Joe Gardner is a middle-school band teacher who gets the chance of a lifetime to play at the best jazz club in town. A misstep takes him from New York City to The Great Before, a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities before going to Earth. Determined to return to his life, Joe teams up with a precocious soul, 22, who has never understood the appeal of the human life. As Joe tries to show 22 what's great about life, he may discover...

Local Hero: Single mother Hester Wallace hardly has time for the holidays. Between settling in to her new apartment and chasing after her nine-year-old son, Radley, she's beginning to feel the pressure of trying to have it all together. So when her neighbor, comic book writer Mitch Dempsey, offers to look after Radley in the afternoons, Hester reluctantly accepts. Mitch is a stranger, after all, even if he is generous and has a connection with her...

"When a single dad meets the former rock star crush of his youth, everything they thought they knew about happiness and love is thrown into chaos in this hopeful, heartwarming romantic comedy. Billy Perkins is happy. No, for real. It's kind of his thing, actually. And why wouldn't he be? He loves his job as an independent music teacher and his apartment in Baltimore above a record shop called Charm City Rocks. Most of all, he loves his brainy teenage...

A story of mercy, miracles, and melody-and above all else: love. During the Great Depression, Fred Allen is born poor and hungry in the shadow of rural Georgia's infamous cotton mills. By the time Fred is three years old, he can play hymns on the piano without missing a note. In kindergarten, he amazes adults with Chopin. Terrified that Fred's genius is proof of a curse, his parents lock away the piano. Cut off from his only source of joy, little...

"From Laura Trentham, the award-winning author of The Military Wife, comes An Everyday Hero--an emotionally layered novel about loss, second chances, and what it means to be a true hero"--

"Children's book illustrator Garet Allen has just escaped her most recent ill-fated relationship and accepts a temporary teaching position at a rural public school. After all, how hard can teaching kids about art really be? Apparently, pretty hard because her first day on the job is a complete disaster, and that has nothing at all to do with the fact that Tess Hill, the captivating and overly conscientious music teacher, shares the same classroom....

"In a sleepy college town, a woman who was sexually abused as a child must face her traumatic past and protect her family when her abuser appears in town and forces his way back into her life"--