Download or read book Pretend We Are Lovely A Novel written by Noley Reid and published by Tin House Books. This book was released on 2017-07-18 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Oprah Magazine Editors' Pick and Publishers Weekly Best of the Season It’s the summer of 1982 in Blacksburg, Virginia—seven years after the suspicious death of a son and sibling—and the Sobel family is hungry. Francie dresses in tennis skirts and ankle socks and weighs her grams of allotted carrots and iceberg lettuce. Her semi-estranged husband Tate prefers a packed fridge and hidden doughnuts. Daughters Enid, ten, and Vivvy, almost thirteen, are subtler versions of their parents, measuring their summer vacation by meals had or meals skipped. But at summer’s end, secrets both old and new emerge and Francie disappears, leaving the family teetering on the brink. Told from alternating points of view by the four living Sobels, Pretend We Are Lovely is a sharp and darkly funny story of forgiveness, family secrets, and the losses we inherit. At its core is the ever-complicated and deeply-devoted bond of sisterhood as the girls, left mostly to their own devices, must navigate their way through middle school, find comfort in each other, and learn the difference between food and nourishment.
Download or read book Pretend You Love Me written by Julie Anne Peters and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2011-08-10 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A poignant novel about queer identity from National Book Award finalist Julie Anne Peters. Mike (real name: Mary Elizabeth) is gay and likes to pump iron, play softball, and fix plumbing. In addition to her identity, Mike is struggling to come to terms with her father's suicide and her mother's detachment from the family. When a glamorous new girl, Xanadu, arrives in Mike's small Kansas town, Mike falls in love at first sight. Xanadu is everything Mike is not: cool, confident, feminine, sexy...and straight. Originally published under the title Far From Xanadu, this heartbreaking yet ultimately hopeful novel will speak to anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone who can't love them back.
Download or read book The Idea of You written by Robinne Lee and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now an original movie on Prime Video starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine! When Solène Marchand, the thirty-nine-year-old owner of a prestigious art gallery in Los Angeles, takes her daughter, Isabelle, to meet her favorite boy band, she does so reluctantly and at her ex-husband’s request. The last thing she expects is to make a connection with one of the members of the world-famous August Moon. But Hayes Campbell is clever, winning, confident, and posh, and the attraction is immediate. That he is all of twenty years old further complicates things. What begins as a series of clandestine trysts quickly evolves into a passionate relationship. It is a journey that spans continents as Solène and Hayes navigate each other’s disparate worlds: from stadium tours to international art fairs to secluded hideaways in Paris and Miami. And for Solène, it is as much a reclaiming of self, as it is a rediscovery of happiness and love. When their romance becomes a viral sensation, and both she and her daughter become the target of rabid fans and an insatiable media, Solène must face how her new status has impacted not only her life, but the lives of those closest to her.
Download or read book Let s Pretend We Never Met written by Melissa Carol Walker and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If it were up to Mattie Markham, there would be a law that said your family wasn't allowed to move in the middle of the school year. After all, sixth grade is hard enough without wondering if you'll be able to make new friends or worrying that the kids in Pennsylvania won't like your North Carolina accent. But when Mattie meets her next-door neighbor and classmate, she begins to think maybe she was silly to fear being the "new girl." Agnes is like no one Mattie has ever met -- she's curious, hilarious, smart, and makes up the best games. If winter break is anything to go by, the rest of the school year should be a breeze. Only it isn't, because when vacation ends and school starts, Mattie realizes something: At school Agnes is known as the weird girl who no one likes. All Mattie wants is to fit in (okay, and maybe be a little popular too), but is that worth ending her friendship with Agnes?
