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Caroline Leavitt

Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow, Pictures of You, Girls In Trouble, Coming Back To Me, Living Other Lives, Into Thin Air, Family, Jealousies, Lifelines, Meeting Rozzy Halfway. Various titles were optioned for film, translated into different languages, and condensed in magazines.

Genres: Literary Fiction, Children's Fiction, Historical, Romance

Novels

   Meeting Rozzy Halfway (1980)
   Lifelines (1982)
   Jealousies (1983)
   Into Thin Air (1993)
   Living Other Lives (1995)
   Coming Back to Me (2001)
     aka Maternal Instinct
   Girls in Trouble (2003)
   Pictures of You (2010)
   Is This Tomorrow (2013)
   Family (2014)
   Cruel Beautiful World (2016)
   With or Without You (2020)
   Days of Wonder (2024)

Collections

The Wrong Sister: Stories (2014)

Series contributed to

Wishbone Mysteries
2. The Haunted Clubhouse (1997)
Tale of the Missing Head (1998) (with Alexander Steele)

Adventures of Wishbone
3. The Prince and the Pooch (1997) (with Brad Strickland)
4. Robinhound Crusoe (1997) (with Brad Strickland)

Picture Books show

Non fiction show

Omnibus editions show

Books containing stories by Caroline Leavitt

Alone Together (2020)
Love, Grief, and Comfort During the Time of Covid-19
edited by
Jennifer Haupt

Private Investigations (2020)
Writers on the Secrets, Riddles, and Wonders in Their Lives
edited by
Victoria Zackheim

What My Mother Gave Me (2013)
Thirty-one Women On the Gifts That Mattered Most
edited by
Elizabeth Benedict

Caroline Leavitt recommends

Tell Two Friends (2026)
Ann Garvin
"What's the most astounding thing you've ever heard of? How about a college kid who wrote to a convict only to find that twenty-five years later, he's moving in right next door to her, and so is his agenda? Moving and funny, Garvin shows that the good in the world is sometimes like a diamond buried under coal, sparkling for our attention. A wise, wonderful book by a wise, wonderful author. I loved it."

What Remains of You (2026)
Kimberly Hensle Lowrance
"How well do we really know the people we love? Kimberly Hensle Lowrance's astonishing debut about the upturned life of a grieving widow both unsettled and gripped me in the best possible way. Adroitly, and with great grace, Hensle Lowrance explores our notions about love, memory, secrets, and how knowledge isn't always power. Truly a wonderful read."

Evening Begins the Day (2026)
Jessica Brilliant Keener
"What does it mean to totally trust someone you love, be it a partner or child, your job, or even the world around you? Keener's new novel springs from an emotional affair and soars into the lives of two very different families in a way that's both propulsive and spiritual. Deeply immersive, comforting, inspiring, and real, Evening Begins the Day made me see and experience these indelible characters' world-and my own-differently."

The Ghost Women (2026)
Jennifer Murphy
"Tarot cards! The 1970s! Witches! And an island boarding school! How could I resist such irresistible elements, especially when they're in the brilliant hands of Jennifer Murphy? A rising body count at an exclusive school jumpstarts a tantalizing not-your-ordinary-by-a-mile mystery with deep roots in the spiritual and the practical, in dangerous lies and an increasingly threatening truth. Magical. Mysterious. Sublime."

Missing Sam (2026)
Thrity Umrigar
"Umrigar's compelling latest is both a brilliant psychological thriller, and a deeply emotional meditation on race, sexuality, culture, marriage and family, both the ones we come from, and the ones we are lucky enough to create. Filled with achingly believable characters, the story keeps twisting and turning where you least expect until I was holding my breath even as I couldn't stop turning pages. Yes, it's achingly about enduring trauma, but it's also about what a force our inner light can be against the darkness. What a novel."

Hazel Says No (2025)
Jessica Berger Gross
"How could I not fall in love with Jessica Berger Gross' Hazel Says No when it's set in both Brooklyn and Maine, two places I love - and it features a feisty young woman who dreams of being a writer? Filled with spiky humor (I was grinning every time I turned a page) and characters so real, you expect them to show up for lunch, Gross' book is the irresistible story of a big city Brooklyn family relocating to a small rural town in Maine. But when high school daughter Hazel is propositioned by her principal, her family and her community erupt. This is an absolutely wonderful novel about figuring out who and what we want to be, and who we truly are."

