Dream House


Catherine Armsden - 2015
    While she and her sister Cassie are cleaning out their childhood home on the coast of Maine, they stir up painful memories and resentments over family possessions. A legendary collection of historically significant letters is missing from the artifacts they unearth, supporting a decades-old suspicion that their aunt or estranged cousin has stolen them.Threatened by the loss of the old house and its extraordinary seaside landscape, Gina finds her heart swinging wildly between Maine and California, creating conflict with her husband, Paul. To learn what the Maine house means to her, she approaches it objectively, as an architect, bringing it to life on paper. Her family’s story unfolds room by room: the darkroom from which her gentle but passive father, Ron, ran his photography business, the kitchen where her volatile mother, Eleanor, toiled under the weight of dashed dreams. As children, Gina and Cassie warily navigated rooms permeated with toxic secrets hobbling Eleanor and Ron’s marriage.As Gina deconstructs the house, startling truths are revealed, changing family history and allowing Gina and Cassie to begin healing family wounds. Gina has the chance to search the recesses of her heart, too, discovering within her a vitalizing compassion and an awakened understanding of what makes a house a home.Catherine Armsden's fascination with architecture was ignited during her childhood growing up among the weather-beaten houses of coastal Maine. Educated in New England, she moved to San Francisco in 1983 with her husband, Lewis Butler, where they co-founded Butler Armsden Architects.Dream House is her debut novel.

FCBD: Rated Free For Everyone


Joey Weiser - 2011
    And in the Crogan's Adventure, you'll get an epilogue to the story of one of the brothers from Crogan's Loyalty.

The Good Neighbor


William Kowalski - 2004
    For Colt, the house will become a trophy representing his enormous success at trading stocks. For Francie, a blocked poet, the house seems to whisper hints for reawakening her creativity.Picking up the house for a song, the couple begins the transition from city dwelling to country life and find for the first time in too long that they have something to work on together. Yet the more the Harts learn about the house, its history, and its previous inhabitants, the more it drives them apart. And when Francie discovers an old family cemetery hidden on the property, it somehow brings out qualities in each of them that come as a total surprise to the other.Events that conspire to destroy their marriage could just as easily bring the couple together again in this story of two people who, in looking for a place to call home, find themselves instead.

The Lonely Polygamist


Brady Udall - 2010
    Golden Richards, husband to four wives, father to twenty-eight children, is having the mother of all midlife crises. His construction business is failing, his family has grown into an overpopulated mini-dukedom beset with insurrection and rivalry, and he is done in with grief: due to the accidental death of a daughter and the stillbirth of a son, he has come to doubt the capacity of his own heart. Brady Udall, one of our finest American fiction writers, tells a tragicomic story of a deeply faithful man who, crippled by grief and the demands of work and family, becomes entangled in an affair that threatens to destroy his family's future. Like John Irving and Richard Yates, Udall creates characters that engage us to the fullest as they grapple with the nature of need, love, and belonging. Beautifully written, keenly observed, and ultimately redemptive, The Lonely Polygamist is an unforgettable story of an American family—with its inevitable dysfunctionality, heartbreak, and comedy—pushed to its outer limits.

The Last Day For Rob Rhino (Twisted Crime #2)


Kathleen O'Donnell - 2013
    I became more immersed with every page, as the plot twisted and turned its way to the end. Kathleen O'Donnell has done an outstanding job with her first book. Can't wait to hear more from her. Hurry! – Ryker, five star review on Amazon. Claire’s a rich widow on a mission, who partakes with abandon from the pharmacy stored in her Prada purse. Rob’s an aging reality show celebrity. Stuck on the same flight, bound for the same eccentric town, she hates him on sight. She thinks she knows all there is to know about him but is dying to find out more. He’s disinterested but somehow still sees right through her. But they’ve both got big problems. Hers is in the Louis Vuitton carryon in the overhead. His is in his pants. To Claire’s dismay, Rob turns up everywhere she goes, yet they form the unlikeliest of friendships. He cares for her in ways she’s never known before. He could be the best thing in her life—or the worst. In a place full of secrets, including their own, they help each other find answers they didn’t even know they were looking for, yet some questions linger. What happened to Rob’s first wife? What happened to Claire’s husband? Will they live through the answers? The Last Day for Rob Rhino is a dark, tragic, and funny novel about the bonds of family and friendship. If you’d love a Gillian Flynn, Paula Hawkins, or Stieg Larsson novel with a humorous twist, this would be it.

