Contemporary Family Life

In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life. Ballingrud’s stories are love stories. They’re also monster stories. Sometimes the monsters collected here are vampires or werewolves.

Susan Sheridan left her life in Newark almost a year ago. Since then, Susan, Christine, Lola, Audrey, and Amanda have lived out every life milestone under the sun—from divorce to new loves, illnesses, to second-chance romances, and beyond. Now, after a year of cancer and healing, it’s time for Susan Sheridan to have her happily-ever-after with her high school sweetheart, Scott. There is so much to be done before the huge event—but Susan Sheridan is good at staying busy.

Four years ago, Elodie Parker left the village of Little Heaton where she’d lived for her entire life. She hasn’t been back since. Now, with her little sister’s wedding looming, she’s going home again. It should be a time for celebration, but there are things Elodie left behind she’s not ready to face. Not least the love of her life, Tomasz. The man who, if Elodie is really honest, she still loves. But something magical happens on the flight. As turbulence hits, Elodie is thrown back into the past. It’s eight years ago, the day she met Tomasz for the very first time.

In the Irish town of Schancarrig, the young people carve their initials - and those of their loves - into the copper beech tree in front of the schoolhouse. But not even Father Gunn, the parish priest, who knows most of what goes on behind Shancarrig's closed doors, or Dr. Jims, the village doctor, who knows all the rest, realizes that not everything in the placid village is what it seems.

Auf den ersten Blick ist Matty Telemachus ein typischer 14-jähriger Junge mit den typischen Problemen eines 14-jährigen Jungen. Aber Matty ist alles andere als normal und seine Familie ist es schon gar nicht. Als Matty entdeckt, dass er über ungewöhnliche Fähigkeiten verfügt, macht er sich auf die Suche nach dem lange gehegten Familiengeheimnis: Sind seine Verwandten wirklich Medien, beherrschen sie Telepathie, Telekinese und vielleicht noch andere Kräfte?

Dani, Meg, and Charlotte have bonded over babies, barbeques, and backyards, but when they escape for a girls' weekend away, they can't bring themselves to return to lives that don't seem to fit anymore. All three of these women thought they would be different. None of them thought they'd be facing down 40 and still wondering when life starts. What they do when they realize where they're headed is both inspiring and wildly entertaining.

It's 1939, and the Brogan family of London's East End are ready to show Hitler what for. But things don't seem so rosy when rationing, evacuation and air raids start to put this larger-than-life family to the test. When a mysterious young man arrives at the Brogans' local parish church, he provides just the dazzling distraction they need - and, for eldest daughter Mattie, the promise of more than she'd ever wished for. But as the pair fall deeper in love, they are drawn into secret dangers, rife on the very London streets they call home.

Once upon a time, the Peacock sisters were little girls who combed each other’s tangled hair. But decades of secrets have led them to separate lives—and to telling lies, to themselves and to one another. Sylvie is getting married. Again. A librarian and widow who soothes her grief by escaping into books (and shelving them perfectly), Sylvie has caught the attention of an unlikely match: Simon Rampling, a mysterious, wealthy man from Northern England. Sylvie allows herself to imagine a life beside him—one filled with the written word, kindness, and companionship.

This “authentic, generous, and heartfelt” (Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times best-selling author) novel from the New York Times best-selling author of the Beach House series explores how new beginnings can be born from disasters and how, even during the worst of circumstances - or perhaps because of them - we discover what is most important in life.

Da Harry er 11 år, får han at vide, at hans far var en berømt og respekteret troldmand, og hans mor en overordentlig dygtig heks. Harry er også selv troldmand og skal starte på Hogwarts skole for heksekunster og troldmandsskab. Han skal bl.a. medbringe tryllestav, troldmandshat og enten en kat, en ugle eller en tudse - og så starter et eventyrligt liv for Harry, der skal lære et hav af magiske tricks og desuden må tage kampen op mod den onde troldmand, der dræbte hans forældre.

