He's intent on convincing her to pursue a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - in America. What's more, it looks like Caroline's career isn't the only thing Morgan is interested in.Newlyweds Chris and Deborah Templeton seem to be the perfect union. The old, unpredictable Chris has been replaced by a kinder and gentler man, yet he's still plagued by doubt. Where does Deborah disappear to for days on end? Why won't she tell her husband? After the tragic death of his young grandson, Ron Bissett is further devastated when he loses his wife. Sheila Bissett has taken her own life, and no one can fathom why. But when an unexpected letter is received, it soon becomes clear that Sheila was hiding far darker secrets than anyone ever knew.

    Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida, is tormented by the thought that maybe his aunt is lying to him about how his mother died. To find the truth he has to overcome his fears: the local bully, the large dark shapes that he imagines in the middle of the dock at night, and the thought that maybe his brother is right, he's just a warped kid who thinks too much. Will he find the courage to stand and fight? Q&A with Lawton Paul Q: What sparked this novel? A: Two things. One: I wanted my kids to know where I came from. The very southern setting—North Florida on the St. Johns river, is where I grew up. And I wanted to give them a feel for that time and place. Watching the sunrise on a stinky crab boat in the St. Johns—what could be better? And the second thing: When I'm not writing, I'm teaching kids. I see a lot of young people who have such promise but for some reason or another, give up right before they're about to make headway. I see my own kids struggling at certain points in their lives. And one thought keeps coming back: don't give up. So I wanted Jesse (main character in Seagull) to really have some heavy issues to navigate through: the death of his mother, Johnny the bully, and of course, the girl, Hailey. You'll have to read the book (savvy marketing ploy alert!) to find out how it all turned out for Jesse. Q: Why should readers give this novel a try? A: If I've done my job well, you'll enjoy the ride and maybe even get that little happy-glow feeling at the end like you just watched Rocky again, or someone said your hair looks nice, or you got an “A” on a pre-calc test. (Another genius bit of marketing there.) Q: What kind of book is Seagull? A: It's a coming of age southern novel with a young main character that should appeal to fiction readers of all ages. Younger readers will sympathize with our teen heroes Jesse and Matty and adult readers will be taken back to earlier days. My style has a literary feel, but the story is plot-driven and suspenseful, especially at the end. And even has a hint of romance. Thanks for giving Seagull a try. Please let me know what you thought of it. —Lawton Paul

    An Oscar-winning actress returns to her native Virginia to script the story of the famous mother she barely knew, but she gets more than she bargained for when her uncle presents her with her mother's private journals.

    Theirs is a seemingly idyllic life of summer softball games and Labor Day cookouts, snow days and skating on the pond. But when a tragic accident permanently injures the family’s youngest child, Eleanor blames Cam. Her inability to forgive him leads to a devastating betrayal: an affair with the family babysitter that brings about the end of their marriage.Over the decades that follow, the five members of this fractured family—and the many others who make up their world—make surprising discoveries and decisions that occasionally bring them together, and often tear them apart. As we follow the family from the days of illegal abortion and the draft through the early computer age, the Challenger explosion, the AIDS epidemic, the early awakenings of the #MeToo era, and beyond, through the gender transition of one of the children and another’s choice to cease communication with her mother, we witness a family forced to confront essential, painful truths of its past and find redemption in the face of unanticipated disaster.With endearingly flawed characters and a keen eye for detail, Joyce Maynard transforms the territory she knows best—home, family, parenthood, love, and loss—into the stuff of a page-turning thriller. In this achingly beautiful novel, she reminds us how great sorrow and great joy may coexist—and frequently do.

    Every night, before she puts them to bed, she whispers to them: “You are good, you are kind, you are clever, you are funny.” She’s determined that they never doubt for a minute that their mother loves them unconditionally. After all, her own mother Jeanie had died when she was only seven years old and Faye has never gotten over that intense pain of losing her.But one day, her life is turned upside down when she finds herself in 1977, the year before her mother died. Suddenly, she has the chance to reconnect with her long-lost mother, and even meets her own younger self, a little girl she can barely remember. Jeanie doesn’t recognize Faye as her daughter, of course, even though there is something eerily familiar about her...As the two women become close friends, they share many secrets—but Faye is terrified of revealing the truth about her identity. Will it prevent her from returning to her own time and her beloved husband and daughters? What if she’s doomed to remain in the past forever? Faye knows that eventually she will have to choose between those she loves in the past and those she loves in the here and now, and that knowledge presents her with an impossible choice.Emotionally gripping and ineffably sweet Faye, Faraway is a brilliant exploration of the grief associated with unimaginable loss and the magic of being healed by love.

    When Dan’s longtime friend and boss, Olivia Whitmore, fires Dan from RadioRadio, the company that he helped create, he crashes and isolates himself.Willow, a poet and domestic violence survivor, helps Dan regain his footing. With her support, Dan ventures on a pilgrimage of sorts, visiting Fortune 500 companies to flesh out a software start-up idea. When Dan returns home with a fully formed vision, he recruits the help of three former RadioRadio colleagues and starts Conversationworks, a company he believes will be at the vanguard of social change.Guided by Dan’s generative leadership, Conversationworks enjoys some early successes, but its existence is soon threatened on multiple fronts. Will Dan survive the ensuing corporate battles and realize the potential of his company? Or will he be defeated by his enemies and consumed by his grief?

