Tiny, warm-hearted, totally devoted to her charming rogue of a husband, Lizzie mothers her brood of nephews and nieces through the perils of the war-torn capital, makes a home for them in the bomb shelters of underground London, launches them on the roller-coaster of life and stands by with help and encouragement.For Lizzie is a survivor, an irresistible heroine with the unquenchable optimism, the great heart, the indomitable courage that sum up the spirit of the East End.

    But Jonathan heeds the counsel of his father, an unscrupulous lawyer, to marry a cousin of greater wealth and position, and Susanna is forced to endure grueling labor in a cotton mill far from her remaining family. When she and her best friend, Jane, become involved with the Mormon Church and are thus dismissed from employment, they use their meager savings for travel to New York, where they join a company of Saints bound for California. Yet Susanna’s efforts to build a new life are marked by continued misfortune — and continued encounters with Jonathan. Now a wealthy widower, Jonathan offers Susanna safe haven for the future, but can she forgive him for abandoning her in the past?

    Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.Now ninety-five years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time," she muses. "After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is." Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.

    Ariah, "the Widow Bride of the Falls," begins a relentless seven-day vigil in the mist, waiting for his body to be found. At her side is confirmed bachelor and pillar of the community Dirk Burnaby, who is unexpectedly drawn to this plain, strange woman. What follows is a passionate love affair, marriage, and family--a seemingly perfect existence. But the tragedy by which they were thrown together begins to shadow them, damaging their idyll with distrust, greed, and even murder. Set against the mythic-historic backdrop of Niagara Falls in the mid-twentieth century, this haunting exploration of the American family in crisis is a stunning achievement from "one of the great artistic forces of our time" (The Nation).

    Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts', suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage. Witty, moving, and brilliantly entertaining, Cora's story marks the debut of a glorious storyteller who brings a fresh new spirit to the world of Edith Wharton and Henry James.

    After hard luck and some bad choices, Sunny has finally found a place to call home — it just happens to be in the middle of a war zone.The thirty-eight-year-old American’s pride and joy is the Kabul Coffee House, where she brings hospitality to the expatriates, misfits, missionaries, and mercenaries who stroll through its doors. She’s especially grateful that the busy days allow her to forget Tommy, the love of her life, who left her in pursuit of money and adventure.Working alongside Sunny is the maternal Halajan, who vividly recalls the days before the Taliban and now must hide a modern romance from her ultratraditional son — who, unbeknownst to her, is facing his own religious doubts. Into the café come Isabel, a British journalist on the trail of a risky story; Jack, who left his family back home in Michigan to earn “danger pay” as a consultant; and Candace, a wealthy and well-connected American whose desire to help threatens to cloud her judgment. When Yazmina, a young Afghan from a remote village, is kidnapped and left on a city street pregnant and alone, Sunny welcomes her into the café and gives her a home — but Yazmina hides a secret that could put all their lives in jeopardy.As this group of men and women discover that there’s more to one another than meets the eye, they’ll form an unlikely friendship that will change not only their own lives but the lives of an entire country.Brimming with Deborah Rodriguez’s remarkable gift for depicting the nuances of life in Kabul, and filled with vibrant characters that readers will truly care about, A Cup of Friendship is the best kind of fiction—full of heart yet smart and thought-provoking.

    The university lecturer has got her man, her dress and her hopes of a long and happy life with stockbroker Jeff. But the man of her dreams isn't all that he seems, and before long dark clouds are gathering on the horizon...Sadly, Laura has little option but to end her marriage. But leaving Jeff doesn't bring an end to the heartache. In fact, the nightmare is only beginning. Jeff seems to be everywhere, and his vindictiveness knows no bounds...A bewildered Laura finds herself cornered and vulnerable as her life spirals out of control.But the seeds of Laura's present dilemma may well be rooted in her past, a past she knows little about. And that lack of knowledge could lead to her downfall, or even her death. What can Jeff possibly know about her past? And how can Laura fight back, when she doesn't even know what she's fighting for - or why?

