NCW Libraries

During Smarsh's turbulent childhood in Kansas in the '80s and '90s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country's changing economic policies solidified her family's place among the working poor. Her personal history affirms the corrosive impact intergenerational poverty can have on individuals, families, and communities. Combining memoir with powerful analysis and cultural commentary, this is an uncompromising look at class, identity, and the particular...

A small Kansas town has turned into a killing ground. Is it a serial killer, a man with the need to destroy? Or is it a darker force, a curse upon the land? Amid golden cornfields, FBI Special Agent Pendergast discovers evil in the blood of America's heartland. No one is safe.

When Jack and Annie travel back to the Kansas prairie in search of "something to learn," they gain an understanding of how hard life was for pioneers and they experience the terror of a tornado.

Kansas City publicist Darcy ventures to the Emerald Educational Trust for the job of a lifetime. Here she will help VP Glen Goodman and his team find the know-how, courage, and heart to help a charity in need for Christmas. Darcy and Glen begin to realize they have everything in common. Will a surprise revelation at the big Christmas gala put an end to their promising romance before it really has a chance to start?

Beth Quinn is struggling to find a place to belong in the Old Order Mennonite Community of Sommerfeld, Kansas. When she starts a business designing stained glass windows, two men-one a Mennonite, the other not-begin to vie for her attention. Andrew Braun, a member of the Sommerfeld fellowship, is dedicated to family and faith. Sean McCauley, the son of a successful businessman, may only be interested in Beth's talents. Will Beth look to her heavenly...

Kansas 1872. Unwed mother Nell Lillington hopes to support her daughter Sarah and friend Tess by working as a seamstress in an isolated seminary. When her only ally among the seminary's leaders dies, she must choose between returning to her old life in Chicago and remaining in charge of her destiny. As her talent as a dressmaker begins to win her commissions, Nell attracts the attention of two suitors: Reiner Lehmann, a wealthy senior student, and...

Bay Kennish, who grew up in a wealthy family with happily married parents and older brother, and Daphne Vasquez, who lost her hearing as a child and grew up with a single mother in a working-class neighborhood, find their lives turned upside down when they discover they were accidentally switched at birth.

"On her morning jog, Portia Paltrow comes upon the dead body of antiques store owner and college professor Owen Hill, sprawled across the back doorstep of Selma Parker's fabric and quilt shop on Elderberry Road. The site of their Saturday morning quilting bee just became a crime scene. Violent crime is rare in the charming village of Crestwood, Kansas, and rumors are soon circulating of a burglary gone wrong. But who would rob a quilt shop? No, Owen...

RJ Evans, a geologist for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, begins a new job in a small farming town ravaged by the Dust Bowl, where drought and over-plowing have turned the once-lush plains into a brutal twin of the Sahara; and befriends Woody, an autistic savant born in an era long before any medical diagnosis would explain his peculiar ways and unique talents.

"For fans of I'll Be Gone in the Dark, the thrilling true story of a would-be terrorist attack against a Kansas farming town's immigrant community, and the FBI informant who exposed it. In the spring of 2016, as immigration debates rocked the United States, three men in a militia group known as the Crusaders grew aggravated over one Kansas town's growing Somali community. They decided that complaining about their new neighbors and threatening them...