When her mother chastises her for taking her little brother out on a blueberry-picking adventure, Rosie decides to run away.

Rosie is a sixteen-year-old girl with Down syndrome who's fighting for little freedoms, tolerance, and love. "They can't send you away. What will we do? We need us. I stop your angry, Jack. And you make me strong. You make me Rosie." Rosie loves Jack. Jack loves Rosie. So, when they're separated, Rosie will do anything to find the boy who makes the sun shine in her head. Even run away from home. Even struggle across London and travel to Brighton, though the trains are canceled, and the snow is falling. Even though some people might think a girl with Down syndrome could never survive on her own. Introducing a strong, determined, and neurodiverse teen protagonist, debut author Mel Darbon gives readers a unique character experience with a much-needed, alternative point of view. This contemporary young adult novel is a voice-driven, heartfelt story of finding your place in a world that often leaves no room for outsiders.

Young Gabe's is a story of heartache and jubilation. He's a child slave freed after the Civil War. He sets off to reunite himself with his mother who was sold before the war's end. "Come morning, the folks take to the road again, singing songs, telling stories, and dream-talking of the lives they're gonna live in freedom. And I follow, keeping my eyes open for my mama. Days pass into weeks, and one gray evening as Mr. Dark laid down his coat, I see a woman with a yellow scarf 'round her neck as bright as a star. I run up to grab her hand, saying, Mama?" Gabe's odyssey in search of his mother has an epic American quality, and Keith Shepherd's illustrations—influenced deeply by the narrative work of Thomas Hart Benton—fervently portray the struggle in Gabe's heroic quest. Selected as a 2012 Skipping Stones Honor Book and for the 2012 IRA Teacher's Choices Reading List. A. LaFaye hopes Walking Home to Rosie Lee will honor all those African American families who struggled to reunite at the end of the Civil War and will pay her respects to those who banded together through the long struggle for freedom. She is the author of the Scott O'Dell Award-winning novel Worth and lives in Tennessee with her daughter Adia. Keith Shepherd is a painter, graphic designer, and educator working out of Kansas City, MO. His painting "Sunday Best" is part of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum's permanent collection. He describes his work as being "motivated by family, religion, history, and music."

"Warmly funny and gorgeously sexy."—New York Times Book Review A LibraryReads Pick House Rules: Do your own dishes Knock before entering the bathroom Never look up your roommate online The Wheatons are infamous among the east coast elite for their lack of impulse control, except for their daughter Clara. She’s the consummate socialite: over-achieving, well-mannered, predictable. But every Wheaton has their weakness. When Clara’s childhood crush invites her to move cross-country, the offer is too tempting to resist. Unfortunately, it’s also too good to be true. After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with a charming stranger. Josh might be a bit too perceptive—not to mention handsome—for comfort, but there’s a good chance he and Clara could have survived sharing a summer sublet if she hadn’t looked him up on the Internet... Once she learns how Josh has made a name for himself, Clara realizes living with him might make her the Wheaton’s most scandalous story yet. His professional prowess inspires her to take tackling the stigma against female desire into her own hands. They may not agree on much, but Josh and Clara both believe women deserve better sex. What they decide to do about it will change both of their lives, and if they’re lucky, they’ll help everyone else get lucky too.

Little Peach meets We Were Liars in this haunting YA debut about a troubled teen searching for her birth mom who uncovers disturbing family secrets along the way. After her father passes away, seventeen-year-old Rosie is forced to live with her abusive stepmom Lucy and her deadbeat boyfriend, Judd, who gives Rosie the sort of looks you shouldn’t give your girlfriend’s step-daughter. Desperate for a way out, Rosie would do just about anything to escape the life she’s been handed. Then she finds a letter her dad wrote years ago, a letter confessing that Rosie's birth mother isn't dead, as she believed, but alive somewhere—having left them when Rosie was a little girl for reasons he won't reveal. Rosie resolves to find her birth mom, and she'll put everything on the line to make that happen. She hires a PI paid for by her best friend, Mary, who turns tricks for money. Unlike Rosie, Mary's no delicate flower and when she sees the opportunity to make some cash and help out her closest friend, she takes it. Romance blooms when the PI Rosie hires hands the case off to his handsome nephew Mac, but Rosie struggles to keep her illicit activities with Mary a secret. Things begin to unravel when Rosie starts getting creepy anonymous texts from johns looking for Mary. And then there's Mary, the one person Rosie can count on, who's been acting strangely all of a sudden. As Rosie and Mary get closer to finally uncovering the truth about Rosie's mom, Rosie comes face to face with a secret she never saw coming. A visceral, poignant tale of friendship, sacrifice and identity, Rosie Girl is an unforgettable debut that will leave you guessing till the very last page.

A princess runs away to avoid marriage, taking three of her favourite gowns with her. She works hard, herding geese in a tatty donkeyskin cloak, but when she thinks no one is looking, she tries on one of her beautiful gowns. She is spotted by a prince who falls in love with her at first sight, but she runs away. How will he find her? And what will he think when he finds out that she's just a goose girl?

Rosie is a compelling novel by the bestselling author Lesley Pearse. Her brutal, violent family will be the death of her . . . Without a mother, Rosie is at the mercy of her father and thuggish brothers. Then one day a friend comes to the farm in the form of cockney housekeeper Heather Farley. But soon enough Heather vanishes, abandoning Rosie to her fate. Only when Thomas Farley comes to find his sister several years later, does Rosie learn the terrible truth about Heather - and her family. Running away from home, she finds herself pursued by the man who brought ruin on her family. Is he out to get her too? Or could he have some other reason for chasing her? Lesley Pearse, author of the UK and international best-sellers Stolen and Belle, tells a captivating and powerful story of family and secrets in her compelling novel Rosie. If you like Susan Lewis, you'll love Lesley Pearse. Praise for Lesley Pearse: 'With characters it is impossible not to care about ... this is storytelling at its very best' Daily Mail 'Lose yourself in this epic saga' Bella 'An emotional and moving epic you won't forget in a hurry' Woman's Weekly

From the acclaimed author of the “wonderfully funny and openhearted” (NPR) Drinking with Men comes a poignant, wrenching, and ultimately hopeful book—equal parts memoir and social history—that follows the author, after a series of tragic losses, to Northern Ireland, where she finds a path toward healing. Rosie Schaap had a solid career as a journalist and a life that looked to others like nonstop fun: all drinking and dining and traveling to beautiful places—and getting paid to write about it. But under the surface she was reeling from the loss of her husband and her mother—who died just one year apart. Caring for them had claimed much of her daily life in her late thirties. Mourning them would take longer. It wasn’t until a reporting trip took her to the Northern Irish countryside that Rosie found a partner to heal with: Glenarm, a quiet, seaside village in County Antrim. That first visit made such an impression she returned to make a life. This unlikely place—in a small, tough country mainly associated with sectarian strife—gave her a measure of peace that had seemed impossible elsewhere. Weaving personal narrative and social history, The Slow Road North is a moving and wise look at how a community can offer the key to healing. It’s a portrait of a complicated place at a pivotal time—through Brexit, a historic school integration, and a pandemic—and a love letter to a village and a culture.

Play with fire and you’ll get burned . . . Who can you trust in this brand new edge-of-your-seat thriller?