Thomas Hardy's first literary masterpiece, Far From the Madding Crowd is the story of free-spirited Bathsheba Everdene, whose bold independence attracts the attention of three suitors: the frugal shepherd Gabriel Oak, the lonely farmer William Boldwood, and the dashing young soldier Sergeant Francis Troy. Each man unsettles Bathsheba's life in some way, complicating her ideas of courtship and passion, and threatening to upset her quiet community....

In Gibbons's classic tale, a resourceful young heroine finds herself in the gloomy, overwrought world of a Hardy or Bronte novel and proceeds to organize everyone out of their romantic tragedies into the pleasures of normal life. Flora Poste, orphaned at 19, chooses to live with relatives at Cold Comfort Farm in Sussex, where cows are named Feckless, Aimless, Pointless, and Graceless, and the proprietors, the dour Starkadder family, are tyrannized...

Billington, Texas, is a place where nothing changes. Well, almost nothing. For the first time in nearly four decades, Mary Alice Roth is not getting ready for the first day of school at Billington High. A few months into her retirement Mary Alice does not know how to fill her days. At least there?s Ellie, who stops by each morning for coffee and whose reemergence in Mary Alice?s life is the one thing soothing the sting of retirement. Mary Alice and...

For years, Marcia Willett has touched readers with her poignant novels about the intricacies of friendship and family. Now, in The Summer House, she explores the secrets that families keep, and the decisions, made in an instant, that can change our lives. Matt has always felt that there was something missing in his life. His mother kept all his childhood memories in a small inlaid wooden box, along with many photos of Matt as a child. But, something...