When his best friend Teddy dies of an overdose on the last day of 1987, Jude Keffy-Horn finds his relationship with drugs and his parents devolving into the extreme as he gets caught up in an underground youth culture known as straight edge.

Although he finally agrees that he has too many toys and needs to give them away, there is one toy that Spencer absolutely cannot part with.

Eight years ago, James Keeper fell in love with his upstairs neighbor in Boston, a sassy pastry chef with gray eyes and a fierce attitude. They got married, found a dog, and shopped for cilantro. But conflicting schedules and a real estate deal gone bad took its toll on the twenty-somethings in love. One divorce later, the hand-me-down chairs were separated, the potato masher custody settled, and Keeper moved to Providence to work with his best friend...

A girl explains how her parents are different in color, tastes in art and food, and pet preferences, and how she herself is different too but just right.

An invitation from her ex-boyfriend Rick to attend the Bible study group in his apartment confuses sixteen-year-old Christy and reminds her of the severe restrictions placed on her activities by her parents.

How far will you go to achieve a dream? That's the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete. For the Knoxes there are no limits--until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community and everything they have worked so hard for is suddenly at risk. As rumors swirl among the other parents, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together...

"David Hedges is having an unusual midlife crisis. His boyfriend, Soren, has left him for an older man. His job is exasperating. As his life reaches new lows, his weight reaches new highs. Across the country, Julie Fiske isn't having a much better time herself. Carol, the woman (younger, of course) that Henry, her second husband, left her for, is downright likable--more likeable than Henry was. Her sullen teen daughter adamantly refuses to apply to...

"Thren Felhorn is the greatest assassin of his time. All the thieves' guilds of the city are under his unflinching control. If he has his way, death will soon spill out from the shadows and into the streets. Aaron is Thren's son, trained to be heir to his father's criminal empire. He's cold, ruthless--everything an assassin should be. But when Aaron risks his life to protect a priest's daughter from his own guild, he glimpses a world beyond piston,...

When Alexandra Richards approaches professional declutterer Ellen Curtis to ask her to help sort out her mother's chaotic flat, Ellen gets the impression Alexandra doesn't like her mother very much. But when Ingrid Richards' body is discovered in her burned-out home, Alexandra's exasperated words don't seem such a joke. Due to the hazardous state of the victim's over-cluttered residence, the police are inclined to dismiss her death as an unfortunate...

A young boy comes to accept his parents' unusual behavior which includes packing surprises in his lunch box and greeting strangers they meet on the street.