Showing results for "Water, Water" in Literary Fiction

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.

Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Casual mourners, regular visitors, and sundry colleagues - gravediggers, groundskeepers, and a priest - visit her to warm themselves in her lodge, where laughter, companionship, and occasional tears mix with the coffee she offers them. Her life is lived to the rhythms of their funny, moving confidences. But her routine is disrupted by the arrival of the local police chief, who insists on scattering the ashes of his recently deceased mother on the gravesite of a complete stranger.

It is 1947, and Beit Daras, a quiet village in Palestine surrounded by olive groves, is home to the Baraka family. Eldest daughter Nazmiyeh looks after her widowed mother, prone to wandering and strange outbursts, while her brother, Mamdouh, tends to the village bees. Their younger sister, Mariam, with her striking mismatched eyes, spends her days talking to imaginary friends and writing.

In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, detective, leg breaker, assassin, and spy. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel "cuts" water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet while the poor get nothing but dust.

ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2019 From the New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins, the first collection of short fiction from Jess Walter—a suite of diverse and searching stories about personal struggle and diminished dreams, all of them marked by the wry...

“A mesmerizing novel about a family in crisis.”— Miami Herald A disquieting and ultimately uplifting novel about a marriage, a family, and human resilience in the face of tragedy, from Wally Lamb, the New York Times bestselling author of The Hour I First Believed and I Know This Much Is...

“An impressive debut. Emotionally honest with lyricism and charm to spare, Nyani Nkrumah’s Wade in the Water depicts in riveting detail a racially charged Mississippi town, the secrets it holds, and the precious heart and soul of a young girl deserving love.”—Diane McKinney-Whetstone...

From Yannick Murphy, award-winning author of The Call, comes a fast-paced story of murder, adultery, parenthood, and romance, involving a girls’ swim team, their morally flawed parents, and a killer who swims in their midst. In a quiet New England community members of swim team and their...

Your Body of Water is an interweaving of autofiction with hydro-feminist mythologies, exploring via the emotional landscapes of four rivers and four "tragic feminine characters" (Ophelia, Leda, the Lady of Shalott, and Sappho) the author's own real life journey, with a dose of tongue-in-cheek humor—through coming out in Australia, an abusive relationship in Berlin, and navigating queer love in the context of a world literally burning around us—and finding hope for the future in the stories of her ancestors before her.

In Makoko, the floating slum off mainland Lagos, Nigeria, nineteen-year-old Baby yearns for an existence where she can escape the future her father has planned for her. With opportunities scarce, Baby jumps at the chance to join a newly launched drone-mapping project, aimed at broadening the visibility of her community. Then a video of her at work goes viral and Baby finds herself with options she could never have imagined - including the possibility of leaving her birthplace to represent Makoko on the world stage.

When a heart attack kills his father, young architect Nick abandons his safe London life to volunteer in a village on the edge of the Sahara. Redemption awaits there, or so he hopes, a last chance to atone for an old sin. Alone in an unfamiliar world, dangerous currents soon pull him in: a simmering family conflict, hidden corruption and violence. And his host’s lonely wife, Margaret, is drawn to him by secrets of her own. Their attraction blurs the line between right and wrong. But when a killing drought descends, it brings an irrevocable moment of choice. To save those loves, should he take matters into his own hands? His decision has life-changing consequences for them all.

When Jane Douglas returns to the Shetland Islands, she thinks she has escaped the dark shadows of her childhood. She carves out a simple life on the bleak, windswept island, working at the salmon fishery and spending quiet evenings at home. And for the first time in her life, she’s happy. Then the body of Jane’s long-missing mother is found in a flooded quarry. Her mother disappeared when Jane was a teenager, following the death of Jane’s baby brother.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train, and the critically acclaimed author of Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be, comes a novel about buried secrets and the redemptive power of forgiveness—includes a special PS section featuring insights, interviews, and more...

Another bucolic fall in Northern New Hampshire, and the semester is under way at Bishop's Hill Academy. But the school year starts off less than tranquil. The new headmaster, Jim Hawthorne, has liberal ideas that the staff finds far from welcome. Serene on the surface, the ivy-clad, tree-lined campus gives few clues to the school's history of special privileges, petty corruptions, and hidden allegiances. But as autumn advances, the affable smiles and pretenses of virtue wear thin. And as winter closes in, students, teachers, and staff get an education in savagery and murder.

This hard-hitting, beautiful short story collection from one of America's preeminent literary voices “reflect[s] both sides of his Mexican-American heritage while stretching the reader's understanding of human boundaries” (Kirkus). Examining the borders between one nation and another...

When Fan's mum Agnes announces that the family is moving to Western Australia to take care of Agnes's father—a man they've never spoken of before now—Fan finds herself a stranger in a new town, living in a home whose currents and tensions she cannot read or understand. Resentful of her mother's decision to move, Fan forms an alliance with her grandfather, Edwin Salt, a convict transported to Australia in 1861. As she listens to memories of his former life in England, Fan starts snooping around the house, riffling through Edwin's belongings.

From the outside, Frank and Grace seem to have the perfect family. He’s a loving husband, she’s a devoted wife, and together they have two happy children. But appearances can be deceiving. A strange series of misfortunes has left them reeling: an unexplained break-in, a catastrophic handgun accident, and a bizarre poisoning that’s left Grace feeling especially unnerved. Packing up their RV for a move across the country, they’re ready for a fresh start, expecting to leave all their problems safely behind.

Beaufort, South Carolina is home to the Smallwoods, a family closely knit but fiercely at odds. Georgie, the youngest, is tormented by worry for her son, who vanished two years earlier, and by her anger at her father. An unforgiving patriarch and ex-Marine, Georgie's father neglects her mother, belittles her brother Ashby, and denies her sister Claire the financial support she needs after a trying divorce.

Luis de Santngel, chancellor to the court and longtime friend of the lusty King Ferdinand, has had enough of the Spanish Inquisition. As the power of Inquisitor General Toms de Torquemada grows, so does the brutality of the Spanish church and the suspicion and paranoia it inspires. When a dear friend’s demise brings the violence close to home, Santngel is enraged and takes retribution into his own hands. But he is from a family of conversos, and his Jewish heritage makes him an easy target.

In a celebrity-obsessed society, baby Muffin's death is big news. Was it cot death, or something more sinister? The bereaved parents, celebrity couple Jodee and Chazz, live in curate Callie Anson's parish, and Callie becomes involved with the funeral arrangements in the spite of the disapproval of the vicar. Detective Inspector Neville Stewart is called away from his honeymoon to investigate the case, with disastrous personal results, and journalist Lilith Noone's professional future is put on the line.