Life Fiction

Carol Cassella, a freelance medical writer and a practicing anesthesiologist, grounds her haunting debut novel Oxygen in the life-or-death scenarios of the modern medical field. Marie Heaton's successful anesthesiology practice is derailed when a child dies under the mask. Faced with a major lawsuit, she must turn to a former lover for moral support.

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister.

When the Dickenson clan sits down for Thanksgiving dinner in 2016, it is the last holiday where their tight-knit family will ever be the same. Oldest brother Pete and his wife are expecting their first child. Youngest sibling Sophie is too busy running her restaurant. The Little Plum, to bother with any kind of social life. And middle child Charlie’s happy, uncomplicated life as a midwestern science professor is upended when his wife Annette is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Knowing this will be her last Thanksgiving, Annette asks Sophie to look after Charlie after she’s gone.

Sophie is settling in nicely to her new home and her new life in the world of the lost cities. And it helps that living at Havenfield means getting to spend time with rare, precious species - including the first female Alicorn, who shows herself to Sophie and trusts no one but her. Sophie is tasked with helping to train the magical creature so that the Alicorn can be revealed to the people of the lost cities as a sign of hope, and Sophie wants to believe that the recent drama and anguish is gone for good.

Cassie has sworn off men after yet another bad date though, deep down, she’s still looking for Mr. Right. A long-haired, tattooed biker is definitely not him, so there’s no harm in a few Harley rides through Sonoma. Right? Julie married her high school sweetheart too young and now wonders how her life became all about leaky faucets and checkbook balances. Maybe love isn’t enough to sustain the perfect couple.

The Masked Man is on the loose in the Land of Stories, and it's up to Alex and Conner Bailey to stop him...except Alex has been thrown off the Fairy Council, and no one will believe they're in danger.

Rita Mae Brown and her feline co-author Sneaky Pie Brown return with an all-new mystery starring Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen, intrepid kitty sleuths Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, and Tee Tucker, the ever-faithful crime-solving corgi. This time around, Harry and her animal friends track a killer whose trail has gone as cold as the weather in December.

In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders - Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world.

What if your best friend was a unicorn? This audio boxed set includes books 1-4 of this magical chapter book series, where everyone is paired with their very own unicorn.

After Billy gets sent home for fighting with the bus bully, Randy, he's got extra time to do some community service. Inspired by a speech about bullies and mistreated animals from his grandmother, Billy decides to spend some time with the dogs down at the local pound. But he soon learns that walking dogs is no picnic. Can Billy survive the heat and exercise? Can he keep the dogs on leash and out of the butcher shop? Can Billy be a good citizen to all, even the bus bully?!

The kingdom of Cornucopia was once the happiest in the world. It had plenty of gold, a king with the finest moustache you could possibly imagine, and butchers, bakers, and cheesemongers whose exquisite foods made a person dance with delight when they ate them. Everything was perfect - except for the misty Marshlands to the north, which, according to legend, were home to the monstrous Ickabog. Anyone sensible knew that the Ickabog was just a myth to scare children into behaving. But the funny thing about myths is that sometimes they take on a life of their own.

Twenty-five-year-old Takako has enjoyed a relatively easy existence—until the day her boyfriend Hideaki, the man she expected to wed, casually announces he’s been cheating on her and is marrying the other woman. Suddenly, Takako’s life is in freefall. She loses her job, her friends, and her acquaintances, and spirals into a deep depression. In the depths of her despair, she receives a call from her distant uncle Satoru.

Sigrid hates working at the Dollar Pal but having always resisted the idea of growing up into the trappings of adulthood, she did not graduate high school, preferring to roam the streets of her small town with her best friend Greta, the only person in the world who ever understood her. Her older sister Margit is baffled and frustrated by Sigrid’s inability to conform to the expectations of polite society. But Sigrid’s detachment veils a deeper turmoil and sensitivity.

Harriet, Jack, and Toby are treasure hunters, searching the Minecraft world for its most valuable hidden secrets. In an abandoned mineshaft, they discovered the first of three lost journals that once belonged to William, a legendary explorer who has gone missing. The journals have taken them on a daring adventure to a secret temple deep within a desert biome, then into the perilous depths of the Nether. Now the treasure hunters are facing their greatest challenge yet.

Once in a great while a writer comes along who can truly capture the drama and passion of the life of a family. David James Duncan, author of the novel The River Why and the collection River Teeth, is just such a writer. And in The Brothers K he tells a story both striking and in its originality and poignant in its universality.

The Grey sisters had only each other when their mother died years ago. Their father provided for them physically on Water's Edge, the ranch that had been in their family for three generations, each of them however, longed for their father's love.

The adventures of Laura Ingalls and her family continue as they leave their little house on the prairie and travel in their covered wagon to Minnesota. Here they settle in a little house made of sod beside the banks of beautiful Plum Creek. Soon Pa builds a wonderful new little house with real glass windows and a hinged door. Laura and her sister Mary go to school, help with the chores, and fish in the creek.

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.

Lydia, Dean, and Robyn live very different lives, but each of them, independently, has always felt that something was missing. What they don't know is that a letter is about to arrive that will turn their lives upside down. It's a letter containing a secret - one that will bind them together and show them what love and family and friendship really mean.

Being the crown princess of Genovia has never been easy for Mia. And if ruling a tiny country wasn't enough, she also has to deal with a broken heart after her true love Michael breaks up with her. So her parents send her to a therapist to at least get her out of bed. And just when she thinks things couldn't get any worse, she discovers a long buried secret that could affect her family forever.