American English Fiction

One of the 20th-century's most darkly beautiful works of crime fiction - a story of carny life, spiritualism, and a con man of merciless resolve.

Nature Poem follows Teebs - a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet - who can't bring himself to write a nature poem. For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky. He'd slap a tree across the face. He'd rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he'd rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole.

"Her immediate concern was money." So begins the first story in Manuel Muñoz's dazzling new collection. In it, Delfina has moved from Texas to California's Central Valley with her husband and small son, and her isolation and desperation force her to take a risk that ends in profound betrayal.

Tom Jones is a splendid Hogarthian panorama of 18th century English life and morals, encompassing both city and country, and comprising some of the greatest comic characters in British literature. First published in 1749, it was an instant success and has gone on to become a classic of its genre. Quite simply, there has never been anything like it.

Kylie Macklin is eager to live a normal life. Freshly moved from Florida to Alabama and finally in remission from cancer, the optimistic nine-year-old is used to dodging her overprotective mom’s warnings. So when a new playmate invites her to hang out, the happy girl thinks nothing of the playground being located in a graveyard for young victims of the Spanish Flu… and a local serial killer.

Sly smirk. Heated glance. I knew I was hooked from the first moment our eyes connected. But I'm not the type of woman to give in easily. Especially when his offer is dripping in rule breaking notions threatening to consume me.

Widowed in Memphis during 1932, Cecile Dowd is struggling to provide for her three-year-old daughter. Unwittingly trusting a neighbor puts little Millie Mae into the clutches of Georgia Tann, corrupt Memphis Tennessee Children's Home Society director suspected of the disappearance of hundreds of children. With the help of a sympathetic lawyer, the search for Millie uncovers a deep level of corruption that threatens their very lives.

Three best friends who've grown up together encounter some of the real tests of manhood. All's good for James and Cathy until a woman shows up with James' love child. Suave Brent thinks he's found happiness with a born-again churchgoer - until another leads him into temptation. And longtime friend Sonny is going to need help from James and Brent if he's to have any hope of salvaging his marriage.

Beauty isn't everything. Beneath Simone's long fake hair, phony smile, and saline booty is a web of trickery, lies, and murder. After being attacked by Jimmy, Simone's web of lies begins to violently unravel. One by one, her skeletons are falling out of the closet and revealing her true colors. While Simone fights to keep the man and life that she stole, Chance is fighting desperately to keep his life with Gia. Amidst the hot and steamy passion, which builds between Gia and Chance like a scorching inferno, is the fear of Chance being locked away for the rest of his life.

Do you remember your first love? Meagan will never forget hers because he held an important role in her life that should have prevented them from coming together as one. There were so many reasons for her and William not to be together, such as their 21 years age difference just to name one. Tragedy took the lives of those who would stand in their way and Megan was happy that it did...at first. It was those same people, may they rest in peace, that taught her the deadly game that provided her the keys to open Pandora’s Box at an early age, which sent her into William’s arms.

There can be only one: one man with two loyal friends and secrets from the past that will ultimately shake up the entire hood in Chicago; one man on a mission to destroy anyone who doesn't abide by his rules, including tricky bitches who drop to their knees behind closed doors yet stand tall against him when the time comes to collect the almighty dollar; one man with enough swagger in his walk and confidence in his talk and the skills and mindset to build an empire.

The author of New York Times best-selling novels like God Don't Play, Mary Monroe is especially adept at capturing the tumultous highs and lows of the unforgettable characters who populate her books. In She Had It Coming,it's the best of times and the worst of times for Dolores Reese, who's married to two different men in two different cities.

Meeting by chance at a gambling hall in Europe, the separate lives of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth are immediately intertwined. Daniel, an Englishman of uncertain parentage, becomes Gwendolyn's redeemer as she finds herself drawn to his spiritual and altruistic nature after a loveless marriage. But Daniel's path was already set when he rescued a young Jewess from suicide.

After a tragedy separates her from her mother, Juana García leaves in search of her father, who left them two years earlier. Out of money and in need of someone to help her across the border, Juana meets Adelina Vasquez, a young woman who left her family in California to follow her lover to Mexico. Finding themselves - in a Tijuana jail - in desperate circumstances, they offer each other much needed material and spiritual support and ultimately become linked forever in the most unexpected of ways.

He's a beast. A killer. A dark shadow with blood on his hands and violence in his veins. He's the monster that comes at midnight. The one I watch from my bedroom window, holding my breath, wondering if he has finally come for me. It's only a matter of time before he takes me. His ballerina girl. It's a promise he made the first time he caught me staring at him. ‘You will be mine.' It's impossible not to fear him. My bones tremble every time I hear his name. Granite. President of the American Street Kings MC.

Secular humanism has triumphed. Everything the late Victorians and Edwardians believed would bring human happiness has been achieved: Technology has made it so no one needs to work for a living, the social sciences ensure a smooth-running social order, and, in the name of tolerance, religious beliefs have been uprooted and eliminated except for a single holdout - a largely discredited and rapidly shrinking Catholic Church. Yet people are unhappy.

When America won the Revolutionary War, its people offered General George Washington a crown. Two and a half centuries later, the House of Washington still sits on the throne. Like most royal families, the Washingtons have an heir and a spare. A future monarch and a backup battery. Each child knows exactly what is expected of them. But these aren't just any royals. They're American.

They say all is fair in love and war, but how do you fight when you don't know the enemy is the one you love? Will the Hoover gang be able to reign supreme, or will they fall at the hands of the women who are supposed to have their backs? The infamous Hoover gang - Babyface, Blaze, Quick, and Shadow - have taken Chicago by storm. These four are not your average street thugs. Bank robbers by day and club owners by night, they have held on to their place at the top by never trusting anyone enough to allow them in their circle. The moment they do, all hell breaks loose.

Every woman wants to be Elizabeth Bennet Darcy - beautiful, gracious, universally admired, strong, daring and outspoken - a thoroughly modern woman in crinolines. And every woman will fall madly in love with Mr. Darcy - tall, dark and handsome, a nobleman and a heartthrob whose virility is matched only by his utter devotion to his wife. Their passion is consuming and idyllic - essentially, they can’t keep their hands off each other - through a sweeping tale of adventure and misadventure, human folly and numerous mysteries of parentage.

This AudioFile Earphones Award-winning recording of Alison Larkin's best-selling autobiographical novel about an adopted English woman who finds her birth parents and herself in the US is followed by an exclusive interview with the author. In addition to being a best-selling novelist and comedienne, Alison Larkin is also the award-winning narrator of over 200 audiobooks.