Ruth is a woman who believes in and despairs of the curative power of love. Her daughter, Eleanor, who is addicted to drugs, has just had a baby, Lily. Ruth adjusts herself in ways large and small to give to Eleanor what she thinks she may need—nourishment, distance, affection—but all her gifts fall short. After someone dies of an overdoes in Eleanor's apartment, Ruth hands her daughter an envelope of cash and takes Lily home with her, and Lily, as she grows, proves a compensation for all of Ruth's past defeats and disappointment. Love without fear is a new feeling for her, almost unrecognizable. Will it last?
Love and Missed is a whip-smart, incisive, and mordantly witty novel about love's gains and missteps. British writer Susie Boyt's seventh novel, and the first to be published in the United States, is a triumph.
From the award-winning, bestselling author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk comes a brilliant and propulsive new novel about greed, power, and American complicity set in Haiti
Haiti, 1991. When a violent coup d’état leads to the fall of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, American expat Matt Amaker is forced to abandon his idyllic, beachfront scuba business. With the rise of a brutal military dictatorship and an international embargo threatening to destroy even the country’s most powerful players, some are looking to gain an advantage in the chaos–and others are just looking to make it through another day.
Desperate for money—and survival—Matt teams up with his best friend and business partner Alix Variel, the adventurous only son of a socially prominent Haitian family. They set their sights on legendary shipwrecks that have been rumored to contain priceless treasures off a remote section of Haiti’s southern coast. Their ambition and exploration of these disastrous wrecks come with a cascade of ill-fated incidents—one that involves Misha, Alix’s erudite sister, who stumbles onto an arms-trafficking ring masquerading as a U.S. government humanitarian aid office, and rookie CIA case officer Audrey O’Donnell, who finds herself doing clandestine work on an assignment that proves to be more difficult and dubious than she could have possibly imagined.
Devil Makes Three’s depiction of blood politics, the machinations of power, and a country in the midst of upheaval is urgently and insistently resonant. This new novel is sure to cement Ben Fountain’s reputation as one of the twenty-first century’s boldest and most perceptive writers.
Against the backdrop of Colombia's lush, yet wounded beauty in the wake of the 1925 Cali earthquake, this riveting novel by the award-winning Ecuadorian American author of The Spanish Daughter plunges three strangers - a photographer, a young Spanish chocolatier in disguise, and a Palestinian-Colombian nun - into a perilous search for the missing owner of a coveted hacienda amidst an emerging cholera epidemic.
"An engrossing, suspenseful family saga." --Chanel Cleeton, New York Times bestselling author of Next Year in Havana on The Spanish Daughter
"Engaging. For fans of historical fiction and works by Christina Baker Kline and Lisa Wingate." --Booklist
Driven and recklessly daring, Martin Sabater follows his lifelong dream of owning a cacao plantation in Valle del Cauca. But on the night of a spectacular gala, he disappears--and is never seen again. Now his hacienda is a budding Catholic hospital saving lives during an emerging epidemic. And novice nun "Sor Puri" is there to uncover the truth behind Martin's disappearance. But her real identity--and her past with the heartbreakingly charismatic Martin--will put far more than her perilous search at risk.
A professional photographer, Lucas Ferreira is Martin's best friend since boyhood. He has his own reasons for helping the determined, alluring nun. But what this reserved man won't reveal about his thwarted dreams and unrequited passion could prove key to the past--or a lethal trap. Martin was head nurse Sor Camila's only love--until an unfortunate mistake changed the course of her life forever. Now, Martin's home is an unexpected chance for her, Lucas, and Puri to set the past right. But with their secrets unearthing explosive memories and wrenching lies, can they survive the truth about Martin--and the consequences that will forever alter their destinies?
"Vivid ...This book will appeal to readers who enjoy family conflict, historical details, and the exploration of lost love."-- Library Journal
"A tale as rich and complex as the finest chocolate." --Marisel Vera, author of The Taste of Sugar
Told against the backdrop of the Korean War as a small Appalachian town sends its sons to battle, The Caretaker by award-winning author Ron Rash ("One of the great American authors at work today" --The New York Times) is a breathtaking love story and a searing examination of the acts we seek to justify in the name of duty, family, honor, and love.
