Afghanistan, 1975: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return to Afghanistan under Taliban rule to find the one thing that his new world cannot...

Sisters Alice and Riley reunite with their childhood friend, Paul, at the beach community where they spent summers growing up, but a blossoming romance between Alice and Paul, a serious illness, and a dark family secret force the trio to leave their innocence behind.

"Annie Zook--the preacher's eldest daughter--is expected to join the Amish church, but at 20 she is 'still deciding.' Because of the strict rules that guide the Plain community, she must continually squelch her artistic passion, although it has become her solace"--Provided by publisher.

To say that Babs has been my closest friend for sixteen years is rather like saying that Einstein was good at sums. We were blood sisters from the age of eleven (before my mother prized the razor out of Babs's hand). But now Babs, noisy and as fun as a day at the beach, is getting married. And Natalie Miller, twenty-seven, senior press officer for the London Ballet, panics. What happens when your best friend pledges everlasting love to someone else?...

A New York Times Notable Book

Acclaimed author Ann Patchett's debut novel, hailed as "beautifully written . . . a first novel that second- and third-time novelists would envy for its grace, insight, and compassion" (Boston Herald)

St. Elizabeth's, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while. Not so Rose Clinton, a beautiful, mysterious woman who

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