With wondrous observations and bittersweet humor, the beloved best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author tells the story of an unsuspecting young woman who becomes the North star that helps a stumbling, dysfunctional family find its footing. Mrs. Emerson, widowed with seven adult children, lives alone in crumbling Victorian mansion outside Baltimore with only a collection of antique clocks to keep her company. Elizabeth Abbott—twenty-three years old, aimless, bohemian, and beautiful—leads a vagabond lifestyle until she happens upon Mrs. Emerson’s home and convinces the older woman to hire her as a handyman. When three of the strange, idiosyncratic Emerson children return to their childhood home for a visit, they are irresistibly drawn to Elizabeth.
The beloved bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author brings us a novel that is “funny and lyric and true" (The New Yorker). Through the syncopated rhythms of the ragtime era to the thumping, rocking beats of the 1970s, generations of Pecks have maintained a determined steadiness. Adamantly middle class—Peck-proud, as the family slogan goes—they are quick to sweep under the rug those members who do not live up to their standards. Maybe that’s why Caleb Peck took off with his violincello as a boy? Sixty years later, his brother Daniel is still wondering. No longer willing to live without answers, he turns to his daughter-in-law, Justine, another Peck family eccentric. A studied tarot card reader, Justine comes across one message over and over in the cards: change is coming. With Daniel’s help, she’s hoping to find the courage to embrace whatever happens next. An unlikely pair struggling against a stifling family, Daniel and Justine believe they’ll find freedom in just the right mix of magic, music, and mystery.
In this stunning debut by actor and screenwriter Ryan O’Nan (Skins, Marvel’s Legion, Queen of the South), time itself can be wound back like a clock. The power of Winding can fix mistakes and prevent disasters. Or, in the wrong hands, it can be used as a weapon against the world... "Clever, kinetic, and personal, O'Nan's prose will keep your bedside lamp burning till the wee hours." — Pierce Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author Juniper Trask is a prodigy, raised under the Council’s strict Code, which allows Winders to exist in secret among average humans. After the shocking murder of her mentor, she is chosen to take his seat on the Council. But as Juniper settles into her new role, cracks of dissension are forming around her, and she uncovers the dark truth behind their power. Juniper has just become a pawn in a game no one knows is being played, and as she begins to question the Code for the first time, her life spirals into a world of danger. Charlie Ryan always knew he was different, ever since he saved his mother from a horrible car wreck that no one but him remembers. After meeting a mysterious man who claims he has the same ability, Charlie leaves home to chase him for answers. But the world Charlie’s stepped into is more dangerous than he could have imagined. Charlie’s powers are special, and there are those who would kill to get their hands on him. Now, Juniper and Charlie need each other if they are going to survive the future—no matter which future that may be... Praise for Winders "Winders is a Tenet meets The Matrix thrill ride that I could not put down. O'Nan is a rare talent, transitioning seamlessly from script to prose with vibrant characters, addictive world-building, and a story that leaps off the page and onto the screen." — Gretchen McNeil, author of Ten, #murdertrending, and Get Even "Winders is a fast, fun, and intricately-plotted story about fate, second chances, and the risks we have to take to have a life worth having." — Simon R. Green, New York Times bestselling author "Calling Winders an exceptional debut would be doing it a disservice. It’s more than that; it’s an excellent book." — Michael Mammay, national bestselling author of Colonyside “An exciting debut from O’Nan: fast-paced action and dangerous conspiracies that will leave you impatient for book two.” — Jim C. Hines, author of Libriomancer
A poignant, uplifting, heartbreaking love story from the beloved bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author: "To read a novel by Anne Tyler is to fall in love" (PEOPLE). Thirty-eight-year-old Jeremy Pauling has never left home. He lives on the top floor of a Baltimore row house where he creates collages of little people snipped from wrapping paper. His elderly mother putters in the rooms below, until her death. And it is then that Jeremy is forced to take in Mary Tell and her child as boarders. Mary is unaware of how much courage it takes Jeremy to look her in the eye. For Jeremy, like one of his paper creations, is fragile and easily torn—especially when he's falling in love....
