Adult

Why exactly Charley Bordelon’s late father left her 800 sprawling acres of sugarcane land in rural Louisiana is as mysterious as it was generous. Recognizing this as a chance to start over, Charley and her 11-year-old daughter, Micah, say good-bye to Los Angeles. They arrive just in time for growing season, but no amount of planning can prepare Charley for a Louisiana that’s mired in the past.

With everything happening on Helen Peppe’s backwoods Maine farm --- ferocious sibling rivalry, rock-bottom poverty, feral male chauvinism, sex in the hayloft --- life was out of control, even for the animals. Despite the chaos, in telling her family’s story, Peppe manages deadpan humor, an unerring eye for the absurd, and a touching compassion for her utterly overwhelmed parents.

Finding inspiration in questions from the nature of perfection to the icing on carrot cake, actor B. J. Novak’s debut short story collection has at its heart the most human of phenomena: love, fear, hope, ambition, and the inner stirring for the one elusive element that just might make a person complete.

Abraham Lincoln’s official secretaries, John Hay and John Nicolay, enjoyed more access, witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of the president’s immediate family. As Joshua Zeitz shows, the image of a humble man with uncommon intellect who rose from obscurity to become a storied wartime leader and emancipator is very much their creation.

When a mysterious woman nearly runs Leo Maxwell down, then appears at his office and asks him to defend her brother on a murder charge, Leo thinks he’s found the case that will make his name. One problem: he hasn’t actually met the client. And after taking a series of photographs that seem to blow the lid on corruption in the police department, Leo quickly learns that all is not as it seems --- beginning with the alluring woman who hired him.

In 1988, Su Meck suffered a traumatic brain injury that erased all her memories of her life up to that point. Although her body healed rapidly, her memories never returned. Yet after just three weeks in the hospital, Su was released and once again charged with the care of two toddlers and a busy household. Nearly 20 years would pass before a series of personally devastating events shattered the “normal” life she had worked so hard to build, and she realized that she would have to grow up all over again.

This unforgettable portrait of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War effortlessly mixes humor with Shakespearean-like tragedy to create an achingly human portrait of the 16th president. Jerome Charyn conducts an orchestra of historical figures and fictional extras centered on a profoundly moral but troubled commander in chief whose relationship with his Ophelia-like wife and his sons is explored with penetrating psychological insight and the utmost compassion.

Doctor Julie Walker has just signed her divorce papers when she receives news that her younger sister, Heather, has gone into labor. Julie sets out for the hospital to be at her sister's side, but the streets of San Francisco have erupted into chaos. Today is the day that Julie will find herself at the epicenter of a violent standoff in which she is forced to examine both the promising and painful parts of her past.

George Foss’s comfortable, predictable life is shattered when a beautiful woman who vanished without a trace 20 years ago sits down next to him at a bar. Ex-girlfriend Liana Dector, the first love George couldn’t quite forget, needs his help. Ruthless men believe she stole some money and will do whatever it takes to get it back. George makes a choice that will plunge him into a terrifying whirlpool of lies, secrets, betrayal and murder from which there is no sure escape.

DOWN TO THE CROSSROADS is the story of the last great march of the Martin Luther King, Jr. era, and the first great showdown of the turbulent years that followed. Depicting rural demonstrators’ courage and the impassioned debates among movement leaders, Aram Goudsouzian reveals the legacy of an event that would both integrate African Americans into the political system and inspire even bolder protests against it.