Cassie Forrest isn't surprised to learn that the day she’s decided to get her life together is also the day the world ends. After all, she’s been on a self-imposed losing streak since her survivalist parents died: she’s stopped painting, broken off her engagement to Adrian and dated a real jerk. Rectifying her mistakes has to wait, however, because Cassie and her friends have just enough time to escape Brooklyn for her parents’ cabin before Bornavirus LX turns them into zombies, too.

Deep in the North American forests lurks an animal spirit known as the Grishla. The Grishla is so ancient it pre-dates the human race by several million years, and it is so powerful and reclusive only very insightful witches know of its existence. Five hundred years ago, the Dwanake tribe possessed such witches. Drunk on their own power and arrogance, these witches attempted to enslave the Grishla. Enraged, the creature began hunting and killing the Dwanake.

An alien plague. A sixteen-year-old girl. A fight to save the world. When a rare meteor shower unleashes a mind-altering infection, the people Alex loves begin to change. They’re smarter, faster, emotionless, and they have a plan. One that doesn’t include her. Guided by cryptic clues left behind by her deceased father, Alex follows a trail of increasingly shocking discoveries. Earth’s history isn’t what she learned in school, and a new hive mind threatens to rewrite the future.

It happens quietly one August morning. As dawn's shimmering light drenches the humid Iowa air, two families awaken to find their little girls have gone missing in the night. Now these families are tied by the question of what happened to their children. And the answer is trapped in the silence of unspoken family secrets.

At nine years of age, Logan Weber knows the routine. Keep quiet, make the food last, and don’t ever cause trouble. He’ll do what it takes to evade the rages of his troubled, violent father. Even though he’s only a child, Logan already knows too much - has seen too much. So when the opportunity presents itself, Logan runs. He has no idea where his journey will lead, or that the grandmother he’s been told is dead is desperately searching for him. Alone with no home of his own, Logan looks for a safe place to hide.

Concerned for Benji's health, the doctor offers him two options: wear the world's ugliest padded helmet or get a therapy dog. Benji chooses the dog, of course. But when a massive crate arrives at Benji's house, out walks a two hundred-pound Newfoundland. And that isn't even the strangest thing about the dog. He announces that his name is Parker Elvis Pembroke IV. That's right, this dog can talk!

The first time she saw him, she flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh. Juli says, "My Bryce. Still walking around with my first kiss." He says, "It's been six years of strategic avoidance and social discomfort." But in the eighth grade, everything gets turned upside down: Just as Bryce is thinking that there's maybe more to Juli than meets the eye, she's thinking that he's not quite all he seemed.

It is 1970. "Bean" Holladay is 12 and her sister, Liz, is 15 when their artistic mother, Charlotte, a woman who flees every place she’s ever lived at the first sign of trouble," takes off to find herself." She leaves her girls enough money for food to last a month or two. But when Bean gets home from school one day and sees a police car outside the house, she and Liz board a bus from California to Virginia, where their widowed Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying antebellum mansion that’s been in the family for generations.

In one day four lives weave together in unexpected ways. Virgil Salinas is shy and kindhearted and feels out of place in his crazy-about-sports family. Valencia Somerset, who is deaf, is smart, brave, and secretly lonely, and she loves everything about nature. Kaori Tanaka is a self-proclaimed psychic whose little sister, Gen, is always following her around. And Chet Bullens wishes the weird kids would just stop being so different so that he can concentrate on basketball.

When Andrea moves to Moses Lake, Texas, with her son, she hopes her job will provide purpose and solace from an ordeal that shattered her life and shook her faith. Mart, the new game warden, hopes to escape the constant reminders of a tragedy he can’t forgive himself for. Soon a girl’s plight offers them both a chance for redemption and draws them closer than they ever anticipated.

Carley uses humor and street smarts to keep her emotional walls high and thick. But the day she becomes a foster child and moves in with the Murphys, she's blindsided. This loving, bustling family shows Carley the stable family life she never thought existed, and she feels like an alien in their cookie-cutter-perfect household.

Stopping a tornado was the first of many strange events that seem to follow Weylyn from town to town, although he doesn't like to take credit. As amazing as these powers may appear, they tend to manifest themselves at inopportune times and places. From freak storms to trees that appear to grow over night, Weylyn's unique abilities are a curiosity at best and at worst, a danger to himself and the woman he loves. But Mary doesn't care.

Mason Buttle is the biggest, sweatiest kid in his grade, and everyone knows he can barely read or write. Mason’s learning disabilities are compounded by grief. Fifteen months ago, Mason’s best friend, Benny Kilmartin, turned up dead in the Buttle family’s orchard. An investigation drags on, and Mason, honest as the day is long, can’t understand why Lieutenant Baird won’t believe the story Mason has told about that day.

For 13 years, Ben Tomlin was an only child. But all that changes when his mother brings home Zan - an eight-day-old chimpanzee. Ben’s father, a renowned behavioral scientist, has uprooted the family to pursue his latest research project: a high-profile experiment to determine whether chimpanzees can acquire advanced language skills. Ben’s parents tell him to treat Zan like a little brother. Ben reluctantly agrees. At least now he’s not the only one his father’s going to scrutinize,

Meet Benjamin Dragon, a boy with a gift.... Benjamin is smart, really smart. Without asking Benjamin, his parents move to a new town and put him two grades ahead of where he should be. Now a full head shorter than other kids in his new school, Benjamin is a perfect target for bullies. Is he destined to be an outcast once again? Then strange things start happening. A bully brushed aside. A car diverted from smashing into a young girl. Is it coincidence or is Benjamin making them happen?