Someone Not Really Her Mother


Harriet Scott Chessman - 2004
    This story offers unusual insight into the consciousness of Hannah Pearl, who lives her daily life with courage and generosity in spite of her confusion. Although her daughter and granddaughters attempt to help her stay in the present of her Connecticut shoreline town, Hannah increasingly inhabits the world of her ardent youth in war-torn France and England. As Miranda McCarthy and her daughters Fiona and Ida walk on tiptoe around Hannah’s secrets, it is the reader who discovers and illuminates all the pieces of this intelligent and dream-like puzzle.Someone Not Really Her Mother has also been published in Japan and the Netherlands.

Welcome to the Garden Club: A Novel


Jenny B. Tilbury - 2015
    As longtime member Stephanie Lewis steps into a luxurious condo to begin a new season of the garden club, she has no idea of the drama and life changes that await her.Stephanie, a community volunteer and socialite, is convinced that proper civilization ends at the New Orleans city limits. Her friends and fellow members consist of Gloria Vincent, a wealthy widow who manages two international businesses, and Dolores Delacroix, a successful business owner and master gardener who drinks like a sailor. As the roots of improbable friendships grow deeper, the women discover there is more to every life than what appears on the surface. When a chain of events transforms Stephanies life and the existence of the garden club forever, each of the women learns that she must first examine the past and face the present before she can ever embrace future possibilities.In this heartwarming story, the ladies of a French Quarter garden club depend upon reliance, grace, and the bonds of their sisterhood to courageously deal with lifes unexpected twists and turns. For more information visit: www.welcometothegardenclub.com.

Perfect Alibis


Jane Wenham-Jones - 2003
    Except that PAs isn’t quite what it seems.Far from providing companies with Personal Assistants, the agency offers Perfect Alibis to unfaithful women. And as Stephanie soon discovers, there are lots of them about!Founder member Patsy is a serial philanderer and there’s a dark side to her best friend Millie. For the well-heeled ladies of Edenhurst, PA’s is a ticket to risk-free adultery.So when Stephanie’s first love, Troy returns to town even she is tempted. But her life is soon in turmoil, and that’s before the tabloids get involved….

Divine Blessings


Norhafsah Hamid - 2020
    Their friends – Jaws, Linda, and Mat Bond are all leading happy lives despite adjusting to the commitments of adulthood. Through ups dan downs, their friendship remained strong.But in life, love and happiness require hard work and sacrifice.For some, life will come to a beautiful full circle – proving that eternal happiness is for everyone, even if one was once, so far away from God.*** It is easy to give up on everything when one is drowning in hardships. But there are divine blessings in life, if one seek them with eyes of mercy and gratitude.

Us Three


Ruth Jones - 2020
     Meet Lana, Judith and Catrin. Best friends since primary school when they swore an oath on a Curly Wurly wrapper that they would always be there for each other, come what may. After the trip of a lifetime, the three girls are closer than ever. But an unexpected turn of events shakes the foundation of their friendship to its core, leaving their future in doubt – there’s simply too much to forgive, let alone forget. An innocent childhood promise they once made now seems impossible to keep . . . Packed with all the heart and empathy that made Ruth’s name as a screenwriter and now author, Us Three is a funny, moving and uplifting novel about life’s complications, the power of friendship and how it defines us all. Prepare to meet characters you’ll feel you’ve known all your life – prepare to meet Us Three. AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW Praise for Ruth Jones: ‘Ruth Jones is excellent on human nature and why we make the mistakes we do. I felt for every character. Unputdownable.’Jojo Moyes, bestselling author of ME BEFORE YOU‘I love books about gnarly, messy relationships and this one kept me gripped from the beginning. A great read.’Jane Fallon, bestselling author of TELL ME A SECRET‘Easy to read and full of laughter - and truth’Daily Mail ‘Thought-provoking, compelling and ultimately redemptive’Sunday Express

