Showing results by narrator "Janet Metzger" in All Categories

Suddenly single after twenty-two years of marriage, the calm of Katherine Price's midlife has turned upside down. Seeking to find her true self, she took a chance on starting over. A year later, she is certain of this: she's in love with Philippe and adores his idyllic French homeland, where he wants her to live with him. But all that feels like a fantasy far removed from Toronto, where she's helping her friend Molly, hospitalized after a life-threatening accident.

A seven-year-old girl breaks through the hysteria and violence of a dysfunctional mother in this story of small triumphs.

Thaisa Frank works with what the New York Times has called "a tantalizing sense of indirection," in this short work of surrealistic fiction, as she writes about a couple who begin to spin the most mundane topics into fantastical bedtime stories for one another. Their narratives reveal what neither will say to each other directly and end in a surprising admission of truth.

In this 2010 Pushcart Prize-nominated essay, Thaisa Frank describes a cultural clash between a Muslim student and her professor. Though the misunderstanding at first seems poised to derail one life, if not two, it yields an empathic glimpse into a different culture.

In 1933 in the Shenandoah Valley, there isn't a place for Lum (short for Columbia), a 33-year-old intersex woman. She travels by schedule from one branch of the family to another, assisting with cooking, childcare, and housework. Always an outsider, even in her own family, Lum secretly collects postcards of people like the Dog-faced Girl, imagining their stories, and nurtures her lifelong friendship with Smiley, an African-American man who sells furniture, odds and ends, and a little moonshine.

Ronnie's husband is supposed to move out today. But when Jeff pulls into the driveway drunk, with a shotgun in the front seat, she realizes nothing about the day will go as planned.

An emotionally riveting tale of the bonds of family and the power of hope in the sultry Deep South

In 1969, the first footsteps on the moon brighten America with possibilities. But along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a category five storm is brewing, and the Blake sisters of Biloxi are restless for change. Beth "Sis" Blake has always been the caretaker, the dutiful one, with the weight of her family's happiness—and their secrets—on her shoulders. She dreams of taking off to pursue her own destiny, but not before doing whatever it takes to rescue her sister.

Emily Blake, an unwed mother trying to live down her past, wants the security of marriage for the sake of her five-year-old son, Andy. But secure is the last thing she feels with her new husband. Now she must put aside pride, and trust family to help her find the courage to escape.

With Hurricane Camille stirring up havoc, two sisters—each desperate to break free—begin a remarkable journey where they'll discover that in the wake of destruction lies new life, unshakable strength and the chance to begin again. Dreams are reborn and the unforgettable force of friendship is revealed in The Oleander Sisters, an extraordinary story of courage, love and sacrifice.

Trapped in no man's land in the final days of World War I, Private Ransom James MacTavish consoles a dying Lieutenant by reading to him the letters of his fiancee, Elizabeth, a high born Charleston Lady. When the officer dies, Ransom is stranded alone between the American and German trenches. His sole comfort is reading the elegant letters from the officer's fiancee. Although he is penniless, Ransom comes home determined to win Elizabeth's heart but soon discovers he must compete with a wealthy suitor.

Sheriff Guy Trident doesn't have much to do with off-worlders; he has his hands full keeping his own planet safe. But he'll do anything, go anywhere to save Jewel Quinn. She broke his heart years ago when she left to marry a Terraloft aristocrat. Now she's run away from her husband, only to fall into the clutches of slavers.

The charming, and not entirely trustworthy, unnamed narrator of The Last Night at the Ritz invites three friends to join her for lunch at the elegant Ritz-Carlton in Boston to celebrate her birthday. Two of them, Gay and Len, are a long-married couple and her best friends from college. The third, Wes, was once her lover. As the afternoon gives way to evening and as the drinks flow, the past and present intrude upon the festivities and the atmosphere turns somber. Before the night is through, truths and secrets slip out that will change their relationships forever.

A mystery for young adults and anyone else who's been wrongly accused. A year ago Frankie was a middle-school baseball star. Now, she's been banned from pitching and accused of killing a cat. Frankie didn't do it, but who amongst her houseboat neighbors did? Can she catch the culprit with the help of a former TV star and a not-so-friendly German shepherd?

Like most mothers, Amy Reynolds has anticipated the moment when her son brings home his first serious girlfriend. But when he does, she’s shocked to meet the girl’s father. He is none other than Nick Lowry – the college boyfriend who captivated her heart and soul and then, without a word of explanation or warning, disappeared. She still remembers what she felt for Nick…and she still wonders what took him away from her.

Ellie Calvin is caught in a dying marriage, and she knows this. With her beloved daughter away at college and a growing gap between her and her husband - between her reality and the woman she wants to be - she doesn’t quite seem to fit into her own life. But everything changes after her controlling mother, Lillian, passes away. Ellie’s world turns upside down when she sees her ex-boyfriend, Hutch, at her mother’s funeral and learns that he is in charge of a documentary that involved Lillian before her death. He wants answers to questions that Ellie’s not sure she can face....

Not the easiest choice for Ana Moreno, who has a history of B and E convictions and a problem with authority. But it's a decision she and four other felons are willing to make to stay out of a jail cell.

Lisa Landon makes her living with her voice — a voice fueled by a heartbreak she vows never to experience again. But despite her renown, Lisa’s real ambition is to escape the memories that follow her from one sold-out engagement to the next. Perhaps that’s what brings her to the exotic desert nation of Sedikhan and the nightclub where she meets Clancy Donahue.

Life is good for Dr. Laura Nelson. Her kids have their ups and downs, but seem well adjusted to high school and college; her research project at the university is going well; and she is highly regarded as the chief of surgery at Tampa City Hospital. The sense of tranquility is disrupted when she is drawn into the diagnosis of the first case of HIV/AIDS seen in Tampa. But the challenge of this new disease is dwarfed by the disaster that impacts Laura’s life a few days later.

Meridy Dresden was once a free-spirited, fun-loving girl. All that changed when the boy she loved was killed in a tragic fire. Since then, she alone has carried the burden of a terrible secret. Years later, married to a wonderful man and mother of a teenage son, she is shocked to learn that a childhood friend is being blamed for that long-ago fire. Fearful but determined, Meridy returns to the South Carolina Lowcountry and summons the courage to make a decision that may destroy her well-ordered life, her family’s reputation, her contented marriage, and everything she’s worked so hard to protect....

The 1950s through the early 1970s are widely seen as American academia's golden age, when universities - well funded and viewed as essential for national security, economic growth, and social mobility - embraced an egalitarian mission. Swelling in size, schools attracted new types of students and professors, including radicals who challenged their institutions' calcified traditions. But that halcyon moment soon came to a painful and confusing end, with consequences that still afflict the halls of ivy.

When book dealers Molly O’Donnell and Emma Clarke meet at an estate sale, they are both there for the books. But Emma ventures past a “No Admittance” sign into the basement and finds, not only a vast occult library, but also the dead body of a notorious book thief. She calls Molly, who spots a warning note in Elizabethan script next to the body. Cautious Emma follows Molly’s adventurous lead as they search for the missing book to which the note belongs, which Molly thinks must be a book of spells—a grimoire.

Winner of the Icelandic Literary Prize, A Fist or a Heart is a gripping, artfully interwoven novel of power, secrets, and isolation by one of the most bracing and original voices of the author’s generation.