"Harlow Smith thought she had finally achieved the quiet life she wanted-a little bookstore on Cape Cod, an apartment in her grandpa's house, a more or less happily single life-when the biggest secret from her past walked into town and changed everything. A kid walks into your bookstore and says to you, Guess what? I'm your son. The one you put up for adoption seventeen years ago. The one you never told anyone about. Surprise! His name is Matthew...

Few writers can enter their characters so completely or evoke their lives as viscerally as Andre Dubus III. In this deeply compelling new novel, a father, estranged for the worst of reasons, is driven to seek out the daughter he has not seen in decades. Daniel Ahearn lives a quiet, solitary existence in a seaside New England town. Forty years ago, following a shocking act of impulsive violence on his part, his daughter, Susan, was ripped from his...

"England, 1933. Grace Hamblin is growing up on the beautiful estate of the Marquiss and Marchioness of Penselwood. The beekeeper's daughter, she knows her place and her future--that is until her father dies and leaves her alone. Her childhood friend Freddie has recently become her lover, and she is thankful when they are able to marry and take over her father's duties ... Massachusetts, 1973. Grace's daughter Trixie Valentine is in love with an unsuitable...

"Cana, Massachusetts: a utopian vision of 18th-century Puritan New England. To the outside world, Reverend Nathaniel Whitfield and his family stand as godly pillars of their small-town community, drawing Christians from across the New World into their fold. One such Christian, physician Arthur Lyman, discovers in the minister's words a love so captivating it transcends language. As the bond between these two men grows more and more passionate, their...