The Best We Could Hope For (2025)
Nicola Kraus
"So heartbreaking and so good I couldn't stop reading - even when I needed to catch a train or make dinner. Like Ann Patchett, Kraus gets at the heart of how people can disconnect from their truest selves, and how, if they're lucky, they can find their way back."

Water Finds a Way (2024)
Meghan Perry
"What a fiercely original novel! I couldn't help but fall in love with just-out-of-prison Blake and troubled dad and lobster man Leland, who hires her on as his apprentice. About trying to outrun our fractured lives and find our truest selves, and about facing our pasts to find our futures, this powerful read (and by the way, the Maine and lobster details are fascinating) is truly a thoughtful stunner about where we find our place in the world-and our person."

Curdle Creek (2024)
Yvonne Battle-Felton
"Funny and terrifying."

The Essential Elizabeth Stone (2024)
Jennifer Banash
"How can you carry on a legacy if that legacy is based on lies? Banash's riveting, prismatic page-turner unfolds the story of a charismatic lifestyle author who, at her death, leaves her adult daughter everything but the truth about whom she really was, and her adult daughter's searching struggle to understand why. A moving, gorgeously written exploration about identity and the complexities of love."

Three Keys (2024)
Laura Pritchett
"How could I not adore a book featuring a strong, feisty, fifty-something woman, who despite being widowed, unemployed, and empty-nested, goes out on the road to break into three very different homes she just happens to have the keys to? Audacious and inspiring, Three Keys isn't just about breaking in, it's about breaking out, of finding the person you were meant to be all along, despite anyone else's expectations or insistence that you be invisible. Filled with award-winner Pritchett's electric prose and love of the natural world, this book is irresistible."

The Deading (2024)
Nicholas Belardes
"With prose as precise and dazzling as a diamond, The Deading is a masterwork."

Bunyan and Henry (2024)
Mark Cecil
"Mark Cecil takes the Paul Bunyan legend, turns it on its head, and makes it do somersaults."

The Young of Other Animals (2024)
Chris Cander
"Love and loss, in Cander's powerfully addictive new novel, unearth dark secrets and a shared trauma that threaten to earthquake an already shaky bond between a mother and daughter. Cander's usual eloquence with characters is in full force here, as is her understanding that feelings are not facts, love is persistent, and what we think might kill us can be the very thing to save us."

Again and Again (2023)
Jonathan Evison
"Evison's dazzling new novel does what the best literature does, pulls us out of our lives and plunges us into another - in this case many others - and it does it in a way that is truly, mindbendingly, genius. A stunning Scherazade-told tale about the only subject that matters - love - Again and Again is about the stories we tell ourselves to create ourselves, the stories we believe, and the way a human heart can shatter and still find a kind of wholeness. To say I loved this book is an understatement."

Wine People (2023)
Michelle Wildgen
"So intoxicatingly real and so, so smart and moving, Wildgen's novel plumbs the depths of female friendship through the lives of two indelible characters: outsider Wren and golden girl Thessaly, who both enter the wine business as young women, fiercely bond, and then go into business together. Grappling with who they really were and who they now are meant to be, both together and apart, this is a stunner about ambition, love, and family. Wine connoisseurs, foodies, and literature lovers will be enraptured."

Underjungle (2023)
James Sturz
"So, so gorgeously strange, told by a sea creature, and set completely underwater, Underjungle is about all the big issues--love, loss, family, war--but it's also about how all the oceans, like all of us, are connected and the dangers when we forget that. It's written in prose as startlingly beautiful as the discovery of a real pearl shimmering in an oyster. A love letter to our oceans, Underjungle glints with humor and heart."

Broadway Butterfly (2023)
Sara DiVello
"DiVello's blisteringly immersive investigation of an unsolved 1923 murder doesn't just make for high-octane catnip for any true-crime reader; it also bends and transcends the genre for a read as gripping as a page-turning novel and as thrilling, cinematic, and full of mind-boggling wonder as a big-screen blockbuster. About injustice and justice, and murder and passion, all set against the loudly Roaring Twenties and the reign of the worst president America might ever have had, this who- and why-dunit should come with a warning label: buy extra press-on nails because you're not going to be able to stop biting yours."

