Illness Fiction

What would you do if your dead sister sent you postcards? I've struggled to get my life back on track after a lifetime of despair, addiction, and loss. I finally have it all. A bustling business, a home, my health, and time with my beloved daughter Sophie. But that tenuous balance is tipped when my twin Jane's postcard arrives in the mail. My family thinks she's dead. They want to put it all behind them. But how can I agree when the evidence is right in front of me? When my nagging little sister provokes my rebellious teenager to run away, I am forced to confront the past I've wanted to ...

A prizewinning, semi-autobiographical debut novel that explores a young woman’s struggle with mental illness at Oxford University in the 1950s—for readers of Ottessa Moshfegh, Melissa Broder, and Sally Rooney. At a tea party at Oxford University in the 1950s, earnest undergraduates in floral...

When Mariah Kimball inherits a seaside house from a great-grandmother she never knew existed, she steps into a world steeped in mystery and family secrets. Cora Warren's tragic story is a tapestry of betrayal, loss, and the haunting legacy of a death ruled an accident—one that Detective Jerry Keating was convinced was murder. As Mariah settles into Cora's old house, she is unnerved to discover that its former residents—Cora, her daughter Meghan, and granddaughter Kathleen—appear to relive pivotal moments from their lives. These spectral visits unveil a dark history, revealing how ...

During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with her widowed mother and grandfather. Mattie spends her days avoiding chores and making plans to turn the family business into the finest Philadelphia has ever seen. But then the fever breaks out. Disease sweeps the streets, destroying everything in its path and turning Mattie's world upside down. At her feverish mother's insistence, Mattie flees the city with her grandfather. But she soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in a city frantic with disease.

Pat Conroy is without doubt America's favorite storyteller, a writer who portrays the anguished truth of the human heart and the painful secrets of families in richly lyrical prose and unforgettable narratives. Now, in Beach Music, he tells of the dark memories that haunt generations, in a story...

Thirteen-year-old Steven has a totally normal life (well, almost): he drums in the All-Star Jazz Band, has a crush on the hottest girl in school (who doesn’t know he’s alive), frequently finds himself sitting across from his school counselor (who bribes him with candy), and is constantly annoyed by his five-year-old brother, Jeffrey (who is cuter than cute). But when Jeffrey gets sick, Steven’s world is turned upside down as he is forced to deal with his brother’s illness, his parents’ attempts to keep the family in one piece, the band, overdue homework, girls, and of course, Dangerous Pie.

After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises. The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles.

**National Bestseller** A “riveting page-turner” (Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee) about a young woman diagnosed with bipolar disorder who rejects the stability and approval found in a traditionally “normal” life for a career in stand-up comedy...

Michael Greer is a second-generation fire chief and a single dad of a precocious 11-year old, so there’s not much that scares him. (Admittedly, more because of the second than the first.) When Pine Island’s new craft shop owner accidentally backs into his car, he takes that in stride too. And does what any fire chief would do. Invite her out on a date. It doesn’t take long to figure out that Hannah Lewis is gorgeous, quirky, smart as hell, and...hiding something. Hannah has learned the hard way to keep the truth about her life as hush-hush as possible. At best, people don’t ...

Letters From The Looney Bin: The Collection (Books 1 & 2) From the #1 Amazon Bestselling Series Behind the sealed walls of the abandoned Emerson Rose Asylum, madness was never cured—only contained. Until the letters were found. This Collection Edition unites Letters From The Looney Bin—the #1 Amazon psychological fiction sensation—and its hauntingly human sequel, Dear Santa: Letters From The Looney Bin. Together, they expose the confessions, fractured faith, and forgotten humanity of those who vanished without a trace. Discovered inside a decaying mattress during the asylum’s ...

"Brian Nishii narrates this imaginative tale set in Japan about the complexities of death, life, and cats...A brief, charming parable." — AudioFile Magazine The international phenomenon that has sold over a million copies in Japan, If Cats Disappeared from the World--now a Japanese film--is a...

Called "a masterpiece" by The Guardian, this courageous and honest trilogy from Tove Ditlevsen, a pioneer in the field of genre-bending confessional writing, explores themes of family, sex, motherhood, abortion, addiction, and being an artist. This program contains all three volumes of her memoirs.

Cassie Hanwell was born for emergencies. As one of the only female firefighters in her Texas firehouse, she's seen her fair share of them, and she's excellent at dealing with other people's tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to uproot her life and move to Boston, it's an emergency of a kind Cassie never anticipated. The tough, old-school Boston firehouse is as different from Cassie's old job as it could possibly be. Hazing, a lack of funding, and poor facilities mean that the firemen aren't exactly thrilled to have a "lady" on the crew.

In 15th century England, there are two cousins, both the daughters of dukes, both widowed young, both the mother of sons called Henry. Both are named Margaret Beaufort. One Margaret’s son will be a future King. The other one’s son will be an infamous rebel. The ‘other Margaret Beaufort’ is the daughter of Edmund, Duke of Somerset. Proud and temperamental, Edmund’s bitterest enemy is Richard, Duke of York. Rumours swirl about Edmund—Is he to blame for losing many English territories in France? Is he the true father of Queen Margaret’s baby son, Edward of Westminster? Tensions ...

A quick read for those looking for dark fiction that you can devour in one sitting. These are creepy, crawly, and grotesque stories meant to make your stomach churn and your toes curl. The fierce auction of an abandoned storage unit leads to a mysterious box finding its final resting place. Assigned to a military post, a man watches security cameras capture the end of the world. An unusual illness leaks into society and leaves a man isolated and battling for his life. On a dark fall night, a happy family is tormented by an invisible beast from under the bed. A man with an overbearing mother...

They called her mad. But she might be the only one still telling the truth. In a cold mental institution where silence is enforced and truth is dismissed, Emily begins to unravel memories no one wants her to remember. Labeled unstable, her voice is ignored and her story erased. But buried beneath the diagnosis is something far more dangerous than madness: the possibility that she’s right. Told through the mind of an unreliable narrator, this psychological novel explores what happens when identity fractures, memory fades, and a woman fights to reclaim her story from those determined to ...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE A simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the tender relationship between mother and daughter in this “spectacular” (The Washington Post) novel by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess...

Suddenly confronted with his own mortality after a routine checkup, eminent psychotherapist Julius Hertzfeld is forced to reexamine his life and work - and seeks out Philip Slate, a sex addict whom he failed to help some 20 years earlier. Yet Philip claims to be cured - miraculously transformed by the pessimistic teachings of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer - and is himself a philosophical counselor in training.

Welcome to Rivers Solomon's dark and wondrous Model Home, a new kind of haunted-house novel. The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The...

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST Frank and April Wheeler are a bright, beautiful, talented couple in the 1950s whose perfect suburban life is about to crumble in this "moving and absorbing story” (The Atlantic Monthly) from one of the most acclaimed writers of the twentieth century. "The Great...