Showing results for "the-good-life" in Literary Fiction

Juliet never planned to be the other woman, but Rory was the only man she'd ever loved. She was sure he'd leave his frustratingly perfect wife - until he went and ghosted her, literally. Maeve is a bestselling novelist, and yet between her exasperating husband, teenage sons and ailing mother, success feels hollow. When she dallies in a surprising infidelity of her own, her carefully constructed life begins to unravel. Erica was the perfect wife, but Rory knew things about her that no-one else can ever know.

Inspired by a true story. In 1825, in a remote Irish valley lying between the mountains and Flesk River of Killarney, three women are brought together by strange and troubling events. Nora Leahy, a widow, has lost her daughter and her husband in the same year and is now burdened with the care of her grandson, Michael. The boy cannot walk or speak, and Nora has kept him hidden from neighbours, who might see in his deformity evidence of supernatural interference.

Vladimir Lorchenkov tells the story of a group of villagers and their tragicomic efforts, against all odds and at any cost, to emigrate from Moldova, Europe's most impoverished nation, to Italy for work. In this uproarious tale, an Orthodox priest is deserted by his wife for an art-dealing atheist; a mechanic redesigns his tractor for travel by air and sea; thousands of villagers take to the road on a modern-day religious crusade to make it to the promised land of Italy; meanwhile, politicians remain politicians.

Max Skinner is a man at the heart of London's financial universe until his employers embark on a little asset-stripping of their own. Himself. Amid the grey London drizzle, there is one potential ray of sunshine: Max's Uncle Harry has left him his estate in his will, an eighteenth-century chateau and vineyard an hour's drive from Avignon.

Eniola is tall for his age, a boy who looks like a man. His father has lost his job, so Eniola spends his days running errands for the local tailor, collecting newspapers and begging, dreaming of a big future. Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family. Now an exhausted young doctor in her first year of practice, she is beloved by Kunle, the volatile son of family friends. When a local politician takes an interest in Eniola and sudden violence shatters a family party, Wuraola and Eniola's lives become intertwined.

Following the death of her worthy liberal parents, Corlis McCrea moves back into her family's grand Reconstruction mansion in North Carolina, willed to all three siblings. Her timid younger brother has never left home. When her bullying black-sheep older brother moves into "his" house as well, it's war.

It is 1904. When Frederick and Jette must flee her disapproving mother, where better to go than America, the land of the new? Originally set to board a boat to New York, at the last minute, they take one destined for New Orleans instead ("What's the difference? They're both new."), and later find themselves, more by chance than by design, in the small town of Beatrice, Missouri. Not speaking a word of English, they embark on their new life together.

Flora Mancini has been happily married for more than 20 years. But everything she thought she knew about herself, her marriage, and her relationship with her best friend, Margot, is upended when she stumbles upon an envelope containing her husband’s wedding ring - the one he claimed he lost one summer when their daughter, Ruby, was five.

In Ordinary Love, Smiley focuses on a woman's infidelity and the lasting, indelible effects it leaves on her children long after her departure. Good Will describes a father who realizes how his son has been affected by his decision to lead a counterculture life and move his family to a farm. As both stories unfold, Smiley gracefully raises the questions that confront all families with the characteristic style and insight that has marked all of her work.

Newly single after calling off her wedding, sex-crimes prosecutor Anna Curtis is summoned home to Michigan when her old high school coach - a hometown hero - is killed in a fiery car crash. But Anna isn't there to prosecute a crime; she's home to support her innocent sister, Jody, who has been wrongfully accused of the coach's murder.

Thelma is the busy single mum of 12-year-old Louis. When he is hit by a lorry one morning, their lives are changed for ever. Louis falls into a coma, and if he doesn't regain consciousness in the next four weeks, he may never wake up again. At home in Louis' bedroom, a devastated Thelma finds a list of all the things he wants to accomplish in his life and suddenly sees a way to survive: she will fulfil her son's dreams, in the hope that it will bring him back.

Calvin Sidey - steely, hardened, with his own personal code - is one of the last cowboys. It's the 1960s, and he's living off the grid in a trailer on the prairie when his adult son, Bill, seeks his help. A mostly absentee father and grandfather, Calvin nevertheless agrees to stay with his grandchildren for a week. He decamps for his son's house in the small town where he once was a mythic figure, and soon enough problems arise: A boy's attentions to 17-year-old Ann are increasingly aggressive, and a group of reckless kids portend danger for 11-year-old Will.

Thomas Martin is everything a man is supposed to be. He has a beautiful wife and a loving daughter, a good house on Long Island, a flourishing career at a prestigious Manhattan advertising firm. He’s a good son and brother, taking it upon himself to support his ailing mother and adult sisters. He knows it’s his God-given duty to shield them, his girls, from the everyday horrors of the world. But he has failed, and unspeakable tragedy has befallen his family. Now, Thomas struggles to come to terms with what has become of his life.

Tennessee, 1950: a time and place that straddles the past and present. Ivorie Walker is considered an old maid by the town (though she’s only in her early 30s), and she takes that label with good humor and a grain of salt. Ever since her parents passed away, she has hidden her loneliness behind a fierce independence and a claim of not needing anyone. But when she realizes that someone has been stealing vegetables from her garden - a feral, dirty-faced boy who disappears into the hills - something about him haunts Ivorie.

From the Life of a Good-for-Nothing is like stepping into a delightful 18th-century painting accompanied by the music of Mozart. Every day is warm and sunny, with puffy white clouds, twittering birds, gorgeous flowers, and charming gardens. Sorrow and despair are never to be seen, while amusing characters pass in and out of the chapters. It is a charming world of beauty and adventure, which Eichendorff has created for us. First published in 1826, this is one of the most famous and perennially popular novels to come out of Germany. It is a romantic novella whose main themes are love and voyage.

Back at dinner, somebody said that the goose thinks it’s a dog. No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t think it’s a dog. The goose doesn’t think. The goose just is. And what the goose is is goose. But goose is not goose, Robert thinks. Even the goose isn’t goose. In Good Trouble, the first story collection from Joseph O’Neil, author of Netherland, characters are forced to discover exactly who they are - and who they can never quite be.

At the outset of the Great War in 1914, New England Yankee James Stonebridge and Louisiana native Obadiah Nelson volunteer with the French Foreign Legion. They are among a handful of Americans who do so, young men lured by the chance of adventure and of upholding all-American values. Despite their very different backgrounds, James and Obadiah forge a friendship which helps them endure the squalor of the trenches and the brutal realities of war.

Winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Priyanka Champaneri’s transcendent debut novel brings us inside India’s holy city of Banaras, where the manager of a death hostel shepherds the dying who seek the release of a good death, while his own past refuses to let him go.

In an idyllic suburb, four young families quickly form a neighborhood clique, their friendships based on little more than the ages of their children and a shared sense of camaraderie. When one of the couples, Paige and Gene Edwards, adopt a four-year-old girl from Russia, the group's loyalty and morality is soon called into question. Are the Edwards unkind to their new daughter? Or is she a difficult child with hidden destructive tendencies?

With her trademark wisdom and humor, Anita Diamant ( The Red Tent) considers the nature, strength, and necessity of adult female friendship. Good Harbor examines the tragedy of loss, the insidious nature of family secrets, and the redemptive power of friendship.