On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's emotions in the slice.

Maxwell Sim can’t seem to make a single meaningful connection. In an attempt to get out of his rut, Max accepts a strange offer to drive a Prius full of toothbrushes from London to the remote Shetland Islands. But he’s unable to resist making a series of impromptu visits to important figures from his past.

At 8:17 on a Friday night, the Illumination begins. Every wound begins to shine, every bruise to glow and shimmer. And in the aftermath of a fatal car accident, a journal of love notes, written by a husband to his wife, passes into the keeping of Carol Ann Page. 

On April 15, 1990, Jill Bialosky’s 21-year-old sister Kim climbed into a car in the garage, turned on the ignition, and fell asleep. Now, Jill recreates her sister’s inner life, and the events and emotions that led her to take her life on this particular night.

For the first time, Michael Frayn, the "master of what is seriously funny,” turns his humor and narrative talent on his own family's story, to re-create the world that made him who he is. 

From a master of modern American letters comes a collection of short fiction about people who, as E. L. Doctorow notes in his Preface, are somehow “distinct from their surroundings --- people in some sort of contest with the prevailing world.” 

Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made THE KITE RUNNER a beloved classic, A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS is at once an incredible chronicle of 30 years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.

Ten-year-old Alice MacCauley and her playmate, Theo Swann, are the heroes of this frank and tender portrayal of two children coming of age in the course of a Vermont summer. Veteran literary novelist Carrie Brown brings her considerable gifts to bear in creating this affecting tale.