Deborah Green is a woman of passionate contradictions--a rabbi who craves goodness and surety while wrestling with her own desires and with the sorrow and pain she sees around her. Her life changes when she visits the hospital room of Henry Friedman, an older man who has attempted suicide. His parents were murdered in the Holocaust when he was a child, and all his life he's struggled with difficult questions. Deborah's encounter with Henry and his...

"In 1871, as Chicago's Great Fire destroys their bookshop, Meg and Sylvie Townsend make a harrowing escape with the help of reporter Nate Pierce. But when their father is committed to an asylum after being accused of murder, they must prove his innocence before the asylum truly drives him mad"--Provided by publisher.

A bum hip has bed-and-breakfast hostess Judith McMonigle Flynn limping off to Good Cheer Hospital -- a questionable "haven of healing" where two recent patients didn't make the cut after routine surgery. Judith's trepidation at undergoing the knife is eased only by sharing a room with cousin Renie, who's in for rotator cuff repair. Though the cousins survive their surgeries, the ex-pro quarterback next door is permanently sacked after minor knee surgery....

"Dr. Timothy Ryan, head of the military psychiatric unit at Grantham Barracks, is meeting a new patient, a woman known as Prisoner Alpha. As she is being transferred, they are attacked by assassins, barely escaping with their lives. One shooter vanishes, leaving behind a dead companion unlike anyone Ryan has ever seen. But even more baffling is the puzzle of Alpha herself. She speaks in a strange tongue, and doodles in bars, dots, and little pictures...

"A young chaplain at a large medical center fears her "soul is broken," though she hasn't subscribed to any formal religion in years-she's far too busy tending to the souls of her patients to do anything about her own. But strange things happen over the course of a single night shift, and interactions with patients in various states of consciousness and with various relationships to spirituality give her insight into her own life as they pinpoint...

Publisher Annotation: Jason has just learned that his Afghan mother has been living illegally in the United States since his father was killed in Afghanistan. Although Jason was born in the US, it?s hard to feel American now when he?s terrified that his mother will be discovered?and that they will be separated. When he sees his mother being escorted from her workplace by two officers, Jason feels completely alone. He boards a train with the hope of...