Village Books

Author: Craig McLay

Category: Literary

Regular price: $5.99

Deal price: $0.99

Deal starts: November 06, 2024

Deal ends: November 06, 2024

Description:

*** Winner of the 2012 eFestival of Words award for best literary fiction! ***

Village Books is a local institution…which is good, because most of the staff probably belong in one.

The manager’s addiction to WebMD has turned him into a closeted hypochondriac. The cashier’s husband may have just gone AWOL with a small arsenal of fragmentary explosive devices. The fiction lead is buying urine on the black market. Trying to hold it all together is the store’s long-suffering assistant manager, who is spinning his wheels in retail while he waits for something better to come along.

That something better may be Leah Dashwood, an aspiring actress and new assistant manager with an ambitious plan to transform the store and its staff in a way that will turn their carefully disordered world on its head. Will the store survive or will it be bought over by its evil corporate competition?

The Two Mrs. Grenvilles

Author: Dominick Dunne

Category: Literary

Regular price: $12.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: November 05, 2024

Deal ends: November 05, 2024

Description:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Murder most swank . . . required reading.”—Vanity FairWhen Navy ensign Billy Grenville, heir to a vast New York fortune, sees showgirl Ann Arden on the dance floor, it is love at first sight. And much to the horror of Alice Grenville—the indomitable family matriarch—he marries her. Ann wants desperately to be accepted by high society and become the well-bred woman of her fantasies. But a gunshot one rainy night propels Ann into a notorious spotlight—as the two Mrs. Grenvilles enter into a conspiracy of silence that will bind them together for as long as they live. . . .“This is a candy box of a book. . . . Composed of just the right measure of sex, glamour, [and] passion.”—Cosmopolitan

Travels with My Aunt

Author: Graham Greene

Category: Literary

Regular price: $9.49

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: November 04, 2024

Deal ends: November 04, 2024

Description:

A retired London bank manager is yanked out of the suburbs by his eccentric aunt for a “cheerfully irreverent” romp across Europe (The Guardian).   Now that the dullish Henry Pulling has left his job with an agreeable pension and a firm handshake, he plans to spend more time weeding his dahlias. Then, for the first time in fifty years, he sees his aunt Augusta at his mother’s funeral. Charging into her seventies with florid abandon, not a day of her life wasted, and her future as bright as her brilliant red hair, Augusta insists that Henry abandon his garden, follow her, and hold on tight.   With that, she whisks her nephew out of Brighton and boards the Orient Express bound for Paris and Istanbul, then on to Paraguay, and down the rabbit hole of her past that swarms with swindlers, smugglers, war criminals, and rather unconventional lovers. With each new stop, Henry discovers not only more about his aunt and her secrets but also about himself as well.   Pulsing with “the tragic and comic ironies of love, loyalty and belief” Graham Greene’s deceptive lark of novel was made into the 1972 film starring Maggie Smith (The Times, London).

Shark Heart

Author: Emily Habeck

Category: Literary

Regular price: $14.99

Deal price: $2.99

Deal starts: November 04, 2024

Deal ends: November 04, 2024

Description:

A

New York Times

Editors’ Choice

A

USA TODAY

Bestseller

A

Booklist

Editor’s Choice

A

Goodreads

Choice Award Nominee

A Massachusetts Book Awards Fiction Honors Selection

Shortlisted for the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize

A “beautifully written” (Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of

All the Light We Cannot See

) debut novel of marriage, motherhood, metamorphosis, and letting go, this intergenerational love story begins with newlyweds Wren and her husband, Lewis—a man who, over the course of nine months, transforms into a great white shark.

For Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He will retain most of his consciousness, memories, and intellect, but his physical body will gradually turn into a great white shark. As Lewis develops the features and impulses of one of the most predatory creatures in the ocean, his complicated artist’s heart struggles to make peace with his unfulfilled dreams. At first, Wren internally resists her husband’s fate. Is there a way for them to be together after Lewis changes? Then, a glimpse of Lewis’s developing carnivorous nature activates long-repressed memories for Wren, whose story vacillates between her childhood living on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her time with her college ex-girlfriend, and her unusual friendship with a woman pregnant with twin birds. Woven throughout this “heart-wringing” (Adam Roberts, internationally bestselling author of

Salt

) novel is the story of Wren’s mother, Angela, who becomes pregnant with Wren at fifteen in an abusive relationship amidst her parents’ crumbling marriage. In the present, all of Wren’s grief eventually collides, and she is forced to make an impossible choice. A sweeping love story that is at once lyrical and funny, airy and visceral,

Shark Heart

is an unforgettable, gorgeous novel about life’s perennial questions, the fragility of memories, finding joy amidst grief, and creating a meaningful life. This daring debut marks the arrival of a wildly talented new writer abounding with originality, humor, and heart.

Reunion

Author: Elise Juska

Category: Literary

Regular price: $12.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: November 03, 2024

Deal ends: November 03, 2024

Description:

A New York Times Editors' Choice • A People Best Book“Masterful storytelling and memorable characters. . . . Elise Juska's best book yet.”—Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of Long Bright River and The God of the Woods“I loved this story about the importance of long friendships. . . . A perfectly crafted page-turner.” -Mary Beth Keane, New York Times bestselling author of Ask Again, Yes and The Half MoonFrom the beloved author of the “uniquely poignant” (Entertainment Weekly) novel The Blessings comes a gripping story about three friends in their forties forced to reckon with their lives during a college reunion in coastal Maine.It’s June 2021, and three old college friends are heading to New England and the twenty-fifth reunion that was delayed the year before. Hope, a stay-at-home mom, is desperate for a return to her beloved campus, a reprieve from her tense marriage, and the stresses of pandemic parenting. Adam is hesitant to leave his bucolic but secluded life with his wife and their young sons. Single mother Polly hasn’t been back to campus in more than twenty years and has no interest in returning—but changes her mind when her struggling teenage son suggests a road trip.But the reunion isn’t what any of them had envisioned. Hope, always upbeat, is no longer able to downplay the pressures of life at home or the cracks in her longstanding friendships. Adam finds himself energized by the memory of his carefree, reckless younger self—which only reminds him how much has changed since those halcyon days. Polly cannot ignore the ghosts of her college years, including a closely guarded secret. When the weekend takes a startling turn, all three find themselves reckoning with the past—and how it will bear on the future.Beautifully observed and insightful, Reunion is a page-turning novel about the highs and lows of friendship from a writer at the height of her powers.

The Language of Flowers

Author: Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Category: Literary

Regular price: $13.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: November 03, 2024

Deal ends: November 03, 2024

Description:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER   The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in communicating mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Now eighteen and emancipated from the system with nowhere to go, Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But an unexpected encounter with a mysterious stranger has her questioning what’s been missing in her life. And when she’s forced to confront a painful secret from her past, she must decide whether it’s worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness.   Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more.Praise for The Language of Flowers"Instantly enchanting . . . [Diffenbaugh] is the best new writer of the year."—Elle“I would like to hand Vanessa Diffenbaugh a bouquet of bouvardia (enthusiasm), gladiolus (you pierce my heart) and lisianthus (appreciation).  In this original and brilliant first novel, Diffenbaugh has united her fascination with the language of flowers—a long-forgotten and mysterious way of communication—with her firsthand knowledge of the travails of the foster-care system. . . . This novel is both enchanting and cruel, full of beauty and anger. Diffenbaugh is a talented writer and a mesmerizing storyteller.  She includes a flower dictionary in case we want to use the language ourselves.  And there is one more sprig I should add to her bouquet: a single pink carnation (I will never forget you).”—Washington Post"A fascinating debut . . . Diffenbaugh clearly knows both the human heart and her plants, and she keeps us rooting for the damaged Victoria."—O Magazine"Diffenbaugh effortlessly spins this enchanting tale, making even her prickly protagonist impossible not to love."—Entertainment Weekly