DescriptionIt is 1940 and a tragedy sends Lou and her little brother, Oz, along with their invalid mother, from New York City to the rugged mountains of Southwest Virginia to live with their great-grandmother. The story is told with both heartbreaking elegance and large doses of touching humor as the lives of Lou and Oz are changed forever. The portraits of the land and its people are described with an extraordinary eye for detail, and the story flows through swells of prejudice, innocence, faith, and the question of whether one can ever really wish another well. The climactic courtroom battle is as unpredictable as it is relentless and will not only decide the fates of Lou, Oz, and their mother, but also those they have touched.
DescriptionCatherine Hope can control her class of 30 noisy school children, but trying to keep her 17 year old daughter on track for A Levels, that's a different matter. Rachel, usually studious and submissive, is suddenly ripe for rebellion. The reason? Marko: sexy, sultry, countryside campaigner, who's out to save a threatened woodland from destruction. The woodland is on the doorstep of Lavinia, Rachel's conventional, disapproving grandmother. As the protest erupts friendships are severed, loyalties divided, and Lavinia proves to have hidden passions of her own!
DescriptionEdinburgh in the 1930s. The Lennox family is having trouble with its youngest daughter. Esme is outspoken, unconventional, and repeatedly embarrasses them in polite society. Even Kitty, Esme's beloved sister, is beginning to lose patience. Something will have to be done. Years later, in the same city, a young woman named Iris Lockhart receives a letter informing her that she has a great aunt in a psychiatric unit who is about to be released. Iris has never heard of Esme Lennox, and the one person who should know more, her grandmother Kitty, is too adrift in her own memories to answer Iris' questions. What could Esme have done to warrant a lifetime in an institution? And how is it possible for a person to be so completely erased from a family's history?
DescriptionIn 1970, Harold Stamp, a retarded, reclusive 20-year-old, was convicted on disputed evidence and a retracted confession of brutally murdering his grandmother - the one person who understood and protected him. Less than three years later, he is dead, driven to suicide by isolation and despair. A fate befitting a murderer, perhaps, but what if he was innocent? Jonathan Hughes, an anthropologist specialising in social stereotyping, is determined to re-examine this case. There were alarming disparities in the evidence, and Hughes has little doubt that there has been a terrible miscarriage of justice. But there is also something else pushing this half-Iranian, half-Libyan outsider to reach for the truth. This is more than a mere expose of corruption; it is a dark tale of solitude and the relentless need to contain aberration and dissect evil.
DescriptionThe New York Times best-selling author of the much-beloved The Saving Graces is back with a warm, winning new novel about daring to love, braving a loss, and learning to live a little. How much change can one summer bring? If you're Cadd…
