Adult

A woman has an unexpected outburst at a corporate therapy session for working mothers. A couple find some long-overdue time to rekindle their relationship and make an ill-advised home movie. A pregnant film director plots revenge on the actress who betrayed her. An ex-wife deliberately causes conflict at her ex-husband’s wedding. THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS illuminates the lives of malicious, subversive and untamed women. Exploring failed sisterhood, dubious parenting and the dark side of modern love, this powerful and funny collection exposes how society wants women to behave and shows what happens when they refuse.

While the young Queen Elizabeth II finds her feet as the new monarch, she also must find the right words to continue the tradition of her late father’s Christmas Day radio broadcast. As preparations begin for the royal Christmas at Sandringham House in Norfolk, old friends Jack Devereux and Olive Carter are unexpectedly reunited by the occasion. Olive, a single mother and aspiring reporter at the BBC, leaps at the opportunity to cover the holiday celebration. Jack, a recently widowed chef, reluctantly takes up a new role in the royal kitchens at Sandringham. A chance encounter with an old friend helps to reignite the spark of his passion and ambition. As Jack and Olive’s paths continue to cross over the following five Christmases, they grow ever closer. Yet Olive carries the burden of a heavy secret that threatens to destroy everything.

‘Iwa Young’s life is high in the Maui rainforest. As a field biologist, she’s happiest in the company of trees, birds and waterfalls. When a developer arrives with plans for a so-called eco resort in the middle of a forest full of endangered species, ‘Iwa puts all her energy into the fight to protect it. But a chance encounter threatens to distract her. His name is Dane Parsons, a big-wave surfer from California. ‘Iwa has a few unbreakable rules, and at the top of her list: never date a surfer. Dane is part of an underground group of big-wave riders, and his connection to the ocean runs deep. When he meets ‘Iwa, he can’t get her out of his mind. But ‘Iwa wants nothing to do with Dane until he offers to help protect her beloved forest and waterfall. Always on the hunt for the ultimate ride, Dane suddenly glimpses something even greater.

Julie’s mother, Kate, is a self-made real estate developer, a grande dame in Florida society, and a power broker in Florida politics. It wasn’t easy for Julie to grow up in the shadow of such a dynamo, but she loves her mother. She and her husband, Eric, are thrilled when Kate marries her long-lost high school sweetheart, a salt-of-the-earth man named Charlie. But on their wedding night, Kate calls the police in hysterics to report that Charlie just confessed to a notorious unsolved crime from decades before. Charlie says that Kate imagined it. Eric says that Kate has dementia. And the FBI says that Charlie couldn’t possibly have committed that crime. Julie doesn’t know what to believe. Is her brilliant mother losing her mind? Or is sweet, lovable Charlie gaslighting Kate to gain control of her fortune?

Weaving a latticework of different strands, moving back and forth through time, Josh Brolin captures a life marked by curiosity, pain, devotion, kindness and humor. He recounts an unconventional childhood far from Hollywood. Raised on a ranch in Paso Robles, California, he was surrounded as a child by the wolves, cougars and other wild animals gathered by his fearless and explosive mother, Jane Agee Brolin. Her tragic, early death haunts this book, and the force of her unforgettable personality is felt throughout. Brolin also brings to life his career in the film industry and the professional and personal ups and downs in between and since. With unflinching honesty but also great humor, he shares insights into relationships, addiction, love and fatherhood, while letting the white space in between words speak for itself.

Noh Inji is almost 30 years old. With five wedding rings and counting, she's never once been in love. When Inji first accepted a job at Wedding & Life, a popular matchmaking service, she never imagined her role would be with NM, their secret marriage division that rents out “husbands” and “wives” to their wealthiest clientele. Just like a real marriage, Inji's assignments involve a wedding, some sex and a bit of housework, all tailored exactly to the client’s desires and length of time before they go their separate ways. But then one of Inji's old husbands, a mysterious high-profile music producer, requests her back for another year. Over the course of their marriage, the secrets of Inji’s past begin to unravel --- as well as the dark, sinister underbelly of NM’s management team, who will stop at nothing to preserve their reputation…and their clients.

The London suburb of Croydon, 1964: Helen Hansford is an art therapist at the Westbury Park psychiatric hospital, where she has been having a rebellious love affair with her colleague Gil, a dashing but married doctor. One spring afternoon, they receive a call about a disturbance at a derelict, vine-covered Victorian house. There the police find a mute, 37-year-old man called William Tapping. It appears he lives in the old house with his elderly, frail aunt, who expires as soon as she’s admitted to the hospital. No one knows why William has been shut away for decades, unseen by neighbors. When it emerges that William is not only sane but a talented artist, Helen comes to see him as something of a personal project. But as she tries to solve the puzzle of the Hidden Man’s past, Helen’s own carefully constructed life of secrets begins to unravel.

In the blazing hot summer of 1994, there’s nothing for Cora Mowat to do but hang around in empty parking lots. Stuck in her mother's small house and tired of her own restless mind, she’s desperate to break free of the limits of Fife but unsure of what the future holds --- if it holds anything at all for a girl like her trying to find her way in the world. After her mother invites a new man to live with them, tensions quickly rise in the cramped house. Gunner is kind but also strange --- a one-eyed shoplifter with more than a few hidden secrets. But when tragedy strikes shortly after, Cora rebels against her small-town existence in search of love, acceptance and a path to something good. If only she can learn to navigate her grief and everything she thinks she knows about who she is and what she might be capable of, she finally may find the way forward.

A woman welcomes a parasite into her body. A teenager longs for perfect skin. A scientist tends to fragile alien flora. A young man takes the night into his own hands. Unsettling, revelatory and laced with her signature dark humor, Eliza Clark’s debut short story collection plumbs the depths of that most basic human feeling: hunger.

Kathryn Walker enjoys an enviable life. Her husband is an accomplished doctor, her children are bright and successful, and she devotes herself to charity work that uplifts her suburban Colorado community. Settling into a new year, her life couldn’t be better. Until April. For Kathryn, April has always rained trouble --- but this time may be even stormier than the fraught past she’s trying to overcome. Already distraught over the child she miscarried in this same cursed month many years ago, the emotionally fragile woman isn’t ready to consider the overwhelming evidence that someone may be trying to take her husband --- and her life.