NCW Libraries

"It happens quietly one hot August morning in Iowa: two families awaken to find their little girls have gone missing in the night. Seven-year-old Calli Clark suffers from selective mutism brought on by a tragedy that happened when she was a toddler. Petra Gregory is Calli's best friend--and her voice. But neither girl has been heard from since they vanished. Now, Calli's and Petra's parents are tied by the question of what happened to their children....

In 1956, toward the end of Rev. John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. This is also the tale of wisdom forged during his solitary life and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.

When tragedy strikes, forcing them down separate paths in 1967 Iowa, former nursing school roommates, against all odds, form a decades-long friendship that sees them through life's trials and tribulations until one snowy night leads their relationship to the ultimate crossroads.

When an aging father retires, he passes the thriving family farm on to his three daughters. But this generous gift ignites an explosive series of events that threaten to tear the family apart.

Two reporters from a Chicago-based tabloid, along with an "angel expert", are asked to travel to rural Iowa to investigate a claim from an old woman that she shares her motel with a real, live archangel named Michael.

Golden Age combines intimate drama, emotional suspense, and a full command of history, bringing to a magnificent conclusion the century-long portrait of one unforgettable family.

Patrice Powell is a New York-based magazine writer for European Art magazine. She reluctantly returns to her native Iowa to write a story about the death of Nan Wood Graham - the famous face of American Gothic. In returning to Iowa to research the story, she learns about her own connection to Nan Wood Graham, and the historic Stone City Art Colony. She makes a discovery that will change how the art world perceives American Gothic, and in doing so,...

A dreamer builds a baseball diamond amid the Iowa cornfields and waits for the outstanding, but dead, baseball players of the past to show up for a very special game.

"The first blush of spring finds Melinda filled with great expectations and high-flying goals. The charming farm and its critters are finally hers forever, and new life is popping up in unexpected places. But as the songbirds return and the garden's soil is turned, not everything's coming up roses: A no-nonsense housing inspector claims her sweet deal with Horace could come at a high cost, and her latest idea to improve life in her rural community...

"All is calm in Melinda's hometown ... until outsiders start to shake things up. The quiet days of early winter make Prosper look like a scene from a snow globe. Holiday lights glow in every window, plans are being made for the Christmas festival, and greetings of good cheer fill the aisles at Prosper Hardware. Everything changes when a national magazine sets its sights on the town's newest business, creating controversy about the best way to put...