Now the truth can finally be revealed about the mysterious day long ago when the authorities found a child, calmly walking in the boiling desert, covered with blood. The girl is Roberta Rohbeson, and her rant against a world bounded by "the cruddy top bedroom of a cruddy rental house on a very cruddy mud road" soon becomes a detailed account of another story, one that she has kept silent since she was eleven. Darkly funny and resonant with humanity, Cruddy, masterfully intertwines Roberta's stories -- part Easy Rider and part bipolar Wizard of Oz. These stories, the backbone of Roberta's short life, include a one-way trip across America fueled by revenge and greed and a vivid cast of characters, starring Roberta's dangerous father, the owners of the Knocking Hammer Bar-cum-slaughterhouse, and runaway adolescents. With a teenager's eye for freakish detail and a nervous ability to make the most horrible scenes seem hilarious, Cruddy is a stunning achievement.

    It belongs to award-winner Mark Spragg, and it's as passionate and umcompromising as the wilderness in northwest Wyoming in which he was born: the largest block of unfenced wilderness in the lower forty-eight states. Where Rivers Change Direction is a memoir of childhood spent on the oldest dude ranch in Wyoming—with a family struggling against the elements and against themselves, and with the wry and wise cowboy who taught him life's most important lessons.As the young Spragg undergoes the inexorable rites of passage that forge the heart and soul of man, he channels Peter Matthiessen and the novels of Ernest Hemingway in his truly unforgettable illuminations of the heartfelt yearnings, the unexpected wisdom, and the irrevocable truths that follow in his wake.

    She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication. In Laurie Halse Anderson's powerful novel, an utterly believable heroine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical world of high school. She speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while demonstrating the importance of speaking up for oneself.Speak was a 1999 National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature.

    The last in a line of proud, individualistic Irish-American men, Billy is discovered in a basket at the door of the dilapidated mansion where his bitter, hard-drinking grandfather, Thomas Mann, has exiled himself. Astonished and moved by the arrival of his unexpected progeny, Thomas sets out to raise the boy himself -- on a diet of love, fried baloney, and the fascinating lore of their shared heritage. Listening to his sets out to capture the stories on paper. He is a Mann, Grandpa reminds him daily, and thus destined for greatness.Through the tales of his ancestors, his own experiences, and the unforgettable characters who enhance and enliven his adolescence, Billy learns of bravery and cowardice, of life and death, of the heart's capacity for love and for unremitting hatred, eventually grasping the meaning of family and history and their power to shape destiny. Steeped in imagery and threaded with lyricism, Eddie's Bastard is a novel of discovery, of a young man's emergence into the world, and the endless possibilities it offers.

    A self-confessed "chubby smart bookish sissy with glasses and a Southern accent," Doty grew up on the move, the family following his father's engineering work across America-from Tennessee to Arizona, Florida to California. A lyrical, heartbreaking comedy of one family's dissolution through the corrosive powers of alcohol, sorrow, and thwarted desire, Firebird is also a wry evocation of childhood's pleasures and terrors, a comic tour of American suburban life, and a testament to the transformative power of art.

    Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes--each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned--becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

    Lizzy is the steadfast grandmother; crazy, red-haired Josie, the mother; and Kit, the 14-year-old daughter who tells their story. Like a maritime cutter, the narrative sails along smoothly, and much of the dialogue is in the distinctive argot of that windy Atlantic island: "When it's clear like ice and ribbed on the bottom--that's the killin' frost. Your berries are dead. Good for moose and caribou pickin's. Now, there's them that picks 'em anyway, and that's why their jam is as tart as a whore's arse." With its partridgeberry patches, moose stew, and endless cups of tea, this is quintessential Newfoundland. After Lizzy dies, the nasty local pastor wants to put Kit in an orphanage and Josie in an appropriate institution. The compassionate Doctor Hodgins becomes their staunch defender against both do-gooders and those plotting Kit's downfall. This first novel is a female coming-of-age story of the rural variety, replete with endemic poverty, good-hearted and downright evil village people, and the constant irritant of Newfoundland's raw, nasty weather. It is also the touching story of Kit's first love, and it reads like a breeze. --Mark Frutkin

    Pulitzer Prize-winning author Philip Caputo has written a timeless novel about the dangerous reverberating effects of long held family secrets.On a June morning in 1901, Cyrus Braithwaite orders his three sons to set sail from their Maine home aboard the family's forty-six-foot schooner and not return until September. Though confused and hurt by their father's cold-blooded actions, the three brothers soon rise to the occasion and embark on a breathtakingly perilous journey down the East Coast, headed for the Florida Keys.Almost one hundred years later, Cyrus's great-granddaughter Sybil sets out to uncover the events that transpired on the voyage. Her discoveries about the Braithwaite family and the America they lived in unfolds into a stunning tale of intrigue, murder, lies and deceit.

