"Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet. So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue-in Marilyn's case that her daughter become...

"Twenty years ago she had her whole life spread out before her. She was Bess Walsh, a freshly scrubbed middle-class student ready to conquer the design world. And she was taken. Absolutely and completely. But not by Andy, her well-groomed, intellectual boyfriend who hinted more than once about a ring. No. During that hot summer as a waitress and living on the beach, she met Nick, the local bad boy. He was, to put it mildly, not someone she could take...

In Boston, the family of a tycoon sit down to a reading of the will when there appears Julia, claiming to be a half-sister and demanding her share. In fact, Julia is a phony, invented by a son seeking control of his father's empire after murdering him.

"When Emily Ryan is found drowned in the family pool, pumped full of barbiturates and alcohol, a series of events with cataclysmic consequences ensues. Emily's lover ... finds himself responsible for her twin daughters, whose piercing stares fill him with the guilt and anguish he so desperately tries to hide from his wife. A low-level criminal named The Gonk takes over the cottage of a reclusive elderly artist, complete with graveyard and moonshine...

Worn out from nursing soldiers at a Milwaukee hospital and struggling to recover from a traumatic love affair, Amanda Starkey returns to her family's rural Wisconsin farm to stay with her beloved sister, Mattie, and young niece, Ruth.

"Pocos días antes de morir, Nel Abbott estuvo llamando a su hermana, pero Jules no cogió el teléfono, ignoró sus súplicas de ayuda. Ahora Nel está muerta. Dicen que saltó al río. Y Jules se ve arrastrada al pequeño pueblo de los veranos de su infancia, un lugar del que creía haber escapado, para cuidar de la adolescente que su hermana deja atrás. Pero Jules tiene miedo. Mucho miedo. Miedo al agua, miedo de sus recuerdos enterrados largo...

Rendered an outcast in town after her friend Anna's death, Evie befriends a newcomer with an uncanny likeness to Anna and when the girls pursue romances with two princes, Evie has a chance at happiness until her new friend reveals a secret.

"Samantha and Rachel used to be friends. But then Rachel betrayed Samantha ... and Samantha decided to make her life a living nightmare. Then one day, Sam and Rachel found themselves in a fight by a lake. Samantha pushed Rachel ... and watched as Rachel fell back. And back. Into the water. And gone. No way to save her. No way she could be alive. The next day, Rachel shows up to school as if nothing happened. And now she's the one who wants to make...