Tag: Literary Fiction

In story after story in this brilliant new collection, Alice Munro pinpoints the moment a person is forever altered by a chance encounter, an action not taken, or a simple twist of fate.

Her characters are flawed and fully human: a soldier returning from war and avoiding his fiancée, a wealthy woman deciding whether to confront a blackmailer, an adulterous mother and her neglected children, a guilt-ridden father, a young teacher jilted by her employer. Illumined by Munro’s unflinching insight, these lives draw us in with their quiet depth and surprise us with unexpected turns. And while most are set in her signature territory around Lake Huron, some strike even closer to home: an astonishing suite of four autobiographical tales offers an unprecedented glimpse into Munro’s own childhood.

Exalted by her clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, Dear Life shows how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary life can be.

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Fast-paced adventure, found family, intrigue, and enemies-to-lovers romance combine in an action-packed young adult novel for fans of Firefly.

Solara Brooks needs a fresh start, someplace where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. Still, off-world travel doesn’t come cheap, and Solara is left with no choice but to indenture herself in exchange for passage to the outer realm. She just wishes it could have been to anyone besides Doran Spaulding, the rich, pretty-boy quarterback who made her life miserable in school.

The tables suddenly turn when Doran is framed for conspiracy on Earth, and Solara cons him into playing the role of her servant on board the Banshee. Given the price on both Doran and Solara’s heads, it may just be the safest place in the universe.

It’s been a long time since Solara has believed in anyone, and Doran is the last person she expected to trust. But when the Banshee’s dangerous enemies catch up with them, Solara and Doran must come together to protect the ship that has become their home—and the eccentric crew that feels like family.

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One near-perfect guy…
Workaholic businessman Jacob Scott has had a crush on his brother’s best friend, Gaia, since forever—but he never expected to literally share her dreams. Living out their magical nighttime fantasies is explosive, but it’s their waking desire turning his single-minded ways upside down. It’s making him want a future he didn’t think was possible…

One dream that could come true…
But Gaia has secrets from her past she won’t reveal. And Jacob’s attempts to keep the peace in his own fractured family puts him up against her deepest fears. Soon, they’re facing hard truths about who they are and what they’re running from. And the only way to break this curse is realizing true love’s real-life power…

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Say goodbye to clutter, reduce stress, and live simply with this easy-to-use guide to downsizing!

Whether you are selling your family home, blending households into a new home, or cleaning out your aging parents’ home, sorting through a lifetime’s worth of accumulated possessions can be a daunting and stressful experience. Decluttering guru Peter Walsh recently went through the process of downsizing his childhood home and dividing his late parents’ possessions among his family. He realized that making these decisions about mementos and heirlooms creates strong emotions and can be an overwhelming chore.

In Let It Go, Peter will help you turn downsizing into a rejuvenating life change with his useful tips and practical takeaways, including how to:

• Understand the emotional challenges that accompany downsizing
• Establish a hierarchy of mementos and collectibles
• Calculate the amount of stuff you can bring into your new life
• Create strategies for dividing heirlooms among family members without drama

This new phase brings unexpected freedoms and opportunities, and Peter walks you through every step of the process. You’ll feel freer and happier than you ever thought possible once you Let It Go.

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The acclaimed historian presents a “beautifully perceptive and dynamic reassessment of Henry VIII…in this highly engrossing biography” (Booklist, starred review).

Henry VIII is best known for his tempestuous marriages and the fates of his six wives. But his reign and reputation were hugely influenced by his confidants, ministers, and even occasional rivals—many of whom have been underplayed in previous biographies. Exploring these relationships in depth, Tracy Borman offers a fresh perspective on the legendary king, revealing surprising contradictions in his beliefs and behavior.

Henry was capable of fierce but seldom abiding loyalty, of raising men up only to destroy them later. He loved to be attended by boisterous young men like his friend Charles Brandon, who shared his passion for sport. But the king could also be diverted by men of intellect, culture, and wit, as his longstanding interplay with Cardinal Wolsey and his reluctant abandonment of Thomas More attest.

Eager to escape the shadow of his father, Henry was easily led by male advisors early in his reign. In time, though, he matured into a profoundly paranoid and ruthless king. Recounting the great Tudor’s life and signal moments through the lens of his male relationships, Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him sheds fresh light on this fascinating figure.

