Bonded tight since their days at Boston University, six friends form the Dirty Girls Social Club to dish, dine and compare notes on the bumpy course of life and love. Laugh and cry along with Loren, the reluctant columnist for the local paper, who spies on her cheating boyfriend; Sara, the perfect hobo wife and mother, who pays a hefty price for what she wants; Amber, the valley girl, who seeks fame as a singer; Elizabeth, the stunning black Columbian, whose personal life conflicts with her high-profile job; Rebecca, who runs the magazine she created for Latinas while her marriage is falling apart; and Usnavy, larger than life, who seeks a man of fortune at the risk of passing by love.

Eric Jerome Dickey's eighth novel begins with a couple struggling with the difficult circumstances of a modern marriage: he works days, she works nights; and they each wonder what it means to be married if they never see each other. But it is not until the woman receives an unexpected call, telling her that her husband is having an affair, that their relationship is brought to the brink. What follows is the explosive, emotional story of their reckoning and reconciliation.

Joyce Carol Oates
The Tattooed Girl

Joshua Seigi is a celebrated but reclusive author. Young but in failing health, he reluctantly admits that he can no longer live alone and launches a search for an assistant. He is dissatisfied with everyone he meets until he encounters Alma. A young woman with synthetic-looking blond hair and pale, tattooed skin, she stirs something inside him. Unaware of her torturous past and the hatred that seethes within her, he has no idea that he is bringing an enemy into his home: a virulent anti-Semite who despises him. With her unique, masterful balance of dark suspense and surprising tenderness, Joyce Carol Oates probes the tragedy of ethnic hatred and challenges accepted limits of desire.