'A terrific novel' Angela Carter Koko won't do what is expected of her. Defying her family's wishes, she has brought up her eleven-year-old daughter alone in her apartment. And now, after a casual affair, she is unexpectedly pregnant again. What will this mean for her already troubled relationship with her daughter? As she faces the future, memories of her own childhood loss flood into her consciousness, threatening to overwhelm her. Combining the beauty and unease of a dream, this haunting novel is an unflinching portrayal of a woman's innermost fears and desires. 'As relevant today as when it was published ... at once powerfully uplifting and achingly sad' Japan Times

In the exotic interstellar civilization of the Second Starfaring Age, youthful wanderers are known as Children of Fortune. This is the tale of one such wanderer, who seeks her destiny on an odyssey of self-discovery amid humanity's many worlds. Arresting and visionary, Child of Fortune is a science-fictional On the Road.

On the Boston Common stands one of the great Civil War memorials, a magnificent bronze sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. It depicts the black soldiers of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry marching alongside their young white commander, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. When the philosopher William James dedicated the memorial in May 1897, he stirred the assembled crowd with these words: "There they march, warm-blooded champions of a better day for man. There on horseback among them, in the very habit as he lived, sits the blue-eyed child of fortune." In this book Shaw speaks for himself with equal eloquence through nearly two hundred letters he wrote to his family and friends during the Civil War. The portrait that emerges is of a man more divided and complex--though no less heroic--than the Shaw depicted in the celebrated film Glory. The pampered son of wealthy Boston abolitionists, Shaw was no abolitionist himself, but he was among the first patriots to respond to Lincoln's call for troops after the attack on Fort Sumter. After Cedar Mountain and Antietam, Shaw knew the carnage of war firsthand. Describing nightfall on the Antietam battlefield, he wrote, "the crickets chirped, and the frogs croaked, just as if nothing unusual had happened all day long, and presently the stars came out bright, and we lay down among the dead, and slept soundly until daylight. There were twenty dead bodies within a rod of me." When Federal war aims shifted from an emphasis on restoring the Union to the higher goal of emancipation for four million slaves, Shaw's mother pressured her son into accepting the command of the North's vanguard black regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts. A paternalist who never fully reconciled his own prejudices about black inferiority, Shaw assumed the command with great reluctance. Yet, as he trained his recruits in Readville, Massachusetts, during the early months of 1963, he came to respect their pluck and dedication. "There is not the least doubt," he wrote his mother, "that we shall leave the state, with as good a regiment, as any that has marched." Despite such expressions of confidence, Shaw in fact continued to worry about how well his troops would perform under fire. The ultimate test came in South Carolina in July 1863, when the Fifty-fourth led a brave but ill-fated charge on Fort Wagner, at the approach to Charleston Harbor. As Shaw waved his sword and urged his men forward, an enemy bullet felled him on the fort's parapet. A few hours later the Confederates dumped his body into a mass grave with the bodies of twenty of his men. Although the assault was a failure from a military standpoint, it proved the proposition to which Shaw had reluctantly dedicated himself when he took command of the Fifty-fourth: that black soldiers could indeed be fighting men. By year's end, sixty new black regiments were being organized. A previous selection of Shaw's correspondence was privately published by his family in 1864. For this volume, Russell Duncan has restored many passages omitted from the earlier edition and has provided detailed explanatory notes to the letters. In addition he has written a lengthy biographical essay that places the young colonel and his regiment in historical context.

New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Archer-returns with a powerful tale of twins separated by fate and reunited by destiny in Sons of Fortune. In Hartford, Connecticut, in the late 1940s, a set of twins is parted at birth-not by accident. Nat Cartwright goes home with his parents, a schoolteacher and an insurance salesman, while his twin brother begins his days as Fletcher Davenport, son of a millionaire and his society wife. During the 1950s and 1960s, the two brothers grow up apart, following similar paths that take them in different directions. Nat leaves college at the University of Connecticut to serve in Vietnam, then finishes school, earns his MBA, and becomes a successful currency dealer. Fletcher, meanwhile, graduates from Yale University with a bachelor's and a law degree, going on to distinguish himself as a criminal defense lawyer. At various times in their lives, both men are confronted with challenges and obstacles, tragedy and betrayal, loss and hardship, before they both decide to run for governor, unaware they are brothers.... In the tradition of Jeffrey Archer's most popular books, Sons of Fortune is as much a chronicle of a nation in transition as it is the story of the making of these two men -and how they eventually discover the truth-and its tragic consequences.

