"Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a rare book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues--a bee, a key, and a sword--that lead him...

Chaucer's work begins at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, England, where a group of pilgrims have assembled on their way to Canterbury. Harry Bailly, the innkeeper, suggests a contest: whoever tells the best tale will win a supper when they reach Canterbury.

"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Dress comes a captivating new novel about the healing power of story, community, and love"-- "Executive assistant Lexa is eager for a much-deserved promotion, but her boss is determined to keep her underemployed. Literature professor Jett is dealing with a broken heart, as well as a nagging suspicion his literary idol, Gordon Phipps Roth, might be a fraud. Uber driver Chuck just wants a...

"We shall all, in the end, be led to where we belong. We shall all, in the end, find our way home. In a time of war, a mysterious child appears at the monastery of the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing. Gentle Brother Edik finds the girl, Beatryce, curled in a stall, wracked with fever, coated in dirt and blood, and holding fast to the ear of Answelica the goat. As the monk nurses Beatryce to health, he uncovers her dangerous secret, one that imperils...

When Little Red Chicken comes home excited about what she learned in school, she explains to Papa that every story has "an elephant of surprise."

A child imagines that he is in a story where he encounters a tiger at every turn.

Irish orphans Molly, fourteen, and Kip, ten, travel to England to work as servants in a crumbling manor house where nothing is quite what it seems to be, and soon the siblings are confronted by a mysterious stranger and secrets of the cursed house.

When Stillwater the bear moves into the neighborhood, the stories he tells to three siblings teach them to look at the world in new ways.

Janice is a collector of stories. When she starts cleaning for elderly Mrs. B, she finally meets someone who wants to hear her story. But Janice doesn't have a story, at least not one she can share.

Gerald the elephant tells his best friend Piggie a long, crazy story about how he broke his trunk.