Download or read book By Invitation Only written by Dorothea Benton Frank and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “If I could only read one writer from now until the end of my life, it would be Dorothea Benton Frank.” --Elin Hilderbrand, New York Times bestselling author of The Identicals The Lowcountry of South Carolina is where By Invitation Only begins at a barbecue engagement party thrown by Diane English Stiftel, her brother Floyd, and her parents to celebrate her son’s engagement. On this gorgeous, magical night, the bride’s father, Alejandro Cambria, a wealthy power broker whose unbelievably successful career in private equity made him one of Chicago’s celebrated elite, discovers the limits and possibilities of cell phone range. While the mother of the bride, Susan Kennedy Cambria, who dabbles in the world of public relations and believes herself deserving of every square inch of her multimillion-dollar penthouse and imaginary carrara marble pedestal, learns about moonshine and dangerous liaisons. Soon By Invitation Only zooms to Chicago, where the unraveling accelerates. Nearly a thousand miles away from her comfortable, familiar world, Diane is the antithesis of the bright lights and super-sophisticated guests attending her son Fred’s second engagement party. Why a second party? Maybe it had been assumed that the first one wouldn’t be up to snuff? Fred is marrying Shelby Cambria, also an only child. The Cambrias’ dearest wish is for their daughter to be happy. If Shelby wants to marry Frederick, aka Fred, they will not stand in her way—although Susan does hope her friends won’t think her daughter is marrying more than a few degrees beneath her socially. At the same time, Diane worries that her son will be lost to her forever. By Invitation Only is a tale of two families, one struggling to do well, one well to do, and one young couple—the privileged daughter of Chicago’s crème de la crème and the son of hard -working Southern peach farmers. Dorothea Benton Frank offers a funny, sharp, and deeply empathetic novel of two very different worlds—of limousines and pickup trucks, caviars and pigs, skyscrapers and ocean spray—filled with a delightful cast of characters who all have something to hide and a lot to learn. A difference in legal opinions, a headlong dive from grace, and an abrupt twist will reveal the truth of who they are and demonstrate, when it truly counts, what kind of grit they have. Are they living the life they want, what regrets do they hold, and how would they remake their lives if they were given the invitation to do so? By Invitation Only is classic Dorothea Benton Frank—a mesmerizing Lowcountry Tale that roars with spirit, humor, and truth, and forces us to reconsider our notions of what it means to be a Have or a Have Not.

Download or read book The One Only written by Emily Giffin and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The beloved author of Something Borrowed and Where We Belong returns with an extraordinary story of love and loyalty—and an unconventional heroine struggling to reconcile both. This ebook edition contains an excerpt from Emily Giffin’s First Comes Love. Emily Giffin, the beloved author of such novels as Something Borrowed and Where We Belong, returns with an extraordinary story of love and loyalty—and an unconventional heroine struggling to reconcile both. Thirty-three-year-old Shea Rigsby has spent her entire life in Walker, Texas—a small college town that lives and dies by football, a passion she unabashedly shares. Raised alongside her best friend, Lucy, the daughter of Walker’s legendary head coach, Clive Carr, Shea was too devoted to her hometown team to leave. Instead she stayed in Walker for college, even taking a job in the university athletic department after graduation, where she has remained for more than a decade. But when an unexpected tragedy strikes the tight-knit Walker community, Shea’s comfortable world is upended, and she begins to wonder if the life she’s chosen is really enough for her. As she finally gives up her safety net to set out on an unexpected path, Shea discovers unsettling truths about the people and things she has always trusted most—and is forced to confront her deepest desires, fears, and secrets. Thoughtful, funny, and brilliantly observed, The One & Only is a luminous novel about finding your passion, following your heart, and, most of all, believing in something bigger than yourself . . . the one and only thing that truly makes life worth living. Praise for The One & Only • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY POPSUGAR “A page turner.”—Southern Living “The One & Only is one to read.”—Associated Press “Giffin scores again by bringing her discerning understanding of matters of the heart.”—Family Circle “A poignant story about growing up and growing into your own skin.”—BookPage “Touching.”—New York Daily News “Deep, beautifully written . . . [Emily Giffin’s] latest focuses on a forbidden love of sorts, but in a new setting: a fictional small college town in Texas.”—Marie Claire “Each and every page of this story is entertaining. . . . Find a shady spot; get a cool drink, and just luxuriate in the joy of a book well written.”—The Huffington Post “Brace yourself for a tearjerker: A tale of friendship and loyalty in a small, football-crazed Texas town shows how quickly things can change when tragedy challenges all that the characters hold dear . . . [A] page-turner.”—InStyle “[Giffin’s] protagonists . . . live full, interesting lives outside the purely personal realm—no more so than Shea Rigsby, the funny, flawed, but sympathetic central character in the The One & Only.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “In bestseller Giffin’s much-anticipated latest, a young woman’s life is upended when tragedy strikes the football-obsessed Texas town she’s always called home.”—People “To fill your Friday Night Lights void: A tale of die-hard love in a diehard Texas football town from the bestselling author of Something Borrowed.”—Cosmopolitan

