A grad student meets his intellectual match and seals his dark fate when he responds to a newspaper ad seeking a conversationalist.

A mystery set in Yale, mixing murder and philosophy. It begins when someone steals Zach Blumberg's dissertation on an obscure nihilistic French philosopher. When another student reports a similar problem and is killed, Zach realizes the foul play is more than academic. A debut in fiction.

When an anonymous benefactor offers to put Samantha Moore through school, with the stipulation that she write frequent letters to him on her progress, Sam finds safety in the letters as her program and her peers force her to confront her past.

"A novel of rare emotional power that excavates the social intricacies of a late-summer weekend -- and a lifetime of buried pain. Almost everything about Wallace, an introverted African-American transplant from Alabama, is at odds with the lakeside Midwestern university town where he is working toward a biochem degree. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends -- some dating each other,...

Professor Gabriel Emerson is a well respected Dante specialist by day, but by night he devotes himself to an uninhibited life of pleasure. He uses his notorious good looks and sophisticated charm to gratify his every whim, but is secretly tortured by his dark past and consumed by the profound belief that he is beyond all hope of redemption. When the sweet and innocent Julia Mitchell enrolls as his graduate student, his attraction and mysterious connection...

"Turns out that reading nothing but true crime isn't exactly conducive to modern dating--and one woman is going to have to learn how to give love a chance when she's used to suspecting the worst. PhD candidate Phoebe Walsh has always been obsessed with true crime. She's even analyzing the genre in her dissertation--if she can manage to finish writing it. It's hard to find the time while she spends the summer in Florida, cleaning out her childhood...

Summer Sullivan of Elm Creek Quilts has returned home to the celebrated quilter's retreat, but it isn't all a delight. Summer hasn't finished her thesis, and she can't graduate until she does. She finds distraction in organizing an exhibit of quilts as a fundraiser. But Summer's research uncovers facts about the town's past, prompting questions about racism, economic injustice, and corruption within their community

Rick Nagano is a graduate student in the history department at USC, struggling to make rent on his South Los Angeles apartment near the neighborhood where his family once lived. When he lands a job as a research assistant for the elderly Mrs. W--, the heir to an oil fortune, he sees it first simply as a source of extra cash. But as he grows closer to the iconoclastic, charming, and feisty Mrs. W--, he gets drawn into a world of privilege and wealth...