Second families must go into hiding or be arrested. There is even a finder's fee for those who turn in their own. Ten-year-old Mary's father, a poor farmer, abandons Mary, her nearly-blind mother, and six brothers and sisters in the hills of the Wasatch Mountains to live in a shallow dugout not much better than a cave. Close to starving, the family is rescued by a nearby polygamist. As the much older man's intentions become more threatening, Mary finds it harder and harder to resist his proposal of marriage. Her family and friends, even her own mother, turn away from her. During the six-year period, from Mary's childhood to a forced marriage at sixteen, Mary must first survive, and then choose her fate. This is the story of survival, love, and compassion in a sometimes heartless existence. It is also the story of Mary's deep conflict with the Church's teachings on plural marriage, and with her father, who has abandoned them. Based on a true story."...filled with rich description that makes its early 20th-century setting and people come alive." -The Salt Lake Tribune"...an emotionally wrenching narrative out of U.S. history."-Kirkus Reviews

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

    Catherine was reading a novel. So begins Room on the Sea, André Aciman's scorching and elegiac love-story about a middle-aged man and woman who meet in the bullpen of jury selection and spend a sultry summer’s week trespassing ever further into each other's hearts.What begins as a flirtation quickly evolves into something deeper, something Paul and Catherine must carry on in secret—and with the understanding that anything more than a casual crush is out of the question. But as the week draws to a close, the end of their rendezvous comes into focus, and Paul and Catherine are forced to decide whether to act on their feelings or leave the fantasy of what could have been to the annals of the past.By turns scintillating and philosophical, Room on the Sea is a compulsively listenable story of love, fate, and last chances.©2022 Andre Aciman (P)2022 Audible Originals, Inc.

    One is black, one white. Both are successful women with impressive careers. Both have recently been widowed. And both are sworn enemies, sharing hedge and hostility which they prune with a zeal that belies the fact that they are both over eighty.But one day an unforeseen event forces the women together. And gradually the bickering and sniping softens into lively debate, and from there into memories shared. But could these sparks of connection ever transform into friendship? Or is it too late to expect these two to change?

    In the capital hospital, a gifted young surgeon is plagued by demons that are beginning to threaten his livelihood. Elsewhere in the hospital lies a dying man who was young during the country’s turbulent postcolonial years and has stories to tell that are far from heroic. As past and present intersect in the buzzing city, these men are drawn unwittingly closer by a British psychologist with good intentions, and into the path of one woman at the center of their stories. A work of breathtaking writing and rare wisdom, The Memory of Love seamlessly weaves together two generations of African life to create a story of loss, absolution, and the indelible effects of the past—and, in the end, the very nature of love.

    You’ll see. Draw me just one more time.”No one knows if his mother will come out of her coma, so fourteen-year-old Jordie memorializes her in the only way he knows how: by drawing her. His older brother doesn’t approve of these sketches, but Jordie’s determined to capture the person she used to be. Unfortunately, Jordie must draw her from memory because his mom didn’t keep pictures, and her body in the hospital no longer looks like her. But the images of her are quickly fading, and if he doesn’t get a drawing right soon, the mother he remembers may slip away forever. No matter how close Jordie gets to completing a drawing, his mom’s most vital feature always evades him.Will Jordie capture his mother’s eyes? Or are they and his mother gone forever?Content Warning:SuicideDeathAnimal Death​Reader discretion advised

    Watching the mysterious transformation of your mother as she dolls herself up for a night on the town--with a man other than your father. Watching your best friend fall for the bad boy in town. Wondering if the man at work you're secretly in love with means something by the hand he lets linger on your arm. Kissing a man named Gable on a moonlit night when you've just found out you have only a few months left to live.With an irresistible narrative voice that captures both the humor and heartbreak of love, Nanci Kincaid paints a portrait of women's lifelong courtship with men that will make you laugh and cry in recognition.

    She lives in a small town in Ghana with her widowed mother, spending much of her time in her uncle Pious’s house with his many wives and children. Then one day she is offered a life-changing opportunity—a proposal of marriage from the wealthy family of Elikem Ganyo, a man she doesn’t truly know. She acquiesces, but soon realizes that Elikem is not quite the catch he seemed. He sends a stand-in to his own wedding, and only weeks after Afi is married and installed in a plush apartment in the capital city of Accra does she meet her new husband. It turns out that he is in love with another woman, whom his family disapproves of; Afi is supposed to win him back on their behalf. But it is Accra that eventually wins Afi’s heart and gives her a life of independence that she never could have imagined for herself.A brilliant scholar and a fierce advocate for women’s rights, author Peace Adzo Medie infuses her debut novel with intelligence and humor. For readers of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Candice Carty-Williams, His Only Wife is the story of an indomitable and relatable heroine that illuminates what it means to be a woman in a rapidly changing world.

