Angus Lordie and Domenica Macdonald are finally tying the knot. Unsurprisingly, Angus is not quite prepared and averting a wedding-day disaster falls to his best man, Matthew. When the newlyweds finally head off on their honeymoon, Angus's dog Cyril goes to stay with the Pollocks--to the delight of one member of the family, and the utter despair of another. The long-suffering Bertie knows firsthand how stringent his mother's rules can be, and he resolves...

A teenage boy recounts, in a free verse journal, his attempts to come to terms with the realities of his mother's near-death coma.

"An electrifying novel about the primal and unyielding bond between a mother and her son, and the lengths she'll go to protect him. The zoo is nearly empty as Joan and her four-year-old son soak up the last few moments of playtime. They are happy, and the day has been close to perfect. But what Joan sees as she hustles her son toward the exit gate minutes before closing time sends her sprinting back into the zoo, her child in her arms. And for the...

"The New York Times bestselling author of The Widow returns with a brand new novel of twisting psychological suspense about every parent's worst nightmare ... When two eighteen-year-old girls go missing in Thailand, their families are thrust into the international spotlight: desperate, bereft, and frantic with worry. What were the girls up to before they disappeared? Journalist Kate Waters always does everything she can to be first to the story, first...

"Alexander Karpenko is no ordinary child, and from an early age, it is clear he is destined to lead his countrymen. But when his father is assassinated by the KGB for defying the state, he and his mother will have to escape from Russia if they hope to survive. At the docks, they are confronted with an irreversible choice: should they board a container ship bound for America, or Great Britain? Alexander leaves that choice to the toss of a coin. In...

After sending his army to besiege another king's capital, King David forces himself on Bathsheba, a loyal soldier's wife. When her resulting pregnancy forces the king to murder her husband and add her to his harem, Bathsheba struggles to protect her son while dealing with the effects of a dark prophecy and deadly curse on the king's household.

"After her husband, Jack, dies in a climbing incident, Shauna has only her five-year-old son and her helicopter charter business to live for. Every day is a struggle to make ends meet and she lives in constant fear of losing even more than she already has ... When her business partner is murdered, his final words convince Shauna that she's in danger too. But where can she turn? Zach Bannister was her husband's best friend and is the person she blames...

Between glances in the mirror, vain Bruce contemplates a new career as a wine merchant. His troubled flat-mate Pat finds herself looking for true love at a nudist picnic. Precocious Bertie, now six years old, prepares for kindergarten despite the horror of being forced to wear pink overalls. Meanwhile, his domineering mother Irene and his psychotherapist Dr. Fairbairn struggle with dark secrets as Bertie plots his rebellion against them. And so it's...

"I will say no more about this lacerating book except to urge it upon all who care about literature in our difficult era." - Boston Globe "A sly and merciless lampoon of revolutionary romanticism. . . Kundera commits some of the funniest literary savaging since Evelyn Waugh polished off Dickens in A Handful of Dust."- Time Milan Kundera initially intended to call this novel The Lyrical Age. The lyrical age, according to him, is youth, and this novel,...