Showing titles in Family Life

A trip to the library prompts one woman to question her fate in this galvanizing short story. For a woman like Hadley, deemed not acceptable to procreate, there’s only one recourse. Unlicensed for motherhood, she can alleviate her grief and frustration at a “baby library,” where a curiously endless supply of infants is available for a two-week loan. But the borrowed life that serves as a temporary balm leads to a journey of self-discovery that will forever change the direction of Hadley’s future.

Home, for Noah York, is Oakland, New Hampshire, the sleepy little town where Noah's mother, Virginia, had a psychotic breakdown and Noah got beaten to a pulp as a teenager. Then there were the good times—and Noah's not sure which ones are more painful to recall. Now thirty-seven and eking out a living as an artist in Providence, Rhode Island, Noah looks much the same—and swears just as colorfully—as he did in high school.

Lisa and Elliot have been best friends ever since the day they met as children. Popular, bright and sporty, Lisa was Elliot's biggest supporter when the school bullies made his life a misery, and for that, he will always be grateful. Twenty years later, life has pulled the pair apart, and Lisa is struggling. Her marriage is floundering, her teenage kids are being secretive and she's so tired she can't think straight. So when Elliot knocks on the door, looking much better than she remembers, she can't help but be delighted to see her old friend again.

Eighteen-year-old aspiring comic Joey Rossi just found out his boyfriend has been cheating on him for the past 10 months. But what did he expect? Joey was born with an addiction to toxic jerks - something he inherited from his lovably messy, wisecracking, Italian-American spitfire of a mom (and best friend): 34-year-old Gia Rossi. When Gia’s latest non-relationship goes up in flames only a day later, the pair’s New Jersey apartment can barely contain their rage. In a misguided attempt at revenge, Joey and Gia inadvertently commit a series of crimes and flee the state....

Billington, Texas, is a place where nothing changes. Well, almost nothing. For the first time in nearly four decades, Mary Alice Roth is not getting ready for the first day of school at Billington High. A few months into her retirement—or, district mandated exile as she calls it—Mary Alice does not know how to fill her days.

From the critically acclaimed writer, Michael Thomas Ford, comes a highly anticipated first novel that follows the intertwining lives of three men, set against the backdrop of summer-time in the breezy coastal community of Provincetown.

In his novel based on the extraordinary life of the gay brother of Vladimir Nabokov, Paul Russell re-creates the rich and changing world in which Sergey, his family, and friends lived; from wealth and position in prerevolutionary Russia, to the halls of Cambridge University, and the Parisian salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. But it is the honesty and vulnerability of Sergey, our young gay narrator, that hook the reader.

Tall. Toned. Attractive. Women were drawn to her easy confidence and mystique. They wanted to be near her and would do anything for her. Sage Bristo enjoyed the attention and her reputation. But what she really needed was a woman of conviction and passion. The last thing Deanne Demore wants in her life is a modern day Don Juana. And she is not about to get caught up in a ruinous relationship. So why is she watching Sage Bristo? More importantly, why is her heart racing?

When a car accident leaves photographer Burke Crenshaw in need of temporary full-time care, he finds himself back in the one place no forty-year-old chooses to be--his childhood bedroom. There, in the Vermont home where he grew up, Burke begins the long process of recuperation, and watches as his widowed father finds happiness in a new relationship that's a constant reminder of everything Burke wants and lacks. Exploring local history, Burke discovers an intriguing series of letters from a Civil War soldier to his fianc.

In this suspenseful and deeply moving novel, Michael Thomas Ford propels us beyond smiling holiday photographs and beloved anecdotes to explore the complex ties within one family - and between two very different brothers whom catastrophe will either unite or divide forever....

When Eli Harpo was four, he underwent emergency open-heart surgery, flatlined on the operating table, and for a brief time, went to heaven and met Jesus. Or at least that's what his father, a loving but devout Baptist minister, has raised him to believe. Nine years later, Eli isn't so sure. His rounds with his father to evangelize at hospices and sell his father's self-published book, Heaven or Bust!, feel inauthentic and strange, especially now that he's started having sex dreams about Jesus.

Being the middle son is never easy, especially when your brothers are perfect. T.K. is 14 and has a true talent for getting into trouble. He tries to keep his temper under control, but it’s a difficult task with so many freaking jerks around. T.K. feels like his life has been flushed down the toilet, but soon he’s able to join the football team, and then there’s Finn, the hottie newly hired to help out on the farm. T.K. believes he might finally be happy, but when he spots a blond angel, he realizes he didn’t know what happiness means.

Chef and Restaurateur Jake Ruiz left Newport, Washington, and never looked back. After his parents had practically disowned him for being gay, the town was nothing but bad memories for Jake. But, years later, a family emergency brings him back to his hometown. Grappling with the death of his husband and suddenly finding himself a single father to his five-year-old, Jake also has to now deal with his disapproving mother, his ailing father, a crumbling family restaurant, and the sudden reintroduction of Jake's childhood crush into his life, Colton Humphrey.

It’s the final years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and Bríd and her sister, Ina, try to maintain a stable life in a divided country. Pushed by her mother’s fanaticism and a family tragedy, Bríd joins the IRA and makes a devastating choice. Frightened and guilt ridden, she flees, leaving behind Ireland and her family for America. Years later, her guilt and tragic history still buried, Bríd is an overprotective mother raising her sensitive daughter, Bernie, in Southern California.

Griffon Keming’s second parents saved him from his abusive family. They taught him how to be trans, paid for his transition, and tried to love him as best they could. But Griffon’s new parents had troubles of their own—both were deeply scarred by the lives they lived before Griffon, the struggles they faced to become themselves, and the failed revolution that drove them from their homeland. When they died, they left an unfillable hole in his heart.

Growing up on a homophobic council estate in South Wales with an abusive veteran father made Jamie Taylor’s life intolerable. Her only release was feeding her obsession for rich kid Heather Gardner.

Lone Stars follows the arc of four generations of a Texan family in a changing America. Julian Warner, a father at last, wrestles with a question his husband posed: what will you tell our son about the people you came from, now that they're gone? Finding the answers takes Julian back in time to Eisenhower's immigration border raids, an epistolary love affair during the Vietnam War, crumbling marriages, queer migrations to Cambridge and New York, up to the disorienting polarization of Obama's second term.

In the aftermath of a flood that washes away much of a small Tennessee town, evangelical preacher Asher Sharp offers shelter to two gay men. In doing so, he starts to see his life anew - and risks losing everything: his wife, locked into her religious prejudices; his congregation, which shuns Asher after he delivers a passionate sermon in defense of tolerance; and his young son, Justin, caught in the middle of what turns into a bitter custody battle. With no way out but ahead, Asher takes Justin and flees to Key West, where he hopes to find his brother, Luke, whom he'd turned against years ago after Luke came out.

Thirty years ago, sixteen-year-old David had his worst fears come true when he came out to his family and was rejected. Devastated and alone, David vowed to always help others in need. So, when David sees a woman crying outside his florist one afternoon, he feels compelled to ask if she's okay.​​ Meg is newly engaged to the love of her life, Hannah. Meg was hoping her conservative parents could find it in their hearts to support their marriage and invited them to help choose her wedding flowers. But she has been waiting at the florist for hours and her parents haven’t shown up.

There is plenty to distract Marie Santora when she comes home to lick her wounds after the end of her relationship. Not least of which is her sister Lisa’s plan to transform a rundown campground into a gay and lesbian paradise—complete with a five-star Italian restaurant—with the help of a contractor who just happens to be the woman who broke their brother’s heart.