On the advice of his wife, Paul Rice is making plans to attend his 10th year High School reunion. Returning to his boyhood home of Harmony, Indiana, he finds that he is still haunted by memories of that time – memories of Deidra, his first love, and memories of the Wide Game.
It was ten years ago that Paul and his friends watched their day of fun become a race for their lives, a fight for their very souls. Now, as he meets the survivors of that day once more, Paul makes a chilling discovery: the incomprehensible forces that toyed with them have yet to finish playing their own game.
As a boy, writer Jay Mackintosh spent three golden summers in the ramshackle home of "Jackapple Joe" Cox. A lonely child, he found solace in Old Joe's simple wisdom and folk charms. The magic was lost, however, when Joe disappeared without warning one fall.
Years later, Jay's life is stalled with regret and ennui. His bestselling novel, Jackapple Joe, was published ten years earlier and he has written nothing since. Impulsively, he decides to leave his urban life in London and, sight unseen, purchases a farmhouse in the remote French village of Lansquenet. There, in that strange and yet strangely familiar place, Jay hopes to re-create the magic of those golden childhood summers.
And while the spirit of Joe is calling to him, it is actually a similarly haunted, reclusive woman who will ultimately help Jay find himself again.
Hearts in Atlantis is a classic collection of five deeply resonant and disturbing interconnected stories from #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King. Innocence, experience, truth, deceit, loss, and recovery are at the core of these five interconnected, sequential tales—each deeply rooted in the 1960s, and each scarred by the Vietnam War, which continues to cast its shadow over American lives, politics, and culture.
In Part One, “Low Men in Yellow Coats,” eleven-year-old Bobby Garfield discovers a world of predatory malice in his own neighborhood. He also discovers that adults are sometimes not rescuers but at the heart of the terror. In the title story, a bunch of college kids get hooked on a card game, discover the possibility of protest, and confront their own collective heart of darkness, where laughter may be no more than the thinly disguised cry of the beast. In “Blind Willie” and “Why We’re in Vietnam,” two men who grew up with Bobby in suburban Connecticut try to fill the emptiness of the post-Vietnam era in an America which sometimes seems as hollow—and as haunted—as their own lives. And in “Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling,” this remarkable book’s denouement, Bobby returns to his hometown where one final secret, the hope of redemption, and his heart’s desire may await him.
Full of danger and suspense, full of heart, this spellbinding fiction will take some readers to a place they have never been...and others to a place they have never been able to completely forget. Nearly twenty years after its first publication, Hearts in Atlantis is powerful and astonishingly current.
Twenty years ago, Claire Maloney was the willful, pampered, tomboyish daughter of the town's most respected family. Despite her privileged background, she formed an unlikely friendship with Roan Sullivan, a fierce, motherless boy who lived in a rusted-out trailer amid junked cars.
No one in Dunderry, Georgia—least of all Claire’s family—could understand the bond between these two mavericks. But Roan and Claire belonged together . . . until that dark afternoon when violence and terror overtook them, and Roan disappeared from Claire's life.
Now, two decades later, Claire is adrift, and the Maloneys are still hoping the past can be buried under the rich Southern soil. But Roan Sullivan is about to walk back into their lives...
By turns tender, sexy, heartbreaking, and exuberant, A Place to Call Home is an enthralling journey between two hearts. It's a deliciously original novel from one of the most imaginative and appealing new voices in Southern fiction.
Beatles is a heartwarming and bittersweet novel about four Beatles-obsessed boys from Oslo, born in 1951. As seventh graders, they stand on the brink of adulthood, enthusiastically embracing the future, which seems incredibly bright. Their journey takes us to September 25, 1972, as they navigate the waves of youth rebellion sweeping across Europe, challenging their sheltered existence.
This story captures the essence of post-war Oslo like no other, vividly depicting the upbringing of these young men in the Frogner district. It's a tale of growing up, friendship, and the inevitable changes that come with time.
High School is Heaven! It's Betsy Ray's freshman year at Deep Valley High School, and she and her best childhood chum, Tacy Kelly, are loving every minute. Betsy and Tacy find themselves in the midst of a new crowd of friends, with studies aplenty (including Latin and—ugh—algebra), parties and picnics galore, Sunday night lunches at home—and boys!
There's Cab Edwards, the jolly boy next door; handsome Herbert Humphreys; and the mysteriously unfriendly, but maddeningly attractive, Joe Willard. Betsy likes them all, but no boy in particular catches her fancy until she meets the new boy in town, Tony Markham... the one she and Tacy call the Tall Dark Handsome Stranger. He's sophisticated, funny, and dashing—and treats Betsy just like a sister. Can Betsy turn him into a beau?
An entertaining picture of school clubs, fudge parties, sings around the piano, and Sunday-night suppers in Betsy's hospitable home.