Book picks similar to
Grease Stains, Kismet, and Maternal Wisdom by Mel Bosworth
fiction
short-stories
tbr
first-reads
Mr Salary
Sally Rooney - 2016
Now they are on the brink of the inevitable.Sally Rooney is one of the most acclaimed young talents of recent years. With her minute attention to the power dynamics in everyday speech, she builds up sexual tension and throws a deceptively low-key glance at love and death.
Shooter's Cross
Colby Jackson - 2010
While up in the mountains, he discovered a wilderness plagued by nature and haunted by superstition, but one that he thought he could tame with his experience and strong back. He didn't know he was going to have to kill to keep the home he planned for his family, but he didn't let that stop him. Sam had been looking for a home for his family for years. That search had been interrupted by the Civil War. Now Sam is putting down roots, and not even the Devil himself can stand in the way.
Abel's Daughter
Meg Hutchinson - 1996
She has a guardian angel in the form of Sir William Dartmouth, but even when he engineers her release, Phoebe must struggle to make a living for herself. And Annie has not given up her own perverse quest for revenge . . .
Influence
Daniel Hurst - 2020
But shortly after Ivy’s untimely death she is contacted by a secretive businessman who offers her the chance at the fame and fortune she so desperately craves.While Emily initially gets to experience the things she has always wanted, it soon becomes clear that her new employer had sinister motives for approaching her and it isn’t long before she discovers that the life of her dreams comes with the kind of conditions that are the stuff of nightmares.
Social media isn’t life or death. It’s more important than that.
Fox 8
George Saunders - 2013
That is, until Fox 8 develops a unique skill: He teaches himself to speak "Yuman" by hiding in the bushes outside a house and listening to children's bedtime stories. The power of language fuels his abundant curiosity about people—even after "danjer" arrives in the form of a new shopping mall that cuts off his food supply, sending Fox 8 on a harrowing quest to help save his pack.
Mine
Regina Puckett - 2012
She should have refused to go as soon as he told her they were going ghost-hunting in an old abandoned mental hospital. It didn't take long to discover that they are the ones who are hunted.
Shame
Greg Garrett - 2009
He certainly thought there'd be more to it than his ramshackle Oklahoma farm and a mundane job coaching basketball at his old high school. He questions his fatherhood skills too: his oldest son won't speak to him, his younger son wants to quit the basketball team, and now his daughter wants to go out on dates. He loves his wife, but the marriage has settled into complacency. Now his twentieth high school reunion looms and he has agreed to play in an exhibition game at the reunion, which is sure to be a wretched joke. And his ex-girlfriend's back in town, newly single. Twenty years is plenty long enough for a man to mope after what might have been. It's time for John to make himself understand that.Professor of English at Baylor University, Greg Garrett is an award-winning author of both fiction and nonfiction. His critically acclaimed novel Free Bird was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the best first novels of 2002. He resides in Austin, Texas.
Valencia and Valentine
Suzy Krause - 2019
To confront those fears, Valencia’s therapist suggests that she fly somewhere—anywhere—before her upcoming birthday. And as Valencia begins a telephone romance with a man from New York, she suddenly has a destination in mind. There’s only one problem—he might not actually exist.Mrs. Valentine is an eccentric old woman desperate for company, be it from neighbors, telemarketers, or even the funeral director (when you’re her age, you go to a lot of funerals). So she’s thrilled when the new cleaning girl provides a listening ear for her life’s story—a tale of storybook love and incredible adventures around the world with her husband before his mysterious and sudden disappearance.The stories of Valencia and Mrs. Valentine may at first appear to have nothing in common…but then again, nothing in life is as straightforward as it seems.
Larger Than Life
Jodi Picoult - 2014
Set in the wilds of Africa, Larger Than Life introduces Alice, the unforgettable character at the center of Picoult’s anticipated new novel, Leaving Time. A researcher studying memory in elephants, Alice is fascinated by the bonds between mother and calf—the mother’s powerful protective instincts and her newborn’s unwavering loyalty. Living on a game reserve in Botswana, Alice is able to view the animals in their natural habitat—while following an important rule: She must only observe and never interfere. Then she finds an orphaned young elephant in the bush and cannot bear to leave the helpless baby behind. Thinking back on her own childhood, and on her shifting relationship with her mother, Alice risks her career to care for the calf. Yet what she comes to understand is the depth of a parent’s love.
Arise and Walk
Barry Gifford - 1994
Set in New Orleans at the turn of the 21st century, this continuation of the highly acclaimed Night People provides a stark, eccentric, and wholly original plunge into the dark and grimy world of just revenge, as it vividly tracks the lives of individuals intent on making a profound difference in the world before they are willingly or forcibly removed from it.
She Friend-Zoned My Love
Sudeep Nagarkar - 2018
Like most teenage boys, he longs for a girlfriend but hasn't found one yet.In another part of town, beautiful and popular Amyra leads a flawless life. All the boys desire her and all the girls want to be her best friend.A chance encounter with Amyra in the college canteen makes Apurv fall head over heels for her. But it isn't long before he realizes that she is not interested in him, at least not in the way he wants her to be.Can Apurv get Amyra to change her mind before it's too late, or will he be friend-zoned forever?
The Last Shuttle
Tom Glover - 2011
Only one man could prevent the accident. An ex-NASA scientist reluctantly joins the crew of re-commissioned space shuttle Discovery on a daring rescue mission to recover the satellite. Orbiting Earth, they are about to experience something out of this world.
Stronger Than Skin
Stephen May - 2017
He knows exactly why they are there and he knows that the world he has carefully constructed over twenty deliberately uneventful years is about to fall apart. He could lose everything.A story of a toxic love gone wrong, with a setting that moves easily between present day London and 1990s Cambridge, Stronger Than Skin is compulsively readable, combining a gripping narrative with a keen eye for the absurdities of the way we live now.
The Shore
Sara Taylor - 2015
Where clumps of evergreens meet wild ponies, oyster-shell roads, tumble-down houses, unwanted pregnancies, murder, storm-making and dark magic in the marshes. . . Situated off the coast of Virginia's Chesapeake Bay, the group of islands known as the Shore has been home to generations of fierce and resilient women. Sanctuary to some but nightmare to others, it's a place they've inhabited, fled, and returned to for hundreds of years. From a half-Shawnee Indian's bold choice to flee an abusive home only to find herself with a man who will one day try to kill her to a brave young girl's determination to protect her younger sister as methamphetamine ravages their family, to a lesson in summoning storm clouds to help end a drought, these women struggle against domestic violence, savage wilderness, and the corrosive effects of poverty and addiction to secure a sense of well-being for themselves and for those they love.Together their stories form a deeply affecting legacy of two barrier island families, illuminating 150 years of their many freedoms and constraints, heartbreaks, and pleasures. Conjuring a wisdom and beauty all its own, The Shore is a richly unique, stunning novel that will resonate with readers long after turning its final pages, establishing Sara Taylor as a promising new voice in fiction.
In the Tunnel (Kindle Single)
Takamichi Okubo - 2013
He is grieving for the loss of his wife when the tunnel collapses and traps the bus inside. In the darkness that follows, he manages to fumble out of the bus with the only other survivor, an astute and gentle woman who reminds him of his late wife. Without any light to guide them and with only each other to depend on, they try to escape the stifling darkness and along the way find themselves confronted by their pasts and given their last chance at intimacy, and ultimately, absolution.A realist story that plays with surreal elements, the tale poses a simple question: what is the meaning of hope?