Arcadia Public Library

An "A" for "adultery" marks Hester Prynne as an outcast from the society of colonial Boston. Although forced by the puritanical town fathers to wear a bright red badge of shame, Hester steadfastly resists their efforts to discover the identity of her baby's father. The return of her long-absent spouse brings new pressure on the young mother, as the aggrieved husband undertakes a long-term plot to reveal Hester's partner in adultery and force him to...

Her happiness shattered by her movie director boyfriend's announcement that he intends to reconnect with a woman from his past, travel columnist Annie Adams impulsively marries a charming chef and attempts to restart her life in rural Massachusetts.

Your phone rings. You child has been kidnapped. And to free her, you must abduct someone else's child. Your child will be released when your victim's parents kidnap another child. Rachel will be part of the chain... or her daughter Kylie will be killed. But the masterminds may have made a mistake this time. Rachel may be the one to finally break the chain.... -- adapted from jacket

Called upon by The Hammond Museum and renowned art scholar Dr. Ashton Prince, Boston PI Spenser accepts his latest case: to provide protection during a ransom exchange-money for a stolen painting. The case becomes personal when Spenser fails to protect his client and the valuable painting remains stolen.

"Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still...

Orphaned at an early age, Gillian and Sally Owen are raised by an aunt who deals in sorcery. The girls long for the normal life and leave home as soon as they can. Years later tragedy strikes and it is then they realize that magic is their gift, not their affliction. By the author of Illumination Night.

Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. When a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: his fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student. As the crisis reveals how little a father knows about his son, Andy will face a trial of his own--between loyalty and justice, between truth and allegation, between...

"Evening Lake: idyllic, peaceful, with a close-knit community of families who have been coming to this western Massachusetts getaway for decades. And then newcomer Lacey Havnel and her daughter Bea move in. They are nothing like the well-heeled families who populate Evening Lake. Mysterious, rough-around-the edges, they keep to themselves. Detective Harry Jordan sees his lake home as a respite from solving crimes on the streets of Boston. The Osborne...

A portrait of the immigrant experience follows the Ganguli family from their traditional life in India through their arrival in Massachusetts in the late 1960s and their difficult melding into an American way of life.

Paradise, Massachusetts, Police Chief Jesse Stone must deal in his own laconic way with the town's rights and wrongs, including a Peeping Town, the Paradise Free Swingers, and a firestorm of protests at the junior high school.