Half-Life of a Stolen Sister (2023)
Rachel Cantor
"A show-stopping retelling of the lives of the Bronte sisters (and brother Branwell) that gleefully shape-shifts the legends we think we know . . . Cantor's exuberant risk-taking and bottomless compassion for her genius subjects make this book a work of genius in itself."

Hedge (2023)
Jane Delury
"How do we protect those we love when there might be a terrible cost to ourselves? Which version of a story do we really believe about ourselves and others-and why? Delury's immersive novel is about family and lovers, passion and responsibility, and it's filled with such gorgeous writing, compassion and stunning surprises, that I couldn't bear to tear myself from the page."

Paper Names (2023)
Susie Luo
"A stunningly accomplished debut about two very different families, the struggling Zhangs and the wealthy powerful Wrights, both on a collision course with the American Dream and with one another, passing down their legacies and secrets through the generations. Luo has crafted an absolutely gorgeous novel about the ripples of parental expectations, the force of memory, and the fierceness of love. So alive and real, you don't merely read this wondrous novel as much as you get to live it."

Graceland (2023)
Nancy Crochiere
"Who doesn't love a road trip especially when it's a quirky, page-turning debut? Fasten those seatbelts as Crochiere introduces three generations of women, all packing their own secrets and baggage, as they go en route to Graceland to find some grace of their own. About mothers and daughters, the end of life and the beginnings, and mostly about how life has its own ideas about the roadmaps we think we have to follow."

Only Love Can Hurt Like This (2023)
Paige Toon
"Toon is such an intuitive writer that she knows that no matter how desperate we are for happiness, sometimes love just can't conquer all - but that doesn't mean we can't keep trying. In this monumentally moving story (keep the tissues at hand) of two lovers kept apart by tragic secrets, Toon urges us to risk everything, to never play it safe when it comes to the heart, and to know that caring is always, always, worth the cost."

The Lioness of Boston (2023)
Emily Franklin
"Franklin's gorgeous, extraordinarily intimate and timely novel about Isabella Stewart Gardner showcases the life of a daring, brilliant woman who refused to be confined by the mores of her day, even as she searched for her truest self. So richly alive, I was running to Google to reacquaint myself with every mentioned painting, so moving, I wept over the tragedies and delighted in her bold success. How could any reader not be inspired by the cast of creatives including Oscar Wilde, Henry James, John Singer Sargent, and more? This book is just shatteringly good, with writing so artful, Isabella herself would surely approve."

Daughters of Nantucket (2023)
Julie Gerstenblatt
"Full of richly detailed history and also the spark and brilliance of Gerstenblatt's imagination, this is a novel that's so alive, every page gives off rare heat."

Please Be Advised (2022)
Christine Sneed
"Cubicle culture has never been targeted more hilariously than in Sneed's exuberant, totally-told-through-memos tale of the rise and fall of Quest Industries. Sneed unfolds the petty triumphs, the staff shenanigans, and the absolute zany weirdness of working in a company that operates more as a dysfunctional family than an industry. Definitely not business as usual-oh no, it's so much better."

Attribution (2022)
Linda Moore
"Desperate for meaning and to fill the hole left by her younger brother's death, an art historian searches for a lost painting - and finds herself. Gorgeously written and as rapturous as a Van Gogh, Moore's book is a winner."

The Real Mrs. Tobias (2022)
Sally Koslow
"I love mother-daughter stories, so I was delighted to see Koslow's ingenious new focus on mothers and daughter-in laws! Told by three vivid women all sharing the same family name - the matriarch, her daughter-in-law and then the next daughter-in-law - this is such a profound, powerful and smartly funny story that it made me reappreciate my own mother-in-law, even as if let me live through this oh-so-important relationship through this amazing book. Deeply original, about the bonds that break - and remake female relationships, The Real Mrs. Tobias is the real deal."

Take My Husband (2022)
Ellen Meister
"Take one tantalizing premise (could the death of her husband be a wife's ticket out? And would or could she ever really do anything to speed that up?) along with Meister's smartly sparkling writing, and you've got a page-turner with heart - and much needed laughs."

Groupies (2022)
Sarah Priscus
"Priscus' audacious debut totally rocks - and rolls - in a dazzling story of groupies, and the young woman who is as obsessed with them as she is with grabbing her own star... A devastatingly on-target story about the cost of fame, desire, and drugs... The novel itself is nothing short of superstar."

