Family life fiction / Stories about family

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisAndre Dubus III probes the limits of recovery and absolution in this masterpiece of empathy.Trade Review"Gone So Long is about destruction and redemption and the stupid, stubborn way people have of squandering love." -- The Boston Globe

Read more less

Book SynopsisA poignant tale about one woman’s quest to recover her family’s history, and a story of loss and survival during the Holocaust.Trade Review"In Victoria Shorr’s searing novel, horror encompasses the characters in ways unknown to others less afflicted as they struggle to understand all that has been sacrificed and lost, at last finding solace in their uncompromising refusal to allow the crimes of the past to diminish and defeat them." -- Susanna Moore, author of Miss Aluminum"Victoria Shorr’s poignant novel, The Plum Trees, is less fiction than a reckoning with the past. Shorr tells a story of the evils that confronted millions of wartime Jews through the prism of one family’s desperate attempt to survive and the narrator’s equally desperate effort to find them decades later." -- Steven J. Ross, author of Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America"You’ll have trouble putting it down at all, much less slamming it shut. Written with urgency, elegance, and grace." -- Kirkus"Immersive ... This moving account makes clear the need to remember the horrors of war." -- Publishers Weekly

Read more less

Book Synopsis“[B[oth these fine novellas unfurl the kind of complicated family tapestries that every generation ends up weaving from money and love.” —Wall Street Journal Fate is explored in the fall and rise of two twentieth-century American families.Trade Review"What links the Perkinses and the Whites, apart from the fact that their trajectories are meeting “midair”? For starters, there’s Shorr’s eye for telling detail as she unreels the families’ varied experiences. And then there’s her insightful acknowledgment that those experiences are transformed as they sink into the past, that their subtle shadings will inevitably be lost." -- Alida Becker - New York Times Book Review"[An] inventive excavation of the past, this one in the form of two novellas whose themes are family and class, one an account of patrician decline and the other a tale of rags to riches. Each is a minor masterpiece.....Together they form a witty and moving portrait of American life going back a half-century or more....Ms. Shorr excels at capturing the arc of a relationship as well as of a life." -- Daniel Akst - Wall Street Journal"Victoria Shorr is a conjurer of the highest order, artfully creating apposite tales of family ruin and family success in her wry, insightful, and elegant prose." -- Lily Tuck, National Book Award–winning author of The News from Paraguay and Sisters"The two novellas in Victoria Shorr's book Mid-Air are intimate portraits of inclusion and exclusion, as well as the dangers implicit in nostalgia. Rich with an acerbic skepticism and abetted by the unexpected detail that renders something humorous, Shorr writes with a tolerance of ambiguity that is provocative as well as enlightening." -- Susanna Moore, author of Miss Aluminum"Shorr proves herself a literary mimic of the first order with these two pitch-perfect stories…[She] cleverly juxtaposes how one aspect of American society falls as another rises, and both novellas have a novellike density of detail and depth of characterization. Together, they offer rich rewards." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Shorr’s prose is fluid and supple….her insights are so keen, and her storytelling so elegant and natural….this book is a quiet accomplishment." -- Kirkus Reviews"In style and substance, Shorr summons the works of Anne Tyler as she rejoices in her characters’ day-to-day experiences, dropping pearls of insight into crystalline vignettes." -- Booklist (starred)

