Fiction: literary and general non-genre

Book SynopsisShortlisted for The Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards 2017Longlisted for the 2017 Desmond Elliott Prize'Alan McMonagle possesses a style that is all his own and I found his first novel compelling from start to finish. Read it.' Patrick McCabe, author of The Butcher BoyIthaca, the ferociously funny and unbelievably poignant debut novel from Alan McMonagle, combines a fiercely emotional story with crackling prose.Summer 2009, and eleven-year-old Jason Lowry is preoccupied with thoughts of the Da he has never known. In the meantime, his vodka-swilling, swings-from-the-hip Ma is busy entertaining her latest boyfriend and indulging her fondness for joyriding.Jason escapes to the Swamp: a mysteriously rising pool of fetid water on the outskirts of the town. There, he meets the girl, a being as lost as himself. Together, they conjure exotic adventures - from ancient Egypt to the search for Ithaca, home of Odysseus. But what begin as innocent flights of fancy soon become forays into hazardous territory; the girl is a dangerous (and very committed) partner in crime.Trade ReviewIts exuberance and punch are beguiling. [Jason's] relationship with his ma is bedevilled by his lack of understanding, his observation of the adult world is often very funny indeed, and there’s a poignancy and depth that give Jason’s odyssey that extra fillip. * Daily Mail *A fierce and funny novel that tackles tough topics with great imaginative flair. Ithaca doesn’t take itself too seriously, and is all the more affecting for it . . . Jason’s jaunts around town are reminiscent of Francie Brady in The Butcher Boy – young bucks who are wonderful mimics of adult mannerisms while simultaneously struggling to understand the intricacies and injustices of the grown-up world . . . For Jason and his friend the exotic Ithaca offers refuge and new beginnings. Skilfully meshing imagination with reality, McMonagle sets out to discover if the same things can be found at home. The novel belongs to Jason and his Ma, who, through an epic journey of adversity, manage to find their way back to each other * Irish Times *It's pretty rare to find a rookie novelist writing with such conviction, authority and style. But McMonagle's prose has all three in spades. This is top-notch stuff . . . there is an originality of voice here that I have not come across in Irish fiction for quite some years now. And through the prism of Jason's energetic first-person narrative - that's bursting with black humour, tenderness, and emotion in equal measure - the socially deprived world he is growing up in comes into focus with absolute clarity . . . I nearly died laughing, and was exceptionally moved too, reading this stylish, dark existential tale: which explores the fine line between the language of dreams and reality, and between the material and mythological world too. * Sunday Independent *It's a stunner. -- Edna O'BrienStrange and wondrous; savage with vision, leaping with wit and moving in ways that are quite impossible to shake off, Alan McMonagle's Ithaca is a stunner. A quest story with the wisdom of an epic and with the whip-smart energy of a brilliantly fresh and audacious new voice. -- Belinda McKeon, author of Solace, winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial PrizeIthaca more than confirms the promise shown by Alan McMonagle in his first book of short stories,Psychotic Episodes. He possesses a style that is all his own and I found his first novel compelling from start to finish. Read it. -- Patrick McCabe, author of The Butcher Boy Flawless prose and razor dialogue . . . Mesmerising, unforgettable. -- Donal Ryan, author of The Spinning HeartSplendid . . . Sweet yet dark, odd yet true. Full of fierce, elegant, misguided longing, and so finely written that I came to care so much about Jason. -- Sara BaumeRight from its remarkable opening sentence, this extraordinary debut had me hooked. A fierce, funny, on-its-own-terms, beautiful, heartbreaker of a novel. -- Joseph O'ConnorFast and urgent and full of feeling and savage humour and all kinds of tenderness. -- Kevin Barry, author of City of BohaneIthaca, as the Homeric title suggests, is about the search for paradise, a getting-out rather than a caving-in, and gifts the reading world with a young voice that is as winningly resilient as it is tragic . . . an internal monologue that crackles with muzzy-headed electricity and sheer spirit . . . One cannot help but think about Pat McCabe's The Butcher Boy and the manner in which it mined the grotesque and distorted out of frolicking abandon * Irish Independent *Comparisons to Pat McCabe’s masterpiece The Butcher Boy abound, as both novels present the reader with brilliantly-formed child protagonists, full of back-alley grit and hilarious, dark narrative . . . Ithaca feels somehow other-worldly yet familiar . . . while McMonagle brings a timeless quality to his writing. It is a story full of humour, sometimes cute and innocent, but often blackened by experiences which Jason is too young to fully comprehend . . . Jason Lowry wins our heart from the very first page. By the novel’s end, this crescendo of beautifully-crafted writing has the reader yearning for a future for him that reflects the dreams he retreats to so often. Ithaca is as hopeful as it is heart-breaking and Jason is a kid that we need to believe will succeed out there. We’re too invested, too protective of him, to entertain any other outcome * RTÉ *McMonagle’s writing is crisp and sharp, at its best when dialogue drives the story forward. He’s also a novelist who treads territory that Pat McCabe has previously made his own – there’s a darkness here reminiscent of The Butcher Boy . . . Comic, tragic, and deeply affecting, Ithaca is a powerful debut. * Irish Examiner *I loved this book and I cannot recommend it highly enough. If comparisons with Patrick McCabe’s The Butcher Boy (since this story is also unreliably narrated by a protagonist who could be described as a juvenile delinquent) and Donal Ryan’s The Spinning Heart (because of thematic similarities) are inevitable, Alan McMonagle has nothing to fear. Ithaca is certainly equal to such comparisons. It is assured and poised, hilarious and poignant, a tour de force. * Dublin Review of Books *LOVED this. If the The Butcher Boy and Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha had a long lost brother, living in an episode of Pure Mule, we've found him in this book. Clever, funny, sad, kind – the lot. Irish book of the year so far for me. -- Ryan TubridyFor these crazed, corrupt, corrupting times, at last, a voice with the courage to defy them, in prose as precise as it is shattering, Alan McMonagle proves himself to be a magnificent author, one of the best in contemporary fiction. -- Frank McGuinness

