"Beloved literature teacher Maggie Adair loves her life at the prestigious Downey House boarding school on the gloriously sunny, windy English coast. It was there that she found her footing as a teacher and fell in love with her colleague David--the two great anchors of her life. But these days Maggie's feeling restless, lured by the promise of a different life back in her Scottish hometown. How can you follow your heart when it seems to be taking...

"Stonebridge High's resident bad boy, Wesley "Big Mac" Mackenzie, is failing senior year--thanks to his unchecked anger, rowdy friends, and a tendency to ditch his homework for skateboarding and a secret photography obsession. So when his mom drags him to a production of The Nutcracker, Wes isn't interested at all . . . until he sees Tristan Monroe. Mr. Nutcracker himself. Wes knows he shouldn't like Tristan; after all, he's a ballet dancer, and Wes...

In the poverty of the Appalachian coal country in 1908, eight-year-old Minna's life gets even more difficult after her father dies of black lung, and that winter she cannot go to school because she does not have a coat--until the quilting mothers make her a coat using pieces of cloth from their own lives, each with a special story behind it.