Download or read book The Only Story written by Julian Barnes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending comes “a brilliant, rueful look at love—what we do for it, how we experience it and what makes it die” (People). One summer in the sixties, in a staid suburb south of London, nineteen-year-old Paul comes home from university and is urged by his mother to join the tennis club. There he’s partnered with Susan Macleod, a fine player who’s forty-eight, confident, witty, and married, with two nearly adult daughters. She is a warm companion, her bond with Paul immediate. And soon, inevitably, they are lovers. Basking in the glow of one another, they set up house together in London. Decades later, Paul looks back at how they fell in love and how—gradually, relentlessly—everything fell apart. As he turns over his only story in his mind, examining it from different vantage points, he finds himself confronted with the contradictions and slips of his own memory—and the ways in which our narratives and our lives shape one another. Poignant, vivid and profound, The Only Story is a searing novel of memory, devotion, and how first love fixes a life forever.

Download or read book Only Child written by Rhiannon Navin and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2018 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surviving a horrific school shooting, a six-year-old boy retreats into the world of books and art while making sobering observations about his mother's determination to prosecute the shooter's parents and the wider community's efforts to make sense of the tragedy.

Download or read book Only a Novel written by JANE. AIKEN HODGE and published by Agora Books. This book was released on 2019-03-27 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate portrait of the two sides of the inimitable Jane Austen: the extraordinary public life of England's best loved novelist and the more private world of the woman behind the words.Pulling together the decorous and genteel young woman dedicated to family life and the enigmatic author who shied away from the spotlight, this biography sheds light on the great mind that, with acerbic wit and razor-sharp observation, illuminated women's lives ruled by English manners.Weaving in historical records and family letters, Aiken Hodge's endearing and affectionate profile of the esteemed author of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion unites these two worlds and finally answers the question: who, exactly, was Jane Austen? Only a Novel was first published in 1972.

Download or read book No Book but the World written by Leah Hager Cohen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lush, gripping, psychologically complex novel that asks: How much do siblings owe one another? At the edge of a woods, on the grounds of a defunct “free school,” Ava and her brother, Fred, share a dreamy and seemingly idyllic childhood—a world defined largely by their imaginations, a celebration of curiosity and the natural environment, and each other’s presence. Their parents, progressive educators, believe passionately that children develop best without formal instruction or societal constraint. Everyone is aware of Fred’s oddness—the word “autism” is whispered—but his parents’ fierce disapproval of labels keeps him free of clinical evaluation, diagnosis, or intervention, and constantly at Ava’s side. Decades later, Fred is arrested for a shocking crime, and Ava is frantic to piece together the story of what actually happened. A boy is dead. Fred is held in a county jail. But could he really have done what he’s accused of? By now their parents are long gone, and the siblings have fallen out of touch, which causes Ava considerable guilt. Who is left to reach Fred? To explain him and his innocence to the world? Convinced that she alone can ensure he is regarded with sympathy, Ava tells their enthralling story. A writer of enormous craft, Leah Hager Cohen brings her trademark intelligence and storytelling to a psychologically gripping, richly ambiguous novel that suggests we may ultimately understand one another best not with facts alone, but through our imaginations.

