New Releases by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Arley Mowbray is young, smart, and lonely. Very lonely. And then she strikes up a correspondence with a prison inmate—and, under the spell of his poetic, seductive letters, falls helplessly, stubbornly in love. Annie Singer is a tough, dedicated Texas lawyer hired to help Arley unite with her beloved. She does so, but against her own better judgment—and soon she’s caught up in this disturbing and dangerous romance, and in her feelings for Arley, who’s become the daughter she never had. When Dillon LeGrande comes after the girl he loves, Arley finds herself both aching for his touch and fearing for her life. And Annie begins to question her own choices—and to wonder what price she would pay for passion.

For ten years of Sunday mornings, readers of Jacquelyn Mitchard’s newspaper column, “The Rest of Us,” have been calling their mothers, boyfriends and sisters to say, “See? That’s exactly what I meant!” Mitchard’s clear-eyed takes on everyday life in process are described over and over as “a letter from home,” as “the best friend I can really count on,” and as “the kind of story you tell at the coffee machine—and keep under your pillow.” Jacquelyn Mitchard reaches for heart and mind simultaneously, with both wit and nostalgia but never with sentimentality. Whether writing of gun laws and garage sales, the loneliness of the long-haul single mother, fear of gardening, or the late great American game of baseball, Mitchard stresses the personal stake each of us has in the stand-up drama of daily life. The single mother of five children, she shares her own family’s dramas and epiphanies—her own mother’s tradition of optimism based on nothing, the early death of her husband, the adoption of her baby daughter, as well as the great wheeling issues that confound Americans every day.

"Masterful...A big story about human connection and emotional survival" - Los Angeles Times The first book ever chosen by Oprah''s Book Club Few first novels receive the kind of attention and acclaim showered on this powerful story—a nationwide bestseller, a critical success, and the first title chosen for Oprah''s Book Club. Both highly suspenseful and deeply moving, The Deep End of the Ocean imagines every mother''s worst nightmare—the disappearance of a child—as it explores a family''s struggle to endure, even against extraordinary odds. Filled with compassion, humor, and brilliant observations about the texture of real life, here is a story of rare power, one that will touch readers'' hearts and make them celebrate the emotions that make us all one.

Allie Kim suffers from Xeroderma Pigmentosum: a fatal allergy to sunlight that confines her and her two best friends, Rob and Juliet, to the night. When freewheeling Juliet takes up Parkour—the stunt-sport of scaling and leaping off tall buildings—Allie and Rob have no choice but to join her, if only to protect her. Though potentially deadly, Parkour after dark makes Allie feel truly alive, and for the first time equal to the “daytimers.”
 
On a random summer night, the trio catches a glimpse of what appears to be murder. Allie alone takes it upon herself to investigate, and the truth comes at an unthinkable price. Navigating the shadowy world of specialized XP care, extreme sports, and forbidden love, Allie ultimately uncovers a secret that upends everything she believes about the people she trusts the most.