Soon, things are back on track and Alex is well on her way to her “happily ever after.” That is, until she makes a discovery that rocks her to her core. When Alex decides to take control of her future, she begins to make some life-altering decisions that set her on the path of fulfilling her goal of having a family. But will she be able to deal with the consequences?

    Despite his overbearing nature, Shade delights in her new role as wife and mother. When her husband suddenly dies years later, she uncovers secrets from his past—secrets so profound they derail the lives of both her and her daughter. After tragedy strikes, thirty-six-year-old Shade gains custody of her young grandson, Tyler, and moves to a small Michigan beach town where she becomes the owner of a successful bakery and café. Shade meets and falls in love with Tyler’s baseball coach, but their love for one another is doomed. Shade’s internal struggle to honor her vow to God, while denying her own desires, throws her on a path of painful redemption.

    . . Ward's depiction of family, with its attendant love and guilt, will keep you turning pages."--PeopleJoseph and Isabelle Winters seem to have it all: a grand home in Holt, New York, a trio of radiant daughters, and a sense that they are safe in their affluent corner of America. But when five-year-old Ellie disappears, the fault lines within the family are exposed: Joseph, once a successful businessman, succumbs to his demons; Isabelle retreats into memories of her debutante days in Savannah; and Ellie's bereft sisters grow apart--Madeline reluctantly stays home, while Caroline runs away.Fifteen years later, Caroline, now a New Orleans cocktail waitress, sees a photograph of a woman in a magazine. Convinced that it is Ellie all grown up, Caroline embarks on a search for her missing sister. Armed with copies of the photo, an amateur detective guide, and a cooler of Dixie beer, Caroline travels through the New Mexico desert, the mountains of Colorado, and the smoky underworld of Montana, determined to salvage her broken family.

    But Charlie wasn't lighting fires alone: he had an accomplice, his girlfriend Tonya Bundick. Through her depiction of the dangerous shift that happened in their passionate relationship, Hesse brilliantly brings to life the once-thriving coastal community and its distressed inhabitants, who had already been decimated by a punishing economy before they were terrified by a string of fires they could not explain. Incorporating this drama into the long-overlooked history of arson in the United States, American Fire re-creates the anguished nights that this quiet county spent lit up in flames, mesmerizingly evoking a microcosm of rural America - a land half gutted before the fires even began.

    Nora Eldridge, a thirty-seven-year-old elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who long ago abandoned her ambition to be a successful artist, has become the "woman upstairs," a reliable friend and tidy neighbor always on the fringe of others' achievements. Then into her classroom walks Reza Shahid, a child who enchants as if from a fairy tale. He and his parents--dashing Skandar, a Lebanese scholar and professor at the École Normale Supérleure; and Sirena, an effortlessly glamorous Italian artist--have come to Boston for Skandar to take up a fellowship at Harvard. When Reza is attacked by schoolyard bullies who call him a "terrorist," Nora is drawn into the complex world of the Shahid family: she finds herself falling in love with them, separately and together. Nora's happiness explodes her boundaries, until Sirena's careless ambition leads to a shattering betrayal. Told with urgency, intimacy, and piercing emotion, this story of obsession and artistic fulfillment explores the thrill--and the devastating cost--of giving in to one's passions.

    Rosemary begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “Until Fern’s expulsion...,” Rosemary says, “she was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half and I loved her.” As a child, Rosemary never stopped talking. Then, something happened, and Rosemary wrapped herself in silence.In We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler weaves her most accomplished work to date—a tale of loving but fallible people whose well-intentioned actions lead to heartbreaking consequences.

    This tenderly told story is a beautiful reminder to appreciate the simple joys around you. The perfect gift for even the busiest mothers and friends in your life, this book is guaranteed to change chaos to calm and inspire all to look beyond the ordinary and see the extraordinary.

