But Hildy isn't one for self-pity and instead meets the world with a wry smile, a dark wit and a glass or two of Pinot Noir. When her two earnest grown-up children stage 'an intervention' and pack Hildy off to an addiction centre, she thinks all this fuss is ridiculous. After all, why shouldn't Hildy enjoy a drink now and then?But as the story progresses, we start to see another side to Hildy Good, and to her life's greatest passion - the lies and self deceptions needed to support her drinking, and the damage she causes to those she loves. When a cluster of secrets become dangerously entwined, the reckless behaviour of one threatens to expose the other, with devastating consequences.

    One day an invitation arrives. Peyton has been selected to attend a luxurious all-expense-paid seminar in Iceland, where participants, billed as some of the greatest thinkers in the world, will be charged with answering one perplexing question. Meeting her diverse teammates--two neuroscientists, a philosopher, a dance teacher, a collage artist, and a farmer--Peyton wonders what she could ever have to contribute. The ensuing journey of discovery will transform the characters' work, their biases, and themselves. This suspenseful novel shows that the answers you seek can be found in the most unlikely places. It can be read for pleasure, is a great choice for book clubs, and can be used as unique and inspiring reading in qualitative research and other courses in education, sociology, social work, psychology, and communication.

    Of his most recent novel, "The Rest of the Earth," Annie Proulx remarked that "Henderson writes some of the most evocative and transcendently beautiful prose in contemporary American literature." Set primarily in Wyoming, Henderson's new novel is the chronicle of six generations of a family, viewed through the lens of one woman's very long life. Augusta "Gussie" Locke is born in Minnesota in 1903. As a teenager she moves west with her mother to Colorado and then runs away from home. A one-night stand with a traveling soldier leaves her pregnant, and with her daughter, Anne, she eventually finds a life in Wyoming running supplies to oil and mineral crews in the Great Basin Divide. Through the years, Gussie keeps moving, abandoning people and places, being abandoned herself; Anne runs away just as her mother had, never to be seen again. Settling in the Wind River Range, Augusta, alone again, builds a new life until, years later, her grandson and great-granddaughter seek to discover the woman behind the family myth. Spanning the twentieth century, Augusta's extraordinary trials and tribulations play out themes of love and loss, redemption and reconciliation. Redolent with myth, humor, strange landscapes, and stark reality, "Augusta Locke" is an indelible portrait of a woman who through great spirit and toughness of character blazes her own trail.

    John, a single mother, is reeling from grief: Three months ago, her twenty-one-year-old son, Cully, died in an avalanche near their home in the ski resort town of Breckenridge, Colorado. As Sarah tries her best to go through the stages—the anger, the sadness, the letting go—she has trouble keeping her grief at bay and moving on with life. Her father, a retiree who has become addicted to QVC, urges Sarah to go back to work at Breckenridge’s local morning show. Her best friend, a recent divorcee who always manages to say the wrong things, convinces Sarah to sort through Cully’s belongings. Slowly, she comes to terms with a world without the swish of her son’s ski pants or the rolling of his skateboard outside her window. Then a girl named Kit appears on Sarah’s doorstep—and she’s carrying Cully’s child. The Possibilities is a tender and darkly funny story about the fracturing and healing that takes place within a family after tragedy. Told in Kaui Hart Hemmings’s unsentimental and refreshingly wry style—praised as “audaciously comic” by The New Yorker—this uplifting novel asks difficult questions about what we risk to keep our loved ones close.

    He has glimpsed his neighbors—beautiful manicurist Rayleen, lonely old Ms. Hinman, bigoted and angry Mr. Lafferty, kind-hearted Felipe, and 9-year-old Grace and her former addict mother Eileen. But most of them have never seen Billy. Not until Grace begins to sit outside on the building’s front stoop for hours every day, inches from Billy’s patio. Troubled by this change in the natural order, Billy makes it far enough out onto his porch to ask Grace why she doesn’t sit inside where it’s safe. Her answer: “If I sit inside, then nobody will know I’m in trouble. And then nobody will help me.” Her answer changes everything.

