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New Adult Fiction - Authors P - S |
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Newest items are displayed first. Click on a title for more information or to place a hold. |
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The Great Wherever
by Shannon Sanders
At thirty-two, Aubrey Lamb is stumbling through adulthood. An underpaid gig worker in Washington, DC, she's grieving the end of a serious relationship and the recent loss of her father. When Aubrey learns she has inherited her father's stake in a sizable Tennessee farm she sees an opportunity to get out of the city--and to erase a mounting pile of debt. Watching her arrival with great interest are four ghosts--Aubrey's ancestors, who've staked their own claims to the farm and
who never hesitate to pass judgment on the mistakes made by the living, whether romantic, financial, or sartorial. As Aubrey reconnects with her living family, another story unfolds in parallel: the history of
the land, beginning with its purchase by Thomas, Aubrey's great-grandfather and one of the first Black landowners in his community. Though Thomas hopes to give his children a homestead on which they could flourish, the land proves to be a burdensome inheritance. Over
the years, it turns the Lambs against one another, culminating in a catastrophic tragedy that splinters the family and echoes through the decades. Now, as the clock ticks on a potential sale of the farm, the ghosts fear expulsion from the home they've made, and Aubrey must weigh the hopes and burdens of her forebears with the very real needs of her future.
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This Changes Everything
by Lisa Scottoline
Julia Pritzker loves her new life as a wife and mother in beautiful Tuscany--except that she misses her best friend Courtney, back in the States. One night, Julia calls Courtney and reaches her as she's arriving at her grandmother's farm in Pennsylvania. Then the unthinkable happens. A dreadful premonition overwhelms Julia as Courtney is entering the house--but it's too late to stop Courtney, who makes a heartbreaking discovery. Her beloved grandmother has been murdered, and the killer is escaping out the back door. A distraught Courtney chases him, but he jumps into a pickup truck and gets away. Julia flies home the next morning to support Courtney in her grief. The local
police believe the murder was a botched burglary, but the women suspect something much more sinister. They dig to unearth the truth in
a town filled with explosive secrets, and Julia's uncanny intuition points her to the missing pieces of a dark puzzle. The women call in hotshot Philly lawyer Bennie Rosato, but events take a deadly turn, and Julia becomes the target of a murderous conspiracy. She ends up fighting for her life, with no one to save her ... but herself.
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Weddings
by Danielle Steel
Dominque Dupont is one of the world's most sought-after designers of wedding dresses, and is as unfailingly chic as her gowns. Her international list of clients includes royals and presidents' daughters. As for her own adult daughters, Felicity and Violet, they have unconventional views on marriage, due in part to their family history. Dominique's French mother, Marie-Aur lie, was the adored mistress of a famous financier, and Dominique and her faithless husband divorced decades ago. Felicity, an artist, is in no hurry to get married. Unfortunately, her beau, Taylor, is. When she expresses ambivalence, Taylor reveals a dark side that frightens her. Too ashamed to confide in her mother or sister, she agrees to an elaborate wedding with deep misgivings. Fun-loving Violet is dating a sports reporter, but firmly believes one should never spoil a good thing with matrimony. When he slips an MVP ring on her finger, they decide to celebrate their love in a way that is true to themselves. Dominique's own long-term relationship with a married man is no longer giving her what she wants. As she struggles with making a change, her Parisian mother considers
rekindling an old flame. As plans for Felicity's wedding proceed, each woman will question the true meaning of commitment in this dazzling novel from a master storyteller.
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Rocket's Red Glare: A Thriller
by James Patterson
Nat Phillips leads an elite roster of special operators. They are
ex-Special Forces, communications specialists, and intelligence officers. Phillips is a brilliant strategist and battle-tested leader who inspires
total loyalty in his team. Now these decorated veterans of international warfare are at home and on stand-by--until a presidential campaign is interrupted by murder. Suddenly, the plan is no longer the stuff of Mission: Impossible. Emergency operations happening not overseas but in the centers of American power, from Nantucket to Washington, DC. This national crisis is real.