Read more less

Book SynopsisForced to sell his family farm after sacrificing everything, 63-year-old Gerrit Laninga no longer knows what to do with himself. 15-year-old Rae Walters has growing doubts about The Plan her parents set to help her follow in her father's footsteps. When their paths cross just as they need a friend the most, Gerrit's and Rae's lives change in unexpected ways.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA brilliant, magisterial novel of family secrets simmering beneath the surfaceTrade Review"Accreting through cumulative and sometimes contradictory accounts of a crumbling São Paulo dynasty, this philosophical novel examines what people present and what they conceal, even from themselves....Bracher and translator Morris render a sophisticated, multifaceted portrait of a family that endures nevertheless through its decline and the prolonged fallout from the choices they made—or that were left them—through the lives they lived. An elegant and nuanced meditation on family, class, perception, illness, and death." -- Kirkus (starred review)"This spellbinding and surprising work announced Bracher as one of the most fascinating contemporary Brazilian writers. " -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)"No one but Beatriz Bracher would be able to write a book like Antonio in Brazil today, because only she manages to write so intimately and forcefully, so ironically and bitterly, about the bourgeois upper class." -- Jornal do Brasil"Praise for I Didn't Talk: Brilliant, enigmatic, haunting, powerful; Bracher is a force to be reckoned with." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Simmering." -- Vanity Fair"Above all, it's the writing that shines in I Didn't Talk. It's a novel that's intelligent but not showy, and Bracher's restraint makes the story all the more potent. And the story is an important one. I Didn't Talk isn't just about one emotionally bruised man; it's about the lasting effects of violence, and the way cruelty causes its victims to torture themselves." -- Michael Schaub - NPR"As in her novel “I Didn’t Talk” (also elaborately translated by Morris), Bracher brilliantly picks away at the web of secrets and lies plaguing a family and country." -- Andersen Tepper - New York Times"Grief and distance have the power to turn memory into myth in Antonio, a masterpiece of storytelling that is slippery and prismatic, biting and cynical, and then, at last, gentle." -- Ally Findley - Harvard Review"Antonio feel[s] neither entirely like the work of a single author nor like a folk tale, propelling it into a liminal space that allows Bracher to address her real subject: the enduring violence, misogyny, and racism of Brazil’s hierarchical society." -- Kyle Paoletta - The Nation

Read more less

Book SynopsisA full-hearted parable of aspiration, loss and redemption from a literary master of working-class New England.Trade Review"Dubus is at the top of his game here, masterfully carrying the reader from the present action to Tom's memories and dreams without confusion. The writing and the structure are clean and seamless. " -- Issac Fitzgerald - The New York Times Book Review"A powerful portrait of recovered dignity. " -- People"Dubus excels at showing how mistakes can compound into tragedy... [and] brilliantly captures the ways chronic pain erodes the self... 'Such Kindness' is an astonishing novel about all these feelings, and the actions they call forth when we pay attention. " -- Lorraine Berry - The Los Angeles Times"Dubus is, undoubtedly, a skilled writer, and 'Such Kindness' is an admirable project for challenging us to show compassion for those on the economic fringes of society. " -- Zahir Janmohamed - Boston Globe"Such Kindness charts a remarkable rebirth, not from poverty to wealth but from bitter helplessness to the knowledge of self-worth. The result is a gripping and transformational journey towards kindness, in a tremendously moving novel. " -- Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House"Such Kindness is magnificent. A profound and compassionate study of how to be human wrapped in a taut survival story. I loved it so much. This is Dubus at his absolute finest." -- Lily King, author of Five Tuesdays in Winter

Read more less

Book SynopsisA brilliant, indelible novel of teenage alienation and adult complacency in a world whose climate and culture are unravelling.Trade Review"An American author steps out of the shadows with a dystopian novel of great power." -- Adam Begley - The Sunday Times"The pandemic amplifies the resonance of this brilliant end-of-days escapade… if the conclusion doesn’t leave you with goosebumps, then you should probably check your pulse." -- Stephanie Cross - The Daily Mail"New England children caught up in an apocalyptic storm have to fend for themselves in this powerful novel by a talented American writer who has often flown under the literary radar." -- 100 best holiday reads - The Sunday Times"Here's an idea: As the world falls apart all around us, why not read a book about the world falling apart in a totally different way? Not just any book, though, it kind of has to be A Children's Bible, the brilliant Lydia Millet's latest, in which the oblivious destructiveness of a certain self-indulgent generation of adults is rightfully skewered, as a new generation of hyper-mature teens must figure out how to live without any concrete kind of guidance." -- Best Books of 2020, So Far - Refinery29"A perfect novel for now." -- Metro"A Children’s Bible... begins in a crumbling mansion where a group of bored, surly, privileged teens are spending the summer sequestered with their ne’er do well parents. Just as it begins to seem like a summer teen romp, the story takes a dramatic turn in the shape of a cataclysmic storm. What follows is brilliant—and feels both inevitable and strangely magical. How those teens tell the story, which transforms this climate emergency into a brutally honest, funny and moving indictment of the generations leaving a broken world for them to inherit, is especially refreshing." -- Diane Cook, The Best Books of 2020 - Evening Standard"This superb novel begins as a generational comedy — a pack of kids and their middle-aged parents coexist in a summer share — and turns steadily darker, as climate collapse and societal breakdown encroach. But Millet’s light touch never falters; in this time of great upheaval, she implies, our foundational myths take on new meaning and hope." -- 100 Notable Books of 2020 - The New York Times Book Review"... in A Children’s Bible, Lydia Millet maps the consequences of an environmental apocalypse with unnerving, fable-like simplicity." -- The Best Novels of 2020 - The Telegraph