Five-Part Invention (2022)
Andrea J Buchanan
"Original, startling and gorgeous. Five generations of extraordinary women grapple with the mystery of inherited trauma in Andrea J. Buchanan's stunningly original new novel. As gorgeously written as a master's symphony, the story is also so immersive that I became fiercely invested in each indelible character's changing lives and their struggles with secrets, loves, losses, until love begins to trump calamity. This isn't just a novel you read: it's a miracle you live. I loved it."

The Wise Women (2022)
Gina Sorell
"Gorgeous, witty and so alive that you'll swear the pages are breathing, Sorell's The Wise Women sets two extraordinary grown sisters and their controlling mother on a collision course when the bottom falls out for them personally and professionally. About the price of real estate, the power of aging, class, parenting, family and, of course, love, The Wise Women is at heart about finding your personal True North. I'd follow these three women anywhere."

The Good Left Undone (2022)
Adriana Trigiani
"It's impossible not to be absolutely enthralled by the latest immersive Trigiani masterwork about family, food (oh my God, so delicious), loyalty and legacy. A story bristling with so much generous life, you'll swear you are there for all of it: the great loves, the unfathomable losses, the betrayals and the secrets of the artisan Cabrelli family, especially with matriarch Matelda, caught between the end of her own life, the beginning of her granddaughter Anina's, and the dramatic, love-torn and war-torn life her mother Domenica had led. Spanning Italy, France and England, and decades, The Good Left Undone is thrilling proof that, 'A family is only as strong as their stories.'"

Atomic Anna (2022)
Rachel Barenbaum
"The only thing I love more than nuclear physics, time travel, comic books and stories with a decided Russia accent, is Barenbaum's latest splendid novel, a multi-generational tale with strong, passionate female leads. Brilliantly written, it truly makes you believe in the mysteries of both the universe, time, and the human heart."

The Love of My Life (2022)
Rosie Walsh
"How do we really build a new life? About the mystery of identity and the sometimes cost of love, Walsh's latest is a stunner."

Jane of Hearts and Other Stories (2022)
Katharine Weber
"Weber's genius in these startling, haunting stories is to find the momentary connections in things that make up or derail a life, be it an artichoke and a dead woman's earrings, or a plant and a hospice worker. Written in prose as dazzling and finecrafted as diamonds, Weber's stories show us ordinary people in extraordinary moments, doing what the best literature does-they make us look at our own world differently."

Shadows of Pecan Hollow (2022)
Caroline Frost
"How do we let go of a dark, menacing past, especially when a dangerous love still binds us to it? Frost's extraordinary debut is about Kit, a young mother struggling to raise her daughter, and to erase her abduction at 13 by a thief, who coerced her into crime and into his heart. Dazzling, unexpected and profound, this is a shattering page-turner about how love can twist our lives into something we no longer recognize, and how we might find our way back to our best selves and to the communities that just might save us. In a word: brilliant."

What Might Have Been (2022)
Holly Miller
"Miller's moving love-infused new novel probes the two separate realities of one spectacular woman: a life with the man who was her past, and a life with a man who could be her future . . . a total, addictive knockout."

I Am My Beloveds (2022)
Jon Papernick
"Part Le Ronde and part Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, two very different couples intersect a brave new world through surrogacy, fidelity, pregnancy, aging parents, faith and loss. Raucous, revolutionary and also, so much fun."

Wish You Were Here (2021)
Jodi Picoult
"In Wish You Were Here, Jodi Picoult does something brilliant, cracking open something extraordinary. I am just overwhelmed by this book. I actually finished it at three in the morning and started reading it again."

Neglect (2021)
Kim Wozencraft
"Which is worse, the trauma of being in the middle of war or the trauma of coming home to a world you don't feel you belong in anymore? Wozencraft's unmoored young mother, battling PTSD from her horrific time in Afghanistan, makes a terrible mistake, getting herself embroiled with a child custody system that is as chaotic as the battlefield. Gripping, provocative, gorgeously written--and at its heart, so so moving because it's about love at its most fierce."

Hold Me Down (2021)
Clea Simon
"This devastatingly powerful mystery hits you like a punch in the heart."

The Living and the Lost (2021)
Ellen Feldman
"A gorgeous, shattering novel that could not be more timely about the dark damage of hatred and the persistence of love."

Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket (2021)
Hilma Wolitzer
"Wolitzer doesn't just brilliantly capture what we imagine is recognisable ordinary life, she reveals the unique magic that is so absolutely transcendent, it makes us see and live in the world differently ... A fabulous collection brimming with the compassion that Wolitzer is known for."

The Shimmering State (2021)
Meredith Westgate
"Westgate’s novel does what the absolute best books do—it makes you experience the world so differently. Who are we? Are we our memories? And if so, how do we know what memories are true and what might be manipulated? Moving, astounding, and totally unsettling. But also, as fascinating as memory itself."

The People We Keep (2021)
Allison Larkin
"What does it mean to feel at home in the world? To find our true family? In Larkin’s luminous new novel, a young songwriter steals a car, hits the road, and struggles against all odds to try to find the answer. About the people we choose—and even more importantly the people who choose us—The People We Keep is both a profound love letter to creative resilience and a reminder that sometimes even tragedy can be a kind of blessing."

Count the Ways (2021)
Joyce Maynard
"How did Maynard know that this is exactly the book we all need now? This exhilaratingly brilliant novel isn't just an indelible story of the falling dominoes of a family struggling through crisis and through generations, it's also about the times we live through. . . . This gorgeous story reminds us that love is always, always worth it."

The Other Black Girl (2021)
Zakiya Dalila Harris
"Wise and funny and it does what the best books do—it opens up a whole world of two young Black women in the very white world of publishing, making the narrative both eye-opening social commentary and a delicious thriller. A mega-talented new author who deserves all the buzz building for her now—and every accolade she is surely going to get."

Leaving Coy's Hill (2021)
Katherine A Sherbrooke
"What could be more timely than Sherbrooke’s gorgeously fictionalized and page-turning account of Lucy Stone, the first woman in Massachusetts to earn a college degree, to keep her maiden name, and to fight for women’s rights? A stunning look at timeless issues—how we navigate motherhood and career, marriage or staying single, and how we create change in a world that seems to have gone crazy, all told through the lens of one extraordinary heroine."

In the Event of Contact (2021)
Ethel Rohan
"Rohan's stories are small electric shocks of discovery. Here, she writes about how love and wonder can coexist right alongside betrayal, danger, rage. How can such a collection be both unsettling and redemptive? How can any of us tease out light in our darkness? Rohan's alchemy points the way."

The Happiness Thief (2021)
Nicole Bokat
"So, so smart, and as downright dangerous a read as the edge of a razor, Bokat's book is a masterful study of memory, family, and the lies that derail us. Don't even dare to think you'll get any sleep once you start reading."

Competitive Grieving (2021)
Nora Zelevansky
"How do we handle grief? When Wren's touchstone friend dies, she's unmoored, and even more so when she begins to wonder if she really knew her beloved friend as well as she thought she did. And that makes her wonder: how well does she know herself? Darkly funny and deeply moving, about love, loss and the transformative power of grief."

The Blackmailer's Guide to Love (2021)
Marian Thurm
"Thurm spins a story about love and ambition, and the cost of both, focusing on a desperate-to-be-known writer, her philandering boss, her confused, straying husband, and the wily paramour who's out to blackmail him. Smart, savvy, heartbreakingly funny, and oh so wise, with prose like sparklers on every page. Writers are going to absolutely adore this book, but hey, so will everyone else on the planet."

All the Children Are Home (2021)
Patry Francis
"A shattering story of how the human spirit can surmount any odds. Gorgeously written, profound, and so inspiring it could be a road map of how to live."

Oslo, Maine (2021)
Marcia Butler
"How do we cope with the unimaginable? Maybe, says Marcia Butler, in her brilliant new novel, we do it with the unimaginable. When 12-year-old Pierre Roy loses his memory in an accident, three Maine families, a crosscut of cultures and classes, are at loose ends as to what to do. Instead, it's up to one boy and the incredible sound from one violin, to change and challenge everything everyone thought they knew. Gorgeously written and hauntingly told, Butler's novel, about love, forgiveness, and yes, coming to terms with our failures, is as breathtaking as Maine itself."

The Kindest Lie (2021)
Nancy Johnson
"A gloriously written, stunning heart scorcher about who we are and what we could be."

