Showing results by narrator "Amy Tallmadge" in All Categories

When 22-year-old Susan Stachler was diagnosed with cancer, her mother, Laura, was struck by déjà vu. The same illness that took her sister's life was threatening to take her daughter's too. Heartbroken but steadfast, Laura pledged to help Susan through the worst of her treatments. When they discovered that Laura's homemade ginger cookies soothed the side effects of Susan's chemotherapy, the mother - daughter duo soon found themselves opening the business "Susansnaps" and sharing their gourmet gingersnaps with the world.

Jillian Lawton and Lesley Adamski. Two girls from very different backgrounds become best friends in the turbulent '60s, but their circumstances and choices - and their mistakes - take them in opposite directions. Lesley stays in their hometown. She marries young, living a life defined by the demands of small children, never enough money, and an unfaithful husband. Jill lives those years on a college campus shaken by the Vietnam War, and then as an idealistic young lawyer in New York City. But they always remain friends.

Coming-of-age is at its toughest in Dana Kletter's Night Song, where a mother and daughter become entwined with the same drug-addled trumpet player.

Surreal and strange, Katherine Vaz's Swan Sister follows a young girl who imagines away her baby sister's illness and death until the memory haunts her adult life, when she is a mother herself.

Miranda Beverly-Whittemore weaves a dreamy, suspenseful tale: a clever child's recollection of a summer's day turned frightening. Francesca, Kelly, and Kelly's teenage sister Amanda are only meant to spend several hours at the pool together, while their professor parents finish up an afternoon of work at their lush, Oregon college. The younger girls are caught up in hair braiding and Marco Polo, but Amanda is poised on the cusp of an adult realm bursting with cruel secrets.

In this collection, best-sellers, award winners, and emerging voices lead us through the murky, overblown, hungry mindset of youth. From parental dysfunction to new sexual experiences to dealing with illness and death, the coming-of-age story has never been so newly and complicatedly rendered.

Mark and Philippa find themselves the subjects of hit breakup songs in different decades and different countries, suffering years of romantic disappointments as a result. Their lives take very different paths, but when their paths cross in adulthood, they may find their biggest humiliation leading to their deepest connection.

Amanda lives alone in the house where her mother, now dead of cancer, once grew up. A Facebook friend request puts her back in touch with a cousin, John. After months of seeing his life flicker across her screen, she learns he has moved to a community led by a mysterious Jason Wilson. John refers to him as "one of the greatest thinkers of our time", but his friends are worried that Wilson may in fact be a cult leader.

Betsy Ruscoe, a single university professor in her mid-30s, is pregnant, and the man she thought she loved is not interested in fatherhood. At the same time, her dying mother begs Betsy to find the woman who gave her up for adoption at birth 50 years ago and then disappeared. Betsy struggles to cope with the changes in her life as she also sets out on a quest to uncover her mother's surprising history.

A generation after a global plague depletes humanity and divides the world, Jenn and Mykol are brought together by a mysterious project and uncover a secret that changes everything they think they know.

After the War took the lives of Lulu Davies’s parents and her fiancé, she promised herself she would guard her heart carefully and concentrate on her great love—flying the biggest and best airplanes in the sky. Lulu is a pilot in the British civilian air force, ferrying planes around Great Britain and keeping her eye on a coveted spot in a training program for world-class pilots. She’s perfectly content to strive for greatness in the skies, and dance with a few GIs on the way.

Jillian Lawton and Lesley Adamski. Two girls from very different backgrounds. Jillian is the only child of wealthy parents, while Lesley’s from a working class family. They become best friends in the turbulent ‘60s, but their circumstances, their choices—and their mistakes—take them in virtually opposite directions. Lesley stays in their Washington State hometown. She gets pregnant and marries young, living a life defined by the demands of small children, not enough money—never enough money—and an unfaithful husband.