Literary Lives

Anna Roux was a professional dancer who followed the man of her dreams from Paris to Missouri. There, alone with her biggest fears - imperfection, failure, loneliness - she spirals down anorexia and depression till she weighs a mere 88 pounds. Forced to seek treatment, she is admitted as a patient at 17 Swann Street, a peach pink house where pale, fragile women with life-threatening eating disorders live. Women like Emm, the veteran; quiet Valerie; Julia, always hungry. Together, they must fight their diseases and face six meals a day.

Daisy Shoemaker can’t sleep. With a thriving cooking business, full schedule of volunteer work, and a beautiful home in the Philadelphia suburbs, she should be content. But her teenage daughter can be a handful, her husband can be distant, her work can feel trivial, and she has lots of acquaintances, but no real friends. Still, Daisy knows she’s got it good. So why is she up all night?

Newlywed Angus Lordie has been booked by his bride into what he must not call the loony bin; Bruce’s first encounter with hot wax brings more anguish than he bargained for; and Bertie's birthday dreams of scout camp and a penknife look set to be replaced by a game of Royal Weddings and a gender-neutral doll. But fate, an amorous Bedouin, and the Dubai Tourist Authority conspire to transport Bertie's mother, Irene, to a warmer--if not a better--place.

Inside the church of a Benedictine monastery on Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.

Love is in the air in the colourful Ulster village of Ballybucklebo, where Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly has finally proposed to the darling of his youth, Kitty O'Hallorhan. There's a wedding to be planned, but before O'Reilly can make it to the altar, he and his young colleague, Barry Laverty, M.B., must deal with the usual round of eccentric patients—and crises both large and small.

Elegant, secretive Sabina may be empress of Rome, but she still stands poised on a knife's edge. She must keep the peace between two deadly enemies: her husband, Hadrian, Rome's brilliant and sinister emperor; and battered warrior Vix, who is her first love. But Sabina is guardian of a deadly secret: Vix's beautiful son, Antinous, has become the emperor's latest obsession.

Hawke's narrator is a young man in torment, disgusted with himself after the collapse of his marriage, still half hoping for a reconciliation that would allow him to forgive himself and move on as he clumsily, and sometimes hilariously, tries to manage the wreckage of his personal life with whiskey and sex. What saves him is theater: in particular, the challenge of performing the role of Hotspur in a production of Henry IV under the leadership of a brilliant director, helmed by one of the most electrifying - and narcissistic - Falstaff's of all time.

When it first gets announced, the Leteo Institute's memory-alteration procedure seems too good to be true to Aaron Soto; miracle cure-alls don't tend to pop up in the Bronx projects. Aaron can't forget how he's grown up poor, how his friends all seem to shrug him off, and how his father committed suicide in their one-bedroom apartment. Then Thomas shows up. The love Aaron discovers may cost him what's left of his life. But since Aaron can't suddenly stop being gay, Leteo may be the only way out.

Red Mountain in eastern Washington is home to a community of eccentrics. Otis Till, the area's visionary winemaker, has been known to howl at the moon - fully nude. Single mother Margot Pierce moved across the country to build an inn, but so far all she does is binge on gelato, the Hallmark Channel, and fantasies of murdering her ex. High school senior Emilia Forester is the daughter of celebrity parents struggling to build her own life outside of their shadow.

New York City/Paris, 1942: When American model Jessica May arrives in Europe to cover the war as a photojournalist for Vogue, most of the soldiers are determined to make her life as difficult as possible. But three friendships change that. Journalist Martha Gellhorn encourages Jess to bend the rules. Captain Dan Hallworth keeps her safe in dangerous places so she can capture the stories that truly matter. And most important of all, the love of a little orphan named Victorine gives Jess strength to do the impossible. But her success will come at a price....

Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.

Sweetbitter meets The Nightingale in this pause-resisting novel about a woman who returns to her family’s ancestral vineyard in Burgundy and unexpectedly uncovers a lost diary, an unknown relative, and a secret her family has been keeping since World War II. To become one of only a few hundred certified wine experts in the world, Kate must pass the notoriously difficult Master of Wine examination. She’s failed twice before; her third attempt will be her last chance.

Mary Lennox, a spoiled, ill-tempered, and unhealthy child, comes to live with her reclusive uncle in Misselthwaite Manor after the death of her parents. With the help of a robin, Mary finds the door to a secret garden, neglected and hidden for years. When she decides to restore the garden in secret, the story becomes a charming journey into the places of the heart, where faith restores health, flowers refresh the spirit, and the magic of the garden brings happiness to Mary.

Low-life writer and unrepentant alcoholic Henry Chinaski was born to survive. After decades of slacking off at low-paying dead-end jobs, blowing his cash on booze and women, and scrimping by in flea-bitten apartments, Chinaski sees his poetic star rising at last. Now, at 50, he is reveling in his sudden rock-star life, running three hundred hangovers a year, and maintaining a sex life that would cripple Casanova.

From the author of the beloved Hum If You Don't Know the Words comes a rich, unforgettable story of three unique women in post-Apartheid South Africa who are brought together in their darkest time and discover the ways that love can transcend the strictest of boundaries.

After the birth of her daughter, Emma, the usually resilient Majella finds herself feeling isolated and exhausted. Then, at her childhood home in Queens, Majella discovers the diary of her maternal ancestor Ginny - and is shocked to read a story of murder in her family history. With the famine upon her, Ginny Doyle fled from Ireland to America, but not all of her family made it. What happened during those harrowing years, and why does Ginny call herself a killer?

David Winkler begins life in Anchorage, Alaska, a quiet boy drawn to the volatility of weather and obsessed with snow. Sometimes he sees things before they happen - a man carrying a hatbox will be hit by a bus; Winkler will fall in love with a woman in a supermarket. When David dreams that his infant daughter will drown in a flood as he tries to save her, he comes undone. He travels thousands of miles, fleeing family, home, and the future itself, to deny the dream.

Kellie Scott has just returned to work after a decade of being a stay-at-home mom. She's adjusting to high heels, scrambling to cook dinner for her family after a day at the office - and soaking in the dangerous attention of a very handsome, very married male colleague. Kellie's neighbor, Susan Barrett, begins every day with fresh resolutions: She won't eat any carbs, she'll go to bed at a reasonable hour, and she'll stop stalking her ex-husband and his new girlfriend.

Judd is the youngest of the four Mulvaney children - three boys and a girl - on their parents’ lush farm in upstate New York. In his childhood, Judd is swept along by the sheer energy of the Mulvaneys and their wealth of beloved family stories. But now, 30 years old, Judd looks back through his memories to tell the secrets that eventually ripped apart the fabric of his storybook family.

In the summer of 2020, with a heat wave bearing down and a brood of periodical cicadas climbing into the trees, Husha mourns the recent death of her mother while quarantining with her ailing grandfather, Arthur, at his lakeside cabin in remote Ontario. They’re soon joined by Husha’s ex-lover, Nellie, who arrives without explanation to complete their trio. Also among them is a strange book, discovered by Husha while cleaning out her mother’s house.