Get this, I'm supposed to be starting a journal about "my journey." Please. I can see it now: Dear Diary, As I'm set adrift on this crazy sea called "life"... I don't think so.

It's been seventy-five days. Amy's sick of her parents suddenly taking an interest in her. And she's really sick of people asking her about Julia. Julia's gone now, and she doesn't want to talk about it. They wouldn't get it, anyway. They wouldn't understand what it feels like to have your best friend ripped away from you. They wouldn't understand what it feels like to know it's your fault.

Amy's shrink thinks it would help to start a diary. Instead, Amy starts writing letters to Julia. But as she writes letter after letter, she begins to realize that the past wasn't as perfect as she thought it was—and the present deserves a chance too.

Tamara Goodwin has always lived in the here and now, never giving a second thought to tomorrow. Until a traveling library arrives in her tiny village, bringing with it a mysterious, large leather-bound book locked with a gold clasp and padlock.

What she discovers within the pages takes her breath away and shakes her world to its core. An unforgettable story about how tomorrow can change what happens today.

This magical and mesmerizing tale explores themes of self-discovery, adventure, and the power of books to transform lives.

In Caitlin’s world, everything is black or white. Things are good or bad. Anything in between is confusing. That’s the stuff Caitlin’s older brother, Devon, has always explained. But now Devon’s dead and Dad is no help at all. Caitlin wants to get over it, but as an eleven-year-old girl with Asperger’s, she doesn’t know how.

When she reads the definition of closure, she realizes that is what she needs. In her search for it, Caitlin discovers that not everything is black and white—the world is full of colors—messy and beautiful.

Kathryn Erskine has written a must-read gem, one of the most moving novels of the year.

Every Last One is a breathtaking and beautiful novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen. In this unforgettable story, Quindlen creates a poignant portrait of a mother, a father, a family, and the explosive, violent consequences of what seem like inconsequential actions.

Mary Beth Latham has built her life around her family, caring for her three teenage children and preserving the rituals of their daily life. When one of her sons becomes depressed, Mary Beth focuses her attention on him, only to be blindsided by a shocking act of violence.

What unfolds is a testament to the power of a woman's love and determination, and to the invisible lines of hope and healing that connect one human being with another. Ultimately, Every Last One is a novel about facing every last one of the things we fear most, finding ways to navigate roads we never intended to travel, and living a life we never dreamed we'd have to live, but find ourselves brave enough to try.

Includes:
Phantom
Evil Thirst
Creatures of Forever

Tears roll over my face. I touch them with my quivering tongue. They are clear and salty, not dark and bloody. Another sign that I am human.

What Alisa has desired for five thousand years has finally come true: She is once again human. But now she is defenseless, vulnerable, and, for the first time in centuries, emotional. As she attempts to reconcile her actions as a vampire with her new connection to humanity, she begins to understand the weight of life-and-death decisions. Can Alisa resolve her past and build a new identity, or is she doomed to repeat her fatal mistakes?

"It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn’t know it." So begins the new novel, his first since winning the Nobel Prize, from the universally acclaimed author of Snow and My Name Is Red.

It is 1975, a perfect spring in Istanbul. Kemal, scion of one of the city’s wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeoisie—a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, restaurant rituals, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay—until finally he breaks off his engagement to Sibel. But his resolve comes too late.

For eight years, Kemal will find excuses to visit another Istanbul, that of the impoverished backstreets where Füsun, her heart now hardened, lives with her parents. There, Kemal discovers the consolations of middle-class life at a dinner table in front of the television. His obsessive love will also take him to the demimonde of Istanbul film circles (where he promises to make Füsun a star), a scene of seedy bars, run-down cheap hotels, and small men with big dreams doomed to bitter failure.

In his feckless pursuit, Kemal becomes a compulsive collector of objects that chronicle his lovelorn progress and his afflicted heart’s reactions: anger and impatience, remorse and humiliation, deluded hopes of recovery, and daydreams that transform Istanbul into a cityscape of signs and specters of his beloved, from whom now he can extract only meaningful glances and stolen kisses in cars, movie houses, and shadowy corners of parks.

A last chance to realize his dream will come to an awful end before Kemal discovers that all he finally can possess, certainly and eternally, is the museum he has created of his collection, this map of a society’s manners and mores, and of one man’s broken heart.

A stirring exploration of the nature of romantic attachment and of the mysterious allure of collecting, The Museum of Innocence also plumbs the depths of an Istanbul half Western and half traditional—its emergent modernity, its vast cultural history. This is Orhan Pamuk’s greatest achievement.

In the 1680s, the slave trade in the Americas was still in its infancy. Jacob Vaark is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh North. Despite his distaste for dealing in “flesh”, he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This girl is Florens, who can read and write and might be useful on his farm.

