Ed Garrison has it all—a successful basketball career, a great relationship with his kid brother, the best dog a guy could ask for, and a supportive family. With summer vacation being the only thing standing between him and a full-ride scholarship to Berkeley, Ed feels invincible.
Being a Sparrow child has never been simple. Olivia, Sherman and Morgan have their faults, and they cope with their tumultuous childhood in their own unstable ways—Olivia with her excessive lifestyle, Morgan cycling through risky behaviors, and Sherman dabbling in morally-precarious business practices. They have kept their family from completely crumbling until now, but the cracks in their relationship are about to be unearthed. As their shaky foundations collide, the earthquake levels their city.
Isaac knew Heritage Camp would be different this year: he was different. While he had accepted who he was, he wasn’t sure how his peers would feel. What he didn’t expect was having to investigate the sudden death of his camp counselor.
Fifteen-year-old Laurel Summers couldn’t tell you the last words she spoke to her mother and siblings if her life depended on it. But she will never forget the image of her mother’s mangled green car on the freeway, shattering the boring world Laurel had been so desperate to escape. Now she can’t stop seeing the ghosts of her family members, which haunt her with memories of how life used to be back when her biggest problem was the kiss she shared with her best friend Hanna.
Never leave someone behind: it’s a promise easier made than kept, especially when seventeen-year-old Pip takes the headstrong twelve-year-old Iris under her protection in the wake of an earth-shattering plague. After an unspeakable tragedy, the duo must negotiate the complexities of their own identities amid the nearly unrecognizable remains of Spokane, Washington.
Claire Stanfield became a lawyer to make her father proud, but after a troubling case leaves her shaken, she escapes to Alaska and immerses herself in the world of dog sledding. Dillon Cord became a police officer to serve his community, but he moves to Nome in the wake of a life-altering incident. For both, the Iditarod—the toughest sled dog race in the world—offers a chance for forgiveness, redemption, and healing.
An eccentric writer and self-proclaimed “socio-anthropo-lingui-loreologist” ventures into the fictional town of Odsburg, Washington, to research the location’s unusual history and residents. Convinced the name of the town is no coincidence, Wallace Jenkins-Ross goes about uncovering its mysteries through shady (and sometimes illegal) means. He discovers one man contending with a family of mountain lions living in his basement, another who can’t stop hallucinating after getting laser eye surgery, and a corporate employee whose skin is gradually receding. Despite his immersion into local traditions of flannel and bar food, the residents prove hesitant to speak on record—particularly within earshot of OdsWellMore Pharmaceutical, whose ominous presence extends not only to call centers and pet parades but to maintaining (and testing) the physical and mental well-being of the community.
Dangerous secrets, past tragedies, and a violent obsession emerge when Emerson and her estranged family agree to care for a ten-year-old Native-Alaskan girl and a complete stranger, Addie, in the wake of Addie’s single mother attempting suicide. Emerson has buried her emotions since her husband’s suicide a decade past. Meanwhile, her younger sister, Tillie, pursues a new romance with a woman and avoids her questions about the accident which left her in a wheelchair.
Sixteen-year-old Mattie Rollins has her life all figured out. She’ll ace her high school classes, earn a college scholarship, and create a new life for herself and her family. But Mattie’s brilliant plans begin to crumble when her family is forced to move into their beat-up station wagon, Ruby. Then, her mother mysteriously disappears.
In Three Sides Water, Peter Donahue delves deeply into the lives of three young characters who, though learning to act for themselves and make decisions with lasting consequences, persevere in an often insensible world. Donahue’s characters are ordinary people, defined by history and place, transcending the limitations imposed on them. Across the dramatic landscape of the Pacific Northwest’s Olympic Peninsula, these characters take extraordinary steps to show what it means to become the agent of one’s own destiny.
Meri Miller lives in Soldotna, Alaska. Never heard of it? That’s because in Slowdotna the most riveting activities for a teenager are salmon fishing and grabbing a Big Gulp at the local 7-Eleven. More than anything, Meri wants to hop in her VW Bug and head somewhere exciting, like New York or L.A. or any city where going to the theater doesn’t only mean the movies. Everything is so scripted here–don’t have too much fun, date this guy because he’s older and popular, stay put because that’s what everyone else does.
It’s 1960. In a small logging town called Calamus that’s about as far in the middle of nowhere as you can get, Wade Curren, star of the high school baseball and football teams, is content living out his role of local hero, holding court in the corner booth of the town diner where his girlfriend Lorna waits tables.
Memories Flow in Our Veins: Forty Years of Women’s Writing from CALYX is an elegant literary history of feminist nonprofit CALYX Press, revealed through a collection of poetry and prose from their rich archive of women’s literature. Featuring all-new introductory content by the CALYX Editorial Collective and vibrant contributions by thirty of their most renowned authors, this anthology explores the evolving realities and aspirations of women across cultures, generations, and perspectives. We follow young girls as they discover their womanhood, behold wives and mothers pushing beyond the boxes society has put them in, and witness as aging women reckon with the dynamic effects of time. This anthology pays tribute to CALYX Press, their contributions to literature, and their commitment to the future of women writers.
Easter weekend, 1955, and Abraham Lincoln finds himself in Evanston, Illinois, mysteriously transported from 1865 at the height of the Civil War. Ninety years after his assassination, this wry, gaunt man, briefly relieved of the burdens of life in his own time, encounters a future society, idealized images of himself, reminiscences of friends and acquaintances long dead, and rare understanding from a woman very different from Mary Todd, his troubled wife. He returns to our nation’s highest office and the bloody conflicts of the War Between the States, a man restored by his experience of the future and determined—as ever—to preserve the Union. Writer and scholar Tony Wolk has been fascinated by Lincoln, “the essence of a good man,” for four decades. In this novel, Wolk skillfully blends history, fantasy, and the writer’s craft to bring Abraham Lincoln to life—Lincoln the man of flesh and blood as well as Lincoln the President. Readers emerge from a mesmerizing read with the sense of having been in Lincoln’s head and in his skin. Henceforth, references to Abraham Lincoln have a personal resonance: “The Father of Us All” is no longer a stranger.
In The Survival League, Gordon Nuhanović delves past Croatia’s post-war politics and focuses on its people struggling to heal old wounds and create new lives. With edgy, evocative prose, Nuhanović weaves darkly optimistic tales where nothing ever works out quite right: English lawns grow daisies instead of grass, and a romantic weekend in the mountains turns into a near-death experience. While war casts a shadow over all the characters, Nuhanović’s use of everyday events and occurrences makes The Survival League ring true in any culture.
