She has only seven days to choose her destiny...     
 
Grace Ainsworth leads sufficiently fairy-tale-free existence as a legal file clerk in rainy Seattle. Her orderly life turns into a roller coaster of unusual events when a mysterious package arrives from her eccentric Aunt Louise.
    
Named the next "carrier of the gifts", she has only one week to sort through her inheritance or lose it all.
    
It's finally her chance to get her dream job and maybe even her prince--if she doesn't screw things up. But that "Happily-Ever-After" plan soon turns as ill-fitting as the pair of disagreeable high heels she's forced to wear.
    
As she blunders through unpredictable magic that challenges her beliefs and uncovers the wounds of her past, Grace has to fight unexpected foes and save her workplace.
When everything she holds dear is put on the line, will she be able to rise up to her true calling before the clock strikes midnight on her 25th birthday? A perfect mixture of feel-good vibes, intrigue, clean romance, and a pinch of magic. Empowering book for all ages. Dive in to be entertained and inspired.
From the readers:
"The book goes well with a cup of tea and a slice of cake to enjoy while reading."
"The story will make you laugh, tear up, and go after your own dreams."  

A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review).

Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by a longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into a wealthy and insular art community.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love -- and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention. From the streets of New York to the dark corners of the art underworld, this "soaring masterpiece" examines the devastating impact of grief and the ruthless machinations of fate (Ron Charles, Washington Post).

This smash bestseller about privileged Vassar classmates shocked America in the sixties and remains “juicy . . . witty . . . brilliant” (Cosmopolitan).

 At Vassar, they were known as “the group”—eight young women of privilege, the closest of friends, an eclectic mix of vibrant personalities. A week after graduation in 1933, they all gather for the wedding of Kay Strong, one of their own, before going their separate ways in the world. In the years that follow, they will each know accomplishment and loss in equal measure, pursuing careers and marriage, experiencing the joys and traumas of sexual awakening and motherhood, all while suffering through betrayals, infidelities, and sometimes madness. Some of them will drift apart. Some will play important roles in the personal dramas of others. But it is tragedy that will ultimately unite the group once again.

A novel that stunned the world when it was first published in 1963, Mary McCarthy’s The Group found acclaim, controversy, and a place atop the New York Times bestseller list for nearly two years for its frank and controversial exploration of women’s issues, social concerns, and sexuality. A blistering satire of the mores of an emergent generation of women, The Group is McCarthy’s enduring masterpiece, still as relevant, powerful, and wonderfully entertaining fifty years on.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author’s estate. 

WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD and A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

A finalist for the Kirkus Prize, Andrew Carnegie Medal, Aspen Words Literary Prize, and a New York Times bestseller, this majestic, stirring, and widely praised novel from two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward, the story of a family on a journey through rural Mississippi, is a “tour de force” (O, the Oprah Magazine) and a timeless work of fiction that is destined to become a classic.

Jesmyn Ward’s historic second National Book Award–winner is “perfectly poised for the moment” (The New York Times), an intimate portrait of three generations of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. “Ward’s writing throbs with life, grief, and love… this book is the kind that makes you ache to return to it” (Buzzfeed).

Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesn’t lack in fathers to study, chief among them his Black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent White father, Michael, who is being released from prison; his absent White grandfather, Big Joseph, who won’t acknowledge his existence; and the memories of his dead uncle, Given, who died as a teenager.

His mother, Leonie, is an inconsistent presence in his and his toddler sister’s lives. She is an imperfect mother in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is Black and her children’s father is White. She wants to be a better mother but can’t put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. Simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high, Leonie is embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances.

When the children’s father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another thirteen-year-old boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love.

Rich with Ward’s distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic and unforgettable family story and “an odyssey through rural Mississippi’s past and present” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

It’s been a long seventeen years since Jess last saw her grandmother or visited the family cottage set on an idyllic lake in Northern Michigan. For all that time, she’s been haunted by loss—of her innocence and her ability to trust and, most of all, of a profound summer romance that might have been something more. So when her grandmother leaves the house to her, Jess summons her courage and returns to a place full of memories—and secrets.

