During his senior year of high school, he begins to date longtime crush and non-Jewish girl Amy Andrews—a forbidden relationship he hides from his parents. But that’s not the only complicated part of Ron’s life: he’s also struggling to choose between his two passions, medicine and music. As time goes on, he becomes entangled in a compelling world of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Will he do the right thing?A fictionalized memoir of the author’s life as a young man in Lincoln, Nebraska, The Frontman is a coming-of-age tale of love and fidelity.

    . ." "The Black Madonna" transports readers to a world centered around the bustling corner of Spring and Thompson streets in New York City's Little Italy, where Teresa, Magdelena, and Antoinette form a God-fearing, vibrant, and dark-souled trio of mothers whose lives are forever transformed by the power of the Black Madonna, the most powerful of Catholic icons.

    To his father, he is bizarre and embarrassing. To his psychiatrist, he is a case study in mental illness. To the counselors at the camp where he is spending his summer, Benjamin is a "freaky kid" who shuns his peers and is strangely--and perhaps dangerously--attached to his best friend, Elliot, a stuffed letter H.Through the letters of his sister, mother, father, camp counselors, and psychiatrist--and, most touchingly, through those Benjamin writes to Elliot--this audacious and utterly unsentimental novel gives us a moving and sometimes shocking intimacy with a child whose disorder may be a kind of fragile genius. H is an astute, sympathetic evocation of the state we persist in calling "madness.""A new and mind-boggling perspective on mental illness from the point of view of the sufferer and those who would love and care about him. . . . H is a very poignant, enthralling debut."--The Boston Globe "Shepard is a reverse archaeologist, designing a tiny contemporary lost world for readers to excavate. . . . Everything matters. . . Shepard gets everything right."--New York magazine

     With his critically acclaimed first novel Dear American Airlines, Jonathan Miles was widely praised as a comic genius “after something bigger” (David Ulin, Los Angeles Times) whose fiction was “not just philosophically but emotionally rewarding” (Richard Russo, New York Times Book Review, front cover). Now, in his much anticipated second novel, Want Not, Miles takes a giant leap forward with this highly inventive and corrosively funny story of our times, a three-pronged tale of human excess that sifts through the detritus of several disparate lives—lost loves, blown chances, countless words and deeds misdirected or misunderstood—all conjoined in their come-hell-or-high-water search for fulfillment.As the novel opens on Thanksgiving Day, readers are telescoped into three different worlds in various states of disrepair—a young freegan couple living off the grid in New York City; a once-prominent linguist, sacked at midlife by the dissolution of his marriage and his father’s losing battle with Alzheimer’s; and a self-made debt-collecting magnate, whose brute talent for squeezing money out of unlikely places has yielded him a royal existence, trophy wife included.Want and desire propel these characters forward toward something, anything, more, until their worlds collide, briefly, randomly, yet irrevocably, in a shattering ending that will haunt readers long after the last page is turned.With a satirist’s eye and a romantic’s heart, Miles captures the morass and comedy of contemporary life in all its excess. Bold, unblinking, unforgettable in its irony and pathos, Want Not is a wicked, bighearted literary novel that confirms the arrival of a major voice in American fiction.

    Mackenzie’s sister, Sunna’s best friend, and Maude’s fiancé—all gone with no explanation.So when a mangled, near-indecipherable letter arrives in their shared mailbox—hinting at long-awaited answers—each tenant assumes it’s for her. The mismatched trio decides to stake out the coffee shop named in the letter—the only clue they have—and in the process, a bizarre kinship forms. But the more they learn about each other, the more questions (and suspicions) they begin to have. All the while, creepy sounds and strange happenings around the property suggest that the ghosts from their pasts might not be all that’s haunting them…Will any of the housemates find the closure they are looking for? Or are some doors meant to remain closed?Quirky, humorous, and utterly original, Sorry I Missed You is the perfect read for anyone who has ever felt haunted by their past (or by anything else).

    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.

    He is entranced by her image, flooded by memories of their teenage summer together, and utterly conpelled to make contact with her again. Charles sends Sian a letter, knowing all the while that "from the very first sentence of the very first note there was nothing innocent about it." Sian writes back - she is now a poet living with her husband and small child on an onion farm in Pennsylvania. She is intrigued that Charles has sought her out after so many years but wary of where their correspondence might lead. For Charles, troubled by financial woes, on the verge of losing his home, and concerned about the security of his family, the letters become a secret obsession and another source of instability in his already complicated life. Despite their reservations, the power of Charles and Sian's attraction leads them to meet again . . . and again. As Charles understands it, "for the two of them, eros is linked with time. It is the very urgency of time he dreads, the sense that their minutes together are short and numbered, that he must say what he has come to say before she leaves, that gestures and words cannot be wasted." Anita Shreve takes the classic theme of "Romeo and Juliet" and gives it an unusual twist: two lovers struggle against formidable odds, reaching across a lifetime to reclaim what they once lost. In doing so, they set in motion a tumultuous series of events that moves inexorably to a shocking conclusion.

