Z.Z. Packer's first collection of short stories is rich with unexpected turns, indelible images, and penetrating insight that belies someone so young. Her stories plunge us into the worlds of people living on the edge and to the flashpoints that make or break them, that shape their worldviews forever. In The Stranger, a third-grade girl tries to find her place in the microcosm of summer camp in the larger world in 1981 during the height of the Atlanta...

In the final volume of The Berrybender Narratives, Tasmin and her family are under arrest in Mexican Santa Fe. Tasmin, who would once have followed her husband anywhere, is no longer even sure she likes him, or knows where to go to next. Captain Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, is puzzled by the great changes sweeping over the West, replacing red men and buffalo with towns and farms. Jim Snow, Kit Carson and one of Lord Berrybender's many illegitimate...

In the fourth and final chapter in the Bailey Flanigan Series, Bailey is planning her dream wedding to Brandon Paul in Los Angeles. But doubts are wracking Bailey's mind. Did she make the right choice in choosing Brandon? Or should she return home to Bloomington, Indiana and be with Cody Coleman, her first love?

In the South Side of Chicago, a young woman is determined to protect her best friend and a deadly secret that threatens to undermine both of their families.

"The story of a young woman who takes a one-way flight to New Zealand, abruptly leaving her stable but unfulfilling life in Manhattan, hurtling herself into the unknown, testing fate by hitchhiking, tacitly being swept into the lives of strangers and sleeping in fields, forests or public parks"-- Abandoning her unfulfilling life, an unstable woman flees to New Zealand and tests fate by hitchhiking, sleeping in public areas, and involving herself...

Mansfield Park is a study of three families--the Bertrams, the Crawfords, and the Prices--with the isolated figure of the heroine, Fanny Price, at its center. Fanny's quiet passivity, her steadfast loyalty and love for the son of the family who regard her as the poor relation, and who have taken her under their roof, are not appreciated until they are tried against the brilliant and witty Mary and Henry Crawford, the unfortunate consequences of whose...

In the summer of 1977, a young woman named Calista finds work on famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder's film set. The filming takes them to Munich, where Wilder grapples with his family history. This tender and intimate novel examines the nature of time and fame, of family, and of the treacherous lure of nostalgia.

At the heart of this third volume of his Western saga remains the beautiful and determined Tasmin Berrybender, now married to the "Sin Killer" and mother to their young son, Monty. Although Tasmin intends Monty to become an English gentleman like his grandfather, he lives the childhood of a savage. By Sorrow's River continues the Berrybender party's trail across the endless Great Plains of the West toward Santa Fe, where those lucky enough to survive...

In this modern retelling of Austen's classic, bookish minister's daughter Cat Morland joins her well-to-do friends in Edinburgh and falls for an up-and-coming lawyer who may harbor unsettling secrets.