After more than a decade, when sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek hear the word mom, it claws like an eagle’s talons, triggering memories that have been their secret since childhood. Until now. For years, behind the closed doors of their farmhouse in Raymond, Washington, their sadistic mother, Shelly, subjected her girls to unimaginable abuse, degradation, torture, and psychic terrors. Through it all, Nikki, Sami, and Tori developed a defiant bond that made them far less vulnerable than Shelly imagined.

Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in this book, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy. Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer.

Patricia Campbell's life has never felt smaller. Her ambitious husband is too busy to give her a goodbye kiss in the morning, her kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she's always a step behind on thank-you notes and her endless list of chores. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime and paperback fiction. At these meetings they're as likely to talk about the Manson family as they are marriage, motherhood, and neighborhood gossip.

Before moving in with the Crouch family, Juno thought Winnie and her husband, Nigel, had the perfect marriage, the perfect son — the perfect life. Only now that she’s living in their beautiful house, she sees the cracks in the crumbling facade are too deep to ignore. Still, she isn’t one to judge. After her grim diagnosis, the retired therapist simply wants a place to live out the rest of her days in peace. But that peace is shattered the day Juno overhears a chilling conversation between Winnie and Nigel....

Shawn Black seems to be a mild-mannered family man who loves music recitals, football games, and family outings. What observers don’t realize is that Shawn is living a life on both sides of the fence. He harbors dangerous secrets that could hurt his family. Shawn makes a mistake when he befriends James, a gold-digger with an agenda. Pushing Shawn head first into a life of lust and deception, he will get what he wants.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions.

There are millions of homeless children in America today and in A Place Called Home, award-winning child welfare advocate David Ambroz writes about growing up homeless in New York for eleven years and his subsequent years in foster care, offering a window into what so many kids living in poverty experience every day.

Giselle thinks she has the perfect life. Her fine and sexy husband, Giovanni, is obsessed with his perfect wife and gives her whatever her heart desires. Giselle thinks her husband can do no wrong. What she doesn’t know is that his lucrative adult film company is not as legit as it seems, and Giovanni’s seedy dealings put his precious wife in danger.

To Merlin Mills, his family ceased to exist when his father turned his back on him, and he had to make some drastic changes in order to survive. Now, nine years later, his family is back, and their existence threatens his once stable relationship with his new wife. If Merlin wants to hold on to her, he must face the demons he’s conveniently forgotten and put them in their proper perspective. Can he undo the damage caused by his omission, or will he snap under the pressure?

Raised in complete poverty, 14-year-old Banks Wales' world is rocked when his mother is murdered. If not for his best friend Mason, the son of a kingpin, Banks would be alone. One rich, the other poor, the two do their best to stay alive and navigate the murderous streets of Baltimore. There's one problem. Banks' father sees the young king's affluent lifestyle as a reminder that he is lacking as a father and a man. So he makes a vicious move. One that puts his and Banks' life in extreme danger.

Tanisha Hopkins, aka Tiny, dreams of living the glamorous life by any means necessary. A bona fide, certified, authentic material girl in every sense of the description, Tiny is Feenin' to live life fast and furious and has found the perfect man to make all her dreams a reality. But everything that glitters isn't always gold. Meeting her match, Roscoe proves to be a disaster in the making. A hustler with a dream, a scheme, and his hand in the mix of everything. Tiny quickly learns why many people not only despise Roscoe, but fear him, too.

Secrets can kill, and Danni Brooks knows that better than anyone. When her husband and two of her three children perish in a devastating house fire, Danni is sure it is arson. She’s even more sure that her and her eldest daughter, Mia, were meant to die in the fire, too. But they are just a normal family. Who would want them dead? Mia doesn’t talk. She can’t. She is locked in her own world where no one, not even her mother, can reach her.

Meet the Pierce family. Desmond Pierce, a hardworking man from the South, is determined to give his and wife and daughters a good life in Compton, California. Pearla Pierce is a sexy and seductive mother who plays wifey and devoted mother only when her husband is home. Then there’s Carmen, a promiscuous 17-year-old on a self-destructive path and jealous of her younger sister. Cashmere, a 13-year-old, struggles to hold her family together out of love for her father.

Heaven Lyons is her name, and she used to be the sweetest girl. Heaven was raised in a two-parent household with two very religious parents, and her father was a well- known pastor in Miami, Florida. This young girl had perfect attendance through all her years of school, always brought home straight A’s, and was always student of the month. Heaven was the perfect child and never gave her parents any problems until she met Tony Isaac. Tony is dangerous for Heaven, but there is something about him that intrigues her.

June Briand shot four bullets into her husband's head and was sentenced to 15 years to life. This is the shocking, true story of survival - and the intense bond June shared with her pathologically violent husband, a monster who physically and sexually tortured, degraded, and dominated her so relentlessly she refused to believe he was dead even after she killed him.