Rejected by her mother, Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, and later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives.

A Mercy reveals the complexities beneath the surface of slavery. At its heart, like Beloved, it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and a daughter - a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.

In one short week . . . three lives change.

Rhiannon is devastated after the breakup with her boyfriend and wants him back. Nicole's ex is still in the picture, but she can't help having a new crush. James and Rhiannon are just friends, though he may try to take it to the next level.

Will their desire to take a mean girl down a notch bring these three friends what they want . . . and more?

Set during one life-altering week and told in three realistic perspectives, this engaging, witty novel by the author of When It Happens shows the ups and downs of love, friendship, and karma.

From experienced family therapist Dr. Karyl McBride, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? is an essential guide to recovery for women with selfish, emotionally abusive, and toxic mothers—designed to help daughters reclaim their lives.

The first book for daughters who have suffered the abuse of narcissistic, self-involved mothers, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? provides the expert assistance you need in order to overcome this debilitating history and reclaim your life.

Drawing on more than two decades of experience as a therapist specializing in women’s health and hundreds of interviews with suffering daughters, Dr. Karyl McBride helps you recognize the widespread effects of this emotional abuse and create an individualized program for self-protection, resolution, and complete recovery.

Narcissistic mothers teach their daughters that love is not unconditional, that it is given only when they behave in accordance with maternal expectations and whims. As adults, these daughters have difficulty overcoming feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, emotional emptiness, and sadness. They may also have a fear of abandonment that leads them to form unhealthy romantic relationships, as well as a tendency to perfectionism and unrelenting self-criticism or to self-sabotage and frustration.

Dr. McBride’s step-by-step program will enable you to:

1. Recognize your own experience with maternal narcissism and its effects on all aspects of your life.
2. Discover how you have internalized verbal and nonverbal messages from your mother and how these have translated into overachievement or self-sabotage.
3. Construct a personalized program to take control of your life and enhance your sense of self, establishing healthy boundaries with your mother and breaking the legacy of abuse.

Warm and sympathetic, Dr. McBride brings a profound level of authority to Will I Ever Be Good Enough? that encourages and inspires you as it aids your recovery.

Nearing her one-hundredth birthday, Roseanne McNulty faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. Over the weeks leading up to this upheaval, she talks often with her psychiatrist Dr. Grene, and their relationship intensifies and complicates.

Told through their respective journals, the story that emerges is at once shocking and deeply beautiful. Refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne's story becomes an alternative, secret history of Ireland's changing character and the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and ignorance, and yet marked still by love and passion and hope.

Claire Keegan’s brilliant debut collection, Antarctica, was lauded on both sides of the Atlantic. Now, she delivers her much-anticipated book, Walk the Blue Fields, an unforgettable array of quietly wrenching stories about despair and desire in the timeless world of modern-day Ireland.

In the never-before-published story “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer's peace is interrupted by an unwelcome intruder, whose ulterior motives emerge as the night progresses.

In the title story, a priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage and battles his memories of a love affair with the bride, questioning all to which he has dedicated his life. Later that night, he finds an unlikely answer in the magical healing powers of a seer.

A masterful portrait of a country wrestling with its past and of individuals eking out their futures, Walk the Blue Fields is a breathtaking collection from one of Ireland’s greatest talents, and a resounding articulation of all the yearnings of the human heart.

Everyone has secrets. Some we keep to protect ourselves, others we keep to protect those we love.

A devoted city dweller, Cornelia Brown surprised no one more than herself when she was gripped by the sudden, inescapable desire to leave urban life behind and head for an idyllic suburb. Though she knows she and her beloved husband, Teo, have made the right move, she approaches her new life with trepidation and struggles to forge friendships in her new home.

Cornelia's mettle is quickly tested by judgmental neighbor Piper Truitt. Perfectly manicured, impeccably dressed, and possessing impossible standards, Piper is the embodiment of everything Cornelia feared she would find in suburbia. A saving grace soon appears in the form of Lake. Over a shared love of literature and old movies, Cornelia develops an instant bond with this warm yet elusive woman who has also recently arrived in town, ostensibly to send her perceptive and brilliant son, Dev, to a school for the gifted.

Marisa de los Santos's literary talents shine in the complex interactions she creates between these three women. She deftly explores the life-altering roller coaster of emotions Piper faces as she cares for two households, her own and that of her cancer-stricken best friend, Elizabeth. Skillfully, de los Santos creates an enigmatic and beguiling character in Lake, who draws Cornelia closer even as she harbors a shocking secret.

From the first page until the exhilarating conclusion, de los Santos engages readers with Cornelia, who, while trying to adapt to her new surroundings, must remain true to herself. As their individual stories unfold, the women become entangled in a web of trust, betrayal, love, and loss that challenges them in ways they never imagined, and that ultimately teaches them what it means for one human being to belong to another.

