New England Literature

Kate's perfect life is a lie. Her finances are a mess, her marriage is struggling, and her teenage daughter, Claire, makes life even more difficult with her moodiness. Day after day, she hides the truth. But when her estranged father schedules a visit, she seizes her last chance to try to make him proud of what she's made of her life since dropping out of law school. If Kate can't get life together before her father comes to town, she'll only prove she really is a failure. Just like he's always believed.

Elise Gilpatrick never thought she would be a parent, especially not like this. After agreeing to take 15-year-old DJ as a temporary foster placement straight from the police station, she feels like she's in over her head. But, as she learns on the job with a little help from her coworker, Elise realizes that she and DJ need to lean on each other and on the God who pieced them together. Their rocky journey will only prove that it's never too late to find the love of a family.

In a cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow has begun the last book he will ever write. It is the story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay, and the blood-stained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay. And how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades, forever shaping their lives.

Parnassus on Wheels is the story of a marvelous man, small in stature, wiry as a cat, yet Olympic in personality. Roger Mifflin is part pixie, part sage, part noble savage, and all God's creature. With his traveling book wagon, named Parnassus, he moves through the New England countryside of 1915 on an itinerant mission of enlightenment. Mifflin's delight in books and authors is infectious. With his singular philosophy and bright eyes, he comes to represent the heart and soul of the book world.

The Yarn Studio’s Seaside Knitters have their hands full designing new classes for vacationers, as well as testing each other’s originality by creating a single blanket together. Birdie’s teenage granddaughter is also visiting for the season. Meanwhile, the Lazy Lobster and Soup Café’s local fare is gaining newfound attention with the addition of a well-known Boston chef. It’s sure to be another beautiful, busy time in their tight-knit town… Until Birdie spots a huge blaze from her balcony one evening, frighteningly close to knitter Cass’s lobster business.

Charlie is already feeling adrift when she relocates to an exclusive town in coastal New England with her mysteriously distant husband, Dev, and their young twins in tow. She hopes the move will recharge her stalled marriage, and she wants her kids to feel like they belong, even if she’s clearly a fish out of water herself. In a strange new world where summer is a verb and both the harbor and the partygoers are awash in a dizzying constellation of pinks and pastels, she’s never felt so confounded or alone. She’ll need more than a preppy handbook to find her way.

The British Empire has sleepwalked, unprepared into war with the Triple Alliance, the Spanish colonies of the Caribbean and Central America. But this is not to be a war like those which have gone before it; wars decided by crushing British sea power and eventually, on land by the superiority of the logistics and tactics of relatively small colonial armies in the South Western badlands. Remember Brave Achilles becomes the call to arms.

Jess is trying put a painful past behind her and finally secure her college degree. But when a greedy man buys her entire block and threatens to evict all the tenants, including her and her uncle, she knows she has to do something drastic to save her home...and the church property that holds her parents' graves. Being filthy rich has its perks. But Axel still hates running his father's large development firm. Drowning his sorrows in alcohol, parties, and pretty faces, Axel is too self-absorbed to admit his life is spiraling out of control.

Police detective Justin Clay is on Nantucket for one reason, and one reason only—to regroup, reevaluate, and decompress. He is not in the market for a relationship. Neither is tearoom owner Heather Anderson. But when Justin comes to her aid during a dicey situation, and as they become better acquainted, she can’t help but wonder … could her new neighbor be the exception to her rule—and a man worth loving?

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and inhuman characters alike. In his transcendent fourth novel, Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason delivers a magisterial and highly inventive tale brimming with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we're connected to our environment, to history and to each other.

Ethan Frome, a poor, downtrodden New England farmer, is trapped in a loveless marriage to his invalid wife, Zeena.When Zeena's young cousin Mattie arrives to help care for her, Ethan is immediately taken by Mattie's warm, vivacious personality. They fall desperately in love as he realizes how much is missing from his life and marriage.

In 1950, a young, beautiful Polish refugee arrives in Hyannisport, Massachusetts, to work as a maid for one of the wealthiest families in America. Alicia is at once dazzled by the large and charismatic family, in particular the oldest son, a rising politician named Jack. Alicia and Jack are soon engaged, but his domineering father forbids the marriage.

Off the New England coast, courageous Mehitabel Ampleford wields a rifle to protect her home from a brutish band of men who are after her land. She will not be intimidated, but their attacks are growing fiercer, and just as their latest confrontation threatens violence, a bold stranger appears out of the ocean mists to send the raiders packing. Geordie MacEnroy has seen the ravages of war in his mountain town - and in the injuries suffered by his youngest brother; now, his restless soul is calling him to find sanctuary by the sea.

Christmas was always Greta Copperfield's favorite time of year. Memories from that first Christmas with Bernard in Paris are some of her favorite—times before marriage, before children, and even before the Copperfield house, when the love she had for Bernard was the only thing she really understood. But all that was so long ago. Now, as the world comes to terms with the fact that Bernard Copperfield spent twenty-five years in prison for crimes that he did not commit, Greta stirs with confusion about her own past and future.

New York - July 1976 - in a world in which New England remains the sparkling jewel in the crown of the British Empire. It is the day before Empire Day - July 4 - the day each year when the British Empire marks the brutal crushing of the rebellion dignified by the treachery of the 56 delegates to the Continental Congress who were so foolhardy as to sign the infamous Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on that day of infamy in 1776.

Two years into his new life on Nantucket, Dr. Christopher Morgan is beginning to make peace with his past. But romance is not on his agenda—until Marci Clay enters his life one rainy night and manages to breach the walls around his heart. But Marci has secrets … regrets … and an aversion to blue-blood pedigrees. Yet Christopher doesn’t conform to her rich-boy stereotype. And as they join forces to help his older neighbor, might they find a way to reconcile their divergent backgrounds and build a future together?

I just found out I have an identical twin. Wasn’t looking for one. Would have preferred to not have one, but here we are. We have nothing in common. I was adopted by a successful businessman who raised me to see life as a game and gave me the skills to win it. Him? He is about to lose his family’s farm. You heard me—farm. Lucky for him, I’m a firm believer that when it comes to family, no one goes to battle alone. I’m in. I’ve switched lives with him and will use every business trick I know to save his farm.

A young couple buys an historic New England home with plans to restore it to its original time and beauty. But they have scarcely moved in when strange and frightening things begin to happen. From a child's gravestone in the backyard, to a horrific history discovered about previous owners, there is little time for them to enjoy this home.

New Hampshire, 1865. Marion Abbott is summoned to Brawders House asylum to collect the body of her sister, Alice. She’d been found dead after falling four stories from a steep-pitched roof. Officially: an accident. Confidentially: suicide. But Marion believes a third option: murder. Returning to her family home to stay with her brother and his second wife, the recently widowed Marion is expected to quiet her feelings of guilt and grief. Just when the search for the truth seems hopeless, a stranger approaches Marion with chilling words: I saw her fall.

If there’s anything Susan Sheridan understands, it’s that things don’t always go as planned. From her divorce, to her move from Newark, to her cancer diagnosis, finally to Scott popping the question at the Sunrise Cove Inn’s New Year’s Party in front of all her closest family and friends. She never thought she’d find her way back to a love like this. Amanda prepares herself for the ride of her life as she plans a dream-wedding to Chris, a man she’s loved desperately for years. But there’s something off about him. Something that rears its ugly head as the January wedding date rolls near.