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Leave-Takers is a twenty-first-century American love story and a tale of internal migration to the Great Plains. Trade Review"This is overwhelmingly a love story, and a surprisingly sweet one."—Pamela Miller, (Minneapolis) Star Tribune“The Leave-Takers is a book to be savored, a novel you will dwell in during the moments you are away from it, suspended in its incantations and contemplations.”—Chris Harding Thornton, Colorado Review “The Leave-Takers fairly crackles with prose that strings sharp notes and breathtaking lyricism into a finely wrought tale of family struggle for survival on a hard land. These characters take no prisoners, give as good as they get, and never let go of the reader’s emotions or each other. Wingate has written a love song to the Dakota plains and every dream you ever had and lost and rebuilt again and again. A novel that demands to be read and savored many times over!”—Jonis Agee, author of The Bones of Paradise“It is difficult to write a contemporary novel that offers hope while avoiding sentimentality. Steven Wingate’s raw and compassionate The Leave-Takers does precisely this. It is a novel that explores how, amid so many blunting forces of violence and despair, we might stay sensitive to life and open to the future. The novel shimmers with the regenerative possibilities of family and creativity. This is a novel about woundedness but also about the rituals that allow us to free ourselves from the past and find home and healing right where we are.”—Kent Meyers, author of The Work of Wolves“Steven Wingate gives us beautifully rendered landscapes, at once expansive and intimate, filled with lively, compelling characters—both alive and dead!—upended by the twists and turns of life. A great ride through the terrain of loss, desire, and unbreakable connection.”—Paula Saunders, author of The Distance Home“Set against the vast, intimidating landscape of South Dakota, The Leave-Takers is a harrowing romance, a powerful story about addiction, perseverance, and ultimately the redemptive, complicated, and fraught power of love.”—Chip Cheek, author of Cape MayTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Part 1. Citizens of the Lost and Found 1. Cherry-Red Fender 2. Laynie and the Dream of Dogs 3. In Hot Water 4. That’s My Face 5. The Upturning 6. The Well 7. Places to Hide 8. The Last Hexagram Part 2. The Rise and Fall of a Private Bohemia 9. Wabasso, Sleepy Eye, and Points Beyond 10. A Montezuma Goodbye 11. Rings 12. Magic Wands 13. February 14. The Blood and the Bottle 15. Aftermathing 16. That Baboon Smile Part 3. Into the Furious Vortex 17. Echoing 18. Fuck You, Harvey Chancelman 19. Ghosts Weigh In 20. The Deeper End 21. Inquisitions 22. The Bottleneck 23. False Phoenixes 24. Retreats 25. Infinities Between 26. Zombie Time Coda. Float On Down the River Lethe 27. Django 28. Tabula Rasa 29. Things They Couldn’t Know

