New Releases by Lisa Wingate

Between Hollywood glamour and small-town secrets, what is the truth? The show American Superstars is the hottest thing on television, but its associate producer, Mandalay Florentino, is worried. She''s just arrived in the tiny town of Daily, Texas, to arrange a surprise "reunion concert" for hometown finalist Amber Anderson. Only it turns out everyone in town seems to know the secret. And paparazzi are arriving. And word from Hollywood is that Amber has disappeared with a "bad boy" actor. Can anything go right in this tumbleweed town? Imagene Doll loves her town of Daily, Texas, but things are lonelier without her beloved husband. Life seems dull. At least until that fancy-dressed woman pulls into town, looking terrified and glamorous all at once. Soon life''s not the least bit boring as Imagene--and the rest of Daily--find themselves at the center of a media maelstrom...with a young girl''s future on the line.

Adopted at thirteen, Dell Jordan was loved, mentored, and encouraged to pursue her passion for music. Now, at twenty, after a year abroad with a traveling symphony, a scholarship to Julliard is within reach. But underneath Dell''s smoothly polished surface lurk mysteries from the past. Why did her mother abandon her? Who was her father? Are there faces somewhere that look like hers-blood relatives she''s never met? Determined to find answers, Dell sets off on a secret journey into Oklahoma''s Kiamichi Mountains, drawn by the only remaining link to her origins- a father''s Native American name on her birth certificate. In the voices of her Choctaw ancestors, she''ll discover the keys to a future unlike anything she could have imagined.

Once a gifted ballet dancer, Julia Costell buckled under the demands of a professional dance career, and has landed with a thud in an unglamorous job as a guidance counselor at a performing arts high school. Living back home with her parents and feeling lost, she is afraid she’ll never soar again...until the day young Dell Jordan is sent to her office, carrying an essay. In Dell’s writing, Julia sees luminous sparks of hope. But as she fights to forge a brighter future for one disadvantaged student, she is drawn into startling undercurrents of conflict and denial within the academy. Only when she is tested in ways she never could have imagined does she begin to discover where real meaning and fulfillment lie—and realize that even though her life has seemed off course, she’s been on the right path all along.

Karen Sommerfield has been hiding from life-immersing herself in a high-powered job-until the day the company downsizes her out of a job and the doctor tells her that she may have cancer. It''s a double blow that sends Karen on a search for herself in the last place she ever thought to look: Grandma Rose''s old farm. As Karen''s hectic schedule falls away, she opens up to the unexpected. In the quiet of the Missouri Ozarks, she hears the soft, secret language of the sycamore trees, and discovers answers and a joy to make her life complete.

In a time of crisis, two women come together and set off down a road of hope in this novel in the Tending Roses series from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours. Twenty-year-old Jenilee Lane, whose dreams are as narrow as the sky is wide, doesn’t imagine any good could come out of the tornado that has ripped across the Missouri farmland where she makes her home. But some inner spark compels her to take action. To rescue her elderly neighbor Eudora Gibson from the cellar in which she’s been trapped. To make her way to the nearby town of Poetry, where the townspeople have begun to gather in the only building left standing. To collect from the devastated landscape fragments of life that lie strewn about in the tornado’s wake: letters, photographs, and mementos that might mean something to people who have lost everything. Eudora Gibson didn’t think Jenilee had it in her. But the girl she’s hardly noticed for years is now surprising her—stepping forward with a bravery that inspires Eudora to face her own bitter past. Brought close by tragedy, the two will learn lessons about the resilience of the human spirit and the ties that make a community strong. And together, they will travel to a place that once lay beyond their dreams.

FICTION-ROMANCE/GOTHIC