As Tolstoy asserted, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. This unhappy family has never confronted its unhappiness: Sweetie, so called since childhood, the apple of her father Bob's eye and the bane of her mother Flo's smothered existence. Her sister Kay is shy, superstitious, and sexually repressed where Sweetie is loud, slovenly, and quite possibly mentally ill. The family has managed to lead relatively normal lives by denying their bizarre...

Merricat, Constance and their Uncle Julian live in isolation after experiencing a family tragedy six years earlier. When cousin Charles arrives to steal the family fortune, he also threatens a dark secret they've been hiding.

"A spellbinding, deeply felt debut novel--haunting and poignant, soaring and gorgeously wrought--about motherhood, freedom, and our own power to shape our destinies. Oona grew up on the island of Inis: a wind-blasted rock off the coast of Ireland where the men went out on fishing boats and the women tended sheep; where the only book was the Bible; and where girls stayed at home until they became mothers themselves. Even as a child, Oona knew she wanted...

Nia, who dreams of an education and the chance at a better life, must battle the dangers of local superstition and thwart her father's plans for her future.

Harry, a devilish charmer from the Deep South, turns up out of the blue on the South Central Los Angeles doorstep of his old friends. In short order, Harry's presence turns a seemingly peaceful household upside down, exposing smoldering tensions between parents and children, tradition and change, virtue and temptation. Interweaving evocative strains of gospel and blues with rich, poetic-realist images, it is a sublimely stirring film from an autonomous...

"Mephisto the black cat lives apart from other cats. Shunned by the townspeople for being a harbinger of bad luck, he never gets to sit inside by the fireplace like the tomcats do. Instead he dodges constant insults and abuse. He decides to leave behind the world of humans for a peaceful life in the country, but once winter comes and he returns to the city, the townspeople find that they need him, after all. Still, nothing is as important to Mephisto...

In one week Sabrina will be eleven-years-old and she would really like to get her estranged parents and her older sister Nadine together for the celebration, especially since the black butterfly landing on her locket has convinced her that she is going to die; Sabrina and her friend Pepper come up with a bucket list, and enlist Nadine's help--but aspiring reporter Nadine is working on a story about the Philippines' war on drugs, and she has uncovered...