The Fountain at the Center of the World


Robert Newman - 2003
    A reclusive young widower and political apostate, Salgado goes on the run after he is persuaded to blow up the pipelines of a sluicing operation sucking the local groundwater dry. Meanwhile, Evan Hatch, a London-based flack for an "issues-management" PR firm, is dying from leukemia. Hoping to find a donor, he tracks down his long-lost brother in Mexico (from where he had been adopted at birth) while en route to the WTO meeting in Seattle. Chano, desperately needing to cross the border, finds his brother (Evan) first, and steals his passport. In the third narrative strand, Chano’s young son, Daniel, himself given up for adoption in Costa Rica, is also looking for his father. Traveling to Mexico, he is forced to flee when the police take him hostage hoping to force his father turn himself in. Squirreling himself away on a freighter, he is rescued by a UK refugee organization whose activists fly to Seattle with him to participate in the protest hoping to reunite him with his father, who, masquerading as Evan, is about to give a speech to the European Roundtable of Industrialists…

The Pull of the Moon


Elizabeth Berg - 1996
    I just wanted you to know I was safe...I won't be back for a while. I'm on a trip. I needed all of a sudden to go, without saying where, because I don't know where. I know this is not like me. I know that. But please believe me, I am safe and I am not crazy. I felt as though if I didn't do this I wouldn't be safe and I would be crazy...And can you believe this? I love you. - Nan.Sometimes you have to leave your life behind for a while to see it and really live freshly again. In this luminous, exquisitely written novel, a woman follows the pull of the moon to find her way home. Sometimes humorous, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest, The Pull of the Moon is a novel about the journey of one woman - and about the issues of the heart that transforms the lives of all women.

Red Mountain


Boo Walker - 2016
    Otis Till, the area's visionary winemaker, has been known to howl at the moon--fully nude. Single mother Margot Pierce moved across the country to build an inn, but so far all she does is binge on gelato, the Hallmark Channel, and fantasies of murdering her ex. High school senior Emilia Forester is the daughter of celebrity parents struggling to build her own life outside of their shadow. And Brooks Baker is a man haunted by his past spent living on the streets as an orphan. Somehow, everyone lives together harmoniously, their lives intertwined like the vines in Red Mountain's beautiful and renowned vineyards.But in a place where everyone knows each other, secrets are like poison...and right now Otis, Margot, Emilia, and Brooks all have something to hide. When their secrets come to light, will their small mountain be stronger for it--or will lives be torn apart?Heartfelt and wonderfully descriptive, Red Mountain is the story of four complicated people living in a beautiful landscape unlike anywhere else. Told from multiple perspectives and rich with vivid descriptions of wine life, this novel will transport you from the first page to the last.Boo writes contemporary dysfunctional fiction for open-minded soul searchers that enjoy books by such authors as Pat Conroy, Liane Moriarty, Amor Towles, Jojo Moyes, and Celeste Ng. Look out for the sequel, Red Mountain Rising, coming soon!

Ghosts Among Men


Laura Del - 2015
    More specifically, she sees ghosts as a private investigator, working alongside the Chicago Police Department to put away killers and put troubled spirits to rest.When the daughter of one of Chicago's wealthiest families turns up dead, Samantha and her assistant Mark team up with homicide detective Lance MacDowell to get to the bottom of the crime.Allison Allen is tall, blonde, beautiful-and very much dead. As Samantha interviews the girl, who doesn't remember anything about the circumstances of her own murder, it's clear that there's more going on behind the walls of this manicured home than anyone wants to let on-and that Samantha has her work cut out for her this time.Juggling her own love life, tracking down troubled spirits, and evading attempts to thwart her investigation keeps Samantha on her toes. Good thing Samantha knows how to keep her eyes open, her wits about her, and her sense of humor.

The Soldier's Song


Alan Monaghan - 2010
    As Ireland stands on the brink of political crisis, Europe plunges headlong into war. Among the thousands of Irishmen who volunteer to fight for the British Army is Stephen Ryan, a gifted young maths scholar whose working class background has marked him out as a misfit among his wealthy fellow students. Sent to fight in Turkey, he looks forward to the great adventure, unaware of the growing unrest back home in Ireland. His romantic notions of war are soon shattered and he is forced to wonder where his loyalties lie, on his return to a Dublin poised for rebellion in 1916 and a brother fighting for the rebels. Everything has changed utterly, and in a world gone mad his only hope is his growing friendship with the brilliant and enigmatic Lillian Bryce. "The Soldier's Song "is a poignant and deeply moving novel, a tribute to the durability of the human soul.