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At forty, May Attaway is more at home with plants than people. Over the years, she’s turned inward, finding pleasure in language, her work as a gardener, and keeping her neighbors at arm’s length while keenly observing them. But when she is unexpectedly granted some leave from her job, May is inspired to reconnect with four once close friends. She knows they will never have a proper reunion, so she goes, one-by-one, to each of them. A student of the classics, May considers her journey a female Odyssey. What might the world have had if, instead of waiting, Penelope had set out on an adventure of her own?

Rules for Visiting is a woman’s exploration of friendship in the digital age. Deeply alert to the nobility and the ridiculousness of ordinary people, May savors the pleasures along the way—afternoon ice cream with a long-lost friend, surprise postcards from an unexpected crush, and a moving encounter with ancient beauty. Though she gets a taste of viral online fame, May chooses to bypass her friends’ perfectly cultivated online lives to instead meet them in their messy analog ones.

Ultimately, May learns that a best friend is someone who knows your story—and she inspires us all to master the art of visiting.

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As the town spirals out of control, local authorities approach Dave Gurney to conduct an independent investigation of the shooting.

The situation in White River becomes truly explosive as more killings occur in what appears to be an escalating sequence of retaliations. But when Gurney questions the true nature of all this bloodshed, and zeroes in on peculiar aspects of the individual murders, his involvement is suddenly terminated. Obsessed with evidence that doesn’t support the official version of events, Gurney cannot let go of the case…

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Missy Stuart is humiliated when she burns dinner for the cute, yet outspoken new auto parts rep. But, when he suggests to her father that she should take cooking lessons from the old ladies down at his church, she wants to crawl under a car and die. When she dutifully accompanies her father to church, she finds that she has more to learn than a bunch of recipes.

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Thirteen-year-old Bex Carter has a lot on her plate. Her biggest challenge is living with her Aunt Jeanie. As much as Bex tries to please her aunt, they always seem to butt heads. Sometimes Bex feels as if Aunt Jeanie goes out of her way to make her life miserable.

Aunt Jeanie enrolls Bex in a social group called the Silver Roses, a group that’s supposed to teach young girls how to be proper ladies, however it turns out to be nothing more than a club for snobs. Bex wants out, but she’s made a deal with Aunt Jeanie.

Will Bex take a stand against the Silver Roses or will their snobbery rub off on her?

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In the year 2010, an alien virus nearly wiped out the human race. A thousand years later, mankind has recovered and ventured into space. There has been no sign of the aliens since. Humanity remains confined to the Solar System.

All that is about to change…

Mazzy Webber is a lowly janitor on a third-rate cargo ship. Deeply in debt, when his captain decides to turn pirate, he leaps at the chance.

A modern Robin Hood – minus the part where he gives back to the poor – Webber lays down a few ground rules. No attacking manned ships, and no stealing from anyone who can’t afford it. Within months, he and the crew are out of debt. Their next target will make them rich.

But the attack goes all wrong. The target’s cargo could be the death of them – or it could be the key to reaching the stars.

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“Mission Impossible in book form.” (Netgalley review)

Betrayed, captured and left to rot in a Siberian prison by her country. The future looks bleak for Sam Driver, the CIA’s former top terrorist hunter.

Yet when embassy bombings push the US and Russia to the brink of nuclear war, a cabal of rogue UN ambassadors hatch a plan to expose the true culprits in a last-gasp effort to avert the apocalypse.

A ragtag international team is assembled. Disavowed spies, assassins and soldiers pulled out of their foreign jails. Yet some are bitter enemies. Others feared mercenaries. And all with an axe to grind.

Leading the mission, Driver is perhaps the most troubled soul. And when her past comes back to haunt her, those very same demons threaten to doom us all…

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Alora’s life has been anything but magical. Since her parents died, she and her brother have been on the run from a creepy, doggedly determined social worker. In a few more months she turns eighteen, but until then, they’re stuck hiding. It’s hardly surprising that she dreams every single night of another world, Terra, where she possesses telekinetic powers.

What Alora can’t explain is how, when she breaks her arm in her dreams, she wakes up with the same (very real) injury on Earth. And if her dreams aren’t real, shouldn’t they be more fun? Since only men on Terra are supposed to be able to move things with their minds, Alora spends all her time there hiding her powers.

But when her best friend on Terra is threatened, Alora uses her powers to save him, inadvertently killing the attacker. The next day on Earth, the exact same man she killed on Terra walks into her workplace…and drops dead. Suddenly, she’s being hunted in both places. Alora must discover how Earth and Terra are connected and how far she’ll go to save a world that may not deserve to be saved.

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