Combining southern warmth with unabashed emotion and side-splitting hilarity, Fannie Flagg takes readers back to Elmwood Springs, Missouri, where the most unlikely and surprising experiences of a high-spirited octogenarian inspire a town to ponder the age-old question: Why are we here?
Life is the strangest thing. One minute, Mrs. Elner Shimfissle is up in her tree, picking figs, and the next thing she knows, she is off on an adventure she never...

Dr Joamma Lander, a psychologist specializing in near-death experiences, agrees to take part in an experiment that simulates the NDE.

Amelia, long a ghost, forms a strong bond with eighteen-year-old Joshua, who nearly drowned where she did and who awakens in her long-forgotten senses and memories even as Eli, a spirit, tries to draw her away.

"Dark spirits and ill omens arise as Amelia, a ghost still trapped somewhere between life and death, continues to fight for her relationship with the human boy Joshua"--

Nine-year-old Julian almost died when he was born, and he believes that he has a special connection to the universe because of that. He wants to make his two moms and his sister (who turned into a black hole of discontentment when she turned fourteen) happy because he's convinced that soon he'll die and travel to the dog star--but now they've moved to Maine and he resolves to also use his "uni-sense" ability to help Mr. X, their neighbor, who's in...

For five days teenager Hannah Ashton has been living a nightmare because Greater Houston is devoid of people and totally silent, but then she finds Leo Sterling, a boy from her school whom Hannah considers to be both hot and trouble; together they set out to explore their city, and their own emotions--but above all they need to find out what has happened to their world, or risk being separated forever.

A year after witnessing nineteen people killed in a bus bombing, the four survivors of the tragic event take a road trip back to the same city block that it happened, encountering lies, secrets, and healing along the way.

Based on the inspirational true story of one mother's unfaltering love in the face of impossible odds. When Joyce Smith's adopted son John falls through an icy Missouri lake, all hope seems lost. But as John lies lifeless, Joyce refuses to give up. Her steadfast belief inspires those around her to continue to pray for John's recovery, even in the face of every case history and scientific prediction. A reminder that faith and love can create a mountain...

When sixteen-year-old Blake goes to a mysterious, by-invitation-only carnival he somehow knows that it could save his comatose brother, but soon learns that much more is at stake if he fails to meet the challenge presented there by the beautiful Cassandra.