Birds in Fall by Brad Kessler

One fall night off the coast of a remote island in Nova Scotia, an airplane plummets to the sea as an innkeeper watches from the shore. Miles away in New York City, ornithologist Ana Gathreaux works in a darkened room full of sparrows, testing their migratory instincts. Soon, Ana will be bound for Trachis Island, along with other relatives of victims who converge on the site of the tragedy. As the search for survivors envelops the island, the mourning families gather at the inn, waiting for news of those they have lost. Here among strangers, and watched over by innkeeper Kevin Gearns, they form an unusual community, struggling for comfort and consolation. A Taiwanese couple sets out fruit for their daughter's ghost. A Bulgarian man plays piano in the dark, sending the music to his lost wife, a cellist. Two Dutch teenagers, a brother and sister, rage against their parents' death. An Iranian exile, mourning his niece, recites the Persian tales that carry the wisdom of centuries.  At the center of Birds in Fall lies Ana Gathreaux, whose story Brad Kessler tells with deep compassion: from her days in the field with her husband, observing and banding migratory birds, to her enduring grief and gradual reengagement with life.  Kessler's knowledge of the natural world, music, and myth enriches every page of this hauntingly beautiful and moving novel about solitude, love, losing your way, and finding something like home. <<buy the book now>>
 

There Will Never Be Another You by Caroline See

Accomplished author Carolyn See triumphantly returns to fiction- seven years after her last novel was published- with this provocative, vibrantly written new novel. Set in a security-obsessed world that eerily mirrors our own, There Will Never Be Another You captures the paranoia and propaganda of a volatile time and place in which humanity's divisions run deep and society sits on edge- and one Southern California family faces profound crises from within and without.  It is a moment in the near future when the global threat of terror has cultivated rage, apathy, and panic across the country. People fear that "anybody could be armed, or have a bomb. Or a disease. Or all three." For Phil, a dermatologist at the UCLA hospital, it is a time of unease and uncertainty, in stark contrast to the days when he coasted through life on his good looks, a modicum of charm, and only haphazard effort. Now Phil must deal with his mother, Edith, who's been grieving over the death of her husband for several years and only recently has thought to reconnect with a family that seems to have other priorities. Phil's energies are already divvied up among his belligerent children, his wayward wife, and his unreliable mistress.  Then Phil's life takes a dramatic turn: He is recruited for a top-secret team whose task is to act quickly in the event of a biological or chemical attack. The assignment just may provide him with a renewed sense of purpose. Yet dire circumstances force Phil to make profound decisionsthat will affect not just himself and his loved ones but the entire country. It is a chance for an ordinary man to rise from mediocrity to heroism- and at which failure would prove to be catastrophic.  Foreboding and all too plausible, There Will Never Be Another You is a cautionary novel of family and society, where a naïve past is replaced by a menacing future in which distinguishing between reality and imagination proves to be more challenging than ever. <<buy the book now>>

The Secret Memoirs of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Ruth Francisco

Who was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis? She was a wife, mother, artist, editor, and world traveler. A bright young woman who rose to unparalleled celebrity. One of the world's most inspiring and influential women of her day, she has become arguably the most important female icon of all time. Yet she also was a woman of passion and deep emotions, who wanted to experience all that life had to give. How did she feel about it all? She never told. Jackie said quite famously, "I want to live my life, not record it." Jackie remains elusive, her interior life hidden, her soul masked behind sunglasses and an enigmatic smile. For the first time, these fictional memoirs tell Jackie's story in Jackie's voice—with all her joy and wit, grief and bitterness, gentleness and fortitude. Ruth Francisco boldly plunges into the subtext of Jackie's public life, psychology, and sexuality, beyond her dazzling mythic exterior, reimagining Jackie's feelings and thoughts between the lines of recorded history. In this riveting epic tale, we follow Jackie's journey from her privileged yet wrenching youth, through the exaltation and suffering of her marriage to John F. Kennedy, to the shattering despair of her losses, exile, and loneliness. As she learns to forgive her jealous rival, Maria Callas, and her abusive second husband, Aristotle Onassis, Jackie begins to find redemption, ultimately discovering peace through her children and her work. Powerful, poignant, and inspiring, The Secret Memoirs of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is a sweeping novel, a mythic fable of the trials and tribulations of the female soul.  <<buy the book now>>

Lick Creek by Brad Kessler

Set in the remote mining country of West Virginia in the late twenties, Lick Creek is the story of a fiery young woman, Emily Jenkins, and what happens when progress - and tragedy - comes to her family's farm. Brad Kessler has a generous and keen eye for natural landscape and its power in human life. In his first novel, he explores the complex intersections of faith, tradition, and innovation. After the coal mine deaths of her father, brother, and the first man she loved, Emily struggles to support herself and her mother. When construction begins on the power lines, she blames the intruders for everything that has gone awry - for her mother's increasing withdrawal from life and for lives already lost. Then, an electrical worker is struck by lightning. Brought to their farmhouse unconscious and badly injured, Joseph is taken in by Emily's mother, and Emily is seduced by the mystery of his past, his immigration from Russia, his own mother's deportations, and the world of immigrants forced to flee persecution in their homelands.  <<buy the book now>>

