Former Army brat Morgan Albright has finally planted roots in a friendly neighborhood near Baltimore. Her friend and roommate Nina helps her make the mortgage payments, as does Morgan's job as a bartender. But after she and Nina host their first dinner party—attended by Luke, the flirtatious IT guy who'd been chatting her up at the bar—her carefully built world is shattered. The back door glass is broken, cash and jewelry are missing, her car is gone, and Nina lies dead on the floor.

Zane Bigelow grew up in a beautiful, perfectly kept house in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Strangers and even Zane’s own aunt across the lake see his parents as a successful surgeon and his stylish wife, making appearances at their children’s ballet recitals and baseball games. Only Zane and his sister know the truth, until one brutal night finally reveals cracks in the facade, and Zane escapes for college without a thought of looking back....

It's 1994, and three stand-up comedians have embarked on a tour of smaller communities across a remote stretch of rural countryside. Dale is a forty-something comic from Chicago who's on the back half of a mediocre career and thinking about quitting the business. Rynn is a twenty-something fast-rising comedy star from Dublin with a big Hollywood break on her horizon. The third performer is a local act, a late addition to the bill who has agreed to open the shows and do all the driving. He goes by the name Hobie Huge, and he is, indeed, enormous.

The furniture district is my personal hell. I don’t know my ass from an ottoman. But when a hot designer comes to my rescue, I realize my problems are bigger than the house I’m trying to furnish.

I got her fired. Okay, so I’d had a bad day and took it out on a bystander in a pizza shop. But there’s nothing innocent about Ally Morales. She proves that her first day of her new job in my office, after being hired by my mother. So, maybe, her colorful, annoying, inexplicably alluring personality brightens up the magazine’s offices that have felt like a prison for the past year. Maybe, I like that she argues with me in front of the editorial staff. And maybe, my after-hours fantasies are haunted by those brown eyes and that sharp tongue.

This deliciously sharp novel captures the relentless ambitions and fears that animate parents and their children in modern America, exploring the conflicts between achievement and potential, talent and privilege. Set in the fictional town of Crystal, Colorado, The Gifted School is a keenly entertaining novel that observes the drama within a community of friends and parents as good intentions and high ambitions collide in a pile-up with long-held secrets and lies.

At 27, magician Natalie Webb is already a has-been. Shunned by the magic world after a disastrous liaison with an older magician, she now lives alone with her pigeons and a pile of overdue bills in a New Jersey apartment. In a desperate ploy to make extra cash, she follows up on an old offer to write a feature magazine article - on the art of cheating at cards. In the process, Natalie is dazzled by a poker cheat's sleight of hand and soon finds herself facing a proposition - to help pull off a $1.5 million magic trick that, if done successfully, no one will ever even suspect happened.

Neal Carey is not your usual private eye. A graduate student at Columbia University, he grew up on the streets of New York, usually on the wrong side of the law. Then he met a P.I. who introduced him to the Bank, an exclusive institution with a sideline in keeping its wealthy clients happy and out of trouble. They pay Neal's college tuition, and Neal gets an education that can't be found in any textbook, from learning how to trail a suspect to mastering the proper way to search a room. Now it's payback time.

An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Midtown office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya, and eating his mother's home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC's hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the thirty-sixth floor.

Aldo Moretta has always been the hero. The strongest, the fastest, the bravest. He fought for his country and built a thriving business in his hometown. With friends and family never more than a few blocks away, there was just one thing he was missing. The right girl. She’d fallen for the wrong guy. The bad guy. But now that she’s finally free, Aldo isn’t going to miss his second chance. Not until his last deployment goes horribly wrong. He was prepared to give his life, but he wasn’t ready for an injury that takes a piece of him. How can he be her hero now?

He’s a hockey player, she’s an intern. Well really, she’s the league’s commissioner’s daughter. But the way she looks at him is probably illegal in several states.

Lincoln Reeves may be a pro golfer and revered swing coach, but when I met him, he was just one more person telling me I wasn’t good enough. So, I did what any girl in my position would do. I told him to get lost and take his arrogant, annoying smirk with him. I never expected to see him again. I certainly didn’t expect to run into him that same night after one too many tequila shots.

A bride so desperate to get in shape for her wedding that she enrolls in a new kind of workout program that promises the moon but costs more than she bargained for. A snowman who, on the wish of a child, comes to life in a decidedly less savory way than in the childhood classic. And in the title story, a time-hopping 1940s starlet tries to claw her way to the top in modern-day Hollywood, despite being ridiculously unwoke.

