National Network for Equitable Library Service

Samantha Baxter has a full, sane life--creative job, lovely family, and all the trappings of middle-age happiness. But when she gets a diagnosis that terrifies her, a lifetime of polite pleasing and putting others first ignites in her a surprising, pure rage. Maybe Sam will survive the surgery, and maybe not, but either way, she'll spend the next three weeks burning her life down: sleeping with a student her daughter's age, speaking every truth she's ever swallowed, and refusing to apologize for her wildest, most essential self.

When Esther Thorel, wife of a master silk weaver, rescues Sara Kemp from a brothel, she thinks she is doing God's will, but her good deed is not returned. Sara quickly realizes that the Thorel household is built on hypocrisy and lies and soon tires of the drudgery of life as Esther's new lady's maid. The two women's relationship becomes increasingly fractious, and Sara resolves to find out what it is that so preoccupies her mistress. As unrest among journeyman silk weavers boils over into riot and rebellion, it leads to a devastating day of reckoning between Esther and Sara.

At twelve years old, Cornelius secretly takes over his father's job at a silent film theater in New York's East Village. After his father dies and his mother disappears, Cornelius sets about reinventing himself--as Professor John Woman, a man who will spread his father's teachings into the classrooms of his unorthodox southwestern university and beyond. But there are other individuals who are attempting to influence the narrative of John Woman, and who might know something about the facts of his hidden past.

For sixteen-year-old Tiffany Sly, life hasn't been safe or normal for a while. Losing her mom to cancer has her a little bit traumatized, and now she has to leave her hometown of Chicago to live with the biological dad she's never known. Tiffany tries to make the best of things, but she doesn't fit into her new luxurious, but super-strict, home or get along with her standoffish sister London. But Tiffany has a secret. Another man claims he's Tiffany's real dad, and she only has seven days before he shows up to demand a paternity test and the truth comes out.

At seventy-two, Johnny Ribkins shouldn't have such problems: he's got one week to come up with the money he stole from his mobster boss or it's curtains. What may or may not be useful to Johnny as he flees is that he comes from an African American family that has been gifted with superpowers that are a bit, well, odd.

This novel follows a young girl as she reaches adolescence and slowly discovers sexual happiness and love, until one day, near the end of her life, she finds herself alone.

Celine's marriage is at a crossroads when she is diagnosed with breast cancer. As her relationship deteriorates and Celine worries that she'll be left to endure cancer treatment alone, comfort and support come in the form of her best friend, Lauren, who vows to help by any means necessary.

Edith is a widowed landlady who rents apartments in her Brooklyn brownstone to an unlikely collection of humans, all crippled in various ways-in spirit, in mind, in body, in heart. When faced with eviction by Edith's estranged, unscrupulous son, the renters must pull together.

The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone--and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit's East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a tenth of its mortgage.

Every August, four women would gather to spend a week at the beach, renting a new house each year. But when one of the girls dies tragically, their vacations are brought to a halt. Years later, a new marriage reunites them and they decide to come together once again on an island off the South Carolina coast.