Narrative theme: coming of age

Book SynopsisBut when a malicious neighbor finds out, Kit suddenly finds herself at the center of a tragic, fatal crime and becomes a ward of the court. Her Cherokee family wants to raise her, but the righteous Christians in town instead send her to a religious boarding school.Trade Review"Tender and eye-opening…Stealing is a masterclass in storytelling… Verble has harnessed the art of how to shoot straight to the heart of a story, and it is an experience not to be missed.” — Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Frank and fearless, the novel is a portrait of perseverance.” — Christian Science Monitor, 10 Best Books of February “Stealing packs a major punch… Vivid and immediate, passionate and meticulously researched, Stealing is magnetic and unforgettable, unflinching and searing. Readers of Winter Counts, All Girls and The Nickel Boys will be stunned and stupefied by this courageous, thoughtful account." — Bookreporter.com “Blistering… Verble’s skillful storytelling does justice to a harrowing chapter of history.” — Publishers Weekly "Verble tells a memorable and sobering story about injustice, hypocrisy, and resilience. Verble upholds her legacy of indelible Cherokee characters—and weaves a dynamic mystery, too.” — Kirkus Reviews “This powerful novel should join classics like Ernest J. Gaines’s The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Helena Maria Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus, and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.” — New York Times Book Review “Captivating, subtly crafted… Beautifully written and paced, Stealing is an invaluable contribution to a crucial — and too often repressed — history that haunts us still.” — Chapter 16 + Nashville Scene “Verble is an immensely gifted writer…a compelling novel from an author who writes with sensitivity and compassion.” — NPR on When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky “Through a joyful interweaving of pragmatic storytelling and spiritual realism, Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble breathes life into a bygone era…Combining meticulous research, a fresh point-of-view and vivid imagery, Verble’s third novel does what historical fiction does best: folds a compelling story into a snapshot of time before life changed.” — Atlanta Journal-Constitution on When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky “In this fun, entertaining and highly informative historical novel, award-winning author Margaret Verble, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, surrounds Two Feathers' story with a concise history of the area and an in-depth look at the social culture and mores of the times… [Verble] will have you believing and cheering...Great fun.” — Florida Times-Union on When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky “Alternatively funny and touching, this novel has a distinctly original and unconventional feel.” — Ms. Magazine on When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky “[An] expansive and well-researched historical work.” — Buzzfeed “Verble beautifully weaves period details with the cast’s histories, and enthralls with the supernatural elements, which are made as real for the reader as they are for the characters. This lands perfectly.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) on When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky “Fans of Karen Russell will love this spellbinding new story from Pulitzer Prize–finalist Margaret Verble.” — Country Living “A compelling, haunting read full of history.” — Alma "This utterly memorable, beautifully written story will linger with readers." — Booklist (starred review) "An ambitious novel that’s impressive in its scope and concept: Glendale Park Zoo and the 101 are rife with narrative possibility and give the author a chance to examine a fascinating cross section of race and class." — Kirkus Reviews Effectively deploying her diverse cast of characters, Verble—an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma—captures the complex social interactions of the time. From race relations to social class to working conditions, Verble addresses key issues while spinning her ghost story around the fictionalized employees of a park that actually existed...Readers of general fiction will enjoy. — Library Journal "A remarkably fresh, beautifully written novel...This is a substantial book, hard to put down." — Worcester Magazine “Two Feathers Fell from the Sky is a rich and lively novel, steeped in place and history. Verble’s meticulous research and generosity of spirit shine through, lending her characters and their adventures a fullness that lingers.” — Kelli Jo Ford, author of Crooked Hallelujah and winner of the Plimpton Prize “Verble has given historical fiction lovers a real gift.” — New York Times Book Review “Margaret Verble is an exceptional storyteller.” — Ron Rash, author of Serena “[Margaret Verble] gives careful consideration to place, having spent a lot of time on these lands, rivers, and streams, and through direct encounters with all the inhabitants of this place—both people and animals, their natures and behaviors. This is all rich source material that informs her writing.” — National Museum of the American Indian magazine