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Book SynopsisWhitney Terrell's remarkable novel of the Iraq War, The Good Lieutenant, literally starts with a bang, as an operation led by Lieutenant Emma Fowler goes spectacularly wrong. Men are dead - one, a young Iraqi, by her hand. Others of the casualties were soldiers in her platoon. And the signals officer, Dixon Pulowski. Pulowski is another story entirely - Fowler and Pulowski have been lovers since they first met at Fort Riley in Kansas . . . From this conflagration, The Good Lieutenant unspools backward in time as Fowler and her platoon are guided into disaster by suspect informants and questionable intelligence, their very mission the consequence of a previous snafu in which an American soldier had been kidnapped by insurgents. We hear the voice of Lieutenant Fowler but also those of jaded career soldiers and Iraqis both innocent and not so innocent. Ultimately, as all these stories unravel, Terrell reveals what can happen when good intentions destroy, experience distorts, and survival becomes everything.Trade ReviewUnforgettable . . . a structure that works brilliantly, making for a memorable study of Fowler, whose pure intentions we see slowly corroded by combat . . . Terrell gets to the heart of how war changes people. * Sunday Times *[The Good Lieutenant] steadily infuses its characters with depth and humanity and lays out the dubious intelligence and errors that led them to catastrophe . . . Powerful and sometimes heartbreaking. * New Statesman *If only people read more novels like this one, told backward from a young woman’s experience in Iraq back to her innocence in the American Midwest, we might think twice about sending soldiers to war. -- Best books of 2016 * Boston Globe *A bitter, sly, heartbreaking story of well-meant but ill-fated intentions, and of a battlefield incident that wreaks havoc on the lives that converge, or end, there. * New Yorker *Devastating . . . Superb: [Terrell's] dialogue, his prose, the humane sorrow that suffuses his observations . . . Startlingly original . . . [The Good Lieutenant] might be the best work of fiction the Bush wars have produced so far. * Guardian US *An addicting epic about disaster and, more important, what leads to disaster * Washington Post *Whitney Terrell's The Good Lieutenant is a terrific exploration of courage, leadership, and loss, as experienced by American soldiers in Iraq . . . A stunning and heartbreaking testament to Terrell's genius and the nature of modern war. -- Gillian FlynnWhitney Terrell has unwound the myths of one of our most encrusted literary forms - the war novel - and remade it to be humane and honest, glowingly new and true. Terrell knows his facts on the ground, but this is emphatically, triumphantly, a work of imagination and literary ingenuity. This is brilliant, bold, heartbreaking storytelling for material that demands nothing less. -- Adam JohnsonHas the grand complexity of war embedded in its bones. It makes ingenious, compelling art out of those complexities. For that reason alone, its considerable graces are saving ones. -- Richard FordA wild Humvee ride of a novel that embeds us so deeply and so sympathetically in its beautifully realized characters that we can scarcely draw breath until their journey comes to its harrowing conclusion. Whitney Terrell has written a deeply moving work of fiction to set beside Phil Klay's Redeployment and Kevin Powers's The Yellow Birds, with a singularity of vision uniquely its own. -- Joyce Carol OatesA stirring performance grounded in the hard realities of combat. The human beauty here is of the brutal variety-complex, dark, and impossible to forget. -- Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead Like all the best novels of war, Whitney Terrell's The Good Lieutenant lays bare the special misprisions, faulty intelligences, and colliding ironies that mark our most pitiable human endeavor. But the novel's brilliant masterstroke is its reverse narrative, which proposes an almost magical universe in which these exquisitely wrought figures, full of vulnerability, delicacy, and hope, gain a most amazing grace. This is an arrestingly ingenious achievement. -- Chang-rae LeeSo exhilarating in its tautly rendered, faultless reality, so timeless in its play of human emotion in extremis, The Good Lieutenant dazzles and shames us as it breaks our hearts. The Good Lieutenant joins the ranks of great war novels that explain, too late, why 'victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.' -- Jayne Anne PhillipsTerrell shows us how soldiers think and address one another with a stinging combination of military argot and pop culture references. * Publisher’s Weekly starred and boxed review *Whitney Terrell has been in his career both a great novelist and a great war reporter. In The Good Lieutenant he is both, and the effect is overpowering. One job of the reporter is to use facts to let us understand who these men and women are whom we ask to kill and die for us. One job of the novelist is to use imagination to explain the interior lives of others and the infinite nuances of life. It is extraordinary and rare that one writer can do both, but Whitney Terrell does, and masterfully. -- Arthur PhillipsThe Good Lieutenant is not the first novel written about the Iraq War, but [it is] one of the most unique and deeply felt. * Men's Journal *The Good Lieutenant’s impersonation of an onion being unpeeled works to powerful effect . . . For Terrell’s characters, war has determined that life itself is essentially unreliable. That he has turned this into fiction at once compelling and sensitive, dramatic and intelligent, is impressive indeed. * The National *

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Book SynopsisSet in LA against the backdrop of the 2008 financial crash, this is the story of Rudy Reyes (a.k.a. Glasses), a gangster-turned-double-agent who wants out of the high-stakes high-risk life criminal life, and Ricky Mendoza, Junior (a.k.a. Ghost), a DEA safe-cracker with terminal cancer who's got nothing to lose. When Ghost goes rogue and steals thousands of dollars from a safe that belongs to an LA crime lord who happens to be Glasses' boss, he endangers a deal Glasses had with the DEA. As Ghost sets out to steal as much money as he can get his hands on - all with the plan to give it to those hit hardest by the crash - and the Mob gets ever closer to catching him, Glasses tries desperately to keep his plans on track.Fast-paced and gritty, Safe by Ryan Gattis is both a moving and human morality tale and an utterly immersive and heart-stoppingly suspenseful thriller.Trade ReviewA thrilling heist novel with a big beating heart -- Paula Hawkins, author of Girl on the trainWithout glamorizing his subject, there’s a lyricism in the vernacular and street language that makes it hard not to be moved * GQ *Safe is an immensely satisfying crime thriller, but it is also a deeply moving novel about one flawed man’s attempt to create good in a corrupt world. Ryan Gattis has a great ear for the patois of the street, and he reminds us that in 21stcentury America the worst predators often wear suits and work in offices. -- Ron Rash, author of SerenaSAFE is a propulsive thriller that confirms Ryan Gattis as one of our most gifted novelists. The book has unstoppable momentum yet is as finely layered and detailed with the gritty truth of life and the streets as I’ve ever read. It shoots you down a path that is fraught with surprise and insight, and you can’t ask for more than that. -- Michael Connelly, creator of the Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller series.Engrossing ... Gattis's refreshingly smart characters doggedly try to do the right thing in this satisfying upbeat tale of the drug world. * Publisher's Weeekly *Combining All Involved's facility for tenderness in the midst of stories of brutality, Safe is the perfect read to have in your suitcase * GQ *Ryan Gattis has a feel for street slang and nimble characterisation. A bobby-dazzler of a thriller. * Metro *Inherently compelling. This macho, faster-than-a-speeding-bullet novel benefits from the extensive research Gattis has done on the L.A. gang scene and that deep knowledge informs electrifying plot twists. * Time *A literary novel and a thriller with more twists than a DVD box-set make quite a combination. There is a lathed quality to Ryan Gattis’s prose, which is reminiscent of Raymond Carver or Ernest Hemingway. Gattis is superb with the staccato sentence, honed to a few words. I have previously been enthusiastic about Gattis’s polyphonic All Involved; this duet shows he is as assured on a closer frame. * The Scotsman *No ordinary gangster cat-and-mouse chase . . . While the gangsters-with-a-heart story might sound improbable, Gattis compensates with whip-smart vernacular and a narrative that zips along. Gattis has created a gripping novel about opportunity, transformation and hope. * Observer *

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Book SynopsisA suburban family is rocked in the wake of a terrorist attack in New York's Penn station - soon to be a film starring Julia Roberts.

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Book SynopsisFrom the best-selling coauthor of The Disaster Artist and “one of America''s best and most interesting writers" (Stephen King), a new collection of stories that range from laugh-out-loud funny to disturbingly dark—unflinching portraits of women and men struggling to bridge the gap between art and life A young and ingratiating assistant to a movie star makes a blunder that puts his boss and a major studio at grave risk. A long-married couple hires an escort for a threesome in order to rejuvenate their relationship. An assistant at a prestigious literary journal reconnects with a middle school frenemy and finds that his carefully constructed world of refinement cannot protect him from his past. A Bush administration lawyer wakes up on an abandoned airplane, trapped in a nightmare of his own making.   In these and other stories, Tom Bissell vividly renders the complex worlds of characters on the brink of artistic and personal crises—writers, video-game developers, actors, and other creative types who see things slightly differently from the rest of us. With its surreal, poignant, and sometimes squirm-inducing stories, Creative Types is a brilliant new offering from one the most versatile and talented writers working in America today.

