As girls they had rejoiced in a world where dreams are born. . until the fateful day that changed their lives forever. Now grown women, the Season sisters-Jillian, Beatrice and Rose-have lost the ability to believe in life and in themselves. As they gather for the funeral of their youngest sister, Merry, they are reminded of a painful event from long ago, one that inspires a cross-country journey to find a stranger who might have the power to mend...

"Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alice Walker's iconic modern classic is now a Penguin Book." A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty...

"Alexandra, daughter of a Swedish immigrant farmer in Nebraska, inherits the family farm and finds love with an old friend." "The heroic battle for survival of simple pioneer folk in the Nebraska country of the 1880s. John Bergson, a Swedish farmer, struggles desperately with the soil but dies unsatisfied. His daughter Alexandra resolves to vindicate his faith, and her strong character carries her weak older brothers and her mother alng to a new zest...

"The best-selling author of Girl Waits with Gun and Lady Cop Makes Trouble continues her extraordinary journey into the real lives of the forgotten but fabulous Kopp sisters ... Deputy sheriff Constance Kopp is outraged to see young women brought into the Hackensack jail over dubious charges of waywardness, incorrigibility, and moral depravity. The strong-willed, patriotic Edna Heustis, who left home to work in a munitions factory, certainly doesn't...

As children in foster care, Cecilia and Robin vowed they would be the sisters each had never had. Now superstar singer-songwriter Cecilia lives life on the edge, but when Robin is nearly killed in an accident, Cecilia drops everything to be with her. Robin set aside her career as a successful photojournalist to create the loving family she always yearned for. But gazing through a wide-angle lens at both past and future, she sees that her marriage...

"It's 1969, and sixteen-year-old Lucy is about to run away with a much older man to live off the grid in rural Pennsylvania, a rash act that will have frightening repercussions for both her and her older sister, Charlotte. As Lucy's default caretaker for most of their lives, Charlotte has always been burdened by having to be the responsible one, but never more so than when Lucy's dream of a rural paradise turns into a nightmare."--

Strikingly different since childhood and leading dissimilar lives now, sisters Frances and Cynthia have managed to remain "devoted"-as long as they stay on opposite coasts. When Frances arranges to host Thanksgiving at her idyllic New England farmhouse, she envisions a happy family reunion, one that will include the sisters' long-estranged father. Cynthia, however, doesn't understand how Frances can ignore the past their father's presence revives,...

Chronicles the not-quite-parallel lives of Dana Lynn Yarboro and Bunny Chaurisse Witherspoon in 1980s Atlanta. Both girls-born four months apart-are the daughters of James Witherspoon, a secret bigamist, but only Dana and her mother, Gwen, are aware of his double life. This, Dana surmises, confers "one peculiar advantage" to her and Gwen over James's other family, with whom he lives full time, though such knowledge is small comfort in the face of...

"For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella's childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents-moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella's own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted.In her rugged Italian village, Stella is considered an oddity-beautiful and smart, insolent and cold. Stella uses her peculiar toughness to protect...

"When Pandora picks up her older brother Edison at her local Iowa airport, she literally doesn't recognize him. In the four years since the siblings last saw one another, the once slim, hip New York jazz pianist has gained hundred of pounds. What happened? And it's not just the weight. After his brother-in-law has more than overstayed his welcome, Pandora's husband, Fletcher, delivers an ultimatum: it's him or me. Putting her marriage and her adopted...