NCW Libraries

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. Cyril's son Danny and his older sister Maeve are exiled from...

It is just past ten o'clock on a cold Friday evening when Rebecca and her husband Jack's doorbell rings. Outside is a woman who introduces herself as Jack's ex-girlfriend Cara. And she's holding the hand of a shivering, blue-eyed, four-year-old girl. Who she claims is Jack's daughter. Rebecca is shocked to discover he has a child from his last relationship - even one he hadn't known about. Because becoming parents isn't part of their life plan. They...

Kat Emerson could use a Christmas miracle! The aspiring singer-songwriter has big dreams and bigger problems. Her vain stepmother forces her to be a singing elf at billionaire Terrence Wintergarden's Santa Land, but the job has one bright spot: Nick, the handsome new Santa. As the Wintergarden Christmas Gala approaches, Kat's stepmother and stepsisters are determined to keep her from going. Could an attentive dog, a BFF and a sprinkling of holiday...

When a drought tests the commitment of a mail-order bride from Maine to her new home on the prairie, her stepchildren hope they will be able to remain a family.

Snow: Jessica escapes to London and falls in with a band of outcasts to escape her stepmother. When her stepmothers appears, seeking forgiveness, Jessica must decide whom to trust. Beauty sleep: Princess Aurore embarks on a dangerous quest to end the curse that will put her to sleep for 100 years.

The beautiful and young Cinderella finds her life of drudgery at the hands of her stepmother and two wicked stepsisters changed forever in one evening, thanks to a fairy godmother and a handsome prince.

"In the vein of Wicked, The Woodcutter, and Boy, Snow, Bird, a luminous reimagining of a classic tale, told from the perspective of Agnes, Cinderella's "evil" stepmother. We all know the story of Cinderella. Or do we? As rumors about the cruel upbringing of beautiful newlywed Princess Cinderella roil the kingdom, her stepmother, Agnes, who knows all too well about hardship, privately records the true story. A peasant born into serfdom, Agnes is separated...

In this acclaimed novel from Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly, two sisters from the Philippines, abandoned by their father and living in impoverished circumstances in Louisiana, fight to make their lives better. Soledad has always been able to escape into the stories she creates. Just like her mother always could. And Soledad has needed that escape more than ever in the five years since her mother and sister died, and her father moved Sol and her...

"The marchioness Shuri Von Neuschwanstein was just a teenager when her husband died, leaving her to manage his lands and raise his children--even though she was young enough to be their sibling. Despite her dedication to her duties, other nobles conspired against her, and her stepchildren rejected her as their mother, leaving her a hardened pariah in her own home. But when she leaves for a new residence during her eldest stepson's wedding, the marchioness...

Rachel is a dedicated teacher who forms a deep bond with her boyfriend's young daughter, loving the family she's found but yearning for one of her own in this soulful, sexy, resolutely grown-up story of the elusive quest for belonging.