Download or read book Above Us Only Sky written by Michele Young-Stone and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeking her place in the world, fifteen-year-old Prudence Eleanor Vilkas, who was born with a pair of wings molded to her back, which were surgically removed, discovers a miraculous lineage of women who were all connected by the gift of wings.

Download or read book Indemnity Only written by Sara Paretsky and published by Dell. This book was released on 1991-06-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first V.I. Warshawski novel! • “[V.I. Warshawski] is . . . wonderful company and a rich discovery awaiting those who have yet to meet her.”—Los Angeles Times Meeting an anonymous client late on a sizzling summer night is asking for trouble. But trouble is Chicago private eye V.I. Warshwski’s specialty. Her client says he’s the prominent banker John Thayer. Turns out he’s not. He says his son’s girlfriend, Anita Hill, is missing. Turns out that’s not her real name. V.I.’s search turns up someone soon enough—the real John Thayer’s son, and he’s dead. Who’s V.I.'s client? Why has she been set up and sent out on a wild-goose chase? By the time she's got it figured, things are hotter—and deadlier—than Chicago in July. V.I.’s in a desperate race against time. At stake: a young woman’s life.

Download or read book If Only written by Kate Eberlen and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kate Eberlen, the bestselling author of Miss You, returns with a serendipitous and modern romance. For fans of David Nicholls and Jojo Moyes, If Only is the story of two people who fall in love and the secrets that tear them apart. How can you know someone until you learn to talk about the past? Letty and Alf are the only English speakers in an Italian class in Rome, where they discover that the language that really connects them is dance. Alf is nineteen, a former ballroom champion who seems reassuringly confident and at ease with himself. Letty, twenty-two, is unusually reserved and studious, having been forced to give up her childhood dream of becoming a ballet dancer. They come from different worlds, but when they waltz around the Piazza Navona together, a passionate relationship begins. Can their decision to live in the moment in the Eternal City keep their histories from encroaching? Why is Alf living in a shared apartment, estranged from his family? And what has wrenched Letty away from the apparent security of her Oxford University degree? They each find themselves haunted by the fear that the secrets not yet shared will tear them apart. If Only is a novel about identity, secrets, passion and dance—and the indefinable collision of physical, emotional and intellectual excitement that we call falling in love.

Download or read book The Only Woman in the Room written by Marie Benedict and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE USA TODAY BESTSELLER Bestselling author Marie Benedict reveals the story of a brilliant woman scientist only remembered for her beauty. Her beauty almost certainly saved her from the rising Nazi party and led to marriage with an Austrian arms dealer. Underestimated in everything else, she overheard the Third Reich's plans while at her husband's side and understood more than anyone would guess. She devised a plan to flee in disguise from their castle, and the whirlwind escape landed her in Hollywood. She became Hedy Lamarr, screen star. But she kept a secret more shocking than her heritage or her marriage: she was a scientist. And she had an idea that might help the country fight the Nazis and revolutionize modern communication...if anyone would listen to her. A powerful book based on the incredible true story of the glamour icon and scientist, The Only Woman in the Room is a masterpiece that celebrates the many women in science that history has overlooked. Other Bestselling Historical Fiction from Marie Benedict: The Mystery of Mrs. Christie Lady Clementine Carnegie's Maid The Other Einstein

Download or read book Only Revolutions written by Mark Z. Danielewski and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2006 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moving back and forth in American history, a kaleidoscopic novel follows Hailey and Sam, two wayward teenagers, as they crash New Orleans parties, barrel up the Mississippi, head through the Badlands, and take on other adventures.

Download or read book Eat Only When You re Hungry written by Lindsay Hunter and published by . This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A father searches for his addict son while grappling with his own choices as a parent (and as a user of sorts)"--

Download or read book Not in the Script written by Amy Finnegan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enjoy Not in the Script and the other standalone titles in Bloomsbury's contemporary If Only romance line centered around an impossible problem: you always want what you can't have! Millions of people witnessed Emma Taylor's first kiss-a kiss that needed twelve takes and four camera angles to get right. After spending years performing on cue, Emma can't help but wonder if any part of her life is real anymore . . . particularly her romances. She's been burned by heartthrobs (and the press) one too many times, but there's something about Emma's co-star on her new TV show Coyote Hills that is irresistible. Jake Elliott is gorgeous, smart and actually cares about Emma's charitable foundation. But she's sworn off on-set relationships. They always end badly . . . don't they? This third novel in the deliciously fun If Only romance line proves that the best kinds of love stories don't follow a script.

