White Fence

Kiersten Cleaver feels like she’s flunking Motherhood 101. Exhausted by travel sports, homework, and her son’s dyslexia, she joins forces with her neighbors, Rosamund and Piper, to drop out of the scholastic rat race for one year. Together, they start the Beaverbrook Academy for Inquiring Minds in Kiersten’s kitchen, embarking on a journey back to the idyllic life they experienced as children, when phones were attached to the wall and kids played outside until the streetlights came on at dusk. But the women quickly realize fractions aren’t their only problem.

Sketch artist Tino Ciccotelli is passionately dedicated to helping victims of violent crime. For years he's translated their descriptions of attackers into "WANTED" posters. While listening to the victims' pain is emotionally draining, Tino accepts this as part of the job--until he discovers that he and his newest client have a personal connection. He is devastated to see Dorothy's injuries and determined to help the police catch her attacker, but he must also deal with the return of her niece, his first love who left him when their lives were just beginning.

What happens when the life you carefully built starts to unravel—and the dreams you once chased no longer feel like your own? In When the White Picket Fence is No Longer Enough, Sarah Elizabeth invites listeners into the raw, beautiful, and often painful story of her journey from childhood to adulthood as a daughter, mother, professional, and woman reclaiming her identity. This powerful memoir speaks directly to the heart of women who have given their all—for their children, their marriages, their careers—only to wake up one day feeling lost behind the roles they’ve played.

When her black sheep brother disappears, Amanda Janvier eagerly takes in her sixteen year-old niece Tally. The girl is practically an orphan: motherless, and living with a father who raises Tally wherever he lands– in a Buick, a pizza joint, a horse farm–and regularly takes off on wild...

Before the secrets. Before the silence. Before the monster, there was just a girl who learned how. She didn't choose the silence. It chose her first. Briar Ridge, 2005. When children start disappearing from her neighborhood, ten-year-old Laura learns her family's most dangerous lesson: composure is armor, silence is safety, and some things stay buried. But a persistent classmate is getting too close to the truth, and Laura is running out of ways to steer her away. The White Fence is the prequel to the One Family psychological thriller series. It's the origin story of a woman who learned, ...

Lydia Whitlock was raised in her aunt's boardinghouse after her father abandoned her when her mother died. She was twelve years old at the time and was starting to become a young woman with her whole life ahead of her. Aunt Tilly was a widow and was extremely busy with her responsibilities of running her boardinghouse. She was more than happy to take Lydia in so she would have her help with the housework, cooking, and the running of errands. Lydia always admired the homes with white picket fences when she would run errands for her aunt and hoped one day to be able to have her own home with ...

"Best Offer Wins is a clever, twisted, and hilarious thriller. I finished it in a day because I couldn't stop reading!" —Freida McFadden, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Housemaid "[Narrator Cia] Court shines in her delivery of Margo's extensive inner monologues, projecting both...

Katie discovers that the valley behind her grandmother’s garden is more mysterious than it seems. After tumbling into 10th-century England and encountering Saint Edith of Wilton along with her wild animal menagerie, she is helped home, wondering whether her adventure was truly real. But after Katie, her cousins, and a neighborhood friend are drawn back in time once again, she realizes her grandmother’s garden gate is a portal into faraway worlds, where patron saints are real people making real-life decisions.

My four-decade journey, authentic and raw, is written to help chip away the stigma associated with mental illness in order to create the healthy relationships we all crave and need as humans.

The notion that some might have it better than others, for no good reason, offends our sensibilities. Yet, until we talk about privilege, we’ll never fully understand it or find our way forward. Amy Julia Becker welcomes us into her life, from the charm of her privileged southern childhood to her adult experience in the Northeast, and the denials she has faced as the mother of a child with special needs. She tells us how a life behind a white picket fence can restrict even as it protects and how it can prevent us from loving our neighbors well.

What would you sacrifice to discover who you truly are? To the outside world, Kristy Dominiak had the perfect life: a loving husband, three beautiful children, community respect, financial security. But behind this façade, Kristy was quietly fighting the inner demons determined to shatter everything she cherished.

White Picket Fences is a heartfelt family drama fueled by an honest story of motherhood, written for those of us caught up in our own self-searching journeys. The one thing Julie Cahill knows, because of her transitory upbringing as a military brat is that she never had a hometown. So she has made sure her kids would grow up in one forever home, in a forever neighborhood, with lots of forever friends. Yet her dream of a permanent hometown has her feeling fenced in.

Ben Rehder is best known for his hilarious Blanco County mystery series featuring Texas game warden John Marlin. But Rehder has written numerous magazine articles over the years, and this collection presents some of his favorites, with a focus on game warden anecdotes and Texas wildlife. Also includes a bonus excerpt from Rehder's Edgar Award-nominated first novel, Buck Fever. Don't miss it!

Nothing is simple about being a new mom alone in a new house, especially when your baby is collicky. Natalie Fanning loves her son unconditionally, but being a mother was not all she wanted to be. Enter Paul, the neighbor. Paul provides the lifeline she needs in what feels like the most desperate of times. When Paul is helping with Oliver, calmed by his reassuring, steady presence, Nat feels like she can finally rest. But Paul wants something in return.

Have you ever felt burdened by tradition? Or second-guessed your uniqueness because of society? Men and women around the world spend their lives conforming to norms. They forget the value of their time, putting their shoulders on the wheel for the role they are trying to fulfil. Women are at the short end of the bargain in most instances, but men don’t always have it easy. When it comes to marriage or sex, there are expectations on both sides. We build our dream home on the shaky ground of tradition and wonder why there are so many tremors.

Gwen Hill adores Green Valley Avenue. So when the house next door is sold, Gwen wonders how the new family will settle into this cosy community. More than a new home, it's a clean slate for Frankie, who has moved her brood in a bid to save her marriage. To maintain privacy and corral her children, Frankie proposes a fence between the properties, destroying Gwen's picture-perfect front yard. To Gwen, this is an act of war.

This story came to me in the form of a letter and email, and I am publishing it with the author's permission, I hope, word for word, with nothing changed or left out except the author's name and the city where he lives....