Fifteen years ago, Kate Ryan and her daughter Ruby moved to the secluded village of Zamora in northern New Mexico to find a quiet life off the grid. But when Kate invites the wrong drifter home for the night, the delicate peace of their domain is shattered. Troy Mason manages to hang onto Kate for a few weeks, though his charm increasingly fails to offset his lies and delusions of grandeur. It is only a matter of time before the lies turn abusive, igniting a chain reaction of violence and murder. Not even a bullet in the leg will keep Troy from seeking revenge as he chases the missing Ruby over back roads through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, down the River of No Return, and to a white supremacy enclave in Idaho’s Bitterroot Wilderness. Nearly Nowhere explores the darkest places of the American West, emerging with only a fragile hope of redemption in the maternal ties that bind. Originally published by Gallimard’s la Serie noire as Presque nulle part.

When Harvey Lipscomb's mental state deteriorates, he struggles to keep the secrets from his past from his family. But as the days and weeks tick by, it’s clear Harvey is not the kind, loving husband and grandfather he has portrayed himself to be.

Following up her acclaimed debut, Because You'll Never Meet Me, Leah Thomas continues the stories of Ollie and Moritz in another heart-warming story of unique friendship

Milkwood is not a nice place to be. With the passing of generations, it has curdled. At night it casts a buttery light on the moon. Fortunately, all the action in this book occurs elsewhere. It mostly happens in a warped version of the music industry or in an impossible tavern or in a future where everything is illegal. It sometimes even happens outside the narrative. But never in Milkwood. Never. Milkwood is barely even mentioned. For it is not a nice place to be.

“When I was starting College Presidents for Gun Safety, one of the concerns I heard was the idea that there were just too many issues on which to articulate an opinion. Where would it stop? Where would we draw the line? . . . In light of this latest tragedy, on a college campus that could have been any of ours, I would say: ‘We are nowhere near the line yet.’” (Lawrence Schall, quoted in “Tragedy at Umpqua,” by Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed, October 2, 2015) In this short work, Elizabeth Boquet explores the line Lawrence Schall describes above, tracing the overlaps and intersections of a lifelong education around guns and violence, as a student, a teacher, a feminist, a daughter, a wife, a citizen and across the dislocations and relocations that are part of a life lived in and around school. Weaving narratives of family, the university classroom and administration, her husband’s work as a police officer, and her work with students and the Poetry for Peace effort that her writing center sponsors in the local schools, she recounts her efforts to respond to moments of violence with a pedagogy of peace. “Can we not acknowledge that our experiences with pain anywhere should render us more, not less, capable of responding to it everywhere?” she asks. “Compassion, it seems to me, is an infinitely renewable resource.”

In the dark overlap between music and industry, there dwells a group of people whose lives and dealings are every bit as commonplace and fantastic, as high-flung and ridiculous, as noble and sordid as the stories they inspire. Don, Ross, and Chavez comprise Seventeen; Neil, Mika, Darcy, and Darren make up Limna. One is a hard-working club band committed to a music-first agenda and convinced by wily manager Deedee Vanian that this is indeed the road they're on. The other is an unapologetically commercial construct, pieced together and driven into the market by professional hitmakers and by manager Annika Guttkuhn, herself a "discovery" and protegee of Deedee's. Competing for the same recording contract, the two acts are combined on a single bill and booked for a string of appearances from New England to Florida. But who has orchestrated the ill-fated trip, and why? How far can Annika push her act, armed with nothing but an imaginary following and her trumped-up press releases? And why should Don fro Seventeen be her chief coconspirator? Songs from Nowhere Near the Heart presents an unforgettable and richly textured cast of characters, each trying to outwit and outflank the others, for reasons and with results that won't become entirely clear before a final, hilarious sequence of events in rural Florida.

Loving a lost lord: Battered by the sea, Adam remembers nothing of his past, his ducal rank, nor the shipwreck that almost claimed his life. However, he's delighted to hear that the golden-haired vision tending his wounds in his wife. But Mariah Clarke has a secret--and a passion begun in fantasy has become dangerously real and completely irresistible.

Can the pieces of a broken past be enough to build a solid future? Haunted by sorrow and regret, Margaret Hale stands at the precipice of an uncertain destiny. Fiercely determined but not knowing how to find her way, she risks the little she has left on the heart she once shattered—hoping somehow to win back his respect, if not his love. Since he was a boy, John Thornton has fought the consequences of his father’s mistakes. Resolved to overcome past failings and the disdain of the world, he has striven for wealth, respect, and personal honour, but he is denied love. Now, all he had previously gained is slipping away, but he cannot resist a second chance with the woman he once lost. Crushed on all sides, all he has left to offer the one who needs him most is a home, and a heart that aches for her. Can a struggling manufacturer ever be enough for a woman who deserves the world? Can a grieving, inexperienced young woman learn to look beyond her Southern past to appreciate her Northern man? When sorrow and fear threaten to conquer them both, they must overcome the odds to find the strength to forge a better life ahead. Nowhere but North presents the powerful back stories that built these beloved characters and even now drive them toward their futures. This dramatic tale delves into the wonderful world of Elizabeth Gaskell’s epic North & South.