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The Returned

Links to http://jasonmottauthor.com/.

Longbourn

Links to http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/231492/longbourn/.

The Returned by Jason Mott

In their old age, Harold and Lucille have settled comfortably into life without their son, who died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966. But then one day, Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep --- still eight years old. All over the world, people's loved ones are returning from beyond. The Hargraves are forced to navigate a mysterious new reality and a conflict that threatens to unravel the very meaning of what it is to be human.

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The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles by Katherine Pancol

When her chronically unemployed husband runs off to start a crocodile farm in Kenya with his mistress, Joséphine Cortès is forced to maintain a stable family life while making ends meet on her meager salary as a medieval history scholar. When Joséphine’s sister, Iris, charms a famous publisher into offering her a lucrative deal for a 12th-century romance, she offers Joséphine a deal of her own: Joséphine will write the novel and pocket all the proceeds, but the book will be published under Iris’s name. All is well --- that is, until the book becomes the literary sensation of the season.

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The Lost Art of Mixing by Erica Bauermeister

Lillian and her restaurant have a way of drawing people together. Among the cast of characters are Al, the accountant who finds meaning in numbers and ritual; Chloe, a budding chef who hasn’t learned to trust after heartbreak; Louise, Al’s wife, whose anger simmers just below the boiling point; and Isabelle, whose memories are slowly slipping from her grasp. And there’s Lillian herself, whose life has taken a turn she didn’t expect.

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: Antoinette van Heugten, author of The Tulip Eaters

Nov 4, 2013

Question: Where did you find your inspiration for writing THE TULIP EATERS?

Antoinette van Heugten: My parents were Dutch and fought in the Dutch resistance during World War II. Although they did not speak of it often, as children we heard stories of how our grandmother hid a Jewish boy in the cellar, how my mother transported microfiche on her bicycle and how my father had blown up munitions depots. We also were made well aware of the hardships their families and others suffered during the five years of Nazi occupation, particularly the starvation conditions during the “Hongerwinter” toward the end of the war. As such, I have always had a personal as well as an historical fascination with that time period. My parents’ heroism, demonstrated when they were only teenagers, was my initial inspiration. Reading the diaries and letters of so many Dutch people during the war inspired me further.

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Author Talk: Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief

Nov 4, 2013

Question: How did you become a writer?

Markus Zusak: When I was growing up, I wanted to be a house painter like my father, but I was always screwing up when I went to work with him. I had a talent for knocking over paint and painting myself into corners. I also realized fairly quickly that painting bored me. When I was a teenager, I read some books that brought me totally into their worlds. One was THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA and another was WHAT’S EATING GILBERT GRAPE. I was also inspired by S.E Hinton’s novels — THE OUTSIDERS at the start, but as time went on, more so by RUMBLE FISH. When I read those books, I thought, That’s what I want to do with my life. After many rejection letters, it took seven years to get published, and there were countless daily failures along they way as well. I’m glad those failures and rejections happened, though, because they made me realize that what I was writing just wasn’t good enough — I had to push myself to improve.

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