Adult

WHAT CHANGES EVERYTHING is the story of Clarissa, who, in a gamble to save her kidnapped husband’s life, makes the best decisions she can, boldly rejecting the advice of U.S. authorities. It is also the story of Stela, who owns a used bookstore and writes letter after letter in hopes of comprehending the loss of a son on an Afghan battlefield. And it's the stories of Mandy, the mother of a gravely wounded soldier; Danil, an angry street artist; and Todd, a career aid worker who for a moment let down his guard in a Kabul marketplace.

We in America have certain ideas of what it means to be poor. Linda Tirado takes all of these preconceived notions and smashes them to bits, articulating not only what it is to be working poor in America, but what poverty is truly like --- on all levels. She discusses how she went from lower-middle class, to sometimes middle class, to poor and everything in between, and in doing so reveals why “poor people don’t always behave the way middle-class America thinks they should.”

As the brains behind the wedding site TyingTheKnot.com, Callie sees it all: from the ring to the dress, the smiles...to the tears. It’s that last part that keeps her single and not looking. Getting left at the altar will do that to a girl. But when Callie returns to her old hometown, she finds that her sweet high school crush, Tanner, a deep-sea diver with a wild, adrenaline-junkie past, is sexier than ever. And he makes it hard to remember why she’s sworn off love.

Becca Thorpe has uprooted her life and escaped to the beach. Now’s her chance to get away from city living, throw caution to the ocean winds, and live in the moment. Especially if the moment includes the deliciously sexy surfer, boatbuilder, investment genius and self-made man, Sam Brody, who she meets shortly after arriving in Lucky Harbor. Something about the dark intensity of Sam’s eyes and the thrill she gets at his touch convinces her to stay awhile.

For Olivia Bentley, Lucky Harbor is more than the town where she runs her new vintage shop. It’s the place where folks are friendly to strangers --- and nobody knows her real name. Olivia does a good job of keeping her past buried, not getting too cozy with anyone... until she sees a man drowning. Suddenly she’s rushing into the surf, getting up close and personal with the hottest guy she’s ever laid hands on, charter boat captain Cole Donovan.

Randall Beiler will sacrifice anything to take care of his younger siblings and the family farm, even if it means forsaking love. But when his brother offers pretty Elizabeth Nolt a job cleaning and cooking for the family, Randall is furious --- and feels guilty about the way he once broke Elizabeth's heart. Then he learns that Elizabeth and her grandmother are struggling to make ends meet, and he knows the offer, no matter how painful, is the right thing for everyone.

THE GOLDFINCH is a mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Jacqueline Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world.

Darwin unfurls the British Empire's beginnings and decline and its range of forms of rule, from settler colonies to island enclaves, from the princely states of India to ramshackle trading posts. Far from ever having a "master plan," the British Empire was controlled by a range of interests often at loggerheads with one another and was as much driven on by others' weaknesses as by its own strength. It shows, too, that the empire was never stable: to govern was a violent process, inevitably creating wars and rebellions. UNFINISHED EMPIRE is a nuanced history of the most complex polity the world has ever known, and a serious attempt to describe the diverse, contradictory ways-from the military to the cultural-in which empires really function.