When hired by a beautiful and enigmatic woman to find her missing younger sister, private investigator Roland Ford immediately senses that the case is not what it seems. He is soon swept up in a web of lies and secrets as he searches for the teenager, and even his new client cannot be trusted. His investigation leads him to a secretive charter school, skinhead thugs, a cadre of American Nazis hidden in a desert compound, an arch-conservative celebrity...

The Abstinence Teacher illuminates the powerful emotions that run beneath the placid surface of modern American family life, and explores the complicated spiritual and sexual lives of ordinary people. It is elegantly and simply written, characterized by the distinctive mix of satire and compassion that has become Tom Perrotta's trademark.

Stonewood Heights is the perfect place to raise children: it's got good schools, solid

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"In the 1970s and '80s, Tammy Faye and her husband, Jim Bakker, rose from humble beginnings to create the world's largest religious broadcasting network and theme park, and were revered for their message of love, acceptance, and prosperity. Tammy Faye was legendary for her indelible eyelashes, her idiosyncratic singing, and her eagerness to embrace people from all walks of life. However, it wasn't long before financial improprieties, scheming rivals,...

"Esther Ann Hicks is the youngest child on Six for Hicks, a reality television phenomenon. She's grown up in the spotlight, both idolized and despised for her family's fire-and-brimstone brand of faith. When Essie's mother, Celia, discovers that Essie is pregnant, she arranges an emergency meeting with the show's producers: Do they sneak Essie out of the country for an abortion? Do they pass the child off as Celia's? Or do they try to arrange a marriage--...

Ann Lee was one of the most extraordinary and mysterious women in the history of Western culture. From humble origins in Manchester, England, this illiterate daughter of a blacksmith became a visionary religious leader who was thought by her followers to be the second incarnation of Christ. She brought the Shaking Quakers, or Shakers, to America on the eve of the revolution. When she died at age 48, she left behind a religious movement that was

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Billy Sol Hargus, a lecherous, corrupt, hustling, huckstering television evangelist, claims to be God's other son.

IF THERE WERE SUCH A JOB AS THE NATION'S PASTOR, IT WOULD GO TO BILLY GRAHAM Graham wasn't born with a mandate to become the face of modern evangelism. Growing up, he wasn't much different from other boys in his town. Billy was more interested in going to the movies than the moving of the Holy Spirit, and he spent more time chasing girls than God. But at a revival meeting the day before his sixteenth birthday, Graham committed himself to Christ and...

Once she answered the divine calling, Aimee Semple McPherson rose fast from unfulfilled housewife in Rhode Island to "miracle woman"-the most enigmatic, pioneering, media-savvy Christian evangelist in the country. She preached up and down the United States, traveling in a 1912 Packard with her mother and her children-and without a man to fix flat tires. Her ministry was rolled out in tents, concert halls, boxing rings, and speakeasies. She prayed...

"Franklin Graham is preparing to share a lifetime of personal memories, anecdotes, and lessons that he has learned from his father in Through My Father's Eyes -- a book that has taken almost twelve years to complete. "My father's image will remain etched in my mind and his voice will ring in my ears," says Franklin Graham. "The lessons I have learned through my father's eyes have anchored me and made me realize that what he taught me was what he also...

The confession of a preacher's daughter. Turned off religion early in life, Florida Grace Shepherd marries at the first opportunity, only to "backslide" into adultery. By the time she is 33, she feels an old bag. But one day Grace discovers she has her father's gift for giving meaning to people's lives and she returns to religion, picking up where her father left off. By the author of The Devil's Dream.