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THE CROWNING GLORY OF CALLA LILY PONDER

When small town Louisiana girl Calla Lily Ponder encounters sweet, sexy, succulent love on the banks of the La Luna River, she thinks her future with Tuck LeBlanc is a given. But when he disappears into the Ivy League world which she will never be a part of, she must make her own way. Using the gifts of healing, which her mother gave her, Calla leaves the familiarity of her hometown and heads to the untamed city of New Orleans, where love and adventure and beauty school help her magical destiny unfold.

The shining new stand-alone novel from #1 New York Times bestselling Ya-Ya,

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NOTHING RIGHT

In her latest stories, Antonya Nelson sets her characters in the middle of the country, at the edge of reason. In the title story, a depressed mother follows her delinquent son from juvenile court to the maternity ward, shocked when teenage fatherhood turns his life around. In “Party of One,” a woman tries to protect her suicidal sister from a painful breakup, while hiding a dark secret of her own. “Falsetto” also features a protective sister, who learns a lot from her adolescent brother in the wake of a tragic accident. In “People People,” a married woman discovers her own insecurities while trying to shelter her obese,

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SARAH’S KEY

One of our recommended books is Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family’s apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France’s past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl’s ordeal,

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OLIVE KITTERIDGE

One of our recommended books is Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.

As the townspeople grapple with their problems,

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ALL THE QUEEN’S PLAYERS

Rosamund Walsingham is not your average sixteenth-century lady. Plucked from her simple country home by her conniving cousin, the secretary of state Sir Francis Walsingham, Rosamund is sent to London to spy on Queen Elizabeth’s court. Francis asks her to gather information by keeping a sketchbook and diary of everything she observes and overhears in the queen’s private chambers. Her work at the court leads to an unexpected romance with a young playwright and courtier, Will Creighton.

In the throes of romance, Rosamund’s affair is discovered, and she is banished from Elizabeth’s court, but Francis believes Rosamund can be of use to his cause of entrapping Mary,

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JOHN THE REVELATOR

Already fast becoming a classic among coming-of-age tales, John the Revelator has garnered praise from Nick Laird, Colm Tóibín, Roddy Doyle, and John Boyne, and is a critical darling in the U.K.

This is the story of John Devine–stuck in a small town in the otherworldly landscape of southeastern Ireland, worried over by his single, chain-smoking, Bible-quoting mother, Lily, and spied on by the “neighborly” Mrs. Nagle. When Jamey Corboy, a self-styled Rimbaudian boy wonder, arrives in town, John’s life suddenly seems full of possibility. His loneliness dissipates. He is taken up by mischief and discovery,

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