KIDS

In autumn, 1918, at the emotionally strangling confluence of a flu epidemic and rumors of imminent peace, Maureen Ross makes two important discoveries: She is married to an emotionally frozen tyrant, and she is pregnant with his child.

In this heart-wrenching novel, an art conservator returns to his childhood home after being caught in the turmoil of 9/11. From there, he has to learn about reconnecting with the past when the future is obviously so uncertain.

Respect for his elders, Southern charm, an ear for authentic dialogue, and a great sense of humor are Clyde Edgerton's trademarks. "Lunch at the Piccadilly" is no exception. Lil Olive, lively octogenarian, fetches up at the Rosehaven Convalescent Center after a bad fall, but she is not ready to pack it in. Instead, she befriends several of her peers, plans outings which she executes by stealing a car she insists is hers, and starts laying bets on whether or not Clara removes her glass eye at night

The Lowcountry comes back to life when Becca Sims wanders into the beautiful seaside Gallery Valentine hoping to sell some of her watercolors. With vivid, unforgettable characters, dreamy Lowcountry setting and an authentically brazen, compulsively readable Southrthern voice Frank delivers a story of a life transformed.

Landing a catch like Talmadge Evans III got Eloise "Weezie" Foley a jewel of a town house in Savannah's historic district. Divorcing Tal got her exited to the backyard carriage house, where she has launched a spite-fest with Tal's new fiance, the elegant Caroline DeSantos. An unauthorized sneak preview at an antiques sale lands Weezie smack in the middle of magnolia-scented murder, mayhem . . . and more.

The mystical landscape of oak groves and tidal rivers where dolphins play is home to 12-year-old Emily Parmenter, daughter of a struggling plantation owner whose only claim to success is his line of legendary Boykin hunting spaniels. Emily grieves the death of her cherished older brother while also coming to terms with her mother's desertion.

This novel reunites four college suitemates on a boat tour of the mighty Mississippi. Thirty-five years before, inspired by reading Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" in class, the women floated down the same river on a manmade. The story unfolds through the eyes of each woman as the old friends weave college memories with their own dramas spanning the three decades since graduation.

This elegiac novel, chronicling the life and death of idiosyncratic Murmur Lee Harp, showcases Fowler's easy, loose-limbed prose and sympathetic eye for human fallibility. Murmur Lee, 35, owns a popular local rundown bar in a North Florida backwater called Iris Haven and is skilled in the use of potions and spells. the story of this woman's life through the eyes of her motley bunch of friends and through the spirit of Murmur Lee as she looks back at her past life.