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Book SynopsisA finalist for the National Book Award - a luminous new collection of stories from a young writer with 'a singular, resonant voice, an American teenager raised by Old World Afghan storytellers' (New York Times) **WINNER OF A 2023 O. HENRY PRIZE FOR SHORT FICTION** **FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION** **SHORTLISTED FOR THE LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION** **NAMED A BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 BY THE NEW YORKER AND THE ATLANTIC** PEN/Hemingway finalist Jamil Jan Kochai breathes life into his contemporary Afghan characters, moving between modern-day Afghanistan and the Afghan diaspora in America. In these arresting stories verging on both comedy and tragedy, often starring young characters whose bravado is matched by their tenderness. In “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain,” a young man’s video game experience turns into a surreal exploration on his own father’s memories of war and occupation. Set in Kabul, “Return to Sender” follows two married doctors driven by guilt to leave the US and care for their fellow Afghans, even when their own son disappears. A college student in the US in “Hungry Ricky Daddy” starves himself in protest of Israeli violence against Palestine. And in the title story, “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak,” we learn the story of a man codenamed Hajji, from the perspective of a government surveillance worker, who becomes entrenched in the immigrant family’s life. The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories is a moving exploration of characters grappling with the ghosts of war and displacement - and one that speaks to the immediate political landscape we reckon with today. 'An endlessly inventive and moving collection from a thrilling and capacious young talent' Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins. 'Kochai’s short fiction defies expectations – readers’ expectations of what a story should look like, and the story of a nation often told reductively and exclusively through media headlines' GuardianTrade ReviewEmploying elements of the surreal, the absurd, and the magical, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak asks what war does to those who see it firsthand - and how this witnessing reverberates to their descendants * ATLANTIC, Books of the Year 2022 *Shortlisted for the National Book Award, Kochai’s inventive début story collection details the toll that decades of war and the struggles of immigration have taken on Afghans and the Afghan diaspora in the United States * NEW YORKER, Books of the Year 2022 *[Kochai’s] short fiction defies expectations – readers’ expectations of what a story should look like, and the story of a nation often told reductively and exclusively through media headlines * GUARDIAN *The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories is an endlessly inventive and moving collection, the work of a thrilling and capacious young talent. These stories surprise and charm and haunt in equal measure, while challenging the world as we think we know it. Jamil Jan Kochai is the real deal -- JESS WALTER, author of Beautiful RuinsJamil Jan Kochai is a once-in-a-generation talent -- KARAN MAHAJAN, author of The Association of Small BombsKochai has a gift for knowing what makes the engine of a story turn over and go, what formal choices might deliver a narrative in such a way as to coax a reader to endure a set of experiences that, whatever their frequent delights - and the stories are uncommonly full of them - are rooted in sorrow, loss, and rage * NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS *The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories is beyond brilliant. These stories build and amass, individually and collectively, open then close as if the fingers and palm of some great power making a fist … There is so much range and breadth and depth in this collection. Here we have humor and rage and style in spades, with storytelling as inventive as it is enthralling. One of the best books I’ve read in a long time -- TOMMY ORANGE, author of There, ThereA profound and visceral short-story collection ... More than almost any other work of fiction I’ve read in the post-9/11 era, Kochai’s collection lays bare the surrealism that colors nearly every interaction between one of history’s most powerful empires and the people it considers disposable ... The result is a dark literary impeachment, a fable in which the emperor is missing not clothes but a conscience * ATLANTIC *A remarkable collection ... seamed with sharp wit, and often hilarious ... Kochai is a thrillingly gifted writer, and this collection is a pleasure to read, filled with stories at once funny and profoundly serious, formally daring, and complex in their apprehension of the contradictory yet overlapping worlds of their characters -- CLAIRE MESSUD * HARPER'S MAGAZINE *A brilliant, crazy quilt exploring filial devotion, religious beliefs, family, history and the effects of endless war * SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE *The Haunting of Hajji Hotak is a book of shape-shifting. Kochai constantly experiments with form and voice, deftly stepping between photorealism and fantasy to create a vivid, surreal short-story collection that is both a modern parable of American imperialism and a testament to Kochai’s skill as a writer ... As Afghanistan fades into the background of American discourse, Kochai’s voice is essential. We may not wish to see what we have wrought; Kochai, it seems, will ensure we do not forget * VOX *Lighthearted yet powerful and oftentimes funny, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak is an incredible work of deep empathy and care, with witty writing and sharp stories that take unpredictable turns * CHICAGO TIMES *A captivating collection ... in turns amusing and devastating, the stories are rich with vivid scenes and distinct narrative voices ... the range of framing and styles keeps the reader on their toes and delivers emotional impact in one hard-hitting entry after another. Readers won’t want to miss this * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY *A master class in storytelling, and a beautiful reflection on a people that have endured decades upon decades of tragedy. Stunning, compassionate, flawless * KIRKUS *There’s magic here ... in this visceral, timely collection * BOOKLIST *

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Book SynopsisNobody writes like Nell Dunn... always communally, with rare honesty, with love, and with calm and ground-breaking understanding... It's glorious. Ali Smith The Muse is all it could be; an act of sharing that goes beyond particular experience to take us to a happy realm of natural sisterhood. TLSNell Dunn has perfect pitch for the words we use and for the loves and mysteries of the human heart. Carmen Callil Defiant, funny and exhilarating. The Muse is so high-spirited and full of a sense of adventure. Margaret DrabbleThis slim volume is entertaining... You long to know more about Nell's lifeDaily MailThe Muse is the story of a life-changing friendship. It starts with Nell's account of a chance meeting with Josie at the age of 22.Josie teaches her how to live for moment, how to have adventures and find the sweetness of life even in hardship. This was the Sixties, a time of literary and sexual experimentation, of the breakdown of old barriers and inhibitions Even as she was hooking up with dodgy men, Josie always carried herself like a star, and as the inspiration for the ground-breaking novel of working class women Poor Cow and the play Steaming - both of which were made into movies - she became one, feted by producers on Broadway.Life is the thing, was Josie's motto. But where would her philosophy of taking no care for tomorrow lead her?In prose of unique clarity and simplicity that always gets straight to the heart of matter, The Muse follows this friendship over the decades.

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Book SynopsisTHE FIRST NOVEL BY NICOLAS MATHIEU, WINNER OF THE 2018 PRIX GONCOURTNicolas Mathieu's gripping first novel is the story of a world that has come to an end. With a girl, a gun and acres of snow.When a factory that employs most of a small town is scheduled to close - to the despair of the workers and disdain of the overlords - things start to fall apart. The disenfranchised factory workers have nothing left to lose. Martel, the trade union rep with innumerable tattoos and Bruce, the body-builder addicted to steroids resort to desperate measures. A bungled kidnapping on the streets of Strasbourg goes horribly wrong and they find themselves falling prey to the machinations of the criminal underworld. "[An] uncompromising portrait of a working class eaten up by the frustration and resentment of having been abandoned, and sinking into alcoholism and racism". -- Paris MatchTrade ReviewBefore Nicolas Mathieu won the Prix Goncourt in 2018 for And Their Children After Them he wrote this remarkable novel about two small-town scallies who resort to crime when the local factory closes down . . . Mathieu, a wonderful writer, echoes the grittiness and compassion of Émile Zola in Germinal * Sunday Times *There are several intersecting stories in this bleakly uncompromising portrait of working-class life in the Vosges . . . this tale of helpless, resentful people with nothing to lose is powerful and compelling. -- Laura Wilson * Guardian *Award-winning novelist Nicolas Mathieu portrays how the destruction of working-class communities has fed cynicism and despair. -- Conrad Landin * Jacobin Magazine *A first novel of rare power * Le Figaro Littéraire *Nicolas Mathieu has written one of the best crime novels of the year * Le Monde *

