A village in Tuscany is the setting for this joyous debut—a novel that defies all our expectations as it puts a fresh, clever, captivating spin on the age-old tale of forbidden love. Rich in literary delights, filled with spectacular wordplay, and rife with the bawdy humor of Shakespeare’s comedies, Tomato Rhapsody is the almost-true tale of how the tomato came to Italy—at once a brilliantly inventive fable of love, lust, and longing, and a dazzling feast for the imaginati...

Magic and transformation in the beauty of a Ukrainian villageFor seven-year-old Angela, happiness is exploring the verdant countryside around her home in western Ukraine.Her imagination carries her into the spirits of passing birds, into the breath of the wind, into the leaves of her springtime garden.Everything changes when, one morning, she spies her mother crying. As she tries to find out what lies behind the sadness, she is drawn on an ...

A "moving and memorable" novel about a cafe where everyone has a story to tell from the award-winning author of The Women of Brewster Place ( The Boston Globe).In post–World War II Brooklyn, on a quiet backstreet, there's a little place that draws people from all over—not for the food, and definitely not for the coffee. An in-between place that's only there when you need it, Bailey's Cafe is a crossroads where patrons stay for a while before making...

From one of the most distinguished writers of modern Italy” (New York Review of Books), a classic novel of society in the midst of a war.This powerful novel is set against the background of Italy from 1939 to 1944, from the anxious months before the country entered the war, through the war years, to the allied victory with its trailing wake of anxiety, disappointment, and grief. In the foreground are the members of two families. One is rich, the other is ...

A "wonderful novel" steeped in the folklore of the South from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Women of Brewster Place ( The Washington Post Book World).On an island off the coast of Georgia, there's a place where superstition is more potent than any trappings of the modern world. In Willow Springs, the formidable Mama Day uses her powers to heal. But her great niece, Cocoa, can't wait to get away.In New York City, Coco...

Three powerful novels of racism, lust, and poverty in the rural South by a controversial national bestselling author.Bigotry, poverty, social injustice, and sexual squalor in the Deep South—hallmarks of one of the most daring and phenomenally popular bestselling novelists of the twentieth-century. Here, in one volume, are three of his best-known works. "None of [his] characters would be caught dead in a novel by John Steinbeck, Carson McCullers, or Eudora Welty" (

For fans of authors like Barbara Kingsolver and Leif Enger, a stunning new voice in contemporary literary fiction."Tragedy and blessing. Leave them alone long enough, and it gets real hard to tell them apart."Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child, to her mother's abandonment, and now to an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Driven to...

In a California courtroom, seventeen-year-old Nou Lee's mind reels with what she is about to do. What she must do to survive. She reflects on the splintered path that led to this moment, beginning twelve years ago in 1978, when her Hmong family escaped from Laos after the Communist takeover. The story follows the Lees from a squalid refugee camp in Thailand to a new life in Minnesota and eventually California. Family members struggle to survive in a strange foreign land, haunted by the sca...

After a 17 year coma, Joel Berskin is brought back to life through the power of music and a mystery dog.The last time Joel Berskin was conscious, O.J. Simpson had just led police on a long car chase and nobody knew the name Monica Lewinsky. When he turns on the strange-looking flat screen in his room at the nursing home, he hears reporters on one channel after another talking about Charlie Sheen's infamous meltdown. Once his mother arrives at his bedside, he learns...

“A beautifully told story about one woman’s determination to exorcise the sorrows of her family’s past. It brought tears to my eyes more than once—always a good sign. I look forward to reading more novels by Sara Alexander.” —Holly Chamberlin, author of Home for the SummerSet against the beautiful backdrop of post-World War II Sardinia, Sara Alexander’s evocative novel is a sweeping story of star-crossed romance between an American lieutenant and a loc...

New York Times Bestseller: Sweeping from the 1850s through the early 1920s, this towering family saga examines the price of ambition and power.Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh is twelve years old when he gets his first glimpse of the promised land of America through a dirty porthole in steerage on an Irish immigrant ship. His long voyage, dogged by tragedy, ends not in the great city of New York but in the bigoted, small town of Winfield, Pennsylvania, where hi...

A noted Shakespeare scholar looks back on his life with love and regret in this “moving, beautiful story . . . about what can be repaired and what can’t” (Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves).Until John Wilson met the warm, wise woman who became his fourth wife, the object of his most intense devotion had been the works of William Shakespeare. From his time as a student, memorizing Romeo and Juliet and half a dozen other play...