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Book SynopsisA propulsive, darkly gripping novel about the power and paradoxes of human longing, faith, trauma and taboo, from the acclaimed author of The Amateurs, shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel Award.A fractured portrait of a darkly riveting sibling relationship from the inside out, Strange Loops is an electrifying, intelligent and emotionally charged second novel from an award-winning young literary star on the rise.Francine and her twin brother Philip share a powerful bond in childhood that fades as they became young adults. When Philip unexpectedly becomes intensely religious, his sister decides to join his Christian youth group and soon becomes infatuated with the youth pastor. Obsessed by this transgression and what he sees as his sister's moral impropriety, Philip eventually uncovers a dark secret that threatens to shatter his faith and estranges the two siblings for decades. Later, as an adult, even as the storm clouds of resentmen

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Book SynopsisAN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERBeautiful World, Where Are You is a new novel by Sally Rooney, the bestselling author of Normal People and Conversations with Friends.Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he'd like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend, Eileen, is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.Alice, Felix, Eileen, and Simon are still youngbut life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?

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Book Synopsis"An elegant coming-of-age story that brings real heart to the American heartland. The book may be set during World War II, but the questions it asks—about love, loyalty, and the meaning of life—are timeless ones." —Elliott Holt, author of You Are One of ThemTrade Review"Quiet but satisfying…Haunting…Kenny reveals, with a clarity so delicate it is sometimes painful, the human reaction to trauma." -- Ann Leary - New York Times Book Review"Precise and strong…The workmanlike nature of the prose beautifully echoes the land as well as the characters…[T]he book is about survival as much as it’s about grief and coming-of-age. What’s particularly wonderful here is how unsentimental this all is. Kenny is not interested in nostalgia, or in describing a world of the past where everything was simpler and, therefore, better." -- Ploughshares"The Driest Season settled over me like weather: sweeping in, wholly immersive, charged with coming change. In clear-eyed, chiseled prose that perfectly captures her novel’s hard-worn world and the powerful emotions churning through its people, Meghan Kenny manages, with wisdom and tenderness, to grapple with some of the greatest struggles of the human heart: grief and the gathering of oneself out of its dust, love and the loss that is ‘a space like an empty piece of sky’ following young Cielle around. A lingering power that, long after the last page of this moving story, follows me too." -- Josh Weil, author of The Age of Perpetual Light"A searing debut. Meghan Kenny writes an almost unbearable moment in a young woman’s life with precision and tenderness, ache and hope. I was grateful for each page." -- Ramona Ausubel, author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty and No One Is Here Except All of Us"The Driest Season marks the arrival of a new writer with talent, intention, and a story to tell. The words are spare, beautiful, poetic, even prayerful. They hold you inside your chest where lies your heart and the place you breathe. A brilliant debut." -- Robert Olmstead, author of Coal Black Horse"It’s hard not to fall in love with Cielle Jacobson, the resilient fifteen-year-old girl at the center of this spare, searingly honest novel. Confronted with unspeakable loss, she discovers strengths of character that salvage a future for herself and her entire family. Meghan Kenny’s rural Wisconsin, circa World War II, is rendered with love and precision—its weather, landscapes, and people evoked in prose that echoes recent masters of the American heartland, David Rhodes and Marilynne Robinson." -- Lin Enger, author of The High Divide"The Driest Season evokes the naive confusion of teenage years, particularly when tragedy strikes. Set in a rural community during the 1940s, this novel reminds us that human frailty, loyalty, and the yearning to understand life never goes away. The past was not better or safer. It’s where we all once were young." -- Chris Offutt, author of My Father, the Pornographer"A finely crafted novel deserving wide attention." -- Library Journal"[An] impressive debut novel…Kenny’s thoughtful, finely crafted work is an eloquent reminder that the breadth of a world matters less than the depth of a character." -- Kirkus (starred review)"Quiet and moving…With a light touch, Kelly tells an impactful story of everyday lives in trying circumstances." -- Booklist