Read more less

Book SynopsisSet adrift when her mother sells the salon that has been a neighborhood institution for decades, Nora Rolvaag takes a camping trip, intending to do nothing more than roast marshmallows over an open fire and under a starry sky. Two chance encounters, however, will have enormous consequences, and her getaway turns out to be more of a retreat from her daily life than she ever imagined. But Nora is the do-or-die-trying daughter of Patty Jane, who now must embrace the House of Curl’s slogan: “Expect the Unexpected.”With her trademark wit and warmth, Lorna Landvik follows Nora and an ever-growing cast of characters between city and wooded retreat, Minnesota and Norway, a past that’s secret and a future that’s promising, but uncertain. Responding to a mysterious letter with a Norwegian postmark, Nora’s grandmother Ione travels to her native land to tend to a dying cousin and her husband—two people who played a painful, pivotal role in her past. Nora accompanies her and is surprised by her grandmother’s long-ago love story—but even more surprised by the beginning of her own.A book about making new beginnings out of old endings, Once in a Blue Moon Lodge invites readers to check in, set down their baggage, and spend time with the kind of people who understand that while they can’t control all that life throws at them, they can at least control how they catch it. And as anyone who has stopped in at Patty Jane’s House of Curl will tell you: you’re in for a rollicking good time with characters whose strengths, foibles, and choices will have you laughing and crying. Hankerings for coffee and gingerbread cookies may also be experienced.Trade Review"At long last! Patty Jane and her irresistible band of big-hearted merry-makers return to us. Lorna Landvik’s humor is wrapped around a core of love, common sense, and good cooking. Pull up an easy chair, pour a glass of wine, and enjoy this grand family reunion."—Faith Sullivan, author of Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse"Lorna Landvik creates characters and places so warm and real that reading Once in a Blue Moon Lodge feels like coming home (if you're lucky enough to be surrounded by people and places as weird and wonderful as Lorna's—I think I am)."—Nora McInerny, author of It's Okay to Laugh (Crying Is Cool Too)"There is a charm and warmth to this hopeful tale in which love is the glue that holds people together. Landvik's love for her characters is evident."—Kirkus Reviews"A people lover's book. This refreshingly simple family tale provides a comfy diversion from the everyday world."—Kirkus Reviews"Her characters, their gentle humor and world view, feel like home."—Always Packed for Adventure"The many twists and turns in the story will provide excellent fodder for book-club discussions."—Foreword Reviews"Landvik’s characters are generous and witty. They are big-hearted and inclusive. They inspire others, welcome strangers and appreciate practical things done well."—Star Tribune"This novel is suffused with love—between parents and children, between spouses or lovers, between people who are unrelated but considered family. There is a gentle humor and good-heartedness in all of Landvik’s books, a fondness for her characters that touches the reader."—Pioneer Press"A book about making new beginnings out of old endings, Once in a Blue Moon Lodge invites readers to check in, set down their baggage and spend time with the kind of people who understand that while they can't control all that life throws at them, they can at least control how they catch it."—Where the Reader Grows"I fell in love with the characters."—Reviews of Books On My Nightstand"The ties that bind the family and the truths that come out over time are evident and true to form for what you would expect from a feel-good contemporary novel."—Clues and Reviews"You’ll get caught up in short order, and you’ll get wrapped up even faster."—The Bookworm Sez"With pockets of humor and the lighthearted nature of a small town, this work of fiction will appeal to those who enjoy cozy mysteries."—Green Bay Press-Gazette