Minus Me (2021)
Mameve Medwed
"Medwed’s known for her delicious wit, and here she’s brilliantly crafted a profoundly warm and intimate novel about what it means to try to manage the tumult in our life—and the life of a loved one. In her trademark sparkling prose, Medwed shows us how sometimes our best made plans (and manuals) meant to get us where we’re sure we want to go can actually derail us from our best selves and the very route we actually need to travel instead. Sprightly and absolutely delightful with an ending readers will cherish."

Joint Custody (2021)
(Gatz Chronicles, book 1)
Lauren Baratz-Logsted and Jackie Logsted
"I admit I am a sucker for stories about four-footed-friends and for mother/daughter writing teams like the Logsteds. And the charm here is the narration is by a wise-in-love dog...A perfect romp to brighten your winter!"

Agatha Arch is Afraid of Everything (2020)
Kristin Bair
"[A] sprightly read as refreshing, necessary, and delicious as summer lemonade."

The Wrong Kind of Woman (2020)
Sarah McCraw Crow
"How could I not devour a book set in my favorite era? About family, marriage, love and grief and a country in the turbulent flux of change, The Wrong Kind of Woman limns the lives of a stunned widow, her daughter and a student as they all struggle to come to terms with death--and life--against the backdrop of the Vietnam war, Kent State, the drug culture, and the first heady rise of the women's movement. Absolutely fabulous."

The Orphan Collector (2020)
Ellen Marie Wiseman
"Wiseman's blistering moving and profound novel, set against the devastating backdrop of the 1918 Spanish flu, hones in on an extraordinary exploration of the plight of immigrants, as two very different women grapple with finding, keeping, and changing their place in the world. Absolutely amazing."

Nowhere Near Goodbye (2020)
Barbara Conrey
"The past verses the present. The desperate needs of a family going against the desperate needs of work. And secrets that could derail everything. Conrey's beautifully written novel probes the choices we make--and the choices we regret, and she does it with grace and aplomb."

Migrations (2020)
Charlotte McConaghy
"Set in a future when wildlife is rapidly becoming extinct, Migrations is indeed about loss - but what makes it miraculous is that it is also about both the glimpses of hope and the shattering persistence of love, if we are only brave enough to acknowledge them. Written in prose as gorgeous as the crystalline beauty of the Arctic, Migrations is deeply moving, haunting, and, yes, important."

Musical Chairs (2020)
Amy Poeppel
"In this funny, profound, and brilliantly alive novel about all the messy, wise and wonderful chords that love can strike in our lives, Poeppel gathers together fathers and daughters, old flames and new sparks, music, writing and gardening, to explore what it really means to feel at home, and how life can open you up in ways you never saw coming. Set against the backdrops of Manhattan and the Connecticut countryside, MUSICAL CHAIRS is profound, delicious and soul-stirring."

The Taste of Sugar (2020)
Marisel Vera
"Vera eloquently tells the story of an astonishing Puerto Rican family and their countrymen and women, as their people are constantly betrayed, discarded and ruined, first by the Spanish, next by the Americans, yet they never give up hope. Haunting, mesmerizing, and heart-scorching, you will turn pages while holding your breath. You don't just read this genius alive novel, you live it."

Everyone Knows How Much I Love You (2020)
Kyle McCarthy
"A wickedly smart, deeply readable novel about art, love, and friendship."

Old Lovegood Girls (2020)
Gail Godwin
"Literary treasure Godwin's shimmeringly alive new novel follows a True North female friendship through 41 years of shifting connections, love, tragedy, and the deep drama of a changing world, but it's also about so much more, like the secrets that can make or break us, and how stories can virtually save our souls, leading us to something we never realized that we needed to know. This is exactly what this gorgeous, heartbreakingly true, and profound novel does. To say it's a masterpiece is an understatement."

Glorious Boy (2020)
Aimee Liu
"An absolutely gorgeous historical novel about ambition, culture clash, love, atonement, and one silent boy, set against the backdrop of a tribe in the Andamans struggling with British rule. So blisteringly alive, you feel the swampy heat and the bugs; so emotionally true, it grips at every page. Just magnificent and not to be missed."

Queen of the Owls (2020)
Barbara Linn Probst
"This is a stunner about the true cost of creativity, and about what it means to be really seen. Gorgeously written and so, so smart (and how can you resist any novel that has Georgia O’Keeffe in it?), Probst’s novel is a work of art in itself."