    Born with a congenital heart defect, Rachel is a veteran of hospitals, and she's intrigued by the boy who shows up all alone with a broken arm. He tells her his name. She tells him a story. After Andy's taken back to the emergency room and Rachel's sent back to her bed, they think they'll never see each other again.Rachel, the beloved, popular, and protected daughter of two doting parents, grows up wanting for nothing in a fancy Florida suburb. Andy grows up poor in Philadelphia with a single mom and a rare talent that will let him become one of the best runners of his generation.Over the course of three decades, through high school and college, marriages and divorces, from the pinnacles of victory and the heartbreak of defeat, Andy and Rachel will find each other again and again, until they are finally given a chance to decide whether love can surmount difference and distance and if they've been running toward each other all along.With honesty, wit, and clear-eyed observations about men and women, love and fate, and the truth about happy endings, Jennifer Weiner delivers two of her most memorable characters, and a love story you'll never forget.

    It relieved the hurt she felt when she overheard Maisie say she preferred her older daughter, Cathryn. Now, Nora lives in Edinburgh, far from her gaudily decorated suburban London home and the volatile Maisie. She is introduced to a circle of friends who all work in the same publisher's offices. In Brendan, the gentle deputy editor, she finds a friend who shares her deprecating humour, and fascination with trivia, as they chat and walk about town. And in Nathan, she finds a lover she adores.Though always braced for betrayal, this time it takes her by storm. It is only when she learns to forgive, and be forgiven, that she begins to come to terms with her past.

    Unlike the younger American Indians who have adopted white civilization, Charlie and his wife cling to the old ways, hunting and fishing in the great swamp and farming a tiny plot of higher ground. Charlie has been diligently teaching his grandson, Timmy, about the swamp and its creatures.But their simple existence is suddenly threatened when a large tract of swamp is bought by a corporation, and Charlie is told that he will have to leave. From his youth, Charlie remembers the slaughter of egrets and alligators by the white man and the logging of the giant cypress. Rather than surrender the land that is his life to this final indignity, Charlie decides to fight back.It is an uneven contest. First come the great machines that silt up the streams; then the workmen inadvertently poison the marsh; and, attempting to sabotage the construction equipment, Charlie’s best friend is killed. Realizing that there can be no compromise with the white man who destroys all he touches, Charlie leaves his family and feels into the swamp, seeking the lost island known in the Seminole legends as Forever Island.

    A prisoner in the camps, Anke Hoff is doing what she can to keep her pregnant campmates and their newborns alive.But when Anke's work is noticed, she is chosen for a task more dangerous than she could ever have imagined. Eva Braun is pregnant with the Führer's child, and Anke is assigned as her midwife.Before long, Anke is faced with an impossible choice. Does she serve the Reich she loathes and keep the baby alive? Or does she sacrifice an innocent child for the good of a broken world?An unforgettable tale of courage, betrayal and survival in the hardest of circumstances, perfect for readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and The Alice Network.

    A successful travel writer, Charlotte lives on the road, while Nicole, a food blogger, lives in Philadelphia with her surgeon-husband, Julian. When Nicole returns to the island house in order to write a book about island food, she invites her old friend Charlotte for both sentimental and practical reasons. Outgoing and passionate, Charlotte has a gift for talking to people and making friends, and Nicole would like her help interviewing locals for her book. Missing a genuine connection, Charlotte agrees. But what both women don't know is that they are each holding a secret that may change their relationship forever. Are the bonds of friendship strong enough to weather past indiscretions and betrayals? Can love survive an honest mistake? Filled with real, gut-wrenching emotion as well as a strong romantic storyline, Sweet Salt Air is a new offering from a beloved storyteller guaranteed to make you laugh and cry.

    But it all went flying out of the window when he moved into Ma Howlett's place, where the rug of his comfortable old habits were yanked from under him, and life became complicated.

    But when Natalie Marx's mother inquires about summer accommodations in Vermont, she gets the following reply: The Inn at Lake Devine is a family-owned resort, which has been in continuous operation since 1922. Our guests who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are Gentiles. For twelve-year-old Natalie, who has a stubborn sense of justice, the words are not a rebuff but an infuriating, irresistible challenge. In this beguiling novel, Elinor Lipman charts her heroine's fixation with a small bastion of genteel anti-Semitism, a fixation that will have wildly unexpected consequences on her romantic life. As Natalie tries to enter the world that has excluded her--and succeeds through the sheerest of accidents--The Inn at Lake Devine becomes a delightful and provocative romantic comedy full of sparkling social mischief.

    The story of Robert Kincaid, the photographer and free spirit searching for the covered bridges of Madison County, and Francesca Johnson, the farm wife waiting for the fulfillment of a girlhood dream, THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY gives voice to the longings of men and women everywhere-and shows us what it is to love and be loved so intensely that life is never the same again.