Seek not your destiny, for it is seeking you. In the wake of personal tragedy, two people meet on a humanitarian mission in Peru. Christine is a shy, unadventurous woman whose fiancé broke off the engagement only a week before the wedding, and Paul is a former emergency room doctor whose glamorous lifestyle, stellar reputation, and beautiful fiancée are cruelly snatched from him one fateful, snowy Christmas Eve.

Deep in the Amazon jungle, against a backdrop of poverty and heartbreak, they must confront their deepest fears and, together, learn to trust and love again. It's a journey of healing, self-discovery, and the rekindling of hope.

Welcome back to Virgin River with the book that started it all…

Wanted: Midwife/nurse practitioner in Virgin River, population six hundred. Make a difference against a backdrop of towering California redwoods and crystal-clear rivers. Rent-free cabin included.

When the recently widowed Melinda Monroe sees this ad, she quickly decides that the remote mountain town of Virgin River might be the perfect place to escape her heartache, and to reenergize the nursing career she loves. But her high hopes are dashed within an hour of arriving—the cabin is a dump, the roads are treacherous, and the local doctor wants nothing to do with her. Realizing she’s made a huge mistake, Mel decides to leave town the following morning.

But a tiny baby abandoned on a front porch changes her plans…and former marine Jack Sheridan cements them into place.

Abide with Me is a luminous and long-awaited novel by the bestselling author Elizabeth Strout. Returning readers to the archetypal, lovely landscape of northern New England, the story unfolds in the late 1950s in the small town of West Annett, Maine.

Here, Reverend Tyler Caskey struggles to regain his calling, his family, and his happiness in the wake of profound loss. The community he serves charismatically must come to terms with its own strengths and failings—faith and hypocrisy, loyalty and abandonment—when a dark secret is revealed.

Tyler has come to love West Annett, "just up the road" from where he was born. The short, brilliant summers and the sharp, piercing winters fill him with awe—as does his congregation, full of good people who seek his guidance and listen earnestly as he preaches. But after suffering a terrible loss, Tyler finds it hard to return to himself as he once was. He hasn't had The Feeling—that God is all around him, in the beauty of the world—for quite some time.

He struggles to find the right words in his sermons and in his conversations with those facing crises of their own, and to bring his five-year-old daughter, Katherine, out of the silence she has observed in the wake of the family's tragedy.

A congregation that had once been patient and kind during Tyler's grief now questions his leadership and propriety. In the kitchens, classrooms, offices, and stores of the village, anger and gossip have started to swirl. And in Tyler's darkest hour, a startling discovery will test his congregation's humanity—and his own will to endure the kinds of trials that sooner or later test us all.

In prose incandescent and artful, Elizabeth Strout draws readers into the details of ordinary life in a way that makes it extraordinary. All is considered—life, love, God, and community—within these pages, and all is made new by this writer's boundless compassion and graceful prose.

Sometimes you don't wake up. But if you happen to, you know things will never be the same.

Three lives, three different paths to the same destination: Aspen Springs, a psychiatric hospital for those who have attempted the ultimate act—suicide.

Vanessa is beautiful and smart, but her secrets keep her answering the call of the blade. Tony, after suffering a painful childhood, can only find peace through pills. And Conner, outwardly, has the perfect life. But dig a little deeper and find a boy who is in constant battle with his parents, his life, himself.

In one instant each of these young people decided enough was enough. They grabbed the blade, the bottle, the gun—and tried to end it all. Now they have a second chance, and just maybe, with each other's help, they can find their way to a better life—but only if they're strong and can fight the demons that brought them here in the first place.

Light on Snow is a beautiful contemporary bestseller by Anita Shreve that explores themes of love and memory. The story is recounted from the perspective of 30-year-old Nicky as she reflects on a vivid December day 19 years ago. On that day, she and her father discovered an abandoned infant in the snow, an event that forever altered her understanding of the world.

The narrative captures the essence of family, as twelve-year-old Nicky Dillon and her widowed father navigate the emotional aftermath of their discovery. As they encounter a young woman haunted by her own choices, they are faced with a thicket of decisions, each carrying possibilities of heartbreak and redemption.

With tender and surprising storytelling, Anita Shreve unfolds a tale of courage and the ways in which the human heart seeks to heal itself. This novel is set against the backdrop of snow-filled woods near their New Hampshire home, adding a touch of winter wonder to the narrative.

In Barcelona, an aging Brazilian prostitute trains her dog to weep at the grave she has chosen for herself.

In Vienna, a woman parlays her gift for seeing the future into a fortunetelling position with a wealthy family.

In Geneva, an ambulance driver and his wife take in the lonely, apparently dying ex-President of a Caribbean country, only to discover that his political ambition is very much intact.

