Celestial Bodies


Jokha Alharthi - 2010
    These three women and their families, their losses and loves, unspool beautifully against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Oman, a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present. Through the sisters, we glimpse a society in all its degrees, from the very poorest of the local slave families to those making money through the advent of new wealth.

All I Love and Know


Judith Frank - 2014
    Opposites in many ways, they have grown together and made their relationship work. But when they learn that Daniel's twin brother and sister-in-law have been killed in a bombing in Jerusalem, their lives are suddenly, utterly transformed.In dealing with their families and the need to make a decision about who will raise the deceased couple's two children, both Matthew and Daniel are confronted with challenges that strike at the very heart of their relationship. What is Matthew's place in an extended family that does not completely accept him or the commitment he and Daniel have made? How do Daniel's questions about his identity as a Jewish man affect his life as a gay American? Tensions only intensify when they learn that the deceased parents wanted Matthew and Daniel to adopt the children-six year old Gal, and baby Noam.The impact this instant new family has on Matthew, Daniel, and their relationship is subtle and heartbreaking, yet not without glimmers of hope. They must learn to reinvent and redefine their bond in profound, sometimes painful ways. What kind of parents can these two men really be? How does a family become strong enough to stay together and endure? And are there limits to honesty or commitment-or love?

Days of Longing


Nirmal Verma - 1964
    The professional meeting explodes into an intense, passionate relationship. Prague in winter is a beautiful and moody setting to the feverish love affair. The complicated and inevitably short-lived romance is poignant and deeply moving in its telling by the master of the modern Hindi novel, Nirmal Verma.This book is translation of original novel in Hindi, called Ve Din.

Savvy Sage Online


Richard Sprout - 2020
    Make new friends. Oh, and try not to die.​A first person LitRPG Gamelit Fantasy novel, Savvy Sage Online tells the story of how Nate, a twenty something guy ended up a beta tester for a next generation game system. While inside, he tries builds relationships while avoiding evil sorcerers, deadly monsters and learning how to creatively apply his new magical skills in interesting ways.Once inside the game world, Nate quickly makes friends, first with Roger and then Jenny, a plucky warrior redhead who saves him from becoming cat food. After that, Nate meets Alice, a mage working tables to save for guild dues. When Alice gives Nate a Request, he dives deep magical exploration to help make their ambitious plans come true.Together, the three fight monsters, dive into a dangerous dungeon, learn innovative magical techniques and plot to create a new place of learning for the curious. Debut novel from Richard Sprout, Savvy Sage Online is an original story over 124,000 words in length.Pick up this binge-worthy tale today!Themes from the book: Relationships with women, cultivation of magical skills, settlement building, meta-magic, crafting, gamelit, game mechanics, RPG elements, level progression, exploration, crafting, skill development and more. Savvy Sage Online is a book that will thrill fans of authors like Eric Vall, Logan Jacobs, Noah Layton, Tamryn Tamer, A.J. Markam and Simon Archer, or series like Princess Master, Ex-Supers, Herald of Shalia, Skullduggery, Tribe Master and Forge of the Gods.

All the Summer Girls


Meg Donohue - 2013
    In New York City, beautiful stay-at-home mom Vanessa is obsessively searching the Internet for news of an old flame. And in San Francisco, Dani, the aspiring writer who can't seem to put down a book--or a cocktail--long enough to open her laptop, has just been fired... again.In an effort to regroup, Kate, Vanessa, and Dani retreat to the New Jersey beach town where they once spent their summers. Emboldened by the seductive cadences of the shore, the women being to realize how much their lives, and friendships, have been shaped by the choices they made one fateful night on the beach eight years earlier--and the secrets that only now threaten to surface.

Oracles and Miracles


Stevan Eldred-Grigg - 1988
    This colourful story focuses on the relationship between the girls as they grow into women and their attempt to escape their impoverished background.The story is alternatively narrated by the eloquent Fag and the sensitive Ginnie, as well sections told by an historian and industrial psychologist.

Strangers with the Same Dream


Alison Pick - 2017
    Writing with tightly controlled intensity, Alison Pick takes us inside the minds of her vastly different characters--two young unmarried women, one plain and one beautiful, escaping peril in Russia and Europe; one older man, a charismatic group leader who is married with two children; and his wife, Hannah, who understands all too well the dark side of "equality"--to show us how idealism quickly tumbles into pragmatism, and how the utopian dream is punctured by messy human entanglements. This is also the story of the land itself (present-day Israel and Palestine), revealing with compassion and terrible irony how the pioneers chose to ignore the subtle but undeniable fact that their valley was already populated, home to a people whose lives they did not entirely understand.Writing with extraordinary power, Pick creates unforgettably human characters who, isolated in the enclosure of their hard-won utopian dream, are haunted by ghosts, compromised by unbearable secrets, and finally, despite flashes of love and hope, worn down by hardship, human frailty, and the pull of violent confrontation. The novel's utterly shocking but satisfying conclusion will have readers flipping back to the first page to trace patterns and wrestle with the question of what is, or is not, inevitable and knowable in the human heart.