    "My People's Waltz is the story of Richard's world ? a place where people drink hard, lie and cheat freely, and yet still find the time to waltz in their kitchens. From North Carolina to Arkansas to the Texas Gulf Coast, from his mother's nervous breakdowns to his father's erratic attempts to win his family's love, Richard's journey from childhood to adulthood ultimately becomes a pilgrimage to salvage some part of his own damaged heart. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, these award-winning stories herald a new voice in Southern American fiction.

    Premawathi is their cook and housekeeper. She has two beautiful daughters and a son, Chandi, who even at four-years-old is bright, inventive and more mischievous than his young harried mother can sometimes cope with. As the novel opens Elsie Buckwater, an embittered woman, is giving birth to her third baby. Chandi is enchanted by the idea of making an English friend and he christens her Rose-Lizzie after the flowers he loves. But the discontented Elsie imposes a stifling and unhappy atmosphere on the household and forbids Chandi to go near her baby daughter, whom she herself largely ignores. Eventually however she packs her bags and returns to England. Without her, life at the bungalow flourishes.

     Set in Little Falls, New Jersey in 1993, PINS weaves the classic story of a Catholic saint into a compelling modern life -and near-death- account of Joey Nicci, a fifteen-year-old Italian-American wrestler. After befriending Donald "Dink" Kohrs, Joey and his new posse get involved in pranks and partying that eventually get out of control, resulting in the death of a maligned fellow teammate. The ensuing legal battle and media frenzy alter Joey's life and his self- perception as a gay teenager while shattering his fragile love for fellow teammate Dink. Like his patron saint, his battle against his own teammates forces him to suffer for his beliefs. His survival becomes a literary miracle. A compelling story of a loving yet confused family, coaches and teachers struggling with multiple issues of violence and homophobia amid the clan-like world of teenage athletes, PINS brings together elements now frighteningly common in the media; bullying jocks, assaults on weaker students, faculty and families unwittingly allowing such behavior

    Forty years later a journalist hovers near the truth, buried long ago by the panicked authorities.Kirkston Abbey is no place for the weak: its rules are harsh and its discipline savage. So the struggling Jonathan Palmer cannot believe his luck when Richard Rokeby - tough, handsome, aloof - befriends him.But Rokeby's possessive friendship is suffocating and, what starts out as an innocent game amongst friends, takes a shocking turn as Palmer finds himself powerless to stop Rokeby from unleashing a horrifying fate on them all.A brilliantly clever psychological thriller, The Wishing Game launched Redmond to his bestseller status.

    But her lack of education and experience are no disadvantage for her job at the Society for the Conservation of Ancient Buildings, otherwise known as SCAB. Viola and her boss are sent to assess Inskip Park, a huge house with an incredible facade and domes like Brighton Pavilion. The roof leaks, the walls drip with damp, the food is terrible and the servants distinctly odd - but Viola is enchanted. She loves everything about the house, the garden, and the peculiarly eccentric Inskip family - particularly Jeremy, the handsome, lazy and utterly charming son and heir. Five days later Viola returns to London having made some life-changing decisions. Even an unexpected marriage proposal fails to deflect her from her declared purpose: to acquire an education...

    Only his came true.http://storiesonline.net/s/30059/doin...

     Even the most idyllic small town has dangerous currents just under the surface -- like abuse, bigotry and hate. And murder. Killian Kendall is a small-town teen whose whole world is about to be turned upside down. The new kid in school is openly gay and, despite himself, Killian finds himself drawn to him. When the boy is killed in a brutal attack, and Killian is injured in the process, Killian begins to questions everything around him. The police seem eager to write the attack off as a random mugging, but Killian knows better. Unable to ignore the injustice, Killian launches his own investigation, and everyone is a suspect -- even his closest friends. His search turns up hatred in small town America. Before it's over, more people will die, and Killian's life will be on the line again. Bleeding Hearts is the first book in the Killian Kendall Mystery Series.

    These stories will leave an indelible imprint on your heart and inspire you to live with hope, gratitude and joy, regardless of your circumstance.

    Of his latest novel, Newsday wrote, "Thomas King has quietly and gorgeously done it again." Truth and Bright Water tells of a summer in the life of Tecumseh and Lum, young Native-American cousins coming of age in the Montana town of Truth, and the Bright Water Reserve across the river in Alberta. It opens with a mysterious woman with a suitcase, throwing things into the river -- then jumping in herself. Tecumseh and Lum go to help, but she and her truck have disappeared. Other mysteries puzzle Tecumseh: whether his mom will take his dad back; if his rolling-stone aunt is home to stay; why no one protects Lum from his father's rages. Then Tecumseh gets a job helping an artist -- Bright Water's most famous son -- with the project of a lifetime. As Truth and Bright Water prepare for the Indian Days festival, their secrets come together in a climax of tragedy, reconciliation, and love.