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Book Synopsis'An evocative mix of history, food and storytelling.' EVENING STANDARD BEST FICTION 2021'a heart-warming, heart-breaking story of love, life, family and, of course, baking.' RUTH HOGANCyprus in the run up to the civil war of the 1970s... the threat of it hangs in the atmosphere like a fine mist. A terrible thing, war. Against this backdrop of war and violence, the island's inhabitants make the best they can of their lives, building friendships, falling in love, having children, watching people die, making mistakes.Maria Petrakis, however, flees a brutal marriage on the island where she has always lived for London and a new start. She opens a bakery on Green Lanes in Harringay - the centre of the small Greek Cypriot community whose residents have settled there to escape the war and start again. Here she comes into her own as she heals and atones through the kneading of bread and the selling of shamali cakes and cinnamon pastries to her customers.There are glimpses of the lives of her neighbours, friends and customers as they buy their bread and cakes. There's Mrs Koutsouli, whose heart was broken when her handsome son married a xeni, an English woman with fish-eyes and yellow hair. There's Mrs Pantelis, driven half-mad with the grief of losing her son, Nico, in the war. And there's Mrs Vasili who claims to be related to Nana Mouskouri and grows her hair upwards so she can feel closer to God. Finally, there's Elena, Maria Petrakis' daughter-in-law, who has been suffering with the blackness since having a baby, and whom nobody knows quite how to help.The Making Of Mrs Petrakis is a story about the limited choices women sometimes find themselves confronting. It's a story about repression and mental illness and the devastation it can wreak on lives. But above all, it is a story of motherhood and love and of healing through the humble act of baking.Trade ReviewThe Making of Mrs Petrakis is a heart-warming, heart-breaking story of love, life, family and, of course, baking. Mary Karras is a fresh and exciting new voice in fiction and her prose is every bit as delicious as the mouth-watering pastries sold in Mrs Petrakis' renowned bakery. * Ruth Hogan, author of THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS *This is a charming story about the power of baking and community that can't help but raise your spirits and make you very hungry for a pastry or two! * Yours, Editors Pick *An evocative mix of history, food and storytelling. * Evening Standard *

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Book Synopsis'An evocative mix of history, food and storytelling.' EVENING STANDARD BEST FICTION 2021'a heart-warming, heart-breaking story of love, life, family and, of course, baking.' RUTH HOGANCyprus in the run up to the civil war of the 1970s... the threat of it hangs in the atmosphere like a fine mist. A terrible thing, war. Against this backdrop of war and violence, the island's inhabitants make the best they can of their lives, building friendships, falling in love, having children, watching people die, making mistakes.Maria Petrakis, however, flees a brutal marriage on the island where she has always lived for London and a new start. She opens a bakery on Green Lanes in Harringay - the centre of the small Greek Cypriot community whose residents have settled there to escape the war and start again. Here she comes into her own as she heals and atones through the kneading of bread and the selling of shamali cakes and cinnamon pastries to her customers.There are glimpses of the lives of her neighbours, friends and customers as they buy their bread and cakes. There's Mrs Koutsouli, whose heart was broken when her handsome son married a xeni, an English woman with fish-eyes and yellow hair. There's Mrs Pantelis, driven half-mad with the grief of losing her son, Nico, in the war. And there's Mrs Vasili who claims to be related to Nana Mouskouri and grows her hair upwards so she can feel closer to God. Finally, there's Elena, Maria Petrakis' daughter-in-law, who has been suffering with the blackness since having a baby, and whom nobody knows quite how to help.The Making Of Mrs Petrakis is a story about the limited choices women sometimes find themselves confronting. It's a story about repression and mental illness and the devastation it can wreak on lives. But above all, it is a story of motherhood and love and of healing through the humble act of baking.Trade ReviewThe Making of Mrs Petrakis is a heart-warming, heart-breaking story of love, life, family and, of course, baking. Mary Karras is a fresh and exciting new voice in fiction and her prose is every bit as delicious as the mouth-watering pastries sold in Mrs Petrakis' renowned bakery. * Ruth Hogan, author of THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS *This is a charming story about the power of baking and community that can't help but raise your spirits and make you very hungry for a pastry or two! * Yours, Editors Pick *An evocative mix of history, food and storytelling. * Evening Standard *

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Book Synopsis'Move over Ferrante, there's a new Elena in town' IndependentA gripping novel about family, loss and secrets, from the author of the Times bestselling sensation Can You Hear Me?The boy is almost eighteen and has a loving family. He's polite and well-educated, quiet but always smiling.When word spreads that he has broken into and stolen from a neighbour's house, his parents and sisters can't believe it. Then the unthinkable happens: an attack that will rip through the town and his family for years to come.Just a Boy is a gripping, incisive novel about secrets, adolescence and how we can love someone - a child, a partner - without ever knowing their mind.Praise for The Times bestseller Can You Hear Me?'A novel of crime and darkness that eschews straightforward domestic noir' Guardian'Utterly gripped me from beginning to end' Victoria HislopTrade ReviewVarvello knowns how to construct a drama full of suspense, working towards revelation . . . a fascinating read -- Josephine Felton * Irish Examiner *Darkly eloquent and moving * Observer *Haunting and surreal, Elena Varvello's JUST A BOY is beautifully written, a gripping and masterful account of a troubled family's struggle in the aftermath of tragedy. Shifting effortlessly between past and present, Varvello creates an almost dreamlike atmosphere as she interweaves each character's story, drawing their connections ever tighter until it's impossible to look away. I loved this book -- Karen Dionne, author of the #1 internationally bestselling The Marsh King's DaughterA moving portrait of a grieving family painted by the utterly compelling talent of author Elena Varvello. JUST A BOY is a beauty of a novel in which the pain and alienation of a teenage boy goes unnoticed until it is too late to halt its gripping conclusion -- Kate Mayfield, author of The Parentations

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'Sometimes I get fanciful and think the buildings speak. That all their history is locked into the walls and if you listened closely enough, you could hear all the people who'd once been there.' Sigi lived upstairs from Sara at Friedrichstrasse 19 yet before they met, Sara had no idea that Berlin could be so thrillingly irreverent or that sex could be so intoxicatingly wonderful. But then came the war, and hunger, loneliness and barbed wire. It was just as a young girl, a protegee of The Academy of Magical Arts situated in Friedrichstrasse at the start of the century, had predicted. Battered and divided, Berlin, like its people, endured. Hans yearns to be part of the boundary-breaking spirit of the age but he's haunted by his mother's part in the war and the absence of a father. Ilse, who escaped from the East, wants nothing more than the freedom she risked her life for. In 1989 in a wild act of spontaneous joy, Heike leapt from the Wall into the arms of a stranger from the West. Thirty years later, she recognises that what she'd willed to be destiny was nothing more than naivety. Recently divorced, she moves into Friedrichstrasse, to begin a new life. But it's impossible not to hear the echoes of the secrets and lies, visions and misunderstandings, lost loves and fatal mistakes, that have come before her. Time-travelling between decades, through the interlocking lives of six people, Friedrichstrasse 19 relives the tumultuous experience of a city on the frontline of history.

