Two sisters examine what they owe each other and what they are willing to sacrifice to make their family dreams come true.
What would you give up for the person you love most? What would you expect in return?
Mia and Cricket have always been close. The gifted daughters of a young single mother, the “Lowe girls” are well-known in the small Maine town they call home. Each sister has a role to fill: The responsible and academically minded Mia assumes the position of caregiver far too young, while Cricket, a bouncing ball of energy and talent, seems born for soccer stardom. But the cost of achieving athletic greatness comes at a steep price.
As Mia and Cricket grow up, they must grapple with the legacy of their mother’s secret past while navigating their own precarious future. Can Mia allow herself to fall in love at the risk of repeating a terrible history? Will Cricket’s relentless chase of a lifelong goal drive her sister away? When does loyalty become self-sabotage?
A sharply observed and tender portrait of sisters, love, and ambition, Spectacular Things is a sweeping story about the impossible choices we’re forced to make in pursuit of our dreams.
If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo is a big-hearted novel about being seen for who you truly are.
Amanda Hardy is the new girl in school. Like anyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. But Amanda is keeping a secret, and she's determined not to get too close to anyone.
When she meets sweet, easygoing Grant, Amanda can't help but start to let him into her life. As they spend more time together, she realizes just how much she is losing by guarding her heart. She finds herself yearning to share with Grant everything about herself, including her past.
But Amanda is terrified that once she tells him the truth, he won't be able to see past it. Because the secret that Amanda has been keeping? It's that at her old school, she used to be Andrew. Will the truth cost Amanda her new life, and her new love?
This is a universal story about feeling different and a love story that everyone will root for.
Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets.
At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years. At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill, we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed.
With stunning revelations and multiple threads, and in prose that is vibrantly alive and original, Groff delivers a deeply satisfying novel about love, art, creativity, and power that is unlike anything that has come before it. Profound, surprising, propulsive, and emotionally riveting, it stirs both the mind and the heart.
In middle age, Annie Oh—wife, mother, and outsider artist—has shaken her family to its core. After twenty-seven years of marriage and three children, Annie has fallen in love with Viveca, the wealthy, cultured, confident Manhattan art dealer who orchestrated her professional success.
Annie and Viveca plan to wed in the Oh family's hometown of Three Rivers, Connecticut, where gay marriage has recently been legalized. But the impending wedding provokes some very mixed reactions and opens a Pandora's box of toxic secrets—dark and painful truths that have festered below the surface of the Ohs' lives.
We Are Water is an intricate and layered portrait of marriage, family, and the inexorable need for understanding and connection, told in the alternating voices of the Ohs—nonconformist Annie; her ex-husband, Orion, a psychologist; Ariane, the do-gooder daughter, and her twin, Andrew, the rebellious only son; and free-spirited Marissa, the youngest Oh.
Set in New England and New York during the first years of the Obama presidency, it is also a portrait of modern America, exploring issues of class, changing social mores, the legacy of racial violence, and the nature of creativity and art.
With humor and breathtaking compassion, Wally Lamb brilliantly captures the essence of human experience in vivid and unforgettable characters struggling to find hope and redemption in the aftermath of trauma and loss. We Are Water is vintage Wally Lamb—a compulsively readable, generous, and uplifting masterpiece that digs deep into the complexities of the human heart to explore the ways in which we search for love and meaning in our lives.
Swift as Desire is an enchanting and bittersweet story touched with graphic earthiness and wit. Laura Esquivel explores the profound theme that keeping secrets will always lead to unhappiness, while communication is the key to love.
Júbilo was born with a smile on his face, possessing a unique gift for hearing what was in people's hearts. As a young boy, he acted as an interpreter, transforming words of spite into words of respect, turning mutual hatred into love.
Growing up to be a humble telegraph operator, Júbilo used his gift to bring happiness to others. However, as the telegraph becomes obsolete, he finds himself on his deathbed, estranged from his beloved wife, Lucha. A tragic event has driven a wedge between them, leading to a seemingly irreparable rift.
Their daughter endeavors to reconcile her parents, acting as an interpreter, just as Júbilo did, hoping to mend the rift before it's too late. Swift as Desire is a loving tribute to Esquivel's father and a poignant tale of love, secrets, and the power of communication.
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse tells the intriguing story of Father Damien Modeste, a priest who has lovingly served the Ojibwe people on the remote reservation of Little No Horse for over half a century. As he nears the end of his life, Father Damien is tormented by the fear of having his true identity discovered: he is, in fact, a woman living as a man.
His peaceful existence is disrupted when a troubled colleague arrives to investigate the life of Sister Leopolda, a perplexing and possibly false saint. Father Damien alone knows the complex truth of Sister Leopolda's piety. He faces a heart-wrenching decision: should he reveal everything he knows and risk losing it all, or should he create a protective history, even though he suspects that Leopolda's miraculous acts may be driven by evil intentions?
This novel delves into themes of miracles, faith, and the struggles between good and evil, as well as the power of secrecy to both corrode and redeem.
Anju is the daughter of an upper-caste Calcutta family; her cousin Sudha is the daughter of the black sheep of the family. Sudha is as beautiful, tenderhearted, and serious as Anju is plain, whip-smart, and defiant. Yet since the day they were born, Sudha and Anju have been bonded in ways even their mothers cannot comprehend.
The cousins' bond is shattered, however, when Sudha learns a dark family secret. Urged into arranged marriages, their lives take sudden, opposite turns: Sudha becomes the dutiful daughter-in-law of a rigid small-town household, while Anju goes to America with her new husband and learns to live her own life of secrets.
Then tragedy strikes them both, and the women discover that, despite the distance that has grown between them, they have only each other to turn to. Set in the two worlds of India and America, this is an exceptionally moving novel of love, friendship, and compelling courage.
In Blue Belle, Montana, everyone knew better than to mess with the Claybornes. The brothers had once been a mismatched gang of street urchins—until they found an abandoned baby girl in a New York City alley, named her Mary Rose, and headed west to raise her to be a lady.
They became a family—held together by loyalty and love, if not by blood—when suddenly they faced a crisis that threatened to tear them apart. Trouble came to town with one Lord Harrison Stanford MacDonald. Armed with a swagger and six-shooter, he cut a striking figure—but it soon became apparent to Mary Rose that he was too much of a gentleman to make it in her rough-and-tumble town.
She asked her brothers to teach him the basics of frontier survival, which he acquired with ease. And soon he possessed a deep and desperate love for Mary Rose. She returned his affection wholeheartedly... until MacDonald revealed a secret that challenged everything she believed about herself, her life, and her newfound love.
Now her search for identity and meaning would begin, raising questions that could only be answered if she listened to the truth within her heart.
Life changed for me in three days - the day my mother died, the day my dad married Candice, and the day I met Kennedy Jenner. From the moment I saw him, I was drawn to him. Like a moth to a flame, I couldn't keep away from the irresistible heat of the fire.
That knowing, confident smile... those beautiful pale blue eyes... and those dimples... simply delicious. Who could resist such a beautiful strong man?
Hope York transformed herself from a boring small-town girl into a flawless beauty on the outside. But inside, she never changed. Kennedy Jenner was a successful, wealthy, and jaw-dropping handsome man that could have whatever he wanted, on his own terms. And he wanted Hope. But would he still want her after he saw her for who she really was, instead of what she carefully planned for everyone to see? And will his own secret past stand in his way of getting what he really wants?