    . . .But certain things you have to find out now. . . ."On the tumultuous streets of Manila, where the earth is as brown as a tamarind leaf and the pungent smells of vinegar and mashed peppers fill the air, where seasons shift between scorching sun and torrential rain, eleven-year-old Gringo strives to make sense of his family and a world that is growing increasingly harsher before his young eyes. There is Gringo's older brother, Pipo, wise beyond his years, a flamboyant, defiant youth and the three-time winner of the sequined Miss Unibers contest; Daddy Groovie, whiling away his days with other hang-about men, out of work and wilting like a guava, clinging to the hope of someday joining his sister in Nuyork; Gringo's mother, Estrella, moving through their ramshackle home, holding her emotions tight as a fist, which she often clenches in anger after curfew covers the neighborhood in a burst of dark; and Ninang Rola, wise godmother of words, who confides in Gringo a shocking secret from the past--and sets the stage for the profound events to come, in which no one will remain untouched by the jagged pieces of a shattered dream.As Gringo learns; shame is passed down through generations, but so is the life-changing power of blood ties and enduring love.In this lush, richly poetic novel of grinding hardship and resilient triumph, of selfless sacrifice and searing revelation, Bino A. Realuyo brings the teeming world of 1970s Manila brilliantly to life. While mapping a young boy's awakening to adulthood in dazzling often unexpected ways, The Umbrella Country subtly works sweet magic.

    Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield are spending their summer as au pairs for a royal family. The stories are: "Once Upon A Time"; "To Catch a Thief"; and "Happily Ever After".

    Toni Yagyuu, the middle child, has enough on her hands dealing with her budding diva of a little sister.  But it is the men in her life that really have her running in circles: a flamboyant older brother who wants to be a hairdresser, a stubborn father who refuses to accept her into the family business, and the Santos brothers--two pig-hunting, ex-high school football players who don't know what to think of their headstrong, outspoken neighbor.

    From the affluent children of the Westside to the graffiti gangs and party crews of East LA, young Angelenos reckon with an overwhelming barrage of advertising and entertainment images emphasizing money, possessions, and eternal youth. This collection of 79 color photographs, accompanied by interviews with the children and their parents, reveals the realities of growing up fast in a culture that is at once irresistible and unforgiving. A compelling precursor to Greenfield's widely praised "Girl Culture," "Fast Forward" is a telling document of the direction in which today's ultra image-conscious culture is pointed.

    A product of the loving but decidedly unorthodox guardianship of her mother, Del, Roanne is a fascinating study in contrasts. Equal parts bold seductress and wide-eyed innocent, smart-ass teenager and wizened sage, she is an outlandish, charismatic, and wholly inspired creation. Unabashedly outspoken (and an increasingly accomplished flirt), Roanne quietly longs for escape -- particularly from her mother's overwhelming and over-powering shadow. Her chance comes after she discovers, much to her horror, that the professor she had slept with is also bedding her mother. "I just can't seem to stop feeling like one of those air-sucking dogs people leave in cars with the windows open just a tiny bit. I need to put my whole face, my whole self, in the air for a while to try and figure out who I am when I'm not standing next to my amazing mum."To clear her head, Roanne begins a journey and goes from feeling like an outsider to being embraced by a very special group of people -- people whom most others have found strange or different but with whom Roanne feels right at home. From a marriage proposal by the teenage son of the founders of the Christian Rebirth Center, to her relationship with new best friend Gilbey Tarr -- the sixteen-year-old "Teenage Goddess from Outer Space" -- to a reunion with Dickie Siggins -- international pop star and her mother's life-long friend -- to a bittersweet reconciliation with Del, Roanne soars headfirst into a world of tragedy and comedy, and in the process learns about life, love, and death -- and everything in between.With this richly satisfying debut novel, Gale Zoe Garnett haschanneled Roanne's outsized passions into a tightly crafted and powerfully moving narrative, charting a journey to lands unknown, emotions untapped, and experience unforeseen."Visible Amazement" injects contemporary fiction with welcome jolts of crackling humor and unexpected drama. Written in a totally original and unique voice, the novel, like its heroine, is delightful, disturbing, and utterly unforgettable.

    As a child, he grew up singing “Dixie”in his segregated school and saying sh’ma in synagogue. And in his powerful, luminous memoir, Cohen tells a story as universal as it is particular, at once a deeply personal account of growing up an outsider and a vibrant family story of three generations of American Jews.To Edward Cohen, it seemed the entire world was Jewish. Then he went to school, where he was the only child who didn’t bow his head during Christian prayers, the only child not invited to dance class.As the polite ‘50s segued into the racially explosive ‘60s, Jackson, Mississippi, would never be the same. And Edward would escape to the University of Miami in search of a new identity.There, he thought he would find other Jews and finally gain the acceptance he never had. But once again he found himself an outsider — this time as a southerner.A stirring memoir for anyone who’s ever felt a loss of identity or pressure to conform, The Peddler’s Grandson is sure to touch readers everywhere who have grappled with who they are.