    That's the problem. Jane Desmond feels like a failure. Sure, she has a good job and a roof over her head, but nothing else seems to ever go her way. Unwanted attention from an infatuated coworker and meddlesome matchmaking from her mother has her professional and social life in tatters. When her best friend Thea loses her job a few days after purchasing her dream home, Jane steps in to help. But when her good intentions backfire, she realizes she’ll need to make a few sacrifices to find happiness for both of them. Before Jane can follow her dreams, she may just need to risk everything she knows… I’ll Know Me When I Find Me is a novel for the modern, career-minded woman. If you like well-rounded characters, relatable situations, and energetic prose, then you’ll love this women’s fiction tale of self-discovery from Helen J. Darling.

    ‘Chick Pea Curry’ Lit, Chick Lit with an Indian twist​ It all started ended with that box… Aashi’s life was all set.Or so she thought.Like in the Bollywood films, Ravi would woo her, charm her family and they’d get married and live happily ever after. But then Aashi found the empty condom box... Putting her ex-fiancé and her innocence behind her, Aashi embarks upon an enlightening journey, to another country, where vibrant memories are created, and unforgettable friendships forged.Old images erased, new beginnings to explore. And how can she forget the handsome stranger she meets? A stranger who’s hiding something…

    Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...'For Leila, each minute after her death brings a sensuous memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which the women use to wax their legs while the men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that Leila shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends she made at each key moment in her life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her. . .

    She’s off to Provence to write the autobiography of a famous film star and she’ll be staying in the stunning chateau!So when she meets charming (and completely gorgeous) lavender farmer, Gavin, she knows that she’s made the right choice – even if glamourous, elderly Anabelle seems to be hiding something…But when the sun is shining, the food is delicious and the air smells of honey, anything seems possible. Will the magic of Provence help Faye finally find a happy-ever-after of her own?

    But everything she thought she knew about herself, her marriage, and her relationship with her best friend, Margot, is upended when she stumbles upon an envelope containing her husband’s wedding ring—the one he claimed he lost one summer when their daughter, Ruby, was five.Flora and Julian struggled for years, scraping together just enough acting work to raise Ruby in Manhattan and keep Julian’s small theater company—Good Company—afloat. A move to Los Angeles brought their first real career successes, a chance to breathe easier, and a reunion with Margot, now a bona fide television star. But has their new life been built on lies? What happened that summer all those years ago? And what happens now?With Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s signature tenderness, humor, and insight, Good Company tells a bighearted story of the lifelong relationships that both wound and heal us.

    Tom’s lost his job and now he’s been labelled useless. It’s surprisingly easy to set up a double life but rather harder to keep the deceit going. As Tom’s identity threatens to unravel, he starts to lose the plot… All the while, it turns out that one of Tom’s nearest and dearest has been leading his own double life – though for very different reasons.  This book tackles hard issues such as depression, dysfunctional families and degenerative diseases in an honest, life-affirming and often humorous way. It focuses particularly on the challenges of being male in today’s world and explores how our silence on these big issues can help push men to the brink.

    She won’t submit to a lifetime of subservience. When her father dies, she sets out on her own, pursuing the power she believes to be her birthright, dreaming of the Roman Empire’s downfall and her ascendance to the throne.Defying her family, Zenobia arranges her own marriage to the most influential man in the city of Palmyra. But their union is anything but peaceful—his other wife begrudges the marriage and the birth of Zenobia’s son, and Zenobia finds herself ever more drawn to her guardsman, Zabdas. As war breaks out, she’s faced with terrible choices.From the decadent halls of Rome to the golden sands of Egypt, Zenobia fights for power, for love, and for her son. But will her hubris draw the wrath of the gods? Will she learn a “woman’s place,” or can she finally stake her claim as Empress of the East?

    Seven years later they are now twenty-five, married, and living in Maine–– but the two women couldn’t be more different. Brynne finds fulfillment in her life as a wife, mother and owner of a small café and bookshop, but is struggling to expand her family. Portland is still coping with her mother’s death during her childhood, and her marriage is unraveling before her eyes. Portland envies her friend’s seemingly stable and easy life while Brynne doesn’t understand the growing distance between them and cannot begin to guess what secret Portland is hiding about her husband and crumbling marriage. While one woman feels shut out, the other enters into a web of lies to protect herself. A Questionable Friendship explores what really makes someone a true friend, a support system, a sister. How much trust goes into a friendship and when is being a friend not enough? Brynne and Portland’s story will attempt to answer those questions, and show that happily ever after isn’t in the cards for everyone.

    Everyone in town, even her best friend, Andy, thinks grief keeps her locked inside, and Evvie doesn’t correct them.Meanwhile, in New York City, Dean Tenney, former Major League pitcher and Andy’s childhood best friend, is wrestling with what miserable athletes living out their worst nightmares call the “yips”: he can’t throw straight anymore, and, even worse, he can’t figure out why. As the media storm heats up, an invitation from Andy to stay in Maine seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button on Dean’s future.When he moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie’s house, the two make a deal: Dean won’t ask about Evvie’s late husband, and Evvie won’t ask about Dean’s baseball career. Rules, though, have a funny way of being broken—and what starts as an unexpected friendship soon turns into something more. To move forward, Evvie and Dean will have to reckon with their pasts—the friendships they’ve damaged, the secrets they’ve kept—but in life, as in baseball, there’s always a chance—up until the last out.