It's 1951 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Blackburn Gant, his life irrevocably altered by a childhood case of polio, seems condemned to spend his life among the dead as the sole caretaker of a hilltop cemetery. It suits his withdrawn personality, and the inexplicable occurrences that happen from time to time rattle him less than interaction with the living. But when his best and only friend, the kind but impulsive Jacob Hampton, is conscripted to serve overseas, Blackburn is charged with caring for Jacob's wife, Naomi, as well.
Sixteen-year-old Naomi Clarke is an outcast in Blowing Rock, an outsider, poor and uneducated, who works as a seasonal maid in the town's most elegant hotel. When Naomi eloped with Jacob a few months after her arrival, the marriage scandalized the community, most of all his wealthy parents who disinherited him. Shunned by the townsfolk for their differences and equally fearful that Jacob may never come home, Blackburn and Naomi grow closer and closer until a shattering development derails numerous lives.
A tender examination of male friendship and rivalry as well as a riveting, page-turning novel of familial devotion, The Caretaker brilliantly depicts the human capacity for delusion and destruction all too often justified as acts of love.
In this engaging historical mystery, Agatha Christie's ever-capable housekeeper, Phyllida Bright, not only keeps the celebrated author's English country home in tip-top shape, she excels as an amateur sleuth. But when a murder-themed game goes awry, can she outfox the guilty party?
"A murder will occur tonight at Beecham House . . ." Who could resist such a compelling invitation? Of course, the murder in question purports to be a party game, and Phyllida looks forward to using some of the deductive skills she has acquired thanks to her employer, Mrs. Agatha, who is unable to attend in person.
The hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Wokesley, are new to the area, and Phyllida gladly offers their own overwhelmed housekeeper some guidance while events get underway. Family friends have been enlisted to play the suspects, and Mr. Wokesley excels in his role of dead body. Unfortunately, when the game's solution is about to be unveiled, the participants discover that life has imitated art. Mr. Wokesley really is dead!
In the absence of Inspector Cork, Phyllida takes temporary charge of the investigation, guiding the local constable through interviews with the Murder Game actors. At first, there seems no motive to want Mr. Wokesley dead . . . but then Phyllida begins to connect each of the suspects with the roles they played and the motives assigned to them. It soon becomes clear that everyone had a reason to murder their host--both in the game and in real life. Before long, Phyllida is embroiled in a fiendishly puzzling case, with a killer who refuses to play by the rules . . .
A disgraced soccer exec reluctantly enlists the help of a retired soccer star in coaching a children’s team in this smalltown love story in the vein of Ted Lasso and It Happened One Summer —from the New York Times bestselling author of The Spanish Love Deception.
Adalyn Reyes has spent years perfecting her daily routine: wake up at dawn, drive to the Miami Flames FC offices, try her hardest to leave a mark, go home, and repeat.
But her routine is disrupted when a video of her in an altercation with the team’s mascot goes viral. Rather than fire her, the team’s owner—who happens to be her father—sends Adalyn to middle-of-nowhere North Carolina, where she’s tasked with turning around the struggling local soccer team, the Green Warriors, as a way to redeem herself. Her plans crumble upon discovering that the players wear tutus to practice (impractical), keep pet goats (messy), and are terrified of Adalyn (counterproductive), and are nine-year-old kids.
To make things worse, also in town is Cameron Caldani, goalkeeping prodigy whose presence is somewhat of a mystery. Cam is the perfect candidate to help Adalyn, but after one very unfortunate first encounter involving a rooster, Cam’s leg, and Adalyn’s bumper, he’s also set on running her out of town. But banishment is not an option for Adalyn. Not again. Helping this ragtag children’s team is her road to redemption, and she is playing the long game. With or without Cam’s help.
A small town is transformed when seven strange trees begin bearing magical apples in this masterpiece of horror from the bestselling author of Wanderers and The Book of Accidents.
