Such a Pretty Girl: a Captivating Historical Novel

Such a Pretty Girl: a Captivating Historical Novel

T. Greenwood

T. Greenwood

Perfect for fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid, Jodi Picoult, and Emma Cline, this vividly lyrical, evocative novel from the award-winning author transports readers to the gritty atmosphere of 1970s New York City as the precarious lines between girl and woman, art and obscenity, fetish and fame flicker and ignite for a young girl on the brink of stardom and a mother on the verge of collapse."A gorgeously written, emotionally resonant novel about mothers and daughters." —Jillian Cantor, USA Today bestselling author In 1970s New York, her innocence is seductive. Four decades later, it's a crime... Living peacefully in Vermont, Ryan Flannigan is shocked when a text from her oldest friend alerts her to a devastating news item. A controversial photo of her as a pre-teen has been found in the possession of a wealthy investor recently revealed as a pedophile and a sex trafficker—with an inscription to him from Ryan's mother on the...
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Keeping Lucy

Keeping Lucy

T. Greenwood

T. Greenwood

PopSugar's 30 Must-Read Books of 2019 Good Housekeeping's 25 Best New Books for Summer 2019Better Homes & Gardens 13 New Books We Can't Wait to Read This SummerThe heartbreaking and uplifting story, inspired by true events, of how far one mother must go to protect her daughter. Dover, Massachusetts, 1969. Ginny Richardson's heart was torn open when her baby girl, Lucy, born with Down Syndrome, was taken from her. Under pressure from his powerful family, her husband, Ab, sent Lucy away to Willowridge, a special school for the "feeble-minded." Ab tried to convince Ginny it was for the best. That they should grieve for their daughter as though she were dead. That they should try to move on. But two years later, when Ginny's best friend, Marsha, shows her a series of articles exposing Willowridge as a hell-on-earth—its squalid hallways filled with neglected children—she knows she can't leave her daughter...
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Where I Lost Her

Where I Lost Her

T. Greenwood

T. Greenwood

"Spellbinding. I loved everything about Where I Lost Her."--Mary Kubica, bestselling author of The Good GirlIn her page-turning new novel, T. Greenwood follows one woman's journey through heartbreak and loss to courage and resolve, as she searches for the truth about a missing child. Eight years ago, Tess and Jake were considered a power couple of the New York publishing world--happy, in love, planning a family. Failed fertility treatments and a heartbreaking attempt at adoption have fractured their marriage and left Tess edgy and adrift. A visit to friends in rural Vermont throws Tess's world into further chaos when she sees a young, half-dressed child in the middle of the road, who then runs into the woods like a frightened deer. The entire town begins searching for the little girl. But there are no sightings, no other witnesses, no reports of missing children. As local police and Jake point out, Tess's imagination has played her...
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Breathing Water

Breathing Water

T. Greenwood

T. Greenwood

Effie Greer watches the final days of summer play out from her grandparents' home in Lake Gormlaith, Vermont, with her boyfriend, Max. Despite the idyllic setting, Effie is hiding a secret. With a heated temper and shattered past, Max is headed toward self-destruction, and Effie, unwilling to let go, is close behind. Slowly, Effie begins to gain the strength necessary to leave the suffocating relationship. But on the evening she decides to go, Max's violence results in a tragic boating accident and the death of a child.Unable to deal with her role in that terrible August night, Effie drifts aimlessly from city to city. Only when she learns that Max has died of a heroin overdose does she find the strength to return to Lake Gormlaith and face the demons that have kept her away. No longer a naive young girl, Effie is now a woman desperately seeking absolution. She ultimately finds her chance in the most unlikely of people.From Publishers WeeklyThe specter of domestic violence haunts this poignant debut, as Effie Greer, a young woman in her 20s, struggles through an agonizing love relationship and its devastating aftermath. After learning of her abusive ex-boyfriend's death from a heroin overdose, waifish Effie returns from three "fugitive" years in Seattle to her grandmother's Vermont cabin on rural Lake Gormlaith. She had fled the idyllic lakeside to get away from Max, a violent alcoholic, after he accidentally caused the death of an 11-year-old black girl spending the summer with a lake family. Chapters alternate between Effie's return in 1994 and her years (1987-1991) with Max, providing contrast between the tenacious survivor Effie becomes and the self-destructive victim she was. She had not only failed to "help erase the scars" of Max's horrific childhood, but had become the object of his hatred, subsequently turning his malice onto herself in the form of anorexia. And she feels that her decision to leave Max may have contributed to the little girl's tragic drowning. But Effie is thrown some lifelines, reconnecting with a former schoolmate who herself had an abusive relationship. She discovers that the source of small, precious gifts left on her doorstep (a perfect robin's nest, tadpoles, a jar of fireflies) is Devin Jackson, a young black artist and carpenter. By the time Effie realizes Devin's relationship to the drowned girl, she is ready to lay ghosts to rest. The vulnerable and childlike Effie vacillates between extremes of despair and faith, the uplifting ending waxes maudlin in places and Effie's triumph can seem platitudinous. Despite her occasional overreliance on these extremes, Greenwood sensitively and painstakingly unravels her protagonist's self-loathing and replaces it with a graceful dignity. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. From BooklistGreenwood takes time to tell the full story of Effie Greer's return home after three years' absence to her family's lake cabin in Vermont. Her childhood (with loving parents, grandparents, and friends), the abusive relationship she endured for several years, the all-too-painful summer she spends at the lake, and her coming to terms with her adult self are all revealed in pieces and out-of-time sequence but in a way that brings us to know Effie and appreciate her in spite of her flaws and quirks. The lake has been the scene of her best and worst times and is now the scene of her emotional recovery and rebirth. (Lake Gormlaith, which isn't on the map, could be so named as a linguistic game the author is playing with her readers. Does it mean "foolish" or "fool-hating" or nothing at all?) Greenwood does a good job of creating characters of depth and charm in a story that is complex and engaging. This is an impressive first novel. Danise Hoover
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The Golden Hour

