Half-Blown Rose

Half-Blown Rose
Author: Leesa Cross-Smith
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 453
Release: 2022-05-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1538755173

An irresistible story of a woman remaking her life after her husband’s betrayal leads to a year of travel, art, and passion in Paris, from the award-winning author of This Close to Okay. Vincent, having grown up as the privileged daughter of artists, has a lovely life in many ways. At forty-four, she enjoys strolling the streets of Paris and teaching at the modern art museum; she has a vibrant group of friends; and she’s even caught the eye of a young, charismatic man named Loup. But Vincent is also in Paris to escape a painful betrayal: her husband, Cillian, has published a bestselling book divulging secrets about their marriage and his own past, hinting that when he was a teenager, he may have had a child with a young woman back in Dublin—before he moved to California and never returned. Now estranged from her husband, Vincent has agreed to see Cillian again at their son’s wedding the following summer, but Loup introduces new complications. Soon they begin an intense affair, and somewhere between dinners made together, cigarettes smoked in the moonlight, hazy evenings in nightclubs, and long, starry walks along the Seine, Vincent feels herself loosening and blossoming. In a journey that is both transportive and intimate, Half-Blown Rose traverses Paris, art, travel, liminal spaces, and the messy complexities of relationships and romance, with excerpts from Cillian’s novel, playlists, and journal entries woven throughout. As Cillian does all he can to win her back, Vincent must decide what she wants . . . and who she will be.

This Close to Okay

This Close to Okay
Author: Leesa Cross-Smith
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2023-07-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1398718645

'This Close to Okay hits the ground running. Cross-Smith writes tenderly about the trial and error of intimacy and draws you in with enormous warmth and control' - Raven Leilani, author of LUSTER On a rainy October night, therapist Tallie Clark is on her way home from work when she spots a man standing at the edge of a bridge. Without a second thought, Tallie pulls over and convinces him to join her for a cup of coffee. Eventually, he agrees to come back to her house, where he finally shares his name: Emmett. Over the course of the emotionally charged weekend that follows, Tallie makes it her mission to provide a safe space for Emmett. But he isn't the only one who needs healing-and they both are harbouring secrets... As they inch closer to the truth of what brought Emmett to the bridge-and the hard truths Tallie has been grappling with since her marriage ended-could their connection lead to love? This Close to Okay is an uplifting story about chance encounters, and hope found in the most unlikely moments, from a consummate author of emotionally-wrought romance. Longlisted for the 2022 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award Longlisted for the Goodreads Choice Awards Book of the Month December Pick Good Housekeeping Book Club February Pick Marie Claire Book Club March Pick

So We Can Glow

So We Can Glow
Author: Leesa Cross-Smith
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2020-03-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1538715325

ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE A lush, glittering short story collection exploring female obsession and desire by an award-winning author Roxane Gay calls "a consummate storyteller." From Kentucky to the California desert, these forty-two short stories -- ranging from the 80's and 90's to present day -- expose the hearts of girls and women in moments of obsessive desire and fantasy, wildness and bad behavior, brokenness and fearlessness, and more. On a hot July night, teenage girls sneak out of the house to meet their boyfriends by the train tracks. Members of a cult form an unsettling chorus as they proclaim their adoration for the same man. A woman luxuriates in a fantasy getaway to escape her past. A love story begins over cabbages in a grocery store, and a laundress's life is consumed by her obsession with a baseball star. After the death of a sister, two high school friends kiss all night and binge-watch Winona Ryder movies. Leesa Cross-Smith's sensuous stories -- some long, some gone in a flash, some told over text and emails -- drench readers in nostalgia for summer nights and sultry days. They recall the intense friendships of teenage girls and the innate bonds between mothers, the first heady rush of desire, and the pure exhilaration of womanhood, all while holding up the wild souls of women so they can catch the light.

Blown

Blown
Author: Francine Mathews
Publisher: Bantam
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2005-04-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0553901494

Former CIA analyst Francine Mathews has created “one of the toughest female secret agents we’ve seen in a long time.”* Using her firsthand expertise of international espionage, Mathews offers another brilliantly realized suspense novel so intense, so authentic, it lethally blurs the line between fact and fiction. In Blown, Caroline Carmichael returns in a white-hot tale of terror on the streets of Washington, where one woman must gamble her life to save her country. As thousands of runners line up for the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C., no one suspects that in a matter of hours the event will become a race between life and death. CIA analyst Caroline Carmichael is about to tender her resignation, when the first reports of a terrorist attack pour in–and she instantly recognizes the hand of an enemy she’s battled for years: the 30 April Organization. The neo-Nazi group is alive and well and operating in the United States, assassinating top officials and abducting a vulnerable child from the front ranks of a state funeral. When Caroline’s husband, Eric, is arrested in Germany as a 30 April operative, Caroline has no choice but to take to the streets–and target the evil herself. Eric has worked as a “legend” for years–a false identity so perfect, the CIA believes he’s dead–and gone deep undercover within the terrorist group Caroline is determined to destroy. Now his cover’s been blown, and Eric’s intimate knowledge of 30 April’s plans makes him a target for both sides: the killers he’s betrayed, and the American government he’s sworn to protect. Torn between a desire to save her husband and her duty to save her country, Caroline is drawn back into a treacherous labyrinth where trusting others is as good as suicide. For the enemy this time wears a familiar face: that of an American patriot, waving his flag alongside his gun. To stem disaster, Caroline has only one choice: to betray everyone in which she believes–or everyone she loves. For an agent without cover–an agent who’s blown–is worse than betrayed: she’s as good as dead. *USA Today