“Chuck Wendig is one of my very favorite storytellers. Black River Orchard is a deep, dark, luscious tale that creeps up on you and doesn’t let go.”—Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus
It’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there.
Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black.
Take a bite of one of these apples, and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing—and become darker.
This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard. Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples . . . and what’s the harm, if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful?
Even if something else is buried in the orchard besides the seeds of these extraordinary trees: a bloody history whose roots reach back to the very origins of the town.
But now the leaves are falling. The days grow darker. It’s harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.
Until then may I use my time as you desire . . .
In 1985, Old Order Amish couple Celeste and Vin Lantz have been married for six years. Vin is a carpenter by trade but an artist in his heart. He is especially captivated by drawing portraits, which the Amish consider idolatry. Knowing they could be shunned, Celeste is shocked to discover that Vin has secretly been sketching her and their sons. When she confronts Vin, they argue and Vin storms off . . . and seems to disappear, leaving Celeste to wonder if he chose his art over his family.
When he leaves the house that night, Vin seeks peace on his favorite mountain overlook. But he takes a fall and wakes to find himself injured and lost. Vin soon realizes just how far he has traveled--not only in distance but back in time, to 1822 Ohio, a place that provides the freedom he craved but where he is separated from his beloved wife and children. Vin is saved by the kindness of strangers and gradually learns to survive and even to use his skills to help his new friends in this unfamiliar time and place. But all the while he prays desperately for God to return him to his family, before Celeste makes a new life without him.
For fans of Amish romance and time-slip novels comes a gripping story of faith, freedom, redemption, and the truest desires of the heart by New York Times bestselling author Cindy Woodsmall.
"Full of intriguing characters, Until Then will keep readers holding their breath all the way to the last page, when one more twist arrives." Suzanne Woods Fisher, bestselling author of Anything but Plain
"Until Then, a thoroughly captivating time-slip tale, takes the reader on an unforgettable journey with characters who step off the page and into your heart." Tamera Alexander, bestselling author of A Million Little Choices
He's here to train her horses, and then he's moving on. She's keeping her true identity a secret. But their spark complicates both of their plans.
When her mother's death leaves Charlotte Simpson bereft, she hopes the Robinson clan will accept her as one of their own and help fill the void. But a startling discovery dashes her hopes and leaves her wondering if she will ever know the father she's always longed for.
Horse trainer Gunner Dawson has experienced profound loss and intends to avoid it. So he lives on the move without forming close bonds or putting down roots. When Charlotte hires him to work with her horses and help expand her ranch, he commits to staying for a few months. But he doesn't count on getting caught up in Charlotte's search for her biological father. Or on falling in love--with Riverbend Gap or with Charlotte. This time, he's not sure if he'll be able to move on--or if he even wants to.
The queen of heartwarming, small-town love stories returns to Riverbend Gap with a deeply satisfying tale of love's healing power.
Humanity's new war is an enigma, with an enemy threat beyond all imagination, in this near-future novel of mind-blowing adventure where the fate of the world rests in the choices of one ordinary soldier.
In one terrifying event called the Ninety-Nine, all major military installations on earth were eviscerated. But by whom? Foreign powers, AIs, ETs? Every conceivable adversary was ruled out. Reeling from massive casualties and amid hundreds of conspiracy theories, humanity creates Andrones: bipedal android drones piloted remotely by soldiers who will never again need to be on the field of battle. Newly minted Androne pilot Sergeant Paxton Arés has now been deployed into a fight against an enemy no one understands or has ever seen.
Passing mostly uneventful days patrolling an unidentified desert, Paxton spends time communicating with his pregnant girlfriend back home and reflecting on his impending fatherhood. But as he is drawn deeper into military camaraderie and begins quickly rising up the ranks on the strength of his father's military legacy, Paxton starts to question the swirling rumors about the nature of the conflict. What he's encountered in the shifting dunes--something inexplicable, indomitable--fills him with the fear that whatever is out there is destined to win.