Dear Edward (2020)
Ann Napolitano
"From its breathtaking premise—a boy is the sole survivor of an airplane crash—to its absolutely rhapsodic finish, Dear Edward is about the persistence of hope, the depth of love, and the unexpected, radiant moments that make up our lives. If I loved this stunning novel any more, I’d have to marry it."

The Liar's Child (2019)
Carla Buckley
"Buckley’s provocative and passionately drawn new novel may be set against an exciting outer storm, but it’s the complex inner storms of her nuanced characters that had me gripping the pages. I just loved this book."

Bittersweet Brooklyn (2018)
Thelma Adams
"Thelma Adams is our new Dickens in her effervescently vivid tale of Jewish hardscrabble living, gangsters, torn-apart families, and a young woman desperate for love, family, and a stable future. Set in a 1920s and 30s Brooklyn so rich, raw, and bristling with life that you can taste the brine on the deli pickles and see the flasks of whiskey hidden in a garter, this is the kind of novel that’s lived, rather than read."

A Well Behaved Woman (2018)
Therese Anne Fowler
"The best biographical novels reveal a life we never expected to know, and here, in Fowler's jaw-droppingly brilliant A Well-Behaved Woman, she uncovers Alva Smith, who was supposed to be proper and conventional, but instead she not only launched the Vanderbilt's Guilded Age dynasty, but dug in her heels to defy her times in ways that were nothing short of revolutionary. Not just breathtakingly alive, but dazzlingly and profoundly timely. A must-read masterpiece."

Rust & Stardust (2018)
Tammy Greenwood
"Greenwood’s glowing dark ruby of a novel brilliantly transforms the true crime story that inspired Nabokov’s Lolita. Shatteringly original and eloquently written, Rust and Stardust is a lot about how what we believe to be true can shape or ruin a life, and the bright lure of innocence pitted against the murk of evil. So ferociously suspenseful, I found myself holding my breath, and so gorgeous and so unsettling in all the roads it might have taken, I kept re-reading pages."

The Masterpiece (2018)
Fiona Davis
"How could I not adore a book set in New York City, my favorite city in the world? A soaringly smart page-turner about art, history, memory, and how two blazingly unique women, separated and yet bound together by different decades, struggle to find their place and make their world their own. Magnificent."

Eagle & Crane (2018)
Suzanne Rindell
"Wildly ambitious and filled with heartbreak (I love heartbreak), Suzanne Rindell’s third novel mesmerizingly pilots us through the Depression, the 1930s, Pearl Harbor, and the love one fierce young woman has for two very different aviators. Passionate, profound and an absolutely daredevil act of imagination."

The Ones We Choose (2018)
Julie Clark
"How could I not love a debut about science, secrets, DNA, and how the traumas of our ancestors still live within our very cells? With gorgeous prose, and a deep emotional resonance, The Ones We Choose is about the science of love, how our DNA shapes us, and a mother’s fierce battle to protect her son while confronting what really makes our identity ours, what and who we choose to let in, and what and who we don’t. An absolutely dazzling, profound ruby of a novel."

Paris by the Book (2018)
Liam Callanan
"A haunting literary mystery and a multifaceted love story of husbands gone missing, of daughters left behind, of starting over, of books, and finally, of Paris. I love, love this novel."

The Magnificent Esme Wells (2018)
Adrienne Sharp
"Violent and voluptuous; heartbreaking and profound, The Magnificent Esme Wells is about the losses we endure, and the love we keep betting on, despite the odds. Truly, a showstopper."

Gateway to the Moon (2018)
Mary Morris
"Written in prose like music, with stories connecting like fugues, Morris follows her characters through time, through space, and through horrors and toward love. From Columbus to the Spanish Inquisition to modern day New Mexico and the Voyager spacecraft, this is a work so luminous, so important, that you could see it as a map of the way to live in our universe. A writer is not supposed to be at a loss for words, but nothing can describe the extraordinary experience of this novel. A dazzling masterpiece destined to be a classic."

The Girls in the Picture (2018)
Melanie Benjamin
"Melanie Benjamin, known for her living, breathing portraits of famous figures, takes on the Golden Age of Hollywood, and the friendship between icons Mary Pickford and screenwriter Frances Marion. As riveting as the latest blockbuster, this is a star-studded story of female friendships, creative sparks about to ignite, and the power of women. Dazzling."

