In Oak Knoll, a verdant, tight-knit North Carolina neighborhood, professor of forestry and ecology Valerie Alston-Holt is raising her bright and talented biracial son. Xavier is headed to college in the fall, and after years of single parenting, Valerie is facing the prospect of an empty nest. All is well until the Whitmans move in next door - an apparently traditional family with new money, ambition, and a secretly troubled teenaged daughter. Thanks...

An innocent weekend get-together of women friends turns sinister when the group discovers on Monday morning that one of their number has gone missing, a disappearance that places the woman's husband under suspicion and forces two of the women to reckon with personal secrets.

"Told that they would have to move out of their Harlem brownstone just after Christmas, the five Vanderbeeker children, ages four to twelve, decide to change their reclusive landlord's mind"--Title verso page.

The lives and fortunes of two New Hampshire families, the Planks and the Dickersons, are entwined through the youngest daughters of each family, who were born on the same day in the same hospital.

Hen and her husband Lloyd have settled into a quiet life in a new house outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Hen (short for Henrietta) is an illustrator and works out of a studio nearby, and has found the right meds to control her bipolar disorder. Finally, she's found some stability and peace. But when they meet the neighbors next door, that calm begins to erode as she spots a familiar object displayed on the husband's office shelf. The sports trophy...

"In a delightful new romantic comedy from Elinor Lipman, one woman's trash becomes another woman's treasure, with deliriously entertaining results. Daphne Maritch doesn't quite know what to make of the heavily annotated high school yearbook she inherits from her mother, who held this relic dear. Too dear. The late June Winter Maritch was the teacher to whom the class of '69 had dedicated its yearbook, and in turn she went on to attend every reunion,...

"Bree Leake doesn't want to be tied down. She's had more jobs than she can count, and she plans to move as soon as the curtains fall on her less-than-minor stage role at The Barter--the oldest live performance theater in the US. But just when it's time to move on again, Bree's parents make her an offer: hold steady for a full year, and they will give her the one thing she's always wanted--her grandmother's house. Her dreams are coming true...until...

This is the story of four friends determined to find their stride. Ultimately, they'll discover what it means to be a wife, mother, lover, friend...and most important: your true self. Gerri can't decide what's more devastating: learning her rock-solid marriage has big cracks, or the anger she feels as she tries to repair them. Always the anchor for friends and her three angst-ridden teenagers, it's time to look carefully at herself. The journey is...

"Bertie's mother Irene returns from the Middle East to discover that, in her absence, her son has been exposed to the worst of evils--television shows, ice cream parlors, and even unsanctioned art at the National Portrait Gallery. Her wrath descends on Bertie's long-suffering father, Stuart. But Stuart seems to have a new spring in his step"--

After being trapped with his neighbor, single mother Jessie Connelly, and her daughters, during a blizzard, Bluff Point brewery owner Zachary Caine has second thoughts about his self-proclaimed bachelorhood as they spend more and more time together.