Read more less

Book SynopsisWinner: Northeastern Minnesota Book Award - Fiction Upper Peninsula Publishers & Authors Association U.P. Notable Book Award​Two lost sisters find family, and themselves, among the voices of an Ojibwe reservation When Loretta surrenders her young girls to the county and then disappears, she becomes one more missing Native woman in Indian Country’s long devastating history of loss. But she is also a daughter of the Mozhay Point Reservation in northern Minnesota and the mother of Azure and Rain, ages 3 and 4, and her absence haunts all the lives she has touched—and all the stories they tell in this novel. In the Night of Memory returns to the fictional reservation of Linda LeGarde Grover’s previous award-winning books, introducing readers to a new generation of the Gallette family as Azure and Rain make their way home.After a string of foster placements, from cold to kind to cruel, the girls find their way back to their extended Mozhay family, and a new set of challenges, and stories, unfolds. Deftly, Grover conjures a chorus of women’s voices (sensible, sensitive Azure’s first among them) to fill in the sorrows and joys, the loves and the losses that have brought the girls and their people to this moment. Though reconciliation is possible, some ruptures simply cannot be repaired; they can only be lived through, or lived with. In the Night of Memory creates a nuanced, moving, often humorous picture of two Ojibwe girls becoming women in light of this lesson learned in the long, sharply etched shadow of Native American history.Trade Review"With In the Night of Memory, Linda LeGarde Grover offers us a gift of story across generations of Native American women. This book examines what it means to grow up poor, grow up female, and grow up in a place that should be home but feels far from belonging. Grover creates a tapestry of history and imagination, a weaving of perspectives beautiful and wise, a collection of truths that anchors and honors the experiences of Indigenous women."—Kao Kalia Yang, author of The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father"In the Night of Memory is a moving story of loss and recovery in Native America. Linda LeGarde Grover has created fully realized characters pushed to the margins of their own lives but who, nevertheless, manage to live on their own terms. Riding on the wave of this poignant novel are some of the most important issues affecting American Indians today, including the loss of family and heritage and the destruction and disappearance of American Indian women. A remarkable achievement."—David Treuer"Once again Linda LeGarde Grover skillfully knots together the lives of Anishinaabeg connected to the fictional Mozhay Point Reservation. Like lace, the knotted pattern has gaps, absence, loss, and a design because of what—because of who—is missing. Set across decades and told through generations of relatives, In the Night of Memory mirrors actual history, from government removal of American Indian children to our current crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States and Canada. The intimate and interested narrative voices carry the readers, keeping them witnessing and understanding how what happened in the past never stops happening—and continues to impact communities today."—Heid Erdrich "I love this book! What a beautiful story of love and loss—from the pain of intergenerational effects to the trauma of the child welfare system to the hopefulness of community re-engagement. I felt an instant connection with the poetically named Rainfall Dawn and Azure Sky, and their mother Loretta, too. The whole family lived and breathed on the page and filled me right up as if I were there with them. I was sad to finish this one."—Katherena Vermette, author of The Break "In the Night of Memory is character driven and lyrical. Its vast, distinct chorus of matrilineal American Indian voices ring in melancholic yet dauntless tones, clarifying that community and nurturing can ameliorate absence."—Foreword Reviews, starred review "This coming of age story brings together themes of missing women, family and community, complicated histories and collective wisdoms."—Ms. Magazine "The tragic legacy of Indian boarding schools, including Rainy’s fetal alcohol syndrome, hovers over Grover’s sad but ultimately uplifting tale."—Booklist "Told with vibrancy by an Ojibwe professor and poet, this own voices story of Ojibwe girls in a situation only too common for indigenous families shouldn’t be missed."—Library Journal "Readers will come to love the strong, capable women who tell their stories here, from Azure and Rain to Dolly, with whom the girls live after they return to the reservation, their cousin Artense and women who remember Loretta as a neglected child."—Twin Cities Pioneer Press "With gorgeous imagery and verdant prose, LeGarde Grover’s novel lays bare the pain and loss of indigenous women and children while simultaneously offering a ray of hope."—Publishers Weekly "A gorgeously written story of inherited trauma and inherited resilience."—Shondaland "Powerful and moving. This is a tale of loss, of caring for others who cannot care for themselves, of trying to right a past that is deeply wrong, and of acceptance that life is never easy. It’s a tale of how, despite life’s hardships, people continue to hope, find happiness, try to find where they belong, and learn to be grateful for what few good things come into their lives."—Marquette Monthly "A must read for students and scholars alike. Grover’s ability to connect historical trauma to the problems currently facing Indigenous women are outstanding and her attention to detail creates a lasting connection to the story."—Tribal College "In the Night of Memory is a novel you won't want to put down once you've read the first page." —Ely Summer TimesTable of ContentsContentsThe Surrender of ChildrenMiskwaaMesabiDuluthTannenbaum GreenGolden ManorMoccasin Flower

