Camden, New Jersey, is quite possibly the most troubled and dangerous city in America. But a far different story lies beneath this cold surface. It is a story of hope, of voices struggling desperately against deaf ears. In the summer of 1999, a college student named Stuart Albright arrived in Camden full of youthful idealism and a naïve sense of justice. Blessed Returns is the moving, deeply personal account of a young man's coming-of-age amidst a tumultuous and life-changing summer. Albri...

Sidelines is an insider's look at the fascinating world of high-school football, and, beyond that, it is also about the death and rebirth of the American community. Stuart Albright uses football to explore our nation's complicated history of race and public education and to explain why some communities continue to thrive while others are slowly dying away. Sidelines tells the story of nine very different communities across North Carolina, from deep in the Appalachian Mountains where a team...

Sid Ellison believes that he's left Durham, NC, for good. He lives a safe, quiet life in the Appalachian Mountains teaching high school English. But when his older brother, Tyrell, is charged with the murder of a Pakistani woman, Sid has no choice but to confront his troubled past. With ambitious scope, Bull City moves from the gritty tobacco factories of Durham to Pakistan and finally to the inner-city streets of Boston before returning to the South for a dramatic and unexpected climax.

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A moving memoir about the legendary author’s relationship with her own mother.Emma Watson’s Our Shared Shelf Book Club Pick!**The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother.For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being th...

THE LOST GIRLS is book #2 in the #1 bestselling Suburban Murder series, which begins with THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS, book #1 (a free download)!The brutally beaten body of a young girl is discovered in a marsh in Jamesport, one of New York’s most elite suburbs. Police comb the area, while many speculate her murder might be connected to the abduction, six months earlier, of three girls from Jamesport. The FBI has evidence of an underage prostitution and trafficking ring which may be relate...

A New York Times Book Review EDITORS' CHOICE.From the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Motherless Brooklyn, comes the vividly told story of Dylan Ebdus growing up white and motherless in downtown Brooklyn in the 1970s. In a neighborhood where the entertainments include muggings along with games of stoopball, Dylan has one friend, a black teenager, also motherless, named Mingus Rude. Through the knitting and unraveling of the bo...

The Damned, one of many classic novels from crime writer John D. MacDonald, the beloved author of Cape Fear and the Travis McGee series, is now available as an eBook.At a ferry stop along the Rio Conchos, the line of cars waiting to cross stretches to the horizon. Because of a bureaucratic blunder, the boat has been stalled, with no relief in sight for the drivers—many of them American, many growing impatient to reach the border. That kind of tens...

The deepest waters hide the darkest secrets....When the body of a murdered man literally falls at Elizabeth Stuart's feet, she's able to wash away the blood--but not the terror. Unwelcome newcomers to Still Creek, Minnesota, she and her troubled teenage son are treated with suspicion by the locals, including the sheriff. Yet nothing will stop her from digging beneath the town's placid surface for the truth—except the killer.Running from a messy divorce, Elizabeth believed b...

A literary rent party to benefit the Hurston/Wright Foundation of African-American fiction, with selections to savor from bestselling authors as well as talented rising stars.Not since Terry McMillan’s Breaking Ice have so many African-American writers been brought together in one volume. A stellar collection of works from more than fifty hot names in fiction, Gumbo represents remarkable synergy. Edited by bestselling luminaries Marita Golden and E. Lynn Harris, t...

2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award from the Crime Writers of CanadaTrouble is brewing in the small, bucolic mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia. An American who came to Trafalgar as a Vietnam War draft dodger has left land and money to the town. But there's a catch. The money must be used to build a garden to honor draft dodgers. This bequest has torn the close-knit, peaceful town apart. Then the body of a leading garden opponent is found in an al...

“Charming. . . . A moving testament to the diversity and depths of love.”—Publishers WeeklyYou’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be swept away—in less time than it takes to read this paragraph. Here are 175 true stories—honest, funny, tender and wise—each as moving as a lyric poem, all told in no more than one hundred words. An electrician lights up a woman’s life, a sister longs for her homeless brother, strangers dream of what might ha...

What happens when big trouble comes to a small town?Cherry Hills resident Kat Harper doesn't expect her first meeting with the Furry Friends Foster Families animal rescue to kick off with the mysterious absence of another member. But it soon becomes clear why Willow Wu is a no-show; she's been arrested for a crime that nobody can believe.Kat's convinced someone framed Willow. But who would do such a thing? A crooked small-town cop with big dreams? A local t...