NCW Libraries

Set in rural Pennsylvania, Deb Callahan's life is changed forever when her teenage daughter mysteriously disappears. Deb is left to raise her young grandson and navigates the trials and tribulations of subsequent years, until a long-awaited discovery of the truth is revealed.

Janelle Marshall's perfect, upscale career-- and her perfect, successful boyfriend-- will make her future as secure and predictable as her childhood never was. But just when she should be happiest, she gets a distressing call: her grandfather, Little Bill, has gone missing. Now Janelle must go to the one place she's long avoided-- the tiny mountain town of Mammoth Falls, South Dakota. As Janelle challenges her past, and comes to term with her present,...

At the age of ten, an Appalachian girl develops croaks, jerks and spasms, which leads to her explusion from school. After treatment--she has Tourette's syndrome--she learns to control herself, attends college and there is a happy ending. Rural Kentucky in the 1950s is not an easy place to grow up in, and it's especially hard for 10-year-old Icy Sparks, an orphan who lives with her grandparents. Life becomes even more difficult for Icy when the violent...

In kindergarten, the author's teacher asks him to draw his family, with a mommy and a daddy. But his family is much more complicated than that. His mom is an addict, in and out of rehab, and in and out of his life. His father is a mystery - he doesn't know where to find him, or even what his name is. The author lives with his grandparents - two very loud, very loving, very opinionated people who had thought they were through with raising children...