Lucy Hickey-Rios is a strong woman. As Executive Director of Mercy Animal Shelter, she devotes her time and energy towards improving the lives of the animals in her central New York community. And things had been going well. A successful fund raiser brought in desperately needed funds. Out of the blue, an opportunity arose to replace their outdated shelter. Then, just as quickly, things turned sour. Vandalism, the murder of a beloved family member and the confiscation of twelve horses on their way to auction, and the kill buyers, were nearly more than Lucy could handle. Nearly.

Will, the narrator of this powerfully charged novel, discovers that his father, a political activist and local hero in their South African town, has become involved with a white woman. Wrenching, passionate, deeply resonant, My Son's Story evokes the inexorable yoking of the personal life and politics with uniquely moving force.

Two people raised in an end-times sect reunite years later: “A stunning novel about faith and disillusionment and the lingering power of the past.” —Tom Perrotta,

New York Times

bestselling author of

The Leftovers

Written by a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist and inspired by true events,

The Shelter Cycle

tells the story of two children, Francine and Colville, who grew up in the Church Universal and Triumphant, a religion that predicted the world could end in the late 1980s. While their parents built underground shelters to withstand the impending Soviet missile strike, Francine and Colville played in the Montana wilderness, where invisible spirits watched over them. When the prophesied apocalypse did not occur, the sect’s members resurfaced and the children were forced to grow up in a world they believed might no longer exist.Twenty years later, Francine and Colville are reunited while searching for an abducted girl in Idaho. Haunted by memories and inculcated beliefs, they must confront the Church’s teachings. If all the things they were raised to believe were misguided, why then do they suddenly feel so true?“Eerie [and] engrossing.” —

Publishers Weekly

(starred review)“A metaphysically haunting, shape-shifting novel that keeps the reader off balance and can’t be fully appreciated until its climax.” —

Kirkus Reviews

(starred review)

Short stories that are “achingly true to life when it comes to the many ways mothers and daughters grow together and apart, over and over again”

(

O, The Oprah Magazine

).

  “Mothers and daughters go at it in the way only mothers and daughters can, with full hearts and claws out, in Natalie Serber’s funny, bittersweet collection” of short fiction named a New York Times Notable Book (

Vanity Fair

).   In a battle between a teenager and her mother, wheat bread and plain yogurt become weapons. An aimless college student, married to her much older professor, sneaks cigarettes while caring for their newborn son. On the eve of her husband’s fiftieth birthday, a pilfered fifth of rum, an unexpected tattoo, and rogue teenagers leave a woman questioning her place. And in a suite of stories, we follow capricious, ambitious single mother Ruby and her cautious, steadfast daughter, Nora, through their tumultuous life—stray men, stray cats, and psychedelic drugs—in 1970s California.   “The characters are irresistible . . . Serber writes with exquisite patience and sensitivity, and is an expert in the many ways that love throws people together and splits them apart, often at the same time.” —

The

Wall Street Journal

  “From its first page, Serber’s debut collection plunges us into the humid heat and lightning of a perfect storm: that of American mothers and daughters struggling for power, love, meaning, and identity. . . . Serber’s writing sparkles: practical, strong, brazenly modern, marbled with superb descriptions.” —

San Francisco Chronicle

  “Mothers and daughters burst from these pages in stories about food, boyfriends, birthdays, husbands and more.” —

Houston Chronicle

  “In the tradition of Lorrie Moore and Tobias Wolff, Natalie Serber’s stories uncover the secret hearts of seemingly ordinary people. Funny, heart-felt, and keenly perceptive, this is a book worth shouting about.” —Dan Chaon, author of

If I Loved You I Would Tell You This

A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer and series editor Heidi Pitlor.

Andrew Sean Greer, “an exceptionally lovely writer, capable of mingling humor with sharp poignancy” (Washington Post), selects twenty stories out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.