Whether it's curiosity, ambition, or a newfound paternal instinct, Paxton has a driving need to understand the dangerous truths of this strange, invisible war. And the choices he must make have the power to change everything.
The Navigating Fox is a fantastical fable of "knowledgeable creatures", in the vein of Brian Jacques's Redwall series but for adults, by Hugo and Nebula Award finalist Christopher Rowe
"Half fable, half caper, and a pure joy to read."—Holly Black, New York Times bestselling author of Book of Night
"There's nothing like it; you have to read it." —Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Once and Future Witches
Quintus Shu'al, the world's only navigating fox, is in disgrace after guiding an expedition to its doom, leaving no survivors. One year later, Quintus is offered the chance to redeem himself: he will need to lead a motley, fractious team—both human and animal—all the way to the gates of Hell.
A novel about obsessive love featuring two ballet dancers--identical twin sisters Olivia and Clara Marionetta--with a terrifying climax set in the world of ballet in pre-war London.
The Dance of the Dolls tells the story of identical twin ballerinas rehearsing for Coppélia at the recently opened Sadler's Wells Theatre. Superficially, even their differences are complementary: Olivia aspires to be the perfect ballerina while Clara is rebellious and independent. Clara takes up a relationship with the bohemian and passionate Nathan, a pianist at the theater. Meanwhile, Olivia is unaware that she has cast a spell on another frequent visitor to Sadler's Wells: Samuel, a bashful apprentice ballet shoemaker who steals into the building as often as he can to watch her dance. But as the sisters rehearse, danger lurks. The story of Coppélia and the dancing doll threatens to become a dark and sinister reality. Olivia becomes jealous of Nathan's adoration of Clara, while Clara discovers that being adored can feel suffocating. Samuel dreams of being recognized by Olivia and wonders how far he would go to achieve his goal, while Nathan, a musical child prodigy, struggles to adapt to adulthood and begins to blur the lines between reality and his dark fantasy world . . .
The boys on the row are only after one thing, but that bullshit's for pledges. Tiffany's on the hunt for something more.
Kill for Love is a searing satirical thriller about Tiffany, a privileged Los Angeles sorority sister who is struggling to keep her sadistic impulses--and haunting nightmares of fire and destruction--at bay. After a frat party hookup devolves into a bloody, fatal affair, Tiffany realizes something within her has awoken: the insatiable desire to kill attractive young men.
As Tiffany's bloodlust deepens and the bodies pile up, she must contend with mounting legal scrutiny, social media-fueled competing murders, and her growing relationship with Weston, who she thinks could be the perfect boyfriend. A female-driven, modern-day American Psycho, Kill for Love exposes modern toxic plasticity with dark comedy and propulsive plot.
"In her clear and visceral sentences that evoke a world both like and unlike our own, Picklesimer places you completely in the narrator's haunting, singular journey." --Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin
A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—a daring, moving tale of memory and fate from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier.
“A monumental achievement of polyphony and humanity . . . I loved it.” —Maggie O’Farrell, author of Hamnet
When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave—only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.
This magisterial and highly inventive novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason brims with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature, and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment, to history, and to one another. It is not just an unforgettable novel about secrets and destinies, but a way of looking at the world that asks the timeless question: How do we live on, even after we’re gone?
* A Publishers Weekly's "Writers to Watch" (Fall 2023)
An entrancing and prismatic debut novel by Christine Lai, set in a near future fraught with ecological collapse, Landscapes brilliantly explores memory, empathy, preservation, and art as an instrument for recollection and renewal.
In the English countryside--decimated by heat and drought--Penelope archives what remains of an estate's once notable collection. As she catalogues the library's contents, she keeps a diary of her final months in the dilapidated country house that has been her home for two decades and a refuge for those who have been displaced by disasters. Out of necessity, Penelope and her partner, Aidan, have sold the house and its scheduled demolition marks the pressing deadline for completing the archive. But with it also comes the impending return of Aidan's brother, Julian, at whose hands Penelope suffered during a brief but violent relationship twenty-two years before. As Julian's visit looms, Penelope finds herself unable to suppress the past, and she clings to art as a means of understanding, of survival, and of reckoning.
