Andrea Barrett, winner of the National Book Award for her collection of stories SHIP FEVER, unfolds five pivotal moments in the lives of her characters and in the history of knowledge. She explores the thrill and sense of loss that come with scientific progress, and the personal passions and impersonal politics that shape all human knowledge.

Rob Strong, a pastor in Massachusetts, never lets his faith bar him from doing what matters most: building sincere relationships with people as, together, they question and explore the nature of The Big Guy Upstairs. Here he shares how approachable, interactive and, above all, relevant God can be in readers' lives, without any of the trappings of religion or "Christianese" that make many of them suspicious.

Magdalena does not panic when she learns that her younger sister has disappeared. A free-spirit, Jadranka has always been prone to mysterious absences. But when weeks pass with no word, Magdalena leaves the isolated Croatian island where their family has always lived and sets off to New York to find her sister. Her search begins to unspool the dark history of their family, reaching back three generations to a country torn by war.

Evidence emerges that there was nothing accidental about a supposed car accident that killed an Amish deacon and two of his children. Kate Burkholder begins to suspect that she is on the trail of a cold-blooded killer. It is a search that takes her on a chilling journey into the darkest reaches of the human heart and makes her question everything she has ever believed about the Amish culture into which she was born.

Without telling her family, Elyria takes a one-way flight to New Zealand, abruptly leaving her stable but unfulfilling life in Manhattan. Haunted by her sister’s death and consumed by an inner violence, her growing rage remains so expertly concealed that those who meet her sense nothing unwell. This discord between her inner and outer reality leads her to another obsession: If her truest self is invisible and unknowable to others, is she even alive?

When movie stars Thom and Jennifer Harlow disappear, facts are hard to find. They live behind such a high wall of security and image control that even world-renowned Private Investigator Jack Morgan can't get to the truth. But as Jack keeps probing, secrets sprout thick and fast --- and the world's golden couple may emerge as hiding behind a world of desperation and deception that the wildest reality show couldn't begin to unveil.

Rosalind Perry works as a housemaid at Sloane House, one of the most elegant mansions in Gilded Age Chicago. However, she's not there just to earn a living and support her family --- she’s at Sloane House determined to discover the truth about her sister’s mysterious disappearance. When Reid Armstrong, the handsome heir to a silver fortune, begins to realize that Rosalind’s life may be in danger, he stops thinking of marriage prospects and concentrates on helping Rosalind.

When Chet and Bernie happen upon a prison work crew that includes Frenchie Boutette, an old criminal pal they sent up the river, getting a new case is the last thing they expect. But Frenchie, who comes from an old Louisiana family full of black sheep, needs help finding his one law-abiding relative: his brother Ralph, a reclusive inventor who has gone missing with his houseboat.

Joan of Kent, renowned beauty and cousin to King Edward III, is destined for a politically strategic marriage. As the king begins a long dynastic struggle to claim the crown of France, plunging England into the Hundred Years’ War, he negotiates her betrothal to a potential ally and heir of a powerful lordship. But Joan, haunted by nightmares of her father’s execution at the hands of her treacherous royal kin, fears the king’s selection and is not resigned to her fate.