For Sally Diamond, people are confusing, unpredictable, and hard to read. She has always preferred routines to spontaneity, silence to noise, and forthright communication to small talk. Adopted at the age of seven by a psychiatrist, she cannot remember any details of her childhood before that age. Now forty-three, Sally finds the truth coming into sharp focus when her past becomes headline news: she endured something unthinkable as a child, and now...

Set in contemporary Northern California, The Harder They Come explores the volatile connections between three damaged people -- an aging ex-Marine and Vietnam veteran, his psychologically unstable son, and the son's paranoid, much older lover -- as they careen towards an explosive confrontation.

"In this twisty, mind-bending thriller from the bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes, Emma Averill worries that her crippling insomnia is a sign that she's slowly going insane-like the mother she's worked so hard to leave in her past"-- Provided by publisher. Emma Averell loves her life -- her high-powered legal career, her two beautiful children, and her wonderful stay-at-home husband -- but it wasn't always so perfect. When she was just five years...

When seventeen-year-old Georgia's brother drowns while surfing halfway around the world, Georgia refuses to believe Lucky's death was just bad luck. Lucky wouldn't have surfed in waters more dangerous than he could handle. Then a stranger named Fin arrives in False Bay, claiming to have been Lucky's best friend. Soon Fin is working for Lucky's father, charming Lucky's mother, dating his girlfriend. Georgia begins to wonder: did Fin murder Lucky in...

"The story of a family whose single mom, fighting mental illness, slowly becomes unable to raise her family, told from the perspective of each of the three children. As the novel opens, a mother drives her eldest son Walter from their home in Los Angeles to the University of California at Berkeley. It will be her last fully responsible act before breaking down completely and being committed to a mental hospital, leaving her children behind. Holding...

"For readers of Modern Lovers and Conversations with Friends, an addictive, humorous, and poignant debut novel about the shock waves caused by one couple's impulsive marriage. Twenty-four-year-old British painter Cleo has escaped from England to New York and is still finding her place in the sleepless city when, a few months before her student visa ends, she meets Frank. Twenty years older and a self-made success, Frank's life is full of all the excesses...

"A wildly inventive, exhilarating debut narrated by a young woman meditating on her Czech ancestors' "falling curse," her twin brother's fall from a window, and the malleable, breakable bonds keeping her family from falling apart. Marta and her twin brother Nick have always been haunted and fascinated by an ancestral legend that holds that members of their family are doomed to various types of falls. And when their own family falls apart in the wake...

"A new novel from the author of Walking On the Ceiling, about a woman coming undone"-- Provided by publisher. A student moves to the city to research Gothic nudes. She rents an apartment from a painter, Agnes, who lives in another town with her husband. One day, Agnes arrives in the city and settles into the upstairs studio. In their meetings Agnes tells stories of her youth, her family, her marriage, and ideas for her art. The student is increasingly...

"Miles, a lead creative at a midsize virtual reality company known for its "original experiences," has engineered a new product called The Ghost Lover. Wildly popular from the outset, the "game" is simple: a user's simulated life is almost identical to their reality, except they're haunted by the ghost of an ex-lover. However, when a shift in the company's strategic vision puts The Ghost Lover at the center of a platform-wide controversy, Miles becomes...