Recalling the works of Rachel Cusk and Kazuo Ishiguro, Landscapes is an elegiac and spellbinding blend of narrative, essay, and diary that reinvents the pastoral and the country house novel for our age of catastrophe, and announces the arrival of an extraordinarily gifted new writer.
“Stylish and raw…seizes the reader’s sympathy and does not let go.” —Anne Enright, Booker Prize–winning author of The Gathering
For readers of Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel, an immersive literary debut inspired by historical events—a deadly witch hunt in 17th-century England—that claimed many innocent lives.
East Anglia, 1645. Martha Hallybread, a midwife, healer, and servant, has lived peacefully for more than four decades in her beloved seaside village of Cleftwater. Having lost her voice as a child, Martha has not spoken a word in years.
One autumn morning, a sinister newcomer appears in town. The witchfinder, Silas Makepeace, has been blazing a trail of destruction along the coast, and now has Cleftwater in his sights. His arrival strikes fear into the heart of the community. Within a day, local women are being captured and detained, and Martha finds herself a silent witness to the hunt.
Powerless to protest, Martha is enlisted to search the accused women for “devil’s marks.” She is caught between suspicion and betrayal; between shielding herself or condemning the women of the village. In desperation, she revives a wax witching doll that belonged to her mother, in the hope that it will bring protection. But the doll’s true powers are unknowable, Martha harbors a terrible secret, and the gallows are looming…
Set over the course of just a few weeks that will forever change history, The Witching Tide delivers powerful and psychologically astute insights about the exigencies of friendship and the nature of loyalty, and heralds the arrival of a striking new voice in fiction.
With biting wit, a young lens, and satisfying sleuthing that's "right in focus (Kirkus)," Christin Brecher's refreshingly fun Snapshot of NYC mysteries has rising star photographer Liv Spyers living the dream in New York City when she lands an assignment with an award-winning pop star-until a murder means Liv must focus her camera's lens into sleuth mode...
"A twisty-turny, witty and wonderful, mysterious romp through New York City that was a pure delight to read." -New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay
"Brecher has a winner with this new series that will delight cozy mystery readers!" -Abby Collette, author of A Killer Sundae
Liv Spyers hits the big time when she lands a photography assignment with Grammy Award-winning pop star, the one and only Bisa. A huge fan, Liv is extra thrilled that her new boyfriend, Harry, will escort her to the glamorous premiere of Bisa's debut movie. But when Bisa's estranged sister, Courtney, threatens to turn the photo-op into a PR disaster, Liv goes after her-only to turn to camera lens on herself when Courtney winds up dead. With all eyes on Liv, her star-studded career is suddenly on the verge of being cancelled . . .
Bisa is leaning hard on Liv to catch her sister's killer-while she and her flirtatious entourage are wreaking havoc on Liv's relationship with Harry. Now the best Liv can hope for is that her most famous photo doesn't turn out to be her own mugshot. And that she can save herself-and Harry-before the killer strikes again . . .
Perfect for fans of Deanna Raybourn and Ashley Weaver, when a body is found shot to death after an unexpected snowstorm, Lily Adler quickly realizes that some people will stop at nothing to bury their secrets.
Regency widow Lily Adler is looking forward to a quiet Christmastide away from the schemes and secrets she witnessed daily in London. Not only will she be visiting the family of her late husband; she will be reunited with Captain Jack Hartley, her friend and confidante, finally returned after a long voyage at sea.
But secrets aren’t only found in London. Jack’s younger sister, Amelia, is the center of neighborhood scandal and gossip. She refuses to tell anyone what really happened, even when an unexpected snowstorm strands the neighborhood families together after a Christmas ball. Stuck until the snow stops, the Adlers, Hartleys, and their neighbors settle in for the night, only to be awakened in the morning by the scream of a maid who has just discovered a dead body.
