If I Grow Up

Not your everyday coming-of-age novel. This story was supposed to be about Evie — how she hasn’t made a friend in years, how she tends to stretch the truth (especially about her so-called relationship with college drop-out Jonah Luks), and how she finally comes into her own once she learns to just be herself — but it isn’t. Because when her classmate Elizabeth “Zabet” McCabe’s murdered body is found in the woods, everything changes, and Evie’s life is never the same again.

Ten-year-old Helen and her summer guardian, Flora, are isolated together in Helen’s decaying family house while her father is doing secret war work in Oak Ridge during the final months of World War II. At three Helen lost her mother and the beloved grandmother who raised her has just died. A fiercely imaginative child, Helen is desperate to keep her house intact with all its ghosts and stories. Flora, her late mother’s twenty-two-year old first cousin, who cries at the drop of a hat, is ardently determined to do her best for Helen. Their relationship and its fallout, played against a backdrop of a lost America will haunt Helen for the rest of her life. This darkly beautiful novel about a child and a caretaker in isolation evokes shades of The Turn of the Screw and also harks back to Godwin’s memorable novel of growing up, The Finishing School. With its house on top of a mountain and a child who may be a bomb that will one day go off, Flora tells a story of love, regret, and the things we can’t undo. It will stay with readers long after the last page is turned.

A taut and lyrical coming-of-age debut about a young American woman navigating class, lies, and love amid London’s jet-set elite. I would arrive, blank like a sheet of notebook paper, and write myself new. Anna first fell in love with London at her hometown library–its Jane Austen balls a far cry from her life of food stamps and hand-me-downs. But when she finally arrives after college, the real London is a moldy flat and the same paycheck-to-paycheck grind–that fairy-tale life still out of reach.

A starry-eyed young beauty, Marjorie Morgenstern is nineteen years old when she leaves New York to accept the job of her dreams-working in a summer-stock company for Noel Airman, its talented and intensely charismatic director. Released from the social constraints of her traditional Jewish family, and thrown into the glorious, colorful world of theater, Marjorie finds herself entangled in a powerful affair with the man destined to become the greatest-and the most destructive-love of her life. Rich with humor and poignancy, Marjorie Morningstar is a classic love story, one that spans two continents and two decades in the life of its heroine. This unforgettable paean to youthful love and the bittersweet sorrow of a first heartbreak endures as one of Herman Wouk’s most beloved creations.

Best friends Miranda Montana, Germaine St. Germaine-Chang, and Sicily Bell were the darlings of Hollywood who rose from teen success to in-demand idols of screaming fans and paparazzi. They rode the momentum like there was no tomorrow. But nothing lasts forever. Now Miranda, the wild-child movie star, drifts from rehab to dead-end relationships as she tries for a comeback from a very public fall from grace. Germaine, the daughter of billionaire hotel moguls, has lost her purpose. And then there’s Sicily, the all-American pop star who had a record deal, sold-out concerts, and controlling parents who squeezed the very life out of her. After a decade, fate reconnects these three young women for a long-awaited confrontation with the secrets, betrayals, heartbreak, and family traumas of the past. Settling old scores is just the beginning. It’s also time to repair the damage done and to hold fast to the most galvanizing success of their their friendship

Someone has to keep their head, as Mum used to say, and 11-year-old Martha is used to being that someone in her family. Her little brother, Tug, is too small. Her dad has been acting too strange. And Mum’s not here anymore. So when Dad falls off the roof, it’s Martha who ices his knee and takes him to the doctor. And when Dad doesn’t come home, it’s Martha who cooks Tug’s favorite pie and reads him his bedtime story. And when Dad passes out, it’s Martha who cleans him up and keeps his secret. But eventually Dad’s problems become too big for even Martha to solve, and she realizes it’s not all up to her—there are people and places she can turn to.