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Without a Map: A Memoir
by Meredith HallMeredith Hall's moving but unsentimental memoir begins in 1965, when she becomes pregnant at sixteen. Shunned by her insular New Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by her mother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hiding her before they finally banish her altogether. After giving her baby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the Middle East, where she survives by selling her possessions and finally her blood. She returns to New England and stitches together a life that encircles her silenced and invisible grief. When he is twenty-one, her lost son finds her. Hall learns that he grew up in gritty poverty with an abusive father-in her own father's hometown. Their reunion is tender, turbulent, and ultimately redemptive. Hall's parents never ask for her forgiveness, yet as they age, she offers them her love. What sets Without a Map apart is the way in which loss and betrayal evolve into compassion, and compassion into wisdom. "Meredith Hall boldly charts one of the bravest of stories, the journey from disrupted youth up through that most tricky and forbidding territory, the family circle. Bone-honest and strong in its every line, this work of memory is a remarkably deep retrieval of its times and souls, thereby reflecting our own. " -Ivan Doig, author of Heart Earth "This is an unusually elegant memoir that feels as though its been carved straight out of Meredith Hall's capacious heart. The story is riveting, the words perfect. It is rare to read a work that manages to be at once artful and compelling, which for me best describes Meredith Hall's debut work. She is an author who deserves to be widely read. Few people write like this. Fewer still have the courage to live like this – without the comfort of any cliché. " -Lauren Slater, author of Opening Skinner's Box, Prozac Diary, and Welcome to My Country "Meredith Hall's long journey from an inexcusably betrayed girlhood to the bittersweet mercies of womanhood is a triple triumph-of survival; of narration; and of forgiveness. Her portrait of her own empty bravado collapsing into total psychological and geographical dislocation is one of the most harrowing passages I've ever read. The subsequent turn toward memory and honesty is agonized, profound, and salvific. Without a Map is a masterpiece. " -David James Duncan, author of The Brothers K and God Laughs and Plays "Meredith Hall is like a geiger counter ticking along the radium edge of these recent decades. She gives us self as expert-witness-Without a Map is smart, sharp, and redemptively honest. " -Sven Birkerts, author of The Gutenberg Elegies and My Sky Blue Trades "Meredith Hall's story of loss, shame, and betrayal is also a story of joy, reconnection, and survival; each memory takes us deep to the marrow of sorrow and celebration. A work of extraordinary beauty and grace. " -Kim Barnes, author of In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country "Without A Map tells an important and perceptive story about loss, about aloneness and isolation in a time of great need, about a life slowly coming back into focus and the calm that finally emerges. Meredith Hall is a brave new writer who earns our attention. " -Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek "Meredith Hall's magnificent book held me in its thrall from the moment I began reading the opening pages. WITHOUT A MAP is a fluid, beautifully-written, hard-won piece of work that belongs on the shelf next to the best modern memoirs, and yet is in a category all its own. It is a moving example of a difficult life redeemed first through examination, then reflection, then finally-like a rough stone polished until it gleams-into a genuine work of art. " -Dani Shapiro, aut
Without a Map: A Memoir
by Meredith HallMeredith Hall's moving but unsentimental memoir begins in 1965, when she becomes pregnant at sixteen. Shunned by her insular New Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by her mother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hiding her before they finally banish her altogether. After giving her baby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the Middle East, where she survives by selling her possessions and finally her blood. She returns to New England and stitches together a life that encircles her silenced and invisible grief. When he is twenty-one, her lost son finds her. Hall learns that he grew up in gritty poverty with an abusive father—in her own father's hometown. Their reunion is tender, turbulent, and ultimately redemptive. Hall's parents never ask for her forgiveness, yet as they age, she offers them her love. What sets Without a Map apart is the way in which loss and betrayal evolve into compassion, and compassion into wisdom.