My life just hit the skids, hard. After a drug scandal blew up in my face, I’m out of a team, my endorsements are gone, and my bank account’s pretty much empty. So now I’m stuck trying to sell my house to scrape together some cash. The kicker? I’ve got to work with Paige Anderson, the real estate agent with a smile that could light up a room—and the woman I made a complete fool of myself with not too long ago.

Smart and athletic, Amy Kimball should have it all, but her life's in a tailspin. She's working two menial jobs to make ends meet, barely a paycheck away from financial disaster, and women aren't exactly lining up at her door. Enter soccer star Diego Torres, who's keeping a big secret: he's gay. His manager fears that if he's found out, his endorsements and his chance to play for the national team will evaporate into the wind.

Smart and athletic, Amy Kimball should have it all, but her life's in a tailspin. She's working two menial jobs to make ends meet, barely a paycheck away from financial disaster, and women aren't exactly lining up at her door. Enter soccer star Diego Torres, who's keeping a big secret: he's gay. His manager fears that if he's found out, his endorsements and his chance to play for the national team will evaporate into the wind.

Missing Links is the story of four middle-class buddies who live outside Boston and play golf together at Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Links and Deli, not so fondly known as Ponky. An 18-hole garbage dump with hazards that include a concrete river surrounded by a chain-link fence and the pillars of the elevated train that runs through the course, it is reputed to be the worst golf course in America.

Sam Acquillo is at the end of the line: he's a middle-aged corporate dropout living in a ramshackle cottage in Southampton's North Sea. But then the old lady next door ends up floating dead in her bathtub, and it seems that Sam is the only one who wonders why.

Former NHL star Jaxson Lund has returned to the Twin Cities, but he's at loose ends, unsure if he belongs at Lund Industries or where he stands with Lucy, his ex-girlfriend and mother of his daughter, Mimi. Despite the signs she'd like to leave him in the penalty box, the attraction burning between them reinforces his determination to prove that he deserves a second chance....

If you ever get married, remember my name: Max Henderson. In my line of work, you acquire a certain perspective on supposedly everlasting unions. But some guys are willing to take a chance. Like my brother, who thinks he’s going to ride off into the sunset with the woman of his dreams in a haze of glitter on unicorns. And the wedding planner - the green-eyed beauty who makes a living convincing suckers to shell out thousands of dollars on centerpieces - is raking it in on this matrimonial monstrosity. As the best man, I know her game - and I can play it better than her.

Hendrix Caldwell wants nothing more than to revitalize the family bar and tear down every last reminder of his no-good father. But business isn't the only thing on his mind. An explosive encounter with a stranger at a charity masquerade is just the distraction he craves, with no names and no strings attached. For Hendrix, sex is casual, and love is a four-letter word. His commitment is to his brothers, his bar, and his bike. So why can't he stop thinking about the naughty Cinderella who rocked his world then left him - and her panties - behind?

Jackson Davenport, the charismatic, strait-laced heir to the Davenport fortune, has a secret. One he's been hiding since he graduated from South Haven all-boys academy - and that secret's name is Lucas. When a work trip takes Jackson back to his old stomping grounds, memories of the year he shared with Lucas come crashing to the surface. With growing pressure from his father to settle down and take over the family business, Jackson knows he's on borrowed time and sets out to find the free-spirited daredevil he once knew

For Mike Muñoz, a young Chicano living in Washington State, life has been a whole lot of waiting for something to happen. Not too many years out of high school and still doing menial work - and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew - he knows that he's got to be the one to shake things up if he's ever going to change his life. But how?

Tom Violet always thought that by the time he turned 35, he’d have everything going for him. Fame. Fortune. A beautiful wife. A satisfying career as a successful novelist. A happy dog to greet him at the end of the day. The reality, though, is far different. He’s got a wife, but their problems are bigger than he can even imagine. And he’s written a novel, but the manuscript he’s slaved over for years is currently hidden in his desk drawer while his father, an actual famous writer, just won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His career, such that it is, involves mind-numbing corporate buzzwords....

In those 15 days since my husband died, I’ve met his girlfriend, who’s befriended me, and to top it all off, it turns out, infidelity wasn’t the only thing he’s guilty of. He hadn’t paid our bills in four months. Now I’m forced to rent out the room above our garage. But there’s a hitch. The guy that rents it? My one-night stand from the night I found out my deceased husband had been cheating on me. The problem? He’s a college baseball player. And let me tell you, sister. Cason Reins, his name should come with a surgeon general warning.