For two years, Brother Pete has lived as a monk, in a rundown abbey on the outskirts of a big city. He has run away from his life only to find himself among a group of outcasts and oddballs – from a former child star who's seen better days, to a mean old abbot who makes no secret of his love for drink and his hatred for almost everything else.  It's not exactly what Pete had in mind. Then one day a stranger arrives and throws everything even more off balance. Soon, it seems Brother Pete will need to face his own past if he wants to find out whether this mysterious visitor is a danger – or a savior.
Poor Ken. One snide comment about hockey and Kendra, his girlfriend—or “girlfriend coach"—asks him not to call her anymore. How can he win her back? By using his rent money to buy a fortune in hockey equipment and skating with the aging Wildcats. But it’s never that simple, because all of his teammates, Ivan the terrible landlord, Mittens the stray cat, and Franka the sexy scorekeeper are out to get him—all in their own special ways.
BJ, a talented college basketball player, lives and breathes the game. For BJ, life means nothing without hoops. Her mother—an abstract painter—doesn’t get it. Or at least she pretends she doesn’t. Everything changes when BJ accidentally discovers her dad, a man who’s been a shadowy presence throughout her life. As if that’s not enough of a surprise, she begins to suspect that two of her teammates, and her best friends, may actually be her half-sisters. As BJ struggles to keep her eye on the ball—literally—her life heads into overtime.
A family tale for new readers, from a New York Times Notable author in her stride. A young girl leaves Tokyo with her mother in 1979, carrying her pink suitcase to a new home, a new father and sister, on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Thirty-three years later, her mother's belongings are found packed into boxes, her furniture draped in white sheets. Without so much as a note, she has left the two sisters connected by history, by some idea of family, to look for her. What happens when people lose their way home? Like a little barn cat, they grab onto a second family. . . and start again.