Adult

Exploring the way our choices and relationships are shaped by the menace and beauty of the natural world, Megan Mayhew Bergman’s powerful and heartwarming collection captures the surprising moments when the pull of our biology becomes evident, when love or fear collide with good sense, or when our attachment to an animal or wild place can’t be denied.

In “Housewifely Arts,” a single mother and her son drive hours to track down an African gray parrot that can mimic her deceased mother’s voice. A population-control activist faces the ultimate conflict between her loyalty to the environment and her maternal desire in “Yesterday’s Whales.” And in the title story, a lonely naturalist allows an attractive stranger to lead her and her aging father on a hunt for an elusive woodpecker.

As intelligent as they are moving, the stories in Birds of a Lesser Paradise are alive with emotion, wit, and insight into the impressive power that nature has over all of us. This extraordinary collection introduces a young writer of remarkable talent.

Wanting something personally fulfilling to do with her time, Jackie Hart starts a reading club and anonymously hosts a radio show, calling herself Miss Dreamsville. The racially segregated town falls in love with Miss Dreamsville, but doesn’t know what to make of Jackie, who welcomes everyone into her book club.

Marjorie Celona’s debut novel is about a wise-beyond-her-years foster child abandoned as a newborn on the doorstep of the local YMCA. Swaddled in a dirty gray sweatshirt with nothing but a Swiss Army knife tucked between her feet, little Shannon is discovered by a man who catches only a glimpse of her troubled mother as she disappears from view. That morning, all three lives are forever changed.

Eloise Hempel’s life is turned upside down when she must raise her sister's three children after her sister's untimely death. Nearly two decades after returning to Cincinnati and moving back into her mother's house, she is ready to resume her own life. However, when her mother creates a competition for which of the now-grown kids gets the house, their makeshift family starts to fall apart.

The subject of LOVE ANTHONY is autism, but that implacable disorder is only part of the story. Blending neuroscience and emotional insight, Lisa Geonva --- best known for 2008’s STILL ALICE --- delivers a heartfelt tale of two women who emerge from tragedy and betrayal to make a fresh start.

As World War II sweeps the continent and England steels itself against German attack, Maggie Hope, former secretary to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, completes her training to become a spy for MI-5. To her great disappointment, she is dispatched to go undercover at Windsor Castle, where she will tutor the young Princess Elizabeth in math. Yet castle life quickly proves more dangerous --- and deadly --- than Maggie ever expected.

Nestled in a picturesque corner of southern Australia, the Valley View Motel has been run by the Quinlans for years --- and nobody adores the place more than Lola, the family’s lovable and mischievous Irish-born matriarch. Plotting in secret and online, Lola thinks it would be fun to invite a select group of strangers to stay at the motel for Christmas. Will these guests become friends, ignite sparks, fall in love? As she counts down the days until their arrival, Lola’s own family dramas threaten to upend her best-laid plans.

Fourteen-year-old Peter and his two siblings live on the fictional island of Finø, where people of all religious faiths coexist peacefully. Yet nothing is at it seems. When their eccentric and profoundly devout mother and father suddenly disappear, they must question whether their parents' relentless quest to boost church attendance has put them in danger.

Seventeen-year-old Alice Marie Krayenbraak is beautiful, witty, a star student, and a gifted athlete. On the surface, she has it all. But in Alice’s hometown of Dutch Center, Iowa, nothing is as it seems. The family farm is failing. Alice’s mother is behaving strangely amid apocalyptic fears of Y2K. And her parents have announced their plans to send her special-needs sister Aldah away. On top of it all, the uniformly Dutch Calvinist town has been rattled by an influx of foreign farm workers.

Lucy Takeda is just 14 years old when the bombs rain down on Pearl Harbor. Within weeks, she and her mother, Miyako, are taken to the Manzanar prison camp, where they must endure its harsh living conditions. Corruption and abuse creep into every corner of Manzanar, eventually ensnaring Miyako. Ruined and unwilling to surrender her daughter to the same fate, Miyako soon breaks. Her final act of desperation will stay with Lucy forever...and spur her to sins of her own.