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The Someday Garden
by Ashley Poston
When Sophie Drear plans her escape to coastal Maine for the summer--for a temporary job revitalizing the storied grounds at Lilymoor House--she doesn't expect to fall in love. But she does: With the beguiling land, the fragrant flowers, and the towering hedge maze. With the quirky
staff and the enigmatic woman who owns the place. And then, the door appears. Never in the same place twice, it leads her to a secret, and unfinished, garden with a frustrated thundercloud of a man trapped inside. This mysterious garden is not the only sign that the future of Lilymoor is unstable: the foliage resists Sophie's careful nurturing, vines threaten to strangle the hedges, and the manor's owner has wild ideas about who will take over when she retires--including her inconveniently attractive nephew who is also there just for the summer. Despite
herself, Sophie has come to care for the residents of Lilymoor just as much as she cares for its grounds. With the help of one man on the outside of the secret garden, and one man on the inside, she might be the only person who can figure out exactly what Lilymoor needs to bloom once more.
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Children of the Wild
by Kevin Powers
Ewer's Rock, Virginia, 1917. Roy Young is restless, eager to leave this isolated rural valley for university and return with the technical knowledge to modernize his family's farm and bring them properly into the twentieth century. Samantha Hatton, the minister's daughter and Roy's best friend since childhood, knows that both Roy and the town expect them to marry. But Samantha, a daring and ambitious young woman, hungers for more. Above them on the mountain, tending to a lost herd of cattle, is silent Ennis Duke, the mysterious wild boy whose arrival in the valley will upend Ewer's Rock's understanding of itself and its place in the world. Within a year, the lives of these three young people will be dramatically transformed. America has joined the Great War, and Roy and Ennis feel duty-bound to join the fight. In the crucible of conflict, thousands of miles from the familiarity of home, the two
men forge a fierce bond. Meanwhile, back in Virginia, Samantha's love and courage endure unthinkable sacrifice in a corner of the world fractured by violence. Children of the Wild captures what it means to
be human in times of loss--and how, even in darkness, the light of friendship and love endures.
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The Final Target
by Nora Roberts
He showed up at Arden Bowie's debut author appearance with a copy
of her novel and an eager smile. He showered her with compliments
and got her autograph. Then he came to her next event. And the one after that. Dustin was just an aspiring writer who wanted advice, Arden reassured herself. But after giving in to one of his incessant invitations and chatting with him over coffee, she discovered that ignoring her
inner alarm bell had been a terrible mistake. An introvert at heart,
Arden had long craved solitude--but now, after a harrowing assault, she finds herself hiding behind locked doors and startling at every sound. And her relief at his imprisonment is tempered by anxiety when Dustin's wealthy mother helps to get him a paltry five-year sentence at a psychiatric facility. Arden decides to write a new story for herself,
moving to a tiny Oregon town and befriending Gideon, an ex-LAPD detective. But while she learns to thrive, Dustin remains his delusional, twisted self, as fixated as ever and now seething with anger. He still believes Arden's purpose on earth is to serve and please him. And his
job is to protect her. But who will protect her from him?
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The Tuxedo Society
by Paul Rudnick
They are fierce patriots. They are licensed to kill. And they are really, really gay. Welcome to democracy's secret weapon, the Tuxedo Society. When Andrew Birnbaum, a struggling actor making ends meet by working in a candle shop, gets invited to have dinner with the exclusive Tuxedo Society by his best friend, Brock, his life takes an unexpected turn. What seems like a group of wealthy socialites gathering for gossip and cocktails quickly spirals into a world of espionage, danger, and hilarity. Andrew soon meets Reggie O'Malley, a Navy SEAL with a penchant for black tie, who recruits Andrew to join the society's covert mission to protect national security. Armed with gadgets like an
inflatable life raft backpack, a yoga mat that doubles as an assault rifle, and, of course, an AMEX Black Card, Andrew quickly finds himself tackling spies, thwarting assassinations, and facing a host of
unexpected threats in settings from the White House to the Vatican to the Summer Olympic Games. The stakes escalate when Andrew and his comrades are sent on a jet-setting mission to uncover the truth about
an ancient artifact. Along the way, they clash with oligarchs, crooked senators, and a smarmy televangelist with sinister plans for world domination. Packed with Paul Rudnick's signature wit, The Tuxedo Society is a wild ride through decadence, danger, and unexpected heroism, as Andrew discovers that saving the world might just be the role he's been waiting for.
