Family Memories

When an apocalyptic fire consumes Alex Mann’s hometown in New Mexico, his father and his best friend are both killed, leaving him with a harrowing secret about his role in their deaths. Scarred in mind and body, he embarks on a protean struggle to recreate himself. His journey is rife with embers of despair and guilt that reveal facets of a Mann he never knew. Memory, he discovers, can be both a mage and a sage whose sleight of hand unmoors time in the brine of imagination.

Carlota Molina has a brilliant career as a judge in Madrid, the respect of her peers, and an independent life. But it’s a life still haunted by the specter of a father she’s been estranged from for decades. Then one day Carlota gets a phone call from a familial stranger - her half sister, Julia - with an impassioned request. After years of pain and distance, Carlota’s father, Clemente, wants to see her before he dies...and to settle the past. Seizing on the opportunity to confront all her disillusions, Carlota begins to unravel the lies and deception in her family history.

Now a major motion picture and titled for the screen as RUMBLE THROUGH THE DARK; a blistering tale of violence and deliverance set against the mythic backdrop of the Mississippi Delta. The acres and acres of fertile soil, the two-hundred-year-old antebellum house, all gone. And so is the woman...

“Vivid . . . These stories, in which class divisions form impassable rifts and submission to the status quo comes at great psychic cost, have much to say about our contemporary reality." —The New York Times Book Review “What a gift to have these stories translated, finally, into English...

Fifteen-year-old Shelby's life has been spiraling out of control since her little brother died and her parents divorced. She gets in fights at school, lashes out at her mother, and can't find a way to pull herself out of her self-centered vortex of anger, fear, and grief. When Shelby inadvertently finds her great-grandfather's Ku Klux Klan robe and a cryptic message embroidered in a family quilt, Shelby and Darrin, her conflicted, gay best friend, drive traumatized Grandma to her hometown in North Carolina to help make amends with the past.

"Jessica R. Patch weaves a dark, twisty tapestry that’s both unsettling and unexpectedly hopeful. Masterful." –New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan She bought this house to save her marriage. Unearthing its secrets might just claim her life. Gwen McDaniel’s life is broken...

Alex would like to believe she’s a woman who has it all. Or that’s what she tells everyone, including herself. But this is far from true. Actually she’s on the cusp of losing her home, her dream career as a writer is in tatters, her ex won’t speak to her, and her mother’s gone forever. But then a chance meeting with a stranger named Hope gives her the opportunity of a lifetime, when Hope jokes that perhaps Alex should take over her job in a cafe while she goes travelling.

When her favourite beech tree is felled in a storm, Ann feels as if someone has died. But when long-hidden seed packets are found inside the trunk, Ann realizes there are more memories than her own lurking within the ancient tree. A century earlier, head gardener William Hatherwick and Hester Mordaunt, mistress of Beechgrave, share a love for the mighty estate - and an undeclared love for each other. But when war breaks out, William is sent to the battlefields of France, and as the conflict rages on, Hester grieves beneath the tree.

Steffi Lockwood has survived more than most. Recovering from an assault, she returns to her coastal Connecticut hometown to rebuild her life the best way she knows how: with her hands. But starting a remodeling business with one longtime friend puts her in the middle of a rift with another. Worse, being hired by her ex-boyfriend’s mother forces her to confront old regrets.

Severkin is an elf who slinks through the shadows of Wellhall's spiraling stone towers, plundering ancient ruins and slaying mystical monstrosities with ease. He's also a character in a video game - a character that 12-year-old Nick Reeves plays when he needs a break from the real world. And lately Nick has really needed a break. His mother had an "incident" at school last year, and her health has taken a turn for the worse. Nick is convinced his mother's illness has been misdiagnosed, but no one believes him. His only escape is the online world of Wellhall.

