Winter, 1916: In St Petersburg, Russia on the brink of revolution. Outside the Smolny Institute for Noble Young Ladies, an English governess is waiting for her young charge to be released from school. But so are the Tsar's secret police...Beautiful and headstrong, Sashenka Zeitlin is just 18. In the evenings when her mother is partying with Rasputin and her dissolute friends, Sashenka becomes Comrade Snowfox and slips into the frozen night to play her part in a dangerous game of conspiracy and seduction. Twenty years on, and Sashenka is married to a dashing Communist leader with whom she has two children. Around her people are disappearing, but her own family is safe. But she is about to embark on a forbidden love affair, which will have devastating consequences. Sashenka's story lies hidden for half a century, until a young historian goes deep into Stalin's private archives and uncovers a heart-breaking story of passion and betrayal, savage cruelty and unexpected heroism-and one woman forced to make an unbearable choice.

In the desegregation era of the 1970s, a first grader copes with being bused to a white school in this story for young children about racism and an essential time of change. "One of the Ten Best Books of the Year," The New York Times . Brewster is excited about starting first grade . . . until Mama announces that he'll be attending Central, a school in the white part of town. Mama says they have art and music and a library bursting with books, but Brewster isn't so sure he'll fit in. And he's right. Being black at a white school isn't easy. Brewster winds up spending his first day in detention at the library. But there he meets a very special person: Miss O'Grady. The librarian sees into Brewster's heart and gives him not only the gift of books but also encourages Brewster to believe in himself. This is an invaluable, unique, view into a tumultous time and the good that came into the lives of school children.

His theories would change the world--and tear hers apart. A page-turning novel inspired by the true-life love affair between Sigmund Freud and his sister-in-law. It is fin-de-siecle Vienna and Minna Bernays, an overeducated lady's companion with a sharp, wry wit, is abruptly fired, yet again, from her position. She finds herself out on the street and out of options. In 1895, the city may be aswirl with avant-garde artists and revolutionary ideas, yet a woman's only hope for security is still marriage. But Minna is unwilling to settle. Out of desperation, she turns to her sister, Martha, for help. Martha has her own problems--six young children and an absent, disinterested husband who happens to be Sigmund Freud. At this time, Freud is a struggling professor, all but shunned by his peers and under attack for his theories, most of which center around sexual impulses. And while Martha is shocked and repulsed by her husband's "pornographic" work, Minna is fascinated. Minna is everything Martha is not--intellectually curious, engaging, and passionate. She and Freud embark on what is at first simply an intellectual courtship, yet something deeper is brewing beneath the surface, something Minna cannot escape. In this sweeping tale of love, loyalty, and betrayal--between a husband and a wife, between sisters--fact and fiction seamlessly blend together, creating a compelling portrait of an unforgettable woman and her struggle to reconcile her love for her sister with her obsessive desire for her sister's husband, the mythic father of psychoanalysis.

Maris of Amberly, a fisherman's daughter, challenges the tradition that only the legitimate children of fliers be allowed to enter the elite ranks of those chosen to carry news between the islands of Windhaven by means of metal wings, but her victory threatens to tear apart the very structure she so wanted to join.

From the author of the best-selling memoir Slow Motion (“Chilling . . . her vision is unblinking”—New York Times Book Review; “Riveting . . . a breathtaking combination of candor and bravado”—San Francisco Chronicle), a ferociously paced new novel about a woman losing control of her life, her marriage, and her kids, and discovering that you can do everything right and still find the world you’ve made slipping away. Rachel Jensen has it all: a husband she adores, challenging work in art restoration, a terrific teenage daughter, and a new baby on the way. Then her infant son is injured in an accident in her daughter’s arms, and that accident begets a terrifying lie. Set in a small Massachusetts town, Family History is about a family spiraling toward disintegration, the terrible force of guilt in children, and a mother’s nightmarish realization that she cannot protect her own child. As the life the Jensens have so carefully built begins its slow collapse, we see with excruciating clarity the frailty of our strongest allegiances and the precarious ledge upon which our most vital relations—marriage, parenthood—are balanced. Family History blazes through this intimate and highly charged territory with stunning velocity, and marks a bold new step forward for the prodigiously gifted Dani Shapiro.