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Songs of the Dead
by Brandon Sanderson
When Jack Solomon, a struggling musician who works in London's West End, is killed, he awakens to a new reality in which light and music are used to create magic and where living eras of the past sprawl beneath modern London, layer upon layer, all the way back to recorded history. Jack also soon discovers that many of those who reside in the stratums of London's past have grown angry with the present world, and that their anger is being channeled by a powerful society of light-and-music-based magic wielders who can cross the realms between life and death, between the present and the past. A past where the dead are sowing revolution against the living, and all of history is at stake. Welcome to the Strata Wars.
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Daughters of the Sun and Moon
by Lisa See
In 1870, three Chinese women arrive in the small, dusty, and violent pueblo of Los Angeles. Dove, the bound-footed daughter of an imperial scholar, is entrancing and innocent. These characteristics should bring her great rewards, beginning with her arranged marriage to a much older merchant. Petal, the big-footed daughter of peasants, has grown up hungry and with dirt between her toes. In a moment of desperation, Petal's father sells her to buy money for rice seed, and she is loaded onto a ship to the Gold Mountain--America--where she is once again sold. Moon is married to a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. She is educated, speaks fluent English, and has been endowed with a face of great beauty, yet her failed footbinding as a child has left her with a
limp that lessens her value in the eyes of many. Each woman has her own desires. Dove wants to love and be loved, Petal desires freedom, and Moon seeks justice. Together they face a larger society that wishes them not one ounce of good will. Anti-Chinese sentiment is strong in
Los Angeles, and this eventually leads to the Night of Horrors during which all three women are challenged in ways they could not have imagined. Brought together by hardship and heartbreak, they must use their bravery, endurance, and ability to eat bitterness to discover their voices, find freedom, and connect through solace and friendship. Together they are daughters of the sun and moon.
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Fever Dream
by Elsie Silver
Professional bull rider Emmett Bush is not looking for love. He's looking for a paycheck to save his family's farm from bankruptcy. So, when he agrees to be the leading man on a hot new reality dating show,
Romance Ranch, he's already decided it's all one big performance.
Until Julia Silva walks onto his property. Smart, snarky, beautiful, and
off-limits in more ways than one. As the location consultant on set and the little sister of his most bitter professional rival, she's the last woman who should pique his interest. Julia has been warned about Emmett.
She knows better than to fall for his cocky swagger, broad shoulders,
and smoldering good looks. Plus, she's sworn off relationships. But as Julia and Emmett work together, mutual distaste grows into an unexpected connection and then... something more. Soon, they find themselves searching for excuses to spend time together and out of reach of the cameras. Knowing glances. Stolen kisses. Secret rendezvous. Still, Emmett signed up to play the role of an eligible bachelor searching for the one. His family's land and legacy depend on him completing the show. The problem is, he's already fallen in love.
Just not with a contestant.
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Swell
by Bo-Mi Son
Each story in Swell launches from the common but pivotal moments
that determine the course of everyday life, but they're often filtered through the perspective of someone else: documentarians, novelists, storytellers, gossips. Then, as the stories build atop one another and intertwine, they begin to shift and destabilize. Characters return but
their histories are changed, alternate timelines open, and no one is
ever who they were. Like an optical illusion, this book offers two complete pictures. Viewed as individual stories, contemporary Korean lives are rendered with sensitivity and realism--relationships tatter and bereaved loved-ones search for ways to move on. Viewed as a
complete collection, though, a stranger narrative emerges, in which there is perhaps some invisible logic behind everything, incomprehensible to us. Wholly original, Swell, translated by Janet
Hong, is a book full of trap doors, hidden passageways, and the unsolvable mystery behind everyday life.