When Natalie Seebring announces plans to marry within months of the death of her husband of fifty-eight years, her son and daughter are stunned. In the face of their disapproval, Natalie decides it's time to talk about the past and reveal the secrets she has kept for decades. She hires Olivia Jones to help write her memoir and invites her to spend the summer at the family vineyard. As summer deepens and the vineyard's crop ripens, Natalie's story unfolds and startles one family member after another....

Tessa Wilson's life is all over the map. She may be clumsy, but this time she's stumbled into a pickle by choice, not by accident. She's agreed to take a month-long trip around Texas jammed into a '59 Cadillac with a drama-loving teenager, two elderly spitfires, and—oh, yes—her biological mama who gave her away at birth. And the ride gets even crazier when hot-as-sin cowboy Branch Thomas crosses into her lane. They don't call him the sexiest man in the Lone Star State for nothin'.

Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney has never been a devotee of tarot cards or crystal balls. And yet when the fortune-teller at the county fair suggests that it is time for her to “redream” her life, Ave Maria realizes she is wide open to suggestion.

After putting the brakes on her dead-end relationship, local veterinarian Ivey Anders is ready to soak up this summer on her own terms. The way she sees it, no dating means no disappointment. Why complicate life with anything long-term? But when she meets Corbin Meyer - and his troubled young son, Justin - Ivey’s no-strings strategy threatens to unravel before she can put it into practice.

From the best-selling author of The Beekeeper’s Promise comes a gripping story of three young women faced with impossible choices. How will history - and their families - judge them? Paris, 1940. With the city occupied by the Nazis, three young seamstresses go about their normal lives as best they can. But all three are hiding secrets. War-scarred Mireille is fighting with the Resistance; Claire has been seduced by a German officer; and Vivienne’s involvement is something she can’t reveal to either of them.

School teacher Julie Barlow and her two best friends, Beth and Aggie, are looking forward to an adults only beach vacation. Julie also plans to use the time to figure out why her perfectly planned life has gone terribly amiss. They’ve barely hit the road when a frantic call from Julie’s mother hijacks their best laid plans. Uncle Tony “Lucky” Costa is missing. Always entertaining, often irresponsible, never reliable, Uncle Lucky was a favorite with her friends. For Julie, for whom he’d been a sometimes surrogate father, not so much.

Lewis Madigan is young, gay, out of work, and getting antsy when he’s roped into providing end-of-life care for his insufferable homophobic neighbor, Chester Wheeler. Lewis doesn’t need the aggravation, just the money. The only requirements: run errands, be on call, and put up with a miserable old churl no one else in Buffalo can bear. After exchanging barbs, bickering, baiting, and pushing buttons, Chester hits Lewis with the big ask. Lewis can’t say no to a dying wish.

1976. Rushing out of the University Library, undergraduate Alice Kenzie bumps straight into PhD student Tristan Somers. There begins a whirlwind romance, and Alice falls pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl. Then Tristan is killed in a car accident. Unable to cope, Alice takes her baby to Summer House, Tristan's family home in Suffolk, leaves her there and disappears. 2018. Olivia Somers has always been told that her mother died in the same accident as her father. When she finds old letters in Summer House, everything she ever believed about her mother is called into question.

For decades, Judge Margot Burr-Nadir has worked tirelessly, case by case, to administer justice from the federal bench of the Eastern District of the United States. Her position already seems like the highest possible honor. So she is surprised when a call comes from the President of the United States inviting her to accept his nomination to the Supreme Court. For Margot, this should be among the brightest spots of an already charmed existence. But the call comes on a family trip to visit their oldest daughter, Story, who has vanished as if spirited away in the middle of the night.

Josh Coleman left SunStar, the thoroughbred horse farm he'd built from nothing, unfinished when he took to his deathbed. But his family's unfinished business cannot be ignored now that his long-lost daughter has come back to settle an old score. No longer resembling the teenage waif who slipped away in the middle of the night with her illegitimate child 30 years ago, Nealy is rich, sophisticated, and renowned in the racing world-a woman to be reckoned with - and her shocking return changes everything.