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2021 High Plains Book Award in Fiction and the 2021 Montana Innovation Award In this haunting parable of the American West, a young woman faces the violent past of her remote Montana valley.Trade Review"Ruthie’s lawlessness makes her an acute observer of contradictions within herself and in the community, and Loskutoff uses tropes of the Western—vivid depictions of mountain landscapes and hunting scenes—to offer a subtle portrayal of poverty and class warfare." -- New Yorker"Loskutoff depicts the casual brutality of Ruthie’s coming-of-age, as well as its wild, precarious wonders. His characters are wholly believable, reluctantly adapting to "the massive forces shifting around them"." -- Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal"Like the exemplars of Western fiction Cormac McCarthy and Wallace Stegner, Loskutoff grants his landscape the agency and complexity of a main character." -- Regina Marler - New York Review of Books"Loskutoff reimagines the conventional bleak and brawny novel of the Western mountains, mixing magic and realism in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana, and introduces a strangely beguiling Ruthie Fear." -- National Book Review"Loskutoff hones and deepens the unique skill he showcased in his debut…a capacity for human complexity, the talent to hold beauty and ugliness at once." -- Yardenne Greenspan - Ploughshares"A powerful story about the disenfranchised…Loskutoff neither divides his characters into villains and victims nor presents them as objects of condescension or condemnation." -- Donna Henderson - Harvard Review"[A]stonishing ... a magnificent novel." -- Sarah Rachel Egelman - Bookreporter"On the surface, Ruthie Fear is a coming-of-age story that explores poverty, violence and death. But below that surface lies an examination of the shifting demographics of western Montana, where a largely white, working-class community is being displaced…even as their own world slowly implodes from poverty and climate change—and supernatural forces." -- Gabino Iglesias - High Country News"An original and shape-shifting western parable. A book full of earnest, proud, damaged, and endearing characters, each one chasing their own American Dream. Maxim Loskutoff’s writing is endowed with fearless audacity, stunning grace, and gutsy heart." -- Nickolas Butler, author of Shotgun Lovesongs"Loskutoff captures the vast and lonely land along with its beauty with breathtaking descriptions of violence and empathy, and ends with a shocking and poignant surprise. With its humor and heart, Loskutoff’s harrowing tale offers a heroine to root for. This one hits hard." -- Publishers Weekly (starred and featured review)"Maxim Loskutoff takes the real world, the gritty realism of western mountain poverty and class warfare, and turns them inside out, infusing them with the wonderfully strange. The ancient mountain wilderness becomes a violent ecotone between two worlds that cannot coexist, and we see the inevitable catastrophic clash through the eyes of a fascinating new young hero in American fiction." -- Brad Watson, author of Miss Jane"A brilliant, gritty, and poetic novel. In Ruthie Fear, Maxim Loskutoff explores the ongoing exploitation and destruction of the natural beauty and wildlife of the American West with one of the most vivid, honest, and heartbreaking characters to appear in fiction in the last few years." -- Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff"Ruthie Fear yanks you into its urgent world, where wildness is an endangered species and wilderness is being fenced off and paved over. Maxim Loskutoff’s debut novel walks a line between the dirt and bone of the earth and the hazy nightmares of myths. Written with love and precision, this book will cling to you long after the last page." -- James Scott, author of The Kept"Meet Ruthie Fear. Once you know her, you’ll never forget her. Maxim Loskutoff maps Ruthie’s Bitterroot Valley with clarity, wisdom, and tenderness, tracking the shifting relationships between those who originally inhabited the land and those who have colonized it, those who hunt and those who are hunted. This novel will seize you by the throat from its very first pages and leave you gasping for air by its end." -- Julia Phillips, author of Disappearing Earth"Maxim