Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves,...

Four orphans who met as teenagers vowed to be a family. In adulthood they reunite at a film party in London and reevaluate their lives and commitments.

Elise knows which boards will creak, where the gaps are in the walls. She knows which parts can take her in, hide her away. It is the home her parents made for her, before they were taken from her in a car crash. And home is where you stay, no matter what. Eddie is a teenager trying to forget about the girl he sometimes sees out of the corner of his eye. When his older brother senses her, too, they are faced with the question of how to get rid of...

Madeline, smallest and naughtiest of the twelve little charges of Miss Clavel, wakes up one night with an attack of appendicitis.

"Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous...

Twelve-year-old Joshua is an orphan who lives in an unusual family where his eighteen-year-old aunt also acts as his mother.

Three brothers struggle to stay together after their parents' death, as they search for an identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society in which they find themselves "outsiders."

A young woman realizes that her wilderness home with her grandfather is not all she longs for as she grows older.

Rye Tyler was twelve when his father was killed in an Indian raid. Taken in by a mysterious stranger with a taste for books and an instinct for survival, Rye is schooled in the hard lessons of life in the West. But after killing a man, he is forced to leave his new home. He rides lonely mountain passes and works on dusty cattle drives until he finds a job breaking horses. Then he meets Liza Hetrick, and in her eyes he sees his future. After establishing...