The protagonist of Tobias Wolff’s shrewdly—and at times devastatingly—observed first novel is a boy at an elite prep school in 1960. He is an outsider who has learned to mimic the negligent manner of his more privileged classmates. Like many of them, he wants more than anything on earth to become a writer. But to do that he must first learn to tell the truth about himself.
The agency of revelation is the school literary contest,...

"Ben Mears has returned to Jerusalem's Lot in hopes that exploring the history of the Marsten House, an old mansion long the subject of rumor and speculation, will help him cast out his personal devils and provide inspiration for his new book. But when two young boys venture into the woods, and only one returns alive, Mears begins to realize that something sinister is at work- in fact, his hometown is under siege from the forces of darkness. And only...

In the late 1950s, a minister in the small town of West Annett, Maine, struggles to regain his calling, his family, and his happiness after a devastating loss.

Twenty years after being banished from Winthrop Island, Miranda Schuyler returns to find justice for the man she once loved. Summer, 1951. Miranda Schuyler's mother marries Hugh Fisher, whose summer house on Winthrop Island overlooks the famous lighthouse. Isobel Fisher, Miranda's new stepsister, is eager to draw Miranda into the arcane customs of Winthrop society. Miranda finds herself drawn to Joseph Vargas, whose father keeps the lighthouse. Joseph...

"When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave--only to discover that the...

A new teacher at a New England prep school ignites a gender war--with deadly consequences--in this provocative novel. What do you love? What do you hate? What do you want? It starts with this simple writing prompt from Alex Witt, Stonebridge Academy's new creative writing teacher. When the students' answers raise disturbing questions of their own, Ms. Witt knows there's more going on the school than the faculty wants to see. She soon learns about...

"Kit Noonan's life is stalled: unemployed, twins to support, a mortgage to pay--and a frustrated wife, who is certain that, more than anything else, Kit needs to solve the mystery of his father's identity. He begins with a visit to his former stepfather, Jasper, a take-no-prisoners Vermont outdoorsman. But it is another person who has kept the secret: Lucinda Burns, wife of a revered senior statesman and mother of Malachy (the journalist who died...

"Love isn't always a piece of cake... Laurie Davis has always followed her passion. After escaping family drama to start a new life in New York City, she's up for whatever challenges life brings. So when an opportunity arises for her to use her travel industry expertise and serve as an assistant and tour guide for her idol, Pamela Lambert-Leigh, star of television's Tea-Time with Pamela, she jumps at the chance. But Laurie's exciting adventure ends...

"In a series of online posts, Parker H., a young psychiatrist, chronicles the harrowing account of his time working at a dreary mental hospital in New England. Through this internet message board, Parker hopes to communicate with the world his effort to cure one bewildering patient. We learn, as Parker did on his first day at the hospital, of the facility's most difficult, profoundly dangerous case-a 40-year-old man who was originally admitted to...

" Straddling the line between psychological thriller and domestic horror, Sierra's auspicious debut immediately plunges readers headlong into its unnamed protagonist's waking nightmare . . . tense, emotionally resonant . . . Well-timed flashbacks add context and poignancy. Fiercely feminist and viscerally terrifying. -- Kirkus Reviews, starred Home alone with her young children during a blizzard, a mother tucks her son back into bed in the middle...