In a time when America was well beyond the Civil Rights era, Shelby Lenoir Maynard discovered, in a simple gesture of extending friendship to the new girl in town, just how deep ignorance--and hatred--can burn.

In a time when cross burnings and men in white hoods appeared to be a thing of the past, a small town confronts a kind of hate it thought had long since died out... Shelby Lenoir Maynard, nicknamed Turtle, has never much trusted girls her own age, spending her days instead with her brother and his pack of friends. But when a mysterious Sri Lankan girl of Moorish descent moves to town, Turtle invites her to their secret haven: the Blue Hole. Turtle could not have imagined how much that simple gesture would alter the rest of her life, or the lives of those she loves. As tensions rise, it becomes clear there are those in Pisgah Ridge who reject the presence of anyone different-and those who would welcome the new refugee family. In just one summer-in a collision of love, hate, jealousy, beauty and a muddy swimming hole-everything changes.

"How MUCH is the crazy-much love?" This simple question is answered as two parents recount the journey of adopting their daughter and the many milestone moments that follow. From the child's first bath and first time riding a tricycle, all the way to her boarding that big yellow bus, the crazy-much love grows SO MUCH that it spills out the windows and busts down the doors. A warm, lyrical celebration of the deep love parents hold for their children, and a comforting message for kids about how there can be only one special YOU.

Five intrepid cousins - Paige, Perissa, Kadejah, Jhané and Deondrea - are on their summer break. They’re looking forward to long exciting days sailing, fishing and diving. When a local fisherman, PJ, goes missing in the dangerous waters of The Devil’s Talon, the girls are determined to find him. The thrill is on.

A quiet coastal village in post-World War II America is shaken when the secrets of the past and present collide in a riveting novel by the bestselling author of Under a Gilded Moon. Five years after the war, Amie Stilwell, a photo interpreter for an Allied unit in England, returns to her hometown in Maine. Jobless and discouraged but stubbornly resourceful, she's starting over in the same coastal village where her life once went so wrong. Waiting for her is Shibby Travis, the surrogate mother with whom Amie never lost touch. But the unexpected also awaits... A silent, abandoned boy is found with a note from a stranger pleading that he be watched over. Amie and Shibby take him in, but the mysteries multiply when a Boston socialite is found dead in a nearby barn and an old friend, believed to be a casualty of war, suddenly reappears. Trained to see what others cannot, to scan for clues, and to expose enemies, Amie uses her skills to protect a child, solve a crime, and find the motive behind a veteran's masquerade. But through the hazy filter of a town's secrets, Amie must also confront her own painful past.

2015: After the sudden death of her troubled mother, struggling Harvard grad student Kate Drayton walks out on her lecture-- and her entire New England life. She flees to Charleston, South Carolina, the place where her parents met, convinced it holds the key to understanding her fractured family and saving her career in academia. Her mother was researching a failed 1822 slave revolt-- and Kate will continue her work. 1822: Tom Russell, a gifted blacksmith and slave, grappled with a terrible choice: arm the uprising spearheaded by members of the fiercely independent African Methodist Episcopal Church or keep his own neck out of the noose and protect the woman he loves.