How Sweet the Sound

The Silver Star

Jeannette Walls · 304 pages

Two motherless sisters--Bean and Liz--are shuttled to Virginia, where their Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that's been in their family for generations. When school starts in the fall, Bean easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz becomes increasingly withdrawn. Then something happens to Liz and Bean is left to challenge the injustice of the adult world.

One Summer in Savannah

Terah Shelton Harris · 464 pages

The Prince of Tides

Pat Conroy · 668 pages

PAT CONROY has created a huge, brash thunderstorm of a novel, stinging with honesty and resounding with drama. Spanning forty years, this is the story of turbulent Tom Wingo, his gifted and troubled twin sister Savannah, and their struggle to triumph over the dark and tragic legacy of the extraordinary family into which they were born. Filled with the vanishing beauty of the South Carolina low

The House Girl

Tara Conklin · 372 pages

A novel of love, family, and justice follows Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in a Manhattan law firm, as she searches for the "perfect plaintiff" to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves.

Friendswood

Rene Steinke · 400 pages

"A big, moving novel of one tight-knit Texas community and the events that alter its residents' lives forever. Friendswood, Texas, is a small Gulf Coast town of church suppers, oil rigs on the horizon, hurricane weather, and high school football games. When tragedy rears its head with an industrial leak that kills and sickens residents, it pulls on the common thread that runs through the community

Bastard Out of Carolina

Dorothy Allison · 309 pages

Bone, an illegitimate child in a family of social outcasts, sees her mother's happiness with her new husband and will not tell when the stepfather begins abusing her in the 1950s.

My Sunshine Away

M.O. Walsh · 306 pages

A man reflects on the summer of his fourteenth year, where in Baton Rouge he fell in love with a golden-haired girl across the street before an unspeakable crime shattered illusions in his seemingly idyllic neighborhood. 1989. In a Baton Rouge neighborhood best known for cookouts on sweltering summer afternoons, Lindy Simpson-- track star, and belle of the block-- experiences a horrible crime. It

Where the Heart Is

Billie Letts · 368 pages

Talk about unlucky sevens. An hour ago, seventeen-year-old, seven months pregnant Novalee Nation was heading for California with her boyfriend. Now she finds herself stranded at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, with just $7.77 in change. But Novalee is about to discover hidden treasures in this small Southwest town--a group of down-to-earth, deeply caring people willing to help a homeless, jobles

Blindsighted

Karin Slaughter · 393 pages

A small Georgia town erupts in panic when a young college professor is found brutally mutilated in the local diner. But it's only when town pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton does the autopsy that the full extent of the killer's twisted work becomes clear.Sara's ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, leads the investigation -- a trail of terror that grows increasingly macabre when another lo

Identical

Ellen Hopkins · 624 pages

Do twins begin in the womb? Or in a better place? Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical down to the dimple. As daughters of a district-court judge father and a politician mother, they are an all-American family—on the surface. Behind the facade each sister has her own dark secret, and that's where their differences begin. For Kaeleigh, she's the misplaced focus of Daddy's love, intended for a

The Bastard of Istanbul

Elif Shafak · 368 pages

Beloved

Toni Morrison · 288 pages

Toni Morrison--author of Song of Solomon and Tar Baby--is a writer of remarkable powers: her novels, brilliantly acclaimed for their passion, their dazzling language and their lyric and emotional force, combine the unassailable truths of experience and emotion with the vision of legend and imagination. It is the story--set in post-Civil War Ohio--of Sethe, an escaped slave who has risked death in

March

Geraldine Brooks · 304 pages

We Were the Mulvaneys

Joyce Carol Oates · 464 pages

My Sweet Audrina

V.C. Andrews · 384 pages

**V.C. Andrews, author of the phenomenally successful Dollanganger series, has created a fascinating new cast of characters in this haunting story of love and deceit, innocence and betrayal, and the suffocating power of parental love.** Audrina Adare wanted so to be as good as her sister. She knew her father could not love her as he loved her sister. Her sister was so special, so perfect -- and

The Secret Sense of Wildflower

Susan Gabriel · 212 pages

Set in 1940s Appalachia, The Secret Sense of Wildflower tells the story of Louisa May "Wildflower" McAllister whose life has been shaped around the recent death of her beloved father in a sawmill accident. While her mother hardens in her grief, Wildflower and her three sisters must cope with their loss themselves, as well as with the demands of daily survival. Despite these hardships, Wildflower h

Homegoing

Yaa Gyasi · 320 pages

Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonial, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising half-caste children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the

Golden Boy

Abigail Tarttelin · 381 pages

"The Walker family is good at keeping secrets from the world. They are even better at keeping them from each other. Max Walker is a golden boy. Attractive, intelligent, and athletic, he's the perfect son, the perfect friend, and the perfect crush for the girls in his school. He's even really nice to his little brother. Karen, Max's mother, is a highly successful criminal lawyer, determined to main

Home to Holly Springs

Jan Karon · 355 pages

Kiss the Girls

James Patterson · 466 pages

First came the stunning number-one bestseller Along Came a Spider. Now comes the scariest, most unforgettable novel in several years. In Los Angeles, a reporter investigating a series of murders is killed. In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a beautiful medical intern suddenly disappears. Washington D.C.'s Alex Cross is back to solve the most baffling and terrifying murder case ever. Two clever patter

The Tenth Circle

Jodi Picoult · 385 pages

When the daughter of a comic book artist claims she has been raped at a party and her friends turn against her, she runs away to Alaska and her father must face his own violent past as he tries to find her.

The Four Ms. Bradwells

Meg Waite Clayton · 321 pages

Thirty years ago, Laney, Mia, Betts, and Ginger were roommates and best friends in law school. Collectively nicknamed the Ms. Bradwells by a professor their relationship has weathered marriage, divorce, children, and death, but when Betts's Supreme Court nomination is threatened by questions about the death of a young man at a party they attended decades ago, the women retreat to the scene of the

The Seven Daughters of Dupree

Nikesha Elise Williams · 336 pages

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Stieg Larsson · 548 pages

Meet Lisbeth Salander - the iconic character who has captivated 100 million readers worldwide. "As vivid as bloodstains on snow . . . a perfect introduction to the unique strengths of Scandinavian crime fiction"LEE CHILD Lisbeth Salander gets under the skin of her targets like no-one else. Those who underestimate her live to regret it. If they're lucky . . . Mikael Blomkvist - disgraced journalist