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Drayton and MacKenzie
by Alexander Starritt
James and Roland's paths through life--one drawn in straight lines, the other looping and uncertain--began to cross...James Drayton has
always found things too easy. Ambitious, brilliant, disciplined--he graduates with a top first from Oxford and is on track to become the youngest ever partner at leading management consultancy McKinsey.
His former classmate Roland Mackenzie, on the other hand, is an impulsive dreamer: charming and restless, his boundless enthusiasm matched only by his knack for self-sabotage. When Roland takes a job
at the same firm as James, the two men only vaguely remember one another. But as the financial crisis starts to unfold, a chance encounter sparks an idea, and an unlikely partnership begins to take shape. Sent
to Scotland to shutter offices and lay off hundreds of workers, James
and Roland begin to wonder: What if they were made for more than this? What if they could build something grand and lasting--something that might even change the world? By turns intimate and panoramic, Drayton and Mackenzie is a deeply intelligent novel about ambition, friendship, and the forces shaping the twenty-first century--the story of two men caught in, and determined to master, the tides of history.
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26 Beauties: A Women's Murder Club Thriller
by James Patterson
From the world's #1 bestselling author, the Women's Murder Club goes searching for 26 Beauties--young women missing in San Francisco. SFPD's Sergeant Lindsay Boxer's best friend, Claire Washburn, is named medical examiner of the year. But an uninvited guest crashes the Women's Murder Club's party: a concerned father seeking investigative reporter Cindy Thomas's help in locating his missing daughter. And she's not the only one. Lindsay's been investigating the deaths of a Jane Doe washed up on a nearby beach, and a young woman found in Golden Gate Park. What if all these cases are connected? The answers lie with the 26 Beauties on the run and in the wind.
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Rites of the Starling: A Slow-Burn Epic Romantic Fantasy
by Devney Perry
Calandra's five kingdoms are on the verge of destruction. The crux migration is coming. And in the wake of a devastating attack, I've been separated from the man who owns my heart. I'm lost. Terrified. Homesick. Hunted by monsters, driven to exhaustion, and kidnapped
by a powerful priest, the only thing keeping me going is the little girl counting on me to keep her safe. It's my turn to become the Guardian. Our lives change one fateful night. A night of death. A night of
monsters. A night of truths. That night, I learn the real meaning of
fear--and the depth of my own strength. Everyone wants me to be something I'm not--a queen, a spy, a sacrifice. But what if I embrace
my crown? What if the secrets I uncover save our realm? What if my sacrifice means salvation for the man I love? For too long, I've feared
the monsters we make. It's time to discover the monster within.
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Shield of Sparrows
by Devney Perry
The gods sent monsters to the five kingdoms to remind mortals they must kneel. I've spent my life kneeling--to their will and to my father's. As a princess, my only duty is to wear the crown and obey the king. I was never meant to rule. Never meant to fight. And I was never supposed to be the daughter who sealed an ancient treaty with her
own blood. But that changed the fateful day I stepped into my father's throne room. The day a legendary monster hunter sailed to our shores. The day a prince ruined my life. Now I'm crossing treacherous lands beside a warrior who despises me as much as I despise him--bound to
a future I didn't choose and a husband I barely know.
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Accumulation
by Aimee Pokwatka
When documentary filmmaker turned stay-at-home mom Tennessee Cherish moves into the the dream house her husband bought for her, a brighter future seems to be on the horizon. Even if her husband is frustratingly absent due to his new high-paying job. Even if their two young children begin acting out in strange ways. Even if she feels lonelier than ever. Distracted by the endless details that come with moving into a new town, a new house, and new schools, Tenn doesn't notice when odd things begin happening at home. The faucet that runs at all hours. The creepy doll that seems to show up in every room. The human tooth they found in the floorboards. As the kids' outbursts and the strange events start to escalate, the family finds themselves increasingly caught in loops, repeating everyday actions with
dangerous--and then devastating--effects. Tenn realizes she must find the source of what is haunting her family, before it kills them all.
