Gus LeGarde's life essentially ended four years ago, when his beloved wife, Elsbeth, leapt from the Letchworth Gorge cliffs. These days, the music professor plays endless Chopin etudes on his antique piano and lavishes love on his family and dog - but nothing buries the pain or answers his burning questions. What made her jump? Why didn't she say goodbye? And how will he be able to live without her?

Fifty years ago, Sam Moore's little brother, Billy, vanished without a trace - leaving Sam with guilt that haunts him to this day. Fifty years with no body, no leads, and no answers. Until now. When Sam unearths a mysterious green marble buried in his garden, he's shocked to find himself transported back in time - to Billy.

They say it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Finn McGraw disagrees. He was just 17 when he had a torrid summer affair with the girl who stole his heart - and then turned on him. Now, 10 years later, he's got more than his lost love to worry about. A horrific accident turns his life upside down, resurrecting the ghosts of his long-dead family and taking the lives of the few people he has left. Finn always believed his estranged brother was responsible for the fire that killed their family - but an unexpected inheritance throws everything he knows into doubt.

After two years of brutal captivity, Portia Lamont has escaped and returned to her family's Vermont horse farm - only to find her parents gone to New York to try an experimental treatment for her mother's cancer, and her childhood friend Boone Hawke running the farm. The man Boone has become frightens her to near paralysis, but she's too traumatized and physically devastated to put up a fight.

Mike Wingate, abandoned by his father at four and raised in foster care, is finally living the life he always dreamed of - he's happily married with a precocious 8-year-old daughter, and his construction company is about to finish a "green" housing development that will secure a solid future for them all. But then something from his own past, a past he doesn't even remember, comes back to visit terror upon him and his family.

Reeling from her boyfriend's indiscretions at a party, Lacey Montgomery escapes into the throes of a torrential storm. Her car spins out of control and hurtles into the depths of an icy, black lake. She awakens in the arms of a handsome stranger, in a place she's never heard of - 34 years before she was born.

Althea Bell is still heartbroken by her mother’s tragic, premature death - and tormented by the last, frantic words she whispered into young Althea’s ear: Wait for her. For the honeysuckle girl. She’ll find you, I think, but if she doesn’t, you find her. Adrift ever since, Althea is now fresh out of rehab and returning to her family home in Mobile, Alabama, determined to reconnect with her estranged, ailing father.

Life in the small southern town of Sutter's Cross is comfortable and predictible until the homeless man shows up. Disheveled and bruised, he seems to have no past. But almost immediatly, the town is touched by his quiet presence. Who is this stranger? Sutter's Cross, a Main Selection of the Crossings Book Club, sheds new light on the nature of God's guidance.

Fired from her job as editor-in-chief of a New York fashion magazine, Zora Hughes travels to a South Dakota Indian reservation. She hopes to find answers to lifelong dreams her psychiatrist calls genetic memories. Zora dreams of a female ancestor who fled life as a slave and was aided in her journey to freedom by a Sioux warrior who would become her husband. On the reservation, Zora meets Captain John Iron Hawk who aids and sometimes hinders her in her quest to find answers to the murder of her forebearer.

After a tornado rips through her town, store owner Abigail comes across a piece of fabric from a wedding dress among the devastation. Abigail is moved to start collecting other swatches of fabric she finds - her neighbor’s kitchen curtains, a man’s necktie, a dog’s bed - which she stashes in shopping bags. As she pursues her seemingly absurd quest, horrible realities spark the question, “What kind of a God would allow such tragedy?”

Cam McHugh died in a tragic farming accident. He has a message for his son and only his dog can hear him. Halo is no ordinary dog. Not only can she see ghosts, she can talk to them, too. If only she could tell Hunter that death doesn't mean an end to being around the ones we love, maybe she could help him find his voice again. Unfortunately, she may never have the chance. Dognapped by the man who threatens to destroy the only family she has ever known, Halo must escape and find her way home - hundreds of miles away.

Shelby Lenoir Maynard, nicknamed Turtle, has never much trusted girls her own age, spending her days instead with her brother and his pack of friends. But when a mysterious Sri Lankan girl of Moorish descent moves to town, Turtle invites her to their secret haven: the Blue Hole. Turtle could not have imagined how much that simple gesture would alter the rest of her life, or the lives of those she loves. As tensions rise, it becomes clear there are those in Pisgah Ridge who reject the presence of anyone different - and those who would welcome the new refugee family.

After a harrowing accident tore her family apart, Molly Brennan fled from the man she loved and the tragic mistake she made. Twelve years later, Molly has created a new life for herself and her eight-year-old daughter, Cassie. The art history professor crafts jewelry as unique and weathered as the surf-tumbled sea glass she collects, while raising her daughter in a safe and loving environment - something Molly never had.

Chandra de Avenell might look like a golden princess, but she fights like a warrior, dreams a warrior’s dreams, and wears a warrior’s pride like a suit of armor. She wants to be strong, independent, and free. She has no use at all for a husband. Enter the man her father has selected for her. Jerval de Vernon takes one look at Chandra, and he wants her. After he saves her from a very bad situation, he sets himself to wooing her—not an easy task.

