California’s Girl, Book Two is the continuing saga of a young woman growing up on the beach during the early 1970s. It is told through journal entries, short stories, poetry, and associated recollections. It offers a deeply personal glimpse into the female experience within the unique beach culture of Southern California. On the cusp of womanhood, amid the hot sand and cool ocean, she searches for personal identity, lasting love, and the meaning of life. As she struggles to reconcile her childhood fantasies with the bittersweet reality of life and human entanglements, she discovers a deep connection to the natural world. Nature becomes her sanctuary, inspiring and nourishing her soul while teaching valuable lessons of self-worth and independence.
The California sunshine’s not quite so bright for three sisters who get dumped in the same week ... Finola, a popular LA morning show host, is famously upbeat until she’s blindsided on live TV by news that her husband is sleeping with a young pop sensation who has set their affair to music. While avoiding the tabloids and pretending she’s just fine, she’s crumbling inside, desperate for him to come to his senses and life to go back to normal. Zennie’s breakup is no big loss. Although the world insists she pair up, she’d rather be surfing. So agreeing to be the surrogate for her best friend is a no-brainer – after all, she has an available womb and no other attachments to worry about. Except...when everyone else, including her big sister, thinks she’s making a huge mistake, being pregnant is a lot lonelier – and more complicated – than she imagined. Never the tallest, thinnest or prettiest sister, Ali is used to being overlooked, but when her fiancé sends his disapproving brother to call off the wedding, it’s a new low. And yet Daniel continues to turn up ‘for support’, making Ali wonder if maybe – for once – someone sees her in a way no one ever has. But side by side by side, these sisters will start over and rebuild their lives with all the affection, charm and laugh-out-loud humour that is classic Susan Mallery.
A modern take on the classic coming-of-age novel, inspired by Anne of Green Gables In the grand tradition of Anne of Green Gables, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and The Three Weissmanns of Westport, Andi Teran’s captivating debut novel offers a contemporary twist on a beloved classic. Fifteen-year-old orphan Ana Cortez has just blown her last chance with a foster family. It’s a group home next—unless she agrees to leave East Los Angeles for a farm trainee program in Northern California. When she first arrives, Ana can’t tell a tomato plant from a blackberry bush, and Emmett Garber is skeptical that this slight city girl can be any help on his farm. His sister Abbie, however, thinks Ana might be just what they need. Ana comes to love Garber Farm, and even Emmett has to admit that her hard work is an asset. But when she inadvertently stirs up trouble in town, Ana is afraid she might have ruined her last chance at finding a place to belong.
When Nancy and her friends help organize a star-studded fundraiser for Malachite Beach, they discover that the celebrities, as well as themselves, are the targets of deadly foul play.
“Love, lust, murder, betrayal, suffering, and redemption all parade by as a brilliant tale-spinner once again has his way with us.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Edgar Award–Winner, Best Novel of the Year The Orange County, California, that the Becker brothers knew as boys is no more—unrecognizably altered since the afternoon in 1954 when Nick, Clay, David, and Andy rumbled with the lowlife Vonns, while five-year-old Janelle Vonn watched from the sidelines. The new decade has ushered in the era of Johnson, hippies, John Birchers, and LSD. Clay becomes a casualty of a far-off jungle war. Nick becomes a cop, Andy a reporter, David a minister. And a terrible crime touches them all in ways they could never have anticipated when the mutilated corpse of teenage beauty queen Janelle Vonn is discovered in an abandoned warehouse. “Parker’s drum-tight prose and richly layered characters borrow a bit from Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled L.A. noirs as well as the more psychologically lurid novels of Dennis Lehane, but California Girl easily earns Parker his own spot on the shelf between these two masters.” —Entertainment Weekly, Editor’s Choice “A masterpiece filled with intriguing, multidimensional characters, an enthralling, sweeping plot, and some of the finest writing you’ll ever read.” —Chicago Sun-Times “Subtle—and effective . . . as much a family saga as it is a crime novel . . . an abundance of richly drawn characters.” —San Francisco Chronicle “An evocative trip back to the days of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, hippies, LSD, Charles Manson, peace protests, and the rising anger against the war in Vietnam. Parker perfectly captures the turbulence of the times.” —Orlando Sentinel
True crime, memoir, and ghost story, Mean is the bold and hilarious tale of Myriam Gurba’s coming of age as a queer, mixed-race Chicana. Blending radical formal fluidity and caustic humor, Gurba takes on sexual violence, small towns, and race, turning what might be tragic into piercing, revealing comedy. This is a confident, intoxicating, brassy book that takes the cost of sexual assault, racism, misogyny, and homophobia deadly seriously. We act mean to defend ourselves from boredom and from those who would cut off our breasts. We act mean to defend our clubs and institutions. We act mean because we like to laugh. Being mean to boys is fun and a second-wave feminist duty. Being mean to men who deserve it is a holy mission. Sisterhood is powerful, but being mean is more exhilarating. Being mean isn't for everybody. Being mean is best practiced by those who understand it as an art form. These virtuosos live closer to the divine than the rest of humanity. They're queers. Myriam Gurba is a queer spoken-word performer, visual artist, and writer from Santa Maria, California. She's the author of Dahlia Season (2007, Manic D) which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, Wish You Were Me (2011, Future Tense Books), and Painting Their Portraits in Winter (2015, Manic D). She has toured with Sister Spit and her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. She lives in Long Beach, where she teaches social studies to eighth-graders.
For five years Jeff Taylor has wanted to apologize to Bobbie Bradford, but she left town the day after the humiliating episode at the picnic. Older now, Jeff has grown in his faith and as a man. Still, the news that Bobbie is returning to Santa Rosa while considering Cleve Ramsey's proposal of marriage comes as a shock.
The world Cal and Frida have always known is gone, and they've left the crumbling city of Los Angeles far behind them. They now live in a shack in the wilderness, working side-by-side to make their days tolerable in the face of hardship and isolation. Mourning a past they can't reclaim, they seek solace in each other. But the tentative existence they've built for themselves is thrown into doubt when Frida finds out she's pregnant. Terrified of the unknown and unsure of their ability to raise a child alone, Cal and Frida set out for the nearest settlement, a guarded and paranoid community with dark secrets. These people can offer them security, but Cal and Frida soon realize this community poses dangers of its own. In this unfamiliar world, where everything and everyone can be perceived as a threat, the couple must quickly decide whom to trust. A gripping and provocative debut novel by a stunning new talent, California imagines a frighteningly realistic near future, in which clashes between mankind's dark nature and deep-seated resilience force us to question how far we will go to protect the ones we love. "In her arresting debut novel, Edan Lepucki conjures a lush, intricate, deeply disturbing vision of the future, then masterfully exploits its dramatic possibilities."-Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad
The babysitters can't believe it They've won so much money in the Connecticut Lottery that they can afford to go on holiday with Dawn to California. And how can they ever return to Stoneybrook now that they're real California girls?
Will he still love her every touch…when he finds out who she really is? For years, Ethan Michaels has plotted to reclaim the resort his mother founded. His plan never included a lover…or a pregnancy. But his desire-fueled fling with smart, stunning Harper Williams results in just that. Now he’s getting used to the idea of a baby…until he finds out Harper’s father is the very man who stole everything from him years ago.
