Now and Then


Brenda Rothert - 2013
    But then – in the years before she went to art school in Paris – she was a shy, awkward teenager with frizzy hair, a flat chest and a massive crush on the boy across the street, Cole Marlowe. Too bad her incredibly hot neighbor only had eyes for Layla.Cole is now a confident, laid-back attorney who’s even hotter than he used to be. He’s planning to stay single while working his way up the corporate ladder – until he’s knocked off course by a chance run-in with Emma.Everything is different between Cole and Emma now. He finally sees her in a way she only dreamed of, and their hot chemistry is fueled by a growing friendship. But Emma’s deception of her sister – who wants Cole for herself – and the secret Cole’s been keeping for more than a decade threaten to tear apart what’s only just begun. Because sometimes the only thing standing in the way of now is then.

London Belongs to Me


Jacquelyn Middleton - 2016
    Same Old Demons.Your flight is now boarding! Join Alex Sinclair for a life-changing, trans-Atlantic journey. London Belongs to Me is a coming-of-age story about friendship, following your dreams, and learning when to let go … and when to hang on.Meet Alex, a recent college graduate from Tallahassee, Florida in love with London, pop culture, and comic cons. It’s not easy being twenty-one-years-old, and Alex has never been the most popular girl. She’s an outsider, a geeky fangirl … with dreams of becoming a playwright in a city she’s loved from afar, but never visited. Fleeing America after a devastating betrayal, she believes London is where she’ll be understood, where she belongs. But Alex’s past of panic attacks and broken relationships is hard to escape. When her demons team up with a jealous rival determined to destroy her new British life, Alex begins to question everything: her life-long dream, her new friends, and whether London is where she truly belongs.

Tucker


Juliana Stone - 2014
    After a tragedy, it’s just not in the cards for him, and he wishes his family would get off his back. He’s fine—or at least he thought he was–until a family wedding forces him to address a few things, namely his date, Abby Mathews. She’s been put in the ‘friend’ category, mostly because she deserves so much more than what he can give. But the more time that he spends with her, Tucker begins to think that maybe there is a chance for love after all…Abby Mathews has been in love with Tucker Simon since he walked into her family’s bar nearly a year ago. But he’s got baggage and heartache a plenty. His one-night-stands aren't going to lessen that no matter what he thinks. Tucker needs a friend, but Abby wants to give him more, and as they navigate their way through a weekend in Florida, their attraction can’t be ignored. Abby has to make a choice. Does she cherish their friendship and take what she can get? Or does she go after what she really wants, which is Tucker’s heart…

When All Is Said


Anne Griffin - 2019
    The story of a lifetime.If you had to pick five people to sum up your life, who would they be? If you were to raise a glass to each of them, what would you say? And what would you learn about yourself, when all is said and done?This is the story of Maurice Hannigan, who, over the course of a Saturday night in June, orders five different drinks at the Rainford House Hotel. With each he toasts a person vital to him: his doomed older brother, his troubled sister-in-law, his daughter of fifteen minutes, his son far off in America, and his late, lamented wife. And through these people, the ones who left him behind, he tells the story of his own life, with all its regrets and feuds, loves and triumphs.Beautifully written, powerfully felt, When All Is Said promises to be the next great Irish novel.

Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther


Martin Swales - 1987
    Not that it has wanted for spirited advocates; but, despite all efforts, it has remained firmly on the periphery. The one signal exception is Goethe's novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers usually rendered as 'The Sorrows of Young Werther'. Werther was an extraordinary and immediate bestseller both in Germany and abroad.

Georgetown Academy: Season One


Alyssa Embree Schwartz - 2013
    But everyone always has something to hide.THE IT GIRL NEXT DOOREveryone wants a piece of Ellie Walker and her Senator mom, but Ellie’s always been happy to cede the spotlight. Kind-hearted, sweet, and half of G.A.’s perfect power couple, Ellie has it all…until her ex-boyfriend, Gabe, moves back to town and turns her world upside down leaving her to choose between love and loyalty. THE DC PRINCESSBrinley Madison, of those Madisons, relishes her family’s status as the ultimate D.C. insiders. While her political strategist father plays kingmaker, Brinley maneuvers behind the scenes in school and at home. Brinley knows better than to keep a secret that could hurt her family, but sometimes desire turns to addiction, putting the family reputation at risk.THE OUTSIDEREvan Hartnett doesn’t have the typical pedigree of a G.A., student. In fact, she has no pedigree at all. Her academic scholarship may get her access to the classroom, but she’s still on the outside looking in…until a series of unexpected boyfriends rocket her to national attention.THE CALIFORNIA GIRLTaryn Reyes’ laid-back, bohemian vibe doesn’t exactly mesh with her new surroundings, but she’s remarkably secure and unconcerned. But after her first run-in with D.C.’s dirty politics, she finds out that keeping her integrity and her heart intact may be harder than she thinks.

