Mary Beth Latham has built her life around her family, around caring for her three teenage children and preserving the rituals of their daily life. When one of her sons becomes depressed, Mary Beth focuses on him, only to be blindsided by a shocking act of violence. What happens afterward is a testament to the power of a woman’s love and determination, and to the invisible lines of hope and healing that connect one human being to another. Ultimately, as rendered in Anna Quindlen’s mesmerizing prose, Every Last One is a novel about facing every last one of the things we fear the most,
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Susan Juby, already a reader-favorite YA author, makes her triumphant first foray into adult contemporary fiction with Home to Woefield, a hilarious, wildly original, and wonderfully insightful tale of no-so-ordinary life down on the farm. Told in four delightfully distinct narrative voices—a crusty 70-something farmer, a hair band-loving teen, a precocious 11-year old, and an earnest New Yorker in her 20s—Home to Woefield will enchant readers of all ages, as its motley cast struggles to avoid foreclosure with outlandish schemes and prize-winning chickens.
Prudence Burns, a well-intentioned New Yorker full of back-to-the-land ideals, just inherited Woefield Farm—thirty acres of scrubland,
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From the bestselling author of Red Azalea and Empress Orchid comes the poignant story of the friendship of a lifetime, based on the life of Pearl S. Buck.
Willow never dreamed that her childhood friend would become a world-renowned writer. In the impoverished Chinese village of Chin-kiang, a young pickpocket meets her match in Pearl Sydenstricker, the daughter of the village’s only white man, a Christian missionary named Absalom. Willow and her Papa befriend Pearl’s family to get a hot meal, but eventually Papa and Absalom become partners in recruiting the villagers to join the church.
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Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.
Soon to be made into an HBO movie by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball, this New York Times bestseller takes readers on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers filled with HeLa cells,
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An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel. Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared over 40 years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.
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From the time she was twelve, Julie Holt knew what a random tragedy can do to a family. At that tender age, her little sister disappeared—never to be found. It was a loss that slowly eroded the family bonds she once relied on. As an adult with a prestigious job in the arts, Julie meets a struggling artist who reminds her so much of her sister, she can’t help feeling protective. It is a friendship that begins a long and painful process of healing for Julie, leading her to a house on the Gulf Coast, ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, and to stories of family that take her deep into the past.
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