Sophie Heller's family emigrated from Germany to Victory, a small town in Illinois, before World War II began. Now that the war has affected the town, the townspeople discriminate against Sophie and her family. When a train derails by accident, the Heller family is blamed. A teacher from the local high school comes to Sophie's rescue, and despite their cultural differences, a romance starts to bloom.

Eighteen-year-old Rani, a budding photographer, grapples with first love, family boundaries, and the complications of a cross-cultural relationship.

During the recession of 1937, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice is sent to live with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois and comes to a better understanding of this fearsome woman.

"The summer of '28 was a vintage season for a growing boy. A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma's belly-busting dinner. It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding?remembered forever by the incomparable Ray Bradbury."--Amazon.com.

During a visit to her grandparents' Illinois farm in 1944, ten-year-old Molly tries to prove the innocence of a German-American neighbor whom the FBI suspects of smuggling anti-American propaganda. Includes historical notes about life on the home front in World War II.

Along with her best friend, the fourteen-year-old narrator navigates a 1970s American girlhood, including challenges from popular girls and the first hints of womanhood.

Forced to sell her house and move her antique collection after her divorce is finalized, private investigator Jane Wheel relocates to her Illinois hometown, where she investigates a washed-up comedian's activities against a backdrop of a crewman's suspicious death.

Gregory Barrett, a classmate of Father Dowling's, left the priesthood twenty-five years ago. Now, after all these years, a woman threatens to bring a multimillion-dollar suit against him, alleging he sexually exploited her when he was still a priest and she was sixteen. Barrett has no memory of her, but is devastated at what these claims will do to his career as a radio host and to his new family. So he comes to Father Dowling for advice. Father Dowling,...

A mayoral candidate's brother is released from prison 25 years after pleading guilty to the murder of his girlfriend, a situation that leads to the re-opening of the case.

Celebrating the final days of summer, thirteen-year-old Douglas Spaulding and his friends declare war on the stuffy older set of their community, an effort for which the boys plot to stop the courthouse building clock as a means of staying young forever.