Without a Trace: A Novel
by Danielle SteelNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel, a powerful story about fighting for a chance at happiness—whatever the cost.Charles Vincent seems to have it all—a beautiful wife, two successful children, and a well-paying career. Yet happiness remains out of reach. He is trapped in a loveless marriage and his job is simply a paycheck. But his life changes forever one night as he drives along the Normandy coast, heading to their lavish château for the weekend. In one terrifying moment, Charles falls asleep at the wheel and veers off the road, plunging thirty feet down the face of a rocky cliff.Miraculously, Charles survives. After gathering the courage to climb to safety, he starts to walk—bruised, bloody, and desperate for help. In the dark of night, he happens upon a cabin where he meets the kind and beautiful Aude Saint-Martin. They have an instant connection, and as she nurses him back to health, Charles begins to discover the passion he&’s been missing for so many years.In the aftermath of the crash, Charles has a startling realization: He doesn&’t have to go back. He could simply choose to disappear, to walk away from his old life. When his car is discovered, he&’ll be presumed dead, washed away at sea. If he stays with Aude, he has a chance at a fuller, happier life that he didn&’t know was possible. It all seems too good to resist. But Aude has secrets of her own, and before long their pasts catch up to them, threatening everything they have fought to build.What would happen if you were given a chance to walk away from everything in your life and start over with a blank slate, and you had a split second to decide? In Without a Trace, Danielle Steel tells an irresistible story of the risks two people are willing to take in exchange for a chance at the life they&’ve always wanted.
Wits Guts Grit: All-natural Biohacks For Raising Smart, Resilient Kids
by Jena PincottWits Guts Grit is inspired by the many questions acclaimed science writer and mother Jena Pincott explored about the natural forces that shape children's minds and health. What if we identify the microbes that support stress resilience and find ways to expose our kids to them? What if we reintroduce the mineral magnesium, deficient in almost every child's diet? Would it reduce anxiety and increase bounce back, as the science now suggests? What if memory and learning could improve measurably after eating certain foods—such as blueberries—high in plant chemicals called flavonols, or after certain forms of exercise? These and many more questions led Pincott to simple, all-natural "biohacks"—experiments inspired by current research and theory—complete with instructions on how to undertake them to help your own children strengthen their wits, guts, and grit. Explaining the science and her own experimentation with her two gung-ho daughters in a lively, accessible way, Pincott shows parents how the underlying ingredients of the traits we all want for our kids—resilience, focus, perseverance, working memory, and more—may be all around us in the natural world, ready to be harnessed.
Wives Like Us: A Novel
by Plum Sykes“Wives Like Us made me laugh so hard I actually knocked over my lamp. Can a book be so wickedly smart, so effortless, so chic and hilarious that you would stumble through the night to find a new lightbulb just so you can keep reading way past your bedtime? In a word, yes." —Kevin KwanTake a grand English country house, one (heartbroken) American divorcee, three rich wives, two tycoons, a pair of miniature sausage dogs and one (bereaved) butler; put them all into the blender and out comes the impossibly funny Wives Like Us, the new novel from the best-selling author of Bergdorf Blondes and Party Girls Die In Pearls, Plum Sykes.If you think the English countryside is all green wellies, muddy Land Rovers and grey-haired ladies in tweed, then you’ve never visited ‘The Bottoms.’Welcome to the rose-strewn county of Oxfordshire, and the tony Cotswold villages of Little Bottom, Middle Bottom, Great Bottom, and Monkton Bottom, recently annexed by a glittering new breed of female: the Country Princess. Following a ghastly row about a missing suite of diamonds, Tata Hawkins has flounced out of Monkton Bottom Manor with her daughter, Minty, and Executive Butler Ian Palmer in tow, decamping to The Old Coach House to teach her husband Bryan a lesson.But things don’t go to plan: Bryan disappears to Venice with a bikini designer; Selby Fairfax, the glamorous American divorcée who has inherited the beautiful estate next door, is refusing Tata’s overtures at friendship; Tata’s best friends, Sophie Thompson and Fernanda Ovington-Williams, are distracted by their own heartache, and the posh Pennybacker-Hoare sisters are plotting to prevent Tata regaining her crown as Queen of the Bottoms. Worst of all, Ian has nowhere to store his collection of vintage Gucci loafers.Will Tata ever return to the comforts of the Manor? Will Selby find her Prince Charming? Will the Pennybacker-Hoares prevail? With the help of a pig farmer-ess moonlighting as a Personal Assistant, a male model moonlighting as a stable hand and a London barrister moonlighting as a gentleman farmer, can Ian restore harmony to The Bottoms?
Wives and Daughters: An Every-day Story, Volume 2... (Barnes And Noble Classics Ser.)
by Elizabeth GaskellSecrets and scandals steer a young woman&’s life as she comes of age and finds love in Victorian England. Seventeen-year-old Molly Gibson has grown up under the watchful eye of her widowed father, the doctor Mr. Gibson. After one of his apprentices develops an interest in Molly, Mr. Gibson feels the only way to protect her is to send her to live with the Hamley family. With his daughter away, Gibson decides to remarry, giving Molly a new mother and sister. Although her stepmother is manipulative, Molly gains an ally in her stepsister, Cynthia, who is educated, worldly, and irresistible to just about any man she meets. Growing closer to the Hamleys and her new stepsister, Molly also finds herself mired in their scandals—and the town&’s gossip. If she hopes to set things right, she must risk her own reputation, as well as the man she secretly loves. By the author of Mary Barton and North and South, this is a story of love, family, and the challenges of both, as relevant today as it was in the nineteenth century.
