Shug Akins is a lonely, overweight thirteen-year-old boy. His mother, Glenda, is the one person who loves him — she calls him Sweet Mister and attempts to boost his confidence and give him hope for his future. Shuggie's purported father, Red, is a brutal man with a short fuse who mocks and despises the boy. Into this small-town Ozarks mix comes Jimmy Vin Pearce, with his shiny green T-bird and his smart city clothes. When he and Glenda begin...

"A portrait of a California family spanning several decades that examines the way a troubled marriage sets the course of family life and encourages adult children to grapple with the past even as they attempt to create successful families--and lives--of their own"--

My Sunshne Away unfolds in a Baton Rouge neighborhood best known for cookouts on sweltering summer afternoons, cauldrons of spice crawfish and vats of cold beer, glorious crepe myrtle blossoms and passionate football fandom. But in the summer of 1989, when fifteen year-old Lindy Simpson, free spirit, track star and belle of the block is attacked late one evening near her home, it becomes apparent that this idyllic stretch of suburban Baton Rouge has...

"Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ing�enue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The two are mismatched from the start--she's a lesbian, he's gay--but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind....

"Have you ever been wrong about someone? Juno was wrong about Winnie Crouch. Before moving in with the Crouch family, Juno thought Winnie and her husband, Nigel, had the perfect marriage, the perfect son - the perfect life. Only now that she's living in their beautiful house, she sees the cracks in the crumbling facade are too deep to ignore. Still, she isn't one to judge. After her grim diagnosis, the retired therapist simply wants a place to live...

"Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two...

"When her twenty-two-year-old stepdaughter announces her engagement to her pandemic boyfriend, Sarah Danhauser is shocked. But the wheels are in motion. Headstrong Ruby has already set a date (just three months away!) and spoken to her beloved safta, Sarah's mother Veronica, about having the wedding at the family's beach house on Cape Cod. Ruby has always known exactly what she wants, but as the wedding date approaches, she finds herself grappling...

"Shay Benson adored her younger brother, Caden, and that got her into trouble. When he owed money, Shay realized she would do anything to help him avoid the men who were threatening him, and she crossed lines she never should have crossed. Now, determined to start fresh, she finds herself in search of a place to stay and wanders into a church to escape from the cold. Pastor Drew Douglas adored his wife. But when he lost her, it was all he could do...

"See What I Have Done, Sarah Schmidt's "eerie and compelling" (Paula Hawkins) debut novel, is a wholly unique reimagining of the infamous true story of Lizzie Borden, who gained celebrity status after being tried and acquitted for the murders of her father and stepmother. On the morning of August 4, 1892, Lizzie Borden calls out to the maid: Someone's killed father. The brutal axe-murder of Andrew and Abby Borden in their house in Fall River, Massachusetts...

A brilliant and immersive, all-consuming read about one fourteen-year-old girl's heart-stopping fight for her own soul.Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous: Turtle has grown up isolated...