The Breakdown Lane


Book Description

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean and Twelve Times Blessed comes a novel of the breakdown of a family and of healing after a loss Giving advice is what Julianne Ambrose Gillis does for a living—every Sunday she doles it out to clueless people she doesn’t know, in a column in her local Wisconsin paper. But when it comes to her personal life, Julie seems to have no insight whatsoever. She has worked hard to keep her marriage fresh and to be a good mother, so it’s a mystery when Leo, her husband of twenty years, decides to defect from their life together and their three children: Gabe, Caroline and Aury. In his absence, Julie is diagnosed with a serious illness, which drives her children to undertake a dangerous journey to find Leo—before it’s too late. But what they discover about their father is even more devastating than their mother’s deteriorating health. As the known world sinks precariously from view and leaves them all adrift, the Gillis clan must navigate their way through the trenches of love, guilt and betrayal, back to solid ground and a new definition of family.




The Breakdown Lane


Book Description

An advice columnist and mother searches for vanished husband in this dramatic novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean. An advice columnist for a Wisconsin newspaper, Julieanne Gillis dispenses wisdom to her readers, but somehow missed the signs that something was amiss in her own home. Devoted to being a good mother and keeping her twenty-year marriage fresh and exciting, she is shocked by her husband’s surprise announcement that he needs a “sabbatical” from their life together—and devastated when he disappears, leaving Julie with no funds to raise two teenagers and a small daughter alone. But it is the discovery Julieanne suffers from a serious illness that truly crumbles her family’s foundation—setting her children on a dangerous, quixotic journey to locate their missing father before it’s too late. Praise for The Breakdown Lane “Rousing melodrama; fluid, often funny, dialogue; and the convincing portrayal of children involved in the collapse of a marriage add up to another page-turner from Mitchard.” —Publishers Weekly “An astute observer of family dynamics, Mitchard renders her characters flawlessly, endowing them with a humanity that is both accessibly grounded and astonishingly deep.” —Booklist “A compelling mix of suspense, humor, and abiding humanity.” —Boston Globe “A novel you will read once, then again and again.” —Tulsa World




The Breakdown


Book Description

Cass has been forgetting every little thing: where she left the car, if she took her pills, the alarm code, why she ordered a pram when she doesn't have a baby. The only thing she can't forget is that woman--the woman she might have saved--and the terrible guilt.




Meditations from the Breakdown Lane


Book Description

This inspirational book is the captivating true chronicle of author Jim Shapiro's epic 80-day, 3,026-mile run across America in the summer of 1980. Balancing vivid descriptions of the ever-changing physical landscape and candid explorations of his own mental state, Shapiro offers an essential volume in the library of classic American travelogues.







Breakdown Lane


Book Description

Over the past two decades Robert Phillips has built a reputation as one of the outstanding American poets of his generation. Now, in his fifth full collection of verse, that reputation is both confirmed and consolidated. These are thoughtful, substantive poems that may make the reader smile - and reflect. There are autobiographical poems about the poet's childhood, elegies for the recent dead in American arts, extended metaphors on suburban existence, and a long section of poems in which the poet courts, wins, then loses the Muse. Both in voice and performance, Breakdown Lane is a thoroughly consistent and engaging volume.




Firefly Lane


Book Description

From the New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . . now a #1 Netflix series! In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer's end they've become TullyandKate. Inseparable. So begins Kristin Hannah's magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives. From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn't know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she'll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she'll envy her famous best friend. . . . For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they've survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test. Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone's Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it's the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It's about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you---and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you'll never forget . . . one you'll want to pass on to your best friend.




Bring Me Back


Book Description

THE NEW TWISTY, GRIPPING READ FROM B.A. PARIS, THE AUTHOR OF THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLING NOVELS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS AND THE BREAKDOWN “We’re in a new Golden Age of suspense writing now, because of amazing books like Bring Me Back, and I for one am loving it.” —Lee Child "[An] outstanding Hitchcockian thriller.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) She went missing. He moved on. A whole world of secrets remained—until now. Finn and Layla are young, in love, and on vacation. They’re driving along the highway when Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom. He hops out of the car, locks the doors behind him, and goes inside. When he returns Layla is gone—never to be seen again. That is the story Finn told to the police. But it is not the whole story. Ten years later Finn is engaged to Layla’s sister, Ellen. Their shared grief over what happened to Layla drew them close and now they intend to remain together. Still, there’s something about Ellen that Finn has never fully understood. His heart wants to believe that she is the one for him...even though a sixth sense tells him not to trust her. Then, not long before he and Ellen are to be married, Finn gets a phone call. Someone from his past has seen Layla—hiding in plain sight. There are other odd occurrences: Long-lost items from Layla’s past that keep turning up around Finn and Ellen’s house. Emails from strangers who seem to know too much. Secret messages, clues, warnings. If Layla is alive—and on Finn’s trail—what does she want? And how much does she know? A tour de force of psychological suspense, Bring Me Back will have you questioning everything and everyone until its stunning climax.




Star Lake Saloon and Housekeeping Cottages


Book Description

In this first novel from award-winning writer Sara Rath, the forests and lakes of northern Wisconsin pose a daunting threat to outsider Hannah Swann, who is content with her quiet life in Madison, Wisconsin, where she teaches and writes screenplays about obscure nineteenth-century poets. Her relationship with her college-aged daughter is strained yet candid, and a long-standing affair with a married professor has its own peculiar ups and downs. When Hannah unexpectedly inherits her uncle's rundown resort, she must head to the northwoods to close up and sell the business. But the only interested buyer is Ingold, an international mining company, and Hannah finds herself reluctantly operating the resort while trapped in the midst of a treacherous dispute between Ingold and Uncle Hal's activist friends. From safeguarding the wilderness to pursuing elusive new love interests, Hannah has plenty to engage her imagination at Star Lake. A new aspect of her personality emerges, one that is surprisingly courageous and compassionate. Throughout this humorous, elegantly plotted adventure with its appealing characters and lyrical depictions of nature, Hannah encounters the inevitability of change—in herself and in the nostalgic landscape of the deep North.




Nancy Drew 10: Password to Larkspur Lane


Book Description

Blue bells will be singing horses! This strange message, attached to the leg of a wounded homing pigeon, involves Nancy Drew in a dangerous mission. Somewhere an elderly woman is being held prisoner in a mansion, and Nancy is determined to find and free her. Meanwhile, the young detective’s close friend, Helen, begs her to solve a second mystery. Helen’s grandparents, the Cornings, are frightened by a sinister wheel of blue fire that appears after dark in the woods outside their home at lonely Sylvan Lake. When Nancy discovers the significance of the eerie signal, she also learns that her two mysteries are connected.