There, she stumbles upon old letters and photographs of a time not so much forgotten as buried. As she begins to unravel the hidden histories of her mother and her grandmother, she makes a startling discovery about a tragic death that prompted her family’s slow undoing. With every uneven and painful step into the past, Jess comes closer to a truth that could alter her own path—and open a door to a different future.

Revised edition: This edition of The Color of Water in July includes editorial revisions.

Sara knows her life would be easier if she married a man of her faith, but when has love ever been easy?

Raised by her immigrant Iranian parents, Sara has been taught that a good daughter makes decisions based on her family’s approval, and she’s spent most of her life in their good graces. Until she meets Maziar, and her world is turned upside down.

An instant electricity ignites between them, and it seems like fate when she discovers he’s also Iranian. Just as her mind begins to soar with the possibilities, he shatters her hopes.

Sara is Muslim. Maziar is Jewish. Will faith tear them apart?

Despite centuries of unrest behind them, Sara and Maziar embark on a forbidden love affair, attempting to navigate through cultural and religious prejudices.

Deep within the trenches of their battle, Sara finds herself more empowered and careless than ever before, but will her love and newfound life be worth the ultimate cost—her family?

"FORBIDDEN BY FAITH shows how family, love, and faith can collide, even in this modern age." - Romance Author, A. K. Leigh ★★★★★

Be sure to scroll up and hit that BUY NOW button to discover a world in which love faces the ultimate test.

Sometimes the best way to transform emotional pain and is by writing about it. This book is a collection of stories and poems the author published after the traumatic loss of her career, income, status, friends, and, ultimately, personal identity. Going through it was tough but writing and sharing her thoughts and feelings about it changed her life in the most unexpected and beneficial ways.

The past isn't over, it's an opening. The future isn't hidden, it's a trap.
If she ever wants to see him again, she'll have to take the risk...

Publishers Weekly Starred Review: "Funny, Romantic & Harrowing!"

When offered a one-way trip to the past, Iz sacrifices everything for a chance to change her dystopian future—and see her murdered lover one last time.

After a perilous journey through a black hole, she wakes up on a tropical beach, buck naked and mortally wounded—but twenty years younger! With only hours to live, she must convince an enraptured but skeptical twenty-something guy to fix their future relationship and thereby save the planet (no one is quite sure why.)

But it's easier said than done, as success means losing him to a brainy, smart-mouthed bombshell (her younger self), and that's a heartbreaker, save the world or not.

Across the infinite expanse of space and time, love endures...

(Unfortunately, it’s not going to be enough.)

FALL INTO THIS EDGY, action-packed, darkly comedic, dystopian love story, and be prepared to encounter a finicky time machine, a mysterious seashell, and a very clever dog (some sex, some swearing, some violence, but no vampires and absolutely no ditzes.)

Set in London and Russia at the turn of the century, Susana Aikin’s debut introduces a vibrant young woman determined to defy convention and shape an extraordinary future.
 
Like other well-bred young women in Edwardian England, Lily Throop is expected to think of little beyond marriage and motherhood. Passionate about the stage, Lily has very different ambitions. To her father’s dismay, she secures an apprenticeship at London’s famous Imperial Theatre. Soon, her talent and beauty bring coveted roles and devoted admirers. Yet to most of society, the line between actress and harlot is whisper-thin. With her reputation threatened by her mentor’s vicious betrayal, Lily flees to St. Petersburg with an acting troupe—leaving her first love behind.
 
Life in Russia is as exhilarating as it is difficult. The streets rumble with talk of revolution, and Lily is drawn into an affair with Sergei, a Count with fervent revolutionary ideals. Following Sergei when he is banished to Vladivostok, Lily struggles to find her role in an increasingly dangerous world. And as Russian tensions with Japan erupt into war, only fortitude and single-mindedness can steer her to freedom and safety at last.
 
