First Sight


Danielle Steel - 2012
     FIRST SIGHT   New York. London. Milan. Paris. Fashion Week in all four cities. A month of endless interviews, parties, and unflagging work and attention to detail at the semiannual ready to wear fashion shows—the famous prêt-à-porter. At the center of the storm and avalanche of work is American Timmie O’Neill, whose renowned line, Timmie O, is the embodiment of casual chic, in fashion and for the home. She has created a business that inspires, fills, and consumes her life.   With an unerring instinct for what the next trend will be, an innate genius for business, tireless labor, and sheer fearlessness, starting from nothing, over two decades Timmie has built an international empire that has brought her enormous satisfaction and success. In a world where humility and compassion are all too rare, her humor, kindness, integrity, and creativity are inspirational. Yet as blessed as she feels by her success, Timmie harbors the private wounds of a devastating childhood and past tragedy. She is too smart, too experienced, and too hurt to want much in her personal life beyond a succession of convenient, very limited relationships. Always willing to take risks in business, she never risks her heart.   But despite her well-ordered and highly controlled world, it turns out that Timmie O’Neill is not immune to magic when it strikes. And it strikes in Paris during Paris Fashion Week, when an intriguing Frenchman comes into her life when she gets sick. At first, Timmie and Jean-Charles Vernier are only patient and physician. They become confidants and friends, corresponding at a safe distance between Paris and Los Angeles once she goes home. There is every reason why they must remain apart. But neither can deny their growing friendship and the electricity that sparks whenever they meet.  First Sight is as complex and compelling as modern life itself. Careers, families, histories, losses, duty, obligation, and fear of losing control and getting hurt. It is a tale of daring to take risks, and losing control just enough to have a life, when the opportunity presents itself. When two very different worlds and strong-willed people collide, everything changes in an instant, as they confront the age-old question of whether to lay oneself bare and risk intimacy—or not. Are they brave enough to face what comes next? And will they do it together or apart?

The Land of Stories Collection 5 Book Set (The Land of Stories, #1-5)


Chris Colfer - 2016
    #1 New York Times bestselling author Chris Colfer invites readers to join Alex and Conner on their fairy tale adventures from the beginning in this gorgeous hardcover gift set, which includes all five books in the Land of Stories series: The Wishing Spell, The Enchantress Returns, A Grimm Warning, Beyond the Kingdoms, and An Author's Odyssey.

Her Sister's Shoes


Ashley Farley - 2015
    When an ATV accident leaves her teenage son in a wheelchair, she loses her carefully constructed self-control.In the after-gloom of her dreaded fiftieth birthday and the discovery of her husband’s infidelity, Jackie realizes she must reconnect with her former self to find the happiness she needs to move forward.Faith lacks the courage to stand up to her abusive husband. She turns to her sisters for help, placing all their lives at risk.In the midst of their individual challenges, the Sweeney sisters must cope with their mother’s mental decline. Is Lovie in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, or is her odd behavior normal for a woman her age? No one, including Lovie, understands her obsession with a rusty key she wears around her neck.For fans of Elin Hildebrand, Her Sister’s Shoes is a contemporary women’s novel that explores and proves the healing power of family.

The Patron Saint of Liars


Ann Patchett - 1992
    Now comes a reissue of the best-selling debut novel that launched her remarkable career. St. Elizabeth's, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little while. Not so Rose Clinton, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed, and stays. She plans to give up her child, thinking she cannot be the mother it needs. But when Cecilia is born, Rose makes a place for herself and her daughter amid St. Elizabeth's extended family of nuns and an ever-changing collection of pregnant teenage girls. Rose's past won't be kept away, though, even by St. Elizabeth's; she cannot remain untouched by what she has left behind, even as she cannot change who she has become in the leaving.

The Very Picture of You


Isabel Wolff - 2011
     At thirty-five, Gabriella Graham—“Ella” to her family and friends—has already made a name for herself as a successful portrait artist in London. She can capture the essential truth in each of her subjects’ faces—a tilt of the chin, a glint in the eye—and immortalize it on canvas. This gift has earned Ella commissions from royals and regular folks alike.But closer to home, Ella finds the truth more elusive. Her father abandoned the family when she was five, and her mother has remained silent on the subject ever since. Ella’s sister, Chloe, is engaged to Nate, an American working in London, but Ella suspects that he may not be so committed. Then, at Chloe’s behest, Ella agrees to paint Nate’s portrait.From session to session, Ella begins to see Nate in a different light, which gives rise to conflicted feelings. In fact, through the various people she paints—an elderly client reflecting on her life, another woman dreading the prospect of turning forty, a young cyclist (from a photograph) who met a tragic end—Ella realizes that there is so much more to a person’s life than what is seen on the surface, a notion made even clearer when an unexpected email arrives from the other side of the world. And as her portraits of Nate and the others progress, they begin to reveal less about their subjects than the artist herself.A picture is worth a thousand words, and in Isabel Wolff’s vibrant and textured story, these words are brilliantly crafted to convey the humor, mystery, and beauty that exists within each of us.

