" For more than a decade, Jenna Metcalf has never stopped thinking about her mother, Alice, who mysteriously disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident. Refusing to believe that she would be abandoned as a young child, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice's old journals. A scientist who studied grief among elephants, Alice wrote mostly of her research among the animals she loved, yet Jenna hopes the entries...

"Anything Is Possible explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others. Here are two sisters: One trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life. The janitor at the local school has his faith tested in an encounter with an isolated man he has come to help; a grown daughter longs for mother love...

When Susan Tate's seventeen-year-old daughter, Lily, announces she is pregnant, Susan is stunned. A single mother, she has struggled to do everything right. She sees the pregnancy as an unimaginable tragedy for both Lily and herself

Ramona at 7 1/2 sometimes feels discriminated against by being the youngest in the family

Marta, who left Switzerland to find her own way in the world, must come to terms with her faulty yet well-meaning desire to help her daughter, Hildie, find her place, as Hildie becomes a nurse and has a family of her own

Embarking on an ill-conceived Alaskan cruise, septuagenarian Harriet reunites with her estranged daughter and confronts pivotal events from her life surrounding the true character of her husband, who died two years earlier.

When an explosion rips through the nearly empty cafeteria of an elementary school, Rose leads two girls to safety before racing to rescue her own daughter, Melly. But Rose soon learns that she may face both civil and criminal charges for her heroics because one of the girls she saved was seriously injured in the resulting fire that killed three school staff members. Media demands, legal maneuvering, and social pressures create tension, and dark secrets...

In 1992, celebrated novelist Ann Patchett launched her remarkable career with the publication of her debut novel, The Patron Saint of Liars. On this 25th anniversary, read the best-selling book that is "beautifully written... a first novel that second- and third-time novelists would envy for its grace, insight, and compassion" (Boston Herald). St. Elizabeth's, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little...

A story about the fairy-tale fantasies of girlhood and the realities of growing up by “one of our quirkiest and most interesting novelists” (Jane Smiley, USA Today).
When Teresa sleeps—sometimes for days at a time, the scent of roses surrounding her—she dreams of the Arias, outlaw riders on white steeds, who roam the desert at night. She was told about the dark-eyed horsemen by her mother, Dina, who left...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “hypnotically interesting” (The Washington Post Book World) novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Miller’s Valley

“[Anna Quindlen] writes passionately . . . painstakingly uncovering all the intensity, suspicion and primitive love that bonds mothers and daughters.”—The Boston Globe

Ellen...