The first step to letting go of the past is forgiving it. Every day of her life Julia Rich lives with the memory of a horrible accident she caused long ago. In the years since, she has tried to hide her guilt in the quiet routine of teaching at a small South Carolina college, avoiding close relationships with family and would-be friends. But one day a phone call from Carmen, a niece she has never met, disrupts her carefully controlled world. Carmen...

Kate Youngblood is heading into an age where her eyes are less blue, her charm worn out, and soon no one will ever truly look at her, want to know her, again. Except one. Sam Grist is Kate's most promising student. An unflinching writer with razor-sharp clarity who gravitates towards dark themes and twisted plots, his raw talent is something Kate wants to nurture into literary success. But he's not there solely to be the best writer. He's been watching...

English professor Elizabeth Lancaster is living her perfectly orchestrated, perfectly dull life when action star FX Fahey-her college boyfriend and one-time philandering husband-shows up with a job offer she can't resist. In order to snag some positive buzz for his upcoming flick, the studio wants FX to gain some serious acting cred. That means taking a part in an avant-garde version of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival....

"Claire "Mac" Woods--a professor enjoying her newfound hotshot status at an academic conference--finally has the acceptance and admiration she has long craved. But at the conference's hotel bar, Mac is surprised to run into a face from a past she'd rather forget: the moneyed, effortlessly perfect Gwendolyn Whitney, Mac's foil, rival, and former best friend. When Gwen moved to town in high school, Claire--then known as Mac, a poor kid from a troubled...

"Charlotte McGanley knows happiness. Just ask anyone who's read Perfect Happiness, her bestselling book about how she, a busy mother and professor, used her no-nonsense positive psychology research to brighten her own life. She always pictured her career beginning and ending in the halls of academia, but now she's become a bit of a self-help guru. No one is more surprised by this than Charlotte herself, who has secretly never been more miserable....

Laurie R. King has won an Edgar Award and places on best-seller lists for her mysteries. Fans are addicted to her two remarkably successful series, one featuring San Francisco policewoman Kate Martinelli, and the other focusing on Mary Russell, Sherlock Holmes' young wife and partner. A Darker Place stands alone. It is a journey into the secretive world of cults. Professor Anne Waverly teaches religious studies at a respected university. Middle-aged...

There's an unpleasant surprise waiting outside Wyoming college professor Sally Alder's office on a cold blustery afternoon: a female student, Charlie Preston, recently and brutally battered. Since Charlie refuses to call the cops, tell her family, or see a doctor, Sally has no other recourse but to give the damaged girl the coat off her back, the cash in her wallet, and to wish her good luck. But two weeks after Charlie vanishes, the body of her...