Wives and Daughters: An Every-day Story, Volume 2... (Dover Thrift Editions)
by Elizabeth GaskellMolly Gibson is a small-town girl in England during the 1830s, kind-hearted but unwise in the ways of the world. Her widower father sends her to stay with the aristocrats of Hamley Hall, where she befriends both of the family's sons, learning the elder's dark secret while falling in love with the younger. But her father has remarried in her absence, and in addition to a selfish and ambitious stepmother, Molly has acquired a stepsister who quickly becomes a rival for the younger Hamley's affections.Molly's strikingly realistic coming-of-age story, recounted with humor and pathos, depicts the consequences of both good and bad marriages as well as the dynamics of changing relationships within family. Elizabeth Gaskell develops timeless themes of friendship, love, money, and tragedy amid a portrait of a rapidly changing Victorian world. Her richly drawn characters and their preoccupation with social behavior and moral issues provide thought-provoking entertainment in the manner of Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope, and George Eliot.
Wives, Husbands, and Lovers: Marriage and Sexuality in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Urban China
by Deborah S. Davis Sara L. FriedmanWhat is the state of intimate romantic relationships and marriage in urban China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan? Since the 1980's, the character of intimate life in these urban settings has changed dramatically. While many speculate about the 21st century as Asia's century, this book turns to the more intimate territory of sexuality and marriage—and observes the unprecedented changes in the law and popular expectations for romantic bonds and the creation of new families. Wives, Husbands, and Lovers examines how sexual relationships and marriage are perceived and practiced under new developments within each urban location, including the establishment of no fault divorce laws, lower rates of childbearing within marriage, and the increased tolerance for non-marital and non-heterosexual intimate relationships. The authors also chronicle what happens when states remove themselves from direct involvement in some features of marriage but not others. Tracing how the marital "rules of the game" have changed substantially across the region, this book challenges long-standing assumptions that marriage is the universally preferred status for all men and women, that extramarital sexuality is incompatible with marriage, or that marriage necessarily unites a man and a woman. This book illustrates the wide range of potential futures for marriage, sexuality, and family across these societies.
Wiving: A Memoir of Loving Then Leaving the Patriarchy
by Caitlin MyerThe Most Anticipated Memoirs of 2020, She Reads • Bay Area Authors to Read This Summer, 7X7 A literary memoir of one woman's journey from wife to warrior, in the vein of breakout hits like Cheryl Strayed's Wild and Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle. At thirty-six years old, Caitlin Myer is ready to start a family with her husband. She has left behind the restrictive confines of her Mormon upbringing and early sexual trauma and believes she is now living her happily ever after . . . when her body betrays her. In a single week, she suffers the twin losses of a hysterectomy and the death of her mother, and she is jolted into a terrible awakening that forces her to reckon with her past—and future. This is the story of one woman&’s lifelong combat with a culture—her &“escape&” from religion at age twenty, only to find herself similarly entrapped in the gender conventions of the secular culture at large, conventions that teach girls and women to shape themselves to please men, to become good wives and mothers. The biblical characters Yael and Judith, wives who became assassins, become her totems as she evolves from wifely submission to warrior independence. An electric debut that loudly redefines our notions of womanhood, Wiving grapples with the intersections of religion and sex, trauma and love, sickness and mental illness, and a woman&’s harrowing enlightenment. Building on the literary tradition of difficult women who struggle to be heard, Wiving introduces an urgent, striking voice to the scene of contemporary women&’s writing at a time when we must explode old myths and build new stories in their place.
Wizardmatch
by Lauren MagazinerTake the hilarious, magic-infused world of Eva Ibbotson's Which Witch, add the lovable feuding family from The Incredibles, and you'll get Wizardmatch--funny, fantastical, action-packed, and totally heartwarming.Twelve-year-old Lennie Mercado loves magic. She practices her invisibility powers all the time (she can now stay invisible for fifteen seconds!), and she dreams of the day that she can visit her grandfather, the Prime Wizard de Pomporromp, at his magical estate.Now Lennie has her chance. Poppop has decided to retire, and his grandchildren are coming from all over to compete in Wizardmatch. The winner inherits his title, his castle, and every single one of his unlimited magical powers. The losers get nothing. Lennie is desperate to win, but when Poppop creates a new rule to quelch any sibling rivalry, her thoughts turn from winning Wizardmatch to sabotaging it...even if it means betraying her family.Comedic, touching, and page-turny, Wizardmatch is perfect for fans of Mr. Lemoncello's Library, The Gollywopper Games, and The Candymakers.
