Determined to escape distractions and avoid the holiday season, Kaylee borrows a cabin in Virgin River. She knows the isolation will help her writing, and as she drives north through the mountains and the majestic redwoods, she immediately feels inspired. Until she arrives at a building that has just gone up in flames. Devastated, she heads to Jack's Bar to plan her next steps. The local watering hole is the heart of the town, and once she crosses the threshold, she's surprised to be embraced by people who are more than willing to help a friend, or a stranger, in need.
Domestic fiction
- Author:Carr, RobynSummary:
- Author:Peel, JenniferSummary:
He never wanted to leave her. She never expected him to return.If Ariana Stanton has learned anything in life, it's that men leave. She's been taught this lesson well from the father she's never met, who sends her a mysterious letter once a year, to her ex-fiancé, who left her for another woman. So, when she meets the charming and seemingly perfect Jonah, she promises him they will never be more than friends. It's a promise she can't keep. But before he has a chance to leave her, she sends him away. Dr. Jonah Adkinson has one regret--that he let Ariana remain convinced that love never lasts. But now, nine years later, the single dad is back in Pine Falls and on a mission: prove Ariana wrong. He's determined to win over the love of his life. And this time he won't let anything get in the way, not even her.Now, not only does Ariana have to face the man she's still in love with, but she must confront the mystery of her father's letters, forcing her to reevaluate the past and her choices. But will it be enough to make her believe that, unlike the letter she's always returned, Jonah is hers to keep?
- Author:Grainger, JeanSummary:
Robinswood Estate, County Waterford, Ireland. 1946. Years of neglect and abandonment have left the family seat of the Keneficks almost derelict, but the new Lord Kenefick and his charming young wife Kate are determined to breathe life into the old house once more. The war is over, and they have survived, so now they must set about making a bright future for themselves and their family. But the shadows of the past are ever lurking, and there are many who are not willing to see the new Lady Kenefick as anything more than the housekeeper's daughter. Kate's family, the Murphys, find themselves once more inextricably entwined with both the Keneficks and Robinswood, but this time everything is different-or at least they hope it is. The legacy of the war cannot be erased, and the events of those fateful years will not be forgotten. Can Robinswood provide a haven for those who need it, or are the scars of the past too deep?
- Author:Carlson, Ron.Summary:
Carlson spins a story of growing up and growing old as four high school friends and former bandmates reconnect 30 years after graduating. When they learn that one of them is dying, it feels like getting the band back together might be the most important thing they can do.
- Author:de la Roche, MazoSummary:
First published in 1946, in Return to Jalna, the Whiteoak family reunites after a year of separation. Piers, Renny, and Wakefield return in 1943 during the Second World War. Finch has been off on a concert tour, and Maurice has come home from Ireland. Fifteen-year-old Adeline returns from school and is now the stunning reflection of her namesake. It's a time of change and strain, but the family remains united against all others. This is book 13 of 16 in The Whiteoak Chronicles. It is followed by Renny's Daughter.
- Author:Oke, Janette, Bunn, T. DavisSummary:
Jodie Harland and Bethan Keane had little in common before the plight of a homeless dog brought them together, but from that day on the two young girls were bound together as best friends. As different as night and day in personality and interests, their friendship grows strong through shared joys, trials, and, finally, a devastating loss faced together.
- Author:McGregor, JonSummary:
A peaceful English village is thrust into chaos when a teenage girl goes missing. As the search unfolds over a span of thirteen years, the village changes in ways no one could have predicted.
- Author:Shreve, AnitaSummary:
A rookie paramedic pulls a young woman alive from her totaled car, a first rescue that begins a lifelong tangle of love and wreckage. Sheila Arsenault is a gorgeous enigma--streetwise and tough-talking, with haunted eyes, fierce desires, and a never-look-back determination. Peter Webster, as straight an arrow as they come, falls for her instantly and entirely. Soon Sheila and Peter are embroiled in an intense love affair, married, and parents to a baby daughter. Like the crash that brought them together, it all happened so fast.
