Leesa Cross-Smith Knihy

A lush, glittering short story collection exploring female obsession and desire by an award-winning author Roxane Gay calls "a consummate storyteller."

From the award-winning Southern writer who Roxane Gay calls "a consummate storyteller" comes a cathartic novel about the life-changing weekend shared between two strangers: a therapist and the man she prevents from ending his life. On a rainy October night in Kentucky, recently divorced therapist Tallie Clark is on her way home from work when she spots a man precariously standing on the side of a bridge. Without a second thought, Tallie pulls over and jumps out of the car into the pouring rain. She convinces the man to join her for a cup of coffee, and he eventually agrees to come back to her house, where he finally shares his name: Emmett. Over the course of the emotionally charged weekend that follows, Tallie makes it her mission to provide a safe space for Emmett, though she hesitates to confess that this is also her day job. But what she doesn't realize is that he's not the only one who needs healing -- and she's not the only one with secrets. Alternating between Tallie and Emmett's perspectives as they inch closer to the truth of what brought Emmett to the bridge's edge -- as well as the hard truths Tallie has been grappling with in her own life -- This Close to Okay is a vibrant, powerful story of two strangers brought together by wild chance at the moment they needed each other most.

"Taking inspiration from the infamous, empowering song, Goodbye Earl follows four best friends through two unforgettable summers, fifteen years apart. In 2004, Rosemarie, Ada, Caroline, and Kasey are in their final days of high school and on the precipice of all the things teenagers look forward to when anything in life seems possible . . . from falling in love, to finding their dream jobs, to becoming who they were meant to be. In 2019, Kasey has returned to her small Southern hometown of Goldie for the first time since high school-and she still hasn't told even her closest friends the truth of what really happened that summer after graduation, or what made her leave so abruptly without looking back. Now reunited with her friends in Goldie for a wedding, she's determined to focus on the simple joy of being together again. But when she notices troubling signs that one of them might be in danger, she is catapulted back to that fateful summer. This time, Kasey refuses to let the worst moments of her past define her; this time, she knows how to protect those she loves at all costs. Uplifting, sharp-edged, and unapologetic, Goodbye Earl is a funeral for all the "Earls" out there-the abusive men who think they can get away with anything, but are wrong-and a celebration of enduring sisterhood"-- Provided by publisher

'Sharp-edged and sexy, Half-Blown Rose is an utterly intoxicating story of love, betrayal, and loyalty' Taylor Jenkins Reid After learning a shocking truth about her husband's past, forty-four-year-old Vincent Wilde moves to Paris determined to build a new life. She's soon teaching modern art and enjoying a vibrant group of friends-but when she meets a charismatic young man named Loup, her life in the city becomes more thrilling than she'd ever imagined. Somewhere between dinners made together, cigarettes smoked in the moonlight, sexy evenings in nightclubs and long romantic walks along the Seine, Vincent feels herself blossoming. However, as her affair with Loup intensifies, she begins to wonder about their age difference-a hurdle that's heightened by the fact she's due to see her estranged husband Cillian again at their son's wedding in the summer... An irresistibly romantic story of a woman remaking her life on her own terms, shot through with nostalgic 90s and 00s playlists and fizzling atmosphere of Paris