A superstitious schoolmaster, in love with a wealthy farmer's daughter, has a terrifying encounter with a headless horseman.

"Velveteen Vargas is eleven years old, a Fresh Air Fund kid from Brooklyn. Her host family is a couple in upstate New York: Ginger, a failed artist and shakily recovered alcoholic, and her academic husband, Paul. Gaitskill illuminates their shifting relationships over several years, as well as Velvet's encounter with the horses at the stable down the road. Mare is the story of a girl and a horse, joined with a story of people from different races...

Detective Jimmy Vega has his hands full when the disappearance of a teenage girl in upstate New York sets off a powder keg of accusations, bigotry and fear--with deadly results.

"It's spring in Lake Holly, New York, a time of hope and renewal. But not for immigrants in this picturesque upstate town. Raids and deportations are on the rise, spurring fear throughout the community. Tensions reach the boiling point when the district attorney's beautiful young bride is found hanging in her flooded basement, an apparent victim of suicide. But is she, wonders police detective Jimmy Vega? If so, where is her undocumented immigrant...

Frustrated at her seeming lack of talent for anything, a young Taiwanese American girl sets out to apply the lessons of the Chinese Year of the Dog, those of making best friends and finding oneself, to her own life.

Hemlock Falls is a pretty little town in upstate New York. Sarah Quilliam, with her talent for business, now runs the Palate Restaurant, while her sister, Meg, keeps the patrons happy with her culinary abilities. But when it comes to murder, the Quilliam sisters have to rely on other skills—spotting clues, solving crimes, and catching culprits. The Quilliams have sold the Inn at Hemlock Falls, only to find that they miss the place—bills and all....

"Jack Shanley is a well-known New York artist, charming and vain, who doesn't mean to plunge his family into crisis. His wife Deb gladly left behind a difficult career as a dancer to raise the two children she adores. In the ensuing years, she has mostly avoided coming face-to-face with the weaknesses of the man she married. But then an anonymously sent package arrives in the mail: a cardboard box containing sheaves of printed emails chronicling Jack's...