An orphan and thief, Hugo lives in the walls of a busy train station. He desperately believes a broken automaton will make his dreams come true. But when his world collides with an eccentric girl and a bitter old man, Hugo's undercover life are put in jeopardy. Turn the pages, follow the illustrations and enter an unforgettable new world!
From the bestselling author of The Garden of Lost Secrets comes a thrilling new mystery filled with ticking secrets and gripping adventure, set against an Edwardian backdrop of invention and change. JUNE, 1905. Helena and her parrot, Orbit, are swept off to Cambridge when her father is appointed clock-winder to one of the wealthiest men in England. There is only one rule: the clocks must never stop. Soon Helena discovers the house of one hundred clocks holds many mysteries; a ghostly figure, strange notes and stolen winding keys... Can she work out the house's secrets before time runs out? "Howell is a hypnotically readable writer, who keeps the pulse racing, while allowing every character slowly to unravel." The Telegraph "Fans of Emma Carroll will adore this historical tale of derring-do and righted wrongs." The Times on The Garden of Lost Secrets
"Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person." So Anne Tyler opens this irresistible new novel. The woman is Rebecca Davitch, a fifty-three-year-old grandmother. Is she an impostor in her own life? she asks herself. Is it indeed her own life? Or is it someone else’s? On the surface, Beck, as she is known to the Davitch clan, is outgoing, joyous, a natural celebrator. Giving parties is, after all, her vocation—something she slipped into even before finishing college, when Joe Davitch spotted her at an engagement party in his family’s crumbling nineteenth-century Baltimore row house, where giving parties was the family business. What caught his fancy was that she seemed to be having such a wonderful time. Soon this large-spirited older man, a divorcé with three little girls, swept her into his orbit, and before she knew it she was embracing his extended family plus a child of their own, and hosting endless parties in the ornate, high-ceilinged rooms of The Open Arms. Now, some thirty years later, after presiding over a disastrous family picnic, Rebecca is caught un-awares by the question of who she really is. How she answers it—how she tries to recover her girlhood self, that dignified grownup she had once been—is the story told in this beguiling, funny, and deeply moving novel. As always with Anne Tyler’s novels, once we enter her world it is hard to leave. But in Back When We Were Grownups she so sharpens our perceptions and awakens so many untapped feelings that we come away not only refreshed and delighted, but also infinitely wiser.
'A skilful novel by a writer in full flight from the obvious' Observer For thirty-five year old Charlotte Emory, leaving her husband seems to offer the only way out from the mundaneness of every day life's earthly possessions and emotional complications. In the bank, she withdraws enough money to escape a life and a marriage gone sour. But Charlotte is about to escape in a way she never expected, as a young bank robber takes her hostage, and they head south for Florida in a stolen car. **ANNE TYLER HAS SOLD OVER 8 MILLION BOOKS WORLDWIDE** 'Anne Tyler takes the ordinary, the small, and makes them sing' Rachel Joyce 'She knows all the secrets of the human heart' Monica Ali 'A masterly author' Sebastian Faulks 'I love Anne Tyler. I've read every single book she's written' Jacqueline Wilson
The first thing I tell people is, I’m just an ordinary woman. I’m just like you. Susanna has an incredible gift: she can heal ailments with just the touch of her hand. People travel from far and wide based on their faith in her abilities. But Susanna’s power only works in certain cases—it’s a semi-miracle. And as she grows into a woman, and tries to build a life of her own, her calling to fix and cure becomes more of a burden than she could ever have imagined. Why is she able to take people’s pain away sometimes, and not others, not when she needs to most of all? With the balm of time, and the wisdom of experience, Susanna must learn to live with the mysterious nature of her miracle. Available to readers for the first time since its initial publication, this is a wry and moving story by an American master. “Not merely good . . . she is wickedly good.” —John Updike Look for Clock Dance, the charming new novel from Anne Tyler, available this July.
