Book picks similar to
Broken Home by Roberta Kray
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White Oleander
Janet Fitch - 1999
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.
Annabel Lee
Mike Nappa - 2016
That secret's name is Annabel Lee Truckson, and even she doesn't know why her mysterious uncle has stowed her deep underground in a military-style bunker. He's left her with a few German words, a barely-controlled guard dog, and a single command: "Don't open that door for anybody, you got it? Not even me."Above ground, a former Army sniper called The Mute and an enigmatic "Dr. Smith" know about the girl. As the race begins to find her, the tension builds. Who wants to set her free? Why does the other want to keep her captive forever? Who will reach her first?Private investigators Trudi Coffey and Samuel Hill need to piece together the clues and stay alive long enough to retrieve the girl--before it's too late.With its stunning writing and relentless pace, Annabel Lee will captivate readers from the first page.
Love in the Present Tense
Catherine Ryan Hyde - 2006
Life has given her every reason to mistrust people, but circumstances force her to trust her neighbor Mitch with watching Leonard while she goes off to work. Then one day Pearl drops her son off…and never returns. They are an unlikely pair: Mitch is a young, unattached business owner, and Leonard is a precocious, five-year-old boy. But together they must find a way to move forward in the wake of Pearl’s unexplained disappearance. Their bond as parent and child shifts and endures, even as Mitch must eventually surrender Leonard to a two-parent home.Is it possible to love the people who can’t always be there for us? The answers will surprise and move you. As their lives unfold, profound questions emerge about the nature of love and family. Ultimately, this novel’s richest reward is watching Mitch and Leonard grow up together, through the power and the magic of the human heart.
White Lines
Tracy Brown - 2007
She partied hard, and life seemed good when she was with Born, the neighborhood kingpin whose name was synonymous with money, power, and respect. But all his love couldn't save her from a crack addiction. Jada goes from crack addict and prostitute to survivor and back again before she finds the strength to live for herself and come out on top. And her stormy romance with one of the fiercest hustlers on the streets makes White Lines one of the most unforgettable urban loves stories of the year.
The Sun and Her Flowers
Rupi Kaur - 2017
A vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing. Ancestry and honoring one’s roots. Expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself.Divided into five chapters and illustrated by Kaur, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms. this is the recipe of lifesaid my motheras she held me in her arms as i wept think of those flowers you plantin the garden each year they will teach youthat people toomust wiltfallrootrisein order to bloom
Goodbye, Perfect
Sara Barnard - 2018
. . Now you are wild - what am I? Eden McKinley knows she can’t count on much in this world, but she can depend on Bonnie, her solid, steady, straight-A best friend. So it’s a complete shock when, five days before the start of their GCSEs, Bonnie runs away with a guy Eden knows nothing about. And it's the last person she would ever have expected.As the days pass, and her world begins to unravel, Eden is forced to question everything she thought she knew about her best friend and herself.
Daughter
Jane Shemilt - 2014
The authorities launch a nationwide search with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken.As the months pass, the worst-case scenarios—kidnapping, murder—seem less plausible. The trail has gone cold. Yet for a desperate Jenny, the search has barely begun. More than a year after her daughter’s disappearance, she’s still digging for answers—and what she finds disturbs her. Everyone she’s trusted, everyone she thought she knew, has been keeping secrets, especially Naomi. Piecing together the traces her daughter left behind, Jenny discovers a very different Naomi from the girl she thought she’d raised.
Fallen Angel
Kevin Lewis - 2008
A single mum and former child from the grim Blenheim estate, she knows only too well what terrors the world can hold. But even her jaded eyes have never witnessed a crime of such unspeakable horror.A body, broken and lifeless, is found in the gloom of a London church. Kidnapped and horrifically murdered, young Daniel Wright never knew his tormentor. And it is only the beginning. Soon Collins finds herself both haunted by the demons of her past and battling in the name of innocence itself.Some angels never find their path to heaven . . .
Beartown
Fredrik Backman - 2016
A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.
Don't Wake Up
Liz Lawler - 2017
Ostracised by her colleagues, her family and her partner, she begins to wonder if she really is losing her mind.And then she meets the next victim.So compulsive you can't stop reading.So chilling you won't stop talking about it.A pitch-black and devastatingly original psychological thriller.
Pretty Little Wife
Darby Kane - 2020
Lila isn’t what she seems. A student vanished months ago. Now, Lila’s husband, Aaron, is also missing. At first these cases are treated as horrible coincidences until it’s discovered the student is really the third of three unexplained disappearances over the last few years. The police are desperate to find the connection, if there even is one. Little do they know they might be stumbling over only part of the truth….With the small town in an uproar, everyone is worried about the whereabouts of their beloved high school teacher. Everyone except Lila, his wife. She’s definitely confused about her missing husband but only because she was the last person to see his body, and now it’s gone.
The Secret-Keeper
Chris Zimmerman - 2005
By the time he ran for help, they chased him from Hemingway's Walloon Lake to the sultry sands of the Caribbean. Snubbed by the authorities, scorned by his patients, he turns to the woman of his future with ties to his past. They all had a secret to tell; they all had a secret to keep. Find out what it was. Chris Zimmerman at his unbridled best: another devilishly clever tale of revenge, adventure, and romance, set amidst northern Michigan's most familiar landmarks. Cut from the same cloth as Intentional Acts, Zimmerman's second work, The Secret-Keeper, takes you on a whirlwind ride of a Mt. Pleasant widower and his quest to avenge his wife's death.
The Secrets We Keep
Jonathan Harvey - 2015
It's made me quite famous. I just wish it was for something else. He went out five years ago for a pint of milk and never came back. So here I am with a daughter who blames me for all that's wrong in the world, a son trying his best to pick up the pieces and a gaggle of new neighbours who are over friendly, and incredibly nosy. Then I find a left luggage ticket in the pocket of one of his old coats and suddenly I'm thinking... What's if he's not dead? What if he's still out there somewhere?You think you have the perfect life, the perfect kids, and then it's all turned inside out. What if I don't like what I find? And is it a chance I'm willing to take?
Necessary People
Anna Pitoniak - 2019
One of them wants it all. But they can't both win. Stella and Violet are best friends, and from the moment they met in college, they knew their roles. Beautiful, privileged, and reckless Stella lives in the spotlight. Hardworking, laser-focused Violet stays behind the scenes, always ready to clean up the mess that Stella inevitably leaves in her wake.After graduation, Violet moves to New York and lands a job in cable news, where she works her way up from intern to assistant to producer, and to a life where she's finally free from Stella's shadow. In this fast-paced world, Violet thrives, and her ambitions grow -- but everything is jeopardized when Stella, envious of Violet's new life, uses her connections, beauty, and charisma to get hired at the same network. Stella soon moves in front of the camera, becoming the public face of the stories that Violet has worked tirelessly to produce -- and taking all the credit. Stella might be the one with the rich family and the right friends, but Violet isn't giving up so easily. As she and Stella strive for success, each reveals just how far she'll go to get what she wants -- even if it means destroying the other person along the way.
The Marlow Chronicles
Lawrence Sanders - 1977
In this thrilling drama of revenge and desire, he introduces a deadly twist -- a brilliant actor, cast in the most demanding role of his career: his own death.