In these twelve masterful short stories about the lives of Latin Americans in Europe, García Márquez conveys the peculiar amalgam of melancholy, tenacity, sorrow, and aspiration that is the émigré experience.

My Secret: A PostSecret Book is a fascinating collection compiled by Frank Warren, the founder of postsecret.com and author of the national bestseller PostSecret. This book features never-before-seen postcards created by teens and college students from around the world. Each handmade card bears compelling and personal messages that have remained secret—until now.

Raw and revealing, My Secret expresses the hopes, fears, and wildest confessions of young people everywhere. The secrets are shared through original illustrations, photographs, collages, and other creative means, offering an intimate glimpse into the real lives of today's teens and twentysomethings.

Choose your own handmade postcards over email or text messages, just like the contributors of this book, to express your diverse personality and voice. This unique and important book will appeal to both young adults and their parents, providing a raw and revealing look into the emotions and experiences of youth today.

In this honest and stunning novel, James Baldwin has given America a moving story of love in the face of injustice. Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned.

Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions—affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.

Do you ever get hungry? Too hungry to eat?

Holly's older sister, Giselle, is self-destructing. Haunted by her love-deprived relationship with her late father, this once strong role model and medical student is gripped by anorexia. Holly, a track star, struggles to keep her own life in balance while coping with the mental and physical deterioration of her beloved sister. Together, they can feel themselves slipping and are holding on for dear life.

This honest look at the special bond between sisters is told from the perspective of both girls, as they alternate narrating each chapter. Gritty and often wryly funny, Skinny explores family relationships, love, pain, and the hunger for acceptance that drives all of us.

In this luminous novel about love, loss, and the unpredictable power of memory, John Banville introduces us to Max Morden, a middle-aged Irishman who has returned to the seaside town where he spent his summer holidays as a child. He is there to cope with the recent loss of his wife.

It is also a return to the place where he met the Graces, a well-heeled family with whom he experienced the strange suddenness of both love and death for the first time. What Max comes to understand about the past, and its indelible effects on him, is at the center of this elegiac, gorgeously written novel.

Ellen Gulden leaves her life as a successful New York journalist to return home and care for her mother, Kate, diagnosed with cancer. In the short time they have left, the relationship between mother and daughter—tender, awkward, and revealing—deepens, and Ellen is forced to confront painful truths about her adored father.

After Kate's death, Ellen goes from devoted daughter to prime suspect, accused of the mercy killing.
This novel delves into the complexities of family life, exploring the bonds of love and the difficult choices we face when life takes unexpected turns.

Where do dreams come from? What stealthy nighttime messengers are the guardians of our most deeply hidden hopes and our half-forgotten fears? Drawing on her rich imagination, two-time Newbery winner Lois Lowry confronts these questions and explores the conflicts between the gentle bits and pieces of the past that come to life in dream, and the darker horrors that find their form in nightmare.

In a haunting story that tiptoes between reality and imagination, two people—a lonely, sensitive woman and a damaged, angry boy—face their own histories and discover what they can be to one another, renewed by the strength that comes from a tiny, caring creature they will never see.

Gossamer is perfect for readers not quite ready for Lois Lowry's Newbery-Award winner The Giver and also for readers interested in dreams, nightmares, spirits, and the dream world.

My Friend Leonard is the heartwarming and emphatically human story that follows the journey of a newly-sober James as he navigates life outside of rehab. At the center of his world is Leonard, a charismatic, high-living mobster with a heart of gold whom James met during his rehabilitation.

Leonard, the man of secretive deals and surprising passions, offers James a new life filled with unexpected opportunities and adventures. From lucrative, albeit slightly dangerous, employment to life lessons in living boldly, Leonard becomes the father figure James never had, teaching him to find joy in sobriety and passion in writing.

As James embarks on this new chapter, both he and Leonard's worlds expand in unexpected and emotional ways. Yet, as Leonard vanishes from James's life, the reasons behind his mysterious absence open up avenues of self-discovery and emotional growth.

This book not only showcases the depth of an unconventional friendship but also highlights the profound responsibility that comes with loving and caring for someone. It's a tale of courage, loyalty, and the remarkable secrets that define the bonds of true friendship.

Grieving: A Beginner's Guide provides a compassionate and insightful guide to navigating the complex journey of grief. It details all that comes with bereavement and offers practical advice for those who are accompanying grieving individuals.

Jerusha Hull McCormack emphasizes that there is no sure route through grieving. Instead, she provides a series of signposts to help readers find their own path to a new life. As she writes, "We are all amateurs at grief; it comes to us all; we must all go through it. To treat grief as a problem to be fixed, or (worse still) to medicalize it, is to rob us of the extraordinary privilege of encountering this experience on our terms. Each of us has our own way of grieving, and each of us has something special to learn from the process."

