Coming of Age

1990: In a hot, humid Hong Kong summer, three young singers are loving life, performing to packed crowds every night in a swanky hotel bar. Twenty-three-year-old Scottish songbird, Moira Chiles is living the dream alongside Carina Lloyd and Lisa Dixon. They work hard, play hard, and always stick together… until one day Moira has to make a choice that changes everything.

In 1218 an extraordinary princess is born. Her mystical powers and unquenchable spirit will alter the course of history. Raised by her fiercely Welsh nurse to support the Celtic cause against the predatory English king, Princess Eleyne is taught to worship the old gods and to look into the future and the past. However, unable to identify time and place in her terrifying visions, she is powerless to avert forthcoming tragedy.

In the early 1970s, Poe is living a nomadic life, hopping trains, sleeping rough, and juggling to feed himself. He eventually settles in Philadelphia and masters his street act before ever-growing crowds. When one of his fellow buskers presents him with an opportunity—a bank heist—he should have refused, an innocent bystander is killed, and he splits town a felon.

Sara is 25. She has never used a tampon without having a panic attack. She starts dating Miles. For three months, they don’t touch. Miles respects her boundaries, though he longs for them to melt away. Sara desires Miles, but she knows her body, or rather she knows it is an unknowable thing. Sara wants to be in love, to find a person who allows her to be herself. Someone who is happy with everything she is and everything she isn’t. Miles hopes he won’t hurt her.

In Hudson River Bracketed, Edith Wharton illuminates the creative process of writing. Vance Weston, a young Midwesterner yearning to be a writer, travels to New York in pursuit of his dreams. On the Hudson River, in an old house called The Willows, he meets a kindred spirit. Halo Spear is the privileged daughter of an old New York family, a lover of poetry and literature who educates and inspires him as he hones his craft.

Michael Woodbine was seven years old when a near-fatal fireworks accident scarred him and led to his placement in foster care. Now a college freshman, he is still trying to hide the effects of his trauma from his classmates, his adoptive family, and himself. When Michael signs up for a film class, he meets Robert Dunning, a teacher who wears his own scars unapologetically. Robert encourages Michael to make a documentary that explores body image and self-perception.

In between the space of time when Ezra lights themself on fire and when Ezra dies, the world of this book flashes before their eyes. Everyone Ezra’s ever loved, every place they’ve felt queer and at home, or queer and out of place, reveals itself in an instant. Unfolding in fragments of memory, Ezra dissolves into the family, religion, desire, losses, pains, and joys that made them into the person that’s decided on this final act of protest.

Best friends Miranda Montana, Germaine St. Germaine-Chang, and Sicily Bell were the darlings of Hollywood who rose from teen success to in-demand idols of screaming fans and paparazzi. They rode the momentum like there was no tomorrow. But nothing lasts forever. Now Miranda, the wild-child movie star, drifts from rehab to dead-end relationships as she tries for a comeback from a very public fall from grace. Germaine, the daughter of billionaire hotel moguls, has lost her purpose.

For as long as she can remember, Peppa Ryan has been guided by a benevolent voice in her head who she believes is Virginia Woolf. Though she’s an exceptionally bright twenty-year-old, she suffers from crippling low self-esteem and has barely left her parents’ ramshackle home in Queens, New York. Set at the turn of the millennium, Peppa defies her parent’s wishes and ventures out on her own to start a job at a Wall Street investment firm.

Steven Mills has reached a crossroads. His wife and son have left, and they may not return. Which leaves him determined to find out what happened to his own father, a brilliant, charismatic professor who disappeared in 1984 when Steve was twelve, on a wave of ignominy. As Steve drives up the coast of California, seeking out his father’s friends, family members, and former colleagues, the novel offers us tantalizing glimpses into Steve’s childhood—his parents’ legendary pool parties, the black-and-white films on the backyard projector, secrets shared with his closest friend.

Nathan’s used to being alone. Drifting from town to town following his salesman father, he seeks solace in his studies when he can’t find understanding in his own home; his father is abusive and an alcoholic and his mother would rather disappear into the background than protect him. Enter Roy. The older boy next door might have a girlfriend at school and at church, but there’s no question that they’re drawn to one another, and the two quickly become entangled in a covert relationship.

Francine's Spectacular Crash and Burn is a bighearted novel that will wiggle its way into the heart of every listener. It follows Francine Stevenson. whose life revolved around her anxious agoraphobic mother—her abrupt passing rocks Francine to her core and sends her into a tailspin of depression. She copes by rummaging through her mother’s assortment of pills, dancing manically at night to the disco she and her mother enjoyed while keeping up appearances at work during daylight hours.

Quinn Draper has always made me nervous. He’s the walking, talking opposite of my comfort zone, and he senses my insecurities so effortlessly that every inch of my body feels vulnerable when he’s around. Which is ridiculous. He might be my older brother’s best friend, but he doesn’t even know me. Never says more than two words to me. It’s almost like he knows it drives me crazy. And I hate him for it. Always have. Always will.

Paris was born and raised a slave on a South Carolina rice plantation. As a young boy, he used to look up at the birds, flying freely above him. He longed to be free like the birds, but in 18th century, pre-Revolutionary times, it seemed impossible. However, when the British came seeking slaves willing to desert their masters to fight their cause, a 15-year-old Paris saw his chance, and took it.

