NCW Libraries

"Preston and Constance Whittier have built a happy life together, with a brood of six children raised in a beautiful historic Manhattan mansion. Now, with a nearly empty nest, it's easier than ever for the Whittiers to maintain their tradition of a solo romantic "Wintermoon" ski trip. But with this year's trip comes tragedy, and suddenly the Whittier's adult children find themselves reuniting in the family home without their parents for the first...

An off-kilter narrator witnesses the slow unraveling of a couple's strained marriage that erupts in unexpected ways, in a chilling tale of domestic suspense.

When Farmer Brown goes on vacation, leaving his brother Bob in charge, Duck makes trouble by changing all his instructions to notes the animals like much better.

"Mackenzie Cooper took her eyes off the road just long enough to rob her of her beloved daughter and ultimately of her new marriage, family, friends, and privacy. Now she lives in Vermont under the name Maggie Reid. She's thankful for her new friends--though she can't risk telling them too much-- and takes satisfaction in working as a makeup artist. Covering up scars is a skill she has mastered. Then a friend's teenage son is thrust into the national...

Envisioning a summer vacation in the humble Singapore home of a boy she hopes to marry, Chinese American Rachel Chu is unexpectedly introduced to a rich and scheming clan that strongly opposes their son's relationship with an American girl.

Imagine your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret -- something so terrible it would destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others too. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive. Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all -- she's an incredibly successful business woman, a pillar of her small...

"It's December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless -- unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem's sister, Becky, long the social...

"With her trademark spare, crystalline prose--a voice infused with "intimate, fragile, desperate humanness" (The Washington Post)--Elizabeth Strout once again turns her exquisitely-tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, this time following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton and Oh William! through the early days of the pandemic. As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and...

"A retired bestselling author hosts a one-of-a-kind competition, with high risks and high rewards-giving the winner a chance to change lives. Lucy Hart has come a long way since feeling the cold neglect of her parents, whose attention always centered around her chronically ill sister's needs. Now a twenty-six-year-old teacher's aide, Lucy is able to share her love of books with bright, young students, and one in particular, a seven-year-old orphan...

"Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in...