Amy Rubinate

"Twelve-year-old Truly Lovejoy's family moves to a small town to take over a bookstore. Soon, she has to solve two mysteries involving a missing book and an undelivered letter"--

Gambling everything, including the family farm, Cullen McNamara travels to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with his most recent invention. But the noise in the fair's Machinery Hall makes it impossible to communicate with potential buyers. In an act of desperation, he hires Della Wentworth, a teacher of the deaf, to tutor him in the art of lip-reading. The young teacher is reluctant to participate, and Cullen has trouble keeping his mind on his lessons...

"Creepy! Crawly! Criminy! Stink is bonkers about most scientific things. But dangle a spider in front of him and he goes berserk! Stink is so freaked out by spiders that he can't read about them. He can't look at them. He can't think about them. And he for sure can't touch them! Stink has arachnophobia (a fear of spiders), and he has it bad. But when a hairy backyard emergency arises, Stink is forced to face his fear--and eight beady eyes--head-on....

Alaskans Luke, Chickie, Sonny, Donna, and Amiq relate their experiences in the early 1960s when they are forced to attend a Catholic boarding school where, despite different tribal affiliations, they come to find a sort of family and home.

"There's nothing left for Adelia Cunnane in Ireland. The aunt she cared for has passed, and the family farm has been sold for taxes. But her uncle Paddy has written her: Come to America... Dee has always had a magical touch with animals, and she finds employment with her uncle on the Maryland horse farm owned by Travis Grant. It's a joy to ride Travis's chestnut Thoroughbred--and to spend her first paycheck on luxuries she never had in the old country....

"Rory, a girl in witness protection, thinks the serial killer she turned in has found her and is killing people around her. But as she investigates, she discovers a dark, disturbing truth about her new hometown"--

In 1995 Evanston, Illinois, sixteen-year-old Anna's perfectly normal life is turned upside-down when she meets Bennett, whose ability to travel through space and time creates complications for them both.

"Mercy Dane, jaded from her past in a troubled foster home, races to Blessings, Georgia to donate blood to save the life of an accident victim, and is surprised when the grateful town opens its arms to her. Police Chief Lon Pittman finds himself drawn to her, and ready to do anything to convince her that home is where their heart is." --

"Search for Love : After the loss of her parents, Serenity Smith receives an unexpected letter from a relative she's never met. When she travels all the way from Washington, D.C. to the family's estate in the Brittany region of France, she's greeted with cold politeness by the Comtesse de Kergallen--her grandmother--and the charming, insufferable Christophe. As she learns of the wild grievances they hold against her parents, Serenity is determined...

"Brighton Smith doesn't do outrageous. As an insurance actuary, it's her job to assess risk and avoid bad investments. But when her fiancé calls to confess he's married someone else on a whim ("I looked at her and I just knew!"), she snaps. That night, at a local bar, Jake Sorenson--hot, rich, and way out of her league--buys Brighton a cocktail. At midnight, she kisses him. And by dawn, they're exchanging vows at a drive-through chapel. Brighton...