Bay Singer has bigger secrets than most. Not that she knows about them. Her mother, Nan, is sure that the burden of those secrets would be too much, and that's why she never told anyone the truth... not even Bay. There's a lot that Nan has kept quiet over the years, especially those times with Mavis and Ruthie - times that were dark and full of guilt. But some secrets have a power all their own, and Nan realizes she needs Mavis and Ruthie now more than ever.

Ten years ago, Claire Hines lost her unborn child - and her short-term memory - following a heartrending tragedy. With notebooks, calendars, to-do lists, fractured pieces of the past, and her father’s support, Claire makes it through each day, hour by hour, with relative confidence. She also has a close-knit community of friends in the remote Alaskan town where she teaches guitar to the local children. It’s there, in the reminders. As determined as Claire is to regain all that’s disappeared, she’d prefer to live without some memories of her before life.

On the night their mother drowns, sisters Marnie and Diana Maitland discover there is more than one kind of death. There is the death of innocence, of love, and of hope. Each sister harbors a secret about that night--secrets that will erode their lives as they grow into adulthood.

When Ann-Marie Martin reluctantly returns to her hometown of Brookville, New Hampshire, to help care for her ailing father and manage her grandmother Mary’s beloved quilt shop, she quickly discovers that the quaint Quilt Patch holds more than memories—it holds secrets. Mary was more than just a talented quilter; she was a quiet keeper of Brookville’s hidden history, weaving untold stories and family legacies into her creations.

All Lulu Carter wants is to be seen. But her parents are lost in their own worlds, and Lulu has learned the hard way that having something as rare as HSAM-the ability to remember almost every single moment in her life-won't make you popular in school. At least Lulu has Gram, who knows the truth about Lulu's memory and loves her all the more for it. But Gram has started becoming absentminded, and the more lost she gets, the more she depends on Lulu...until Lulu realizes her memory holds the very key to fixing Gram's forgetfulness.

In 1937, seventeen-year-old Ella’s life changes forever when she is sent to spend the summer on the beautiful Île de Ré and meets the charismatic, creative Christophe. They spend the summer together, exploring the island’s sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters, and, for the first time in her life, Ella feels truly free. But the outbreak of war casts everything in a new light. Ella is forced to return to Scotland, where she volunteers for the war effort alongside the dashing Angus. In this new world, Ella feels herself drifting further and further from who she was on the Île de Ré.

Isabel Nichols doesn't believe in soul mates, passion, or any of the romance nostalgia. The only thing she wants to do this summer is work on her beach cottage while repairing her heart and soul. Well, that was until Dakota Jackson shows up and causes her to drop everything. Dakota left the big city for life on the beach as he hopes the one person his heart belongs to remembers him. The only problem is, the once faded memories could ruin both of their hopes and dreams.

Even though 16 years have passed, Billie will never recover from the murder of her daughter, Jess, and clings to her memory—and the site of her death—like a life raft. Daniel, who was a toddler when his mother was killed, can recall little of what happened but knows if he’s to have any chance of a better future he needs to move on from that defining event—if only his grandmother would let him. Meanwhile Daniel’s stepmother, Carla, also feels trapped by Jess’s legacy but has a plan that she believes will help everyone to escape from the long shadow of the past.

Set in rural Ireland in the early 1960s, House of Memories concludes the story of two neighbouring farms and their feuding families. Following his brutish father's death, young Danny Conway strives to rescue the family farm from ruin. When all seems hopeless, help comes from the most unexpected quarter. A story of grief and trying to cope with loss but also of resilience in the face of family tragedy. No one knows the minutiae of country life as Alice Taylor does, and again she displays her unique ability to capture its rhythms and cadences.

One year after her family was in a tragic car accident that killed her teenage son, Lori Mendenhall returns home with a traumatic brain injury that has stolen the last eight years of memories from her. She is shocked to find that the life she was leading before the accident is unrecognizable. Her once-loving husband, Michael, is a distant workaholic she isn't sure she can trust and her once-bubbly daughter, Avery, has spent the last year hidden away in her room.