Literary Life

Perched in the far corner of a run-down New England mall, the Red Lobster hasn't been making its numbers, and headquarters has pulled the plug. But manager Manny DeLeon still needs to navigate a tricky last shift. With only four shopping days left until Christmas, Manny must convince his near-mutinous staff to hunker down and serve the final onslaught of hungry retirees, lunatics, and holiday office parties.

A cat and mouse game of surveillance and psychological torment develops between a middle-aged artist and her aging mother, as Vigdis Hjorth returns to the themes of her controversial modern classic, Will and Testament.

LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER A stunning debut novel about love and forgiveness, about the violence of memory and the equal violence of its loss—from O. Henry Prize–winning author Emily Ruskovich WINNER OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST BOOK AWARD WINNER OF THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD ...

Mormon bishop's wife Linda Wallheim fears for the safety of the people in her community when Karl Ashby, the ward's second counselor (the bishop's right-hand man), is found dead in an elaborately staged murder. Linda tries to console Karl's grieving children and wife, but matters are complicated when the autopsy reveals that Karl was a biological woman.

Mary Morrissey is living the life of her dreams. She has a loving husband, Tom, two daughters, and twin boys. But beneath the shiny veneer, Mary hasn’t taken a calm breath in 10 years. She lives in a constant state of panic, afraid the secret she’s kept hidden for so long will be revealed, shattering her perfect life. When addictively charismatic ex-boyfriend Landon James reappears during his high-profile Senate campaign, Mary’s fears become even more real.

When the greatest female mathematician in history passes away, her son, Alexander "Sasha" Karnokovitch, just wants to mourn his mother in peace. But rumor has it the notoriously eccentric Polish émigré has solved one of the most difficult problems in all of mathematics and has spitefully taken the solution to her grave. A ragtag group of mathematicians from around the world descends upon Rachela's shiva, determined to find the proof or solve it for themselves - even if it means prying up the floorboards for notes.

An unforgettable cast of characters is unleashed into a realm known for its cruelty—the American high school—in this captivating debut novel. The wealthy enclaves north of San Francisco are not the paradise they appear to be, and nobody knows this better than the students of a local high...

In Two Rivers, Vermont, Harper Montgomery is living a life overshadowed by grief and guilt. Since the death of his wife twelve years earlier, Harper has narrowed his world to working at the local railroad and raising his daughter, Shelly. Still wracked with sorrow over his loss and plagued by his role in a brutal, long-ago crime, he wants only to make amends for his past mistakes. Then one day, a train derails in Two Rivers and Harper finds a chance at atonement.

An unflinching memoir from a writer reckoning with his relationship with his troubled father and the complicated legacy that each generation hands down to the next “Justin Taylor’s relentless, peripatetic, and tender search for reconciliation with his late troubled father blooms into a...

A smart, comic page-turner about a Silicon Valley family in free fall over the course of one eventful summer from the author of Watch Me Disappear and Pretty Things When Paul Miller’s pharmaceutical company goes public, making his family IPO millionaires, his wife, Janice, is sure this is...

This final chapter in Daniel Woolrell's Ozark trilogy peels the lid back on a dysfunctional Missouri family as infidelity threatens to consume their world in violence and terror. Shug Akins is a lonely, overweight thirteen-year-old boy. His mother, Glenda, is the one person who loves him—she...

Yoshie's much-loved musician father died in a suicide pact with an unknown woman. It is only when Yoshie and her mother move to Shimokitazawa, a traditional Tokyo neighborhood of narrow streets, quirky shops, and friendly residents, that they can finally start to put their painful past behind them. However, despite their attempts to move forward, Yoshie is haunted by nightmares in which her father is looking for the phone he left behind on the day he died, or on which she is trying—unsuccessfully—to call him. Is her dead father trying to communicate a message through these dreams?

Following her mother's untimely and mysterious death, Delia embarks on a voyage of discovery through the streets of her native Naples searching for the truth about her family. A series of mysterious telephone calls leads her to compelling and disturbing revelations about her mother's final days. A story about mothers and daughters and the complicated knot of lies and emotions that binds them, it is a must-listen.

1939: Nerys Watkins leaves rural Wales to accompany her husband on a missionary posting to India. Travelling from lonely Ladakh, high in the Himalayas, Nerys discovers a new world in the city of Srinagar. Here, in the exquisite heart of Kashmir, the British live on carved wooden houseboats and dance, flirt and gossip as if there is no war. But the battles draw ever closer.

Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery is best known for her series of coming-of-age novels featuring the feisty orphan, Anne Shirley. However, Montgomery was also a prolific producer of short stories, which are notable for their wholesome presentations of romance and family life. This collection includes 27 stories that were published between 1909 and 1922.

In 1989, Jodi McCarty is 17 years old when she's sentenced to life in prison. When she's released 18 years later, she finds herself at a Greyhound bus stop, reeling from the shock of unexpected freedom but determined to chart a better course for herself. Not yet able to return to her lost home in the Appalachian Mountains, she heads south in search of someone she left behind, as a way of finally making amends. There, she meets and falls in love with Miranda, a troubled young mother living in a motel room with her children. Together they head toward what they hope will be a fresh start.

The recent death of her beloved husband, Rustom, has taken its toll on Tehmina Sethna. Now, while visiting her son, Sorab, in his suburban Ohio home, she is being asked to choose between continuing her old life in India and starting a new one in this unfamiliar country with her son, his American wife, and their child. Her destiny is uncertain, and soon the plight of two troubled young children next door will force the most difficult decision she has ever faced. Ultimately, the journey is one that Tehmina must travel alone.

By all accounts, Abby Holden has it all. She's the mother of a beautiful teenager and the wife of a beloved high school football coach. And all it took to achieve her charmed life was her greatest act of betrayal. Coach Ryan can coax his team to victory, but he can't seem to make his wife, Abby, happy. Her struggles with depression have marred their marriage and taken a toll on their daughter, Juliana. Although this isn't the life he's dreamed of, he's determined to heal the rifts in his family.

1977, Ohio. Lydia Lee, seize ans, est une élève et une fille modèle. Elle est le grand espoir de son père, d'origine chinoise, qui projette sur elle ses rêves d'intégration, et de sa mère qui espère à travers elle accomplir ses ambitions professionnelles déçues. Mais à quoi rêve Lydia en secret ? Lorsque la police découvre son corps au fond d'un lac, la famille Lee, en apparence si soudée, va affronter ses secrets les mieux gardés, car plus rien ne sera pareil. La disparition de Lydia vire soudainement à l'autopsie familiale.

Beena and Sadhana are sisters who share a bond that could only have been shaped by the most unusual of childhoods - and by shared tragedy. Orphaned as teenagers, they have grown up under the exasperated watch of their Sikh uncle, who runs a bagel shop in Montreal's Hasidic community of Mile End. Together, they try to make sense of the rich, confusing brew of values, rituals, and beliefs that form their inheritance. Yet as they grow towards adulthood, their paths begin to diverge.