In 1997 foreign correspondent Neely Tucker and his wife, Vita, arrived in Zimbabwe. After witnessing the devastating consequences of AIDS and economic disaster on the country’s children, the couple started volunteering at an orphanage where a critically ill infant, abandoned in a field on the day she was born, was trusted to their care. Within weeks, Chipo, the baby girl whose name means “gift,” would come to mean everything to them. Their decision to adopt her, however, would challenge an unspoken social norm: that foreigners should never adopt Zimbabwean children. Against a background of war, terrorism, disease, and unbearable uncertainty about the future, Chipo’s true story emerges as an inspiring testament to the miracles that love—and dogged determination—can sometimes achieve.

"An elegant coming-of-age story that brings real heart to the American heartland. The book may be set during World War II, but the questions it asks—about love, loyalty, and the meaning of life—are timeless ones." —Elliott Holt, author of You Are One of Them As her Wisconsin community endures a long season of drought and feels the shockwaves of World War II, fifteen-year-old Cielle endures a more personal calamity: the unexpected death of her father. On a balmy summer afternoon, she finds him hanging in the barn—the start of a dark secret that threatens her family’s livelihood. A war rages elsewhere, while in the deceptive calm of the American heartland, Cielle’s family contends with a new reality and fights not to be undone. A stunning debut, The Driest Season creates a moving portrait of Cielle’s struggle to make sense of her father’s time on earth, and of her own. With wisdom and grit, Kenny has fashioned a deeply affecting story of a young woman discovering loss, heartache, and—finally—hope.

“The test of a crime series is its main character, and Sully is someone we’ll want to read about again and again. . . . When the murder victim in the novel is identified as the young scion of one of the city’s most wealthy and influential African American families, the story expands its themes of race and class, which lend it dimension.” —Lisa Scottoline, The Washington Post Reporter Sully Carter returns in a thrilling murder mystery of race, wealth, and family secrets When Billy Ellison, the son of Washington, D.C.’s most influential African-American family, is found dead in the Potomac near a violent drug haven, reporter Sully Carter knows it’s time to start asking some serious questions—no matter what the consequences. With the police unable to find a lead and pressure mounting for Sully to abandon the investigation, he has a hunch that there is more to the case than a drug deal gone bad or a tale of family misfortune. Riding the city's backstreets on his Ducati 916, Sully finds that the real story stretches far beyond Billy and into D.C.’s most prominent social circles. A hard drinker still haunted by his years as a war correspondent in Bosnia, Sully now must strike a dangerous balance between D.C.’s two extremes—the city’s violent, depraved projects and its highest corridors of power—while threatened by those who will stop at nothing to keep him from discovering the shocking truth. The only person he can trust is his old friend Alexis, a talented photographer and fellow war zone junkie, who is as sexy as she is fearless, but even Alexis can't protect Sully from everyone who would rather he give up the story. Following the acclaimed first Sully Carter novel, The Ways of the Dead, this gritty mystery digs deeper into Sully's past while revealing how long-held secrets can destroy even the most powerful families.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Thriller of 2016 “The test of a crime series is its main character, and Sully is someone we'll want to read about again and again.” —Lisa Scottoline, The Washington Post “Fast-moving and suspenseful with an explosively violent conclusion.” —Bruce DeSilva, Associated Press “Tucker’s Sully Carter novels have quickly sneaked up on me as one of my favorite new series.” —Sarah Weinman, “The Crime Lady” The riveting third novel in the Sully Carter series finds the gutsy reporter investigating a shooting at the Capitol and the violent world of the nation’s most corrupt mental institution In the doldrums of a broiling Washington summer, a madman goes on a shooting rampage in the Capitol building. Sully Carter is at the scene and witnesses the carnage firsthand and files the first and most detailed account of the massacre. The shooter, Terry Waters, is still on the loose and becomes obsessed with Sully, luring the reporter into the streets of D.C. during the manhunt. Not much is known about Waters when he is finally caught, except that he hails from the Indian reservations of Oklahoma. His rants in the courtroom quickly earn him a stay at Saint Elizabeth’s mental hospital, and the paper sends Sully out west to find out what has led a man to such a horrific act of violence. As Sully hits the road to see what he can dig up on Waters back in Oklahoma, he leaves his friend Alexis to watch over his nephew, Josh, who is visiting DC for the summer. Traversing central Oklahoma, Sully discovers that a shadow lurks behind the Waters family history and that the ghosts of the past have pursued the shooter for far longer than Sully could have known. When a local sheriff reveals the Waterses’ deep connection with Saint Elizabeth’s, Sully realizes he must find a way to gain access to the asylum, no matter the consequences.

In this timely, insightful, and darkly funny investigation, the acclaimed author of Against Love asks: what does living in dystopic times do to our ability to love each other and the world? COVID-19 has produced new taxonomies of love, intimacy, and vulnerability. Will its cultural afterlife be as lasting as that of HIV, which reshaped consciousness about sex and love even after AIDS itself had been beaten back by medical science? Will COVID end up making us more relationally conservative, as some think HIV did within gay culture? Will it send us fleeing into emotional silos or coupled cocoons, despite the fact that, pre-COVID, domestic coupledom had been steadily losing fans? Just as COVID revealed our nation to itself, so did it hold a mirror up to our relationships. In Love in the Time of Contagion, Laura Kipnis weaves (often hilariously) her own (ambivalent) coupled lockdown experiences together with those of others and sets them against a larger backdrop: the politics of the virus, economic disparities, changing gender relations, and the ongoing institutional crack-ups prompted by #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, mapping their effects on the everyday routines and occasional solaces of love and sex.

A fresh and compelling look at wild and awesome examples of weather in this revised and updated book in the Wonders of Creation series! Did you know the hottest temperature ever recorded was 134° F (56.7° C) on July 10, 1913 in Death Valley, California? The highest recorded surface wind speed was in the May 3, 1999, Oklahoma tornado, measured at 302 mph (486 kph)! The most snow to fall in a one-year period is 102 feet (3,150 cm) at Mount Rainier, Washington, from February 19, 1971 to February 18, 1972! From the practical to the pretty amazing, this book gives essential details into understanding what weather is, how it works, and how other forces that impact on it. Learn why storm chasers and hurricane hunters do what they do and how they are helping to solve storm connected mysteries. Discover what makes winter storms both beautiful and deadly, as well as what is behind weather phenomena like St. Elmo’s Fire. Find important information on climate history and answers to the modern questions of supposed climate change. Get safety tips for preventing dangerous weather related injuries like those from lightning strikes, uncover why thunderstorms form, as well as what we know about the mechanics of a tornado and other extreme weather examples like flash floods, hurricanes and more. A fresh and compelling look at wild and awesome examples of weather in this revised and updated book in the Wonders of Creation series!

Destined for a Christmas film release from Columbia Pictures, this heartfelt novel by the co-screenwriter of "Sleepless in Seattle" is about a woman trying to keep her life and her loose-cannon family in order. "Delia Ephron is blessed with the driest of wits, the tenderest of hearts, and an uncanny ear for the way people talk."--Armistead Maupin. The movie will star Meg Ryan and Diane Keaton.