Rich People Problems

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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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Mary Lawson

"From "a talented writer whose lyrical, evocative writing invites comparisons to Rick Bass and Richard Ford" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) comes a deftly woven novel that examines the layered makeup of a family: the affections and resentments, obligations and sacrifices"-- "Set in a backwoods village in northern Canada, this is the story of a young woman who leaves her dysfunctional, male-dominated family to make a new life in London. With her dreamy mother abed upstairs, and her father passive in a house full of rambunctious, out of control male children from the age of 4-14, Megan has become the defacto mother, housekeeper, nurse, and lynchpin of her household. Wholly dependable, intelligent, lovely, they depend on her completely-- until one day she has had enough. She packs her bags and leaves for London knowing virtually no one. As she did in her previous two books, Mary Lawson flawlessly weaves the narration of Megan's life and love with the consequences of her departure at home, particularly for her youngest brother Adam, age 4, who has retreated into himself out of insecurity and neglect. Lawson is particularly fine in calibrating the emotional core of her characters, and the choice Megan must make, which, while poignant, in Lawson's hands is also an affirmation of what is, finally, universally important"--

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Paul Auster

Marco Fogg, loner and dreamer, is forced from his Manhattan apartment and roams Central Park as a vagrant until he is rescued by gentle Kitty Wu. He ends up as the live-in helper to an invalid old man, the recording of whose life story becomes Marco's obsession.

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Victoria Patterson

Life is pretty sweet for Even Hyde. Despite his parents' divorce in 2001, he's doing just fine, having chosen to live with his richly successful father in Newport Beach, California. When not spending bonding' time with his partially absent father, he has his run of the house, where he more or less comes and goes as he pleases. Even's older brother Gabe continues to live in Cucamonga with their emotionally unstable mother. Though he feels discarded and left behind, Gabe visits Even and their father on the weekends. Even doesn't seem too worried about Gabe's quick-to-ignite temper or his evolving addiction to skipping school and smoking weed. But then Gabe commits a crime so unbelievably heinous that Even can't forgive his own flesh and blood for it. In his personal recounting for THE LITTLE BROTHER,Even shares the events immediately following his brother and two of his friends savagely gang raping (while videotaping) an unconscious girl. When Gabe somehow ends up losing the video tape (which ends up in Even's hand) it is up to Even to make the life-changing decision: does he do the right thing and turn his own brother in to the police or does family come first?