Winner of the Pen/Hemingway Award
A modern classic, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother.
The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far

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"With her divorce settlement about to run out and a mortgage she can't afford, Robyn Caldwell needs a plan. But how's she supposed to think when her daughter has become the most demanding bride ever, her son won't even consider college, her best friend is on the brink of marital disaster and her ex is making a bad decision that could bring everything crashing down on Robyn's head? When her great-aunt Lillian invites her to Santa Barbara for the summer,...

"After their mother's death, sisters Daisy and Beatriz Davenport found a home with their aunt Stella in the beautiful and welcoming town of Cape Sanctuary on the northern California coast. Now, with Daisy and Bea grown, it's time for Stella to reveal the secret she's been keeping from them--a secret that will change their family forever"--

Carl Turnage is middle-aged and still a bachelor; the person he's closest to is Aunt Lil, who helped raise him. Lil is elderly and in a home, but still insists on driving her car. Meanwhile, a quack evangelist gets Carl to team up with him as a country singer/songwriter before he tries to take over the nursing home.

"A mother and daughter struggle with grief and forgiveness. Will they allow God's spirit--and God's people--to bring true healing...and a future filled with love?"--Provided by publisher.

Sent to live in the humidity of rural Florida with his grandparents and his sixteen-year-old Aunt Delia for the summer, twelve-year-old Travis becomes absorbed in the closed ways of small-town life. Captivated by Delia, Travis watches her attempt to find a place for herself in the socially stunted, gossip-driven town. Delia's secrets go beyond what Travis can understand, but he believes that he alone can save her—a belief that not only forces

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"Everything Hope knows about the Orchard House is from the stories of her late mother. So when she arrives at the northern Michigan family estate late one night with a terrible secret and her ten-year-old daughter in tow, she's not sure if she'll be welcomed or turned away. But as Hope works the orchard alongside her aunt, daughter, and a kind man she finds increasingly difficult to ignore, a new life begins to blossom"--Provided by publisher.

"Bud Threadgoode grew up in the bustling little railroad town of Whistle Stop, Alabama, with his mother Ruth, church going and proper, and the fun-loving hell-raiser, his Aunt Idgie. Together they ran the town's popular Whistle Stop Café, known far and wide for its famous 'Fried Green Tomatoes.' And as Bud often said of his childhood, 'How lucky can you get?' But sadly, the railroad yards began to shut down and the town became a ghost town, with...

In early twentieth century New England, talkative, ten-year-old Rebecca goes to live with her spinster aunts, one harsh and demanding, the other soft and sentimental, and spends seven difficult but rewarding years growing up in their company.

After she discovers her sister Tanya dead on the floor of her fashionable New York City townhouse, Letty Carnahan heeds her late sister"s warnings: "If anything bad happens to me-- it's Evan. Promise me you'll take Maya and run. Promise me." Letty hits the road in Tanya's Mercedes with her wailing four-year-old niece Maya, a "go-bag" of cash and a big honking diamond ring but only one clue: a faded magazine story about The Murmuring Surf Motel in...