With its sweeping backdrop and evocative details, We Shall See the Sky Sparkling explores a fascinating period in history through the eyes of a strong-willed, singular heroine, in a moving story of love and resilience.

PLEASE NOTE: Although this book is part of the IRISH LOTTERY SERIES, there is no cliffhanger. It is true that the characters get older as the series progresses, but each book is a complete story, and can be enjoyed without having read the previous book.

With a family like this, who wouldn't need absinthe?

Fionnuala Flood, mother of seven unruly thugs, takes stock of her life on her 45th birthday, and it couldn't be more of a misery. She's been fired from the corner shop for stealing, her two oldest sons are in prison, her husband's hands are fondling more than frozen fish at the packing plant, and her lesbian daughter has just published a book exposing the family's attempts to get their claws into Auntie Ursula Barnett's lottery winnings the year before. Daughter Dymphna, unwed mother, has just been kicked out of her boyfriend's house, adding two more mouths to feed.

Desperate to raise money to travel to Malta for the launch party and wreak havoc, Fionnuala puts into motion a get-rich-quick scheme that preys on the weaknesses of others and will hopefully add a bit of luxury to her empty coal bin of a life. The scam, however, unleashes dark secrets that bring Ursula back to town for a final showdown.

Hand In The Till is a darkly comic look at revenge, retribution and, perhaps, reconciliation. With a shot of absinthe.

“A remarkable Civil War tale about Northern characters fighting for their own freedom as they seek revenge.” –KIRKUS REVIEWS

Zachary Webster was an innocent Maine farm boy before becoming a sharpshooter, but the violence of the Civil War battlefields has turned him into a natural killer. While home on his unit’s month-long furlough, he murders the man he believes has stolen his beloved. In doing so, he sets into motion three intensely dark journeys—his own as a soldier returning to a brutal and hopeless war; his sweetheart’s as she seeks absolution; and the brother of the murdered man, whose quest for revenge propels him into the most violent of worlds. When the three find each other amid the chaos and brutality of the Battle of the Wilderness, they’re faced with figuring out if they are tempered enough from their own redemptive ordeals to face whatever uncertain future awaits them after the bloody fighting is over.

A whimsical, moving novel about a retirement home for literary legends who spar, conjure up new stories, and almost magically change the lives of the people around them.

Alfonse Carducci was a literary giant who lived his life to excess—lovers, alcohol, parties, and literary rivalries. But now he's come to the Bar Harbor Home for the Elderly to spend the remainder of his days among kindred spirits: the publishing industry's nearly gone but never forgotten greats. Only now, at the end of his life, does he comprehend the price of appeasing every desire, and the consequences of forsaking love to pursue greatness. For Alfonse has an unshakeable case of writer's block that distresses him much more than his precarious health.

Set on the water in one of New England's most beautiful locales, the Bar Harbor Home was established specifically for elderly writers needing a place to live out their golden years—or final days—in understated luxury and surrounded by congenial literary company. A faithful staff of nurses and orderlies surround the writers, and are drawn into their orbit, as they are forced to reckon with their own life stories. Among them are Cecibel Bringer, a young woman who knows first-hand the cost of chasing excess. A terrible accident destroyed her face and her sister in a split-second decision that Cecibel can never forgive, though she has tried to forget. Living quietly as an orderly, refusing to risk again the cost of love, Cecibel never anticipated the impact of meeting her favorite writer, Alfonse Carducci—or the effect he would have on her existence. In Cecibel, Alfonse finds a muse who returns him to the passion he thought he lost. As the words flow from him, weaving a tale taken up by the other residents of the Pen, Cecibel is reawakened to the idea of love and forgiveness.

As the edges between story and reality blur, a world within a world is created. It’s a place where the old are made young, the damaged are made whole, and anything is possible….

