When Tom Crider's only child, Gretchen, died in an apartment fire at age twenty-one, there seemed to be no answers to his questions. Now Tom Crider has written the book he searched for in his grief and couldn't find, one that offers--without sermons or certainty--companionship in agony and an exploration of spiritual issues related to death. It's a book for good people who've had bad things happen but who can't find consolation in prayer. It's a book for readers--people who would, in sorro...

"The Girl Who Fell from the Sky can actually fly." — The New York Times Book ReviewRachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy after a fateful morning on their Chicago rooftop.Forced to move to a new city, with her strict African American grandmother as her guardian, Rachel is thrust for the first time into a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty...

Gritty, heartrending and unputdownable – the story of two sisters sent first to an English, then an Australian orphanage in the aftermath of World War II.Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage – not knowing that the papers she has s...

More than six million copies sold worldwide!A larger-than-life old man with a fondness for vodka goes on an unexpected adventure in this whimsical internationally bestselling novel—perfect for fans of Forrest Gump and A Man Called Ove**.**After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his last stop. The only problem is that he'...

In a story that travels beyond borders and between families, acclaimed Dominican novelist and poet Julia Alvarez reflects on the joys and burdens of love—for her parents, for her husband, and for a young Haitian boy known as Piti.**“[A] beguiling memoir of family and culture.”—**O, The Oprah MagazineIn this intimate true account of a promise kept, Alvarez takes us on a journey into experiences that challenge our way of thinking abo...

Marion Dante always knew she would be a nun. She was her mother’s ‘‘sin offering’’, pledged to God even before her birth. So, at the age of fourteen, she entered a convent.Ten years later, she was wrestling with doubts and misery. Shunned by the nuns, her only ‘‘family’’, she set out on the long road to freedom. But freedom was a terrifying prospect. Like a caged bird she clung to her prison bars.Wearing a short skirt, ordering a cup of tea in a café, making everyda...

It is 1943, and Santa Cecilia has become a village of women. All the young men are away at war, except for Vito Leone, his best friend, and the shopkeeper's son. When Vito falls in love with Maddalena Picinelli, the shy and beautiful daughter of the town's most powerful family, a few obstacles appear in his path. Maddalena's sassy, iron-willed sister Carolina thinks he's a penniless fool. Her parents think his crazy mother has turned him into a mammoni, a mama's boy. But Maddalena sees ano...

Find out what it takes to keep the Glass Half Full, as challenging life events including grief, loss, PTSD and devastating floods, test this expat step-family to their limits.After enduring divorce and numerous child custody battles, Sarah Jane knew that a fresh start in Australia was their only chance of future happiness and that as a family they were making the right decisions. Living the Australian dream in Alice Springs was everything they hoped for until life-changing events s...

A young boy emerges from life-saving surgery with remarkable stories of his visit to heaven. Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn't know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear. Colton said he met his miscarri...

Two men are crossing the sea to marry women they have never met, in order to help them escape war-torn Europe for the Jewish homeland. Zeev Feinberg - lover of many women and proud owner of a lustrous moustache - yearns to return home, to a girl whose skin is sweet with the smell of oranges. For Yaacov Markovitch, however, who no woman has ever looked at twice, his fake marriage is the beginning of a lifelong obsession. As he vows to make his beautiful bride, Bella, love him - and she dete...

Isadora Tattlin is the American wife of a European energy consultant posted to Havana in the 1990s. Wisely, the witty Mrs. Tattlin began a diary the day her husband informed her of their new assignment. One of the first entries is her shopping list of things to take, including six gallons of shampoo. For although the Tattlins were provided with a wonderful, big house in Havana, complete with a staff of seven, there wasn't much else money could buy in a country whose shelves are nearly bare...

A man reminisces about growing up with an abusive father in a transient Southern family, in this debut novel by the author of How I Shed My Skin.On a snowy Thanksgiving Day in North Carolina, a dreamy eight-year-old Danny Crell is pushed headlong into the adult world by a violent quarrel between his parents, Bobjay and Ellen.Bobjay is no longer the man young Ellen married. A debilitating farm accident and a steady consumption of alcohol have seen t...