Twelve-year-old Frankie Joe Huckaby, forced to live with the father he never knew, a stepmother, and four half-brothers in Illinois, starts a delivery service to finance his escape back to his mother in Texas, not realizing he is making a better life for himself than he ever had with her.

As letters flow back and forth--between the prairies of Illinois and the mountains of Afghanistan, across cultural and religious divides--sixth-grader Abby, ten-year-old Amira, and eleven-year-old Sadeed begin to speak and listen to each other.

In 1937, during the Depression, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice is sent to live with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois and comes to a better understanding of this fearsome woman.

A mayoral candidate's brother is released from prison 25 years after pleading guilty to the murder of his girlfriend, a situation that leads to the re-opening of the case.

Inspired by her late grandmother, 13-year-old Nina spends a summer secretly doing good deeds for her neighbors and enjoying the changes she brings about, even as she's dealing with changing friendships and family issues.

"A young workaholic avoiding home for the holidays discovers that you can't run away from who you are. Everly Lancaster always dreamed of leaving her hometown in rural Illinois. Now she helps run a burgeoning startup in Chicago, where her professional goals leave little time for friends ... or a vacation. When a massive snowstorm hits, Everly's mother urges her to come home for Christmas, but she hesitates to return to the life she's worked so hard...

"In 1850, Sophie Neumann flees New York with her two young charges after witnessing a crime. Reinhold Weiss has finally purchased his own small farm when an old friend shows up, pleading for help. But how can he help her when mounting debts and past scars still haunt him?"-- 1850. After witnessing a crime, Sophie Neumann needs to flee New York with her two young charges. She manages to find passage to Illinois on an orphan train, with the aid of...

Reluctantly agreeing to help when an old boyfriend asks her to exonerate his mother for the murder of his sister, V. I. Warshawski is forced to confront ugly politics and violent elements in her hometown.

During the early days of the Civil War, the Pruitt family takes in two mysterious young ladies who have fled New Orleans to come north to Illinois.

"In Until I Find You, celebrated author Rea Frey brings you her most explosive, emotional, taut domestic drama yet about the powerful bond between mothers and children...and how far one woman will go to bring her son home. The Set-Up Soon, Rebecca Gray won't be able to see. Diagnosed in her twenties with a degenerative eye disease, each day her world grows a little darker. She's moved to the suburbs to raise her son, Jackson. In the wake of her husband's...