The Golden Hour

T. Greenwood

T. Greenwood

"Richly told and hauntingly beautiful, The Golden Hour was impossible to put down." —Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times & USA Today bestselling authorOn a spring afternoon long ago, thirteen-year-old Wyn Davies took a shortcut through the woods in her New Hampshire hometown and became a cautionary tale. Now, twenty years later, she lives in New York, on the opposite side of a duplex from her ex, with their four-year-old daughter shuttling between them. Wyn makes her living painting commissioned canvases of birch trees to match her clients' furnishings. But the nagging sense that she has sold her artistic soul is soon eclipsed by a greater fear. Robby Rousseau, who has spent the past two decades in prison for a terrible crime against her, may be released based on new DNA evidence—unless Wyn breaks her silence about that afternoon. To clear her head, refocus her painting, and escape an even more present threat, Wyn...
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Rust & Stardust

Rust & Stardust

T. Greenwood

T. Greenwood

Camden, NJ, 1948. When 11 year-old Sally Horner steals a notebook from the local Woolworth's, she has no way of knowing that 52 year-old Frank LaSalle, fresh out of prison, is watching her, preparing to make his move. Accosting her outside the store, Frank convinces Sally that he’s an FBI agent who can have her arrested in a minute—unless she does as he says.This chilling novel traces the next two harrowing years as Frank mentally and physically assaults Sally while the two of them travel westward from Camden to San Jose, forever altering not only her life, but the lives of her family, friends, and those she meets along the way.Based on the experiences of real-life kidnapping victim Sally Horner and her captor, whose story shocked the nation and inspired Vladimir Nabokov to write his controversial and iconic Lolita, this heart-pounding story by award-winning author T. Greenwood at last gives a voice to Sally herself.
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Undressing the Moon

Undressing the Moon

T. Greenwood

T. Greenwood

At thirty, Piper Kincaid feels too young to be dying. Cancer has eaten away her strength. Yet with all the questions of her future before her, she's adrift in the past, remembering the fateful summer she turned fourteen and her life changed forever. What Piper dreaded came to pass: her restless, artistic mother, finally left. She had a brother who loved her, but her mother's absence, her father's distance, and a volatile secret threatened to destroy everything... Now Piper is once again left with the jagged pieces of a shattered life. If she is ever going to survive, she'll have to begin with the summer that broke them all...
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Bodies of Water

Bodies of Water

T. Greenwood

T. Greenwood

"Greenwood is a writer of subtle strength. . .finding light in the darkest of stories." —Publishers Weekly on Two RiversIn 1960, Billie Valentine is a young housewife living in a sleepy Massachusetts suburb, treading water in a dull marriage and caring for two adopted daughters. Summers spent with the girls at their lakeside camp in Vermont are her one escape—from her husband's demands, from days consumed by household drudgery, and from the nagging suspicion that life was supposed to hold something different.Then a new family moves in across the street. Ted and Eva Wilson have three children and a fourth on the way, and their arrival reignites long-buried feelings in Billie. The affair that follows offers a solace Billie has never known, until her secret is revealed and both families are wrenched apart in the tragic aftermath.Fifty years later, Ted and Eva's son, Johnny, contacts an elderly but still spry Billie, entreating her to return east...
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Grace

Grace

T. Greenwood

T. Greenwood

Every family photograph hides a story. Some are suffused with warmth and joy, others reflect the dull ache of disappointed dreams. For thirteen-year-old Trevor Kennedy, taking photos helps make sense of his fractured world. His father, Kurt, struggles to keep a business going while also caring for Trevor's aging grandfather, whose hoarding has reached dangerous levels. Trevor's mother, Elisabeth, all but ignores her son while doting on his five-year-old sister, Gracy, and pilfering useless drugstore items. Trevor knows he can count on little Gracy's unconditional love and his art teacher's encouragement. None of that compensates for the bullying he has endured at school for as long as he can remember. But where Trevor once silently tolerated the jabs and name-calling, now anger surges through him in ways he's powerless to control. Only Crystal, a store clerk dealing with her own loss, sees the deep fissures in the Kennedy family - in the haunting photographs Trevor brings to be developed, and in the palpable distance between Elisabeth and her son. And as their lives become more intertwined, each will be pushed to the breaking point, with shattering, unforeseeable consequences.
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