The Woodcutter's Christmas by Brad Kessler

"For anyone who's ever felt a twinge of sadness at tossing their drying fir or spruce on the curb the week after Christmas, a few strands of tinsel still clinging to its branches; for all of us who know there's a human being beneath the rough surface appearance of each individual we rush past on the crowded streets; The Woodcutter's Christmas offers a yuletime tale full of meaning." "Each year a New York City family looks forward to the day in early December when the Woodcutter arrives and sets up his Christmas trees on the sidewalk beneath their apartment windows. Cheerful yet mysterious, the Woodcutter seems more at home with his trees than with other humans. Every year, his trees sold, he packs up his truck on Christmas Eve and heads back to Vermont." Then one year, The Woodcutter doesn't show up: no smell of balsam, no colored lights, no lawn chair, not so much as a fir needle. Several years pass and he and his trees begin to fade from memory until a Vermont vacation takes the family past his home. Acting on a half-remembered invitation, they discover the Woodcutter's isolated cabin, and are treated to the haunting and heartwarming story of the night the abandoned trees cried out and the Woodcutter's heart was changed forever.  <<buy the book now>>

Confessions of a Death Maiden by Ruth Francisco

Most people don't know that deathmaidens exist. It is a silent profession, unmentionable, yet omnipresent as the quiet night. You are familiar with midwives who grab slippery armpits and pull babies screaming into this world. My job is not so different. Actually, it's the exact opposite.  I serve as midwife to the dying. Like the midwife, I help people pass into the next reality. Just as a baby is not expected to slide into this world of its own accord, so no one should have to die unassisted, to wither away alone in a hospital. Often I am called by a hospice to assist during the final hours of death labor. I don't kill people, nor do I help them pass on with drugs of any kind. I cannot minister someone to the next world before their time, no more than a midwife can slap life into a stillborn baby. Like a religious call, a career as a deathmaiden is not something you choose: It chooses you....  <<buy the book now>>

Good Morning Darkness by Ruth Francisco

Everybody was in love with Laura: the Mexican fisherman who admired her through her kitchen window in the predawn darkness, the boyfriend who refused to take no for an answer, the detective who instructed her in martial arts, and the creepy boss who harassed her. Then one day Laura disappears.  When the fisherman finds a woman's severed arm on the beach, he is convinced it belonged to Laura. And her self-defense teacher, LAPD Detective Sergeant Reggie Brooks, also begins to wonder if Laura is alive or dead. With no evidence of foul play, he unofficially looks for the preternaturally beautiful woman who haunts his dreams. But as he travels the lonely coastal highway in an obsessive search for answers, Brooks will soon find himself in a dark, terrifying place of unthinkable acts, irrational behavior, and premeditated murder... <<buy the book now>>

 

A sprightly collection of formal poems about an unusually wide range of subjects. Taylor writes with a light but incisive touch, rendering her poems with a warmth that is unafraid to dig into the darker regions of experience. <<buy the book now>>

The Handyman by Carolyn See

The Handyman is the story of Bob Hampton, an aspiring young painter who has had to face the humbling fact that he doesn't know what to paint. And how are you supposed to be an artist in this world if you don't have a vision? Bob trades in his artist's palette for a minivan full of house paints, hammers, and nails, and sets about earning a little cash as a handyman. Although he turns out to be very bad at fixing the things he's hired to fix, Bob demonstrates quite a knack for fixing the lives of the people around him. In the midst of his jerry-built repairs and inspired home improvements, Bob meets an extraordinary cast of characters - rendered in all their delightful eccentricity and human frailty as only Carolyn See can - each of whom shows Bob the true scope of his own remarkable talent. There's Angela Landry, a house wife with far too much time on her hands, a sexpot of a stepdaughter, and a son in need of attention; Jamie Walker, whose allergy-prone and ADD-afflicted children keep a menagerie of scaly pets that far exceed Jamie's managerial skills; Valerie LeClerc, older, sadder, and certainly wiser than Bob; and Hank and Ben, who leave a narrow-minded Midwest only to find unremitting illness and isolation in the California of their dreams. <<buy the book now>>

Dreaming: Hard Luck & Good Times in America by Carolyn See

In this bittersweet and beautifully written memoir Carolyn See embarks on nothing less than a reevaluation of the American Dream. "This is a history," she writes, "of how drugs and drink have worked in our family for the last fifty - actually it turned out to be closer to a hundred - years. In varying degrees, it's history seen through a purple haze. It's full of secrets and chaos and distortions, and secretly remembered joys. I'm beginning to think it may be the unwritten history of America." Although it features a clan in which dysfunction was something of a family tradition, Dreaming is no "victim's story" or temperance tract. With a wry humor and not a trace of self-pity, See writes of fights and breakups and hard times, but also of celebration and optimism in the face of adversity. The story of See's own family speaks for the countless people who reached for the shining American vision, found it eluded their grasp, and then tried to make what they had glitter as best they could. Dreaming is about yearning, imagining, and reinventing oneself, about rolling with the punches and continuing on. In this fiercely funny and deeply empathetic book, See shows us that the wild life, for better and worse, has made us what we are. <<buy the book now>>

Golden Days by Carolyn See

Golden Days is a major novel from one of the most provocative voices on the American literary scene. Linking the recent past with an imagined future, Carolyn See captures life in Los Angeles in the 70s and 80s. This marvelously imaginative, hilarious, and original work offers fresh insights into the way we were, the way we are, and the way we could up.  <<buy the book now>>

Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers by Carolyn See
As Carolyn See says, writing guides are like preachers on Sunday - there may be a lot of them, but you can't have too many and there's always an audience of the faithful. And while Making a Literary Life is ostensibly a book that teaches you how to write, it really teaches you how to make your interior life into your exterior life, how to find and join that community of like-minded souls you're sure is out there somewhere.  <<buy the book now>>