On Bernadine Brown's fifty-second birthday she received an unexpected gift-she caught her husband, Leo, cheating with his secretary. She was hurt-angry, too-but she didn't cry woe is me. Nope, she hired herself a top-notch lawyer and ended up with a cool $275 million. Having been raised in the church, she knew that when much is given much is expected, so she asked God to send her a purpose. The purpose turned out to be a town: Henry Adams, Kansas,...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • NOW IN DEVELOPMENT AS AN HBO LIMITED SERIES

From the acclaimed author of Gone Girl, “a riveting tale of true horror by a writer who has all the gifts to pull it off” (Chicago Tribune)
 
“Sensuous and chilling . . . a propulsive and twisty mystery.”—Entertainment...

After his parents are kidnapped, timid twelve-year-old Henry York leaves his sheltered Boston life and moves to small-town Kansas, where he and his cousin Henrietta discover and explore hidden doors in his attic room that seem to open onto other worlds

First published in 1930, "Not Without Laughter" is the debut novel by Langston Hughes and a deeply personal, semi-autobiographical tale of an African-American family in rural Kansas. Langston Hughes, born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, spent much of his youth in Lawrence, Kansas and it is here that he set his first novel. "Not Without Laughter" tells the story of young Sandy Rogers as he grows from a boy to a young man and focuses on his "awakening...

1998 HOLT Medallion finalist! / 1998 finalist for Romantic Times Reviewers Choice!
The fictional town of Hope discovers the importance of forgiveness, overcoming prejudice, and the dangers of keeping unhealthy family secrets.
Jack Cornwall lost everything during the Civil War, so when his beloved nephew Chipper is reclaimed by his father, Cornwall vows revenge on the man who took away his last link with the past. Arriving in the town...

Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker is the daughter of a drifter who, in the summer of 1936, sends her to stay with an old friend in Manifest, Kansas, where he grew up, and where she hopes to find out some things about his past. Over the summer she pieces together his story. Having heard stories about Manifest, Abilene is disappointed to find that it's just a dried-up, worn-out old town. But her disappointment quickly turns to excitement when she discovers...

V.I. Warshawski's impossible god-daughter Bernie convinces her to look for August, a young film-maker who has disappeared. The evidence indicates that he has gone to Kansas in the company of Emerald, an older black movie actress who wants to film the story of her life. Her search takes V.I. from the military base Emerald was born on, to the farm where she grew up outside a university town, ploughing up past and present-day secrets as she goes. What...

Fargo always finds his mark…
The boomtown of Plum Creek, Kansas, is already going bust when Skye Fargo rides through. So when he witnesses a team of father–and-daughter grifters knocking over the town’s bank, he can’t let them get away with what little the poor townspeople have left. But his good deed isn’t about to go unpunished.
 
With a posse of angry townsfolk on his tail, a pair of brutal...

In the town of Lawrence in the Kaw River Valley in Kansas, two families, the Grelliers and the Schapens, have farmed the land for over one hundred and fifty years. Both families barely tolerate each other because the Schapens, who belong to a fundamentalist church, believe the Grelliers are godless heathens. Into this atmosphere comes Gina Haring, a Wiccan and a lesbian, who is the catalyst for a series of events that end in tragedy and death

Critics and readers everywhere stood up and took notice when Laura Moriarty's captivating debut novel hit the stores in June '03. Janet Maslin of the New York Times praised The Center of Everything as "warm" and "beguiling." USA Today compared the scrappy yet tender-hearted Evelyn Bucknow to Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. It garnered extensive national attention; from Entertainment Weekly to the Boston...