There were plans for an official welcome. It was to take place the following Sunday. But those who came to the rectory on Father Pennant's second day were the ones who could not resist seeing him sooner. Here was the man to whom they would confess the darkest things. It was important to feel him out. Mrs. Young, for instance, after she had watched him eat a piece of her macaroni pie, quietly asked what he thought of adultery. André Alexis brings a modern sensibility and a new liveliness to an age-old genre, the pastoral.

One year after the death of his beloved musician father, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house—a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

If Fiona has learned anything in life, it’s how to keep a secret - even from the father who raised her. She is the only person who knows about her late mother’s affair in Tuscany thirty years earlier, and she intends to keep it that way...until a lawyer calls with shocking news: her biological father has died and left her an incredible inheritance - along with two half siblings.

Jonathan Franzen’s novels are celebrated for their unforgettably vivid characters and for their keen-eyed take on contemporary America. Now, in Crossroads, Franzen ventures back into the past and explores the history of two generations. With characteristic humor and complexity, and with even greater warmth, he conjures a world that resonates powerfully with our own.

From the author of the “engrossing” (People) and “poignant” (Booklist) international best seller The Room on Rue Amélie comes a remarkable and moving story of love, danger, and betrayal: two women in France in the darkest days of World War II and another in present-day America on a quest to uncover the secret that connects them.

"You don't know me yet, but in a few hours that's going to change. You see, I'm inviting you to my home and my town of Cedar Cove, because I want you to meet my family, friends, and neighbors. Come and hear their stories - maybe even their secrets!"

When Serenity Alston swabbed her cheek for a genetic test, she joked about uncovering some dark ancestral scandal. The last thing she expected was to discover two half sisters she didn’t know existed. Suddenly, everything about her loving family is drawn into question. And meeting these newfound sisters might be the only way to get answers.

Peyton Kennedy quantifies everything in terms of numbers and risk. She looks at a problem and solves it, leaving no piece of the puzzle out. When her young, too-whimsical wife inherits a derelict farmhouse from a distant aunt, Peyton can only see the bottom line. Too much work. Too much money. Time. Energy. Definitely not worth saving. But her wife knows how to get her way, and Peyton finds herself roped into renovations. This...this may be the straw that breaks her marriage's back, and Peyton's worried about how not worried that makes her.

At the start of the 20th century, on the edge of the Russian empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste....

California girl Lola has her life all set up: business degree, handsome fiancé, fast track career, when suddenly, without warning, everything tragically implodes. After years fruitlessly searching for love, marriage, and children, she decides to seek spirituality and meaning far outside the parameters of modern life in the insular, ultraorthodox enclave of Boro Park, Brooklyn. There, fate brings her to the dysfunctional home of newly-widowed Jacob, a devout Torah scholar, whose life is also in turmoil, and whose small children ache for the kindness of a womanly touch.

A chance encounter at a summer party on Martha’s Vineyard blossomed into an improbable but enduring friendship. Carly Simon and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis made an unlikely pair - Carly, a free and artistic spirit still reeling from her recent divorce, searching for meaning, new love, and an anchor; and Jackie, one of the most celebrated, meticulous, unknowable women in American history. Nonetheless, over the next decade their lives merged in inextricable and complex ways, and they forged a connection deeper than either could ever have foreseen.

When conflict photographer Jackson Swann dies, he leaves behind a conflict of his own making when his three daughters, each born to a different mother, discover that they’re now responsible for the family’s Oregon vineyard - and for a family they didn’t ask for.

From the joy of their wedding day surrounded by supportive friends and family, Yaakov and Leah are soon plunged into the complex reality of their new lives together as Yaakov leaves his beloved yeshiva to work in the city, and Leah confronts the often agonizing restrictions imposed by religious laws governing even the most intimate moments of their married lives. Adding to their difficulties is the hostility of some in the community who continue to view Leah as a dangerous interloper, questioning her sincerity and adherence to religious laws and spreading outrageous rumors.

When Nancy Hennessy is murdered, she leaves behind two best friends, an adoring husband and daughter, and a secret lover whose identity she took to the grave. Nancy was gorgeous, wealthy, and cherished by those who knew her - from the outside, her life was perfect. But as the investigation into her death flounders and her friends Eleanor and Mary wrestle with their grief, dark details surface that reveal how little they knew their friend, each other, and maybe even themselves.

