Selected Novels Volume Two

Two unforgettable novels from the author of the New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection, Songs in Ordinary Time, ';a writer to reckon with' (The Washington Post). The highly acclaimed novelist Mary McGarry Morris has been hailed as ';a credible heir to Carson McCullers... a wise, unsentimental portraitist of the lonely, the damned, the desperate and the incomplete' (The New York Times Book Review) as well as ';a cross between Elizabeth Gaskell and David Lynch' (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). In the two powerful novels collected here, Morris offers compassionate accounts of damaged and desperate people struggling to survive. The Lost Mother: Told from the perspective of twelve-year-old Thomas, The Lost Mother follows a shattered family in rural Vermont during the Great Depression. Deserted by their mother, Thomas and his eight-year-old sister, Margaret, are reduced to living in a tent with their father, Henry. When a wealthy neighbor begins to woo the children as companions for her strange, housebound son, Henry weighs an unexpected proposition, the consequences of which may cost him everything. ';A perfectly lovely book about perfectly awful things.' The Washington Post ';The author paints a brutal landscape and authentic characters with delicacy and precision.' Publishers Weekly A Dangerous Woman:Named one of the five best novels of the year by Time magazine Emotionally unstable Martha Hogan is an outcast in her small Vermont town. She stares; she has violent crushes on people; and perhaps most unsettling, she cannot stop telling the truth. After a traumatic experience in her teens, the thirty-two-year-old now craves love and companionship. But her relentless honesty makes her painfully vulnerable to those around her, including her wealthy aunt and begrudging guardian, and a seductive man who preys on her desires. Bitter and distrusting, Martha is slowly propelled into a desperate attempt to gain control over her life. ';Thrilling and deeply affecting.' Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times ';A powerful, disconcerting, and heartbreaking story of a woman who is most dangerous to herself.' Library Journal