Delia

Delia
Author: Samuel Daniel
Publisher:
Total Pages: 112
Release: 1592
Genre:
ISBN:

Every Kiss a War

Every Kiss a War
Author: Leesa Cross-Smith
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Man-woman relationships
ISBN: 9781631200021

The twenty-seven stories in Leesa Cross-Smith's debut short story collection Every Kiss a War are set to the sounds of "frogs and crickets out back, steam-pulsing like a machine" and "a sad country song that hasn't been written yet." Men and women love and leave over cigarettes and shots of kitchen table whiskey. She takes us down Kentucky roads in the back of a pickup truck to both truculent and delicate women and rough, rambling men edged with gentleness. A finalist for the Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award and the Iowa Short Fiction Award, this collection is a ravishing war of characters laid bare as they look for the glow and fight to stay in the light. As affecting as they are sexy and romantic, these stories burn with sweetness like firecrackers and honey as you throw them back and holler for another round.

Knights of the Rose

Knights of the Rose
Author: Roland Green
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2012-06-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0786963409

The Knights of Solamnia were the greatest order of chivalry in the history of Krynn. After a knight has achieved the Order of the Crown and the Order of the Sword, he must then begin his training in the virtues of wisdom and justice in order to achieve the Order of the Rose, the highest of all orders. This is the third tale of Sir Pirvan the Wayward, whose reluctant and inauspicious beginnings bore few clues to his potential as a knight of the highest order. In a time when others of Solamnia had become corrupt and self-serving, Sir Pirvan maintained the dignity of the Order, walking the fine line between personal codes of honor and loyalty, and diplomacy and duty. Roland J. Green is the author of the Starcruiser Shenandoah and Wandor series and numerous Conan novels, and is coauthor (with Jerr Pournelle) of the Jannisaries series. The Warriors series details the exploits of the heroes and villains of the War of the Lance.

Half Upon a Time

Half Upon a Time
Author: James Riley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2010-09-07
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1416995951

In this hilarious fractured fairy tale series from New York Times bestselling author James Riley, Jack, and “punk princess” May must navigate twists and turns unlike anything you’ve seen before! Jack lives in a fantasy world. Really. He's the son of the infamous Jack who stole the magic beans from the giant, and he's working hard to restore his family's reputation. He finds the perfect opportunity when a “princess” lands in front of him, apparently from the land of Punk, as her Punk Princess sweatshirt implies. May is from our world, and she’s utterly confused to find herself in the midst of the fairy tale characters she has read about. But Jack and May have more in common than they realize—and together, they embark on a hilarious and wild adventre in this highly accessible, modern middle grade fantasy novel.

The Hook and the Haymaker

The Hook and the Haymaker
Author: Jared Yates Sexton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2015-01-05
Genre: Frustration
ISBN: 9780990903529

In the follow-up to his critically lauded debut An End To All Things, Jared Yates Sexton presents twenty-three new stories that pick up where his first book left off. Whether they're set in a sweat-saturated sparring ring, the backroom of a gas station speakeasy, or in the kitchen of the house down the street, these are glimpses into an America that too-often goes unseen. Witness here the untold tales of the losers and the should've-beens, the dreamers and the hustlers, all of them just spoiling for their turn at glory or the inevitable one-two punch that puts them down for good.

Love's Work

Love's Work
Author: Gillian Rose
Publisher: Vintage Books
Total Pages: 144
Release: 1997
Genre: Cancer
ISBN: 9780099545811

Gillian Rose was a star academic, acclaimed as one of the most dazzling and original philosophers today (Edward Said was among those who said we MUST publish this). But Gillian also had cancer, and the news that she only had months to live made her determined to explore who she was, and what she had been seeking so long. LOVE'S WORK is as vivid and carefully structured as a novel, circling like memory from the small fierce girl torn between a demanding father and genial, feckless stepfather to the adolescent confronting her Jewish inheritance, from the passionate friend to the searcher for truth, from the sensual woman in love to the patient in the hospital bed. Passionate funny, heartbreakingly honest, LOVE'S WORK faces death in a way that is almost exhilarating: genuinely unforgettable.