Catherine Ryan Hyde

From the bestselling author of Pay It Forward comes a provocative and unlikely love story that starts on a New York subway car and blossoms under the windmills of the Mojave Desert.Both Sebastian and Maria live in worlds ruled by fear. Sebastian, a lonely seventeen-year-old, is suffocating under his dominant father's control; Maria, a young mother of two, is trying to keep peace at home despite her boyfriend's abuse. When their eyes meet across...

★ “Tender, amazingly hopeful . . . vibrant and heartbreaking.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
This deeply felt, redemptive novel reveals the story of two teens whose lives intersect in unexpected ways that explose them to both the dark corners and hidden joys of life’s journey–and the remarkable resilience of the human soul.
Meet Jordy. He’s on his own in New York City. Nobody to depend on;

...

Michael Steeb is an aimless twenty-one-year-old pot farmer in Central California in the 1980s. He has no real plans or interests . . . until the day he connects with memories of a life that seems to belong to someone else. That "spirit" is Walter, a young American soldier killed in World War II. Michael's task is the near-impossible: to lead Walter's family to closure and peace, to deliver the real truth behind Walter's Purple Heart, and to somehow...

In a version of the 1999 book rewritten for a middle-grade audience, Trevor McKinney, a twelve-year-old boy in a small California town, accepts his teacher's challenge to earn extra credit by coming up with a plan to change the world. His idea is simple: do a good deed for three people and instead of asking them to return the favor, ask them to "pay it forward' to three others who need help.

August Shroeder, a burned-out teacher, has been sober since his 19-year-old son died. Every year he's spent the summer on the road, but making it to Yellowstone this year means everything. The plan had been to travel there with his son, but now August is making the trip with Phillip's ahses instead. An unexpected twist of fate puts August with two extra passengers on his journey, two half-orphans with nowhere else to go.

"Raymond Jaffe feels like he doesn't belong. Not with his mother's new family. Not as a weekend guest with his father and his father's wife. Not at school, where he's an outcast. After his best friend moves away, Raymond has only two real connections: to the feral cat he's tamed and to a blind ninety-two-year-old woman in his building who's introduced herself with a curious question: Have you seen Luis Velez? Mildred Gutermann, a German Jew who narrowly...

"Out there is chaos, the collapse of society, and so much to be afraid of. All that matters is freedom. That's what Remy Blake has been taught by his survivalist father. Raised off the grid in the middle of nowhere, his own survival skills not yet honed, Remy is days shy of his eighth birthday when his father unexpectedly dies...He is found--near feral, silent, and terrified--in the small rural town of Blaire. To Anne, a nurturing mother of two adopted...

Bea has barely been scraping by since her husband died. After falling for a telephone scam, she loses everything and is forced to abandon her trailer. With only two-thirds of a tank in her old van, she heads toward the Pacific Ocean with her cat -- on a mission to reclaim whats rightfully hers, even if it means making others pay for what she lost. When fifteen-year-old Allie's parents are jailed for tax fraud, shes sent to a group home. But when her...

Seventeen-year-old Theresa tries to get past the guilt she feels over the death of a neighbor who loved her, first through a journal her therapist tells her to keep, then by transforming herself and starting a new life.