Life Fiction

Juliet Manchester is America's best-loved movie starlet. But when a nasty divorce and a sex-tape scandal threaten to tarnish her spotless good-girl reputation, she turns to costar Ryan McDonnell to help distract the media with a passionate (and completely fake) new romance. The only problem? They're both in love with other people.

Melissa Henderson is leading a quiet life. Once a best-selling author, she now pours all her energy into renovating a Victorian house nestled in the foothills of rural New England. Six years ago, she lost her young son to cancer, and her marriage dissolved. She stopped writing. Then Melissa receives a call from her sister, Hattie. They were close once, but that was before Melissa withdrew from the world. Now Hattie, who became a nun at 25, is determined to help Melissa turn a new page, even if it means reopening one of the most painful chapters of her life.

A distinctive new voice: Rex Ogle's story of starting middle school on the free lunch program is timely, heartbreaking, and true. Free Lunch is the story of Rex Ogle's first semester in sixth grade. Rex and his baby brother often went hungry, wore secondhand clothes, and were short of school supplies, and Rex was on his school's free lunch program. Grounded in the immediacy of physical hunger and the humiliation of having to announce it every day in the school lunch line, Rex's is a compelling story of a more profound hunger - that of a child for his parents' love and care.

Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself.

"Se pourrait-il que ce soit ça, Cette bête noire qui remue dans ma poitrine Piétine, déchire, ronge tout autour d’elle, Avec la férocité d’une hyène, Ne me laissant qu’un trou béant dans le cœur Et une sécheresse dans la gorge ? La culpabilité… Se pourrait-il que ce soit ça, Aimer malgré soi ? Aimer mal Aimer sans savoir pourquoi Aimer...".

Melody is not like most people. She cannot walk or talk, but she has a photographic memory; she can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She is smarter than most of the adults who try to diagnose her and smarter than her classmates in her integrated classroom - the very same classmates who dismiss her as mentally challenged because she cannot tell them otherwise. But Melody refuses to be defined by cerebral palsy.

The winner of numerous awards for children’s fiction, Dan Gutman presents the third tale from his delightfully silly My Weird School series. Second-grader A.J. thinks Mrs. Roopy, the librarian, might be the strangest teacher at his school. The students believe she keeps appearing fully dressed as characters from books, like Johnny Appleseed and Little Miss Muffet. But every time a new character surfaces, Mrs. Roopy insists she was home sick that day!

After years of living in fear of her husband, Amanda Banning has left him and moved to Mystic Creek, Oregon, for a fresh start. But she's having a tough time providing for herself and her six-year-old daughter. Writing her secret yearnings on slips of paper and sending them into the wind helps her cling to the hope that things will get better - and that she can find happiness again.

Sophie Foster is on the run - but at least she’s not alone. Her closest friends from the Lost Cities have gone with her to join the Black Swan. They still have doubts about the shadowy organization, but the only way to find answers is to start working with them. And as they settle into their new lives, they uncover secrets bigger than anything they’d imagined. But their enemies are far from done and unleash a terrifying plague that threatens the safety of an entire species.

When a mysterious woman requests a custom katana, Eizo's passion is ignited. There's just one problem—the client is a demon, and her people have had a complicated and historically violent relationship with humans. Since Eizo desires a peaceful life, can his conscience withstand forging a god-tier weapon for humanity's former enemy? Along with a new commission, Forge Eizo also receives a new family member: an adorable drake called Krul! Unfortunately, navigating wingless dragon ownership isn't the only trial ahead.

The Penderwick Sisters are home on Gardam Street and ready for an adventure! But the adventure they get isn't quite what they had in mind. Mr. Penderwick's sister has decided it's time for him to start dating, and the girls know that can only mean one thing: disaster. Enter the Save-Daddy Plan, a plot so brilliant, so bold, so funny that only the Penderwick girls could have come up with it. It's high jinks, big laughs, and loads of family warmth as the Penderwicks triumphantly return.

One moment Ben Miller was high up in the rafters at his neighbor's barn raising. The next his foot slipped, and he plunged to his death, leaving behind a young wife and six children - the youngest born four months after his death. Ruth Miller is not alone. Her Amish neighbors help her to make the difficult transition from wife to widow. But while the community has been generous, raising six growing children, all grieving their father's death, is overwhelming.

Is sex with The Hulk technically a threesome? Does The Flash do everything faster? Has Wonder Woman really never faked an orgasm? Explore these questions and more with this collection of speculative, comedic essays on how superpowers might affect the sex lives of famous superheroes. Based on genuine scientific research and both Marvel and DC comic book and movie canon (and more!), Sex Lives of Superheroes is a refreshingly frank and fun deep dive into the pros, cons, and plot twists of superpowered sex.

All winter long, people in the Green Hollows have prepared for a final battle with Gnag the Nameless and the Fangs of Dang. Janner, Kalmar, and Leeli are ready and willing to fight alongside the Hollowsfolk. But when the Fangs make the first move and invade Ban Rona, the children are separated. Janner is alone and lost in the hills; Leeli is fighting the Fangs from the rooftops of the city; and Kalmar, who carries a terrible secret, is on a course for the Deeps of Throg.

Blackstone Audiobooks presents, from the unabridged collection A.A. Milne's Pooh Classics, the 44 poems and verses from When We Were Very Young performed by Peter Dennis. This is the only reading of these delightful verses authorized by A.A. Milne's son, Christopher Robin.

The city of Ember was built as a last refuge for the human race. Two hundred years later, the great lamps that light the city are beginning to flicker. When Lina finds part of an ancient message, she's sure it holds a secret that will save the city. She and her friend Doon must decipher the message before the lights go out on Ember forever! This stunning debut novel offers refreshingly clear writing and fascinating, original characters.

Vincent Appleton smiles at his daughters, raises a gun, and blows off his head. For the Appleton sisters, life had unraveled many times before. This time it explodes. Eight-year-old Hariet, known to all as Ari, is dispatched to Cape Breton and her Aunt Mary, who is purported to eat little girls. With Ari on the journey is her steadfast companion, Jasper, an imaginary seahorse. But when they arrive in Pleasant Cove, they instead find refuge with Mary and her partner Nia.

The BFG is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and jumbly. It's lucky for Sophie that he is. Had she been carried off in the middle of the night by the Bloodbottler, or any of the other giants - rather than the BFG - she would have soon become breakfast. When Sophie hears that the giants are flush-bunking off to England to swollomp a few nice little chiddlers, she decides she must stop them once and for all. And the BFG is going to help her!

Fiona doesn't remember going to sleep. But when she opens her eyes, she discovers her entire world has been altered - her house is abandoned and broken, and the entire neighborhood is barren and dead. Even stranger is the tattoo on her right wrist - a black oval with five marks on either side - that she doesn't remember getting but somehow knows she must cover at any cost. And she's right.

School may be out for summer, but top-secret training continues for aspiring spy Ben Ripley - and so does the danger. Ben Ripley is a middle schooler whose school is not exactly average - he's spent the last year training to be a top-level spy and dodging all sorts of associated danger. So now that summer's finally here, Ben's ready to have some fun and relax. Except that's not going to happen, because a spy-in-training's work is never done.