The Rest of Her Life


Laura Moriarty - 2007
    Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy -- the effects of which not only divide Leigh's family, but polarize the entire community. We see the story from Leigh's perspective, as she grapples with the hard reality of what her daughter has done and the devastating consequences her actions have on the family of another teenage girl in town, all while struggling to protect Kara in the face of rising public outcry.Like the best works of Jane Hamilton, Jodi Picoult, and Alice Sebold, Laura Moriarty's The Rest of Her Life is a novel of complex moral dilemma, filled with nuanced characters and a page-turning plot that makes readers ask themselves, "What would I do"

A Wilder Rose


Susan Wittig Albert - 2013
    Almanzo Wilder was 71, Laura 61, and Rose felt obligated to stay and help. To make life easier, she built them a new home, while she and Helen Boylston transformed the farmhouse into a rural writing retreat and filled it with visiting New Yorkers. Rose sold magazine stories to pay the bills for both households, and despite the subterranean tension between mother and daughter, life seemed good.Then came the Crash. Rose’s money vanished, the magazine market dried up, and the Depression darkened the nation. That’s when Laura wrote her autobiography, “Pioneer Girl,” the story of growing up in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, on the Kansas prairie, and by the shores of Silver Lake. The rest—the eight remarkable books that followed—is literary history.But it isn’t the history we thought we knew. For the surprising truth is that Laura’s stories were publishable only with Rose’s expert rewriting. Based on Rose’s unpublished diaries and Laura’s letters, A Wilder Rose tells the true story of the decade-long, intensive, and often troubled collaboration that produced the Little House books—the collaboration that Rose and Laura deliberately hid from their agent, editors, reviewers, and readers.Why did the two women conceal their writing partnership? What made them commit what amounts to one of the longest-running deceptions in American literature? And what happened in those years to change Rose from a left-leaning liberal to a passionate Libertarian?In this impeccably researched novel and with a deep insight into the book-writing business gained from her own experience as an author and coauthor, Susan Wittig Albert follows the clues that take us straight to the heart of this fascinating literary mystery.

The Language of Good-bye


Maribeth Fischer - 2001
     For Annie and Will, who have left their marriages to be together, the future is fraught with the complications of starting over. Both have left pieces of themselves behind: For Annie, it is the husband and friend she has known since childhood; for Will, it is the five-year-old daughter he adores. And for the Korean-born Sungae, one of Annie's English-as-a-second-language students, it is a search for the words that will help her resolve the sorrows of her tragic history. As Sungae struggles with the new language and with her memories, her story unfolds in ways that will have profound consequences not only for Sungae, but for Annie, Will, and their former spouses. A lyrical and deeply moving novel about love, loss, and language-and about confronting life's tough choices-The Language of Good-bye "weaves a wonderful story [about] letting go of the past and moving forward into the future" (Gail Tsukiyama, author of The Language of Threads).

Torch


Cheryl Strayed - 2006
    "Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!" is the advice Teresa Rae Wood shares with the listeners of her local radio show, Modern Pioneers, and the advice she strives to live by every day. She has fled a bad marriage and rebuilt a life with her children, Claire and Joshua, and their caring stepfather, Bruce. Their love for each other binds them as a family through the daily struggles of making ends meet. But when they received unexpected news that Teresa, only 38, is dying of cancer, their lives all begin to unravel and drift apart. Strayed's intimate portraits of these fully human characters in a time of crisis show the varying truths of grief, forgiveness, and the beautiful terrors of learning how to keep living.

Bradley Farm: ...a legacy of love! (Bradley Farm Cozy Mystery Series Book 1)


Mary Jane Forbes - 2015
    Hidden secrets. It may just take a city girl to save the family farm… Jane dreams of marrying her high school sweetheart and raising a brood of kids on his beloved family farm. Despite her parents’ disapproval and her boyfriend’s draft card, she exchanges hurried vows before he ships off to Vietnam. Back on the farm, Jane must fight her own battle with a mother-in-law who frowns on her big city upbringing. Determined to prove she’s cut out for country living, the fiery redhead rolls up her sleeves to explore every inch of the family business. Beneath creaking floorboards and layers of dust, she unearths ghostly secrets… and a rising mountain of debt that threatens to tear her dreams for the future apart. To save the homestead, she schemes up a plan to bring the old farm into the modern age and out of the hands of the collectors. Under the shadow of unsolved mysteries and the critical eye of her mother-in-law, can she hold on to a home-sweet-home worthy of her heroic husband… if he ever returns at all?Bradley Farm is the first standalone romantic mystery in a sweeping family saga series. If you like touching tales of young love, strong-willed heroines, and rustic country backdrops, then you’ll love Mary Jane Forbes’ story of finding your way home. Buy Bradley Farm to sow the seeds of a heartwarming family history today!