From New York Times bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde comes a moving novel about two strangers who find that kindness is a powerful antidote to fear.

Raymond Jaffe feels like he doesn’t belong. Not with his mother’s new family. Not as a weekend guest with his father and his father’s wife. Not at school, where he’s an outcast. After his best friend moves away, Raymond has only two real connections: to the feral cat he’s tamed and to a blind ninety-two-year-old woman in his building who’s introduced herself with a curious question: Have you seen Luis Velez?

Mildred Gutermann, a German Jew who narrowly escaped the Holocaust, has been alone since her caretaker disappeared. She turns to Raymond for help, and as he tries to track Luis down, a deep and unexpected friendship blossoms between the two.

Despondent at the loss of Luis, Mildred isolates herself further from a neighborhood devolving into bigotry and fear. Determined not to let her give up, Raymond helps her see that for every terrible act the world delivers, there is a mirror image of deep kindness, and Mildred helps Raymond see that there’s hope if you have someone to hold on to.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Weight of Water and The Pilot's Wife (an Oprah's Book Club selection): an exquisitely suspenseful new novel about an extraordinary young woman tested by a catastrophic event and its devastating aftermath--based on the true story of the largest fire in Maine's history

In October 1947, after a summer long drought, fires break out all along the Maine coast from Bar Harbor to Kittery and are soon racing out of control from town to village. Five months pregnant, Grace Holland is left alone to protect her two toddlers when her husband, Gene, joins the volunteer firefighters. Along with her best friend, Rosie, and Rosie's two young children, Grace watches helplessly as their houses burn to the ground, the flames finally forcing them all into the ocean as a last resort. The women spend the night frantically protecting their children, and in the morning find their lives forever changed: homeless, penniless, awaiting news of their husbands' fate, and left to face an uncertain future in a town that no longer exists. In the midst of this devastating loss, Grace discovers glorious new freedoms--joys and triumphs she could never have expected her narrow life with Gene could contain--and her spirit soars. And then the unthinkable happens--and Grace's bravery is tested as never before.

Based on a true story, spanning half a century, this sweeping tale takes you from upper-class English society, to New York, Boston, and the wilds of the Napa Valley. But life may be found in the most unlikely places—the poverty-stricken streets of Neck End.

1898… Edward turned twenty nine-years-old on the ship. Looking out over the gray water back towards America, his heart ached for both the country he had adopted and loved, and for the woman he had lost there. He was returning to England without having 'made good'. Without any fortune.

When Edward meets Gertrude and is captivated by her youth and beauty, his hope for the future is transformed. But this is an era when the rich and poor of England each have their own firmly defined limits. More than any social boundary is a far greater problem—he’s already married.

Giving a glimpse into the realities of the very wealthy and the desperately impoverished of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, The Prussian Captain is the story of two opposite lives colliding. One is marked by finery, decorum, servants, and first-class adventures crisscrossing the Atlantic. The other is stuck in a life of abuse, alcoholism, and the depressed state of the working poor of industrialized England.

Start reading The Prussian Captain today and discover if Edward and Gertrude risk it all to overcome their stations in life. Will they each find what they are looking for? Find out today!

We Are Water is a disquieting and ultimately uplifting novel about a marriage, a family, and human resilience in the face of tragedy, from Wally Lamb, the New York Times bestselling author of The Hour I First Believed and I Know This Much Is True.

After 27 years of marriage and three children, Anna Oh—wife, mother, outsider artist—has fallen in love with Viveca, the wealthy Manhattan art dealer who orchestrated her success. They plan to wed in the Oh family’s hometown of Three Rivers in Connecticut. But the wedding provokes some very mixed reactions and opens a Pandora’s Box of toxic secrets—dark and painful truths that have festered below the surface of the Ohs’ lives.

