Obyczajowa

From the author of 'Twelve', the story of a tangled, obsessive friendship.

Gifted, magnetic, a virtuoso with a short temper, Lee defies his background to win a scholarship to the prestigious Cabresi academy of music. James - richer, less gifted and less charismatic - leeches onto the teenage prodigy to feed off his fame and genius, and to bask in Lee's reflected glory. Slowly, stealthily, James fuels Lee's increasing need for women and illicit substances, the better to pull the strings, keep him close.

Watching all of this is Peter, whose conversations with Lee call into...

Lucy Hatch never expected more of life than to spend it on an East Texas farm with her silent and stoic husband, Mitchell. Now that the curtain has abruptly come down, she's back where it all started -- in tiny Mooney -- living in a rundown old house perched on the edge of nowhere, meaning to carry out her widowhood in the manner of her old maid Aunt Dove, in peaceful solitude.

But life, and the folks of Mooney, have other plans for...

"Susan Choi...proves herself a natural--a writer whose intelligence and historical awareness effortlessly serve a breathtaking narrative ability. I couldn't put American Woman down, and wanted when I finished it to do nothing but read it again." --Joan Didion

A novel of impressive scope and complexity, "American Woman is a thoughtful, meditative interrogation of...history and politics, of power and racism, and finally, of radicalism." (San Francisco Chronicle), perfect for readers who love Emma Cline's novel, The Girls.

On...

Lives of the Circus Animals is a brilliant new comedy about New York theater people: actors, writers, personal assistants, and a drama critic for the New York Times. They are male, female, straight, gay, in love with their work or in love with each other, and one of them, British star Henry Lewse, "the Hamlet of his generation," is famous.

Award-winning novelist Christopher Bram gives us ten days and nights in this small-town world in the heart of a big city, an engaging novel that is also a satiric celebration of the quest for sanity in the face of those two...

A smart young woman making her way through the privileged terrain of northeastern prep-school land, Alice McGuire is certain of her world and her future -- until the summer her best friend and soul mate, Matthew Swan, vanishes on a trip to Mexico. Stunned, Alice and the rest of the close-knit town that adored Matthew search for answers. For Alice, the journey of heartbreak leads from everything that is familiar to forbidden places and forgotten people who will teach her about kindness and forgiveness: lessons that will open her to new possibilities and unexpected hope.

Vividly...

Lisa Edwards

This Prada-wearing magazine editor thinks her life is over when her "fabulous" new job turns out to be a deportation to Dublin to launch Colleen magazine. The only saving grace is that her friends aren't there to witness her downward spiral. Might her new boss, the disheveled and moody Jack Devine, save her from a fate worse than hell?

Ashling Kennedy

Ashling, Colleen's assistant editor, is an award-winning worrier, increasinglyaware that something fundamental is missing from her life -- apart from a boyfriendand a waistline.

Clodagh "Princess"...

Taking its title from a description of Peter Pan's Neverland, Astonishing Splashes of Colour follows the life of Kitty, a woman who, in a sense, has never grown up. As her moods swing dramatically from high to low, they are illuminated by an unusual ability to interpret people and emotions through colour.

Kitty struggles to come to terms with her life, including the loss of her mother, a miscarriage, and an unconventional marriage to her husband, who lives in the apartment next door. And when her father and brothers reveal a family secret long hidden, it overwhelms Kitty's...

In this riveting narrative of family and middle-age angst, Esi Edugyan gives us Aster, an all-white suburban enclave. Far removed from the frenzied ways of city life, this small town at first seems an idyllic place to hide away, a place for a man like Samuel Tyne--an African immigrant caught in an impassive marriage, nursing a tenuous connection to his twin daughters, and harboring a growing hatred for his government job--to escape to. When his uncle Jacob suddenly dies, leaving him a rural estate, Samuel promptly packs up his reluctant family, and moves them to his uncle's crumbling...

When prosecutor Vicki Allegretti arrives at a rowhouse to meet a confidential informant, she finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time -- and is almost shot to death. She barely escapes with her life, but cannot save the two others gunned down before her disbelieving eyes. Stunned and heartbroken, Vicki tries to figure out how a routine meeting on a minor case became a double homicide.

Vicki's suspicions take her to Devil's Corner, a city neighborhood teetering on the brink of ruin -- thick with broken souls, innocent youth, and a scourge that preys on both. But the deeper...

When a Hollywood location scout comes to Applewood, Long Island, and announces that the local elementary school might make the perfect backdrop for an upcoming George Clooney movie, the PTA's decorum crumbles like a cookie from last week's bake sale.