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Five Weeks in the Country
by Francine Prose
In the summer of 1857, when British newspapers warned of an approaching comet about to destroy the earth, an unusual-looking stranger arrived at Charles Dickens's home, Gad's Hill, in the
countryside outside London. Dickens had met Hans Christian Andersen
at a dinner party, a decade before, and, in a moment of desperation,
had invited him to visit. The visit did not go well. The eccentric Danish author of classic fairy tales, who barely spoke English, outstayed his welcome and alienated the Dickens household, which included nine children. Even the oblivious, obsessively self-conscious Andersen
sensed the increasing tension between Dickens and his unhappy wife, Catherine, but was slow to understand—or to believe—that Dickens
had fallen in love with a young actress appearing in his new play. For Andersen, those five weeks were a series of social mistakes and embarrassments but ultimately a lesson in how life's most humbling experiences can be transformed into art.
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Rules for the Summer
by Meghan Quinn
He clicked yes on a dare. She bought a failing candy shop. Now they're neighbors for the summer--and neither is ready for what comes next. Renley Gossage has one shot to prove she's more than Cape Meril's favorite cautionary tale: restore her favorite candy shop before the
town writes her off like they did her father. No help, no shortcuts, and definitely no rich men wielding engagement rings and making things messy. Theo Williams never planned on ending up in Cape Meril. A drunken game of truth or dare turned into a botched online
engagement, and now he's across the ocean, escaping his father's control with nothing but designer shoes, misplaced confidence, and a rental next door to Renley. She's practical, stubborn, and covered in paint. He's posh, persistent, and willing to use a sander if it means earning her trust. Between collapsing drywall, gossiping neighbors, and the chaotic schemes of Renley's aunt, their forced proximity turns into something dangerously close to real. But Renley's future depends on standing on her own two feet, and Theo's past isn't done with him yet. By the time the candy shop doors open, they'll have to decide if this is just a summer fling--or the happily ever after neither of them saw coming.
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Bromantasy
by Roche
Fellas, is it gay to kiss your bff while on a quest through the forest
you're unqualified for? Juniper O'Reilly is good at only two things: demolishing a pint of mead and finding the perfect skincare routine. Everything else--taking care of the farm, bartering for goods, any sort
of manual labor--falls to Juniper's best friend, the absurdly capable, endlessly patient Mo Elmthorn. But when Juniper accidentally
volunteers them both for a quest to kill a fearsome monster, he knows he's finally gotten in over his head. Juniper hates camping, he hates the dark, and there's no way all these foraged mushrooms are going to sit well in his stomach. One thing he doesn't hate? How good Mo's thighs look in his questing pants--he doesn't have time to think about that, though, with a monster to hunt and their futures on the line. But monsters come in all shapes and sizes. When Juniper and Mo realize
that the terrifying beast they've sworn to kill is just a scared little girl torn from her family, they're off to find not only the true villain of the story, but maybe even a happy ending.
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Seek the Traitor's Son
by Veronica Roth
Elegy Ahn did not ask for destiny to find her. She is happy with her life
as a soldier, defending her small country from the Talusar, a powerful nation who worships a deadly Fever - a fever that blesses half of its victims with mysterious gifts. But then she's summoned to hear a prophecy - her, and the most ruthless of Talusar generals, Rava Vidar. Brought face to face, they learn that one of them will lead their people
to victory over the other...but they don't know which. And at the center of both of their fates: a man. A man that, Elegy is told, she will fall in love with. In just one day, Elegy's old life - her job, her purpose, and
her future - is over. She and Rava are destined to collide, with the fate
of their nations hanging in the balance. And when they do, only one will be left standing. Elegy intends to make sure it's her.
