Ruby Baker

On the isle of Rhodes, Katherine, an expatriate English photographer, lives with her daughter. A young local wants to encourage tourism, so he commissions a sculpture of the Unknown Tourist for the town square; the sculptor he brings to Rhodes is Kate's ex-husband. Also there to see Kate is Sharp, an aging antiquarian and her dear friend. He has something important to tell her. As Kate, her ex, and Sharp sort out things that go back years, two English tourists bumble about, one thinking he's fallen in love with Kate, his wife thinking she's found her own lover. A rare vase, a spy, old friendships, the statue's unveiling, and off-hand English sorting-out play into the resolution.

A robot messenger is sent to earth to appeal to humans to live in peace. Originally designed to go to MIT, by mistake she ends up in Amman, Jordan during the Black September riots of 1970. Sullivan, a British journalist, comes to her aid when she is found wandering without papers following a bombing and grants her refuge in his hotel room. But there she tells him she is a robot, sent as a peace envoy from another planet. He is not sure whether to believe her story or not, but finds her unusual view of the world appealing. They examine the human condition in a series of incredibly insightful and entertaining conversations.

We’re in no name suburbia. Harriet is 17, a misfit rich kid, star of her high school cross-country team, but currently, refusing to cross the finish line. She lies to her friends. She fakes suicide. It’s all a deflection – her only parent is on his deathbed and she can't say goodbye. Combine that with the looming reality that her acid-tongued half-sister will soon be her only family, this is one of those times in life when you decide who you are. Someone who faces up or someone who runs away. Then she finds a hair in her jello. Her best friend calls her a coward. A bird craps on her head. Something shifts.