Enter Maddie, Ruth, and Lisa, three women who become the glue that holds the project together, forging a bond of friendship stronger than anyone could imagine. And not a moment too soon, as marriage woes, old flames, and scandalously embarrassing family members threaten to tear each of them apart. Is their powerful alliance strong...

Criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck learns that the sins of the past never die. . .

Many years ago, Jack Swyteck saved Theo Knight's life. Theo grew up on the streets of Miami's roughest neighborhood and lost his mother to a violent crime. By the time he was a teenager, he was on Death Row for a murder he didn't commit. Jack was the lawyer who proved him innocent.

Now a successful bar owner, Theo has turned things around. But he needs Jack's aid again, this time more than ever. An escaped convict from the old neighborhood shows up at Theo's back door, asking for help. In...

In 1977, Innes Haldane was one of seven extremely dysfunctional teenagers incarcerated in the Unit, an avant-garde psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Edinburgh. There, she and her fellow inmates were forced into each other's lives, exposed to each other's pasts, and now share a collective memory.

Since then, they have spent their adult lives trying to forget the unspeakable acts that sent them there and the terrible secret that occurred behind its walls . . . until a message on Innes's answering machine with a voice from the past interrupts the quiet life she has tried so hard...

The Way Begins . . .

Sergei was three when the soldiers took him. At fifteen he fled into the wilderness, with nothing to cling to but the memories of a grandfather who called him Socrates and the promise of a gift buried near St. Petersburg. Thus begins The Journeys of Socrates -- an odyssey that forged the character of Sergei Ivanov, whose story would one day change the lives of millions of readers worldwide. This saga of courage and faith, of love and loss, reveals the arts of war and the path to peace. Ultimately, it speaks to the quest we all share for a meaningful...

When life throws you a curve ball...

Venus deMarley has just been hit with a wild pitch. At forty she's finally found the perfect fiance, when Sophie--the daughter she gave up for adoption twenty years ago--suddenly reappears. Venus has another crisis on her hands as well: her eccentric millionaire dad just died and willed her his pet project--a rag-tag minor league baseball team called the Bronx Cheers--if Venus and Sophie can reconcile and once again become a family. Venus knows diddly about sports, but Sophie's a jock, unlike her glamorous mom. And after two decades...

Best friends since back in the day, Aggy and Nely are as different as two women could possibly be. Aggie's slim, stylish, and owns an upscale boutique and a long history of no-strings relationships. Nely has a busy baby, a metiche mother-in-law, and some extra post-pregnancy pounds she can't quite shed. And when they reconnect at a New Age spa, each friend finds herself wishing just a little that she had the other one's life.

Big mistake

Thanks to the metaphysical meddling of a somewhat grumpy guru, Nely is now Aggie and Aggie is Nely--switching bodies, love lives,...

At long last, the Reverend Curtis Black appears to be on the straight and narrow. The all-too-human preacher is a bestselling author now, and he and his wife, Charlotte, are raising two adorable children. But the ever-suspicious Charlotte doesn't trust that Curtis has put his womanizing past behind him. While he's on the road promoting his latest book, she knows that there needs to be just one extra-devoted fan in his flock for him to stray.

Charlotte is no angel herself, and she's been keeping plenty of secrets from Curtis while he's been away. Still, Charlotte believes with all...

Andy Gage was born in 1965 and murdered not long after by his stepfather. . . . It was no ordinary murder. Though the torture and abuse that killed him were real, Andy Gage's death wasn't. Only his soul actually died, and when it died, it broke in pieces. Then the pieces became souls in their own right, coinheritors of Andy Gage's life. . . .

While Andy deals with the outside world, more than a hundred other souls share an imaginary house inside Andy's head, struggling to maintain an orderly coexistence: Aaron, the father figure; Adam, the mischievous teenager; Jake, the frightened...

Alex Selky, going on seven, kissed his mother goodbye and set off for school, a mere two blocks away. He never made it. Desperate to find him, his mother begins a vigil that lasts for days, then weeks, then months. She is treated first as a tragic figure, then as a grief-crazed hysteric, then as anreminder of the bad fortune that can befall us all. Against all hope, despite false leads and thedesertions of her friends and allies she believes with all her heart that somehow, somewhere, Alex will be found alive.

As startling and powerful as when first published more than two decades ago, Andre Brink's classic novel, A Dry White Season, is an unflinching and unforgettable look at racial intolerance, the human condition, and the heavy price of morality.

Ben Du Toit is a white schoolteacher in suburban Johannesburg in a dark time of intolerance and state-sanctioned apartheid. A simple, apolitical man, he believes in the essential fairness of the South African government and its policies--until the sudden arrest and subsequent "suicide" of a black janitor from Du Toit's school....