The women who spent their childhood summers in a small southern town discover it harbors secrets as lush as the marshes that surround it... Bonny Blankenship’s most treasured memories are of idyllic summers spent in Watersend, South Carolina, with her best friend, Lainey McKay. Amid the sand dunes and oak trees draped with Spanish moss, they swam and wished for happy-ever-afters, then escaped to the local bookshop to read and whisper in the glorious cool silence. Until the night that changed everything, the night that Lainey’s mother disappeared. Now, in her early fifties, Bonny is desperate to clear her head after a tragic mistake threatens her career as an emergency room doctor, and her marriage crumbles around her. With her troubled teenage daughter, Piper, in tow, she goes back to the beloved river house, where she is soon joined by Lainey and her two young children. During lazy summer days and magical nights, they reunite with bookshop owner Mimi, who is tangled with the past and its mysteries. As the three women cling to a fragile peace, buried secrets and long ago loves return like the tide. READERS GUIDE INSIDE

The GammaLAW mission to Aquamarine races against time to end the war with the destructive Roke, searching the depths of the planet's sentient ocean to find the key to destroying the evil aliens

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A daring story of adventure, friendship, and love in the shadow of WWII” (Harper’s Bazaar) from the renowned author of Ape House and Water for Elephants “Gripping, compelling . . . Gruen’s characters are vividly drawn and her scenes are perfectly paced.”—The Boston Globe In January 1945, when Madeline Hyde and her husband, Ellis, are cut off financially by his father, a retired army colonel who is ashamed of his son’s inability to serve, Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father’s favor is to succeed where the Colonel very publicly failed—by hunting down the famous Loch Ness monster. Leaving her sheltered world behind, Maddie reluctantly follows Ellis and his best friend, Hank, to a remote village in the Scottish Highlands. Gradually, the friendships Maddie forms with the townspeople open her up to a larger world than she knew existed. Maddie begins to see that nothing is as it first appears, and as she embraces a fuller sense of who she might be, she becomes aware not only of darker forces around her but of life’s surprising possibilities.

Ambitious young attorney Tom Crane is about to become a partner in a big-city law firm, but he must close his deceased father's law practice in the small town of Bethel. Tom's plan to quietly shut down his father's practice and slink out of town runs into an unexpected roadblock--two million dollars of unclaimed money stashed in a secret bank account.

Everybody Out of the Pond At the Water's Edge will change the way you think about your place in the world. The awesome journey of life's transformation from the first microbes 4 billion years ago to Homo sapiens today is an epic that we are only now beginning to grasp. Magnificent and bizarre, it is the story of how we got here, what we left behind, and what we brought with us. We all know about evolution, but it still seems absurd that our ancestors were fish. Darwin's idea of natural selection was the key to solving generation-to-generation evolution -- microevolution -- but it could only point us toward a complete explanation, still to come, of the engines of macroevolution, the transformation of body shapes across millions of years. Now, drawing on the latest fossil discoveries and breakthrough scientific analysis, Carl Zimmer reveals how macroevolution works. Escorting us along the trail of discovery up to the current dramatic research in paleontology, ecology, genetics, and embryology, Zimmer shows how scientists today are unveiling the secrets of life that biologists struggled with two centuries ago. In this book, you will find a dazzling, brash literary talent and a rigorous scientific sensibility gracefully brought together. Carl Zimmer provides a comprehensive, lucid, and authoritative answer to the mystery of how nature actually made itself.

With brokenness and humility, three generations of women return to their roots to discover who they are and who they are meant to be.

The Outer Banks National Scenic Byway received its designation in 2009, an act that stands as a testament to the historical and cultural importance of the communities linked along the North Carolina coast from Whalebone Junction across to Hatteras and Ocracoke Island and down to the small villages of the Core Sound region. This rich heritage guide introduces readers to the places and people that have made the route and the region a national treasure. Welcoming visitors on a journey across sounds and inlets into villages and through two national seashores, Barbara Garrity-Blake and Karen Willis Amspacher share the stories of people who have shaped their lives out of saltwater and sand. The book considers how the Outer Banks residents have stood their ground and maintained a vibrant way of life while adapting to constant change that is fundamental to life where water meets the land. Heavily illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs, Living at the Water's Edge will lead readers to the proverbial porch of the Outer Banks locals, extending a warm welcome to visitors while encouraging them to understand what many never see or hear: the stories, feelings, and meanings that offer a cultural dimension to the byway experience and deepen the visitor's understanding of life on the tideline.

When the Sudanese civil war reaches his village in 1985, 11-year-old Salva becomes separated from his family and must walk with other Dinka tribe members through southern Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya in search of safe haven. Based on the life of Salva Dut, who, after emigrating to America in 1996, began a project to dig water wells in Sudan. By a Newbery Medal-winning author.

Takes readers on a journey of contemporary US history using primary sources and artifacts.

For most people who seek to create — whether they are artists, writers, or businesspeople — the daily task of immersing themselves in their creative work is both a joy and a profound challenge. Instead of stepping easily into the creative state, they succumb to chronic procrastination and torturous distraction. In Standing at Water’s Edge, psychologist Anne Paris calls on her extensive experience in working with creative clients to explore the deep psychological fears that block us from creative immersion. Employing cutting-edge theory and research, Paris weaves a new understanding of the artist during the creative process. Rather than presenting the creation of art as a lonely, solitary endeavor, she shows how relationships with others are actually crucial to creativity. Shining a light on the innermost experience of the artist as he or she engages with others, the artwork, and the audience, Paris explores how our sense of connection with others can aid or inhibit creative immersion. She reveals a unique model of “mirrors, heroes, and twins” to explore the key relationships that support creativity. Paris’s groundbreaking psychological approach gives artists valuable new insight into their own creative process, allowing them to unlock their potential and finish their greatest projects.