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Book Synopsis'I didn't want Nobody Gets Out Alive to end - to have to leave behind its warmth and soul and glittering writing, its honesty and its laughter in the dark' Jonathan Lee, author of The Great Mistake Set in Leigh Newman's home state of Alaska, Nobody Gets Out Alive is a collection of dazzling, courageous stories about women struggling to survive not just grizzly bears and charging moose but the raw, exhausting legacy of their marriages and families. In 'Howl Palace', an aging widow struggles with a rogue hunting dog and the memories of her five ex-husbands while selling her house after bankruptcy. In the title story, 'Nobody Gets Out Alive', newly married Katrina visits her hometown of Anchorage and blows up her own wedding reception by flirting with the host and running off with an enormous mastodon tusk. Alongside stories set in today's Last Frontier - rife with suburban sprawl, global warming, and opioid addiction - Newman delves into the remote wilderness of the 1970s and 80s, bringing to life young girls and single moms in search of a freer, more adventurous America.Trade ReviewA fascinating collection of Jack London-esque stories -- Karin Slaughter * Irish Daily Mail *I have never been to Alaska, but it came alive for me from many wonderful angles in Leigh Newman's irresistible fiction debut. I didn't want Nobody Gets Out Alive to end - to have to leave behind its warmth and soul and glittering writing, its honesty and its laughter in the dark. The stories in these pages are, as one memorable character in this book observes of another's tall tales, 'funny and self-lacerating and so horrifically precise about our love and fury for each other.' You feel you're in the company of a writer who has embraced unpredictability and breathes deeply while seeing far * Jonathan Lee, author of The Great Mistake *A thrilling collection. Leigh Newman's indelible characters chart the turbulent waters of hope and regret in an Alaskan landscape that crackles with danger and wonder. These are gritty and powerful stories, from a wildly gifted writer * Laura van den Berg, author of I Hold a Wolf by the Ears *Emotionally astute and slyly funny, Nobody Gets Out Alive is a commanding examination of home, family, intimacy, and self-reliance. With exacting precision and endless wit, Newman gracefully leaps into any perspective she pleases-you get the impression she's not only writing unforgettable, brilliantly complex characters, she's somehow inventing souls. This is a stunningly beautiful debut collection by a masterful prose stylist * Kimberly King Parson, National Book Award Finalist, Black Light *Nobody Gets Out Alive is an astonishingly beautiful collection: wickedly smart, psychologically rich and expertly crafted. Every one of these stories knocked me sideways. Leigh Newman is one of the wisest, funniest and most compassionate writers working today * Molly Antopol, author of The Unamericans *Behold a storyteller completely at home in herself. Each story in Nobody Gets Out Alive flashes a new facet of Leigh Newman's singular style. This is a stellar collection with wit and wisdom galore * Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Battleborn, Gold, Fame, Citrus, and I love you but I've chosen darkness *Nobody Gets Out Alive is a stunning debut collection, with the most generous ratio of wickedly funny details to devastating plot lines. It's a joy to travel through these characters' overlapping Alaskas, where violent longings go thrashing under the frozen stillness of the everyday, and the hard, hot work of navigating the wilderness of family can give way at any moment to 'a dazzle of ice and blue and light * Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! *The women in this absorbing debut collection are larger than life, perhaps because this is what the harsh Alaska landscape demands . . . These stories are rich with wit and wisdom, showing us that love, marriage, and family are always a bigger and more perilous adventures than backcountry trips * Kirkus Reviews (starred) *A talented writer... there is no romanticizing the great outdoors for Leigh Newman...Life here is a hard scramble through rough living. * TLS *

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Book Synopsis'A total joy to read' Torrey Peters, author of Detransition BabyA rebellious young musician reconnects with the matriarchs in her family as three generations of women strive for real freedom in this brilliant novel of family, sexuality, and feminism from the acclaimed author of The Best Kind of People. It's 1997 and Missy's band has finally hit the big time as they tour across America. At twenty-two years old, Missy gets on stage every night and plays the song about her absent mother that made the band famous. Missy is the only girl in the band and she's determined to party just as hard as everyone else, loving and leaving someone in every town. But then a forgotten party favor strands her at the border.Fortysomething Carola is just surfacing from a sex scandal at the yoga center where she has been living when she sees her daughter, Missy, for the first time in ten years--on the cover of a music magazine.Ruth is eighty-three and planning her return to the Turkish seaside village where she spent her childhood. But when her granddaughter Missy winds up crashing at her house, she decides it's time that the strong and stubborn women in her family find a way to understand each other again.In this sharply observed novel, Zoe Whittall captures three very different women who struggle to build an authentic life. Definitions of family, romance, gender, and love will radically change as they seek out lives that are nothing less than spectacular.Trade ReviewZoe Whittall has this incredible ability to go straight at the honest emotional heart of a story, and yet even with that ferocity, her writing is always graceful, a total joy to read. It makes it so easy to love her characters. In the best books characters feel like my friends, but with the mothers of The Spectacular, they came to feel like my family. * Torrey Peters, author of Detransition Baby *A fascinating stunner of a novel * Kristen Arnett, Author of Mostly Dead Things *Zoe Whittall's engrossing and epic novel paints an indelible portrait of three women, each of them navigating the complex constraints of their bodies, their families, their obligations, and their desires. A daring and beautiful examination of motherhood, The Spectacular left me breathless. * Robin Wasserman, author of Mother Daughter Widow Wife *Both raw and refined, The Spectacular is an insightful, poignant exploration of family and relationships from one of my favorite writers working today. A multigenerational story that's fully alive. * Iain Reid, author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things *Birth, identity, sex, what a woman wants, the vagaries of desire, love nibbling at the heart, independence, forfeiture of self, mother . . . Zoe Whittall carves at all of this with her pen and lays it out on the page in this fierce and tender novel. * David Bergen, author of Here the Dark *The Spectacular gives us three brilliantly distinct voices of women challenging the societal expectations of who they should be . . . Zoe Whittall has a gift for vividly capturing our human behaviours, and for dialogue that will grab your heart. Both expansive and intimate, wild and tender, I loved it. * Ashley Audrain, author of The Push *

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Book SynopsisA rebellious young musician reconnects with the matriarchs in her family as three generations of women strive for real freedom in this brilliant novel of family, sexuality, and feminism from the acclaimed author of The Best Kind of People. It's 1997 and Missy's band has finally hit the big time as they tour across America. At twenty-two years old, Missy gets on stage every night and plays the song about her absent mother that made the band famous. Missy is the only girl in the band and she's determined to party just as hard as everyone else, loving and leaving someone in every town. But then a forgotten party favor strands her at the border.Fortysomething Carola is just surfacing from a sex scandal at the yoga center where she has been living when she sees her daughter, Missy, for the first time in ten years--on the cover of a music magazine.Ruth is eighty-three and planning her return to the Turkish seaside village where she spent her childhood. But when her granddaughter Missy winds up crashing at her house, she decides it's time that the strong and stubborn women in her family find a way to understand each other again.In this sharply observed novel, Zoe Whittall captures three very different women who struggle to build an authentic life. Definitions of family, romance, gender, and love will radically change as they seek out lives that are nothing less than spectacular.Trade ReviewZoe Whittall has this incredible ability to go straight at the honest emotional heart of a story, and yet even with that ferocity, her writing is always graceful, a total joy to read. It makes it so easy to love her characters. In the best books characters feel like my friends, but with the mothers of The Spectacular, they came to feel like my family. * Torrey Peters, author of Detransition Baby *A fascinating stunner of a novel * Kristen Arnett, Author of Mostly Dead Things *Zoe Whittall's engrossing and epic novel paints an indelible portrait of three women, each of them navigating the complex constraints of their bodies, their families, their obligations, and their desires. A daring and beautiful examination of motherhood, The Spectacular left me breathless. * Robin Wasserman, author of Mother Daughter Widow Wife *Both raw and refined, The Spectacular is an insightful, poignant exploration of family and relationships from one of my favorite writers working today. A multigenerational story that's fully alive. * Iain Reid, author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things *Birth, identity, sex, what a woman wants, the vagaries of desire, love nibbling at the heart, independence, forfeiture of self, mother . . . Zoe Whittall carves at all of this with her pen and lays it out on the page in this fierce and tender novel. * David Bergen, author of Here the Dark *The Spectacular gives us three brilliantly distinct voices of women challenging the societal expectations of who they should be . . . Zoe Whittall has a gift for vividly capturing our human behaviours, and for dialogue that will grab your heart. Both expansive and intimate, wild and tender, I loved it. * Ashley Audrain, author of The Push *

