<b>"<i>A French Wedding</i> is a sumptuous novel that will, literally take you away. It's a delightful escape to the French seaside that I, for one, never wanted to leave."?Elin Hilderbrand, bestselling author of <i>The Identicals<br /><br />A French Wedding</i> is a delicious novel about six college friends reuniting on the coast of Brittany to celebrate one of their own's fortieth birthday. With sumptuous food and plenty of wine, the table is set for tricky romantic entanglements, fiery outbursts, and a range of secrets. Readers who loved <i>The Vacationers</i> and <i>The Little Paris Bookshop</i> will devour this irresistible novel</b>. <br /> <br />Max is a washed-up rock star who's about to turn forty and feeling nostalgic for his university days. All he <i>says</i> he wants for his birthday is to host his old friends at his house in the French countryside for a weekend of good food and reminiscing. But he has an ulterior motive: Finally ready to settle down, this is his chance to declare his undying love to his best friend, Helen. <br /> Max's private chef, Juliette, has just returned to her hometown after a nasty breakup and her parents' failing health move her to sell her dream restaurant in Paris. Still reeling, Juliette throws herself into her job, hoping that the peace and quiet it offers will be the perfect cure for her broken heart. <br /> But when Max's friends arrive, the introverted, dreamy Juliette finds herself drawn out of her orderly kitchen and into their tumultuous relationships. A weekend thinking about the past spurs more than one emotional crisis, as the friends take stock of whether they've lived up to their ideals. Together for the first time in years, it's not long before love triangles, abandoned dreams, and long-held resentments bubble over, culminating in a wedding none of them ever expected.
Spare and unsparing, <i>God Help the Child</i>?the first novel by Toni Morrison to be set in our current moment?weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. <br /> <br />At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger. Rain, the mysterious white child with whom she crosses paths. And finally, Bride?s mother herself, Sweetness, who takes a lifetime to come to understand that ?what you do to children matters. And they might never forget.? <br /> <br />A fierce and provocative novel that adds a new dimension to the matchless oeuvre of Toni Morrison.