The Midwife of Hope River


Patricia Harman - 2012
    Just beginning, she takes on the jobs no one else wants: those most in need-and least likely to pay. Patience is willing to do what it takes to fulfill her mentor's wishes, but starting a midwife practice means gaining trust, and Patience's secrets are too fragile to let anyone in.A stirring piece of Americana, The Midwife of Hope River beats with authenticity as Patience faces seemingly insurmountable conditions: disease, poverty, and prejudices threaten at every turn. From the dangerous mines of West Virginia to the terrifying attentions of the Klu Klux Klan, Patience must strive to bring new light, and life, into an otherwise cruel world.

Falling in Love with Natassia: A Novel


Anna Monardo - 2006
    “We’ll do it if you do it . . .” Mary and Ross are unmarried, ambitious, and way too young, and though smitten with their daughter, they eventually—and with regret—abdicate responsibility to Ross’s parents, who raise Natassia in the intellectually stimulating (and seemingly loving) atmosphere of their Manhattan apartment. Fifteen years later, 1989, Natassia is an Honors student and a violin player. Despite the absence of her mother, a world-class modern dancer who survives by living in the moment, and her father, a physician in the Pacific Northwest, Natassia is thriving—until her mysterious romance with a man she will not identify derails her so profoundly that her parents, grandparents, and even her godparents, Nora and Christopher, must come together to save her. A dancer, a doctor, two book editors, a painter and a psychotherapist—all are forced to turn away from and also draw upon the creative and intellectual endeavors that consume and define them. Struggling to buoy Natassia, her guardians sink along with her into the deepest darkness.Mary, a Korean war orphan, must learn from step one how to provide the mother love she herself never received; indeed, the daughter's breakdown sparks the mother's coming-of-age. Ross, still in love with Mary after ten years’ separation, must face the consequences of his obsessions. And Nora and Christopher, burdened by a decades-old secret, use desperate measures to save Natassia—and their marriage.Within the intimate universe of one unorthodox family, Falling in Love with Natassia explores the blurred lines between love that heals and sex that harms. These characters will shock you with how forcefully their hurt hearts demand restitution; they will mystify you with the paths they choose as they move toward recovery and redemption.

A Dream of Wolves


Michael C. White - 2001
    From the author of the critically acclaimed novels A Brother's Blood and The Blind Side of the Heart comes a brilliant tale of a decent man's struggle to choose between his past and his future, between the woman he once loved and the woman he now loves.

The Edge of Normal (Kindle Single)


Hana Schank - 2015
    But when her second child is born with albinism, a rare genetic condition whose most striking characteristics are white blonde hair, pale skin and impaired vision, she discovers that the very definition of normal is up for grabs. A moving memoir with flashes of humor, this essay tells one mother’s story of navigating the spectrum of ability and disability, filled with both heartbreak and joy. And how ultimately she and her daughter learn to balance together on the edge of normal. Reviews and Praise THE EDGE OF NORMAL was selected for Amazon's Best Kindle Singles of the Year, and has been featured in the SundayTimes Magazine (UK), Longreads, and OZY. About the Author Hana Schank is an author and a technology consultant. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Atlantic.com, and her writing has appeared across the web and in national magazines. Her memoir, A More Perfect Union: How I Survived the Happiest Day of My Life, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection.

Shanghai Girl


Vivian Yang - 2001
    Shan Hai Gaaru". This 2011 U.S. edition features an excerpt of the author’s WNYC Leonard Lopate Essay Contest-winning new novel "Memoirs of a Eurasian". In the post-Cultural Revolution Shanghai of 1984, university senior Sha-fei Hong longs to study in the U.S. for graduate school, ostensibly to pursue the American Dream, but partly to escape her sexually-harassing Communist cadre stepfather. She meets the visiting Chinese-American businessman Gordon Lou, who has political ambitions and ties to the Chinatown underworld in the U.S. He takes Sha-fei to the American Consulate in Shanghai to look into studying in America. There, Sha-fei meets the intern Edward Cook, a young, Caucasian American lawyer who has a strong preference for all things Asian. Within a year, these three people of entirely different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds cross paths in New York. Value systems and self-interests clash. The curtain falls on a dramatic stage of ambition, sex, intrigue, and murder.