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Book SynopsisAt eighteen, Somlata married into the Mitras: a once noble Bengali household whose descendants have taken to pawning off the family gold to keep up appearances. When Pishima, the embittered matriarch, dies, Somlata is the first to discover her aunt-in-law's body - and her sharp-tongued ghost. First demanding that Somlata hide her gold from the family's prying hands, Pishima's ghost continues to wreak havoc on the Mitras. Secrets spilt, cooking spoilt, Somlata finds herself at the centre of the chaos. And as the family teeter on the brink of bankruptcy, it looks like it's up to her to fix it. The Aunt Who Wouldn't Die is a frenetic, funny and fresh novel about three generations of Mitra women, a jewellery box, and the rickety family they hold together.Trade ReviewA chaotic, furious, extraordinary Bengali confection . . . Irresistible * Philip Hensher, The Spectator Books of the Year *

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Book Synopsis'One of the undisputed masterpieces of early nineteenth-century French prose fiction.'From Richard Sieburth's preface to AdolphePublished simultaneously in London and Paris in 1816, Adolphe is the story of a tragic love affair between its narrator and his lover Ellenore, two characters locked into a fatal dance of self-destruction. In what is one of the earliest examples of autofiction, from a period when all creative endeavour was permeated by autobiography. Constant's aim was to create an exemplary fiction of high moral purpose which would also function as an act of intimate self-vindication and revenge on his former lover, the formidable Madame de Stael. The result is a tautly-strung Racinian tragedy in prose.Soon after publication, Constant was defending himself from charges that he had written a novel based on real people, which he strenuously denied. The work was translated into English by Alexander Walker, and overseen by the author, resulting in what Richard Sieburth describes as 'an eccentrically bevelled jewel of Regency prose'.This riverrun edition publishes Walker's translation and Constant's preface in a new edition here for the first time since 1817.

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Book SynopsisWhen disaster strikes and chef Bryce Weatherford is given guardianship of her three young nieces, her life goes from cooking with fire...to controlling a dumpster fire. Five-year-old Addison refuses to remove her fairy wings, eight-year-old Cecily won't bathe, and tween June is majoring in belligerence. With all this chaos, Bryce jettisons hope for a life outside of managing her family and her new job.It's been years since Ryker Matthews had his below-the-knee amputation, yet the phantom pain for his lost limb and Marine career haunts him. To cope, he focuses on his vehicle restoration business. He knows he's lucky to be alive. Yet, "lucky" feels more like "cursed" to his lonely heart. When Ryker literally sweeps Bryce off her feet in the grocery store's baby aisle, they both feel sparks. But falling in love would be one more curveball neither is ready to deal with... or is it exactly the change of plans they need?

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Book SynopsisDava Shastri, one of the world's wealthiest women, has always lived with her sterling reputation in mind. A brain cancer diagnosis at the age of seventy, however, changes everything, and Dava decides to take her death-like all matters of her life-into her own hands.Summoning her four adult children to her private island, she discloses shocking news: in addition to having a terminal illness, she has arranged for the news of her death to break early, so she can read her obituaries.As someone who dedicated her life to the arts and the empowerment of women, Dava expects to read articles lauding her philanthropic work. Instead, her "death" reveals two devastating secrets, truths she thought she had buried forever.And now the whole world knows, including her children.In the time she has left, Dava must come to terms with the decisions that have led to this moment-and make peace with those closest to her before it's too late. Compassionately written and chock-full of humor and heart, this powerful novel examines public versus private legacy, the complexities of love, and the never-ending joys-and frustrations-of family.Includes a Reading Group Guide.A Good Morning America and Lilly Singh's Lilly Library Book Club pickMost anticipated in fall 2021 by TIME, The Washington Post, Bustle, Goodreads, and Debutiful An Indie Next Pick A Publishers Marketplace Buzz Book for Fall/Winter 2021 Longlisted for the 2021 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

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Book SynopsisIn this thought-provoking and entertaining debut novel about of a multicultural family, a dying billionaire matriarch leaks news of her death early so she can examine her legacy-a decision that horrifies her children and inadvertently exposes secrets she has spent a lifetime keeping: "Full of music, magnetism, and familial obligation" (Emma Straub, author of All Adults Here).Dava Shastri, one of the world's wealthiest women, has always lived with her sterling reputation in mind. A brain cancer diagnosis at the age of seventy, however, changes everything, and Dava decides to take her death-like all matters of her life-into her own hands.Summoning her four adult children to her private island, she discloses shocking news: in addition to having a terminal illness, she has arranged for the news of her death to break early, so she can read her obituaries.As someone who dedicated her life to the arts and the empowerment of women, Dava expects to read articles lauding her philanthropic work. Instead, her "death" reveals two devastating secrets, truths she thought she had buried forever.And now the whole world knows, including her children.In the time she has left, Dava must come to terms with the decisions that have led to this moment-and make peace with those closest to her before it's too late.Compassionately written and chock-full of humor and heart, this powerful novel examines public versus private legacy, the complexities of love, and the never-ending joys-and frustrations-of family.

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Book SynopsisChareese "Reese" Devlin spent every summer of her childhood in the lake town of Mount Dora, Florida, where her days were filled with fun in the sun. Reese never realized that the idyllic haven hid a deep divide between the town's haves and have-nots. Not until the summer she turned seventeen and fell for Duncan McNeal, a boy who lacked the pedigree so valued by her parents and their equally well-connected friends.After her family squashed the budding romance, Reese refused to return to the place she lost her heart. Now, ten years later, she's back to attend her sister's debutante ball and must come to terms with all she's missed. But the biggest surprise of all is that Duncan is now a successful real estate developer in Mount Dora-and time hasn't weakened the connection between them.Behind the multimillion-dollar homes of the Shores lay old grudges and secrets capable of collapsing any family legacy. As the summer progresses, Reese must fix the sins of the past by facing the lines between truth and deception, tradition and breaking free, and family expectations and self-discovery.

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Book SynopsisMoira Green is perfectly content with her life. She has a rewarding career and plenty of wonderful friends, including the members of her weekly book club. Then everything in her life goes topsy-turvy when the town council plans to demolish the site of her mother's beloved café to make room for much-needed parking. Moira is determined to save her mother's business, so she swallows her pride and asks Gil Ryan for help.Moira and Somerset Lake's mayor were good friends once, the kind who could laugh at everything and nothing at all. Until one night changed everything between them. And now, with Gil supporting the council's plans, Moira is forced to find another way to save Sweetie's-and it involves campaigning against Gil. Going head-to-head in a battle of wills reveals more than either of them are ready for, and as the election heats up, so does their attraction. But without a compromise in sight, can these two be headed for anything but disaster?

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Book SynopsisAsh Hawkins, Duke of Buckley, no more wants to marry than he wants a stick in his eye. As the owner of a gaming hell, he is all too aware the odds of a happy marriage are against him. But raising his three rebellious wards alone is proving more than he can handle. He needs to find someone who stands to benefit from a marriage of convenience as much as he does. Someone logical, clinical, and rational. And in a stroke of luck, he quite literally stumbles over just such a woman.After years of ridicule for being more interested in bugs than boys, Bronwyn has accepted that she'll never marry for love. Her parents, however, are threatening to find her a husband. Bronwyn doesn't need any scientific research to show her Ash has secrets. But his proposal would give her the freedom to continue her entomology research and perhaps finally get published. Just as long as she can keep her mind on her work and off his piercing eyes, broad shoulders, and wicked, wicked tongue.

