In the summer of 1972, Ella Whitlock is found hanging from the rafters of her own home. Everyone in Peckinpaw, Kentucky assumes that Ella’s no-good, junkie of a husband did the deed, or that she just grew tired of enduring his abuse. In the wake of this devastating loss, Ella’s 17-year-old daughter Mudas (Muddy for short) discovers strange clues hidden amongst her mama’s hair ribbons and recipe cards.
Determined to uncover the truth and clear her mama’s name, Muddy enlists the help of her friend Bobby Marshall and follows the clues to Hark Hill Plantation, home of the rich and crooked Roy McGee,
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Tess Brookes has always been a girl with a plan. But when the plan goes belly up, she’s forced to reconsider.
After accidently answering her roommate Vanessa’s phone, she decides that since being Tess isn’t going so well, she might try being Vanessa. With nothing left to lose, she accepts Vanessa’s photography assignment to Hawaii – she used to be an amateur snapper, how hard can it be? Right?
But Tess is soon in big trouble. And the gorgeous journalist on the shoot with her, who is making it very clear he’d like to get into her pants,
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Hector is a successful young psychiatrist with the right spectacles, the right office furniture, and all the right medications at his disposal but he feels like a failure. His patients—an urban, educated, and seemingly privileged class of people—are persistently unhappy, and despite his excellent training and sympathetic ear, Hector doesn’t know how to truly help them. Even worse, he finds himself becoming increasingly drained and dissatisfied by his own life, including his uncertain relationship with an equally successful pharmaceutical marketing professional named Clara.
Ready for a break, Hector books a vacation with a mission: He will travel the world in search of what makes people happy or unhappy.
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Named a “2014 Great Group Read” by the Women’s National Book Association
Where Somebody Waits instantly transports you to small-town Arkansas more than a half-century ago—a world of catfish and bourbon-and-Coke; of tent revival meetings and less boisterous discussions about heaven and hell; of finding love or just dreaming about it. A neighborly community, but with its share of intrigues.
And instantly you’re under the spell of Ruby Davidson, the magnetic central character of Where Somebody Waits. Self-assured, kind, always willing to take a stand for people less fortunate,
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“Lucy Rosenthal has captured the heart and mind of a woman of our time, a player in the high stakes gamble on love and work. Savvy, moving and hilarious The World of Rae English brings an earthy American voice to our age of experience, updating the dilemmas Edith Wharton found in her own age of innocence.” —Josephine Hendin
The World of Rae English is set in the sixties–the era of Mad Men–relocated from Manhattan to Iowa City. This second novel by Lucy Rosenthal is about a young woman who is recovering from a marriage to a disgraced politician.
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As a travel writer and a diplomat’s wife, Ann Mah has led a globetrotting life: moving from city to city every few years, learning languages, making new friends and leaving old ones behind. When her husband Calvin gets a three-year assignment in Paris, Ann can’t believe her luck; since childhood, she has dreamed of living in the City of Light. She adores French culture, the French language, and—most of all—French food, and together, Ann and Calvin plan an itinerary filled with charming cafés and sophisticated bistros. But just as they are settling into their new home, Calvin is assigned a last-minute,
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