In 80 A.D., ten-year-old Roman sleuth Flavia and her friends sail from Corinth to Rhodes to try to stop a mysterious man who is kidnapping children and selling them into slavery.

They met in college and have been inseparable ever since: Cecile, confident, elegant, daughter of privilege; Norma, extraordinarily gifted and sadly troubled; Amanda, determined to rise above her humble southern beginnings. Two are married; one despairs of ever finding love; all lead busy adult lives. Yet, first and always, friends. But, in every life there is a moment when everything changes. For Cecile, Norma and Amanda it comes in the form of a pivotal event, a shattering act of betrayal that will shift the balance of power between husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers. After, the three friends will look at their families, their lives- and one another- differently. And none of them will be the same. Filled with the magical storytelling and emotional resonance that are Belva Plain's trademarks, "Looking Back" captures the profound intimacy and drama in the lives of women and their families. Tender, moving, and unforgettable, it is a richly woven page-turner by one of our most gifted authors.

It began almost like a fairy tale. Plain Jane and Prince Charming met in college, fell in love, and were married soon after graduation. She shelved her dreams of a career as a painter to help him through medical school, and to be the perfect doctor's wife. He became a successful plastic surgeon and they had two beautiful children together. But real life is no fairy tale. Suspecting there was another woman behind his erratic schedule, she went to his office to confront him. What happens that night leads to the end of a marriage and the breakup of a family. Like "Whispers," Belva Plain's novel about spousal abuse, "After The Fire" deals with one of the more provocative issues of our time: the battle of child custody as a woman finds herself overpowered by her husband's ruthless actions. Here is the story of one such woman who, in the aftermath of an ugly divorce, alone must rebuild her world, find the strength and wherewithal to live in it, and regain a life with her children. Only Belva Plain, with her insight into the American family and the hearts of those who comprise it, could create a novel like this, showing that sometimes even real life can have a happy ending.

A rich and rewarding story of love, loss, and the power of family from the bestselling author of Bad Mother and Love and Other Impossible Pursuits . In the aftermath of a devastating wedding day, two families, the Tetherlys and the Copakens, find their lives unraveled by unthinkable loss. Over the course of the next four summers in Red Hook, Maine, they struggle to bridge differences of class and background to honor the memory of the couple, Becca and John. As Waldman explores the unique and personal ways in which each character responds to the tragedy—from the budding romance between the two surviving children, Ruthie and Matt, to the struggling marriage between Iris, a high strung professor in New York, and her husband Daniel—she creates a powerful family portrait and a beautiful reminder of the joys of life. Elegantly written and emotionally gripping, Red Hook Road affirms Waldman’s place among today’s most talented authors.

Set in Chicago's Jewish neighborhood of West Rogers Park, this is the story of three families--adults and children alike--coming of age during the tumultuous, turbulent days of the Iran hostage crisis. At the close of the 1970s, the Rovners, the Wasserstroms, and the Wills-Silvermans will have to shed their pasts to cross into that new, shining decade of hope: the 80s.

Once again, Tim Diamond and his younger brother Nick are flat broke. So when they're hired to investigate an anonymous death threat made to world-famous pop singer and movie actress Minerva, they jump at the chance. However, the Greek celebrity seems to have plenty of enemies so the question is, which one actually wants her dead? Meanwhile, Tim needs to resist Minerva's amorous advances and focus on the matter in hand.

September AD 80. Flavia and her friends go to Rome to celebrate the Festival of Jupiter at Senator Cornix's town house. When a famous racehorse goes missing, Nubia sets out to recover it. The four friends find themselves caught up in a plot against one of the rival factions, the Greens. Who is trying to sabotage the charioteers? Could it be an inside job, or someone with a grudge from long ago? How many men and horses will die before the killer is caught?

A charming and undeniably powerful debut novel set in Berlin, "This Must Be the Place" chronicles the friendship between a fading actor and a young married American woman who are both learning to live with the past.

