Arcadia Public Library

Returning to Cold Creek, Ohio, is an act of courage for Tess Lockwood. Abducted and held captive as a young girl, she is unable to remember anything about the crime that destroyed her childhood and tore her family apart. Now a grown woman with a bright future, she is certain she has put the past behind her. But when she inherits the family home, Tess must confront the demons that still haunt her and the town of Cold Creek. Gabe McCord has always blamed...

For Sally Diamond, people are confusing, unpredictable, and hard to read. She has always preferred routines to spontaneity, silence to noise, and forthright communication to small talk. Adopted at the age of seven by a psychiatrist, she cannot remember any details of her childhood before that age. Now forty-three, Sally finds the truth coming into sharp focus when her past becomes headline news: she endured something unthinkable as a child, and now...

"Twenty years ago, a nine-year-old boy was swept away by powerful waves on a remote Oregon beach, his body lost to the sea. Only a stone memorial remains to mark his tragic death. For most of her life, Amanda Dufresne had no idea she had an older brother named Dennis Owens, or that he had died. Adopted as a baby, she learned about him while looking into her late birth mother, and is curious to know more about this lost sibling. A solitary young woman,...

The McCauleys look perfect on the outside, but this family is hiding a dark secret. Hadley will do anything to keep her sister safe from their father. When Hadley's forbidden relationship with Charlie Simmons deepens, the violence at home escalates. An explosive accident occurs, following which Hadley attempts to take her own life at the hospital. Her friends, doctors, family, and the investigator on the case want to know why. Only Hadley knows what...

"Michelle Dowd grew up on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest, born into an ultra-religious cult--the Field, as members called it--run by her grandfather, who believed that his chosen followers must prepare themselves to survive doomsday. Bound by the group's patriarchal rules and literal interpretation of the Bible, Michelle and her siblings lived a life of deprivation, isolated from Outsiders and starved for both love and food. She was forced...

Daughter of a meth addict, haunted by an abusive childhood, Angela Constantine is convinced she is a freak. She juggles multiple jobs to live a secluded life in a cabin in the mountains. But she also lives a secret life-- because her family's bloodline carries the ability to recognize killers, she adopts a solitary, violent existence in service of her own, personal mission in life. When Angela unexpectedly finds herself the prey of a group of international...

"Before Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder, she thinks her position is clear. The child of two lawyers, she is staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment convicted murderer Ricky Langley's face flashes on the screen as she reviews old tapes -- the moment she hears him speak of his crimes -- she is overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by her...

"Jinju is bad. She smokes, drinks, runs away from home, and has no qualms about making her parents worry. Her mother and sister beg her to be a better student, sister, daughter; her beleaguered father expresses his concerns with his fists. Bad Friends is set in the 1990s in a South Korea torn between tradition and Western modernity and haunted by an air of generalized gloom. Cycles of abuse abound as the characters enact violence within their power...

The sibling of the child featured in "A Child Called It" describes how after the removal of Dave from the family, their alcoholic mother turned her abusive attentions to the author and prevented his escape by hiding the severity of his injuries.