The victim was the well-to-do son of a local gentleman—the same man whose name has become so scandalously linked to Amelia’s.
With the snow still falling and no way to come or go, it’s clear that someone in the house was responsible for the young man’s death. When suspicion instantly falls on Jack’s sister, he and Lily must unmask the true culprit before Amelia is convicted of a crime she didn’t commit.
A cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle.
Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly...something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.
Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.
When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.
"Amy Lea's Woke Up Like This reminded me that the exciting and complicated feelings of our teenage years never truly fade away. The book perfectly captures high school nostalgia . . . It's a feel-good story for the young and young at heart." --Mindy Kaling
For two high school seniors, it's seventeen going on thirty--overnight--in a magical romantic comedy about growing up too fast and living in the moment.
Planning the perfect prom is one last "to do" on ultra-organized Charlotte Wu's high school bucket list. So far, so good, if not for a decorating accident that sends Charlotte crash-landing off a ladder, face-first into her obnoxiously ripped archnemesis J. T. Renner. Worse? When Charlotte wakes up, she finds herself in an unfamiliar bed at thirty years old, with her bearded fiancé, Renner, by her side.
Either they've lost their minds or they've been drop-kicked into adulthood, forever trapped in the thirty-year-old bodies of their future selves. With each other as their only constant, Charlotte and Renner discover all that's changed in the time they've missed. Charlotte also learns there's more to Renner than irritating-jock charm, and that reaching the next milestone isn't as important as what happens in between.
Navigating a series of adventures and a confounding new normal, Charlotte and Renner will do whatever it takes to find a way back to seventeen. But when--and if--they do, what then?
A fun, fresh, and twisty debut whodunnit about a grandmother-mother-daughter trio who come together as amateur sleuths to solve a murder in their coastal California town.
"A lively and tender story of family that Simon deftly transforms into an edge-of-your-seat murder mystery... One part The Maid and one part family drama à la The Nest, Mother-Daughter Murder Night is a resounding and impressive triumph."--Katy Hays, New York Times bestselling author of The Cloisters
Nothing brings a family together like a murder next door.
High-powered businesswoman Lana Rubicon has a lot to be proud of: her keen intelligence, impeccable taste, and the L.A. real estate empire she's built. But when she finds herself trapped 300 miles north of the city, convalescing in a sleepy coastal town with her adult daughter Beth and teenage granddaughter Jack, Lana is stuck counting otters instead of square footage--and hoping that boredom won't kill her before the cancer does.
Then Jack--tiny in stature but fiercely independent--happens upon a dead body while kayaking near their bungalow. Jack quickly becomes a suspect in the homicide investigation, and the Rubicon women are thrown into chaos. Beth thinks Lana should focus on recovery, but Lana has a better idea. She'll pull on her wig, find the true murderer, protect her family, and prove she still has power.
With Jack and Beth's help, Lana uncovers a web of lies, family vendettas, and land disputes lurking beneath the surface of a community populated by folksy conservationists and wealthy ranchers. But as their amateur snooping advances into ever-more dangerous territory, the headstrong Rubicon women must learn to do the one thing they've always resisted: depend on each other.
From one of our most accomplished novelists, a mesmerizing story about a mother and daughter seeking refuge in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War—and a brilliant portrait of family endurance against all odds
"A tour de force." —Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
In 1874, in the wake of the War, erasure, trauma, and namelessness haunt civilians and veterans, renegades and wanderers, freedmen and runaways. Twelve-year-old ConaLee, the adult in her family for as long as she can remember, finds herself on a buckboard journey with her mother, Eliza, who hasn’t spoken in more than a year. They arrive at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia, delivered to the hospital’s entrance by a war veteran who has forced himself into their world. There, far from family, a beloved neighbor, and the mountain home they knew, they try to reclaim their lives.
The omnipresent vagaries of war and race rise to the surface as we learn their story: their flight to the highest mountain ridges of western Virginia; the disappearance of ConaLee’s father, who left for the War and never returned. Meanwhile, in the asylum, they begin to find a new path. ConaLee pretends to be her mother’s maid; Eliza responds slowly to treatment. They get swept up in the life of the facility—the mysterious man they call the Night Watch; the orphan child called Weed; the fearsome woman who runs the kitchen; the remarkable doctor at the head of the institution.
