She feel that neither she nor the baby's father can provide adequate care for the child. The Salems adopt the child and raise him as their own for two years--until Lori and her boyfriend decide they want their son back. The dramatic courtroom struggle seems ripped from today's headlines.

    As her parents' marriage disintegrates and her beloved brother falls prey to the temptations of drugs and the lunacy of their mother, Medina surfs to survive, finding a bitter solace in the rough comfort of the waves. This is the moving story of growing up "different," of the love between siblings, and of one girl's power to save herself.

    Included are Stanyan Street, Kearney Street, The Yellow Unicorn, and a selection of lyrics from songs and poems written as early as 1954.

    Rusty, ornery, and down at the heels, Zadoorian's characters have made the wrong choices, been worn down by bad news, or survived traumatic events, but like the city they live in, they are determined not to let tragedy and rotten luck define them. Rich with detail and brimming with feeling, Zadoorian's deceptively simple stories lead readers into the inner lives of those making the best of their flawed surroundings and their own imperfections.Zadoorian's stories are drawn from the everyday events that come to define his characters' lives. A woman responsible for putting down animals at a veterinary clinic travels to Mexico to stage a ritual for her victims, a veteran returns a flag stolen from a Japanese soldier he killed in World War II, an elderly couple takes a final road trip to a mystery spot out west, and a man spends his life waiting to inherit his parents' kitschy 1960s furniture but instead sells it all. Characters also find their lives shaped by seemingly random occurrences, like the junk shop owner who must stop the stranger with a vendetta against him, the woman who becomes obsessed with her in-laws' talking dog, and the urban spelunker who finds love and acceptance with a reader of his blog. Their close connection to Detroit also infuses Zadoorian's stories with themes significant to the city, including issues of racial tension, political unease, and economic hardship.Zadoorian's writing throughout this collection is clear and vivid, never getting in the way of his characters or their stories. The unique but relatable characters and unexpected stories in The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit will appeal to all readers of fiction.

    The acclaimed author of Goldfield and Cashbox now recreates one of the pivotal events in Western American history--the great, gaudy, gold stampede to California in 1848-49--and weaves into this glittering backdrop the stories of two unlikely gold seekers.

    Her pathologist husband, Mark, is distracted by his gorgeous, young intern, while her hotshot new museum director boss doubts Julie's curatorial chops. And Julie's six-year-old son, Jack (born Juan), may never recover from trauma inflicted by early life spent in a Guatemalan orphanage.Then Jack suffers a major health crisis, and everything pales next to saving his life. As much as Julie clings to being Jack's "only" mother, she needs to find his Guatemalan mother to unlock his medical history. Julie hires a professional searcher, and what she learns turns her world upside down. At the same time, Jack's birth mother, an indigenous Ixil Maya, navigates her own tumultuous path, beginning with surviving a horrific massacre.In this gripping tale told from alternating perspectives, both mothers must draw on fierce inner strength to reckon with their life choices.

    Most “Mojavs,” prevented by armed vigilantes from freely crossing borders to lusher regions, have allowed themselves to be evacuated to encampments in the east. Holdouts like Ray and Luz subsist on rationed cola and water, and whatever they can loot, scavenge, and improvise.For the moment, the couple’s fragile love, which somehow blooms in this arid place, seems enough. But when they cross paths with a mysterious child, the thirst for a better future begins. Immensely moving, profoundly disquieting, and mind-blowingly original, Watkins’s novel explores the myths we believe about others and tell about ourselves, the double-edged power of our most cherished relationships, and the shape of hope in a precarious future that may be our own.

    screenwriter, is on the verge of hitting it big when she falls into the grip of drug and alcohol addiction. Her descent into the narcotic underbelly of the city leads her to a commune in the desert, a filthy room at the Chateau Marmont, and, eventually, rehab. Will Leila continue down the dark path of addiction? Or will she make it as a successful writer? Based on the author’s own life, Liana Maeby’s brilliant debut novel is raw and haunting, and simultaneously incredibly astute and humorous. South on Highland explores true identity and questions our culture’s response to addiction and sensationalism.