This book is designed to help those in pain—and specifically those who have lost someone through death—to imagine the path before them. It is a path of suffering, but it is also a path that may lead to unexpected discoveries and peace.

Annie Proulx has crafted some of the most original and brilliant short stories in contemporary literature, and for many, "Brokeback Mountain" stands as her masterpiece.

Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two ranch hands, come together while working as a sheepherder and camp tender one summer on a range above the tree line. At first, sharing an isolated tent, the attraction is casual, inevitable, but something deeper catches them that summer.

Both men work hard, marry, and have kids because that's what cowboys do. But over the course of many years and frequent separations, this relationship becomes the most important thing in their lives, and they do anything they can to preserve it.

In gorgeous and haunting prose, Proulx explores the difficult, dangerous affair between two cowboys that survives everything but the world's violent intolerance.

Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, A Tale of Love and Darkness is at once a family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history.

It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the forties and fifties, in a small apartment crowded with books in twelve languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. The story of an adolescent whose life has been changed forever by his mother's suicide when he was twelve years old.

The story of a man who leaves the constraints of his family and its community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz, change his name, marry, and have children. The story of a writer who becomes an active participant in the political life of his nation.

Monsieur Linh est un vieil homme. Il a quitté son village dévasté par la guerre, n’emportant avec lui qu’une petite valise contenant quelques vêtements usagés, une photo jaunie, une poignée de terre de son pays.

Dans ses bras, repose un nouveau-né. Les parents de l’enfant sont morts et Monsieur Linh a décidé de partir avec Sang diû, sa petite fille. Après un long voyage en bateau, ils débarquent dans une ville froide et grise, avec des centaines de réfugiés.

Monsieur Linh a tout perdu. Il partage désormais un dortoir avec d’autres exilés qui se moquent de sa maladresse. Dans cette ville inconnue où les gens s’ignorent, il va pourtant se faire un ami, Monsieur Bark, un gros homme solitaire. Ils ne parlent pas la même langue, mais ils comprennent la musique des mots et la pudeur des gestes.

Monsieur Linh est un cœur simple, brisé par les guerres et les deuils, qui ne vit plus que pour sa petite fille. Philippe Claudel accompagne ses personnages avec respect et délicatesse. Il célèbre les thèmes universels de l’amitié et de la compassion. Ce roman possède la grâce et la limpidité des grands classiques.

Princess Lissla Lissar reaches womanhood, and it becomes evident to the entire kingdom that she mirrors the beauty of her late mother, the queen. This resemblance, however, forces her to flee from her father's lust and madness.

In the pain and horror of her flight, she forgets who she is and what she flees from, remembering only the love and loyalty of her dog, Ash, who accompanies her.

A chance encounter on the road leads to a job in another king's kennels, where the prince finds himself falling in love with the new kennel maid. One day, he tells her of a princess named Lissla Lissar, who had a dog named Ash.

Thus begins Lissar’s profound journey away from treachery and pain, towards trust, love, and healing.

A classic work that has charmed generations of readers, this collection assembles Carson McCullers’s best stories, including her beloved novella “The Ballad of the Sad Café.”

A haunting tale of a human triangle that culminates in an astonishing brawl, the novella introduces readers to Miss Amelia, a formidable southern woman whose café serves as the town’s gathering place.

Among other fine works, the collection also includes “Wunderkind,” McCullers’s first published story written when she was only seventeen about a musical prodigy who suddenly realizes she will not go on to become a great pianist.

The Ballad of the Sad Café is a brilliant study of love and longing from one of the South’s finest writers.

Interpreter of Maladies brings to life the stories of characters navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the new world they find themselves in. These elegant, touching stories explore the search for love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.

In "A Temporary Matter," a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight and a nuanced depth, charting the emotional journeys of her characters with compassion and understanding.

The hope-filled sequel to the bestselling One Tuesday Morning.

In this new novel by Karen Kingsbury, three years have passed since the terrorist attacks on New York City. Jamie Bryan, widow of a firefighter who lost his life on that terrible day, has found meaning in her season of loss by volunteering at St. Paul’s, the memorial chapel across the street from where the Twin Towers once stood. Here she meets a daily stream of people touched by the tragedy, including two men with whom she feels a connection. One is a firefighter also changed by the attacks, the other a police officer from Los Angeles.

But as Jamie gets to know the police officer, she is stunned to find out that he is the brother of Eric Michaels, the man with the uncanny resemblance to Jamie’s husband, the man who lived with her for three months after September 11. Eric is the man she has vowed never to see again. Certain she could not share even a friendship with his brother, Jamie shuts out the police officer and delves deeper into her work at St. Paul’s.