Wizzo and the Cookie Babies
by Gina CallejaThis gentle and humorous story gives youngsters the reassuring message that the world cherishes children. Wizzo the Wizard, who lives on the moon, becomes bored while his wife is away on a trip, so he decides to bake a batch of cookies. But he makes a mistake in the recipe and, when Ms. Wizzo returns, she finds the house full of real, live babies - one hundred and forty-four, to be exact! Of course, she loves them all!
Woke Parenting: Raising Intersectional Feminist, Empathic, Engaged, and Generally Non-Shitty Kids while Still Having a Life
by Faith G. Harper Bonnie Scott, MS, MA, LPCHow do you raise your kids to be feminist, anti-racist, gender-inclusive, self-compassionate, and with strong respect for boundaries and consent in a society that offers mixed messages on all these things—especially when none of this was part of your own upbringing? How can you prepare the next generation to find joy and stability and also cope with economic instability, police brutality, political polarization, militant nationalism, and environmental disaster? Parents and therapists Dr. Faith Harper and Bonnie Scott have written a parenting guide for the 21st century. Drawing from their own experiences raising diverse, politically-active young people, this book will help you raise a new generation of civil rights leaders and activists who will change the world for the better—all while maintaining your own separate identity and relationships, and without losing your mind.
Wolf Den Hollow: A Novel
by Donna MurraySila, a young, bewitching Cherokee, flees a marriage to a brutal drunk in the dead of winter and finds herself knocking on the door of a mill office, destitute and looking for work. There, she meets the handsome Charley Barkley, the owner and a married father of ten. Despite the fact that they have virtually nothing in common—and thirty years between them—a spark ignites.For Charley, once their passionate love affair intensifies, there is no going back to his loveless marriage—especially after Sila is with child. They marry and his logging empire expands, as does their family. Though they face tragedy and treachery along the way, they thrive until, just when their lives seems perfect, Charley falls victim to cancer. Sila&’s devastation at the loss of her husband is compounded by the onset of the Great Depression. With her inheritance gone and faced with losing her home, she is forced to do the unthinkable to protect herself and her children in a final act of survival.Inspired by a true story, and replete with natural healing, glimpses of the logging boom, and heartbreaking drama, Wolf Den Hollow brings to life this unlikely, captivating romance of the early 1900s.
Wolf Mark
by Joseph BruchacWhen Lucas King's covert-ops father is kidnapped and his best friend Meena is put in danger, Luke's only chance to save them--a skin that will let him walk as a wolf--is hidden away in an abandoned mansion guarded by monsters.
Wolf Story
by William Mccleery Warren ChappellThis irresistible book is about: a father; his five-year-old son, Michael (intelligent, crafty, addicted to stories); Michael's best friend Stefan (stalwart listener, equally addicted to stories); and, well--what else?--a story.Oh, and a wolf. It is as Michael always demands: a Wolf Story, which begins one night at bedtime and spins wildly on through subsequent bedtimes and Sunday outings to the beach and park in a succession of ever more trickily tantalizing episodes. Waldo the wolf is sneaking up on Rainbow the hen, when Jimmy Tractorwheel, the son of the local farmer, comes along. After that, there's no knowing what will happen next, as while stalled in traffic jams or nodding off at night, the boys chime in and the story races on and Waldo finds, if not necessarily dinner, his just desserts.First published in 1947 and wonderfully illustrated by Warren Chappell, William McCleery's Wolf Story is a delicious treat for fathers and sons and daughters and mothers alike.
Wolf at the Door: A Novel
by John YountThe stunning debut of a writer hailed by Robert Penn Warren as &“that very rare thing, the born novelist&”He had lost the thread of his life, and he couldn&’t pretend any longer that he hadn&’t. As soon as Thomas Rapidan thinks it, he knows it is true. The question is, what to do about it? John Yount&’s slim, potent first novel is the story of a troubled young man deciding whether to live or die. Tom&’s wife, Maggie, knows that he does not love her. She pays his tuition at the North Carolina university they attend together, but he shows no interest in her or in his classes—only in drinking himself into a stupor and reminiscing about his poor West Virginia upbringing and his violent father. When Tom puts Maggie on a plane home to visit her parents, he is free to indulge his darkest, most cynical desires. He gets drunk, picks a fight in a bar, and edges closer and closer to the abyss. But before he can take the final step, Tom meets a remarkable girl in an unlikely place and discovers that she just might be able to give him the one thing no one else can—forgiveness.