    He comes bearing two things: his wish for a day of fishing in a place that has brought him solace for thirty years, and an astonishing bequest that will forever change the lives of those around him.From the battlefields of Italy to the turbulence of the Vietnam era, to the private battles of love and family, The Summer Guest reveals the full history of this final pilgrimage and its meaning for four people: Jordan Patterson, the haunted young man who will guide Harry on his last voyage out; the camp’s owner Joe Crosby, a Vietnam draft evader who has spent a lifetime “trying to learn what it means to be brave”; Joe’s wife, Lucy, the woman Harry has loved for three decades; and Joe and Lucy’s daughter Kate—the spirited young woman who holds the key to the last unopened door to the past.As their stories unfold, secrets are revealed, courage is tested, and the bonds of love are strengthened. And always center stage is the place itself—a magical, forgotten corner of New England where the longings of the human heart are mirrored in the wild beauty of the landscape.

     The new girl in town, Emma Harris, must prove herself hip to the rigid rules of adolescent conformity. The quest for cool, she discovers, is one long final exam. To pass she must be cruel to be kind (ditching her best friend for the popular crowd), dress to impress (trading her favorite Esprit shirt for three plastic bracelets), and master the art of seduction (puckering up with Mulberry Stain or Peaches 'n' Cream lip gloss). Life is all about making choices -- the right ones. Will Emma's social acrobatics put her on the short list for that coveted country club membership? Will the digits of her zip code pass muster? If her parents split up, will the gossip help or hurt her in the rankings? Grosse Pointe Girl serves as an indispensable road map through the dysfunction privilege brings. So put on your Guess? jeans and your jelly shoes and come along for the ride to the adolescent days that time forgot, but you never will.

    September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries …and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she’s made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her?  September 2011. On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, widow Taryn Michaels has convinced herself that she is living fully, working in a charming specialty fabric store and raising her daughter alone. Then a long-lost photograph appears in a national magazine, and she is forced to relive the terrible day her husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Towers …the same day a stranger reached out and saved her. Will a chance reconnection and a century-old scarf open Taryn’s eyes to the larger forces at work in her life?

    All he remembers is that he is a lawyer who specializes in fine print, and as he narrates his story, he applies this expertise in the form of footnotes.*Everyone keeps telling Frank that he was fine before the accident, “just a bit overwhelmed,” but as he begins to reclaim his memories, they don’t quite jive with what everyone is telling him. His odious brother Oscar is intent on going into business with an inventively cruel corporation.** Alice, Frank’s wife, isn’t at all like the woman he fell in love with. She’s written a book called Executive X that makes Frank furious, though he isn’t sure why. And to make matters even stranger, stored in a closet is a severed finger floating in an old mustard jar that makes him feel very, very proud. As more memories flood in, Frank’s tightly regulated life begins to unspool as he is forced to face up to the real terms*** and the condition of his life.**** Robert Glancy’s debut novel is a shrewd and hilarious exploration of freedom and frustration, success and second chances, and whether it’s worth living by the rules.* Yes, exactly like this.** We can't tell you what it’s called for legal reasons, but believe us, it’s evil.*** Which are rarely in his favor.**** Which is a total mess.

    journalist, learns of a local legend. The deceptively simple fable about the thirteenth gift has a profound effect on Claire, which soon transforms her marriage, her work, and the way she sees the world. The Thirteenth Gift is both a cautionary tale and an inspirational fable as it shows a way through the perilous consequences of greed, arrogance, and abuse of power to an uplifted state of consciousness and community. The Thirteenth Gift invites readers to renew their own sense of wonderment, which can lead to freedom from fear and a greater experience of hope, beauty, and joy in daily life. Like the message of the award-winning book, The Twelve Gifts of Birth, this novella from Charlene Costanzo reminds readers to see the dignity that is inherent in themselves and others.

    Seen through the lens of four families who've been a part of one another's lives since their kids were born over a decade ago, the story reveals not only the lengths that some adults are willing to go to get ahead, but the effect on the group's children, sibling relationships, marriages, and careers, as simmering resentments come to a boil and long-buried, explosive secrets surface and detonate. It's a humorous, keenly observed, timely take on ambitious parents, willful kids, and the pursuit of prestige, no matter the cost.

