"A sweeping and enchanting new novel from the widely beloved, award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken about three generations of an unconventional New England family who own and operate a candlepin bowling alley"--

When his family moves from Tucson, Arizona to Massachusetts, fifth-grader Ben has a hard time leaving the desert he loves, but when he finds a kindred spirit in his science teacher and ends up trying to help her with some of her problems, he finally begins to feel at home.

"A "brilliantly done" (Sunday Times, London) comedy of manners that explores the unease behind the manicured lawns of suburban America from the Orange Prize-winning author of A Crime in the Neighborhood. Littlefield, Massachusetts, named one of the Ten Best Places to Live in America, full of psychologists and college professors, is proud of its fine schools, its girls' soccer teams, its leafy streets, and charming village center. Yet no sooner has...

The lives of the people of the small town of Monroe, Massachusetts are shattered when beloved friend and neighbor Ethan Ford--a Little League coach, trusted contractor, doting husband and father, and heroic volunteer fireman--is arrested for a fifteen-year-old murder which he readily admits to committing.

Thirteen-year-olds Madeleine, Theo, and Lulu, fourteen-year-old Garrison, and ten-year-old new "contestant" Hyacinth, must face their phobias and join forces to learn who is stealing wigs and pageant trophies from the School of Fear.

When a reporter plans an exposé that could shut down the School of Fear, Garrison, Lulu, Madeleine, Theo and Hyacinth seek help from Bishop Basmati, head of the nearby Contrary Conservatory, whose hyperactive, fearless, and extremely impulsive students soon overrun the School of Fearians.

At the end of a winter-long journey into manhood, Little Hawk returns to find his village decimated by a white man's plague and soon, despite a fresh start, Little Hawk dies violently but his spirit remains trapped, seeing how his world changes.

"It's a crisp spring morning when the small-town community around Briar Ridge Elementary School is shattered by devastating news. Bright and shy five-year-old Nicole has disappeared at recess. When the phone call comes, Gia Marchand is suddenly living every parent's worst nightmare. She feels like time has stopped and she struggles to truly understand it: she dropped her daughter at the school gate this morning and now Nicole is gone. In her big house...

"Cam is finding the New Year just as hectic as the old one. Her sometimes rocky relationship with Chef Jake Ericsson is in a deep freeze, she's struggling to provide the promised amount of food to the subscribers in her first winter CSA, and her new greenhouse might just collapse from the weight of the snow. Supplying fresh ingredients for a dinner at the local assisted living facility seems like the least of her worries--until one of the elderly...

With the help of a stranger and the gift he brought them from India, the Halls foil an enemy's plan to build a Henry Thoreau theme park near their home.