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Take Me with You
by Steven Rowley
College professor Jesse del Ruth has been abandoned. Thirty years into their relationship, Jesse witnesses his husband, Norman, get out of bed late one night, walk into their Joshua Tree backyard, step into a strange beam of light and . . . disappear. How could Norman desert him after a lifetime together? Where did he go? And, most confoundingly . . . will
he ever return? Jesse knew they were both feeling stuck, longing for something they couldn't quite name. But was their rut so deep that Norman's only option was to leave Jesse behind? As Jesse struggles to understand Norman's disappearance, he tries to piece together his new reality. Is he expected to wait patiently for a partner who may never come back? Or is this an opportunity for reinvention? He is, after all, alone for the first time in his adult life. Should he return to the classroom? Put in a pool? Get a dog? Call his estranged mother? What does it mean to be alone when you've always been one half of a whole? When Norman's sister, Lally, lands on Jesse's doorstep with an urgent request, Norman's absence becomes even more profound. Before he
can understand how Norman could leave it all behind, Jesse must confront what it means to stay.
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A Fortune of Sand
by Ruta Sepetys
Detroit, 1927. A city of smoke and ambition, where glittering wealth conceals a graveyard of secrets. Marjorie Lennox is the youngest daughter of a powerful Detroit dynasty--a family rich in money and
poor in charm. Creative, reckless, and never quite what they wanted, Marjorie has spent her life overlooked by her controlling father and self-absorbed siblings. But when she secretly applies to an elite arts
program backed by a mysterious patron, she grabs the chance to finally step out of her family's shadow. The building is grand. The talent is extraordinary. And something is deeply wrong. The program is strict in ways that feel sinister. Doors lock at strange hours. Rumors spread
about women going missing. And the handsome benefactor behind it
all is as magnetic as he is unsettling. As Marjorie gets pulled deeper
into his world, she must fight to discover the truth before she loses herself completely. Set in the fading splendor of 1920s Detroit and inspired by real, long-buried events, A Fortune of Sand is a glittering, gothic page-turner about power, control, and the price women pay
when they demand to be seen.
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Odessa
by Gabrielle Sher
Yetta is a bright, quick teenage girl with a wild, searching spirit. Stifled by her mother's anxiety, her father's rules, and the path that's been laid out for her, she craves freedom, the edges of which she doesn't know. But her family has reason to be cautious and restrictive. Fear has wrapped itself around their shtetl. Jews are mysteriously disappearing, and there are whispers of an impending attack. When violence comes
to their door, Yetta is killed. Her father, in his grief, fumbles through his nascent knowledge of ancient texts and old magic to bring her back. By some miracle, Yetta is returned--but although she looks the same, she
is not the girl she once was. Yetta senses there is a secret her family is keeping from her. The answer resides, in part, in the creature lurking in the woods beyond the shtetl - something that may be of her father's making, and a being that has plans of its own.
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Glyph
by Ali Smith
It all starts when Petra and her little sister Patch hear a horrifying story from the past and find themselves making up a ghost. Is it imaginary? Is it real? Then it all starts again thirty years later when Petra, now estranged from Patch, finds a phantom horse kicking the furniture to pieces in her bedroom. What to do? She phones her sister. In a chiarascuro dance through our increasingly antagonistic era, Glyph asks if we're attending to the history that's made us and to the history we're making. A funny, warm and clear-eyed take on where we are now, Glyph is about what our imaginations are for and how, in a broken, brutal and divided time, we rekindle care, solidarity, resistance and openness.
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John of John
by Douglas Stuart
Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry back home to the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides to find that little has changed except for him. He returns to the windswept croft and the two pillars of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, tweed weaver, and lay preacher in the local Presbyterian church, and his maternal grandmother Ella, a profanity-loving Glaswegian whose steady warmth helped Cal weather the
sudden departure of his mother. Cal privately wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, while John is dismayed by his son's long hair, strange clothes, and seeming unwillingness to be Saved. But Cal isn't the only one in the croft house who is keeping secrets. As lambing season turns to shearing season, the threads
holding together the community together become increasingly frayed, and nothing will remain as it was before. John of John is a singular
novel about duty, passion, and the transformative power of the truth.
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