"A hilarious romp." -Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat The charming tale of a small French town in which the local barber, whose business is failing as his clients grow older and lose their hair, decides to become the town matchmaker. Barber Guillaume Ladoucette has always enjoyed great success in his tiny village in southwestern France, catering to the tonsorial needs of Amour-sur-Belle's thirty-three inhabitants. But times have changed. His customers...

"The Mob Squad were heroes not so long ago, but even the most heroic kid is still just a kid. The Mob Squad's leader, Mal, is still milking cows and dreaming of the next adventure. Their sharp-eyed archer Lenna is learning everything she can about the Overworld, but the horizon is still far away. Fearless warrior Chug is running a store with his brother, but his reputation for breaking stuff has some folks still calling him a bad apple. And his inventive...

"Ming survived the famine that killed his parents during China's "Great Leap Forward", and lives a hard but adequate life, working in the fields. When a group of city boys comes to the village as part of a Communist Party re-education program, Ming and his friends aren't sure what to make of the new arrivals...But despite his reservations, Ming befriends a charming city boy called Li. The two couldn't be more different, but slowly they form a bond...

"A Hole in the Heart is the story of what happens when Bean arrives after accepting a last-minute elementary school teaching job in a town of 2,500 people on Alaska's southern coast. Love and marriage follow in short order, surprising Bean, who feels that her husband, Mick, is not only the best thing to happen to her, but the only good thing.". "Then Mick vanishes leading amateur hikers - or "tuna," as the guides call them - up Mt. McKinley. Suddenly,...

Tells the story of a single day that forever transforms the people of Burgdorf, Germany, in which an otherwise gifted and passionate teacher becomes seduced by Hitler's propaganda during the early months of his regime and encourages her ten-year-old students to join the Hitler youth.

When Rakhee Singh is ten years old, her mother takes her from their Minnesota home to visit relatives in India. There she discovers a family secret that will haunt her. Only as a woman on the verge of marriage does Rakhee find the strength to confront the events of that summer and face the price of secrets.

"When Rósa begins to hear strange noises from upstairs in her new husband's home, she turns to the local woman in an attempt to find solace. But the villager's words are even more troubling—confirming many of the rumors about Jón's first wife, Anna, including that he buried her body alone in the middle of the night. Rósa's isolation begins to play tricks on her mind: What—or who—is in the attic?"--

Carrie Brown's triumphant first novel, Rose's Garden, garnered high praise from the critics for its "simple, beautiful language," and for "plumbing the emotional depths of ordinary human beings." Just a year later, she does it again. Lamb in Love is set in a rural English village the year of the Apollo moon landing and tells of two people surprised, halfway through their lives by...what? passion? desire? love? They haven't the experience to quite...

Dona Flor, a giant lady with a big heart, sets off to protect her neighbors from what they think is a dangerous animal, but soon discovers the tiny secret behind the huge noise.

"The team behind Baby Goes to Market and B Is for Baby visit a Nigerian village for a humorous ode to childhood ingenuity. Lami is the best chicken catcher in the whole village. Her sister may be speedy at spelling, her friend fast at braiding hair, and her brother brave with bulls, but when it comes to chickens, nobody is faster or braver than Lami. That is, until the day when Lami chases a little too fast, up the baobab tree, and reaches a little...