Maggie McIntosh is crazy about her biology teacher and loves to impress him with her academic excellence. But when the dreaded day of the first class dissection arrives, Maggie has to disappoint Mr. O. There's no way she can cut up a worm. Maggie's best friend, Alycia, understands. Alycia is squeamish, too, and shares Maggie's moral outrage. However, she's willing to keep quiet and let her lab partner do the dirty work. Maggies' own lab partner, Matt, completely disagrees. Then, after Maggie walks out on the dissection, he seems to respect her. And classmate Jake, who follows Maggie out the door, appears positively smitten. As she struggles to clarify her position about dissections, Maggie discovers that people and relationships are not always what they seem, and just as there are no perfect fathers (hers left years before), there are no perfect father figures - or even friends.

Major Ernest Pettigrew is perfectly content to lead a quiet life in the sleepy village of Edgecombe St Mary, away from the meddling of the locals and his overbearing son. But when his brother dies, the Major finds himself seeking companionship with the village shopkeeper, Mrs Ali. Drawn together by a love of books and the loss of their partners, they are soon forced to contend with irate relatives and gossiping villagers. The perfect gentleman, but the most unlikely hero, the Major must ask himself what matters most: family obligation, tradition or love? Funny, comforting and heart-warming, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand proves that sometimes, against all odds, life does give you a second chance.

Standing Up with Ga’axsta’las tells the remarkable story of Jane Constance Cook (1870-1951), a controversial Kwakwaka’wakw leader and activist who lived during a period of enormous colonial upheaval. Working collaboratively, Robertson and Cook’s descendants draw on oral histories and textual records to create a nuanced portrait of a high-ranked woman, a cultural mediator, devout Christian, and aboriginal rights activist who criticized potlatch practices for surprising reasons. This powerful meditation on memory and cultural renewal documents how the Kwagu’l Gixsam have revived their long-dormant clan in the hopes of forging a positive cultural identity for future generations through feasting and potlatching.

Neve Halloran and her daughter have shared a fierce love for the austere beauty of Rhode Island’s South County ever since Neve guided Mickey’s first baby steps along the sandy shore. Now, with Mickey a teenager and Neve’s last hope for happiness with her daughter’s loving but unstable father gone, both will struggle to make a new life together amid the windswept landscape that sustains them. Captivated by a fragile wildlife sanctuary, Mickey will move toward womanhood in the company of a lonely boy who shares her instinctive way with the creatures of the coast. And Neve will find herself drawn to a man who has devoted his life to the sanctuary, but who is unable to share the pain of a recent loss—or reconnect with the father who still bears the scars of World War II. As winter gives way to spring, and spring to summer, a secret will emerge that has lain buried in the depths just offshore for decades, a secret that will galvanize the small seaside community. For the waters bear their own vestige of the past—and their ceaseless rhythms may point the way to hope and new beginnings. Lyrical, luminous, and utterly captivating, The Edge of Winter is Luanne Rice at her most penetrating and insightful, in a moving exploration of the bonds that shape us and set us free. From the Hardcover edition.