Now it will take the persistence of a tenacious man, the questions from her curious young daughter, and the words from her dead husband’s journal to move Jamie beyond one Tuesday morning.

Jamie Bryan took her position at the far end of the Staten Island Ferry, pressed her body against the railing, eyes on the place where the Twin Towers once stood. She could face it now, every day if she had to. The terrorist attacks had happened, the World Trade Center had collapsed, and the only man she’d ever loved had gone down with them.

Late fall was warmer than usual, and the breeze across the water washed over Jamie’s face. If she could do this, if she could make this journey three times a week while Sierra was in school, then she could convince herself to get through another long, dark night. She could face the empty place in the bed beside her, face the longing for the man who had been her best friend, the one she’d fallen for when she was only a girl.

Nothing in Lakshmi's childhood, running carefree and barefoot on the sun-baked earth amid the coconut and mango trees of Ceylon, could have prepared her for what life was to bring her. At fourteen, she finds herself traded in marriage to a stranger across the ocean in the fascinating land of Malaysia. Duped into thinking her new husband is wealthy, she instead finds herself struggling to raise a family with a man too impractical to face reality in a world that is, by turns, unyielding and amazing, brutal and beautiful.

Giving birth to a child every year until she is nineteen, Lakshmi becomes a formidable matriarch, determined to wrest from the world a better life for her daughters and sons and to face every new challenge with almost mythic strength. By sheer willpower, Lakshmi survives the nightmare of World War II and the Japanese occupation — but not unscathed. The family bears deep scars on its back and, in turn, inflicts those wounds on the next generation.

But it is not until Lakshmi's great-granddaughter, Nisha, pieces together the mosaic of her family history that the legacy of the Rice Mother bears fruit. Dreamy and lyrical, told in the alternating voices of the men and women of this amazing family, The Rice Mother gorgeously evokes a world where small pleasures offset unimaginable horrors, where ghosts and gods walk hand in hand.

Ravishingly beautiful and emotionally incendiary, Tar Baby is Toni Morrison’s reinvention of the love story. Jadine Childs is a black fashion model with a white patron, a white boyfriend, and a coat made out of ninety perfect sealskins. Son is a black fugitive who embodies everything she loathes and desires.

As Morrison follows their affair, which plays out from the Caribbean to Manhattan and the deep South, she charts all the nuances of obligation and betrayal between blacks and whites, masters and servants, and men and women.

Green Angel is a startling and universally acclaimed breakthrough YA novel from master bestselling author Alice Hoffman, now in paperback. Left on her own when her family dies in a terrible disaster, fifteen-year-old Green is haunted by loss and by the past.

Struggling to survive physically and emotionally in a place where nothing seems to grow and ashes are everywhere, Green retreats into the ruined realm of her garden. But in destroying her feelings, she also begins to destroy herself, erasing the girl she'd once been as she inks darkness into her skin.

It is only through a series of mysterious encounters that Green can relearn the lessons of love and begin to heal enough to tell her story.

I Wish Someone Were Waiting For Me Somewhere explores how a life can be changed irrevocably in just one fateful moment. A pregnant mother's plans for the future unravel at the hospital; a travelling salesman learns the consequences of an almost-missed exit on the motorway in the newspaper the next morning; while a perfect date is spoilt by a single act of thoughtlessness.

In those crucial moments, Gavalda demonstrates her almost magical skill in conveying love, lust, longing, and loneliness. Someone I Loved offers a hauntingly intimate look at the intolerably painful, yet sometimes valuable consequences that adultery can have on a marriage and the individuals involved. A simple tale, yet long in substance, Someone I Loved ends like most great love affairs, forever leaving you wanting just one more moment.

Risky in conception, hip and yet soulful, this is a prose poem of a novel — intense, lyrical, and highly evocative — with a mystery at its center, which keeps the reader in suspense until the final page. In a tour de force that could be described as Altmanesque, we are invited into the private lives of the residents of a quiet urban street in England over the course of a single day.

In delicate, intricately observed closeup, we witness the hopes, fears, and unspoken despairs of a diverse community: the man with painfully scarred hands who tried in vain to save his wife from a burning house and who must now care for his young daughter alone; a group of young clubgoers just home from an all-night rave, sweetly high and mulling over vague dreams; the nervous young man at number 18 who collects weird urban junk and is haunted by the specter of unrequited love.

The tranquillity of the street is shattered at day's end when a terrible accident occurs. This tragedy and an utterly surprising twist provide the momentum for the book. But it is the author's exquisite rendering of the ordinary, the everyday, that gives this novel its freshness, its sense of beauty, wonder, and hope. Rarely does a writer appear with so much music and poetry — so much vision — that he can make the world seem new.