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Book SynopsisOn a rainy October night in Kentucky, recently divorced therapist Tallie Clark is on her way home from work when she spots a man precariously standing at the edge of a bridge. Without a second thought, Tallie pulls over and jumps out of the car into the pouring rain. She convinces the man to join her for a cup of coffee, and he eventually agrees to come back to her house, where he finally shares his name: Emmett. Over the course of the emotionally charged weekend that follows, Tallie makes it her mission to provide a safe space for Emmett, though she hesitates to confess that this is also her day job. What she doesn't realize is that Emmett isn't the only one who needs healing-and they both are harboring secrets.Alternating between Tallie and Emmett's perspectives as they inch closer to the truth of what brought Emmett to the bridge's edge-as well as the hard truths Tallie has been grappling with since her marriage ended-This Close to Okay is an uplifting, cathartic story about chance encounters, hope found in unlikely moments, and the subtle magic of human connection.Book of the Month December PickGood Housekeeping Book Club February PickMarie Claire Book Club March PickLonglisted for the Goodreads Choice AwardsMost Anticipated by Elle, Today (according to Goodreads), The Millions, She Reads, and Real SimpleRecommended by Refinery29, Shondaland, Oprah Daily, Washington Post, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Electric Literature, Bookriot, Parade, Harper's Bazaar, and more

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Book SynopsisIn this moving, emotional narrative of love and resilience, a young couple confronts the start of Argentina's Dirty War in the 1970s, and a daughter searches for truth twenty years later.New York, 1998. Santiago Larrea, a wealthy Argentine diplomat, is holding court alongside his wife, Lila, and their daughter, Paloma, a college student and budding jewelry designer, at their annual summer polo match and soiree. All seems perfect in the Larreas' world-until an unexpected party guest from Santiago's university days shakes his usually unflappable demeanor. The woman's cryptic comments spark Paloma's curiosity about her father's past, of which she knows little.When the family travels to Buenos Aires for Santiago's UN ambassadorial appointment, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading up to the military dictatorship of 1976. With the help of a local university student, Franco Bonetti, an activist member of H.I.J.O.S-a group whose members are the children of the Desaparecidos, or the "Disappeared," men and women who were forcibly disappeared by the state during Argentina's "Dirty War"-Paloma unleashes a chain of events that not only leads her to question her family and her identity, but also puts her life in danger.In compelling fashion, On a Night of a Thousand Stars speaks to relationships, morality, and identity during a brutal period in Argentinian history, and the understanding-and redemption-people crave in the face of tragedy.

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Book SynopsisFans of Lisa Kleypas and Julia Quinn will adore this opposites-attract romance featuring a dashing duke, a shy bookshop owner, and a wager that will change their lives forever.Evie Harlow runs a quaint little bookshop in London, which is the biggest adventure an unmarried woman with no prospects could hope for. Until Maximillian Shaw, Duke of Westbourne, saunters into her shop with a proposition: to win a bet with his friends, he'll turn her into the diamond of the season. The duke might be devilishly attractive, but Evie has no intention of accepting his ludicrous offer. When disaster strikes her shop, however, she's left with little choice but to let herself be whisked into his high-society world.Always happy to help a lady in distress, Max thinks he's saving Evie from her dull spinster's life. He'll help her find a husband and congratulate himself on a job well done. But as shy Evie becomes the shining star he always knew she could be, she somehow steals his heart. And when her reputation is threatened, can Max convince her to choose a glittering, aristocratic life with him over the cozy comfort of her bookshop?

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Book SynopsisKatrina Kim may be broke, the black sheep of her family, and slightly unhinged, but she isn't a stalker. Her obsession with her co-worker, Kurt, is just one of many coping mechanisms-like her constant shape and number rituals, or the way scenes from her favorite children's book bleed into her vision whenever she feels anxious or stressed.But when Katrina finds a cryptic message from Kurt that implies he's aware of her surveillance, her tenuous hold on a normal life crumbles. Driven by compulsion, she enacts the most powerful ritual she has to reclaim control-a midnight visit to the Cayatoga Bridge-and arrives just in time to witness Kurt's suicide. Before he jumps, he slams her with a devastating accusation: his death is all her fault.Horrified, Katrina combs through the clues she's collected about Kurt over the last three years, but each revelation uncovers a menacing truth: for every moment she was watching him, he was watching her. And the past she thought she'd left behind? It's been following her more closely than she ever could have imagined.A gripping page-turner, as well as a sensitive exploration of mental health, Liar, Dreamer, Thief is an intimate portrayal of life in all its complexities-and the dangers inherent in unveiling people's most closely guarded secrets.

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Book SynopsisWhen Lucy Hannigan returned to her childhood home in Somerset Lake, one of the first things she did was join the local book club. And thank goodness, because now that Lucy's first Christmas without her mother is bearing down upon her, she can use all the help and support she can get. Especially when she has to take in a tenant and the only person interested is Miles Bruno, her ex-fiancé.As the small town prepares for the holidays and competition heats up in the Merriest Lawn decorating contest, Lucy can't help feeling like a Scrooge. Her mom loved the holidays and won the contest each year, but as much as Lucy would like to carry on the tradition, she isn't sure she has it in her to deck the halls this holiday.Yet when Miles shows up with tons of tinsel, dozens of decorations, and lots and lots of lights, Lucy begins to wonder if maybe the spirit of the season will finally mend her broken heart.

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Book SynopsisA heartwarming novel of complicated families, new neighbors, and fresh hope from a New York Times bestselling author who writes "Southern comfort in a book." -Sheila Roberts Allie Logan has her hands full with a bad breakup, a struggling renovation business, a sister who won't stop flaunting her engagement ring, and a grandmother who keeps wandering off at the most inopportune times. In fact, Granny Irene's latest habit is sneaking out to the ranch next door, where's she's convinced a lost love awaits. But when Allie goes to collect her, she finds instead a new neighbor-six-foot-plus of tall, dark, and charming. Blake Dawson is one more thing Allie can't deal with right now. But since he's hired her to help repair his rundown ranch, they're suddenly spending an awful lot of time together. And as family secrets-past and present-start to come to light, Allie finds that opening her heart might just be the fresh start her life needs.Includes the bonus novella Buttercup Farms, part of the Sunflower Ranch series-never before published!

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Book SynopsisOne woman must learn to love again with the help of her supper club friends and the man next door in this delightful small-town contemporary romance perfect for fans of Jill Shalvis and Jenny Hale!Serenity Wheeler's Supper Club is all about getting together with great friends, incredible food, and a whole lot of dishing-not for hooking up. Still, Serenity knows inviting her friend's brother to one of her dinners is just good manners, but the ultra-fine, hazel-eyed Gabriel Cunningham has a gift for saying the wrong thing at the really wrong time. Especially when it comes to her cooking.Gabriel isn't quite sure how they got off on the wrong foot, but something about Serenity makes him nervous. Maybe it's because he's new to the small-town vibe. Maybe it's because the woman is so gorgeous that he can't think straight. Or maybe it's because there's an attraction between them he can't seem to shake.Though refreshments and camaraderie may be the supper club's mantra, Serenity and Gabriel know there's more between them than just sharing delicious meals. But she can't let herself fall for Gabriel. Because while cooking with love is one thing, trusting it is quite another.