Download or read book Let s Pretend This Never Happened written by Jenny Lawson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-04-17 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 New York Times bestselling (mostly true) memoir from the hilarious author of Furiously Happy. “Gaspingly funny and wonderfully inappropriate.”—O, The Oprah Magazine When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it. In the irreverent Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson’s long-suffering husband and sweet daughter help her uncover the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments—the ones we want to pretend never happened—are the very same moments that make us the people we are today. For every intellectual misfit who thought they were the only ones to think the things that Lawson dares to say out loud, this is a poignant and hysterical look at the dark, disturbing, yet wonderful moments of our lives. Readers Guide Inside
Download or read book Pretend We re Over written by Ella Miles and published by Ella Miles. This book was released on with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I’m not looking for a date. I’m definitely not looking for a husband—just one night of passion. I’m in Vegas, after all. And what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. So how did I end up with a giant rock on that finger, you ask? Your guess is as good as mine. Now I’m stuck fake married to the biggest self-centered jerk I’ve ever met. We agree to keep the charade going for six months to protect our pride and dignity. We have six months to convince everyone we aren’t meant to be. Should be easy. I’m sweet, kind, fun Millie. He’s cynical, self-absorbed, loner Sebastian. We don’t belong together. Convincing everyone we’re married is the easy part. Convincing everyone we’re over—that’s proving more difficult. Convincing myself that we’re over is proving hardest yet. I just have to remember that it was all pretend from the start. We were never together. Pretending we’re over is just going back to my life before. But what if I don’t want to keep pretending? Pretend We’re Over is a standalone fake marriage spinoff featuring Sebastian from Pretend I’m Yours.
Download or read book Pretend She s Here written by Luanne Rice and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mega-bestselling author Luanne Rice returns with a ripped-from-the-headlines story of a girl who is kidnapped by her friend's family. Emily Lonergan's best friend died last year.And Emily hasn't stopped grieving. Lizzie Porter was lively, loud, and fun -- Emily's better half. Emily can't accept that she's gone.When Lizzie's parents and her sister come back to town to visit, Emily's heartened to see them. The Porters understand her pain. They miss Lizzie desperately, too.Desperately enough to do something crazy.Something unthinkable.Suddenly, Emily's life is hurtling toward a very dark place -- and she's not sure she'll ever be able to return to what she once knew was real.From New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice comes a breathless, unputdownable story of suspense, secrets -- and the strength that love gives us to survive even the most shocking of circumstances.
Download or read book Pretending to Dance written by Diane Chamberlain and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Molly Arnette is very good at keeping secrets. She lives in San Diego with a husband she adores, and they are trying to adopt a baby because they can't have a child on their own. But the process of adoption brings to light many questions about Molly's past and her family-the family she left behind in North Carolina twenty years before. The mother she says is dead but who is very much alive. The father she adored and whose death sent her running from the small community of Morrison's Ridge. Her own birth mother whose mysterious presence in her family raised so many issues that came to a head. The summer of twenty years ago changed everything for Molly and as the past weaves together with the present story, Molly discovers that she learned to lie in the very family that taught her about pretending. If she learns the truth about her beloved father's death, can she find peace in the present to claim the life she really wants? Told with Diane Chamberlain's compelling prose and gift for deft exploration of the human heart, Pretending to Dance is an exploration of family, lies, and the complexities of both.
Download or read book Sometimes I Lie written by Alice Feeney and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie. Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?
Download or read book Benny and Penny in Just Pretend written by Geoffrey Hayes and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2008-04 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Benny wants to play pirates without his little sister Penny, and so he tries to get rid of her, but when Penny really disappears, Benny is worried.
Download or read book All the Lovely Bad Ones written by Mary Downing Hahn and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2009 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Travis and his sister, Corey, learn that their grandmother's quiet Vermont inn has a history of ghost sightings, they decide to do a little "haunting" of their own. Before long, their supernatural pranks are drawing tourists to the inn. But Travis and Corey soon find out that there are other ghosts at Fox Hill Inn, and their tricks have awakened something dangerous and threatening. It's up to these pranksters to figure out how to lay to rest the ghosts they've stirred. A fresh take on haunted houses, Mary Downing Hahn's entertaining, spooky story pokes gentle fun at charlatan ghost hunters while suggesting that ghosts are not to be trifled with.
Download or read book Verity written by Colleen Hoover and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whose truth is the lie? Stay up all night reading the sensational psychological thriller that has readers obsessed, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Too Late and It Ends With Us. #1 New York Times Bestseller · USA Today Bestseller · Globe and Mail Bestseller · Publishers Weekly Bestseller Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of the night her family was forever altered. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.
Download or read book Wicked Lovely written by Melissa Marr and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-06 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fans of Sarah J. Maas and Holly Black won’t be able to resist the world of Melissa Marr's #1 New York Times bestselling series, full of faerie intrigue, mortal love, and courtly betrayal. Rule #3: Don't stare at invisible faeries. Aislinn has always seen faeries. Powerful and dangerous, they walk hidden in mortal world. Aislinn fears their cruelty—especially if they learn of her Sight—and wishes she were as blind to their presence as other teens. Rule #2: Don't speak to invisible faeries. Now faeries are stalking her. One of them, Keenan, who is equal parts terrifying and alluring, is trying to talk to her, asking questions Aislinn is afraid to answer. Rule #1: Don't ever attract their attention. But it's too late. Keenan is the Summer King who has sought his queen for nine centuries. Without her, summer itself will perish. He is determined that Aislinn will become the Summer Queen at any cost—regardless of her plans or desires. Suddenly none of the rules that have kept Aislinn safe are working anymore, and everything is on the line: her freedom, her best friend Seth, her life—everything.