    Told from the point of view of one of Dunne's most familiar fictional characters-Gus Bailey-Another City, Not My Own tells how Gus, the movers and shakers of Los Angeles, and the city itself are drawn into the vortex of the O.J. Simpson trial. We have met Gus Bailey in previous novels by Dominick Dunne. He is a writer and journalist, father of a murdered child, and chronicler of justice-served or denied-as it relates to the rich and famous. Now back in Los Angeles, a city that once adored him and later shunned him, Gus is caught up in what soon becomes a national obsession. Using real names and places, Dunne interweaves the story of the trial with the personal trials Gus endures as he faces his own mortality. By day, Gus is at the courthouse, the confidant of the Goldman and Simpson families, the lawyers, the journalists, the hangers-on, even the judge; at night he is the honored guest at the most dazzling gatherings in town as everyone-from Kirk Douglas to Heidi Fleiss, from Elizabeth Taylor to Nancy Reagan-delights in the latest news from the corridors of the courthouse. Another City, Not My Own does what no other book on this sensational case has been able to do because of Dominick Dunne's unique ability to probe the sensibilities of participants and observers. This book illuminates the meaning of guilt and innocence in America today. A vivid, revealing achievement, Another City, Not My Own is Dominick Dunne at his best. From the Hardcover edition.

    She lusts after Lev, a Russian man who frequents the Twin Palms nightclub down the block from Anya's apartment. It is Anya's wish to gain entrance to this seemingly exclusive club. How To Get Into the Twin Palms is a really funny and often moving book that provides a unique twist on the immigrant story, and provides a credible portrait of the city of Los Angeles, literally burning to the ground.

    After all, outside there are 8-inch-high curbs and there's always the horrible chance he might see a gas station attendant wearing a blue hat. So, except for the occasional trip to the Rite Aid to admire the California girl Zandy and to buy earplugs because they're on sale, he stays home a lot. And a good thing too, or he would have never been falsely implicated in a murder, never almost seduced Philipa, never done the impossible task of jogging around the block with Brian, never ironed his pillows, and he might never have won the Most Average American essay contest. The Pleasure of My Company is the chronicle of a modern-day neurotic yearning to break free.

    A dazzling tour de force, Bright Shiny Morning illuminates the joys, horrors, and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles.

    An American neighborhood like any other, sheltered in the seeming tranquillity of the 1950s. Except it exists on the island of Alcatraz, the Rock, where a looming cellhouse imprisons the most vicious and irredeemable of America's criminals. Olivia grows up here and watches as her family slowly falls apart, trapped in its own prison rules and silences. She watches the disintegration of her mother, a brilliant woman isolated in a role that closes in on her as inexorably as the metallic crash of any cell door. Olivia can only watch, and retreat into herself, for she's only a little girl; there's no escape for her from the island she calls home.

    For neurotic, depressed Sam, new to Los Angeles after his life in New York imploded, the possibility of total transformation is utterly tantalizing. He’s desperate for something to believe in, and the shaman—who promises ancient rituals, plant medicine and encounters with the divine—seems convincing, enough for Sam to sign up for a weekend under his care. But are the great spirits the shaman says he’s summoning real at all? Or are the ghosts in Sam’s memory more powerful than any magic?At turns tender and acid, funny and wise, Broken People is a journey into the nature of truth and fiction—a story of discovering hope amid cynicism, intimacy within chaos and peace in our own skin.

    Lacey is unsure of what she is looking for out west—love? a new career? an escape from her fractured family?—but is reassured when Toby proposes on her thirtieth birthday. “I was thirty and I finally knew what I was doing,” she says.In California, which Lacey calls “the edge of the earth,” she has the giddy, anticipatory feeling that anything can happen—opportunity looms large, and her life may yet turn out the way she wants it to. But soon in her marriage with Toby, from their awkward honeymoon in Paris to their desperate attempts to build careers, Lacey knows that something is wrong. Toby, unemployed, becomes a permanent fixture on the couch, and things are no better at Lacey’s TV job, where a pit bull stalks her, colleagues tyrannize her, and her boss hits on her. Meanwhile, her twin brother has dropped off the face of the earth, and Lacey begins to wonder whether she and Toby should start a family if she can’t even figure out her own. It is only after Lacey has given up on both L.A. and love that she gets an unexpected shot at happiness.Rich with wry humor and wisdom, Deirdre Shaw’s novel deftly portrays a relatable, unforgettable character in Lacey Brennan, who, after a five-year quest for love and belonging, finds she must live in the moment in order to understand her past and face her future.