Award-winning sportswriter, commentator and correspondent Frank Deford explores new territory as he tells two love stories from the perspective of a beautiful should-have-been Olympic champion named Sydney Stringfellow. With her the reader longs for an earlier time with its greater simplicity and honesty, when promises seemed to be forever but choices so dire in the enveloping shadows of a changing world.

"When Kendra first visits her ailing grandmother, Ella has only one request: that she write her story down, before she forgets...In 1937, seventeen-year-old Ella's life changes forever when she is sent to spend the summer on the beautiful and windswept Ile de Re and meets the charismatic, creative Christophe. They spend the summer together, exploring the island's sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters, and, for the first time in her life, Ella feels...

A celebrated columnist, nightclub emcee, and fine arts philanthropist draws inspiration from the Catholic Saints Day books to reflect on his encounters with black artists in Detroit's legendary Black Bottom neighborhood, from the Great Depression through the post-World War II years.

"A visionary and deeply moving novel centered around former newspaperman Sam Cunningham as he prepares to die, Late City covers much of the early twentieth century, unfurling as a conversation between the dying man and a surprising God. As the two review Sam's life, from his childhood in the American South and his time in the French trenches during World War I to a newspaper career in Chicago in the Roaring Twenties and the decades that follow, moments...

"A story of secrets, loss, and the betrayals of memory: a lyrical novel of an aging woman confronting her romantic past under the mysterious skies of her island home. Off the coast of Georgia, near Savannah, generations have been tempted by strange blue lights in the sky near an island called Lyra. At the height of WWII, impressionable young Elle Ranier comes to the island when her new husband, Simon, is dispatched by his industrialist father to find...

"From the author of The Red Address Book Sofia Lundberg comes a captivating story about overcoming shame and guilt, about finding oneself and the truth-and in doing so, learning how to love"-- By age 50, Elin Boals has created for herself a perfect life: her wildly successful business as Manhattan's preeminent fashion photographer is flourishing. Her handsome, patient husband is devoted to her; her teenaged daughter, Alice, has been accepted to the...

In 1949, four Chinese women--drawn together by the shadow of their past--begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club--and forge a relationship that binds them for more than three decades.