A novel that talks about belonging and otherness, about insiders and outsiders, pride and prejudice, young love and unexpected old love, families and the impossibility of ever getting it right, about striving for connection and goodness against all the odds.

In a small Southern town, teenager Evie Decker becomes obsessed with local rock singer Bertram 'Drumstrings' Casey, and decides to take her life into her own hands. When she carves his name on her forehead, their two lives become unforgettably entwined.

Morgan Gower has an outsize hairy beard, an array of peculiar costumes and fantastic headwear, and a smoking habit. He likes to pretend to be other people - a jockey, a shipping magnate, a foreign art dealer - and he likes to do this more and more since his brood of daughters are all growing up, getting married and finding him embarrassing.

Ben Joe is at college studying law when he gets a letter from his family saying one of his six sisters, Joanne, has returned home having left her husband, bringing her baby with her. Ben Joe goes home, and when he returns he remembers the past, the death of his father, his first girlfriend.

This is the story of a year in the life of Liam Pennywell, a man in his 61st year. A classical pedant, he's just been 'let go' from his schoolteaching job and downsizes to a tiny out-of-town apartment. When he goes to bed early and alone on the first night, he wakes up in hospital unable to recall how he got there.

When Dorothy came back from the dead, it seemed to Aaron that some people simply didn't notice. The accident that killed Dorothy - involving an oak tree, a sun porch and some elusive biscuits - leaves Aaron bereft and the house a wreck. As those around him fuss and flap and bring him casserole after casserole, Aaron ploughs on.

When Pearl Tull's husband, Beck, abandons her she pours her energies into preserving normality. Only gradually do her three children realise their father is gone for good. Now, as Pearl lies on her deathbed, the impact of Beck's abrupt departure unspools: on Cody who can't overcome his anger, and on mild Ezra who must always keep the peace.

From the award-winning author of Breathing Lessons comes a story about a family's search for its deepest roots. The story moves through the years, from the ragtime era at the end of the 19th century to small town America in the mid 1970s.

This novel tells of the Bedloe family, two amiable parents and three bright, good-looking children. But when the first-born marries exotic Lucy Dean, who has no known family except for two silent children, the Bedloes swallow hard and look on the bright side.

Through every family run memories which bind it together, despite everything. The Tulls of Baltimore were no exception. Now as Pearl lies dying, stifly encased in her pride and solitude, the past is unlocked and with it its secrets.