Adult

Ellen Cooney’s latest novel is the story of two women and a whole pack of dogs who, having lost their way in the world, find a place at a training school --- and radical rescue center --- called the Sanctuary. It is a story of strays and rescues, kidnappings and homecomings, moving on, holding on and letting go. And it is, ultimately, a moving and hilarious chronicle of the ways in which humans and canines help each other find new lives, new selves and new hope.

LOVELY, DARK, DEEP is a collection of 10 mesmerizing stories from Joyce Carol Oates that maps the eerie darkness within us all. Fearful that her husband is “disappearing” from their life, a woman becomes obsessed with keeping him in her sight in “The Disappearing.” “A Book of Martyrs” reveals how the end of a pregnancy brings with it the end of a relationship. And in the title story, the elderly Robert Frost is visited by an interviewer, an unsettling young woman, who seems to know a good deal more about his life than she should.

Ruth has always stood firmly beside her husband, Peter, the legendary chief of New England’s Derry School for boys. The aging Peter will soon have to retire, and Ruth is wondering what they will do in their old age, separated from the school into which they have poured everything, including their savings. The narrative takes us back through the years, revealing the explosive spark and joy between Ruth and Peter.

In 1886, Gretta Pope wakes one morning to discover that her husband, Ulysses, is gone. All he left behind was a brief note with no explanation for why he left or where he’s headed. Gretta’s sons set off after him, jumping trains to get where they need to go and ending up in the rugged badlands of Montana. Gretta has no choice but to search for her sons and her husband, leading her to the doorstep of a woman who seems intent on making Ulysses her own.

Legendary spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon is in Venice repairing an altarpiece by Veronese when he receives an urgent summons from the Italian police. The eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood has stumbled upon a chilling murder scene in Lake Como, and is being held as a suspect. To save his friend, Gabriel must track down the real killers and then perform one simple task: find the most famous missing painting in the world.

After a string of betrayals and the loss of her legacy, Portia Cuthcart is determined to start a new life with her sisters in Manhattan…and never cook again. But when Portia moves into a dilapidated brownstone on the Upper West Side, she meets 12-year-old Ariel and her widowed father, Gabriel. Soon, a promise made to her sisters forces Portia back into a world of magical food and swirling emotions, where she must confront everything she has been running from.

The Nash family is close-knit. However, their seeming stability is thrown into chaos when Deenie's best friend is struck by a terrifying, unexplained seizure in class. Rumors of a hazardous outbreak spread through the family, school and community. As hysteria and contagion swell, a series of tightly held secrets emerges, threatening to unravel friendships, families and the town's fragile idea of security.

Soon after Billie Breslin takes a job at Delicious!, New York’s most iconic food magazine is abruptly shut down. Billie agrees to stay on in the empty office, maintaining the hotline for reader complaints in order to pay her bills. In a hidden room in the magazine’s library, Billie finds a cache of letters written during World War II. They provide her with a feeling of deep connection to the young writer whose courage in the face of hardship inspires her to come to terms with her fears.

Patterson Wells works alongside dangerous, desperate itinerant men as a tree clearer in disaster zones, and he’s still dealing with the loss of his young son. Writing letters to the boy offers solace, but the bottle gives more. In Colorado, Patterson stops to go fishing with an old acquaintance, only to find him in a meth-induced delirium with a woman tied up in the bathtub. Patterson tries to do the right thing, but in the lives of those he knows, violence and justice are strange, intoxicating bedfellows.

When Didi discovers that her husband, the Masterji, has been hiding his beautiful lover and their young son Tarun in a nearby city, she takes the Masterji back into her grasp and expels his second family. Tarun’s mother slowly begins to lose her mind, and Tarun turns to Didi for the mothering he longs for. But as Tarun gets older, Didi’s domination of the boy threatens to destroy his one chance at true happiness.