Loskutoff writes the various violences of the contemporary American West (development, extraction, racism, misogyny, and guns, guns, guns) unapologetically, unromantically, and with a razor-sharp clarity that’s like a punch to the gut. The novel not so much centers around as conjures itself out of the fierce, tender wolf cub of a girl at its center who receives, exposes, incorporates, and transmogrifies that violence. I want Ruthie Fear on my side as we descend into whatever comes next." -- Pam Houston, author of Cowboys Are My Weakness"A ferocious, unsettling, raging storm of a novel that captures not only a place of hauntings and heartbreaks but also a world on the precipice. This is a symphony on fire, a call for us to be better—a beautiful, glimmering song." -- Paul Yoon, author of Snow Hunters"The mundane and the extraordinary converge in this novel of one Montana woman’s life. … With resonant characters and a great sense of place, this novel rarely goes where you’d expect, and is stronger for it." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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Book SynopsisIn this captivating English-language debut, three generations of women must face their secrets and regrets when an old family curse awakens.Trade Review"Remarkable. . . . A compelling read, both disconcerting and enchanting. . . . The Empire of Dirt is a rich puzzle impossible to resist." -- Virginia Reeves - New York Journal of Books"The Empire of Dirt is as elegant and precise as it is haunting." -- The Millions"In Francesca Manfredi’s intense, mesmerizing novel, cosmic forces intersect with the domestic life of a girl and her mother and grandmother. With deceptively simple sentences, Manfredi brilliantly evokes the deep mysteries that lurk within everyday interactions. I couldn’t put this book down." -- Helen Phillips, author of The Need"An elegant and haunting story of feminine chaos and self-possession. Francesca Manfredi’s prose, in Ekin Oklap’s translation, is piercing and full of dark, honest wit." -- Catherine Lacey, author of Pew and Nobody Is Ever Missing"With her magnetic, captivating style and precise linguistic register, Francesca Manfredi leads us on a journey in discovery of ourselves, changing with the turning of the seasons." -- Stefania Massari - Huffington Post Italia"A complex and beautiful novel, with a dreamlike, poetic, but never macabre register." -- Francesca Frediani - D - la Repubblica"At once disconcerting and utterly captivating." -- Florence Courriol-Seita - Le Monde"A coming-of-age story that showcases, with powerful descriptions and poetic prose, the intergenerational clash and unspoken guilt between three women." -- Booklist"Three generations of Italian women living under one roof might be witches or might just be trying to live their lives; point of view is everything.... Valentina endeavors to make sense of her place in a world inhospitable to girls seeking freedom and within a family where secrets reign over truths. Manfredi delivers Valentina’s narrative, as translated by Oklap, in a straightforward and unapologetic tone consistent with the bravado and insecurities of adolescence. Familial truth emerges, one way or another, but it may take a few generations before it can be seen." -- Kirkus"Evocative.... The accomplished prose is a testament to Manfredi’s potential." -- Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisHow are young women supposed to see each other clearly when they can't even see themselves? This razor-sharp novel “perfectly captures [the] power dynamics and identity issues that . . . women are forced to face.”—Marie Claire (Best Books of the Year) Fiona and Liv are seniors at Buchanan College, a small liberal arts school in rural Pennsylvania. Fiona, who is still struggling emotionally after the death of her younger sister, is spending her final college year sleeping with abrasive men she meets in bars. Liv is happily coupled and on the fast track to marriage with an all-American frat boy. Both of their journeys, and their friendship, will be derailed by the relationships they develop with Oliver Ash, a ruggedly good-looking visiting literature professor whose first novel was published to great success when he was twenty-six. But now Oliver is in his early forties, with thinning hair and a checkered pas