كل ما أدريه أنني مذ غادرت الجزائر ما عدت ذلك الصحافي ولا المصوّر الذي كنته. أصبحت بطلاً في رواية، أو في فيلم سينمائي يعيش على أهبة مباغتة؟ جاهزاً لأمر ما.. لفرح طارئ أو لفاجعة مرتقبة.

نحن من بعثرتهم قسنطينة، ها نحن نتواعد في عواصم الحزن وضواحي الخوف الباريسي. حتى من قبل أن نلتقي حزنت من أجل ناصر، من أجل اسم أكبر من أن يقيم ضيفاً في ضواحي التاريخ، لأن أباه لم يورثه شيئاً عدا اسمه، ولأن البعض صنع من الوطن ملكاً عقارياً لأولاده، وأدار البلاد كما يدير مزرعة عائلية تربي في خرائبها القتلة، بينما يتشرد شرفاء الوطن في المنافي.

جميل ناصر، كما تصورته كان. وجميلاً كان لقائي به، وضمة منه احتضنت فيها التاريخ والحبّ معاً، فقد كان نصفه سي الطاهر ونصفه حياة.

كانت شقته على بساطتها مؤثثة بدفء عن استعاض بالأثاث الجميل عن خسارة ما، ومن استعان بالموسيقى القسنطينية ليغطي على نواح داخلي لا يتوقف... رحت أسأل ناصر عن أخباره وعن سفره من ألمانيا إلى باريس إن كان وجد فيه مشقة. ردّ مازحاً: كانت الأسئلة أطول من المسافة! ثم أضاف أقصد الإهانات المهذبة التي تقدم إليك من المطارات على شكل أسئلة قال مراد مازحاً: واش تريد يا خويا.." وجه الخروف معروف"!

ردّ ناص: معروف بماذا؟ بأنه الذئب؟ أجاب مراد: إن لم تكن الذئب، فالذئاب كثيرة هذه الأيام. ولا أرى سبباً لغضبك. هنا على الأقل لا خوف عليك ما دمت بريئاً. ولا تشكل خطراً على الآخرين. أما عندنا فحتى البريء لا يضمن سلامته! ردّ ناصر متذمراً: نحن نفاصل بين موت وآخر، وذلّ وآخر، لا غير.

في الجزائر يبحثون عنك لتصفيتك جسدياً. عذابك يدوم زمن اختراق رصاصة. في أوروبا بذريعة إنقاذك من القتلة يقتلونك عرياً كل لحظة، ويطيل من عذابك أن العري لا يقتل بل يجردك من حميميتك ويغتالك مهانة. تشعر أنك تمشي بين الناس وتقيم بينهم لكنك لن تكون منهم، أنت عارٍ ومكشوف ومشبوه بسبب اسمك، وسحنتك ودينك. لا خصوصية لك برغم أنك في بلد حر.

أنت تحب وتعمل وتسافر وتنفق بشهادة الكاميرات وأجهزة التنصت وملفات الاستخبارات.

في زمن موت كرامة العربي، في زمن تهميشه في زمن احتقاره وامتهانه تضحي مساحة سرديات أحلام مستغانمي أوسع وأعمق، وبعيدة كل البعد عن روتينية الصنعة الروائية في استرسالاتها في انبعاثات أحداثها. فهي تؤدي مهمة تتجاوز الحدث، مخنوقة النفس العربية عموماً، الجزائرية على وجه الخصوص، مستلهمة من الواقع منولوجاتها الداخلية وحتى الخارجية، ممتزجة باليأس، وغارقة في لجج من الإحباطات.

تسترسل أحلام مستغانمي في انسياحاتها السردية متماهية مع الجزائري مع العربي في آلامه وأوجاعه. في محاولة لتشخيص مرض وإيجاد علاج. من خلال أسلوب أدبي رائع، وعبارات ومعانٍ تميل إلى الرمز حيناً، إلى الواقعية أحاييناً مستدرجة مشاعر القارئ وفكره للتماهي في رحلتها التي شرعتها مع عابر سرير.

Set in Kerrville, Kansas, The Center of Everything is narrated by Evelyn Bucknow, an endearing character with a wholly refreshing way of looking at the world. Living with her single mother in a small apartment, Evelyn Bucknow is a young girl navigating her way through adolescence.

With a voice that is as charming as it is recognizable, Evelyn immerses the reader in the dramas of an entire community. The people of Kerrville, stuck at once in the middle of nowhere but also at the center of everything, are the source from which Moriarty draws universal dilemmas of love and belief to render a story that grows in emotional intensity.

This novel takes the reader on an emotional journey, lifting them to heights achieved only by the finest of fiction.

Everything that had happened to Nina was real. She had real handcuffs on her wrists, real scars on her back, real fear flooding her mind.

'They're going to kill me,' Nina whispered, and it was almost a relief to finally, finally give up hope.

