"An extraordinary novel, a poetic writer, and a story that moved me to tears." —New York Times John Boyne, bestselling author of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
"I'm here to remember–all that I have been and all that I will never be again."
If you had to pick five people to sum up your life, who would they be? If you were to raise a glass to each of them, what would you say? And what would you learn

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Friends Snow Flower and Lily find solace in their bond as they face isolation, arranged marriages, loss, and motherhood in nineteenth-century China.

"A story of secrets, loss, and the betrayals of memory: a lyrical novel of an aging woman confronting her romantic past under the mysterious skies of her island home. Off the coast of Georgia, near Savannah, generations have been tempted by strange blue lights in the sky near an island called Lyra. At the height of WWII, impressionable young Elle Ranier comes to the island when her new husband, Simon, is dispatched by his industrialist father to find...

"From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author--now in the fiftieth year of her remarkable career--a brilliantly observed, joyful and wrenching, funny and true new novel that reveals, as only she can, the very nature of a family's life. "It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon." This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The whole family--their two daughters and two...

In the middle of planning her wedding to a professional golfer, Kara Larson pays a nursing home visit to ninety-six-year-old Maeve Mahoney, whose reminiscences about her first love back in Ireland prompt Kara to recall her own first love, childhood neighbor Jack Sullivan.

In 1956, toward the end of his life, Reverend John Ames begins a letter to his young son, sharing the story of his life and explaining how his faith influenced his choices and actions.

A cache of unsent love letters from the 1950s is found in a suitcase on a remote island. 1951. Esther Durrant, a young mother, is committed to an isolated mental asylum by her husband. Run by a pioneering psychiatrist, the hospital is at first Esther's prison but soon becomes her refuge. 2017. Free-spirited marine scientist Rachel Parker embarks on a research posting in the Isles of Scilly, off the Cornish coast. When a violent storm forces her to...

Grace Bradley went to work at Riverton House as a servant when she was just a girl, before the First World War. For years her life was inextricably tied up with the Hartford family, most particularly the two daughters, Hannah and Emmeline. In the summer of 1924, at a glittering society party held at the house, a young poet shot himself. The only witnesses were Hannah and Emmeline and only they--and Grace--know the truth. In 1999, when Grace is ninety-eight...

"England, 1870: His health failing, his most important work all but done, Charles Dickens is readying himself for the final bed. But there is still one more story that he must tell. As a young journalist just getting his start, Dickens encountered a story that would affect him for the rest of his life. As his "Sketches by Boz" column is just beginning to find acclaim, young Dickens encounters the wealthy and powerful Charles Wingate. While researching...

"In the summer of 1942, twenty-one-year-old Anne Calloway, newly engaged, sets off to serve in the Army Nurse Corps on the Pacific island of Bora-Bora. More exhilarated by the adventure of a lifetime than she ever was by her predictable fianč, she is drawn to a mysterious soldier named Westry, and their friendship soon blossoms into hues as deep as the hibiscus flowers native to the island. Under the thatched roof of an abandoned beach bungalow,...