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Book SynopsisA sly debut story collection that conjures the experience of adolescence through the eyes of Chinese American girls growing up in New York City—for readers of Zadie Smith and Helen Oyeyemi.Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction • Finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction AwardNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • NPR • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Guardian • Esquire • New York • BuzzFeedA fresh new voice emerges with the arrival of Sour Heart, establishing Jenny Zhang as a frank and subversive interpreter of the immigrant experience in America. Her stories cut across generations and continents, moving from the fraught halls of a public school in Flushing, Queens, to t

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Book SynopsisA richly textured coming-of-age story about fathers and sons, home and family, recalling classics by Thomas Wolfe and William Styron, by a powerful new voice in fictionJust before Henry Aster’s birth, his father—outsized literary ambition and pregnant wife in tow—reluctantly returns to the small Appalachian town in which he was raised and installs his young family in an immense house of iron and glass perched high on the side of a mountain. There, Henry grows up under the writing desk of this fiercely brilliant man. But when tragedy tips his father toward a fearsome unraveling, what was once a young son’s reverence is poisoned and Henry flees, not to return until years later when he, too, must go home again.  Mythic in its sweep and mesmeric in its prose, THE BARROWFIELDS is a breathtaking debut about the darker side of devotion, the limits of forgiveness, and the reparative power of shared pasts.– SIB

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Book SynopsisA NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK ONE OF THE NEW YORKER’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARCarrying a single suitcase, Kailash arrives in post-Reagan America from India to attend graduate school. As he begins to settle into American existence, Kailash comes under the indelible influence of a charismatic professor, and also finds his life reshaped by a series of very different women with whom he recklessly falls in and out of love. Looking back on the formative period of his youth, Kailash’s wry, vivid perception of the world he is in, but never quite of, unfurls in a brilliant melding of anecdote and annotation, picture and text. Building a case for himself, both as a good man in spite of his flaws and as an American in defiance of his place of birth, Kailash weaves a story that is at its core an incandescent investigation of love—despite, beyond, and across dividing lines.

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Book SynopsisA Best Book of the Year: The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • NPR • Vogue • Elle • Real Simple • InStyle • Good Housekeeping • Parade • Slate • Vox • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal • BookPage Longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize An Instant New York Times BestsellerA Reese''s Book Club Pick  The most provocative page-turner of the year. --Entertainment Weekly I urge you to read Such a Fun Age. --NPR A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains'' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store''s security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix''s desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix''s past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other. With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone family, and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.

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Book SynopsisIn the spirit of Lisa Jewell and Kate Morton, an emotional mystery set in the rugged remote landscape of north Cornwall full of dark secrets and twists, about three unusual sisters forced to confront the past.Some secrets need to be set free… When half-sisters Kat, Flora, and Lauren are unexpectedly summoned to Rock Point, their wild and remote Cornish summer home, it's not a welcome invitation. They haven't been back since that fateful summer twenty years ago—a summer they're desperate to forget. But when they arrive, it's clear they're not alone. Someone is lurking in the shadows, watching their every move. Someone who remembers exactly what they did... Will the sisters be able to protect the dark past of Rock Point? Or are some secrets too powerful to remain under lock and key?