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Book SynopsisFrom the author of the Oprah Book Club Selection An American Marriage, here is an emotionally powerful novel that "succeeds mightily...truly a wonderful story" (Boston Globe). Aria is no stranger to tragedy -- as a young girl, she and her older sister and mother survived a car crash that took the lives of their father and beloved baby sister. And although relations with her remaining family are strained, she's done her best to establish a solid, normal life for herself, living in Atlanta and teaching literacy to girls who have fallen on hard times.But now she has a secret that she's not yet ready to share with Dwayne, her devoted boyfriend, or Rochelle, her roommate and best friend: Aria is pregnant. Or so she thinks. The truth is about to make her question her every assumption and reevaluate the life she has worked so hard to build for herself...as it sends her reeling in a direction she had no idea she was destined to go.Praise for Tayari Jones"Tayari Jones is blessed with vision to see through to the surprising and devastating truths at the heart of ordinary lives, strength to wrest those truths free, and a gift of language to lay it all out, compelling and clear." -- Michael Chabon"Tayari Jones has emerged as one of the most important voices of her generation." -- Essence"One of America's finest writers." -- Nylon.com"Tayari Jones is a wonderful storyteller." -- Ploughshares

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Book SynopsisIn this sweet second-chance love story, two opposites discover their once-in-a-lifetime chemistry has only gotten stronger.May Wu is no longer the shy teen who skipped out of her small North Carolina town right after graduation. Now she's a successful travel writer who can handle any challenge. Until her latest assignment sends her home to Blue Cedar Falls, where, of course, she runs straight into Han Leung, a.k.a. the guy who got away. How dare he still be so good looking, funny, and easy to talk to?Han always does the responsible thing, which is why he put aside his dreams of opening his own restaurant to run his family's business. But when May re-enters his life, he can no longer ignore his own wants and desires. Garden gnomes are stolen, old haunts are visited, and sparks fly between the pair, just as they always did. But Han and May broke up because they wanted vastly different lives, and that hasn't changed-or has it?

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Book SynopsisA delightful small-town romance between a daycare teacher and single dad who must overcome their differences to help plan the ultimate wedding.They've driven each other crazy for years, but were they fighting each other-or the chemistry between them?As the youngest in her loving, overprotective family, Savannah Lowe has always gone with the flow instead of going out on a limb...until now. Her new job running a preschool requires her to be all in. If only the father of one of her students wasn't her brother's incredibly infuriating, impossibly attractive best friend. Savannah has no clue what she ever did to make him dislike her, and now they're stuck spending even more time together planning her brother's wedding. Single father Noah Adams has his hands full between his job as a paramedic and caring for his young daughter. The last thing he needs is a complication like Savannah in his life-a girl he remembers being constantly pampered by her family. But the more he gets to know her, the more he sees how kind and compassionate she really is. Now their long-ignored, off-the-charts chemistry has them on a collision course...with each other.

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Book SynopsisThe best meals. The perfect company. And just enough sparks to make it complicated . . .Serenity Wheeler's Supper Club is all about getting together with great friends, incredible food, and a whole lot of dishing-not for hooking up. Still, Serenity knows inviting her friend's brother to one of her dinners is just good manners, but the ultra-fine, hazel-eyed Gabriel Cunningham has a gift for saying the wrong thing at the really wrong time. Especially when it comes to her cooking.Gabriel isn't quite sure how they got off on the wrong foot, but something about Serenity makes him nervous. Maybe it's because he's new to the small-town vibe. Maybe it's because the woman is so gorgeous that he can't think straight. Or maybe it's because there's an attraction between them he can't seem to shake. Though refreshments and camaraderie may be the supper club's mantra, Serenity and Gabriel know there's more between them than just sharing delicious meals. But she can't let herself fall for Gabriel. Because while cooking with love is one thing, trusting it is quite another...

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Book SynopsisSometimes the road to forgiveness and restoration can be a rocky one. Set in Chicago and Baltimore in 1944 with flashbacks to the 1920s, JACOB'S BELL follows Jacob MacCallum on his arduous journey to redemption. At one time, Jacob had it all: wealth, a wonderful family and a position as one of the most respected businessmen in Chicago. Then he made some bad decisions and all that changed. For the past twenty years he lived in an alcohol-induced haze, riddled with guilt for the dreadful things he had done to his family and his role in the untimely death of his wife. Estranged from his children and penniless, he was in and out of jail, on the street and jumping freight trains for transportation. Realizing he needed a drastic change, Jacob embarked on a journey to find his children, seek their forgiveness, and restore his relationship with them. Befriended by a pastor at a Salvation Army mission, he struggled to transform his life. Yet finally he overcame his demons, but not without a fair number of setbacks. Jacob became a Salvation Army Bell Ringer at Christmastime. While ringing his bell on a street corner one snowy day, he met a young girl who, through a series of strange coincidences, led him back to his children and facilitated Jacob's forgiveness just in time for Christmas. Author John Snyder pens a story of love, hardship, and reconciliation that will leave readers filled with Christmas joy.Trade ReviewOne of the most incredible stories I have run across for a long time... a beautiful story that embodies the true meaning of Christmas. - Dr. Jerry Fuller, WGTS-FM - Silver Spring, MDJacob's Bell takes readers on a journey of success & failure, love & hate, bitterness & repentance. This tale promises to become a Christmas classic that transports each of us to many familiar and unfamiliar places all the while calling us to a place of forgiveness and restoration. Jacob's Bell is a gift that reminds us of the TRUE meaning of Christmas and the forgiveness that comes when we trust in God's indescribable gift...his Son Jesus. Jacob's Bell will hold a special place in our family library and Christmas tradition! - Jeff Sheets, Former President, Echolight Studios --Franklin, TNHere is a story that deals with the real meaning of Christmas. This is the kind of story you that you could sit around with the entire family and read. It's very entertaining-very heartwarming. - Doug Griffith, WAYM-FM - Nashville, TN

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Book SynopsisA powerful dystopian novel set during a new American civil war, about a polygamist cult leader and his followers.

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Book SynopsisA modern retelling of the Camus classic that posits its story of infectious disease and quarantine in our contemporary age of race and class hysteria.

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the 2017 Jim Connors Dartmouth Book Award!John Alexander MacNeil is eighty years old. Sharp-tongued and quick-witted, he lives alone in rural Cape Breton, but he still cooks breakfast for his wife, who's been dead for thirty years. He silently starts to question his own mind after stopping to pick up a hitchhiker - a hitchhiker who turns out to be his neighbour's mailbox.Everything shifts, though, when Emily, a pregnant teenager, shows up at his house with no place else to go. Determined to help Emily as best as he can, John must also keep the wolves from his door and maintain some semblance of sanity.The Unlikely Redemption of John Alexander MacNeil is a compelling, witty and heartwarming novel by renowned Nova Scotia author Lesley Choyce.

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 BOOKER PRIZEA searing novel about the obstacles facing women in Zimbabwe, by one of the country's most notable authorsAnxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job, Tambudzai finds herself living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare. For reasons that include her grim financial prospects and her age, she moves to a widow's boarding house and eventually finds work as a biology teacher. But at every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself, she is faced with a fresh humiliation, until the painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point.In This Mournable Body, Tsitsi Dangarembga returns to the protagonist of her acclaimed first novel, Nervous Conditions, to examine how the hope and potential of a young girl and a fledgling nation can sour over time and become a bitter and floundering struggle for survival. As a last resort, Tambudzai takes an ecotourism job that forces her to return to her parents' impoverished homestead. It is this homecoming, in Dangarembga's tense and psychologically charged novel, that culminates in an act of betrayal, revealing just how toxic the combination of colonialism and capitalism can be.

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