Bandon Public Library

"On the night of her Mayor husband's 40th birthday, Rachel Abbott receives a sexy, explicit text from her husband, which she quickly realizes was meant for another woman. They're at a crossroads and divorce is inevitable, but Rachel is determined not to leave her thirteen-year marriage with nothing. Meanwhile, Matt, the rising star of a Kennedyesque political dynasty with eyes on the White House, can't afford a messy split in the middle of his reelection...

When Robert Walter, popular mayor of Amsterdam, sees his wife toss her head back with laughter while chatting to one of his aldermen at a New Year's reception, he immediately suspects the worst. Despite their long and happy marriage, Robert is convinced that Sylvia is cheating on him--with the respectable alderman who is dedicated to the environment, no less. The man who wants to spoil the capital's skyline with wind turbines. The New Year's reception...

"In a city as corrupt as it was luxurious, those who dared to dream were bound to pay the price. Havana, Cuba, 1947. Young Patricio flees impoverished Spain and steps into the sultry island paradise of Havana with only the clothes on his back and half-baked dreams of a better life. Blessed with good looks and natural charm, he lands a job as a runner at El Encanto--one of the most luxurious department stores in the world. Famous for its exquisite...

Juan is the naïve son of a once-famous bullfighter who tries to recapture the glory of his family's name. Though he is branded fifth rate, he soon becomes Spain's greatest matador and returns home to marry his childhood sweetheart. But when a beautiful, passionate aristocrat seduces him, Juan succumbs to her temptations, only to see his own happiness and success crumble.

At first glance, these stories seem grounded in the everyday: they paint pictures of idyllic Southern landscapes with characters fulfilling their roles as students, boyfriends, sons and wives. But all is not what it seems. Tackling issues of masculinity, sexual identity, and place, Nick White deconstructs the core qualities of Southern fiction, exposing deeply flawed and fascinating characters on wildly compelling quests.

In a time when adultery is punishable by death, Hester Prynne becomes involved in a risky and scandalous affair with her town's handsome minister.

"Marian Evans is a scandalous figure, living in sin with a married man, George Henry Lewes. She has shocked polite society. In secret, though, she has begun writing fiction under the pseudonym George Eliot. As Adam Bede's fame grows, curiosity rises. Gradually it becomes apparent that the moral genius Eliot is none other than the disgraced woman. Now celebrity begins. The world falls in love with her. She is the wise and great writer, sent to guide...

Angelique, a young student, is in love with a married doctor. She tries to convince him to leave his pregnant wife. Is the love affair the one-sided obsession of a desperate woman clinging to a hopeless dream, and turning it into a nightmare when she realizes it may not come true?

Young Daniel Boone Trewick, caught with a young woman, flees Missouri believing he has killed the girl's father in a fight. He joins a freighting outfit on the Santa Fe Trail, and in Taos he meets Thomas L. "Pegleg" Smith and is invited to join an expedition to California to steal horses and mules. Meanwhile in California, Juan Medina, a young vaquero in trouble for consorting with the ranch owner's daughter, is framed and jailed. After the ladrones...

Sasha Miller arrives at Cambridge University with a single goal: to earn a place among the great scientists of her time. But that dream comes crashing down when the naive student is seduced by her womanizing professor, Theo Dexter. Now Theo is claiming her work as his own, and a devastated Sasha vows revenge. Eight years later, now head of a successful business empire, Sasha has spent years laying the groundwork for the payback Theo so richly deserves....