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Deirdre Madden

"A quiet but emotionally resonant portrait of a middle-class family in pre-crash Ireland, Deirdre Madden's latest novel is understated and gorgeously crafted. Madden touches upon abstract ideas in a clear and accessible way, letting her characters graze past one another even as they search for intimacy and closeness. In tightly controlled prose, this beguiling novel meditates on the passage of time and the futility of memory by dwelling on the actions and preoccupations of everyday people."--Publisher's description.

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Marissa Stapley

"Mae Summers has it all: a loving fiancé, Peter, a job at the flourishing company he owns and a beautiful New York City apartment. But Mae's life shatters when she wakes up one morning to discover Peter gone--leaving only a cryptic note behind him--and the company in shambles, its investments founded on lies. There's only one place for Mae to go: home to Alexandria Bay, the small tourist town in upstate New York where she was raised by her grandparents in the inn they own. And not all is right in Alex Bay, either: Mae finds her grandmother struggling with dementia, separated from Mae's grandfather thanks to a terrible secret she never meant to reveal. She also finds Gabe, her childhood best friend who became the love of her young life--now a handsome if brooding adult, working through a private trauma that still haunts him. A lifetime of secrets stands in the way of Mae and her family's happiness. Home may be where the heart is, but sometimes it takes equal parts love, forgiveness and will to mend that heart" --

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Jason F. Wright

After the death of their parents, three siblings return home and find a box of letters written by their father to their mother that uncovers the shocking truth about the past.

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Noley Reid

It's the summer of 1982 in Blacksburg, Virginia--seven years after the suspicious death of a son and sibling--and the Sobel family is hungry. Francie dresses in tennis skirts and ankle socks and weighs her grams of allotted carrots and iceberg lettuce. Her semi-estranged husband Tate prefers a packed fridge and hidden doughnuts. Daughters Enid, ten, and Vivvy, almost thirteen, are subtler versions of their parents, measuring their summer vacation by meals had or meals skipped. But at summer's end, secrets both old and new emerge and Francie disappears, leaving the family teetering on the brink. Told from alternating points of view by the four living Sobels, Pretend We Are Lovely is a sharp and darkly funny story of forgiveness, family secrets, and the losses we inherit. At its core is the ever-complicated and deeply-devoted bond of sisterhood as the girls, left mostly to their own devices, must navigate their way through middle school, find comfort in each other, and learn the difference between food and nourishment.