Wolf at the Table
by Adam RappThe Corrections meets We Need to Talk About Kevin in this harrowing multigenerational saga about a family harboring a serial killer in their midst in this &“masterful novel&” that &“peers into the dark heart of America&” (Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Independence Day) As late summer 1951 descends on Elmira, New York, Myra Larkin, thirteen, the oldest child of a large Catholic family, meets a young man she believes to be Mickey Mantle. He chats her up at a local diner and gives her a ride home. The matter consumes her until later that night, when a triple homicide occurs just down the street, opening a specter of violence that will haunt the Larkins for half a century. As the siblings leave home and fan across the country, each pursues a shard of the American dream. Myra serves as a prison nurse while raising her son, Ronan. Her middle sisters, Lexy and Fiona, find themselves on opposite sides of class and power. Alec, once an altar boy, is banished from the house and drifts into oblivion. As he becomes an increasingly alienated loner, his mother begins to receive postcards full of ominous portent. What they reveal, and what they require, will shatter a family and lead to devastating reckoning. Through one family&’s pursuit of the American dream, Wolf at the Table explores our consistent proximity to violence and its effects over time. Pulitzer Prize finalist Adam Rapp writes with gorgeous acuity, cutting to the heart of each character as he reveals the devastating reality beneath the veneer of good society.
Wolf by Wolf: Book 2 (Wolf by Wolf #2)
by Ryan GraudinThe thrilling conclusion to Ryan Graudin's Carnegie Medal 2017 nominated alternative history and fantasy epic, WOLF BY WOLF. In 1950s Germany, the war may be over, but the fight has just begun . . .There would be blood. Blood for blood. Blood to pay. An entire world of it. With their mission to overthrow the Nazis in danger, Yael and the resistance are ready to fight. Forced to run, life in the shadows for Yael, Luka and Felix isn't easy, especially when their enemy seems to know their every move. And when each step uncovers dark secrets and even darker truths, each must find a way to navigate right and wrong, past and future, life and death, if they are to survive at all.A captivating story of survival, love and freedom in a gripping, fantastical alternate universe from WOLF BY WOLF and THE WALLED CITY author, Ryan Graudin.
Wolf by Wolf: One girl’s mission to win a race and kill Hitler (Wolf By Wolf Ser. #1)
by Ryan GraudinHer story begins on a train.The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule. To commemorate their Great Victory, they host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents. The prize? An audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor's ball in Tokyo.Yael, a former death camp prisoner, has witnessed too much suffering, and the five wolves tattooed on her arm are a constant reminder of the loved ones she lost. The resistance has given Yael one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler. A survivor of painful human experimentation, Yael has the power to skinshift and must complete her mission by impersonating last year's only female racer, Adele Wolfe. This deception becomes more difficult when Felix, Adele's twin brother, and Luka, her former love interest, enter the race and watch Yael's every move. But as Yael grows closer to the other competitors, can she be as ruthless as she needs to be to avoid discovery and stay true to her mission? From the author of The Walled City comes a fast-paced and innovative novel that will leave you breathless.
Wolfish
by Christiane M. AndrewsFor fans of Kelly Barnhill, Wolfish is an expansive, adventurous fantasy unlike anything you've ever read, inspired by the myth of twin boys Romulus and Remus. Shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction! Twelve-year-old Rae is content as the adopted daughter of shepherds, helping with the flock and reveling in the beauty of her family&’s hillside farm. But after a frightening encounter with a wolf—to whom she feels a sudden, peculiar connection—Rae realizes there is much more to her past, and her future, than she could have imagined. Meanwhile, a young girl named Alba goes about her days as an oracle&’s apprentice, a duty that confines her to a distant, watery cave. But when she bestows a troubling prophecy on the rising boy-king, her words unintentionally begin a reign of terror, and send Alba on a desperate mission alongside Rae and the wolf. Inspired by Roman mythology, this mysterious and uniquely magical adventure explores the intricate roles of nature and fate in our lives, the power of language to shape our world, and the boundless importance of love and kindness.
