Joyous, absurd and life-affirming, COUNTRY PEOPLE is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.

Joyous, absurd and life-affirming, COUNTRY PEOPLE is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.

A year in the life of a family as they strike out into the unknown (aka Vermont) --- a “witty and gorgeous” (The Guardian) novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason, the bestselling author of NORTH WOODS.

Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, 12 years late with his PhD on Russian folktales and increasingly haunted by a sense that he’s become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife, Kate, accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the faraway forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be the year to finally move forward with his life.

But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms, one who possesses, in Kate’s words, a great capacity “to fall in with anyone, anywhere.” And no sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as those of any of his folktales --- from a ghostly tree surgeon to a scythe-mad biochemist, from a Shakespearean temptress to a photographer of snowflakes obsessed with chronicling, on thousands of index cards, the world’s delusions in an Inventory of Wrong Ideas.

The new friends, the enchanted woods, the histories: sure, no PhD, but all good fun. Until Miles stumbles upon a bizarre --- perhaps ridiculous --- local legend, which, he soon suspects, might not be just a legend after all.

Joyous, absurd and life-affirming, COUNTRY PEOPLE is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.

For fans of Fredrik Backman and Virginia Evans, this unforgettable and exquisitely moving novel is about finding beauty, hope and meaning in the brevity of life, as narrated by the one who knows it best: Death.

For fans of Fredrik Backman and Virginia Evans, this unforgettable and exquisitely moving novel is about finding beauty, hope and meaning in the brevity of life, as narrated by the one who knows it best: Death.

For fans of Fredrik Backman and Virginia Evans, an unforgettable and exquisitely moving novel about finding beauty, hope and meaning in the brevity of life, as narrated by the one who knows it best: Death.

Travis is Death in the modern world. He wears jeans and a T-shirt and lives in a small, gray town. His job is to offer people comfort in their final hours of life. He’s stoic, gentle and a little naive, despite everything he knows. He’s young and handsome, despite who he is. Each death he witnesses is meaningful to him. He listens, never judges and, most importantly, never tries to change anyone’s fate. He knows that every life must eventually end to maintain the balance of the universe, and he respects the cycle.

Then he meets Dalia, a midwife, and her boisterous eight-year-old daughter, Layla, who live across the hall. Despite his best attempts to keep his distance, he finds himself wholeheartedly embraced by other people for the first time. So it is with this seemingly unremarkable family that Travis begins to understand what it means to be truly alive --- and what might be irrevocably lost in death.

Written with radiant warmth, wisdom and compassion, EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING HURT is a timeless story about appreciating life, accepting its end, and finding our place in the universe --- especially when it feels most impossible --- that will resonate with anyone who has ever loved and lost or worried at time’s passing.

From the author of FLORENCE ADLER SWIMS FOREVER and THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE comes a novel set on a remote Italian island about a navy wife’s reckoning with power, love and the price of staying silent in the Atomic Age.

From the author of FLORENCE ADLER SWIMS FOREVER and THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE comes a novel set on a remote Italian island about a navy wife’s reckoning with power, love and the price of staying silent in the Atomic Age.

From the author of FLORENCE ADLER SWIMS FOREVER and THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE, a novel set on a remote Italian island about a navy wife’s reckoning with power, love and the price of staying silent in the Atomic Age.

When 23-year-old Eileen O’Malley meets charismatic naval officer Paul Archer in a Charleston department store, she doesn’t expect to fall so hard, so fast. But Paul is funny and ambitious, and Eileen soon has a ring on her finger and is following him to the tiny, sun-drenched Mediterranean island of La Maddalena, where Paul will be heading up Radiological Controls aboard a submarine tender.

In La Maddalena, Eileen joins a makeshift community of navy wives who are hell-bent on making the island feel a little more like home. But for Eileen, whose brother died in Vietnam, home is a loaded word, and as she settles into life on the island --- taking Italian lessons and learning to make culurgiones --- she begins to love the place for all the ways it is not like where she comes from.

Still, it doesn’t take long for Eileen to be confronted with the complexities of being an American abroad. The decision to send nuclear-powered subs into the La Maddalena Archipelago was a contentious one, and the U.S. government is doing whatever it can to ensure that the island --- not to mention all of Italy --- doesn’t go communist in the next election.

When Italian activists and scientists begin to sound the alarm about possible nuclear contamination in the water, the island erupts in a series of protests, made worse by the ongoing mishaps of the U.S. Navy. Soon, Eileen’s marriage falters and her loyalties begin to shift as she is drawn into a web of secrets --- and to a local journalist who forces her to imagine a life beyond the one she’s been handed.

Atmospheric, sexy and quietly defiant, THE HALF LIFE is a story of love, complicity and awakening --- of one woman forced to choose between loyalty to her husband and country and to the Italian locals who show her the high cost of American exceptionalism.