Download or read book Only Forward written by Michael Marshall Smith and published by Harper Voyager. This book was released on 2015-05-07 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Marshall Smith's surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield. May we introduce you to Stark. Oh, and by the way -- good luck. Stark is the private investigator who goes to work when Something Happens to you. And when a Something happens it's no good chanting 'go away go away go away' and cowering in a corner, because a Something always comes from your darkest past and won't be beaten until you face it. And that's not easy in a city where reality is twisting and broken, a world in which friends can become enemies in a heartbeat -- and where your most secret fear can become a soul-shredding reality. And the worst of it is, for this nightmare you don't even have to be asleep... Considered a modern classic, and consistently featured in lists of Books To Read Before Your Head Explodes, ONLY FORWARD is a novel you'll never forget.

Download or read book There But For The written by Ali Smith and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed, award-winning author—when a dinner-party guest named Miles locks himself in an upstairs room and refuses to come out, he sets off a media frenzy. He also sets in motion a mesmerizing puzzle of a novel, one that harnesses acrobatic verbal playfulness to a truly affecting story. Miles communicates only by cryptic notes slipped under the door. We see him through the eyes of four people who barely know him, ranging from a precocious child to a confused elderly woman. But while the characters’ wit and wordplay soar, their story remains profoundly grounded. As it probes our paradoxical need for both separation and true connection, There but for the balances cleverness with compassion, the surreal with the deeply, movingly real, in a way that only Ali Smith can.

Download or read book My Only Story written by Monica Wood and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2001-05-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He came to me first in a dream, as a crippled dog angling down a country lane, puzzled by his sudden age, his bum paw, the dry stick clamped between his teeth. I’d been expecting this dream for a very long time, and I woke up moving. . . . Rita Rosario has a gift, a way with people. She listens to them and really sees them for who they are–warts and all. And sometimes, she even knows how to guide them toward a new beginning. Women, even men, come to Rita’s beauty shop for perms, town gossip, and the makeovers of their very lives. John Reed first appears to Rita in one of her dreams. When they meet at a town gathering a few days later, she immediately offers him a haircut, and her heart. As they share their stories, Rita senses she can help John fill a void by reconnecting him to his only family–a young niece he nearly lost in a heartbreaking tragedy. While inspiring John on a journey out of loneliness and into reconciliation, Rita begins to come to terms with events in her past . . . and discovers things about herself she never realized, including her own intimate role in John’s unfolding story.

Download or read book The One and Only Ivan written by Katherine Applegate and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-01-17 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 New York Times bestselling and Newbery Award-winning novel The One and Only Ivan is now a major motion picture streaming on Disney+ This unforgettable novel from renowned author Katherine Applegate celebrates the transformative power of unexpected friendship. Inspired by the true story of a captive gorilla known as Ivan, this illustrated book is told from the point of view of Ivan himself. Having spent twenty-seven years behind the glass walls of his enclosure in a shopping mall, Ivan has grown accustomed to humans watching him. He hardly ever thinks about his life in the jungle. Instead, Ivan occupies himself with television, his friends Stella and Bob, and painting. But when he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from the wild, he is forced to see their home, and his art, through new eyes. In the tradition of timeless stories like Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, Katherine Applegate blends humor and poignancy to create an unforgettable story of friendship, art, and hope. The One and Only Ivan features first-person narrative; author's use of literary devices (personification, imagery); and story elements (plot, character development, perspective). This acclaimed middle grade novel is an excellent choice for tween readers in grades 5 to 8, for independent reading, homeschooling, and sharing in the classroom. Plus don't miss The One and Only Bob, Katherine Applegate's return to the world of Ivan, Bob, and Ruby!