Vanderbilt: the very name signifies wealth. The family patriarch, "the Commodore," built up a fortune that made him the world's richest man by 1877. Yet, less than fifty years after the Commodore's death, one of his direct descendants died penniless, and no Vanderbilt was counted among the world's richest people. Fortune's Children tells the dramatic story of all the amazingly colorful spenders who dissipated such a vast inheritance.

A Recommended Book From: USA Today * The Chicago Tribune * Book Riot * Refinery 29 * InStyle * The Minneapolis Star-Tribune * Publishers Weekly * Baltimore Outloud * Omnivoracious * Lambda Literary * Goodreads * Lit Hub * The Millions FINALIST FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE WINNER OF THE NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD From award-winning author Lysley Tenorio, comes a big hearted debut novel following an undocumented Filipino son as he navigates his relationship with his mother, an uncertain future, and the place he calls home Excel spends his days trying to seem like an unremarkable American teenager. When he’s not working at The Pie Who Loved Me (a spy-themed pizza shop) or passing the time with his girlfriend Sab (occasionally in one of their town’s seventeen cemeteries), he carefully avoids the spotlight. But Excel knows that his family is far from normal. His mother, Maxima, was once a Filipina B-movie action star who now makes her living scamming men online. The old man they live with is not his grandfather, but Maxima’s lifelong martial arts trainer. And years ago, on Excel’s tenth birthday, Maxima revealed a secret that he must keep forever. “We are ‘TNT’—tago ng tago,” she told him, “hiding and hiding.” Excel is undocumented—and one accidental slip could uproot his entire life. Casting aside the paranoia and secrecy of his childhood, Excel takes a leap, joining Sab on a journey south to a ramshackle desert town called Hello City. Populated by drifters, old hippies, and washed-up techies—and existing outside the normal constructs of American society—Hello City offers Excel a chance to forge his own path for the first time. But after so many years of trying to be invisible, who does he want to become? And is it possible to put down roots in a country that has always considered you an outsider? Thrumming with energy and at once critical and hopeful, The Son of Good Fortune is a luminous story of a mother and son testing the strength of their bond to their country—and to each other.

The stunning follow-up to The Lonely Wife from bestselling author Val Wood. 'With fully developed characters and a compelling story, it's no wonder the author won the Catherine Cookson Prize for Fiction for her debut... A great choice for a book club' Belfast Telegraph -------------------------------- 1864: Following the untimely death of her cold-hearted husband, Beatrix and her three children are finally free. While Ambrose has already determined his path in life, eldest son Laurie's future is less certain. With the responsibility of the family estate on his shoulders, Laurie must decide between staying in Yorkshire to farm the family land and following his dreams. Meanwhile, headstrong and independent Alicia is defying expectation and excelling at school. There she befriends the enigmatic Olivia Snowdon and they quickly become inseparable. But Olivia's past is shrouded in mystery and as the two families grow closer, secrets start to come tumbling out... A powerful story of family ties, long-held secrets and the fleeting days of childhood. -------------------------------- Praise for Val Wood: 'A heart-warming story filled with compelling action' Rosie Goodwin 'Hull's answer to Catherine Cookson' BBC Radio 4's Front Row 'Wonderfully fully-fleshed characters are the mainstay of [Val Wood's] stories' Peterborough Telegraph Readers are loving Children of Fortune: ***** 'Excellent story, great characters bounding with interest from start to finish. Strongly recommend' ***** 'Another excellent book from Val Wood and cannot wait for the next one' ***** 'Val Wood never fails to keep me interested in her books, I love them'