"The classic story of a passionate woman's struggle against fate in her search for love. Bathsheba Everdene has inherited a prosperous farm in Thomas Hardy's fictional Wessex. Driven by pride and vanity, strong-minded and fiercely independent, she is nevertheless subject to her own whims and, perhaps, an unavoidable fate. Bathsheba's passionate nature draws the attention of three suitors: wealthy farmer William Boldwood, dashing and seductive Sergeant...

Fifty-year-old William Whittlestaff becomes guardian to Mary Lawrie, the orphaned and penniless daughter of an old friend, and gradually finds himself falling in love with her. But Mary has already given her heart to the young John Gordon who has gone to seek his fortune in the Kimberley diamond fields. Gordon's sudden return after a three years' absence, on the very day of Whittlestaff's proposal, precipitates a crisis at the center of the story....

Deeply wounded by her embittered mother's lack of sympathy for her aspirations, Elnora finds comfort in the nearby Limberlost Swamp, whose beauty and rich abundance provide her with the means to better her life.

Upon encountering the limping Ethan Frome, a visitor becomes curious about the striking man's back story. Using extended flashbacks, author Edith Wharton paints a picture of a man who continually sacrifices his aspirations in order to care for the needy people in his life. After abandoning his goal of higher education to assist his ailing parents on their farm, Ethan's return to Starkfield results in a loveless marriage of service to Zeena, an older...

The author's classic vision of the dark side of American life looks at the failings of the American dream, in the story of the rise and fall of Clyde Griffiths, who sacrifices everything in his desperate quest for success.

During the summer of her divorced father's remarriage and her sister's wedding, fifteen-year-old Haven comes into her own by letting go of the myths of the past.

Steven "Crash" Crashinsky relates his sordid ten-year relationship with David "Burn" Burnett, the boy he stopped from taking their high school hostage at gunpoint.

After the death of her father, Isabel Archer, a young American woman, travels to England to stay with her aunt, where she finds herself an object of affection for several men. When she is left a large legacy by her ailing uncle, she also attracts the attention of those with an interest in her substantial fortune. Faced with decisions about her future, Isabel must live with the consequences of the choices she makes, as her life is forever altered. The...

Anthony Trollope mixes love, money, and ambition in his love triangles — which has kept his fans reading his work addictively ever since Queen Victoria. In this 1867 novel, Harry Clavering, an ambitious civil engineer, must choose: to wed a wealthy widow and gain a life of comfort, or to honor his previous engagement — and struggle.

Irreverently juggling magical realism, film noir, hip hop, and chicanismo, Tropic of Orange takes place in a Los Angeles where the homeless, gangsters, infant organ entrepreneurs, and Hollywood collide on a stretch of the Harbor Freeway. Hemmed in by wildfires, it's a symphony conducted from an overpass, grandiose, comic, and as diverse as the city itself-from an author who has received the California Book Award and the Association for Asian American...