Caleb Franklin and his younger brother, Bobby Gene, spend an extraordinary summer with their new, older neighbor, Styx Malone, a foster boy from the city.

Unable to remember her life before foster care, a teen anxious to rescue her newborn from an oppressive matriarch studies the properties of a powerful but addictive plant behind the foster family's business.

After going on a quest across Los Angeles together, Quentin, Vic, Nevaeh, and Mara, four very different foster children, realize that they have become a family.

"A poignant, dazzling debut novel about a woman who longs to be a mother and the captivating yet troubled child she and her husband take in"--

On her sixteenth birthday, Elle Zoellner leaves the foster care system to live with the father she never knew in Tokyo, Japan.

"At 3.04 p.m. on a hot, sticky day in June, Bess finds out she's pregnant. She could tell her social worker Henry, but he's useless. She should tell her foster mother, Lisa, but she won't understand.She really ought to tell Boy, but she hasn't spoken to him in weeks. Bess knows more than anyone that love doesn't come without conditions. But this isn't a love story..."--

In San Francisco, eleven-year-old Marin desperately searches for her birthmother knowing time is running out before she is adopted, and discovers for the first time in her life what it feels like to be truly wanted by someone.

"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...

"Brothers Victor and Isaac aren't sure how long they'll make it in their foster homes. Isaac is comfortable around his foster parents, but afraid they'll give him up. Victor just landed a in new, crowded home with a lot of rules, and is accused of stealing. The brothers make a secret plan to run away from their foster parents and make a home of their own. Will their plan work, or will they lose everything trying?"--Page 4 of cover.