- Author:Williams, IanSummary:
A hilarious and poignant love story about the way families are invented, told with the savvy of Zadie Smith, the energy of Junot Diaz, and an inventiveness all Ian Williams' own, set amidst a collision of cultures banging together in one polyglot suburb of Toronto. Felicia and Edgar meet as their mothers are dying. Felicia, a teen from an island nation, and Edgar, the lazy heir of a wealthy German family, come together only because their mothers share a hospital room. Felicia's mother dies and Edgar's "Mutter" does not--not right away, anyway. On her own in the cold white north, Felicia drops out of high school and takes a job as Mutter's caregiver. While Felicia and Edgar don't quite understand each other, and Felicia recognizes that Edgar is selfish, arrogant, and often unkind, they form a bond built on grief (and proximity) that results in the birth of a son Felicia calls Armistice. Army, for short. Some years later, Felicia and Army (now 14) are living in the basement of a home owned by Oliver, a man of Portuguese descent who works a gripe about his ex-wife into any conversation. Oliver has two kids, the teenaged Heather and the odd little Hendrix, and these three, along with Felicia and Army, form an unconventional family, except that Army wants to sleep with Heather, and Oliver wants to kill Army. Army has never met his father, but his fascination with his absent father--and his absent father's money--begins to grow as odd gifts from Edgar begin to show up (like a case of Jolly Ranchers and some red shoelaces). And Felicia, who has kept her distance from the man, feels Edgar's shadow looming over them. A brutal assault, a mortal disease, a death, and a birth reshuffle this group of people again to form another version of the family. Reproduction is a profoundly insightful exploration of the bizarre ways people become bonded that insists that family isn't a matter of blood.
- Author:de la Roche, MazoSummary:
First published in 1951, in Rennys Daughter, Adeline Whiteoak is voyaging overseas. It is now 1948, and she travels with her Uncle Finch and cousin Maurice to Ireland and then London. On the ship she meets a charming Irishman and falls in love. However, when scandal breaks, she embodies her namesake and refuses to give him up. Meanwhile, back home, Jalnas peace and beauty is threatened by a neighbours speculative designs. This is book 14 of 16 in The Whiteoak Chronicles. It is followed by Variable Winds at Jalna.
- Author:Huyghebaert, CélineSummary:
Remnants is an exploration of our relationships with family and perception, told through a profound investigation of a father's life and sudden death. Employing various voices and hybrid forms—including dialogues, questionnaires, photographs, and dream documentation—Huyghebaert builds a fragmented picture of a father-daughter relationship that has been shaped by silences and missed opportunities. The reader attempts to untangle fact from fiction: multiple versions of Huyghebaert's father are presented while remnants of his life disappear achingly quickly. What is left of someone who was not important enough to be archived? How do we talk about what no longer exists? Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for French-language fiction, Remnants asks essential questions we often only peer at from the corner of an eye; questions about the value of life in its duration and passing. This is a transcendent work, ideal for readers of Annie Ernaux, Sophie Calle, and Maggie Nelson.
- Author:Harrigan, StephenSummary:
Exiled to Texas with his grown daughter, sculptor Francis "Gil" Gilheaney is commissioned to create a statue for a man who recently lost his son in WWI. But as work on the statue progresses, secrets slowly reveal themselves and Gil's fragile family threads begin to fray.
- Author:Alexander, TameraSummary:
Bushwhacked and left to die in flames, rancher Larson Jennings is lovingly nurtured by a godly mountain couple. As his body slowly heals, he becomes spiritually transformed. But with his handsome features now scarred beyond recognition, Larson wonders if anyone can look beyond his grotesque burns to the better man he has become. Long presumed dead, he painfully limps home--to find his wife arm-and-arm with another man. As tears trickle down his disfigured face, Larson asks God to help him do what's best for his beloved Kathryn.