The Days When Birds Come Back (2018)
Deborah Reed
"In Reed’s achingly exquisite latest, two scarred-by-life souls—a divorcee and a man toppled by tragedy—hide from their pasts by together renovating an old Oregon house. About the love we’ve lost, the mistakes and secrets we're afraid to reveal, and a haunting reminder that second chances aren’t just given—we have to be brave enough to earn them. A blindingly beautiful book."

Love and Other Consolation Prizes (2017)
Jamie Ford
"How does a novel genius top himself? Jamie Ford’s newest takes an extraordinary moment in history, where vice lives alongside innocence, and transforms it into a dazzling, hold-your-breath story about the families we make and the ones we are thrust into, about who we are, and who we dreamed we could be. Irresistibly magnificent!"

The Last to See Me (2017)
(Last Ghost, book 1)
M Dressler
"Hauntingly original, provocative and dashed with wit--this literary ghost story changed the way I see the world."

George and Lizzie (2017)
Nancy Pearl
"As sparkling as Prosecco, as jubilantly quirky and inventive a love story as you could ever want, and a jigsaw puzzle you never want to finish--as in what makes Lizzie and George who they are? And how will they fit together? What can I say? If I could marry a novel, this wise, witty and rapturously inventive book would be it."

Gypsy Moth Summer (2017)
Julia Fierro
"Masterpiece is often a word that is casually tossed around, but it fits Fierro's work, which is so richly alive, so poetic, it is truly Shakespearean tragedy. I had a sense of wonder that someone could craft a novel as perfect as this one, but then I remembered this is a Julia Fierro novel, so the only answer to that wonder is of course, of course, of course, she could?and she did."

Setting Free the Kites (2017)
Alex George
"Funny, devastating, and so human and humane, this novel is filled with characters so alive and complex."

Folly Cove (2016)
Holly Robinson
"[A] luminous novel."

The Two-Family House (2016)
Lynda Cohen Loigman
"Two families, both living in one house, drive an exquisitely written novel of love, alliances, the messiness of life and long buried secrets. Loigman's debut is just shatteringly wonderful and I can't wait to see what she does next."

One More Day (2016)
Kelly Simmons
"Beautifully dark, totally devastating, and so Riveting you might find yourself gripping the pages."

Girl Waits With Gun (2015)
(Kopp Sisters, book 1)
Amy Stewart
"How could you not fall in love with a book about one of the first female deputy sheriffs and her sisters--especially when it s written by the enthralling Amy Stewart? Full of long-held secrets, kicked-up dust, simmering danger, and oh yes, that gun this gritty romp illuminates one of history s strongest women with a hold-your-breath panache."

Girls I Know (2013)
Douglas Trevor
"Deeply moving and ebulliently funny, this dazzling debut novel is both a Valentine to a community, a tender probing of horrific loss. Totally wonderful, original, and as stunning as a bolt of lightning."

Hemingway's Girl (2012)
Erika Robuck
"Robuck's breathtaking alchemy is to put us inside the world of Hemingway and his wife Pauline."

The Memory Thief (2012)
Emily Colin
"A mesmerizing debut: dazzlingly original and as haunting as a dream."

Outside the Lines (2012)
Amy Hatvany
"Exquisitely rendered."

The Orphan Sister (2011)
Gwendolen Gross
"Breathtakingly original. A haunting exploration of love, loyalty, sisters, hope, and the ties that bind us together--and make the ground tremble beneath us when they break. I loved, loved, loved this novel."

The Raising (2011)
Laura Kasischke
"Haunting, unsettling, and unforgettable."

The Way Life Should Be (2007)
Christina Baker Kline
"THE WAY LIFE SHOULD BE is the way a great read should be -- incredibly moving, beautifully written, and with characters so alive you want them to come and visit. Kline's lucid take on finding out who we really are, and what we really need in our lives is nothing short of brilliant."

Sheet Music (2003)
M J Rose
"No one writes so simply and superbly about such lush things as food and sex as M.J. Rose -- and at the same time, gets deep inside the heart and mind of a wonderfully complicated heroine. Literate and page-turning, Sheet Music's all about how we think we know the people we love--and we don't. And how we love them anyway. Enthralling."

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