"A woman long caught in her father's web strives to make a life--and art--of her"--

"For eighteen years, Jude Farraday has put her children's needs above her own, and it shows: her twins, Mia and Zach, are bright and happy teenagers. When Lexi Baill moves into their small, close knit community, no one is more welcoming than Jude. Lexi, a former foster child with a dark past, quickly becomes Mia's best friend. Then Zach falls in love with Lexi and the three become inseparable. Jude does everything to keep her kids on track for college...

Dannie Faber has lots of reasons to feel blessed. A children's book illustrator, she shares a loving marriage with Tom, a professor, with whom she divides her time between one of Boston's finest suburbs and a beloved beach house in Truro, on Cape Cod. They have equally fortunate friends and a daughter, Beth, who has found success in Manhattan as a magazine editor. Suddenly Dannie's fairy tale comes to an end. A rich newcomer to Truro builds a hideous...

"The stories in Acts of God are great postcards from the world of Ellen Gilchrist. It's a world of war and strife and surprises, and it is, yes, marvelous to behold." -The New York Times Book Review Celebrated short story writer Ellen Gilchrist, winner of the National Book Award for Victory Over Japan, returns with her first collection in more than eight years. In Acts of God, she has created ten diverse scenarios populated by characters dealing...

Sometimes life's most fulfilling journeys begin without a map. An executive at a New York cosmetics firm, Sarah has had her fill of the interminable hustle of the big city. When her husband, Josh, is offered a new job in suburban Virginia, it feels like the perfect chance to shift gears. While Josh quickly adapts to their new life, Sarah discovers that having time on her hands is a mixed blessing. Without her everyday urban struggles, who is she?...

Landing her personal hero and mega-best-selling author Essie Starling as a client, housecleaner Liv Green forms an unlikely friendship with this infamous recluse, but when Essie suddenly dies, leaving her an astonishing last wish, Liv discovers a connection between them that changes Liv's own life story forever.

When army officer Chike Ameobi is ordered to kill innocent civilians, he knows it is time to desert his post. As he travels toward Lagos with Yemi, his junior officer, and into the heart of a political scandal involving Nigeria's education minister, Chike becomes the leader of a new platoon, a band of runaways who share his desire for a different kind of life. Among them is Fineboy, a fighter with a rebel group, desperate to pursue his dream of becoming...

Set against a backdrop of the current political and cultural upheaval in the US and Eastern Europe, The Unmade World is a thoughtful, scope-y literary novel with a dose of suspense that moves from Poland to California to the Hudson Valley and back to Poland. It covers a decade in the lives of an American journalist and a Polish small businessman turned petty criminal and the wrenching aftermath of an accidental, tragic encounter between these two...