    As part of her appeal, her lawyer insists that she write down what happened as she remembers it. As her story unfolds, Memory reveals that she has been tried and convicted for the murder of Lloyd Hendricks, her adopted father. But who was Lloyd Hendricks? Why does Memory feel no remorse for his death? And did everything happen exactly as she remembers?In The Book of Memory, Petina Gappah has created a uniquely slippery narrator: forthright, acerbically funny, and with a complicated relationship to the truth. Moving between the townships of the poor and the suburbs of the rich, and between the past and the present, Gappah weaves a compelling tale of love, obsession, the relentlessness of fate, and the treachery of memory.

    She and her handsome husband, Garrett, are the epitome of success: an immaculate house of their dreams, a beautiful and talented 17-year-old daughter, flourishing careers, and nearly twenty years of perfectly wedded bliss. Just as they are making plans for their vow renewal celebration, a call in the middle of the night interrupts their picture-perfect lives. Now Sylvia has to deal with the reality of Garrett’s dead mistress, a love child she never knew about, and the fact that the man she’s been married to for the past twenty years may not be the man she knows at all.Unlike her sister Sylvia, when it comes to love, Janelle Hudson can take it or leave it. Her on again, off again, noncommittal, stress-free friendship with Jarvis Baldwin is fine with her. But her life becomes complicated when she is faced with choosing between a sure thing with a good man or what feels right with the wrong one.Bestselling author LaJill Hunt is back with Midlife Crisis, an emotion-packed story of love, betrayal, and family loyalty. When lies are unveiled and secrets are revealed, can love be strong enough to forgive, even when you can’t forget? An abbreviated version of this novel entitled Jaded was previously published.

    A renowned surgeon and failed husband, he succumbs suddenly at dawn outside his home in suburban Accra. The news of Kweku’s death sends a ripple around the world, bringing together the family he abandoned years before. Ghana Must Go is their story. Electric, exhilarating, beautifully crafted, Ghana Must Go is a testament to the transformative power of unconditional love, from a debut novelist of extraordinary talent.  Moving with great elegance through time and place, Ghana Must Go charts the Sais’ circuitous journey to one another. In the wake of Kweku’s death, his children gather in Ghana at their enigmatic mother’s new home. The eldest son and his wife; the mysterious, beautiful twins; the baby sister, now a young woman: each carries secrets of his own. What is revealed in their coming together is the story of how they came apart: the hearts broken, the lies told, the crimes committed in the name of love. Splintered, alone, each navigates his pain, believing that what has been lost can never be recovered—until, in Ghana, a new way forward, a new family, begins to emerge.Ghana Must Go is at once a portrait of a modern family, and an exploration of the importance of where we come from to who we are. In a sweeping narrative that takes us from Accra to Lagos to London to New York, Ghana Must Go teaches that the truths we speak can heal the wounds we hide.

    In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad.But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her--from Junot Diaz to Zadie Smith to J.M. Coetzee--while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own.

    She might be the only one. When Mercy’s best friend, Ellen, shows up in the middle of the night, shaken and afraid. Mercy starts digging for a truth that might not even exist. Is it a mental illness or has the Missouri drought revealed something that could’ve remained hidden forever?

    It can also be as dark, as violent, as rapturous. In the end, there may be no difference between them.A girl grows up in Nunavut in the 1970s. She knows joy, and friendship, and parents' love. She knows boredom, and listlessness, and bullying. She knows the tedium of the everyday world, and the raw, amoral power of the ice and sky, the seductive energy of the animal world. She knows the ravages of alcohol, and violence at the hands of those she should be able to trust. She sees the spirits that surround her, and the immense power that dwarfs all of us. When she becomes pregnant, she must navigate all this.Veering back and forth between the grittiest features of a small arctic town, the electrifying proximity of the world of animals, and ravishing world of myth, Tanya Tagaq explores a world where the distinctions between good and evil, animal and human, victim and transgressor, real and imagined lose their meaning, but the guiding power of love remains.Haunting, brooding, exhilarating, and tender all at once, Tagaq moves effortlessly between fiction and memoir, myth and reality, poetry and prose, and conjures a world and a heroine readers will never forget.

    The book includes stories Yudasinte Suvishesham, Malakhayude Marukurukal, Karineela, Aa Maratheyum Marannu Njan and Meerasadhu.