by Susan Kietzman (2015)
"Helen Street spent every summer of her childhood at her family's cedar-shake cottage on Long Island Sound. The youngest of four, she shared her mother Claire's athletic genes and relished the orchestrated games and competitions that filled those warm, endless days. Unlike her older siblings--fiery Charlotte, ambitious Thomas, middle-child Pammy--Helen rarely felt the pressure of her mother's high expectations. Thirty years later, with her brother and sisters scattered, Helen is the sole caregiver for Claire, now terminally ill. Knowing her death is imminent, Claire has put Helen in the awkward position of telling the others that she plans on leaving everything, including the cottage, to Helen when she dies--unless everyone comes to the shore for a long weekend over the Fourth of July. During this time together, Helen, Charlotte, Pammy, and Thomas will revisit their long-ago decisions and assumptions. And they will face new choices that could shatter their fragile kinship--or reveal a family's extraordinary power to remember, to forgive, and to grow"--Provided by publisher.
Janet Frame
Set in provincial, pre-1940 New Zealand, this novel explores the Withers family and in particular Daphne. When one of Daphne's sisters, Francie, dies at the rubbish dump where the children search for treasure, a crisis is provoked which leads Daphne to a mental asylum where she is given shock treatment. Her voice from 'the Dead Room' haunts the novel with its poetic insights.
Christine Hurley Deriso
Summer Stetson has always lived in the shadow of her dead sister, knowing she can never measure up in any way, but on her seventeenth birthday her aunt gives her Shannon's diary, which reveals painful but liberating truths about Summer's family and herself.
Luigi Pirandello
English: The novel is about Mattia Pascal, who leaves home after one of the usual quarrels with his wife Romilda, and arrives in Monaco, where he wins thousands of pounds. So much money and a news story that he reads -announcing his death ( but it is the corpse of a desperate man who killed himself by jumping into a well)- suggests him to simulate its death and to start a new life. Mattia renamed Adriano Meis went to live in Rome. And... Italian: Il romanzo narra la storia di Mattia Pascal, che si allontana di casa dopo una delle consuete liti con la moglie Romilda, e, arrivato a Montecarlo, vince decine di migliaia di lire. Il possesso di una grossa somma e la lettura di una notizia di cronaca che annuncia la sua morte (una bufala; in realtà si tratta del cadavere di un disperato che si è ucciso gettandosi nel pozzo di casa Pascal), lo inducono a simulare la propria morte e a tentare di cominciare una nuova vita. Mattia ribattezzato Adriano Meis va a vivere a Roma. E...
Laura Harrington
When Alice Bliss learns that her father is being deployed to Iraq, she's heartbroken. Alice idolizes her father, loves working beside him in their garden, accompanying him on the occasional roofing job, playing baseball. When he ships out, Alice is faced with finding a way to fill the emptiness he has left behind. Matt will miss seeing his daughter blossom from a tomboy into a full-blown teenager. Alice will learn to drive, join the track team, go to her first dance, and fall in love, all while trying to be strong for her mother, Angie, and take care of her precocious little sister, Ellie.