I am self-taught. I worked hard all my life.

Being a bachelor is the only way to be. Love is messy and, honestly, a pain in the butt. I’ve got too many dreams to settle down. Especially as a pro-hockey free agent. The world is mine, and with it comes loads of money, women, and fast cars. Until I sign my best friend’s little sister as my new agent. She’s not a little girl anymore, and dang… I’m in trouble. The one thing she’s not putting up with is me. Something about my rough disposition puts her off. Grumpy is the word she would use. Whatever. It’s all part of the style that’s going to win her over for good. ...

Before Bonnie and Clyde there were Tiger Girl and the Candy Kid. In the wake of world war, a pandemic, and an economic depression, Margaret and Richard Whittemore, two love-struck working-class kids from Baltimore, reached for the dream of a better life. The couple headed up a gang that in less than a year stole over one million dollars’ worth of diamonds and precious gems—over 10 million dollars today.

When Charlie McDowell began sharing his open letters to his noisy upstairs neighbors - two impossibly ditzy female roommates in their mid-twenties - on Twitter, his feed quickly went viral. His followers multiplied and he got the attention of everyone from celebrities to production studios to major media outlets such as Time and Glamour.

Now Dear Girls breaks out of the 140-character limit as Charlie imagines what would happen if he put the wisdom of the girls to the test.

Echo Brown is a wizard from the East Side, where apartments are small and parents suffer addictions to the white rocks. Yet there is magic...everywhere. New portals begin to open when Echo transfers to the rich school on the West Side, and an insightful teacher becomes a pivotal mentor. Each day, Echo travels between two worlds, leaving her brothers, her friends, and a piece of herself behind on the East Side. There are dangers to leaving behind the place that made you.

She sees the patterns no one else will admit. She keeps the records no one else dares to write. In a city that would rather forget its missing girls, Roxie Williams refuses to disappear. Atlanta’s streets hum with secrets, and Roxie knows them all too well. Armed with a battered notebook, a sharp mind, and a promise she can’t break, she hunts for the truth behind the “Vanishing Girls”—a string of disappearances the city would rather ignore. But the closer Roxie gets to the heart of the case, the more dangerous her world becomes. Cops who can’t be trusted. Friends who vanish ...

Her adventure in Brazil has transformed the shy and curvy Rachel into the confident and sexy Raquel. It has also earned the travel writer a luxurious trip to France, another sensual destination with its own "travel secrets." In one of France's most famous wine regions, Raquel is courted by the suave and enchanting Maxime and the rugged female winemaker Alixandrie. Raquel's boss, Ryan, also seems interested in her, but his girlfriend and supermodel Chantal continues to sabotage Raquel at every turn. Raquel’s biggest challenge, however, is to stay true to her new self. What kind of ...

The Christmas Tree Girls was inspired by a true story from 1912 Chicago. Captain Schuenemann and the Christmas Tree Ship is legend in Chicago. His wife Barbara, and their three daughters, Elsie and the twins Hazel and Pearl became known as The Christmas Tree Girls. First introduced in this author's last book, 'Flowers For the Season'; now go on a new adventure with Elsie, Hazel and Pearl. Will there be a Christmas miracle? Perfect for the holidays or any time of the year.

When Tai Choi leaves her home in the Zhejiang province of China, she believes she’ll be visiting her grandmother. But in truth, despite her mother’s opposition, her father has sold her to pay his gambling debts. Alone and afraid, Tai Choi is put on a ship headed for San Francisco, known among the Chinese as Gold Mountain. When she arrives, she is forced to go by the new name listed on her paper documents: Tien Fu Wu. Her new life as a servant at a gambling den is hard. And if she is to survive, Tien Fu must persevere, and learn who to trust.

For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia. The highway is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis. Highway of Tears is a piercing exploration of our ongoing failure to provide justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and testament to their families and communities' unwavering determination to find it.

At least that’s what twelve-year-old Eliana has grown up hearing. Imagine her surprise when one morning in the forest she finds herself eye-to-eye with a young dragon. When she learns the dragon’s father has been missing since the last full moon, she vows to help.

On a cold night in December 1956, two young girls mysteriously vanished after a night at the movies on the Southwest Side of Chicago, beginning one of the greatest searches to ever take place in the history of the city. Three weeks later, the bodies of the two lost girls, Barbara and Patricia Grimes, were found on the side of a secluded, snow-covered road, miles from where they disappeared. The discovery of their battered corpses created one of the greatest unsolved mysteries to ever baffle post-war America. Where had the girls been for the past three weeks?

On Feb. 12, 2008, at E. O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, CA, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney shot and killed his classmate, Larry King, who had recently begun to call himself "Leticia" and wear makeup and jewelry to school. Profoundly shaken by the news and unsettled by media coverage that sidestepped the issues of gender identity and of race integral to the case, psychologist Ken Corbett traveled to LA to attend the trial.

Just three weeks after my 21st birthday, on the evening of October 4, 1994, I was abducted from the streets of my hometown in Southern Russia while on my way home. They drugged me and drove to another country, where they held me captive in a tiny room at first, and then under a house in a pit. A few weeks after my kidnapping, a brutal civil war broke out. Through eight horrifying months of captivity, witnessing atrocities, surviving bombings and sexual violence, I fought desperately to stay alive, stay sane, and not to lose the one thing that kept me going: my hope.

Las Vegas, 1945. Reeling from her husband’s death, Thelma Miles sets out to tear down a mafia empire. As federal agents circle, rival gangs plot, and her father’s empire grows more powerful by the day, Thelma masterminds an elaborate ruse. To pull off the con, she assembles an unlikely crew: a Hollywood starlet who is more than she appears; a relentless reporter on a crusade to root out corruption, and her former boss who may or may not be undermining the whole operation.

Like the script of a riveting Hollywood Western and nearly forgotten for over 130 years, the Meeks Family Tragedy of 1894 is one of the most heartbreaking stories in the history of America. From bank fraud, bribery, “blind tiger” saloons and cheating at cards, to poisoning, insurance fraud, Mickey Finns, murder and more, this is a fascinating look at the treacherous Taylor Boys.

Captured in the 1930s before the words psychopath and pedophile were part of common vernacular, notorious serial killer Arnold Sodeman murdered four young girls with little thought of remorse. Without guilt, the evil serial killer strangled them to death with their own clothing and left their small bodies alone in the Australian brush, earning himself a chilling position in the annals of Australian crime.

Laurie Notaro is married, mortgaged, and now - miraculously - employed in the corporate world, discovering that bosses come in all shapes, sizes, and degrees of mental stability. After maxing out her last good credit card at Banana Republic, she's dressed for success and ready to face the jungle: surviving feral, six-foot-plus Gretchen ("The Three Thousand Faces of Eve") before battling the overbearing, overstuffed (in way-too-small pants) new mom Suzi....