The first time she said those words, suggested to her by an Episcopal priest, Lindsey Crittenden was riddled with misgivings. She didn’t pray or attend church services—she wasn’t even sure she believed in God—but the simple phrase held a soothing power she couldn’t deny. Unlike the prayers of her childhood with their vague references to forgiving trespasses and dying before you wake, this felt solid. I am here was incontestable, certain. You are here confirmed the existence of a world outside herself and eased the knot of isolation Lindsey had been carrying with her since the day her brother died. She soon found that she couldn’t pray enough. She spoke to God; she questioned God; and as a result, she came to a deeper understanding of herself and the world around her. Prayer opened Crittenden up to the present and to those around her. It gave her strength when her mother, and then her father, became ill, and when her late brother’s young son became increasingly hers to care for. But when a relationship went sour, prayer abandoned her. Or so it seemed, until she learned the most important lesson of all. Poignant, personal, and surprisingly honest, The Water Will Hold You is a skeptic’s story as much as it is a believer’s story. It explores the power of the ineffable through a compelling narrative of family, loss, and love. Lindsey Crittenden has emerged as a fresh new voice with a message to cross spiritual and religious lines: Faith is constant discovery.

Willy Cherrymill and his stepdaughter, Lacey, are deeply bruised by a past brimming with unanswered questions. It’s been thirty years since May DuBerry, Willy’s young wife and Lacey’s mother, abandoned them both, leaving Willy to raise Lacey alone. Lacey Cherrymill is smart, stubborn, and focused. She’s also single mother to a young daughter recently diagnosed with a devastating illness. The last thing she needs to think about right now is the betrayal that rocked her childhood. Reluctantly, she has returned to her rural beginnings, a former dairy farm in the Maryland countryside, and to Willy, a man steeped in his own disappointments and all the guilt that goes with them. Together they will pool their wobbly emotional resources to take care of Lacey’s daughter, Tasha, all the while trying to skirt the issue of May’s mysterious disappearance. But try as she might, Lacey can’t leave it alone. Just where is May DuBerry Cherrymill and why did she leave them, and how is it that they have never talked about the wreckage she left behind? A Hand to Hold in Deep Water is a deeply felt narrative about mothers and daughters, the legacy of secrets, the way we make a family, and the love of those who walk us through our deepest pain. It is about the way we are tethered to one another and how we choose to wear those bindings. These are characters you won’t soon forget and, more so, won’t want to leave behind when you turn the last page.

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Still reeling from the loss of his family in an accident that he feels responsible for causing, Hank Singer accepts an invitation to move to the isolated and beautiful state of Chiapas. There, in the streets and cafes of a colonial city nestled in the mountain forests, he settles into the semblance of a new life under the watchful eye of his best friend and former college roommate, César, the charismatic heir to one of Mexico's most powerful families. But when an army of impoverished Indians calling themselves Zapatistas emerges from the jungle to seize half the state, Hank finds himself a foreigner trapped in someone else's war. The repercussions of the decisions he makes--and does not make--threaten to shatter both his friendship and the renewed life he has found in the Mexican highlands. In the tradition of Graham Greene's The Quiet American and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, LET THE WATER HOLD ME DOWN weaves real historical events into a riveting personal narrative about a man who finds himself caught up in a political landscape beyond his control.

Baby llamas, elephants, sloths, bats, and flamingoes are cradled by their parents as they are rocked to sleep.

In this deeply tender novel, acclaimed novelist T. Greenwood moves deftly between the past and present to create a poignant and wonderfully moving story of friendship, the resonance of memories, and the love that keeps us afloat. In 1960, Billie Valentine is a young housewife living in a sleepy Massachusetts suburb, treading water in a dull marriage and caring for two adopted daughters. Summers spent with the girls at their lakeside camp in Vermont are her one escape—from her husband’s demands, from days consumed by household drudgery, and from the nagging suspicion that life was supposed to hold something different. Then a new family moves in across the street. Ted and Eva Wilson have three children and a fourth on the way, and their arrival reignites long-buried feelings in Billie. The relationship that deepens between the two women offers a solace Billie has never known, until their secret is revealed and both families are wrenched apart in the tragic aftermath. Fifty years later, Ted and Eva’s son, Johnny, contacts an elderly but still spry Billie, entreating her to return east to meet with him. Once there, Billie finally learns the surprising truth about what was lost, and what still remains, of those joyful, momentous summers. “A complex and compelling portrait of the painful intricacies of love and loyalty. Book clubs will find much to discuss in T. Greenwood’s insightful story of two women caught between their hearts and their families.” —Eleanor Brown, New York Times bestselling author of The Light of Paris “Bodies of Water is no ordinary love story, but a book of astonishing precision, lyrically told, raw in its honesty and gentle in its unfolding. . . . A luminous, fearless, heart-wrenching story about the power of true love.” —Ilie Ruby, author of The Language of Trees

Can a white girl feel at home on an Indian reservation?