We Are Water is a layered portrait of marriage, family, and the inexorable need for understanding and connection, told in the alternating voices of the Ohs—nonconformist, Anna; her ex-husband, Orion, a psychologist; Ariane, the do-gooder daughter, and her twin, Andrew, the rebellious only son; and free-spirited Marissa, the youngest. It is also a portrait of modern America, exploring issues of class, changing social mores, the legacy of racial violence, and the nature of creativity and art.

With humor and compassion, Wally Lamb brilliantly captures the essence of human experience and the ways in which we search for love and meaning in our lives.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A big sweeping novel of friendship and marriage” (The Washington Post) by the celebrated author of The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini
 
Leopold Bloom King has been raised in a family shattered—and shadowed—by tragedy. Lonely and adrift, he searches for something to sustain him and finds it among a tightly knit group of outsiders. Surviving marriages happy and troubled, unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes and devastating breakdowns, as well as Charleston, South Carolina’s dark legacy of racism and class divisions, these friends will endure until a final test forces them to face something none of them are prepared for.
 
Spanning two turbulent decades, South of Broad is Pat Conroy at his finest: a masterpiece from a great American writer whose passion for life and language knows no bounds.
 
Praise for South of Broad
 
“Vintage Pat Conroy . . . a big sweeping novel of friendship and marriage.”—The Washington Post
 
“Conroy remains a magician of the page.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“Richly imagined . . . These characters are gallant in the grand old-fashioned sense, devoted to one another and to home. That siren song of place has never sounded so sweet.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune
 
“A lavish, no-holds-barred performance.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 
“A lovely, often thrilling story.”—The Dallas Morning News
 
“A pleasure to read . . . a must for Conroy’s fans.”—Associated Press

FOR FANS OF CHUCK PALAHNIUK AND JACK KEROUAC.

Zach just left the hospital determined to get his life together. But life away from the support of a team of doctor’s and nurses isn't easy. His demons pervade every aspect of life--no matter how much medication he’s on.

A tortured psychological romance between two deeply damaged people. Zach is a paranoid psychotic who falls in lust with a neurotic, compulsive cutter he meets online named Emma:

The lovely, but anxious and self mutilating girl with dyed hair has demons of her own.

As Zach and Emma get closer, they find themselves falling in love despite their dangerous idiosyncrasies. Will the pair be able to look past their own personal dervishes, or will mental illness unravel their blossoming love?

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The latest from legendary master storyteller Stephen King, a riveting, extraordinarily eerie, and moving story about a man whose mysterious affliction brings a small town together—a timely, upbeat tale about finding common ground despite deep-rooted differences.

Although Scott Carey doesn’t look any different, he’s been steadily losing weight. There are a couple of other odd things, too. He weighs the same in his clothes and out of them, no matter how heavy they are. Scott doesn’t want to be poked and prodded. He mostly just wants someone else to know, and he trusts Doctor Bob Ellis.

In the small town of Castle Rock, the setting of many of King’s most iconic stories, Scott is engaged in a low grade—but escalating—battle with the lesbians next door whose dog regularly drops his business on Scott’s lawn. One of the women is friendly; the other, cold as ice. Both are trying to launch a new restaurant, but the people of Castle Rock want no part of a gay married couple, and the place is in trouble. When Scott finally understands the prejudices they face–including his own—he tries to help. Unlikely alliances, the annual foot race, and the mystery of Scott’s affliction bring out the best in people who have indulged the worst in themselves and others.

From Stephen King, our “most precious renewable resource, like Shakespeare in the malleability of his work” (The Guardian), Elevation is an antidote to our divisive culture, as gloriously joyful (with a twinge of deep sadness) as “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

A National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” Honoree

Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for a Debut Novel

Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born “with one foot on the other side.” Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.

Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these alters—now protective, now hedonistic—move into control, Ada’s life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.

Narrated by the selves within Ada, and based in the author’s realities, Freshwater explores the metaphysics of identity and mental health, plunging the reader into the mystery of being and self. Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice.