THE BOOK OF RUTH, by Jane Hamilton. Domestic violence rips apart a young woman's life in a tiny Illinois town. A black man's search for his family's history. A murder trial recalls the wartime internment of Japanese-Americans. A young woman is charged with killing her boyfriend.
Scientists visit a Costa Rican jungle that is the breeding ground of dinosaurs.
A man undertakes a potentially dangerous geological survey in Jamaica. A family finds adversity and renewed courage during a Christmas visit to New York. A woman contends with a man who brutally attacked her. A woman raised in grandeur discovers that her past is haunted by a dark secret. The changing relationship between a Chinese-American woman and her older Chinese half sister.