The Wandering Fire is the second novel of Guy Gavriel Kay's critically acclaimed fantasy trilogy, The Fionavar Tapestry. A mage's power has brought five university students from our world into a realm where an ancient evil has freed itself from captivity to wreak revenge on its enemies The ice of eternal winter has reached out to enshroud Fionavar, the first of all worlds. For the Unraveller has broken free after millennia enchained-and now his terrible vengeance has begun to take its toll on mortals and immortals, mages and warriors, dwarves and the lios alfar, the Children of Light. Only five men and women of our own world, brought by magic across the Tapestry of worlds to the very heart of the Weaver's pattern, can hope to wake the allies they so desperately need. Yet none can foretell whether even these beings out of legend have the power to shatter the Unraveller's icy grip of death upon the land

From the New York Times bestselling author David Duchovny, an epic adventure that asks how we make sense of right and wrong in a world of extremes. For the past twenty years, Bronson Powers, former star Hollywood stuntman and converted Mormon, has been homesteading deep in the uninhabited desert outside Joshua Tree with his three wives and ten children. Bronson and his wives, Yalulah, Mary, and Jackie, have been raising their family away from the corruption and evils of the modern world. Their insular existence—controversial, difficult, but Edenic—is upended when an ambitious young property developer, Maya Abbadessa, stumbles upon their land. Hoping to make a profit, she crafts a wager with the family that sets in motion a cataclysmic chain of events. Maya, threatening to report the family to social services, convinces them to enroll three of the children in a nearby public school. Bronson and his wives agree that if Maya can prove that the kids do better in town than homeschooled in their desert oasis, they will sell her a piece of their priceless plot of land. Suddenly confronted with all the complications of the twenty-first century that they have tried to keep out, the Powerses must reckon with their way of life as they try to save it. Truly Like Lightning , David Duchovny’s fourth novel, is a heartbreaking meditation on family, religion, sex, greed, human nature, and the vanishing beauty of an ancient desert.

"TRUST EXERCISE meets THE INTERESTINGS in this story of ten teenagers brought together by a high school production of THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK-which will influence the rest of their lives. In an Evanston, Illinois magnet high school in 1982, a group of high schoolers meet to audition for the spring play, excited for the chance to escape the difficulties of their everyday lives. Declan, a senior and an experienced actor, is confident he'll get his first-choice role, but when the capricious, charismatic drama director instead casts Franklin, an unknown underclassman-and the two are seen alone at the director's house-the traumatic series of events that will haunt the cast for years begins to unfold. Thirty-four years later, the actors have moved on with their lives. Some are wildly successful, some never left their hometown, and some just want to be left alone. Everything will change, however, when one former member of their cast comes forward with an allegation dating back to the time of the play. The consequences of this public revelation will be far-reaching and complex, reverberating through all of their lives in unexpected ways. CYCLORAMA is a deeply insightful and compelling story of ordinary people, and Adam Langer's down-to-earth style brilliantly cuts to the core of what makes us who we are and how our pasts-both personal and global-resonate into our present and future. With remarkable tenderness and humanity, Langer reveals how the traumas of our youth continue to echo throughout our lives, in our politics, in our careers, and in our selves"--

"'The grave we dug for my brother Little remained empty even after we filled it back in. And nobody was going to admit it.' So begins Little, first published by Graywolf Press in 1995 when David Treuer was just twenty-four. The narrative unfolds to reveal the deeply entwined stories of the three generations of Little's family, including Stan, a veteran of the Vietnam War who believes Little is his son; Duke and Ellis, the twins who built the first house in Poverty after losing their community to smallpox and influenza; Jeannette, the matriarch who loved both Duke and Ellis and who walked hundreds of miles to reunite with them. Each of these characters carries a piece of the mystery of Little's short life. With rhythmic and unadorned prose, Treuer uncovers in even the most frost-hardened ground the resilience and humor of life in Poverty. From the unbearable cruelty of the institutions that systematically unraveled Native communities at the turn of the century, to the hard and hallow emptiness of a child's grave, Treuer has orchestrated a moving account of kinship and survival. In his new introduction, Treuer, now among the foremost writers of his generation, reflects on the germ of this novel and how it fits into his lasting body of work centered on Native life. More than a quarter of a century later, Little proves as vital and moving as ever"--

Once her parents are off to bed, Poesy excitedly awaits the monsters that creep into her room. With the knowledge she's gained from her trusty Monster Book and a few of her favorite toys, Poesy easily fends off a werewolf, a vampire, and much more.

While explaining to her sons why their fish is dead, the author relates stories of memorable animals in her life.