Een hartverwarmende roman met een vleugje Japanse mystiek over verschillende vormen van liefde en omgaan met verlies. In een steegje in Tokio zit al meer dan honderd jaar een café dat zorgvuldig gezette koffie schenkt. Dit cafeetje biedt de klanten een unieke ervaring: de kans om door de tijd te reizen. In Voordat de waarheid uitkomt brengen vier nieuwe gasten een bezoekje aan het verleden of de toekomst.

Michael Park is everything a family and school would want: Excellent student, phenomenal athlete, straight laced, and tries to never get into trouble. However, at the peak of the Vietnam War, he is also the son of Korean immigrants and is accused of being a Chinese communist everyday, all the while trying to break free from traditional Korean family expectations so he can forge his own path.

Haunting and Forbidden: A Dark Romance You Can't Escape. Do you want this? I've always hated Ash Springs more than anything. It's a tiny town in the Nevada desert, and all I've ever dreamed of is escaping to find excitement and adventure. During a camping trip to Sequoia National Park with my four brothers, I meet the mysterious Brendan. Little do I know, my life is about to take a dramatic turn—it turns out, this meeting isn't a chance encounter at all for Brendan. He has meticulously planned every step of my abduction.

Phillip I. Elkins, a.k.a. Señor Felipe, is a storyteller, salsa maker, father, son, educator, author, musician, and radio host of "LA Sounds" on KZFR, Chico, California. Running from the Fire is a coming-of-age story that begins with a skinny, nearsighted Jewish kid trying to find a home and identity among white and Latino peers in East Los Angeles, an emotional voyage that takes him through love affairs and fistfights and ends with him drafted by the Army and en route to Vietnam. The book is intense, frequently funny, and deeply poignant as he describes his youth and adolescence.

Terrestre bien podría ser definido como un libro de crónicas especulativas o relatos de viaje, en todo caso, de palabras en completa libertad. Imaginativo, con estructuras narrativas audaces, Cristina Rivera Garza escribe aquí sobre trayectos terrestres que nos llevan a distintos lugares de México y el mundo, y a distintos destinos del cuerpo. A pie, en bus o en tren, tintos las jóvenes protagonistas de estas historias avanzan acompasadas por rutas ignotas, inventando para sí nuevos modos de ocupar los espacios negados y en disputa.

The Last Summer is a poignant and heartfelt coming-of-age novel that captures the bittersweet transition between youth and adulthood.

I rediscovered a bit of myself in Jun-li, and in May-lee Chai's beautifully constructed and perfectly contained world. It's the deftly and subtly rendered intricacies that mark this story, link it to the experience of Asians in America, and linger in the imagination. Julie Shigekuni, author of A Bridge Between Us, In Plain View, and Invisible Gardens When you are eleven years old, is there anything more humiliating, or bound to cause a fight, than shopping with your mother when your body is in full-throttle warp? Yes, there is: picking out the school-required underwear.

Über die erste Liebe, unverbrüchliche Freundschaften, den Preis von Freiheit und den unendlichen Mut einer jungen Generation. Lai wächst in einem trubeligen Arbeiterviertel in Peking auf. Ihr Vater redet nicht, die Mutter interessiert sich nur für das Geschehen auf dem Hausflur, einzig die Großmutter ist wirklich präsent, kompromisslos in ihrer Liebe zu ihren Enkeln. Als Kind lernt Lai bei einem Nachbarschaftsstreich die Härte des Regimes kennen. Bald darauf auch die erste Liebe. Durch Gen bekommt sie Zugang zu Büchern und Bildung.

This novella tells the story of a ten-year-old Black boy named Pictorial Review “Pic” Jackson, who lives with his grandfather in North Carolina in the 1940s. After his grandfather dies and Pic is living with another relative, his older brother, Slim, shows up to take him out of that dysfunctional home, and they journey from the rural South to New York City. They head for Harlem, where Slim lives with his girlfriend and where Pic sees firsthand the economic hard times his brother is experiencing. After losing job after job, Slim sends his pregnant girlfriend off to San Francisco.

A los veinticuatro años, Fidel Centella se va de casa para compartir piso con tres amigos, apodados los Rayos. Es quizá el primer paso recto hacia la adultez, aunque la historia se centra en la desorientación de la juventud, así como en todo lo que nos pasa cuando no parece pasar nada, como aventuras mínimas en una vivienda caótica, corrupciones urbanas, dilemas sentimentales y hasta un conflicto familiar.

UNA STORIA COMMOVENTE SUL DIFFICILE PASSAGGIO DALL'ADOLESCENZA ALL'ETÀ ADULTA E SULLA FORZA INSPIEGABILE DELL'AMORE. Nato qualche mese dopo il felice naufragio del matrimonio dei genitori, Teo Luci cresce in una grande e originale famiglia, educato da due poli opposti: sua madre, del Sud, allevata a balie, collegi e bugie; suo padre, del Nord, cresciuto tra i boschi e il cattolicesimo. Oltre al figlio, l'unica somiglianza nelle vite slegate dei suoi è la passione per il cinema: il motivo per cui si sono trasferiti a Roma, il mestiere che stanno imparando, la febbre che hanno tutte le persone di cui si circondano.