Two Roads


Chris Crowe - 1994
    It was the night everything changed. It was the night Leisel died.Now, two years later, as Jared reflects on his life, he can't help but wonder at the chain reaction of choices that led him to this: a black nametag and a calling to serve as a missionary of God.It had been Leisel who had first sparked Jared's interest in the gospel. She and Rob had befriended Jared early on in his senior year of high school. But even as all of Rob's choices seem to be leading him away from the Church, all of Jared's choices were drawing him closer to it--and to Leisel. And on the night of the horrible crash, Jared finally understands how life-changing the consequences of a choice can be.

The Land of Women


Regina McBride - 2003
     She tries to remember her mother's voice and the pitch and treble of it passes through her; the rhythm of it so clear that for a moment they are...connected by frail strings. So begins The Land of Women, and we are swept into Fiona O'Faolain's last summer in Ireland, the season of her burgeoning sexuality. It is a time, too, when mother and daughter step toward friendship among the voluminous gowns they make for local brides. Yet that giddy summer also delivers betrayal. Fiona's journey from the shame that ended her girlhood takes her to Santa Fe and to Carlos Aragon, a restorer of antiquities, whose ancestry is mysteriously linked to hers. As he explores their pasts with the precision of an artisan, Fiona must face her excruciating memory. In The Land of Women the past lives in the present, and physical and emotional geography touch.

Summary of Fates and Furies: A Novel by Lauren Groff | Summary & Analysis


aBookaDay - 2015
    If you have not yet bought the original copy, make sure to purchase it before buying this unofficial summary from aBookaDay. SPECIAL OFFER $2.99 (Regularly priced: $3.99) SUMMARY/SYNOPSIS INTRO Fates and Furies is not a story about a marriage – it is a story about two people and how their marriage determines the trajectory of their lives. Lotto – short for Lancelot - and Mathilde seem like the perfect dream team when they first elope in their final year of college. Lotto is the tall and charismatic pack leader, who plans to pursue a career on the stage. Mathilde is a tall, blonde scholarship student. Theirs is a love story that inspires jealousy from all who know them. But as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Lotto and Mathilde have two very different perspectives of a shared life – and some of the secrets they hide from each other could have explosive consequences. Piece by piece, truth is revealed, and there is plenty of romance, intrigue and heartbreak to fill several marriages. This is an ambitious and dynamic novel, and Groff executes exquisite prose. Lotto and Mathilde are protagonists who will not be soon forgotten. Available on PC, Mac, smart phone, tablet or Kindle device. © 2015 All Rights Reserved

PATNA BLUES


Abdullah Khan - 2018
    His once prosperous landowning family has slipped low down the class ladder. Arif ’s sole ambition in life is to crack the civil service examination and become an IAS officer. He believes this will restore the family’s fortunes and works hard at his studies. Until his first glimpse of Sumitra, a voluptuous long-haired beauty. Married, Hindu and several years older than him, she is wrong for him in every way. It is the beginning of an infatuation that will consume his life.‘Reading Patna Blues is like pedalling your way through a littleknown India. It is certain to fill you with inexplicably candid and absolutely stunning tales. Patna Blues marks an impressive debut and brings us an important voice.’ —Anees Salim‘I am familiar not only with the places where this novel is set, the cramped rooms, the names of shops, or the streets, but, it seems to me, even the people, their little joys, their struggles, their often irrational hopes and desires, their guilt, and their beauty. Part literary novel, part-pulp fiction, Patna Blues is a report from a rarely seen world in Indian writing in English, the contemporary lives of provincial Muslims.’ —Amitava Kumar

East of Eden


John Steinbeck - 1952
    Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.

For Whom the Bell Tolls


Ernest Hemingway - 1940
    Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.

Breakfast of Champions


Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - 1973
    What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.

Catch-22


Joseph Heller - 1961
    In recent years it has been named to “best novels” lists by Time, Newsweek, the Modern Library, and the London Observer.Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.

Powerless – the year the lights went out


Suzanne Goldring - 2016
    There is no mains water, no petrol and no news. Towns and cities are chaotic and dangerous. Who will survive the months ahead without electricity? But out in the country, Sandra is determined to keep going. Can she keep her family healthy through the long, wet winter? And can they all adapt to life without power?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest


Ken Kesey - 1962
    But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.

White Banners


Lloyd C. Douglas - 1936
    Douglas, was an American minister and author. He was born in Columbia City, Indiana, spent part of his boyhood in Monroeville, Indiana, Wilmot, Indiana and Florence, Kentucky, where his father, Alexander Jackson Douglas, was pastor of the Hopeful Lutheran Church. Douglas was one of the most popular American authors of his time, although he did not write his first novel until he was 50.

The End of an Error


Mameve Medwed - 2003
    That was 25 years ago. Since then she has married another man, had three children and lives a nice comfortable life. However, when the opportunity arises to see Simon again, she realises that she must do it.

Children of Sugarcane


Joanne Joseph - 2021
    

A Painted Smile


B.M. Hardin - 2015
    For Storm Rivers, this very statement had recently become the story of her life. Storm's life had never been all bad; but meeting Jasper Goodson, had definitely put the cherry on the top. Life was better than ever. She was happy and she was in love. And the man of her dreams was Perfect...or was he? What goes on behind a closed door---stays behind a closed door. Storm lived by this motto and as truths about her Mr. Perfect start to unfold, Storm finds herself in a sticky situation and a tug-a-war of what's right...and what's wrong. What is she hiding? Well, you'll have to overlook the Painted Smile on her face to find out.

The Stranger's Bedroom


Bijoy Munshi - 2019
    He has been muttering two names in his sleep: Kriti and Rohan. Ravish is an introvert associated with the technology world. Neha is an outrageously curious woman and a firm optimist.What brings them together? Who are Kriti and Rohan and what’s their story?Welcome to this tale of emotions and the fight against consequences of our desire