She hitchhikes as far as the freeway outside a small Northwestern town. The closest thing within walking distance is a strip club, and Janie finds herself working there, where she falls for Paul Jesse, a drug dealer, and moves in with him as he spirals into addiction and physical abuse. As the violence escalates, Janie finds a job in a bookstore and begins to establish her independence. Leaving Paul after a brutal beating, Janie must reconcile their relationship and make the most difficult, most dangerous choice she’ll ever make.Like Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Little Green examines the psychology of a woman who has experienced violence at the hands of someone she loves and the complexity of leaving with sensitivity and insight. This is a life-affirming story about a woman who finds strength in books, in the promise of education, and in the community of friends who help her find a way out.

    

    But in the days after hisfather has a startling accident, Toby makes a series of terrible, wincing choices. As a result, he is fired from his job as an etiquette commentator and loses his superb condo, his beautiful girlfriend and his beloved BMW. Worse still, he must move back to the grey Montreal suburb of Dollard-des-Ormeaux and live in his parents’ basement.With his silent BlackBerry and a sudden absence of friends or saviours, Toby feels he has reached the limits of misery and humiliation. But his father’s increasingly frightening behaviour is where the real trouble—and risk—lies. Who is this man? What can Toby do? Then, in a moment of misplaced gallantry, Toby encounters an unstable francophone mother who disappears and abandons her two-year-old son, Hugo, to his care. Trapped with a toddler and forced to deal with his father’s tragedies, Toby emerges from the basement bungalow of his life—muddy, broke, bruised, heartbroken—but, finally, a man.

    He can identify every car in town from the sound of its engine, but his world is changing faster then he can fathom. His wife has become an artist, selling sea-glass sculptures to tourists. His daughter is bound for college, while his son has turned angry and lawless. Lucky's own heart is failing him, too. An operation has kept it ticking, but he can't run the boat alone any more. As the spring lobster season opens, the only deckhand Lucky can find to help load his traps is Ronette, the not-quite-divorced wife of the local lobster wholesaler. When the two make it out to the fishing grounds, someone else's buoys are bobbing in his ancestral waters. Before he knows it, Lucky is in a lobster war and has abandoned all the rules: family, health, finance, even the rules of the sea that have guided him throughout his life. As waves of trouble turn into a flood tide, Lucky's pride propels him into an epic confrontation with his enemies and a rogue whale -- a battle his unreliable heart may not survive. The Wooden Nickel is a classic story of a man raging against a changing world, full of pathos and comedy. It is a remarkable novel by a writer with a powerful, distinct, and original voice.

    Marks the seasons of the author's life, her early writing, her work as active media practitioner, and her religio-spiritual writing.

    So, with great resourcefulness, she advertised for a companion and eventually staked out a corner of her own—one with a view. Mildred Walker's skill as a storyteller never falters in this portrayal of an elderly woman who won't give up.

    Tess Durbeyfield leaves home on the first of her fateful journeys, and meets the ruthless Alec d'Urberville. Thomas Hardy's impassioned story tells of hope and disappointment, rejection and enduring love.

    After reluctantly taking over his family’s party supply store following his father’s death, he is approached by a terminally ill family friend who’s had enough. The friend, a retired policeman, has an intricate plan involving something Eli has ready access to – helium. Eli is initially shocked and repulsed by the proposal, but soon begins to soften his stance and, after much deliberation, eventually agrees to lend a hand.It was supposed to be a one-time thing. How could Eli have known euthanasia was his true calling? And how long can he keep his daring underground "exit" operation going before the police or his volatile new girlfriend get wise?

    In search of answers, comfort, and advice, she goes on-line. And that's where she, "meets" Susan, a strong and steady, no-frills Midwesterner. No two women could be less alike. Yet from the moment they connect, it is clear that they share something deep and important, something that's nestled in the warmest corner of the heart.What begins as a chance encounter on the Internet quickly blossoms into a very special relationship. As their e-mail messages fly back and forth, Susan and Lara forge a powerful bond of trust, honesty, and understanding. And soon they are sharing their lives in full -- talking of husbands and children, dreams and desires, the daily cycle of success and setback -- and together learning to laugh uproariously over the small and large absurdities of the world. When a devastating crisis arises, they are there for each other, providing the life-affirming strength and the lightness that is needed to cope with tragedy ... and to triumph.Lara and Susan originally go on-line looking for kind words and good advice. But they find in each other the greatest gift of all: a true and forever friend.Vivid, funny, original, and profoundly moving, Laney Katz Becker's magnificent debut novel is sure to be a classic, read and reread by women everywhere, an intimate portrait of two completestrangers who become soul mates across hundreds of miles, and who discover the strength and the will to reach out and take hold of the wondrous stuff of life.

    His inertia is broken when he becomes the chief suspect in the murders of his soon-to-be ex-wife and her new lover. Set in the town of Modesto, deep in California’s Central Valley, Tussinland is about sex, drugs, addiction, smart phones, Facebook and the internet, digital cable, anti-government militias, reality TV, fundamentalist homophobic Christians, families, 12-step groups, pornography, marriage, death, disease, and love.

    Beginning their relationship when Sonny is just fourteen and Felicity thirty-four, the couple share a poignant history together that ends only upon Felicity's passing — despite four marriages, numerous obstacles, and enough misadventures to challenge the most loyal of lovers.At once heartbreaking and euphoric, their story mirrors the tale that Felicity has passed down to Sonny, a story uncanny in its similarity to their own: when a prehistoric outcast locates her former tribe, she falls in love with a young boy.A masterful novel first published a quarter of a century ago, The Crying Heart Tattoo keeps the impossible within reach, proving once and for all that the struggle for true love is worth everything.

    

    Experts say they are scanner echoes tossed out of the past by the Phenomenon. The rumors and a cryptic entry in an ancestor's diary propel Lieutenant-Commander Mart Britlot of the Confederation navy into the dangerous Sivon sector of space. There, Britlot hopes to find help for the Confederation, now facing a two-front war. As the last living Confederation descendant of the Adian nation, Britlot is obsessed with finding the ghost ships, believed destroyed during a mass emigration 300 years in the past. He dreams of riding to the rescue at the head of the never defeated Adian fleet; he dreams of finding family after the death of all his near relatives at the hands of the Combine. He'll drive his ship and crew beyond endurance to achieve this. The felid Tlartox Empire, eager to avenge their humiliating defeat at the hands of the Confederation, has voted to annul the long-standing peace treaty. The glory of The Hunt beckons. Admiral Tood Tlomega has focused on the human planet Lormar, with its great naval base, as a fitting target for retribution. She will return dignity to the people of Tlar. She will return them to the path that Tlar illuminated so many centuries ago.But a small band of Tlartox subversives intend to rake a claw across the plans of the war-mongers, and give both the Empire and the Confederation something they hadn't counted on.

    But instead of taking off with his fishing buddy, James put down his rod and surrendered. It was a move that would change his life forever. Expecting a small fine and a lecture, James instead received enough knowledge about fishing and the great outdoors to last a lifetime.The story of an unlikely friendship, Joe and Me is a book for those who remember the mentor in their life, the one who changed the way they look at the world.

    Carol Shields' first novels, "Small Ceremonies" and "The Box Garden," each told from the viewpoint of a sister, published as one.