In a society that allows no more than two children per family under penalty of death, third children are forced into hiding, or to live with false identity papers. In Among the Impostors, Nina Idi was arrested for treason for supposedly trying to trick the Population Police into arresting other students she said were illegal third children. Now she faces torture or death -- unless she agrees to betray three other imprisoned third children. Her dilemma intensifies when she meets the prisoners -- who are only ten, nine, and six.

As she did so brilliantly in the Publishers Weekly best-selling Among the Hidden and in Among the Impostors, Margaret Peterson Haddix once again brings readers to a world in which nothing is as it seems -- a world in which an imprisonment leads to an adventure of mind, body, and spirit.

Dicey's Song follows the journey of the four abandoned Tillerman children as they settle in with their grandmother. Dicey discovers that their new beginnings require a lot of love, trust, humor, and courage.

The story unfolds with Dicey navigating her new role, finding her own identity after being the caretaker, navigator, and decision maker for her siblings. Letting go of some responsibilities becomes a necessary and painful part of her growth.

Amidst new friends, a growing relationship with her grandmother, and the satisfaction of refinishing an old boat, Dicey experiences the trials and pleasures of making a new life. But, as the past comes back with devastating force, she learns just how crucial and challenging letting go can be.

The Secret Garden by Victorian author Frances Hodgson Burnett is a cherished classic that has captivated readers for over a century. The story's heart lies with Mary Lennox, a young English girl who moves to England from India after losing both her parents to a cholera outbreak. Mary's character is initially marked by rudeness and tantrums, a reflection of her parents' neglectful attitudes.

Upon arrival at her Uncle Archibald Craven's home, Misselthwaite Manor, in the dreary Yorkshire moors, Mary's journey of transformation begins. The discovery of a secret, walled garden and the mysterious sobbing within the mansion ignites her curiosity and spurs a series of events that lead to self-discovery and growth.

The story is a tapestry woven with themes of mystery, spirituality, and the redeeming power of nature. Through compassion, common sense, and the belief in human goodness, Mary, along with other characters, experience profound changes that resonate with readers of all ages.

As a testament to its enduring appeal, The Secret Garden has seen numerous adaptations across stage, film, and television, and continues to be a treasured narrative of childhood's journey into maturity.

Luther Fox, a loner haunted by his past, makes his living as an illegal fisherman, a shamateur. Before everyone in his family was killed in a freak rollover, he grew melons and played guitar in the family band. Robbed of all that, he has turned his back on music. There's too much emotion in it, too much memory and pain.

One morning, Fox is observed poaching by Georgie Jutland. Chance, or a kind of willed recklessness, has brought Georgie into the life and home of Jim Buckridge, the most prosperous fisherman in the area and a man who loathes poachers, Fox above all. But she's never fully settled into Jim's grand house on the water or into the inbred community with its history of violent secrets.

After Georgie encounters Fox, her tentative hold on conventional life is severed. Neither of them would call it love, but they can't stay away from each other no matter how dangerous it is, and out on White Point, it is very dangerous.

Set in the dramatic landscape of Western Australia, Dirt Music is a love story about people stifled by grief and regret; a novel about the odds of breaking with the past and about the lure of music. Dirt music, Fox tells Georgie, is "anything you can play on a verandah or porch, without electricity." Even in the wild, Luther cannot escape it. There is, he discovers, no silence in nature.

Ambitious, perfectly calibrated, Dirt Music resonates with suspense and supercharged emotion, confirming Tim Winton's status as the preeminent Australian novelist of his generation.

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth is a groundbreaking graphic novel that tells the tragic story of an office worker in Chicago. One day, he meets the father who abandoned him as a child, setting off a complex and moving narrative.

The story is enhanced by subtle, complex, and moving illustrations that are as simple and original as they are strikingly beautiful. This book offers a unique reading experience that is both visually and emotionally rich.

Join Jimmy Corrigan in this heartfelt encounter that explores themes of loneliness, family, and self-discovery. The intricate artwork and compelling storyline make this a must-read for fans of graphic novels and literary fiction alike.

Once there was a tree...and she loved a little boy. So begins a story of unforgettable perception, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein.

Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older, he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave.

This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation. Shel Silverstein has created a moving parable for readers of all ages that offers an affecting interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return.

Sarah Byrnes and Eric Calhoune have been friends for years. When they were children, his weight and her scars made them both outcasts. Now, Sarah Byrnes—the smartest, toughest person Eric has ever known—sits silent in a hospital. Eric must uncover the terrible secret she’s hiding before its dark current pulls them both under.

This story will appeal to fans of Marieke Nijkamp, Andrew Smith, and John Corey Whaley. Dive into a world where class discussions about the nature of man, the existence of God, and other contemporary issues serve as a backdrop for a high-school senior's attempt to answer a friend's dramatic cry for help.