In 1972 on Mudas Summers's 17th birthday, her beloved mama Ella is found hanging from the rafters of their home. Most people in Peckinpaw, Kentucky, assume that Ella's no-good husband did the deed. Others think Ella grew tired of his abuse and did it herself. Muddy is determined to find out for sure either way, especially once she finds strange papers hidden among her mama's possessions

In this lively tale by RITA and Christy Award finalist Susan May Warren, 28-year-old PJ Sugar wants to shed her reputation for being nothing but trouble. But her efforts to be the favorite daughter, best friend, perfect aunt, fetching beauty, and hometown hero - all at once - trigger both laughter and tears.

Hidden away from the world by his famous father, Quinn Kelly strives to find meaning in his life while struggling with a deformity that has kept him from leaving the only home he has ever known. On the eve of his departure a sudden and deadly virus sweeps across the nation, killing nearly all it touches. Within days Quinn is left to fend for himself in an empty world. But there is something still very much alive beyond the walls of his sanctuary.

There are things in the darkness, things much worse than the tracks and abandoned pieces of equipment that trip the children up and gash at their feet and legs, things that brush silently past them, touching their faces before disappearing again....

Clare Fergusson, St. Alban's new priest, fits like a square peg in the conservative Episcopal parish at Miller's Kill, New York. She is not just a "lady"; she's a tough ex-Army chopper pilot, and nobody's fool. Then a newborn infant left at the church door brings her together with the town's police chief, Russ Van Alstyne, who's also ex-Army and a cynical good shepherd for the stray sheep of his hometown.

Gathering of Waters is a deeply engrossing tale narrated by the town of Money, Mississippi - a site both significant and infamous in our collective story as a nation. Money is personified in this haunting story, which chronicles its troubled history following the arrival of the Hilson and Bryant families. Tass Hilson and Emmett Till were young and in love when Emmett was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit

Lindie Wyse thinks an arranged marriage is the only way to preserve a future for herself and her unborn child. Josiah Plank is certain he’ll never love again, but he needs someone to care for his deaf eight-year-old daughter, Hannah. The two take on their arrangement tentatively at first but soon realize they are each in for more than they imagined.

Phineas King knows better than to expect anything but shock and pity wherever he shows his face. Horribly scarred from the tragic accident that claimed his mother's life, he chooses to keep his distance from everyone, focusing his time and energy on the bees his family raises. So why does he start finding excuses to seek out Deborah Lantz, the beautiful new arrival in town?

Tim Rackley, a deputy U.S. marshal, watches helplessly as his daughter's killer walks free on a legal technicality. He is suddenly forced to explore his own deadly options, a quest that leads him into the welcoming fold of "The Commission".

As a world-class equestrian and Olympic contender, Annemarie Zimmer lived for the thrill of flight atop a strong, graceful animal. Then, at 18, a tragic accident destroyed her riding career and Harry, the beautiful horse she cherished. Now, 20 years later, Annemarie is coming home to her dying father’s New Hampshire horse farm. Jobless and abandoned, she is bringing her troubled teenage daughter to this place of pain and memory, where ghosts of an unresolved youth still haunt the fields and stables.

Elizabeth Haberlin, of the Pittsburgh Haberlins, spends every summer with her family on a beautiful lake in an exclusive club. Nestled in the Allegheny Mountains above the working-class community of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the private retreat is patronized by society's elite. Elizabeth summers with Carnegies, Mellons, and Fricks, following the rigid etiquette of her class. But Elizabeth is blessed (cursed) with a mind of her own.

The Archangel of Death is the master of taking human life. But keeping mortals alive? Not exactly Azrael's forte. For thousands of years, Azrael’s greatest enemy has been silent. Leaving him in relative peace for the first time since the great angel war. Now that silence has been broken, and the Morning Star has returned with a dangerous ultimatum: Azrael can join, or watch everything he loves be destroyed. Two lives hang in the balance - Azrael’s beloved human wife, Nadine, and their unborn, part-angel son...Warren.

No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it's Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies - before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.

While her friends are spending their summers having pool parties and sleepovers, twelve-year-old Carolina - Carol - is spending hers in the middle of the New Mexico desert, helping her parents move the grandfather she's never met into a home for people with dementia. At first, Carol avoids prickly Grandpa Serge.

Cassie Madison has it all: A high-powered advertising career; a stylish Manhattan apartment; and a sophisticated, rich, and gorgeous fiancé. It's a far cry from her childhood in Walton, Georgia, home of the annual Kudzu Festival and hot, sticky summers. And then there are all the bad memories, the heartache. When Cassie's estranged sister calls to say that her father is dying, Cassie knows it's time to set aside her feelings and go home and face the sister she hasn't seen in 15 years.

Paige Williams slips into her hot tub in the blackness of night - and finds herself face to face with death. Alone, terrified, fleeing a dark past, Paige must make an unthinkable choice. In Violet Dawn, hurtling events and richly drawn characters collide in a breathless story of murder, the need to belong, and faith's first glimmer. One woman's secrets unleash an entire town's pursuit, and the truth proves as elusive as the killer in their midst.