"Tom Lowe's identity and his pride are invested in the work he does with his back and his hands. He designed and built his family's dream home, working extra hours to pay off the adjustable rate mortgage he took on the property, convinced he is making every sacrifice for the happiness of his wife and son. Until, in a moment of fatigued inattention, shingling a roof in too-bright sunlight, he falls. In constant pain, addicted to painkillers at the...

"Behind You Is the Sea brings us into the homes and lives of three main families-the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars-Palestinian immigrants who've all found a different welcome in America. Their various fates and struggles cause their community dynamic to sizzle and sometimes explode: The wealthy Ammar family employs young Maysoon Baladi, whose own family struggles financially, to clean up after their spoiled teenagers. Meanwhile, Marcus Salameh...

In a neighborhood known as the Bramble Patch, the Lyons family endures despite poverty, racism, and the ghoulish appetites of an underworld kingpin called the Barghest.As the years pass and the neighborhood falls into decay, along with the town that surrounds it, what's left of the Bramble Patch will learn the saying is true: These bones are gonna rise again.

In the hot summer of 1994 in Fife, teenage Cora Mowat struggles with her small-town life and uncertain future while dealing with her mother's new, enigmatic boyfriend, Gunner, a one-eyed shoplifter with hidden secrets, and seeking to escape her circumstances after a tragedy strikes.

Mary Roberts is a poor gutter child living in a council flat in 1950's London. When she and her sister are left at an orphanage by their mother, they don't think their lives can get any worse. Harry Evans is an orphan who finds himself, with Mary and her sister, on board a ship bound for Australia. They're sent to a farm school for children where abuse and neglect are rife. A journey that will change their lives forever, and from which they'll never...

Poverty and injustice test one man's relentless optimism. From one of China's foremost authors, Jia Pingwa's Happy Dreams is a powerful depiction of life in industrializing contemporary China, in all its humor and pathos, as seen through the eyes of Happy Liu, a charming and clever rural laborer who leaves his home for the gritty, harsh streets of Xi'an in search of a better life. After a disastrous end to a relationship, Hawa "Happy" Liu embarks...

When his father is passed over for village head, leaving their family as the lowest Igbo caste, fifteen-year-old Nigerian Dimkpa must make his own fate, learning that no money is easy money, superstition runs deep, knowledge is power and sometimes it's better to live in the present than chase a future out of reach. "Fifteen-year-old Dimkpa dreams of the day his father will be made village head. He will return to school and maybe even go on to university;...

"Biltmore House, a palatial mansion being built by the Vanderbilts, American "royalty," is in its final stages of construction in North Carolina. The country's grandest example of privilege, it symbolizes the aspirations of its owner and the dreams of a girl, just as driven, who lives in its shadow. Kerry MacGregor's future is derailed when, after two years in college in New York City, family obligations call her home to the beautiful Appalachians....

Luisiana, 1875. En la tumultuosa Era de la Reconstrucci̤n, tres j̤venes parten juntas en una arriesgada misi̤n: Hannie, una esclava liberada; Lavinia, la consentida heredera de una plantaci̤n que le ha sido arrebatada; y Juneau Jane, la hermanastra mestiza de Lavinia. Cada una de ellas carga con sus propias heridas y guarda profundos secretos, mientras emprenden un viaje a Texas a trav̌s de carreteras llenas de justicieros y soldados que todav̕a...

"Is it ever too late to right a wrong? Throughout Southern India, eighty-six villages are set to completely submerge due to a government-sanctioned dam across the Krishna river. One such village, Nilgi, has so far avoided the illegal iron-ore mining and floods that have ravaged the district for decades, believing itself to be indestructible and incorruptible despite warnings of impending doom. With whole mountains disappearing from the mining around...