Raised in a small town in the north of England known primarily for its cotton mills, football team and deep roots in the “Respectable Working Class,” Graham Caveney armed himself against the confusing nature of adolescence with a thick accent, a copy of Kafka, and a record collection including the likes of the Buzzcocks and Joy Division. All three provided him the opportunity to escape, even if just in mind, beyond his small-town borders. But, when those passions are noticed and preyed upon by a mentor, everything changes. Now, as an adult, Caveney attempts to reconcile his past and present, coming to grips with both the challenges and wonder of adolescence, music and literature.

Mona is almost 24, emotionally adrift and cleaning houses to get by. Handing out clean needles to drug addicts, she falls for a recipient she calls Mr. Disgusting, who proceeds to break her heart in unimaginable ways. Seeking a kind of healing, Mona decamps to Taos, New Mexico, where she finds a community of seekers and cast-offs, all of whom have one or two things to teach her --- the pajama-wearing, blissed-out New Agers, the slightly creepy client with peculiar tastes in controlled substances, the psychic who might really be psychic. But always lurking just beneath the surface are her memories of growing up in a chaotic, destructive family from which she’s trying to disentangle herself, and the larger legacy of the past she left behind.

Annie is a drug addict and a thief, and is in trouble again. Her sister Lexie has always helped her, but this time, she’s not just strung out --- she’s pregnant and in premature labor. If she goes to the hospital, she’ll lose custody of her baby and maybe even go to prison. But the alternative is unthinkable. As the weeks unfold, Lexie finds herself caring for her fragile newborn niece while her carefully ordered life is collapsing around her. She’s in danger of losing her job, and her fiancé only has so much patience for Annie’s drama. In court-ordered rehab, Annie attempts to halt her downward spiral by confronting long-buried secrets from the sisters’ childhoods, ghosts that Lexie doesn’t want to face.

It’s 1980 in New York City, and nowhere is the city’s glamour and energy better reflected than in the burgeoning Harlem ball scene, where 17-year-old Angel first comes into her own. When she falls in love with Hector, a beautiful young man who dreams of becoming a professional dancer, the two decide to form the House of Xtravaganza, the first-ever all-Latino house in the Harlem ball circuit. But when Hector dies of AIDS-related complications, Angel must bear the responsibility of tending to their house alone. The Xtravaganzas --- Venus, Juanito and Daniel --- are ambitious, resilient and determined to control their own fates, even as they hurtle toward devastating consequences.

Staggering around the town streets in the aftermath of an assault, Peach feels a trickle of blood down her legs, a lingering smell of her anonymous attacker on her skin. It hurts to walk, but she manages to make her way to her home, where she stumbles into another oddly nightmarish reality: Her parents can't seem to comprehend that anything has happened to their daughter. The next morning, Peach tries to return to the routines of her ordinary life. And yet, as she struggles through the next few days, she is stalked by the memories of her unacknowledged trauma. Though she tries to close her eyes to what has happened, Peach at last begins to understand the drastic, gruesome action she must take.

Orphaned, raised by wolves, and the proud owner of a horned pig named Merlin, Weylyn Grey knew he wasn’t like other people. But when he single-handedly stopped that tornado on a stormy Christmas day in Oklahoma, he realized just how different he actually was. As amazing as these powers may appear, though, they tend to manifest themselves at inopportune times and places. Since Weylyn saved Mary from an angry wolf on her 11th birthday, she’s known that a relationship with him isn’t without its risks, but she doesn’t care. BEASTS OF EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCE tells the story of Weylyn Grey’s life from the perspectives of the people who knew him, loved him, and even a few who thought he was just plain weird.

For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man. Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the ’60s, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. From the start, she sets down rules for them, the most important of which is to never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their Aunt Isabelle, in the small Massachusetts town where the Owens family has been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong, they uncover family secrets and begin to understand the truth of who they are. Yet the children cannot escape love even if they try, just as they cannot escape the pains of the human heart.

Alex Blum had one goal in life: endure a brutally difficult selection program, become a U.S. Army Ranger, and fight terrorists for his country. He poured everything into achieving his dream. In the first hours of his final leave before deployment to Iraq, Alex was supposed to fly home to see his family and girlfriend. Instead, he got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma, and committed armed robbery. Why would he ruin his life in such a spectacularly foolish way? In the midst of his own personal crisis, and in the hopes of helping both Alex and his splintering family cope, Ben Blum, Alex’s first cousin, delved into these mysteries, growing closer to Alex in the process.

Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the quiet town of Royston, Massachusetts. But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship. THE BURNING GIRL is a complex examination of the stories we tell ourselves about youth and friendship, and straddles childhood’s imaginary worlds and painful adult reality.

At their humble teashop, Tea and Sympathy, Adelaide Thom and Eleanor St. Clair provide a place for whispered confessions, secret cures and spiritual assignations for a select society of ladies, who speak the right words and ask the right questions. But the profile of Tea and Sympathy is about to change with the fortuitous arrival of Beatrice Dunn. When 17-year-old Beatrice leaves the safety of her village to answer an ad that reads "Respectable Lady Seeks Dependable Shop Girl. Those averse to magic need not apply," she has little inclination of what the job will demand of her. Beatrice doesn't know it yet, but she is no ordinary small-town girl; she has great spiritual gifts --- ones that will serve as her greatest asset and also place her in grave danger.