The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis Huber

The Velveteen Daughter reveals for the first time the true story of two remarkable women: Margery Williams Bianco, the author of one of the most beloved children's books of all time - The Velveteen Rabbit - and her daughter Pamela, a world-renowned child prodigy artist whose fame at one time greatly eclipses her mother's.

But celebrity at such an early age exacts a great toll. Pamela's dreams elude her as she struggles with severe depressions, an overbearing father, an obsessive love affair, and a spectacularly misguided marriage. Throughout, her life raft is her mother.

The glamorous art world of Europe and New York in the early 20th century and a supporting cast of luminaries - Eugene O'Neill and his wife Agnes (Margery's niece), Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and Richard Hughes, author of A High Wind in Jamaica - provide a vivid backdrop to the Biancos' story. From the opening pages, the novel will captivate readers with its multifaceted and illuminating observations on art, family, and the consequences of genius touched by madness.

416 pages (July 2017)

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Title Read-alikes: A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline; All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews; Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich; We Are Water by Wally Lamb; Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff; Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett; A Little Life Hanya Yanagihara; The History of Love by Nicole Krauss; Motherland by Maria Hummel; A House Among the Trees by Julia Glass; The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli; Salt Houses by Hala Alyan; Miss Jane by Brad Watson; and The Ice Shelf by Anne Kennedy.

The honey bus : a memoir of loss, courage and a girl saved by bees by Meredith May

An extraordinary story of a young girl who finds solace in one of nature’s most mysterious and beguiling creatures: the honeybee.

Meredith May recalls the first time a honeybee crawled on her arm.

She was five years old, her parents had recently split and suddenly she found herself in the care of her grandfather, an eccentric beekeeper who made honey in a rusty old military bus in the yard.

That first close encounter with a bee was at once terrifying and exhilarating for May, and in that moment she discovered that everything she needed to know about life and family was right before her eyes, in the secret world of bees.

May was drawn to the art of beekeeping as an escape from her troubled reality.

Her mother had receded into a volatile cycle of madness and despair and spent most days locked away in the bedroom. It was during this pivotal time in May’s childhood that she learned to take care of herself, forged an unbreakable bond with her grandfather and opened her eyes to the magic and wisdom of nature.

The bees became a guiding force in May’s life, teaching her about family and community, loyalty and survival and the unequivocal relationship between a mother and her child.

Part memoir, part beekeeping odyssey, The Honey Bus is an remarkable story about finding home in the most unusual of places, and how a tiny, little-understood insect could save a life.

318 pages (April 2019)

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Title Read-alikes: A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings by Helen Jukes; How to Be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery; H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald; Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder by Julia Zarankin; My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout; Fire Season by Philip Connors; The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Bailey; Wintering by Katherine May; Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl; The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson; This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger; and Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler.

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

A breakout romantic comedy by the bestselling author of five critically acclaimed novels.

Who says you can't run away from your problems?

You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes - it would be too awkward - and you can't say no - it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.

QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?

ANSWER: You accept them all.

What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.

Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story.

A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.

263 pages (July 2017)

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Title Read-alikes: Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane; Love by Roddy Doyle; Remembrance of Things I Forgot by Bob Smith; Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier; Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner; Honestly, We Meant Well by Grant Ginder; A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall by Andy Abramowitz; This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! by Jonathan Evison; Heart of Junk by Luke Geddes; George and Lizzie by Nancy Pearl; There There by Tommy Orange; Normal People by Sally Rooney; and The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward - with hope and pain - into the future.

A 2018 Oprah's Book Club Selection, and winner of the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy's time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy's conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.

This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control.

308 pages (February 2018)

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Title Read-alikes: The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner; The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray; If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin; Monogamy by Sue Miller; The Mothers by Brit Bennett; Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward; Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson; The Opposite of Everyone by Joshilyn Jackson; Afterlife by Julia Alvarez; Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo; Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams; and The Dutch House by Ann Patchett.

Dear Mrs. Bird by A. J. Pearce

An irresistible debut set in London during World War II about an adventurous young woman who becomes a secret advice columnist— a warm, funny, and enormously moving story for fans.

London, 1940. Emmeline Lake is Doing Her Bit for the war effort, volunteering as a telephone operator with the Auxiliary Fire Services. When Emmy sees an advertisement for a job at the London Evening Chronicle, her dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent suddenly seem achievable. But the job turns out to be working as a typist for the fierce and renowned advice columnist, Henrietta Bird. Emmy is disappointed, but gamely bucks up and buckles down.

Mrs. Bird is very clear: letters containing any Unpleasantness must go straight in the bin. But when Emmy reads poignant notes from women who may have Gone Too Far with the wrong men, or who can't bear to let their children be evacuated, she is unable to resist responding. As the German planes make their nightly raids, and London picks up the smoldering pieces each morning, Emmy secretly begins to write back to the readers who have poured out their troubles.

Prepare to fall head over heels for Emmy and her best friend, Bunty, who are gutsy and spirited, even in the face of a terrible blow. The irrepressible Emmy keeps writing letters in this hilarious and enormously moving tale of friendship, the kindness of strangers, and ordinary people in extraordinary times.

