Life Fiction

Fifteen years after graduating from Harvard, five close friends on the cusp of middle age are still pursuing an elusive happiness and wondering if they’ve wasted their youthful opportunities. Jules, already a famous actor when she arrived on campus, is changing in mysterious ways but won’t share what is haunting her. Mariam and Rowan, who married young, are struggling with the demands of family life and starting to regret prioritising meaning over wealth in their careers.

Ella's one wish is to become a fairy like her mom. She dreams of the day she will have her sparkly crown and Computwand. Ella even imagines what her first spell would be: a glittery unicorn of her very own. But Ella knows that spells are often harder than they look, even with the special fairy apps available...and being a fairy in waiting is not all rainbows and butterflies. Will Ella learn more magic to help her become a fairy someday? Or will she learn she doesn't need to be a fairy yet for all her wishes to come true?

Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all. Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he's seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog. But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of a mango or the sound of leaves with color and a well-placed line.

John Bowman is sick. Very sick. While he still can, he has some amends to make and some promises to fulfill. But to do that, he not only needs his ex-wife's agreement...he needs her. With the past hovering between them like a ghost, Carol and John embark on a decades-overdue road trip. Together they plunge back into a life without water...but which may ultimately set them free.

The Amish community of Lancaster is being terrorized by barn fires. David and Malinda Beiler's barn was the first to go. The clues are sparse, but Levi, the Beilers' oldest son, happened to be awake in the middle of the night and spotted a white vehicle driving past the house with its lights off. Sarah, David and Malinda's daughter, observes her parents' agony. Not only is she afraid and wishing she could protect her parents, she's entranced by the flirtatious Matthew Stoltzfus.

Therese Wolley is a mother who has made a promise. She works as a secretary, shops for groceries on Saturdays, and takes care of her two girls. She doesn’t dwell on the fact that her girls are fatherless, mostly because her own father abandoned her before she was born and she has done just fine without him. Even though her older daughter regularly wakes with nightmares and her younger one whispers letters under her breath, she doesn't shift from her resolve that everything will be fine.

Less than 48 hours after 12-year-old Chris sets off on a sailing trip down the Alaskan coast with his uncle, their boat sinks. The only survivors are Chris and a boy named Frank, who hates Chris immediately. Chris and Frank have no radio, no flares, no food. Suddenly they've got to forage, fish, and scavenge the shore for supplies. Chris likes the company of a curious, friendly raven more than he likes the prickly Frank. But the boys have to get along if they want to survive.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties–successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women–his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke. Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman.

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery - or, at least, that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamorous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

“I’m 11-years-old, from the city, and my parents are mean alcoholics. One day the deputy takes me away to live with some distant relatives on their sprawling farm in the country. At the Larsen farm, I meet my Uncle Knute and Aunt Clair and their two children, Glennis and her wild brother Harris. I also meet Louie, the crusty old guy who works as a farmhand and steals all the pancakes at breakfast. Harris introduces me to life on the farm, and it proves to be a rude awakening."

Welcome to Greenwich, CT, where the lawns are manicured, the Long Island iced teas are extra strong, and heads turn when an infamous new neighbor arrives for an extended long weekend. After Emily Charlton left Miranda Priestly and Runway magazine, she migrated to L.A with her husband, working as an image consultant to the stars. But recently Emily's lost a few clients. She's struggling. When the opportunity arrives to reinvent and relaunch a gorgeous former model whose mugshot graces the cover of the New York Post, Emily jumps at the chance. Relaunching Karolina is the big leagues.

In 1969 Dixie Dupree is 11 years old and already an expert liar. Sometimes the lies are for her mama Evie's sake - to explain away a bruise brought on by her quick-as-lightning temper. And sometimes the lies are to spite Evie, who longs to leave her unhappy marriage in Perry County, Alabama, and return to her beloved New Hampshire. But for Dixie and her brother, Alabama is home, a place of pine-scented breezes and hot, languid afternoons.

Worried that old age will inevitably mean losing your libido, your health, and possibly your marbles too? Well, Cicero has some good news for you. In How to Grow Old, the great Roman orator and statesman eloquently describes how you can make the second half of life the best part of all - and why you might discover that reading and gardening are actually far more pleasurable than sex ever was.

It was a world of airships and alchemy; clockwork carnivals; pirates; lost cities; a rigid Watchmaker who controlled every aspect of life; and his nemesis, the ruthless and violent Anarchist, who wanted to destroy it all. Anderson and Peart have returned to their colourful creation to explore the places and the characters that still have a hold on their imaginations.

It's sink or swim for Jack and Annie when Magic Tree House whisks them off to the middle of the ocean. And that's just the beginning....

Daisy McCrae's life is in tatters. She's lost her job, broken up with her boyfriend, and has been reduced to living in the attic above her family's store, the Union Street Bakery, while learning the business. Making things worse is the constant feeling of not being a "real" McCrae, since she was adopted as a child and has a less-than-perfect relationship with her two sisters. Then a long-standing elderly customer passes away, and for some reason she bequeaths to Daisy a journal dating back to the 1850s...

Bacca has it all. The most celebrated (and furry) star in the Overworld, he's the person others look to for help building their dungeons, mazes, and castles. He has a girlfriend, LadyBacc, and his most prized possession of all - a diamond ax called Betty. One day Bacca is approached by a mysterious dragon...made entirely of diamonds! The dragon is from a new biome - a secret land few have ever seen - where a special object has been stolen.

Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching . . . for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don't expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words "I love you" are said for all the wrong reasons.

Greg Heffley and his family and friends are back in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 8, the latest installment in the #1 best-selling series by Jeff Kinney and one of the most anticipated books of 2013. A global phenomenon, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series has more than 85 million books around the world.

Don't get me wrong, waking up to discover my ex-husband finally killed me wasn't fun. Finding out I had to get a job and pay Afterlife taxes about 10 minutes later? Let's just say, this wasn't exactly the eternal reward I was hoping for. But beggars can't be choosers, and being a demon sure as hell beats my last occupation. I’m well on my way to retirement behind the pearly gates when the impossible happens. The Risk Witches have a vision.