Epic, enthralling, and meticulously crafted, Night Watch is a stunning chronicle of surviving war and its aftermath.
The first novel from one of the original Kings of Comedy, Cedric "The Entertainer," an engaging and entertaining crime caper that is a valentine to close-knit black families and tightly woven communities struggling to get by during the Depression and World War II.
Babe is a charismatic and widely loved man, a gambler with a gift for gab that often gets him out of tricky situations. He's also a dreamer, something he shares with his patient and loving wife, Rosie. They both yearn for financial stability and see the land they own as insurance for future generations. But when Babe and a few comrades enlist in a scheme that improbably falls apart, he endangers the little security the family has.
On the verge of losing everything, what's a family man to do?
If you're a gambler like Babe, you double down and risk it all for one big score--this time, a plan involving railroad boxcars.
Will Babe succeed? Will Rosie continue to support her husband? Are the Feds on to his make-or-break scheme?
Flipping Boxcars is Cedric "The Entertainer" at his most engaging best--a charming, fast-paced novel that pays homage to his beloved grandfather and a generation past, anchored by rich, multi-dimensional characters and oozing with irresistible charm.
"For anyone who believes, as I do, that the best hope for our fractured country is local, not national, Christian Kiefer’s new novel The Heart of it All will provide a welcome balm for the spirit. Here are people worth spending time with, not because they’re perfect, but because they’re not. What’s wrong with them isn’t nearly as consequential as how hard they fight for a better life, and not just for themselves. You set the book down and think, ‘This is what we’re made of.’ Or should be."—Richard Russo, author of Somebody’s Fool
A small, declining town in Ohio. A family bereaved by terrible loss. A searing narrative about how American lives touch each other across divides both real and imagined...
Set in failing small town in central Ohio, The Heart of It All asks how one manages, in an America of increasing division, to find a sense of family and community.
Focusing on the members of three families: the Baileys, a white family who have put down deep roots in the community; the Marwats, an immigrant family that owns the town’s largest employer; and the Shaws, especially young Anthony, an outsider whose very presence gently shakes the town’s understanding of itself.
A gorgeous, stirring novel in the classic vein of Richard Ford, Marilynne Robinson, Richard Russo, and Kent Haruf, The Heart of It All asks the reader to consider an America both divided and bound by its differences.
A dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that readers love about her novels--the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.
In this brilliant volume, nothing is quite as it seems. We meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; a lost man who bets on a horse that may--or may not--have spoken to him. Everything that readers love about the novels of Kate Atkinson is here--the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations of human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.
Witty and wise, with subtle connections between the stories, Normal Rules Don't Apply is a startling and funny feast for the imagination, stories with the depth and bite to create their own fully-formed worlds.
A September LibraryReads Pick
A twisty and consuming thriller, Perfectly Nice Neighbors asks: When your dream home comes with nightmare neighbors, how far will you go to keep your family safe?
Salma Khatun is hopeful about Blenheim, the suburban development into which she, her husband, and their son have just moved. The Bangladeshi family needs a fresh start, and Blenheim feels like just the place.
Soon after they move in, Salma spots her White neighbor, Tom Hutton, ripping out the anti-racist banner her son put in the front garden. Avoiding confrontation, Salma takes the banner inside and puts it in her window. But the next morning, she wakes up to find her window smeared with paint.
When she does speak to Tom, battle lines are drawn between the two families. As racial and social tensions escalate and the stakes rise, it’s clear that a reckoning is coming . . .
And someone is going to get hurt.
A taut and electrifying novel from celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, about one spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive
“Extraordinary… staggering…with wrenching beauty…This is a triumph.” –Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Must be read…The writing is inspired, the imaginative power near mystic.” –Kirkus Reviews
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.
Lauren Groff’s new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.