Read more less

Book SynopsisBuilding on her critically acclaimed novel The Last Days of California and her biting collection Always Happy Hour, Miller transports readers to this delightfully wry, unapologetic corner of the south—Biloxi, Mississippi, home to sixty-three-year-old Louis McDonald, Jr. Louis has been forlorn since his wife of thirty-seven years left him, his father passed away and he impulsively retired from his job in anticipation of an inheritance cheque that may not come. These days he watches reality television and tries to avoid his ex-wife and daughter, benefiting from the charity of his former brother-in-law, Frank, who religiously brings over his takeway leftovers and always stays for a beer. Yet the past is no predictor of Louis’s future. On a routine trip to Walgreens to pick up his diabetes medication, he stops at a sign advertising free dogs and meets Harry Davidson, a man who claims to have more than a dozen canines on offer, but offers only one: an overweight mixed breed named Layla. Without any rational explanation, Louis feels compelled to take the dog home and the two become inseparable. Louis, more than anyone, is dumbfounded to find himself in love—bursting into song with improvised jingles, exploring new locales and reevaluating what he once considered the fixed horizons of his life. With her “sociologist’s eye for the mundane and revealing” (Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books), Miller populates the Gulf Coast with Ann Beattie-like characters. A strangely heartwarming tale of loneliness, masculinity and the limitations of each, Biloxi confirms Miller’s position as one of our most gifted and perceptive writers.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisShayne won’t get out of the car. It’s the summer of 1972 and the whole family has come up to Grandpa Murphy’s cottage for their annual trip. Three generations are out on the property, swimming, wandering through the forest, fixing up the clubhouse, getting ready to sing around the fire, and having a lovely time. And Shayne won’t get out of the car.A novel in sixteen stories, East Grand Lake is a lovely, thoughtful, warm-hearted tale of life at the lake with a big family. Following the Murphy Clan from one evening to the next, Tim Ryan captures the many tiny, important dramas that occur simultaneously, sometimes invisibly, when everyone gets together. A pair of brothers hunt frogs. The girl cousins make a bid for supremacy. A boy is afraid of the end of the dock. Over one sun-soaked day, the Murphy family wrestles with grief, aging, betrayal, mental illness, and the many small fictions that occur when people share their lives.Written with humour, compassion, and authenticity, East Grand Lake welcomes readers into the complex inner world of a large and loving family. This is a book for everyone who misses or wishes for summer vacation.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWinner of the AWP Prize for the Novel, this debut novel digs deep into the complexities of family history and relationships. When Etta's grandmother dies, she is compelled to travel to Myanmar to explore complicated adolescent memories of her grandmother's family and the violence she witnessed there. Full of rich detail and complex relationships, The Golden Land explores those personal narratives that might lie beneath the surface of historical accounts.Trade Review"A heartfelt exploration of the ties of family, The Golden Land is an engrossing tale told across generations with the explosive history of Myanmar as its backdrop. Elizabeth Shick has written a compelling, emotionally complex novel that explores the difficulties of defining oneself amid the struggle of competing cultures. This is a timely, necessary book." * Sabina Murray, author of The Human Zoo and Valiant Gentlemen *“Elizabeth Shick’s steady, elegant prose transported me to a place I knew little about, and I found myself wanting to learn more about this turbulent period in Myanmar’s history. The Golden Land is both a rich and intimate family portrait as well as a portal leading into another world, relevant and important to where we are in our own country today.” * Mira T. Lee, author of Everything Here is Beautiful *“The Golden Land is a gorgeous and moving novel about one young woman’s journey to Myanmar, where her family’s stay with their relatives, nearly 25 years ago, was cut short by political unrest. The novel immerses us in the Burma of 1988 and the Myanmar of 2011; both places are fraught with great beauty and suffering. Through the main character’s journey, we learn the difference between “adapting and accepting, between carrying on and forgetting” and find hope in the paradox that love is always tangled with disappointment, democracy doesn’t preclude loneliness and suffering, and yet trusting people we love is as natural and inevitable as breathing. This is a remarkable novel, at once informative and deeply felt.” * Kyoko Mori, author of Yarn: Remembering the Way Home *“The Golden Land moves back and forth in time, evoking present-day Myanmar’s indeed golden past when Burma, and capturing its perilous political moment, while also uncovering a Burmese-American family’s interwoven secrets, layer upon layer, one revelation leading to the next with poignant logic and a gathering momentum. Elizabeth Shick tells this story with flawless authority, giving us a rich, ever-beckoning novel that’s historically sure, culturally acute, and, most of all, humanly wise as it asks how much of where we came from do we need to hold close, and how much can’t we shed, however urgently we wish to.” * Douglas Bauer, author of The Beckoning World *“Like the Burmese puppeteer whose marionettes dance within this novel, Elizabeth Shick knows how seeming opposites are actually tied together: jiggle the past, and the future tilts; touch regret, touch loss, and set in motion love or liberation. Balancing the personal with the political, and showing romance side by side with a blood-soaked reality, this engrossing story is about the difficult necessity of revisiting trauma. The Golden Land radiates with cultural empathy, a glow that might light a path toward justice.” * Michael Lowenthal, author of Charity Girl *