     When circumstances force her to reevaluate her personal life, her younger sister, Dada, suggests that she goes to Boston to have a weekend to herself. It’s Christela’s first chance to be selfish and put herself first. What she was not expecting was to meet Mac. Mac Pierre vows to love her for a weekend. To be selfless so that for once in her life she can be selfish. As a result, they form a bond that seems unbreakable. After a weekend full of lust and love will the two stay together or leave the other feigning for what they shared?

    But for a one small boy in the leafy northern suburbs of Johannesburg ... his beloved housekeeper is serving fish fingers for lunch.This is the tale of Hamish Charles Sutherland Fraser – chorister, horse rider, schoolboy actor and, in his dreams, 1st XV rugby star and young ladies’ delight. A boy who climbs trees in the spring and who loves a girl named Reggie.An odd child growing up in a conflicted, scary, beautiful society.A young South African who hasn’t learnt the rules.

    The heady mix of human depravity, humour, satire, tragedy, revenge and drama makes these stories an essential cocktail of emotions.Review:“Breezy, Flippant, Poignant... Tales of pleasurable wickedness.”-Salil Desai, author of Inspector Saralkar Mystery Series“Although not all sugar and sunshine, Dalvi's voice is an important one, because he chooses to tell stories that others would normally shy away from. There's a serene resignation in his tales, one that is completely devoid of both hope as well as regret. I thoroughly enjoyed the stories.”-Bhaskar Chattopadhyay, author of Patang, Penumbra, Here Falls the Shadow, The Disappearance of Sally Sequeira and Best Served Cold“Gripping short-stories by Rafaa Dalvi. I am both intrigued and scared by his plot-twists. Thrilled to have read this book.”-Sanhita Baruah, author of The Art of Letting Go and The Art of Healing“Some of the best stories I have read so far. Rafaa has a gift of telling complex stories in a very intuitive and straightforward and are easy to read. This book is the best thing that has come out during these current circumstances.”-S. G. Kabe, author of Everything is Normal“Rafaa Dalvi is a flash fiction expert.”-T.F. Carthick, author of Carthick’s Unfairy Tales and More Unfairy Tales“Taut, propulsive and riveting, Rafaa’s mesmerising stories pack a big punch. Chasing Nirvana has been carefully crafted for maximum impact. A highly compelling read.”-Vivek Banerjee, author of ‘The Long Road’ and ‘The Other Side’

    She’s tough, opinionated, bossy, and she’s got a bone to pick with nearly everyone in her life.Set in the fictitious Eastern North Carolina small town of Shelbington, Angeline has been given a terminal diagnosis, with mere months left to live. Upon learning of this news, her adult children and grandchildren come home for one last visit. There is no love lost between any of the family members, and they all have secrets that they voluntarily or involuntarily reveal throughout the course of the novel, culminating in an explosive family dinner at which the biggest bombshells are dropped.Told in first-person narratives by the main protagonist and other characters, the story uses humor to touch on a number of hot-button issues, from race relations and racial profiling to LGBTQ issues, to the #MeToo movement, and to the subjugation of religion for profit.As Bette Davis once said in the 1950 movie All About Eve, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night!”

    Trying to fill the gap, her adult daughter, Julia, is looking for love in all the wrong places, and wreaking havoc on the lives that she touches along the way.Just what will it take to shock Catherine back into life?

