New York Times bestselling author Caroline Leavitt returns with a tantalizing, courageous story about mothers and daughters, guilt and innocence, and the lengths we go for love. As a teenager, for a moment, Ella Fitchburg found love—yearning, breathless love—that consumed both her and her boyfriend, Jude, as they wandered the streets of New York City together. But her glorious life was pulled out from beneath her after she was accused of trying to murder Jude’s father, an imperious superior court judge. When she learns she’s pregnant shortly after receiving a long prison sentence, she reluctantly decides to give up the child. Ella is released from prison after serving only six years and is desperate to turn the page on a new life, but she can’t seem to let go of her past. With only an address as a possible lead, she moves to Ann Arbor, Michigan, determined to get her daughter back. Hiding her identity and living in a constant...

A beautifully wrought and sharply detailed story of the intertwining lives of two women: Duse, a strong-willed psychic and Isadora, her daughter, who struggles to find her own identity. A masterful evocation of the complex network of expectation, love, rebellion and need that is at the core of every mother-daughter relationship.

An inspired story of growing up ordinary—and extraordinary—in the Boston suburbs. Meeting Rozzy Halfway follows a family falling apart at the seams when one daughter descends into madness and the second daughter tries to protect her. A shattering story of love, power and madness.

"A gorgeous, seductive novel that is also terrifying and pulse-pounding." —Wiley Cash, author of The Dark Road to Mercy"Backdropped by the Vietnam War and the Manson murders, Cruel Beautiful World is a fast-moving page-turner about the naïveté of youth and the malignity of power. Leavitt exploreswith a keen eye the intersection of love, family, and the anxiety of an era." —Lily King, author of Euphoria Sixteen-year-old Lucy Gold is about to run away with a much older man to live off the grid in rural Pennsylvania, a rash act that will have vicious repercussions for both her and her older sister, Charlotte. As Lucy's default parent for most of their lives, Charlotte has seen her youth marked by the burden of responsibility, but never more so than when Lucy's dream of a rural paradise turns into a nightmare. Cruel Beautiful World examines the intricate, infinitesimal distance between...

It can take a long time to build up a life, and only moments to destroy it. Gary and Molly met in the way couples do: after a long haul of being single, quickly becoming soulmates and rejoicing in that fact. Beautiful, red-haired Molly ignites a fire in Gary and he eases the pain she feels about her past. Starting a family is something they both want badly to do, and with great joy, Molly finds herself pregnant.It is when she leaves for the hospital that things start to go wrong. Only a few weeks later, alone with a newborn and a mountain of medical bills he has no means to pay for, Gary must call on Molly's long estranged sister Suzanne to help. Many authors have tackled the challenges of love and marriage. Caroline Leavitt claims the turf in her own exciting way, twisting and turning a medical nightmare into an opportunity for redemption and hope, in Coming Back to Me.

Sara is sixteen and pregnant. Her once-devoted boyfriend seems to have disappeared, so she decides her best and only option is an open adoption with George and Eva, a couple desperate for a child. After the birth it's clear Sara has a bond with the child that Eva can't seem to duplicate. When it seems that Sara cannot let go, Eva and George make a drastic decision, with devastating consequences for all of them.From Publishers WeeklyLeavitt's uneven but earnest eighth novel examines the emotional price a bright Massachusetts teen pays when she chooses "open" adoption for a baby she gives birth to at 16. It's 1987, and smart Sara Rothman has fallen in love with "black sheep" Danny Slade. When he vanishes after learning she's pregnant, Sara gives the baby up. Leavitt (Coming Back to Me) poignantly depicts the consequences of that choice for everyone concerned: Sara, who misses her baby and Danny both; Abby and Jack, Sara's well-meaning parents; Danny, the young father; George and Eva Rivers, the attentive but naive adoptive couple; and Anne, the child. At first, Sara visits the Riverses daily-she loves Anne, and the Riverses had cared for her while she was pregnant. But her presence becomes intrusive, and eventually, Eva takes a stand: "We adopted Anne," she tells Sara. "We didn't adopt you." Sara then makes a desperate attempt to steal the infant, and when she's found, the Riverses move and deny Sara visiting rights ("Open adoptions are only enforceable in Oregon," a lawyer tells her). Fifteen years pass, and Leavitt's focus wavers; a fuzzy reunion between Danny and Sara is particularly unconvincing. The novel's portrait of dreamy, adolescent Anne and her relationship with the older Riverses is sharper, as is the realistic, bumpy reunion of birth mother and daughter. An unflinching depiction of maternal need and the dynamics of adoption, this tale is a sharp reminder of the importance of honesty in life decisions.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Bookmarks MagazineGirls in Trouble flaunts "all the ingredients for a Lifetime television drama" (The Pittsburgh Post Gazette). In this earnest but uneven work, that's a compliment. Reviewers agree that Leavitt's eighth novel skips over one decisive event too lightly, then unconvincingly leaps forward 15 years. Leavitt has mined this territory before--the slow maturation of a lovesick girl. It's not a very remarkable journey, but the author handles it with sensitivity. The Washington Post calls Girls "a canny portrait of the trouble perfectly ordinary people can get into while trying to satisfy their perfectly ordinary needs for love and security and happiness." It's sure to appeal to Jacquelyn Mitchard fans. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