    This debut international thriller tangles a sordid web of love and intrigue.

    No heat. The wrong shoes. The wrong clothes. Discover if true love can be far behind.Imagine having always lived in Washington, D.C., and suddenly being stuck in Portland, Maine, for a year. With the pipes freezing---inside the house. And a husband who seems to have his eye on a hiking-booted L.L.Bean femme fatale rather than you. Not to mention the mother-in-law from hell who never fails to let you know that you leave much to be desired. That's Sophie Quinn's life. Lucky for Sophie (an unassertive type who's always favored daydreams over day planners), her new life is about to throw in her lap some weird and valuable opportunities to trample down her fears and transform her prospects for happiness. And true love just might come knocking on her door....For any woman who has ever had to confront the landlord about the heat, for any woman who has ever longed for impractical shoes instead of sturdy winter boots, for any woman who has ever been in the wrong place at the right time, Snowed In will have you laughing, crying, and rooting for Sophie Quinn.

    Who has not wondered about old houses as they passed by? Who was the builder? Did he take pride in his work? Were the inhabitants always happy or were there hard times? How many people passed through the doors? Old House is a story about one house. It is located in a fictitious valley in the state of Montana U.S.A. Through the course of one hundred years, these are the people who lived, laughed, loved, and cried as they called this old house their home. Each chapter in the book is a story in itself. It begins with the man who built the house in the late 1860s, and it continues with the people who found lodging and refuge in it - from a young man with a bounty on his head, an old man in search of gold, to a woman seeking protection.

    Tobias is obsessed with two things: God and girls. Mostly girls, of course. But being a Baptist preacher's son, he can't escape God. When his father is blinded in a bizarre accident (involving hard cider and bird droppings), Tobias must ride the rails to Texas to recover a long-hidden stash of money. Along the way, he's initiated into the hobo brotherhood by Craw, a ribald vagabond-philosopher. Obstacles arise in the form of a saucy prostitute, a flaming boxcar, and a man-eating catfish. But when he meets Sarah, a tough farm girl under a dark curse, he finds out that the greatest challenge of all is love.

    She’s landed an internship with the fabulous Selah Smith, event planner for the Hollywood elite, taking her from small-town Texas to the bright lights of LA. Landon soon finds herself in a world in which spending a million dollars on an event—even a child’s birthday party—is de rigueur and the whims of celebrity clients are life-and-death matters. At first, the thrill of working on A-list parties and celebrity weddings is enough to get Landon through the seventy-five-hour workweeks and endless abuse at the hands of her mercurial boss. But when the reality of the business reveals itself, she’s forced to make a choice: do whatever it takes to get ahead, or stay true to herself.Drawing on the author’s real-life experiences as an event planner to the stars, Party Girl takes readers on an adventure among Hollywood’s most beautiful—and most outrageous—people, revealing the ugly side of Hollywood’s prettiest parties.

    Holly was the plump one, a dreamer who longed to be an artist. Nicola was the shy, plain one who wanted nothing more than to be beautiful. Their cabin nemesis was Lexi. Rich, spoiled, evil Lexi. One night, Holly and Nicola team up to pull one, daring act of vengeance. But they never dream that this one act will have repercussions that will reach into the future, even twenty years later. And they never realize the secret pain that Lexi holds very close, and how their need for revenge costs Lexi a great deal.Today, Holly is a successful gallery owner, who has put her own artistic dreams on hold. She struggles with her weight and for approval from her constantly-criticizing boyfriend. Nicola, is an almost-famous actress who believes that one little plastic surgery fix is just what she needs to put her over the edge into fame. And Lexi…Lexi is down on her luck and totally broke.Holly will do anything to be thin. Lexi will do anything to be rich. And Nicola will do anything to be pretty.

    The two are half-sisters and have always fought: now their argument rages over the trainspotter. Is he doomed to eternal nerdiness or could he be taught to appreciate the finer things in life? Eupheme bets he can: in time for Gresham's engagement party she will have transformed him into a man that her sister would want to sleep with.

    Now in their late 30s, the deeply devoted couple has everything-except the baby they've always wanted.When an accident leaves Elle brain dead, Matt is devastated. Though he cannot bear the thought of life without her, he knows Elle was afraid of only one thing-a slow death. And so, Matt resolves to take her off life support.But Matt changes his mind when they discover Elle's pregnant. While there are no certainties, the baby might survive if Elle remains on life support. Matt's mother, Linney, disagrees with his decision. She loves Elle, too, and insists that Elle would never want to be kept alive on machines. Linney is prepared to fight her son in court-armed with Elle's living will.Divided by the love they share, Matt and Linney will be pitted against each other, fighting for what they believe is right, and what they think Elle would have wanted resulting in a controversial legal battle that will ultimately go beyond one family . . . and one single life.