Book picks similar to
Living After Midnight by Lee K. Abbott


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Just In Case


Chrissie Manby - 2014
    Though they were born within three minutes of each other and spent their childhoods dressed in matching outfits, they’ve grown up to have less in common than Kim Kardashian and the Duchess of Cambridge. So both women are horrified when a luggage mix-up means that sensible Clare must attend a company conference in the United States with Rosie’s suitcase full of pink, frills and stripper heels, while flamboyant Rosie heads for a friend’s destination wedding in Italy's Tuscany with Clare’s case full of suiting and sensible courts. Both believe wearing the other’s clothes is going to ruin their chances: Clare’s of getting a promotion and Rosie’s of getting a snog. But as three days of literally having to walk in each other’s shoes unfold, will the sisters discover they should try to be more like each other after all? This exclusive new novella (short novel at around 100 pages) by Chrissie Manby explores sisterhood, identity and love in a thoroughly summery way.

You Remind Me of Me


Dan Chaon - 2004
    He is a writer, observes the "Chicago Tribune," who can "convincingly squeeze whole lives into a mere twenty pages or so." Now Chaon marshals his notable talents in his much-anticipated debut novel. "You Remind Me of Me" begins with a series of separate incidents: In 1977, a little boy is savagely attacked by his mother's pet Doberman; in 1997 another little boy disappears from his grandmother's backyard on a sunny summer morning; in 1966, a pregnant teenager admits herself to a maternity home, with the intention of giving her child up for adoption; in 1991, a young man drifts toward a career as a drug dealer, even as he hopes for something better. With penetrating insight and a deep devotion to his characters, Dan Chaon" "explores the secret connections that irrevocably link them. In the process he examines questions of identity, fate, and circumstance: Why do we become the people that we become? How do we end up stuck in lives that we never wanted? And can we change the course of what seems inevitable? In language that is both unflinching and exquisite, Chaon moves deftly between the past and the present in the small-town prairie Midwest and shows us the extraordinary lives of "ordinary" people.

A Christmas Miracle


S.J. Hermann - 2018
    Having lost faith in the most magical part of the year, her father, Jim, desperately tries to bring back the magic she has lost. When an unforeseen change of events takes over their little family on the morning of Christmas Eve, Jim's faith and spirits are really put to the test. Will the magic of Christmas be enough to bring back the joy to their family once more? Or will they really depend on a Christmas miracle?

Evidence of the Affair


Taylor Jenkins Reid - 2018
    Even though I do not know you…The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here.Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.

Oh, to Be A Blobel!


Philip K. Dick - 1964
    Arrasmith was his opposite, a Blobel spy on earth who was unwilling to return to Titan due to the shame of being in human form for almost three quarters of each day.The story deals with the ramifications for the agents' personal and social identity from this alteration.Author quote: "Here I nailed down the ultimate meaningless irony of war; the human turns into a Blobel and the Blobel, his enemy, turns into a human, and there it all is, the futility, the black humor, the stupidity. And in the story they all wind up happy."

Something Came Through


Joe Hart - 2019
    In “Down In The Valley” a young fire service member discovers the horrifying truth regarding the missing persons in the lonely state park his fire tower watches over. A man whose entire life has been haunted by a hideous childhood event gets a second chance to make things right in “You Can Never Go Back”. And a young woman’s tragic mistake while driving and texting literally comes back to haunt her in “More”. Written in Hart’s hypnotic and unnerving style, Something Came Through features ten new terrifying stories that peel back the surface of everyday life to expose the darkness waiting beneath.