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Book Synopsis“Full of yearning, ponderances about art and what it means to be an artist, and self-revelation, A Scatter of Light has a simmering intensity that makes it hard to put down.—NPR An Instant New York Times BestsellerLast Night at the Telegraph Club author Malinda Lo returns to the Bay Area with another masterful queer coming-of-age story, this time set against the backdrop of the first major Supreme Court decisions legalizing gay marriage. Aria Tang West was looking forward to a summer on Martha’s Vineyard with her best friends—one last round of sand and sun before college. But after a graduation party goes wrong, Aria’s parents exile her to California to stay with her grandmother, artist Joan West. Aria expects boredom, but what she finds is Steph Nichols, her grandmother’s gardener. Soon, Aria is second-guessing who she is and what she wants to be, and a summer that once seemed lostTrade ReviewAn NPR Best Book of the YearA Parents Magazine Best Book of the YearA BuzzFeed Best Book of the Year“Full of yearning, ponderances about art and what it means to be an artist, and self-revelation, A Scatter of Light has a simmering intensity that makes it hard to put down."—NPR "The intimate details and complex relationships of this perfectly rendered story of first love between two young women is reminiscent of Judy Blume's classic Forever."—Parents Magazine"Beautifully rendered and instantly captivating. Malinda Lo writes queer desire like no other."—Diva Magazine★ "Raw and bittersweet ... [an] expansive tale of yearning, self-discovery, and first love."—Publishers Weekly, starred review★ "Aria’s story is...about what it means to be an artist, a friend, a daughter and a granddaughter, and about how identities of all kinds can converge and crystallize as part of the process of growing up."—BookPage, starred review★ "Tells the powerful story of one young woman's life-changing summer of self-discovery....Both newcomers and longtime fans of Lo's work should enjoy this narrative of a young woman coming to understand herself and her wants better."—Shelf Awareness, starred review★ "An excellent coming-of-age and coming-out story. Characters are complicated and messy but in a realistic and relatable way. The story is driven by Aria’s truthful narration, which is beautifully reflective of an 18-year-old at that time…. A must-have.”—SLJ "A Scatter of Light is not one but many love letters—to art, to first crushes, and to friendships that span decades and ground you while letting you grow."—Booklist"This deeply perceptive bildungsroman thoughtfully explores several absorbing topics, but first and foremost it is an intimate, exhilarating story of first love."—Horn Book"A Scatter of Light is a book of crashes (and crushes) with effects that reverberate across time. It is queer in the best of ways — messy, raw, heartbreaking, freeing, and imperfect."—Autostraddle Praise for Last Night at the Telegraph Club, a New York Times Bestseller and Winner of the National Book Award“Lo's writing is so rich you can practically feel the glow of neon bar lights radiating off the page.”—bestselling author Casey McQusiton for Entertainment Weekly"A must-read."—Us Weekly“Lush, ambitious and layered, Malinda Lo’s sweeping historical novel is the queer romance we’ve been waiting for.”—Ms. Magazine"This stunning work of historical fiction effectively depicts both the thrills of young queer love and the horrors of racism and the Red Scare."—Boston Globe"This queer coming-out and coming-of-age story reverberates with dangers, dilemma and a dream deferred."—San Francisco Chronicle "An enthralling historical lesbian romance."—WBUR"A joy to read."—The Advocate"Tender and meditative."—Glamour "Malinda Lo is an absolute icon."—BuzzFeed

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Book SynopsisA gripping and deftly plotted narrative of family and belonging, Lights All Night Long is a dazzling debut novel from an acclaimed young writerLights All Night Long is utterly brilliant and completely captivating. . . . One of the most propulsive, un-put-downable literary novels I've read in ages.--Anthony Marra, author of A Constellation of Vital PhenomenaFifteen-year-old Ilya arrives in Louisiana from his native Russia for what should be the adventure of his life: a year in America as an exchange student. But all is not right in Ilya's world: he's consumed by the fate of his older brother Vladimir, the magnetic rebel to Ilya's dutiful wunderkind, back in their tiny Russian hometown. The two have always been close, spending their days dreaming of escaping to America. But when Ilya was tapped for the exchange, Vladimir disappeared into their town's seedy, drug-plagued underworld. Just before Ilya left, the murders of three young women

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Book SynopsisNATIONAL BESTSELLER • BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • From the internationally acclaimed, Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient: “an elegiac thriller [with] the immediate allure of a dark fairy tale” (The Washington Post) set in the decade after World War II that tells the dramatic story of two teenagers and an eccentric group of characters.In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself—shadowed and luminous at once—we read the story of fourteen-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel. But are they really what and who they claim to be? And what does it mean when the siblings' mother returns after months of silence without their father, explaining nothing, excusing nothing? A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all that he didn't know and understand in that time, and it is this journey—through facts, recollection, and imagination—that he narrates in this masterwork from one of the great writers of our time.

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