    Everyone knows it, from her dearest friends within the Spinsters’ Sewing Circle to her most distant acquaintances within the parish.So when the beloved new curate turns up dead the night before Valentine’s Day, stabbed through the heart with Lydia’s own knitting needle, not even Lydia’s closest friends expect her to do more than cry and perhaps arrange a luncheon after the funeral service. After all, the tragedy was only a robbery gone wrong, and how could any vicar’s daughter hope to bring the long-gone thief to justice?
But Lydia can’t shake the feeling that this crime was somehow personal. The clues suggest the curate was murdered for some terrible purpose, and everyone at the house party seems to have a motive. Was it the high-born lady whose charitable endeavors are at risk? The beautiful young lady of the house who's hiding an agonizing secret? Her mother, who had every reason to want the curate gone? Or even the butler, whose private life is more scandalous than it seems?
And that’s to say nothing of handsome Mr. Pemberton, a notorious gambler and infuriating flirt from London who seems equally likely to have killed the curate and to drive Lydia to commit a murder herself.
This cozy, romantic Regency murder mystery—full of strong female friendships, gripping twists and turns, and witty repartee sharper than a knitting needle—is sure to delight fans of Jane Austen, Lynn Messina, and Patricia C. Wrede.

    She hears escape.Once in France, April quickly learns the apartment is not merely some rich hoarder's repository. Beneath the cobwebs and stale perfumed air is a goldmine, and not because of the actual gold (or painted ostrich eggs or mounted rhinoceros horns or bronze bathtub). First, there's a portrait by one of the masters of the Belle Epoque, Giovanni Boldini. And then there are letters and journals written by the very woman in the painting, Marthe de Florian. These documents reveal that she was more than a renowned courtesan with enviable decolletage. Suddenly April's quest is no longer about the bureaux plats and Louis-style armchairs that will fetch millions at auction. It's about discovering the story behind this charismatic woman.It's about discovering two women, actually.With the help of a salty (and annoyingly sexy) Parisian solicitor and the courtesan's private diaries, April tries to uncover the many secrets buried in the apartment. As she digs into Marthe's life, April can't help but take a deeper look into her own. Having left behind in the States a cheating husband, a family crisis about to erupt, and a career she's been using as the crutch to simply get by, she feels compelled to sort out her own life too. When the things she left bubbling back home begin to boil over, and Parisian delicacies beyond flaky pâtisseries tempt her better judgment, April knows that both she and Marthe deserve happy finales.Whether accompanied by croissants or champagne, this delectable debut novel depicts the Paris of the Belle Epoque and the present day with vibrant and stunning allure. Based on historical events, Michelle Gable's A Paris Apartment will entertain and inspire, as readers embrace the struggles and successes of two very unforgettable women.

    If you had'em, you were free to think about other things. If you didn't you couldn't think about anything else."We've been screwed blue and tattooed," quips Hilly Pruitt, upon hearing the news of the closing of Cherished Lady, the local lingerie factory where she's worked a lifetime. The same day the plant closes, Bonnie Duke Cullman, former-deb turned Atlanta-society-wife, has herself been downsized—right out of her marriage and picture-perfect life. In an unlikely alliance, Bonnie, Hilly, and the rest of the ex-bra seamstresses join forces in the "Displaced Homemakers Program" at a podunk community college. Together they endure a midlife survival course where the events of a single year forever alter the way they see the world and their places in it.

    Felicia has been quietly in love with her happily married boss for twenty years; now that he’s a lonely widower, she just needs the right situation to make him see her as more than the best executive assistant in Midtown Manhattan. Andrea is a private detective specializing in gathering evidence on cheating husbands—a skill she unfortunately learned from her own life—and can’t figure out why her intuition tells her the guy she’s tailing is one of the good ones when she hasn’t trusted a man in years. For these three women, as well as half a dozen others in sparkling supporting roles—a young model fresh from rural Georgia, a diva Hollywood star making her Broadway debut, an overachieving, unemployed Brown grad who starts faking a fabulous life on social media, to name just a few—everything is about to change, thanks to the dress of the season, the perfect little black number everyone wants to get their hands on…