Download or read book The Wagers written by Sean Michaels and published by Tin House Books. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Giller-Prize-winning author Sean Michaels, The Wagers is a wild and magical novel about what it means to not only chase luck, but find it. When Theo Potiris performed his stand-up comedy act on Conan at 25, he thought he’d hit it big. But ten years later, he's still spending his days working at his parents’ grocery store, bicycling to the local open mic, and writing letters to a girlfriend who lives halfway around the world. Theo’s desperate for a break. But when he brings his thirteen-year-old niece to the horse track to place a birthday bet—a Potiris family tradition—the goddess of good luck strikes her instead, in the form of a small fortune. Try as he might to be happy for her, Theo’s shock and envy finally push him out of the family nest, away from his comedy dreams and toward a new calling. First: a mysterious corporation called The Rabbit’s Foot, which carefully quantifies and cashes in on luck. Then: to a gang of vigilantes, who recruit Theo to help them steal luck from those who carry more than their fair share. The Wagers is a literary motorcycle chase, carried by stylish prose and delightful invention. But it’s also an investigation of work and purpose, happiness and art, the randomness of good fortune, and all the ways we choose to wage our lives.
Download or read book These Precious Days written by Ann Patchett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays. "The elegance of Patchett’s prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike." —Publisher's Weekly “Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both. A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be. From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.
Download or read book Cold Iron Heart written by Melissa Marr and published by Melissa Marr. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How far would you go to escape fate? In this prequel to the international bestselling WICKED LOVELY series (over a million copies sold), the Faery Courts collide a century before the mortals in Wicked Lovely are born. Thelma Foy, a jeweler with the Second Sight in iron-bedecked 1890s New Orleans, can see through the glamours faeries wear to hide themselves from mortals, but if her secret were revealed, the fey would steal her eyes, her life, or her freedom. But when the Dark King, Irial, rescues her, Tam must confront everything she thought she knew about faeries, men, and love. Unbeknownst to Tam, she is the prize in a centuries-old fight between Summer Court and Winter Court. To protect her, Irial must risk a war he can’t win--or surrender the first mortal woman he's loved. "What a delight to discover how much I loved being back in the Wicked Lovely world, discovering details about beloved characters that made me want to race back for a series reread. This is Irial's story set in 1890s New Orleans, brimming with faerie court drama and steamy romance. Can we. and should we, outrun fate? And if so, are we prepared for the consequences? I could not put it down." --Angela Mann, Kepler's Books, Menlo Park CA "Set 100 years before the events in Wicked Lovely, Cold Iron Heart finds Irial, the king of the Dark Court, in New Orleans and entranced by a mortal. Is his interest in Thelma Foy just a passing fascination, or could it change the course of her life and the world forever? Melissa Marr masterfully rises to challenge of writing a prequel by both expanding on the mythology of the original series while telling a story that exists wholly on its own. Fans of the series will inhale this delicious glimpse into Irial’s past.”--John McDougall of Murder by the Book, Houston TX
Download or read book Our Missing Hearts written by Celeste Ng and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-10-04 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An instant New York Times bestseller • A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 • Named a Best Book of 2022 by People, TIME Magazine, The Washington Post, USA Today, NPR, Los Angeles Times, and Oprah Daily, and more • A Reese's Book Club Pick • New York Times Paperback Row Selection From the #1 bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, comes the inspiring new novel about a mother’s unshakeable love. “It’s impossible not to be moved.” —Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review “Riveting, tender, and timely.” —People, Book of the Week “Thought-provoking, heart-wrenching . . . I was so invested in the future of this mother and son, and I can’t wait to hear what you think of this deeply suspenseful story!” —Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club Pick) Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn’t know what happened to her—only that her books have been banned—and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him. Then one day, Bird receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and soon he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of heroic librarians, and finally to New York City, where he will finally learn the truth about what happened to his mother, and what the future holds for them both. Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It’s about the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and the power of art to create change.