In 1956, Ava Lark rents a house with her twelve-year-old son, Lewis, in a desirable Boston suburb. Ava is beautiful, divorced, Jewish, and a working mom. She finds her neighbors less than welcoming. Lewis yearns for his absent father, befriending the only other fatherless kids: Jimmy and Rose. One afternoon, Jimmy goes missing. The neighborhood—in the throes of Cold War paranoia—seizes the opportunity to further ostracize Ava and her son.Years later, when Lewis and Rose reunite to untangle the final pieces of the tragic puzzle, they must decide: Should you tell the truth even if it hurts those you love, or should some secrets remain buried?Review"From the lockstep '50s into the do-your-own-thing '60s, Caroline Leavitt follows her cast of lonely characters as they grapple with the sorrowful mystery of a missing child. 'Are any of our children safe?' one asks, and of course the answer is no, no one is. Like Mona Simpson's Off Keck Road, Is This Tomorrow is an intimate meditation on time, loss and destiny."Stewart O'Nan, author of Emily, Alone and The Odds*"Heart-wrenching..sympathetic. This tale of domestic suspense builds to a shocking climax and will appeal to anyone immersed in suburban lore." Library Journal"When a 12-year-old boy disappears from his suburban Boston neighborhood, ripples spread. The mystery is set up early, so there is plenty of time to get involved and invested in characters you care about, or are distrustful of, or ones whose motives you question. The overwhelming arc of the story is for these characters you come to feel protective of to get beyond the tragedy. How can you get to tomorrow when time is forever stuck on one tragic day? You want them to find their tomorrows. And thanks to great writing, I was pulling for them all the way."Candace Purdom, Anderson's Bookshop"In the spirit of Richard Yates' novel Revolutionary Road, Caroline Leavitt peels back the neat façade of suburban life in the 1950s to uncover the ways in which the demands of conformity leave a trail of loneliness and pain for those who lie outside its bounds. Blending taut suspense with deeply moving portrayals of fierce parental love, childhood friendships and first crushes, Leavitt has created a novel with haunting characters and much to say about how we move through tragedy. "Libby Cowles, Maria's BookshopLeavitt has a way of crafting the loveliest novels out of tragedy. Like its predecessor, Pictures of You (2011), her latest work, set mainly in the 1950s, turns on a single fateful incident: the disappearance of 12-year-old Jimmy Rearson. It's her examination of loss, grief, and disappointment that will engross readers.  But Leavitt's most captivating creation is the mercurial Ava, an accidental trailblazer who refuses to deny her dreams. It is Ava, ultimately, who points the way forward, showing there's no shame in putting ghosts to rest. -- Patty Wetli, Boolist"Arresting, skillful, magical. Leavitt's wonderful narrative works as almost a parable for that complicated and uncertain era, teaching and warning her readers even as she entertains them."Skip Horack, The San Francisco Chronicle"An eminently satisfying read. Leavitt provides no easy answers about how we can compensate for loss, but she engages our heart."Kathryn Lang, The Boston Globe"Giving the book an "enthusiastic thumbs up," Wally Lamb credits Leavitt with a "Mad Men-like examination of shifting midcentury American values."Mary Polis, MSN Entertainment Page Turner“Riveting.” —*Vanity Fair“[T]aut and resonant mystery.”—Barnes & Noble Review“Leavitt is a lovely writer and here she tells an absorbing story.”—New York Daily News*"Not only is [Leavitt] an incredibly accomplished novelist, she's also a crackerjack human being." —The Huffington Post*"Leavitt has a way of crafting the loveliest novels out of tragedy ... It's her examination of loss, grief, and disappointment that will engross readers." —Booklist"This tale of domestic suspense builds to a shocking climax and will appeal to anyone immersed in suburban lore."* *—Library Journal*(Review) **Review"When someone disappears, what happens to the people who are left behind? This is the central, heartbreaking question in Caroline Leavitt's exquisite new book. With characters so real they feel technicolor, a plot that beats like a racing pulse, and prose so lovely that sometimes I found myself repeating the words out loud, Is This Tomorrow is the novel you need to read today." --Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of The Storyteller and Lone Wolf(Jodi Picoult) *

Critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Caroline Leavitt explores the family ties that bind—and garrote—in two haunting stories. In "The Wrong Sister," a younger sister yearns to be like her elder one, right down to cozying up to her boyfriend, with startling results. In "The Last Vacation," a family finds itself imploding during a sunny Cape Cod vacation, and nothing will ever be the same. Moody, funny, and full of insights about what makes a family.Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow, Pictures of You, and eight other novels. Is This Tomorrow was a January magazine Best Book of 2013, a May Indie Next Pick, and a San Francisco Chronicle Lit Pick. Pictures of You was a Costco Pennie's Pick and was on the Best Books of 2013 lists by Kirkus Reviews, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Providence Journal, and Bookmarks magazine...

Leavitt's extraordinary novel is the story of orphan Nick Austen's lifelong search for love and family with the three women in his life: his first love, his wife, and his teenaged daughter.