Woman 99: A Novel
by Greer MacallisterShe's only a number now.When Charlotte Smith's wealthy parents commit her beloved sister Phoebe to the infamous Goldengrove Asylum, Charlotte knows there's more to the story than madness. She risks everything and follows her sister inside, surrendering her real identity as a privileged young lady of San Francisco society to become a nameless inmate, Woman 99.The longer she stays, the more she realizes that many of the women of Goldengrove aren't insane, merely inconvenient — and that her search for the truth threatens to dig up secrets that some very powerful people would do anything to kep.A historical thriller rich in detail, deception, and revelation, Woman 99 honors the fierce women of the past, born into a world that denied them power but underestimated their strength.
Woman Last Seen: A chilling thriller novel
by Adele Parks"Yet another stick of literary dynamite from Adele Parks: chilling, gripping and entirely unputdownable." —Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling authorHAPPY. MARRIED. MISSING.Leigh Fletcher: happily married stepmom to two gorgeous boys goes missing on Monday. Her husband, Mark, says he knows nothing of her whereabouts. She went to work and just never came home. Their family is shattered.Kai Janssen: married to wealthy Dutch businessman Daan and vanishes the same week. Kai left their luxurious penthouse and glamorous world without a backward glance. She seemingly evaporated into thin air. Daan is distraught.Detective Clements knows that people disappear all the time—far too frequently. Most run away from things, some run toward and others are taken but find their way back. A sad few never return. These two women are from very different worlds. Their disappearances are unlikely to be connected. And yet, at a gut level, the detective believes they might be.How could these women walk away from their families, husbands and homes willingly? Clements is determined to unearth the truth, no matter how shocking and devastating it may be.#1 Sunday Times bestselling author Adele Parks returns with her most provocative, compelling book to date.Don't miss Adele's next book One Last Secret! Check out these other gripping novels by Adele Parks:I Invited Her InLies, Lies, LiesJust My Luck
Woman No. 17: A Novel
by Edan LepuckiA sinister, sexy noir about art, motherhood, and the intensity of female friendships, set in the posh hills above Los Angeles, from the New York Times bestselling author of California High in the Hollywood Hills, writer Lady Daniels has decided to take a break from her husband. Left alone with her children, she’s going to need a hand taking care of her young son if she’s ever going to finish her memoir. In response to a Craigslist ad, S arrives, a magnetic young artist who will live in the secluded guest house out back, care for Lady’s toddler, Devin, and keep a watchful eye on her older, teenage son, Seth. S performs her day job beautifully, quickly drawing the entire family into her orbit, and becoming a confidante for Lady. But in the heat of the summer, S’s connection to Lady’s older son takes a disturbing, and possibly destructive, turn. And as Lady and S move closer to one another, the glossy veneer of Lady’s privileged life begins to crack, threatening to expose old secrets that she has been keeping from her family. Meanwhile, S is protecting secrets of her own, about her real motivation for taking the job. S and Lady are both playing a careful game, and every move they make endangers the things they hold most dear. Darkly comic, twisty and tense, this mesmerizing new novel defies expectation and proves Edan Lepucki to be one of the most talented and exciting voices of her generation.
Woman Running in the Mountains
by Yuko TsushimaSet in 1970s Japan, this tender and poetic novel about a young, single mother struggling to find her place in the world is an early triumph by a modern Japanese master.Alone at dawn, in the heat of midsummer, a young woman named Takiko Odaka departs on foot for the hospital to give birth to a baby boy. Her pregnancy, the result of a brief affair with a married man, is a source of sorrow and shame to her abusive parents. For Takiko, however, it is a cause for reverie. Her baby, she imagines, will be hers and hers alone, a challenge that she also hopes will free her. Takiko&’s first year as a mother is filled with the intense bodily pleasures and pains that come from caring for a newborn. At first she seeks refuge in the company of other women—in the hospital, in her son&’s nursery—but as the baby grows, her life becomes less circumscribed as she explores Tokyo, then ventures beyond the city into the countryside, toward a mountain that captures her imagination and desire for a wilder freedom.
Woman Walks into a Bar
by Rowan ColemanA Friday night out with the girls changes Sam's life forever... 28-year-old single mother Sam spends her days working in the local supermarket and her Friday nights out with her friends, Joy and Marie, letting her hair down at the White Horse. Life has never been easy for Sam, but she's always hoped that one day she'll meet The One. After a series of terrible dates with men she's met through an internet dating agency she's starting to lose heart - until her friends tell her they've set her up on a blind date. Sam's horrified but finally she agrees to go - after all you never know when you might meet the man of your dreams...