The Sleepwalkers


Hermann Broch - 1932
    Even as he grounded his narratives in the intimate daily life of Germany, Broch was identifying the oceanic changes that would shortly sweep that life into the abyss.Whether he is writing about a neurotic army officer The Romantic, a disgruntled bookkeeper and would-be assassin The Anarchist, or an opportunistic war-deserter The Realist, Broch immerses himself in the twists of his characters psyches, and at the same time soars above them, to produce a prophetic portrait of a world tormented by its loss of faith, morals, and reason.

WAS : A Novel


Geoff Ryman - 1992
    Frank Baum and the strangely resonant 1939 film. WAS traverses the American landscape to reveal how the human imagination transcends the bleakest circumstance.

A Life Without Water


Marci Bolden - 2019
    But on the day before their daughter’s thirtieth birthday, John barges back into Carol’s life with a request that threatens the fragile stability she has built.John Bowman is sick. Very sick. While he still can, he has some amends to make and some promises to fulfill. But to do that, he not only needs his ex-wife’s agreement…he needs her.With the past hovering between them like a ghost, Carol and John embark on a decades-overdue road trip. Together they plunge back into a life without water…but which may ultimately set them free.

The Secret History & The Little Friend


Donna Tartt - 2009
    

Darconville's Cat


Alexander Theroux - 1981
    The satire is broad, and uses southern culture cliches but is often very funny. Some of the names of the girls at the school, for example, are Mimsy Borogoves, Barbara Celarent, and Pengwynn Custiss.The story is said to be based on Theroux's years of teaching at Longwood University, and places described in the book are easily recognized buildings on the campus.[citation needed]

The Image of Her


Sonia Velton - 2021
    When she succumbs to dementia, the pressures on Stella's world intensify, culminating in tragedy. As Stella recovers from a near fatal accident, she feels compelled to share her trauma but she finds talking difficult. In her head she confides in Connie because there's no human being in the world that she feels closer to.Connie is an expat living in Dubai with her partner, Mark, and their two children. On the face of it she wants for nothing and yet ... something about life in this glittering city does not sit well with her. Used to working full time in a career she loves back in England, she struggles to find meaning in the expat life of play-dates and pedicures.Two women set on a collision course. When they finally link up, it will not be in a way that you, or I, or anyone would ever have expected.

Hamnet


Maggie O'Farrell - 2020
    Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet. Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history.A New York Times Notable Book (2020), Best Book of 2020: Guardian, Financial Times, Literary Hub, and NPR.

Deep Blue Sea


Valerie Howard - 2013
    With her marriage, her job, and her sanity in jeopardy, Jamie is desperate to escape everything that reminds her of that fateful night, if only the nightmares would stop haunting her.Widowed pastor Byron Mitchell lost his wife and his son in the same weekend. His wife in a horrible accident, and his son in a heated argument. Desperate to win his son back, no matter the cost, Byron strikes out at every turn until he gets injured trying to stop a bank robbery. Forced to visit him in the hospital, his son makes it clear he doesn't appreciate Byron's intrusion into his life.When Jamie interviews Byron for a magazine article about the shooting, the peace in the pastor's eyes tells her that he might be able to help with her problems, and she's determined to help him reconcile with his long-lost son. As the pastor teaches Jamie about God's forgiveness, she must make the heartbreaking choice between reconciling with her family or keeping her secret forever. Either way, her life will never be the same.Fans of Karen Kingsbury, Lisa Wingate, Cynthia Ruchti, and Katie Powner will also enjoy the true-to-life characters and faith-driven stories written by Valerie Howard. Available in Kindle, paperback, and audiobook format.

The Lesson


Jesse Ball - 2015
    Has her chess champion husband found a final move beyond the grave? A chess fable from the wildly inventive, immensely talented author of A Cure for Suicide and Silence Once Begun, “The Lesson” is a surprising, poignant, macabre tale of games, children, and the unknowability of the beyond. Channeling the chess masterpieces of Nabokov and Stefan Zweig, Jesse Ball's newest is a fabulous and entertaining novella that astonishes from first move to last.