New England Literature

Lizzy Moon never wanted Moon Girl Farm. Eight years ago, she left the land that nine generations of gifted healers had tended, determined to distance herself from the whispers about her family’s strange legacy. But when her beloved grandmother Althea dies, Lizzy must return and face the tragedy still hanging over the farm’s withered lavender fields: the unsolved murders of two young girls, and the cruel accusations that followed Althea to her grave.

A revelation for Moby-Dick devotees and neophytes alike, Ahab's Rolling Sea is a chronological journey through the natural history of Melville's novel. From white whales to whale intelligence, giant squids, barnacles, albatross, and sharks, Richard J. King examines what Melville knew from his own experiences and the sources available to a reader in the mid-1800s, exploring how and why Melville might have twisted what was known to serve his fiction.

In 1631 Elizabeth Winthrop, newly widowed with an infant daughter, set sail for the New World. Against a background of rigidity and conformity she dared to befriend Anne Hutchinson at the moment of her banishment from the Massachusetts Bay Colony; dared to challenge a determined army captain bent on the massacre of her friends, the Siwanoy Indians; and, above all, dared to love a man as her heart and her whole being commanded.

Drawing on the diaries of one woman in 18th-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier. Between 1785 and 1812, a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine.

Isabel Gibson has all but perfected the art of forgetting. She’s a New Yorker now, with nothing left to tie her to Brinkley’s Island, Maine. Her parents are gone, the family bookstore is all but bankrupt, and her sister, Sophie, will probably never speak to her again. But when a mysterious letter arrives in her mailbox, Isabel feels herself drawn to the past. After years of fighting for her independence, she dreads the thought of going back to the island.

When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave—only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets.

In 1760, Deborah Samson is born to Puritan parents in Plympton, Massachusetts. When her father abandons the family and her mother is unable to support them, Deborah is bound out as an indentured servant. From that moment on, she yearns for a life of liberation and adventure. Twenty years later, as the American colonies begin to buckle in their battle for independence, Deborah, impassioned by the cause, disguises herself as a soldier and enlists in the Continental Army.

For better or for worse. When I said those words in front of the pastor, I meant them. But that was before everything changed. Before it became clear that my wife would be better off without me. I had no choice but to sabotage us, and that was exactly what I did. Even though I pushed Paige to leave, it still hurt like hell, watching her do it. I’d never love another woman for as long as I lived. She was it for me. I guess those are the sacrifices we make for the people we love. And if I couldn’t make her dreams come true, I had no right to keep her. Not completely anyway.

As a single father, I often feel like the weight of the world sits on my shoulders. When my daughter’s nanny gives me her two weeks’ notice, I’m sweating bullets. Fear that my NHL season with the New England Bay Sharks could be derailed consumes me. Finding a replacement seems impossible when, suddenly, Maci McKenzie—a struggling author who’s running from some deep, dark secret in her past—steps into the picture. She needs a change of scenery to help her write, and I just need someone who isn’t a complete weirdo to watch my kid when I’m not around.

Reeling from a frustrating diagnosis, TwinFin surfwear mogul Ansel Wolf must drastically change his dietary habits. On a trip to Berks County, Pennsylvania, his life is forever changed when he meets Velda Yoder, a meek Amish beauty with a knack for healthy meals. With the end of her Rumspringa looming, Ansel offers her a temporary job as a cook in Rhode Island. Velda accepts, hoping to experience more of the world before her baptism and lifetime commitment to the rigid Ordnung.

So much for fresh starts. When single mom Liv and her third-grade daughter move to a small New Hampshire town from Boston after a messy divorce and an even messier job loss, they soon find themselves dealing with major culture shock. Within days, Liv is on the “problem” list of the man who acts both as principal and superintendent in her district, and he shuts down her concerns at a school board meeting. Liv’s daughter, who suffers from anxiety, struggles to adapt at a school run like an army barracks.

Chrissie is eight and she has a secret: she has just killed a boy. The feeling made her belly fizz like soda pop. Her playmates are tearful and their mothers are terrified, keeping them locked indoors. But Chrissie rules the roost - she's the best at wall-walking, she knows how to get free candy, and now she has a feeling of power that she never gets at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer.

Ria lived on Tara Road in Dublin with her dashing husband, Danny, and their two children. She fully believed she was happily married, right up until the day Danny told her he was leaving her to be with his young, pregnant girlfriend. By a chance phone call, Ria meets Marilyn, a woman from New England unable to come to terms with her only son's death and now separated from her husband. The two women exchange houses for the summer with extraordinary consequences, each learning that the other has a deep secret that can never be revealed.

In a cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow has begun the last book he will ever write. It is the story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay, and the blood-stained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay. And how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades, forever shaping their lives.

Rhode Island, 1846. Estranged from his family, writer Merritt Fernsby is surprised when he inherits a remote estate in the Narragansett Bay. Though the property has been uninhabited for more than a century, Merritt is ready to call it home—until he realizes he has no choice. With its doors slamming shut and locking behind him, Whimbrel House is not about to let Merritt leave. Ever.

Devorah Campbell’s life falls apart under the pressure of one truth: her husband is having an affair with her best friend. So Devorah packs up her daughter and their shared heartbreak for small-town Oyster Bay, where she grew up. Her relationship with her father is still on the rocks, but Devorah has her brother there—and, unexpectedly, her brother’s best friend.

It’s true what they say—you really are wiser when you’re older, because I’ve hated my younger self for years. After leaving behind the girl that I spent my entire life loving from afar, younger me deserves the hate, though. But when her dad told me I was ruining her life, I let my own insecurities consume me and knew I had to set her free.

In a manner evoking Ian McEwan's Atonement and Nick Hornby's About a Boy, acclaimed author Joyce Maynard weaves a beautiful, poignant tale of love, sex, adolescence, and devastating treachery as seen through the eyes of a young teenage boy - and the man he later becomes - looking back at an unexpected encounter that begins one single, long, hot, life-altering weekend.

Life as a professional hockey player keeps me plenty busy, and yet it often feels like I’m on autopilot as the world passes me by. I suppose I can’t complain. I have the honor of calling myself a New England Bay Shark, so I have more than enough money to buy some form of happiness. Sleeping around with beautiful women may come with the territory, but I’ve never taken the time to actually get to know any of them.

It is 1642 in the Puritan town of Boston. Hester Prynne has been found guilty of adultery and has born an illegitimate child. In lieu of being put to death, she is condemned to wear the scarlet letter "A" on her dress as a reminder of her shameful act.