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisA multicultural saga, This Fierce Blood follows three generations of women in the Sylte family. In rural late-nineteenth-century New England, Wilhelmina Sylte is a settler starting a family with her Norwegian immigrant husband. When she forms an inexplicable connection with a mountain lion and her cubs living near their farm, Mina grapples with divided loyalties and the mysterious bond she shares with the animals. In 1927 in southern Colorado, Josepa is accused of witchcraft by a local priest for using the healing practices passed down from her Native mother. Fighting for her family’s reputation and way of life, Sepa finds strength in worldly and otherworldly sources. When Magdalena, an ecologist, inherits her great-grandmother Wilhelmina’s Vermont property, she and her astrophysicist husband decide to turn the old farm into a summer science camp for teens. As Magda struggles with both personal and professional responsibilities, the boundary between science and myth begins to blur. Rich in historical and cultural detail, This Fierce Blood combines magical realism with themes of maternal ancestral inheritance, and also explores the ways Hispano/Indigenous traditions both conflicted and wove together, shaping the distinctive character of the American Southwest. Readers of Téa Obreht and Ruth Ozeki will find much to admire in this debut novel.Trade Review"Malia Márquez’s intense multigenerational novel incorporates magical realism into its story of three women struggling with family and social expectations. . . . Attentive to the pressures facing women across historical eras, the lush novel This Fierce Blood shows the power of strong women staying true to themselves." * Foreword Reviews *“Passion, faith, identity, trauma, love, and loyalty. . . through the interwoven stories of three women spanning generations, Malia Márquez dramatizes these urgent-as-ever themes. Taken individually, the stories of Wilhelmina, Josepa, and Magdalena are equally gripping. But like voices in a chorus, united in the sublime oratorio that is This Fierce Blood, their tales strike chords, harmonies, and syncopations greater than the sum of their distinct parts. Márquez has written a singular and passionate first novel.” * Peter Selgin, author of 'The Inventors' and 'Duplicity' *“This Fierce Blood traverses time, culture, and distance with gorgeous, sure-footed prose and a compelling cast of characters. By showing us all that separates these generations of Sylte women, Márquez deftly guides us toward what binds them. A wholehearted debut with a whisper of magic and deep, twisting roots in the natural world, this novel announces the arrival of a very special writer.” * Lily Brooks-Dalton, author of 'Good Morning, Midnight' *“This Fierce Blood is a wonder of a novel—at once epic and intimate, all of it deeply alive. Malia Márquez writes with compassion and precision, writes, to borrow words from these pages, ‘Like a song. Or a spell.’ I’m grateful to have been pulled into the magic of this book, grateful for my time with its generations of unforgettable, wild-hearted women.” * Gayle Brandeis, author of 'Many Restless Concerns' and 'The Book of Dead Birds' *“This Fierce Blood is a gorgeous and ecologically tender generational odyssey. The rebellious, loving, and brilliant Sylte women at the heart of this magical debut novel offer us a vision of what is possible when we consider both the power of our familial bonds and a natural world beyond the human. Malia Márquez has given us a spellbinding novel that remembers and fiercely reclaims our shared histories.” * Michael Zapata, author of 'The Lost Book of Adana Moreau' *"This Fierce Blood is compelling and beautiful. It is a multigenerational saga that captures the beauty, difficulty, and importance of merging and growing cultures. It clashes and it mends relationships across generations and cultures in a thoughtful and lovely way. It’s absolutely stunning." * Bookish Brews *

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisA mystery, a love story, and a search through a shadowy past. Two strangers unite in this novel of family secrets by international bestselling author Marc Levy, the most read contemporary French author in the world. When London journalist Eleanor-Rigby Donovan receives an anonymous letter alluding to a crime committed by her deceased mother, her life is turned upside down. It points her to a bar on the Baltimore Harbor, where she finds a stranger who has received the same mysterious letter about his own mother. Together, Eleanor-Rigby and this young man, George-Harrison Collins, embark on a quest through the shadowy past of the Stanfields, a moneyed Maryland family full of unimaginable secrets. These secrets will transport them back decades, across continents, and to a mysterious crime long buried…until now.Trade Review“[A] breezy family drama that plays out its familiar narrative beats right on time.” —Kirkus Reviews “The Last of the Stanfields is a compelling tale of mystery, love, and a search through a shadowy past.” —Brooklyn Digest “Amusing at times, nostalgic and wistful at others…” —New York Journal of Books

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less