Reflections of a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor who lectured on "Really achieving your childhood dreams," shortly after having been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His advice concerned seizing the moment while living, rather than dying.

In 1971, the state of Minnesota was rocked by the 'Butcher Boy' incident, as coverage of a family brutally murdered by one of their own swept across newspapers and television screens nationwide. Now, in present-day New Orleans, Polly Deschamps finds herself at yet another lonely crossroads in her life. No stranger to tragedy, Polly was a runaway at the age of fifteen, escaping a nightmarish Mississippi childhood. Lonely, that is, until she encounters...

The murder of an Ivy League professor pulls Dr. Dylan Reinhart out of his ivory tower and onto the streets of New York, where he reunited with his old partner, Detective Elizabeth Needham. As the worst act of terror since 9/11 strikes the city, a name on the casualty list rocks Dylan's world. Is his secret past about to be brought to light?

William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University. Over the course of a single convoluted week, he threatens to execute a duck, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers that his secretary writes better fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and...

Art galleries and casinos, mansions and brothels, billionaires and thieves—only James Patterson could create a triple-cross this decadent and suspenseful. Imagine everyone’s surprise when Carter von Oehson, a sophomore in Dr. Dylan Reinhart’s Abnormal Psychology class, posts on Instagram that he plans to kill himself. 24 hours later and still no one has seen him. Release the hounds. A massive search ensues. But when Carter’s sailboat rolls...

"Taryn Moore is young, beautiful, and brilliant, so why would she kill herself? When Detective Frankie Loomis arrives on the scene ... she knows in her gut there's more to the story ... To English professor Jack Dorian, Taryn was the ultimate fantasy: intelligent, adoring, and completely off limits. But there was also a dark side to Taryn, a dangerous streak that threatened those she turned her affections to, including Jack. And now that she's dead,...

When respected American religious symbology expert Dr. Robert Langdon is summoned to the Louvre by French Captain Bezu Fache, he soon discovered that he is the number 1 suspect for the murder of a historian Langdon had been scheduled to meet with. Assisted by a French cryptographer and government agent named Sophie, Langdon is challenged to decipher a chain of cryptic codes and puzzles, all the while trying to stay ahead of Fache's lawmen in a chase...

A church destroyed. A congregation silenced. A relationship shattered. Yet even in life's darkest valleys, a small flame can light the way toward healing and hope. After a deadly fire rips through St. James Church, Hadleigh University leaders use the tragedy to push the congregation off campus, forcing the church to defend its rights and bringing together estranged brothers for a reunion that opens old wounds and forces them to address the issues...

"In 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admitted to discriminating against its most senior female scientists. It was a seismic cultural event--one that forced institutions across the nation to reckon with the bias faced by girls and women in STEM. The Exceptions is the story of the women on MIT's faculty who started it all, centered on the life and career of their unlikely leader: Nancy Hopkins, a noted molecular geneticist and cancer...