With high hopes of conquering Hollywood, the novel’s main character goes to Los Angeles to study directing and screenwriting. On the way, she ends up at a roadside bar that uncannily links the destinies of the main characters, who had given up everything to follow their dreams. What’s in store for the young rebels in Los Angeles? Does your dream have another side, one that’s just as enigmatic and invisible as the far side of the Moon?

A night porter in a sleazy Barcelona hotel, the only thing the forty-year-old Antonio Castro has going for him is his resemblance to Frank Sinatra. Thinking he has nothing to lose, Antonio joins a lonely hearts club and into his life come a Perez Galdos widow, a dwarf poet, a gay barman. The Lonely Hearts Club is a novel of Barcelona. Its people and its places, the Ramblas, the Plaza Real, the Barrio Chino, are brought to life in a book that is outrageously funny but never loses sympathy with its characters.

Andy Kendricks is back in the third sassy and irresistible installment in Susan McBride's Debutante Dropout series … and this time she's teaming up with her high-society mama to catch a killer who's targeting rich, lonely widows. Wealthy Texas widows need loving too … which is why Bebe Kent joined a dating service for "discriminating" seniors soon after relocating to the swanky Belle Meade retirement community. Unfortunately, Bebe didn't even live long enough to meet "Mr. Right." And though doctors declared her death totally natural, extravagant blue-blooded Dallas socialite Cissy Blevins Kendricks believes her old friend's demise was hastened—and she's ready to check herself into Belle Meade incognito to prove it. Cissy's rebellious, sometimes-sleuthing daughter, Andrea, wants no part of her mother's crazy schemes—yet she's anything but pleased that Cissy is going off on her own, playing a highbrow Miss Marple. So she has no choice but to join her mom in search of the truth—especially when more well-heeled widows start turning up dead …

Five lonely strangers join a bar trivia team in an effort to find friends, but end up on a path that will change each of their lives forever, in this heartwarming debut perfect for fans of Beth O’Leary and Sophie Kinsella. How do you make friends as an adult? That’s one question lonely Londoners Bryony, Harry, Jaime, Luke, and Donna would really like the answer to. They tend to do better with questions of a different variety—trivia questions like How did prosecco get its name? and Which Mariah Carey song has topped the charts in twenty-six countries? In an effort to meet new people, the five not-yet-friends answer an ad seeking members of a bar trivia team—the Red Hot Quizzy Peppers. As the weeks go on, the disparate band of unhappy strangers becomes swept up in both the buzz of winning and the way quiz nights start to bond them together in friendship . . . to the detriment of other parts of their lives. Despite all odds, the Quizzy Peppers might just have a shot at making the London Pub Quiz League’s Grand Final, if only they can get past the Golden Girls, the Banana Splits, and the Bombay Bad Boys. Utterly charming and uplifting, The Lonely Hearts Trivia Night is a story of finding friendship, love, confidence, and purpose—just right for fans of Jennifer Weiner.

Maybelle Lane is looking for her father, but on the road to Nashville she finds so much more: courage, brains, heart--and true friends. Eleven-year-old Maybelle Lane collects sounds. She records the Louisiana crickets chirping, Momma strumming her guitar, their broken trailer door squeaking. But the crown jewel of her collection is a sound she didn't collect herself: an old recording of her daddy's warm-sunshine laugh, saved on an old phone's voicemail. It's the only thing she has of his, and the only thing she knows about him. Until the day she hears that laugh--his laugh--pouring out of the car radio. Going against Momma's wishes, Maybelle starts listening to her radio DJ daddy's new show, drinking in every word like a plant leaning toward the sun. When he announces he'll be the judge of a singing contest in Nashville, she signs up. What better way to meet than to stand before him and sing with all her heart? But the road to Nashville is bumpy. Her starch-stiff neighbor Mrs. Boggs offers to drive her in her RV. And a bully of a boy from the trailer park hitches a ride, too. These are not the people May would have chosen to help her, but it turns out they're searching for things as well. And the journey will mold them into the best kind of family--the kind you choose for yourself.

Jo Waldman lives life to her own soundtrack—working for her father by day while pursuing her music career in NYC’s downtown clubs at night. Music is her passion, along with her boyfriend, Jesse, who shares her dreams of making it big. Jo's old band, The Lonely Hearts Club, came thisclose to getting a huge recording contract, and she’s just biding her time, waiting for lightning to strike twice. The music business is tough, but so is Jo. So when Jo's father fires her and Jesse breaks up with her, Jo doesn’t get upset—she just wants to rage. Dusting off her computer, Jo writes a blog entry, pouring her heart out about the shortcomings of love. Except that no sooner does Jo hit “upload” than the site sends a mass e-mail to the entire Lonely Hearts mailing list, alerting everybody Joe has ever met that she's been brutally dumped. All Jo wants to do is hide under the covers, but to her surprise, supportive e-mails start flowing in—many of them from complete strangers. Apparently, her anti-love rant has struck a chord. The Lonely Hearts Club Blog develops a huge following, even capturing the eye of Jo’s sworn nemesis, bubble gum pop princess Amber Fairchild. Jo soon becomes an icon for all things “anti-love,” and at her fans' request, she begins to plan The Lonely Hearts Club Ball—a massive anti-love Valentine's Day party to end all parties. Jo quickly becomes the poster girl for lonely hearts, and it inspires her to start writing music again. There's only one problem: the web programmer helping Jo with her site is simply dreamy. Jo's never been very good at depriving herself of anything, but if this budding romance is exposed, she'll be revealed as an 'anti-love' fraud and risk losing all the people who have grown trust her voice. So is it time to start singing love songs, or time to pick up the guitar and return to the hard rock that almost got The Lonely Hearts signed in the first place? Either way, Jo's got some big decisions to make, and it looks like she's going to have to take one step closer to doing something she never thought she'd do—becoming a grownup. From Brenda Janowitz, author of the beloved Brooke Miller novels SCOT ON THE ROCKS and JACK WITH A TWIST comes another uproariously funny and heartfelt story that will ring true to anyone who's dug themselves into a hole only to find that getting out is where you least expect it.

These two dark stories, and the most notable works of the short career of Nathanael West, remain stunningly powerful pieces of fiction more than 75 years after their original publication.

A collection of essays on Nathanael West's novel, Miss Lonelyhearts, arranged in chronological order of publication.

A story of "two sisters--Miranda, the older, responsible one, always her younger sister's protector, [and] Lucia, the headstrong, unpredictable one, whose impulses are huge and often life changing. When their mother dies and Lucia starts hearing voices, it is Miranda who must find a way to reach her sister. But Lucia impetuously plows ahead, marrying a big-hearted, older man only to leave him suddenly to have a baby with a young Latino immigrant. She moves her new family from the States to Ecuador and back again, but the bitter constant is that she is, in fact, mentally ill"--

Two classic short stories, one about a male reporter who writes an advice column, and the other, about people who have migrated to California in expectation of health and ease.