When Rachel Meyer, a 30-something foodie from New York, agrees to move to Mumbai with her Indian-born husband, Dhruv, she knows some culture shock is inevitable. Blessed with a curious mind and an independent spirit, Rachel is determined to learn her way around the hot, noisy, seemingly infinite metropolis she now calls home. But the expat American’s sense of adventure is sorely tested when her mother-in-law, Swati, suddenly arrives from Kolkata - 1,000 miles away - alone, with an even more shocking announcement: She’s left her husband of more than 40 years and moving in with them.

When conflict photographer Jackson Swann dies, he leaves behind a conflict of his own making when his three daughters, each born to a different mother, discover that they’re now responsible for the family’s Oregon vineyard - and for a family they didn’t ask for.

Perfect for fans of The Keeper of Lost Things and The Villa in Italy. Blue lives a charmed life. From her family's townhouse in Richmond, she lives a life of luxury and couldn't want for anything - well, on the surface at least. Then, on the night of her 21st birthday, her father makes a startling toast: he will give his daughter's hand to whichever man can capture her heart best in the form of a love letter. But Blue has other ideas, and, unwilling to play at her father's bewildering games, she sets out on her own path to find her own destiny....

The brilliant Alexander McCall Smith became an international sensation with his New York Times best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels. His award-winning wit, made famous through that series, is fully on display in 44 Scotland Street.

In a steam-filled diner in a college town, Flannery Jansen catches sight of something more beautiful than she's ever seen: a graduate student, reading. The 17-year-old, new to everything around her - college, the East Coast, bodies of literature, and the sexual flurries of student life - is shocked by her desire to follow this wherever it will take her.

Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory - and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.

When Lark Ashwood's beloved grandmother dies, she and her sisters are bequeathed an unfinished quilt. Finishing it could be the reason Lark's been looking for to stop running from the past. Hannah can't believe she's back in Bear Creek, the tiny town she sacrificed everything to escape from. But the driven musician's plan is to renovate her grandmother's house and leave as fast as humanly possible. Stay-at-home mom Avery has built her perfect life, but at a cost. This summer, the Ashwood women must lean on each other like never before if they are to stitch their family back together.

"You don't know me yet, but in a few hours that's going to change. You see, I'm inviting you to my home and my town of Cedar Cove, because I want you to meet my family, friends, and neighbors. Come and hear their stories - maybe even their secrets!"

Maximillian von Hansburg, baron of Laudon and heir to the duke of Aquilla, is not having a merry Christmas. He’s been dumped by a princess, he’s unemployed, and his domineering father has sent him to New York to meet a prospective bride he has no interest in. In the city, he meets Dani Martinez, a smart (and gorgeous) professor he’s determined to befriend before their best friends marry in the Eldovian wedding of the century.

Lucy Sullivan is 26 and living it up (and occasionally down) in London. Hers is a life of quiet, undisciplined desperation. But when she and three friends visit a psychic for a bit of fun and the woman's predictions start coming true, Lucy is horrified. For the fortune-teller insisted she'd soon be married - within the year, in fact. Not only does Lucy not have a boyfriend, but the chances of getting one are looking slim. Between the bottles of wine, antidepressants and her addiction to self-help books, she's not quite ready to walk, or even stumble, down the aisle sober.

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love. In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance.

It's 2014. Sensible Nora has always taken success for granted until suddenly her life begins to fall apart. Troubled by anxiety and nightmares, she finds herself drawn to the sweeping beaches of Tenby, a place she's been only once before. Together with a local girl, she rents a beautiful townhouse and slowly begins to settle in to her new life. But Tenby hides a secret, and Nora will soon discover that this little town by the sea has the power to heal even the most painful memories.

It was supposed to be Christy Sullivan’s perfect Christmas escape - a dream trip to Lapland with her family and best friend, Alix. But facing a make-or-break marriage crisis, Christy desperately needs time alone with her husband, Seb. Her solution? Alix, along with Seb’s oldest friend, Zac, can take Christy’s daughter on the planned Lapland trip, and they will all reunite there for Christmas Day. After all, what are friends for?

The charming vacation house on the coast of Maine was meant to be a heavenly retreat for Danica Lindsay and her husband Blake, a place where they could mend the wounds of a strained and tired marriage. Instead, she finds herself mostly there alone while Blake's political star is rapidly rising back in Boston. Were it not for the companionship of her new neighbor, gentle and caring Michael Buchanan, Danica would surely be overcome by loneliness and despair.

Finding a soul mate was the easy part for Erica Sanders. Brian Lawson is everything she could have dreamed of and then some. Everyone agrees...everyone, that is, except for her own mother, who delights in uncovering Brian’s betrayal that implodes everything and destroys their engagement. Yet Erin has lingering doubts over her choice. What if there were more secrets, ones that changed everything?