- Author:Tyler, AnneSummary:
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE “Tyler's novels are always worth scooping up—but especially this gently amusing soother, right now.” —NPR From the beloved Anne Tyler, a sparkling new novel about misperception, second chances, and the sometimes elusive power of human connection. Micah Mortimer is a creature of habit. A self-employed tech expert, superintendent of his Baltimore apartment building, cautious to a fault behind the steering wheel, he seems content leading a steady, circumscribed life. But one day his routines are blown apart when his woman friend (he refuses to call anyone in her late thirties a "girlfriend") tells him she's facing eviction, and a teenager shows up at Micah's door claiming to be his son. These surprises, and the ways they throw Micah's meticulously organized life off-kilter, risk changing him forever. An intimate look into the heart and mind of a man who finds those around him just out of reach, and a funny, joyful, deeply compassionate story about seeing the world through new eyes, Redhead by the Side of the Road is a triumph, filled with Anne Tyler's signature wit and gimlet-eyed observation.
- Author:Monroe, MarySummary:
Lula Mae, Ester, Megan, Rosalee, Helen, and Rockelle are like a close-knit family as they work the mean streets of San Francisco. For better or worse, they have something else in common too: their "manager," Clyde Brooks--a charismatic but intensely controllnig man who plays father, brother, lover and friend to each. Though they savor the high-life that Clyde provides, each of them yearns for something more. Soon, one simple act of rebellion will set in motion a chain of events that will change their lives forever.
- Author:Woodson, JacquelineSummary:
An extraordinary new novel about the influence of history on a contemporary African-American family, from the New York Times-bestselling and National Book Award-winning author of Another Brooklyn and Brown Girl Dreaming. Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. Moving forward and backward in time, with the power of poetry and the emotional richness of a narrative ten times its length, Jacqueline Woodson's extraordinary new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of this child. As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's birthday celebration in her grandparent's Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, escorted by her father to the soundtrack of Prince, she wears a special, custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own sixteenth birthday party and a celebration which ultimately never took place. Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives-even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be.
- Author:Spark, MurielSummary:
Follows the career of self-centered, middle-aged film director Tom Richards. As he turns colorful incidents from his life into glittery, cinematic fiction, his foreboding dreams become all too real.
- Author:Daigneault, Claude, Daigneault, MathieuSummary:
A wealthy family and a group of select guests find themselves at the mercy of an ice storm assailing the ancestral Quebecois country home. The situation soon becomes dire; it is a crucial time in the lives of these people who no longer love each other, as personal problems start taking their toll on already tense relationships. Burdened by cruel memories of the past and forced to hide their true feelings from one another, each of them tries to remain calm under the mounting pressure of the stressful atmosphere. But an unexpected development soon triggers an unpredictable reaction, one which will result in murder. Somewhere in this vast residence located in a remote area lurks a killer. But ice and sleet have made the roads impassable, and now, no one can escape.
- Author:Edgerton, ClydeSummary:
Beginning with an engagement announcement and ending with the birth of a son, the author gives a charming and utterly convincing snapshot of the first few years of a modern Southern marriage.
- Author:Murphy, JulieSummary:
From Julie Murphy, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dumplin' and Side Effects May Vary, comes another fearless heroine, Ramona Blue, in a gorgeously evocative novel about family, friendship, and how sometimes love can be more fluid than you first think. Perfect for fans of Rainbow Rowell and Morgan Matson. Ramona was only five years old when Hurricane Katrina changed her life forever. Since then, it's been Ramona and her family against the world. Standing over six feet tall with unmistakable blue hair, Ramona is sure of three things: she likes girls, she's fiercely devoted to her family, and she knows she's destined for something bigger than the trailer she calls home in Eulogy, Mississippi. But juggling multiple jobs, her flaky mom, and her well-meaning but ineffectual dad forces her to be the adult of the family. Now, with her sister, Hattie, pregnant, responsibility weighs more heavily than ever. The return of her childhood friend Freddie brings a welcome distraction. Ramona's friendship with the former competitive swimmer picks up exactly where it left off, and soon he's talked her into joining him for laps at the pool. But as Ramona falls in love with swimming, her feelings for Freddie begin to shift too, which is the last thing she expected. With her growing affection for Freddie making her question her sexual identity, Ramona begins to wonder if perhaps she likes girls and guys or if this new attraction is just a fluke. Either way, Ramona will discover that, for her, life and love are more fluid than they seem.