    . .and the women whose happiness depends on the secrets they keep. . .After growing up poor in Texas, Vera Lomax used every gold-digging trick in the book to land a rich husband. Now living in the lap of luxury in San Francisco, her only job is to fawn over her much-older husband, so it's been easy for her to balance a life of shopping and affairs with younger men with a major secret: the sixteen-year bribery of one of her husband's mistresses to keep her pregnancy under wraps. Vera figures that a little hush money every month will ensure her husband's fortune is hers alone. . .Unfortunately for Vera, Sarah Cooper is the child Kenneth Lomax always wanted. When the father she never knew shows up at her mother's funeral to claim her, it's a fairy tale journey from the ghetto to a mansion on a hill. But Sarah's life is not as carefree as her father wants it to be . . .because Sarah knows from the start that her step-mother is as two-faced as they come. And after losing all the family she's ever known, she wants a life that's richer than what Vera's got planned for her.Neither woman can be sure who will win Kenneth's heart and fortune. But as Vera and Sarah scheme to get what they want, everyone they know will be choosing sides, taking chances, and gambling it all to come out on top. . .Praise for the novels of Mary Monroe"Once again, Monroe displays her gift as a marvel with this sensational novel." --RT Book Reviews on Lost Daughters"Reminiscent of Zora Neale Hurston, but the story has a bizarre, violent edge a la Stephen King. . .a candid portrayal of the cold-blooded yet fascinating Mama Ruby." --Publishers Weekly on The Upper Room"Monroe's style, like her characters, is no-holds-barred earthy. . .. Monroe's characters deal with their situations with a weary worldliness and fatalism that reveal their vulnerability as well as their flaws." --Booklist on Mama Ruby"Another witty and wise installment to her God series. . .If this raunchy and rambunctious book is any indication, Monroe's series has a lot of life left in it." --Publishers Weekly on God Ain't Through Yet"A fast-paced, sexy, tense story that will make readers think twice before getting tangled up in an affair." -- Booklist on God Ain't Blind"Readers are left on edge. . .Monroe once again skillfully delivers a crafty story wrapped around a host of heartwarming characters battling everyday struggles and obstacles, even as she entertains readers with spurts of unexpected comedy and tragedy." --Library Journal on God Don't Play"A highly satisfying page-turner--and one that will stand out." --Publishers Weekly on God Don't Like Ugly

    "If a woman knows nothing else, she should know how to be silent. . . . Do not question. Do not fight. Do not resist." Such is eight-year-old Noriko "Nori" Kamiza's first lesson. She will not question why her mother abandoned her with only these final words. She will not fight her confinement to the attic of her grandparents' imperial estate. And she will not resist the scalding chemical baths she receives daily to lighten her shameful skin.The illegitimate child of a Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori is an outsider from birth. Though her grandparents take her in, they do so only to conceal her, fearful of a stain on the royal pedigree that they are desperate to uphold in a changing Japan. Obedient to a fault, Nori accepts her solitary life for what it is, despite her natural intellect and nagging curiosity about what lies outside the attic's walls. But when chance brings her legitimate older half-brother, Akira, to the estate that is his inheritance and destiny, Nori finds in him the first person who will allow her to question, and the siblings form an unlikely but powerful bond—a bond their formidable grandparents cannot allow and that will irrevocably change the lives they were always meant to lead. Because now that Nori has glimpsed a world in which perhaps there is a place for her after all, she is ready to fight to be a part of it—a battle that just might cost her everything.Spanning decades and continents, Fifty Words for Rain is a dazzling epic about the ties that bind, the ties that give you strength, and what it means to try to break free.

    This year is an Annie year—and it would be no different than other years were it not for the high school’s hiring of a new vocational agriculture (Vo-Ag) teacher. With his beguiling ponytail and decorative beaded belt, Kenny catches Tandy’s eye immediately. Ignoring the fact of her slovenly husband—who takes most of his meals in their hot tub—Tandy decides to entertain Kenny’s advances.Trusted community pillar that she is, Tandy’s affair has instant repercussions. People are talking and her husband’s subsequent breakdown and check-in to a mental institution doesn’t help. At her regular meeting with the Order of the Pessimists—comprised of her deceased father’s disgruntled and drunken best friends—she is asked to step down as treasurer. Not only that, but her old lover is keeping a secret somehow connected to the Vo-Ag teacher. And meth labs—fueled by the abundance of fertilizer present in the region—keep blowing up. Somehow, it is all connected to Tandy’s ex-bestfriend’s daughter—the star of this year’s Annie. As Tandy pieces together the puzzle that has become her life, it becomes clear she must embark on a journey of self-discovery that might even include leaving town for good.