"It's December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless -- unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem's sister, Becky, long the social...

When Lars Thorvald's wife, Cynthia, falls in love with wine -- and a dashing sommelier -- he's left to raise their baby, Eva, on his own. He's determined to pass on his love of food to his daughter -- starting with puréed pork shoulder. As Eva grows, she finds her solace and salvation in the flavors of her native Minnesota. From Scandinavian lutefisk to hydroponic chocolate habaneros, each ingredient represents one part of Eva's journey as she becomes...

In Dark Lady, Richard North Patterson displays the mastery of setting, psychology, and story that makes him unique among writers of suspense, and one of today's most original and enthralling novelists.
In Steelton, a struggling Midwestern city on the cusp of an economic turnaround, two prominent men are found dead within days of each other. One is Tommy Fielding, a senior officer of the company building a new baseball stadium, the city's...

"An enchanting and timeless all-American story that follows the inhabitants of a small Midwestern town in their quest to revive its flagging heart"-- When Midwestern movie house owner Virgil Wander's car flies off the road into icy Lake Superior he survives, but his language and memory are altered and he emerges into a world no longer familiar to him. Virgil begins to piece together his personal history and the lore of his broken town, with the help...

Jack Gladney, a professor of Nazi history at a Middle American liberal arts school, and his family try to handle normal family life as a black cloud of lethal gaseous fumes threatens their town.

From the New York Times–bestselling author of The Excellent Lombard's and A Map of the World, this is "an extraordinary story of a family's disintegration [that] will be compared to Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres" (People). It follows Ruth Grey, a young woman in a tiny Illinois farm town, who has lost her father to World War II, and constantly faces her unhappy mother's wrath-when she isn't being ignored in favor of her math-prodigy brother. As...

"Billie Letts takes readers on an unforgettable journey through the best and worst of America's heartland as she tells a story of two abandoned children desperately searching for people to call family and a place to call home"--Provided by publisher.

New York Times Notable Book: A Manhattanite seeks Midwestern bliss and finds something else in this "funny, literate [and] often touching story" (People). Television correspondent Lucinda Trout is unhappy about the superficiality and shallowness of her life in New York, not to mention the latest stratospheric rent hike. Seeking an escape, she proposes a new project: She'll move far, far away, to the wholesome, most-livable-list town of Prairie City,...

"The lives of a reformed hit man, a crusading doctor, a genteel mobster, and a headstrong college student cross in a sweltering Midwestern city in 1970"--