In a war-torn village in Eastern Europe, an American photographer captures a young girl flying toward the lens, fleeing a fiery explosion that has engulfed her home and family. The image becomes the subject of obsession for one writer, the photographer’s best friend, who has suffered a devastating tragedy of her own. As the writer plunges into a suicidal depression, her filmmaker husband enlists several friends to save her by rescuing the unknown girl and bringing her to the US. Yet, as their plot unfolds, everything we know about the story comes into question.

When he finds his parents approaching the end of their lives, Bob Morris begins to see his relationship to them in a whole new light, and it changes his way of thinking. How does an adult child with flaws and limitations figure out how to do his best for his ailing parents while still carrying on and enjoying his own life? And when their final days on earth come, how can he give them the best possible end? BOBBY WONDERFUL recounts two poignant deaths and one family's struggle to find the silver lining in them.

In the beautiful, barren landscape of the Far North, Frances and Yasha are surprised to find refuge in each other. Frances has fled heartbreak and claustrophobic Manhattan for an isolated artist colony; Yasha arrives from Brooklyn to fulfill his beloved father's last wish: to be buried "at the top of the world." They have come to learn how to be alone. But in Lofoten, an archipelago of six tiny islands in the Norwegian Sea, they form a bond that fortifies them against the turmoil of their distant homes, offering solace amidst great uncertainty.

A year after her husband Zach’s death, Lizzie goes to lay flowers where his fatal accident took place. As she makes her way along the road, she thinks about their life together. She wonders if she has changed since Zach died and if she will ever feel whole again. At last she reaches the spot. And there, tied to a tree, is a bunch of lilies. The flowers are addressed to her husband. Someone has been there before her. Lizzie loved Zach, but she’s starting to realize she didn’t really know him. Or what he was capable of.

The ties of family make for uncomfortable binds in Thomas McGuane’s first short story collection in nine years. A devoted son is horrified to discover his mother’s antics before she slipped into dementia. A father’s outdoor skills are no match for an ominous change in the weather. But complications arise equally in the absence of blood, as when lifelong friends on a fishing trip finally confront their deep dislike for each other. Or when a gifted traveling cattle breeder succumbs to the lure of a stranger’s offer of easy money.

Simon Connolly’s son, Jake, is the only child missing following a shooting at school. As his worst nightmare unfolds, Simon begins to obsess over the past while searching for answers, for hope, for the memory of the boy he raised, for mistakes he must have made, for the reason everything came to this. Where is Jake? What happened in those final moments? Is it possible he doesn’t really know his son? Or he knows him better than he thought?

Propelled into the priesthood by a family tragedy, Odran Yates is full of hope and ambition. Forty years later, his devotion is caught in revelations that shatter the Irish people’s faith in the Catholic Church. He sees his friends stand trial, colleagues jailed and the lives of young parishioners destroyed. But when a family event opens wounds from his past, he is forced to confront the demons that have raged within the church and to recognize his own complicity in their propagation.

Twenty-two-year-old Raf spends his days walking Rose, a bull terrier who guards the transmitters for a pirate radio station, and his nights at raves in warehouses and launderettes. When his friend Theo vanishes without a trace, Raf’s efforts to find him will lead straight into the heart of a global corporate conspiracy. Meanwhile, he’s falling in love with a beautiful young woman he met at one of those raves, but he’ll soon discover that there is far more to Cherish than meets the eye.

TED AND I is a unique portrait of a shared childhood between Gerald Hughes and his younger brother, Ted, one of the finest and best-loved poets of modern times. Ted's love for Gerald was probably one of the most enduring and sustaining forces in his life. Hughes brings alive a period when the two brothers would roam the countryside, camping, making fires, pitching tents, hunting rabbits, rats, wood pigeon and stoats. Ted's fascination with all wildlife subsequently fed directly into his sublime poetry.