Adult

This story traces love in the life of young Eunice. In the first part, Eunice must reckon with familial love --- from an eccentric mother and an absent father. The second leg of Eunice’s journey introduces her to the steadiness of a nurturing love through her relationship with a mysterious stranger named Rose. Finally, in the third act, Eunice is initiated into the world of passionate love.

It’s our instinct as parents to shield our children from harm. But our true responsibility is to raise children equipped to live well for God even in the midst of struggle. UPSIDE-DOWN PRAYERS FOR PARENTS encourages us to pray for our children in ways we may never have before. By turning our prayers “upside down,” we not only learn to release our children to the care of God alone, we also uncover how our own desires need to be submitted to God’s will.

SENT tells the story of ordinary Christians who accepted two words from Jesus at face value and found that doing so changed everything. In Jesus’s call to “follow me,” Hilary Alan and her husband, Curt, discovered answers to the most pressing human needs: meaning, purpose, vocation, significance, and God’s plan for the future.

A well-respected barrister is found dead at a seedy hotel. Is it an unsavory accident or murder? In either case, he was not alone. Detective Inspector Gemma James and her team must find his companion --- a search that takes them into unexpected corners and forces them to contemplate unsettling truths about the weaknesses and passions that lead to murder.

In 1836 in East Texas, nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped by Comanches. She was raised by the tribe and eventually became the wife of a warrior. Twenty-four years after her capture, she was reclaimed by the U.S. cavalry and the Texas Rangers and restored to her white family, to die in misery and obscurity. Cynthia Ann's story has been told and retold over generations to become a foundational American tale.

In a perfect life far into the future, wherein inhabitants of the underground settlement America-Five enjoy nearly eternal life and zero pain, workers in the Office of Mercy are compelled to eliminate the suffering of the nomadic tribes roaming outside…by tracking and killing them. Then one worker, 24-year-old Natasha, begins to doubt.

PEN/Faulkner Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author Ron Rash turns again to Appalachia to capture lives haunted by violence and tenderness, hope and fear, in stories that span from the Civil War to the present day. In the title story, two drug-addicted friends return to the farm where they worked as boys to steal their former boss's gruesomely unusual war trophies.

Baseball all-star Cory Brand knows what it takes to win in the big leagues. But off the field, with memories of his past haunting him, his life is spiraling out of control. Hoping to save her client’s career and reputation after a DUI and a team suspension, Cory’s agent sends him back to the small town where he grew up. Forced to coach the local youth baseball team and spend eight weeks in the only recovery program in town, Cory can’t wait to return to his old life as quickly as possible.

The 10 stories in George Saunders’s latest collection demonstrate why he is considered a modern master of short fiction. From “Victory Lap,” the tale of an attempted abduction, to “The Semplica Girl Diaries,” in which families employ Asian women as live garden ornaments, Saunders’s gift for inventive plots and vivid detail, and his ability to home in on moments that quickly define character, have never been used to more stunning effect. Believe the hype.