281 pages. (July 2018)

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Title Read-alikes: The Right Sort of Man by Allison Montclair; The Windfall by Diksha Basu; The Victory Garden by Rhys Bowen; The Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes; The Matchmaker of Périgord by Julia Stuart; The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer; The Alice Network by Kate Quinn; The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Ryan; Royal by Danielle Steel; A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende; and The Little Teashop of Lost and Found by Trisha Ashley.

Rudy's rules for travel: life lessons from around the globe by Mary K. Jensen

Most honeymoons, Mary knows, do not start this way. Lying outside on the sloping attic roof in Edinburgh, listening to the soft snores of her groom, she realizes that Rudy's number one rule, "adapt," once again reigns. Rudyss Rules for Travel takes you across the twentieth-century globe with intrepid, frugal Rudy and his spouse Mary, a catastrophic thinker seeking comfort. Whether stalled in a Spanish car tunnel, stranded atop a runaway elephant, or held at rifle-point at a Soviet border, Rudy has a rule for every occasion--for example, "Relax, some kind stranger will appear. Mary, meanwhile, has her deep breathing and her own commandment: "Expect the worst." The two are a picture of contrast. As Mary was being born, Rudy was a new American citizen flying US Air Force missions over his homeland, Germany. His father was a seaman, hers an accountant. And when this marriage of opposites goes traveling, their stories combine laugh-out-loud humor with poignant lessons from the odyssey of a World War II veteran.

211 pages. (April 2018)

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Title Read-alikes: With You by Bike by Katrina Rosen; Alone Time by Stephanie Rosenbloom; What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding by Kristin Newman; The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner; The Late Bloomer's Revolution by Amy Cohen; Uganda Be Kidding Me by Chelsea Handler; Ten Years a Nomad by Matthew Kepnes; How to Be a Family by Dan Kois; I'm Sorry...Love, Your Husband: Honest, Hilarious Stories From a Father of Three Who Made All the Mistakes (and Made up for Them) by Clint Edwards: Monsieur Mediocre by John von Sothen; Eighty Days by Matthew Goodman; and The Lost Letter by Jillian Cantor.

The Lost for Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland

You can trust a book to keep your secret . . .

Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. If you look closely, you might glimpse the first lines of the novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. But there are things she'll never show you.

Fifteen years ago Loveday lost all she knew and loved in one unspeakable night. Now, she finds refuge in the unique little York bookshop where she works.

Everything is about to change for Loveday. Into her bookstore hiding place—come a poet, a lover, and three suspicious deliveries.

Someone knows about her past. Someone is trying to send her a message. And she can't hide any longer.

Will Loveday survive her own heartbreaking secrets?

The Lost for Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland is a compelling, irresistible, and heart-rending novel, perfect for all book lovers, with the emotional intensity of The Shock of the Fall and all the charm of The Little Paris Bookshop and 84, Charing Cross Road.

352 pages. (June 2018)

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Title Read-alikes: The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zebin; The Bookish life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman; Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman; The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh; Me Before You by Jojo Moyes; The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan; The Book That Matters the Most by Ann Hood; Faithful by Alice Hoffman; Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson; Quiet Neighbors by Catriona McPherson; The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick; The Book Charmer by Karen Hawkins; and The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson.

Star of the North by D. B. John

A propulsive and ambitious thriller about a woman trying to rescue her twin sister from captivity in North Korea, and the North Korean citizens with whom she forms an unlikely alliance.

Star of the North opens in 1988, when a Korean American teenager is kidnapped from a South Korean beach by North Korean operatives. Twenty-two years later, her brilliant twin sister, Jenna, is still searching for her, and ends up on the radar of the CIA. When evidence that her sister may still be alive in North Korea comes to light, Jenna will do anything possible to rescue her - including undertaking a daring mission into the heart of the regime. Her story is masterfully braided together with two other narrative threads. In one, a North Korean peasant woman finds a forbidden international aid balloon and uses the valuables inside to launch a dangerously lucrative black-market business. In the other, a high-ranking North Korean official discovers, to his horror, that he may be descended from a traitor, a fact that could mean his death if it is revealed.

As the novel progresses, these narrative strands converge and connect in surprising ways, ultimately building to an explosive and unforgettable climax.

402 pages. (May 2018)

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Title Read-alikes: A Corpse in the Koryo by James Church; How Quickly She Disappears by Raymond Fleischmann; The Accusation by Bandi; Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews; The Swimmer by Joakim Zander; The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer; The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva; The Kinship of Secrets by Eugenia Kim; A Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer; D: A Tale of Two Worlds by Michel Faber; and Nightfall Berlin by Jack Grimwood.

Educated: a memoir by Tara Westover

An unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University.

Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom.

Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills” bag. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged metal in her father’s junkyard.

Her father distrusted the medical establishment, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when an older brother became violent.

When another brother got himself into college and came back with news of the world beyond the mountain, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. She taught herself enough mathematics, grammar, and science to take the ACT and was admitted to Brigham Young University.

There, she studied psychology, politics, philosophy, and history, learning for the first time about pivotal world events like the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University.

Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief that comes from severing one’s closest ties.

With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes, and the will to change it.

334 pages. (February 2018)

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Title Read-alikes: The Only Girl in the World by Maude Julien; The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls; River House by Sarahlee Lawrence; The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah; Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens; If the Creek Don't Rise by Rita Williams; North of Normal by Cea Sunrise Person; Fun Home by Alison Bechdel; Hollywood Park Mikel Jollett; and The Unwinding of the Miracle by Julie Yip-Williams.