Adult

The 12 stories in A PERMANENT MEMBER OF THE FAMILY examine the myriad ways that we try --- and sometimes fail --- to connect with one another, as we seek a home in the world. The book charts with subtlety and precision the ebb and flow of both the families we make for ourselves and the ones we're born into, as it asks how we know the ones we love and, in turn, ourselves.

Scarlet Lindsey is planning an extravagant cake for her best friend's wedding, and has a great relationship with Bella Neeley, the island's most popular wedding coordinator. But when Bella's dangerously handsome brother Armando breezes into her life, Scarlet is faced with a sticky situation. Should she stay with the safe, sweet guy who's been a fixture in her life for years? Or will this brash Italian hunk melt her guarded heart?

When widow Rose Schrock turns her Amish farmhouse into a bed and breakfast, she expects there might be problems. The reaction of her cantankerous mother-in-law for one. Disapproval from the church for another. But what she doesn’t expect is that the guests at the Inn at Eagle Hill will spill their problems into her life and into her heart. She also never expects the kind of help and support she gets from Galen King, the quiet and rugged horse trainer next door.

In her twenties, Alexandra Heminsley spent more time drinking white wine than she did in pursuit of athletic excellence. When she decided to take up running in her thirties, she had high hopes for a blissful runner’s high and immediate physical transformation. The stories of her first runs turn the common notion that we are all “born to run” on its head. RUNNING LIKE A GIRL tells the story of getting beyond the brutal part, how Alexandra makes running a part of her life, and reaps the rewards.

It's 1969 and, having just celebrated his 45th birthday, James Bond --- British special agent 007 --- is summoned to headquarters to receive an unusual assignment. Zanzarim, a troubled West African nation, is being ravaged by a bitter civil war, and M directs Bond to quash the rebels threatening the established regime.

In the coming centuries, the world's population has exploded and covered the earth with cities, animals are nearly all gone, and drought has taken over so that cloudy water is issued by the quart. It is an unwelcoming world for an orphan like Nadia Stepan, who grows up dreaming of the vacation spot called Lighthouse Island, in a place called the Pacific Northwest. She becomes obsessed with it and is determined to somehow find her way there.

How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Simon Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers and innovators. Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.

Late night on a notorious high-rise estate in Hackney and a white van is being driven erratically. A woman on the street after a long evening's drinking...She never makes it home. Five years earlier, a 13-year-old girl disappeared in broad daylight on a busy London street and DCS James Langton headed the investigation --- the case was never closed. And now comes another confession, to this murder, and to one more besides. DCI Anna Travis isn't so sure that they have their man.

When Lily Hayes arrives in Buenos Aires for her semester abroad, she is enchanted by everything she encounters. Five weeks later, though, her roommate Katy is found brutally murdered in their shared home, and Lily is the prime suspect. But who is Lily Hayes? It depends on who's asking. As the case takes shape --- revealing deceptions, secrets and suspicious DNA --- Lily appears alternately sinister and guileless through the eyes of those around her.

From deep in the impenetrable jungles where bestselling author Ted Dekker was born and raised comes OUTLAW, an epic adventure of two worlds that perhaps only he could write. Full of harrowing twists, sweeping violence and wild love, OUTLAW takes us beyond the skin of this world to another unseen.