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The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife
by Anna Johnston
A funny, heartfelt story about found family and seeing the silver lining in life. Fans of A Man Called Ove and Remarkably Bright Creatures will especially enjoy this new novel.--Library JournalA zany case of mistaken identity allows a lonely old man one last chance to be part of a family in this warm, life-affirming debut novel.Frederick Fife was born with an extra helping of kindness in his heart. If he borrowed your car, he'd return it washed with a full tank of gas. The problem is, at age eighty-two, there's nobody left in Fred's life to borrow from, and he's broke and on the brink of eviction. But Fred's luck changes when he's mistaken for Bernard Greer, a missing resident at the local nursing home, and takes his place. Now Fred has warm meals in his belly and a roof over his head--as long as his look-alike Bernard never turns up. Denise Simms is stuck breathing the same disappointing air again and again. A middle-aged mom and caregiver at Bernard's facility, her crumbling marriage and daughter's health concerns are suffocating her joy for life. Wounded by her two-faced husband, she vows never to let a man betray her again.As Fred walks in Bernard's shoes and learns about his past, Denise uncovers clues that threaten to reveal his identity. Will she expose the truth before Fred can return a broken life to mint condition? Bittersweet and remarkably perceptive, The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is a hilarious, feel-good, clever novel about forgiveness, redemption, second chances and finding family.
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The berry pickers : a novel
by Amanda Peters
Growing up as the only child of affluent and overprotective parents, Norma, troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination, searches for the truth, leading her to the blueberry fields of Maine, where a family secret is finally revealed.
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The Briar Club
by Kate Quinn
Quinn evocatively balances the outward cheerfulness of the 1950s with historical observations exploring racism, misogyny, homophobia and political persecution in this sharply drawn, gripping novel. - People MagazineThe New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye and The Rose Code returns with a haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation's capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman's daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women's baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy's Red Scare.Grace's weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?Capturing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and evoking the changing roles for women in postwar America, The Briar Club is an intimate and thrilling novel of secrets and loyalty put to the test.A beautiful, foil cover, first edition.
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Heartwood (a Read with Jenna Pick)
by Amity Gaige
The best thriller of 2025. --The Boston Globe * Genius. --The Washington Post A literary thriller of the highest order (Elin Hilderbrand, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Couple), Heartwood takes you on a gripping journey as a search and rescue team race against time after an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine. In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping. At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie's disappearance may not be accidental. Heartwood is a gem of a thousand facets--suspenseful, transporting, tender, and ultimately soul-mending, (Megan Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning) that tells the story of a lost hiker's odyssey and is a moving rendering of each character's interior journey. The mystery inspires larger questions about the many ways in which we get lost, and how we are found. At its core, Heartwood is an unputdownable (Real Simple) and redemptive novel, written with both enormous literary ambition and love.
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The Book Club for Troublesome Women
by Marie Bostwick
Margaret Ryan never really meant to start a book club--or a feminist revolution in her buttoned-up suburb.By 1960s standards, Margaret Ryan is living the American woman's dream. She has a husband, three children, a station wagon, and a home in Concordia, one of Northern Virginia's most exclusive and picturesque suburbs. She has a standing invitation to the neighborhood coffee klatch, and now, thanks to her husband, a new subscription to A Woman's Place, a magazine that tells housewives like Margaret exactly who to be and what to buy. On paper, she has it all. So why doesn't that feel like enough?Margaret is thrown for a loop when she first meets Charlotte Gustafson, Concordia's newest and most intriguing resident. As an excuse to be in the mysterious Charlotte's orbit, Margaret concocts a book club get-together and invites two other neighborhood women, Bitsy and Viv, to the inaugural meeting. As the women share secrets, cocktails, and their honest reactions to the controversial bestseller The Feminine Mystique, they begin to discover that the American dream they had been sold isn't all roses and sunshine--and that their secret longing for more is something they share.Nicknaming themselves the Bettys, after Betty Friedan, these four friends have no idea that their impromptu club and the books they read together will become the glue that helps them hold fast through tears, triumphs, angst, and arguments--and what will prove to be the most consequential and freeing year of their lives.The Book Club for Troublesome Women is a humorous, thought provoking, and nostalgic romp through one pivotal and tumultuous American year--as well as an ode to self-discovery, persistence, and the power of sisterhood.
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The Road to Tender Hearts
by Annie Hartnett
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A darkly comic and warm-hearted novel about an old man on a cross-country mission to reunite with his high school crush--bringing together his adult daughter, two orphaned kids, and a cat who can predict death--by the beloved author of Rabbit Cake and Unlikely Animals A miraculous novel--an actual and spiritual road trip you won't forget.--John Irving At sixty-three years old, million-dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts, if it weren't for the tragedies of his life: the sudden death of his eldest daughter and the way his marriage fell apart after that. Since then, PJ spends both his money and his time at the bar, and he probably doesn't have much time left--he's had three heart attacks already. But when PJ reads the obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes his high school sweetheart, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again. Filled with a new enthusiasm for life, PJ decides he's going to drive across the country to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona to win Michelle back. Before PJ can hit the road, tragedy strikes Pondville, leaving PJ the sudden guardian of his estranged brother's grandchildren. Anyone else would be deterred from the planned trip, but PJ figures the orphaned kids might benefit from getting out of town. PJ also thinks he can ask Sophie, his adult daughter who's adrift in her twenties, to come along to babysit. And there's one more surprise addition to the roster: Pancakes, a former nursing home therapy cat with a knack of predicting death, who recently turned up outside PJ's home. This could be the second chance PJ has long hoped for--a fresh shot at love and parenting--but does he have the strength to do both those things again? It's very possible his heart can't take it.
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