Arcadia Public Library

"A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. They're polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next...

Understanding where your fiction book falls in the general categories of literature is an essential step to getting published, as there is a plethora of genre-specific publishing houses. Differentiate between the various categories of fiction writing, including defining commercial and literary fiction, and examine the various types of children’s books..

Whether you're writing literary fiction or a potboiler, your story needs a structure. Freytag's Pyramid is the classic structure for moving a story from an initial situation through a series of conflicts to a resolution. Examine every stage of the pyramid with examples ranging from The Wizard of Oz to Middlemarch to Game of Thrones.

Born in a small town in the desolate reaches of western Texas and shaped by her girlhood in an industrial wasteland on the outskirts of Dallas, Bonnie Parker was a natural performer and a star student. She dreamed of being a movie star or a singer or a poet. But her dramatic nature, contorted by her limited opportunities and her overwhelming love for Clyde Barrow, pushed her into a course from which there was no escape but death. Infusing the psychological...

"Praise for Karen Tei Yamashita: "It's a stylistically wild ride, but it's smart, funny and entrancing." -NPR "Fluid and poetic as well as terrifying." -New York Times Book Review With delightful plays of voice and structure, this is literary fiction at an adventurous, experimental high point." -Kirkus "Magnificent. Intriguing." -Library Journal "This powerful, deeply felt, and impeccably researched fiction is irresistibly evocative." -Publishers...

"A co-ed is found murdered on campus, her body scarcely touched. The killer paid meticulous attention to the aesthetics of his crime. Coincidentally (or not), a college custodian is also found dead. While an epic rainstorm assails the Holyoake, New Hampshire campus, overflowing rivers and taking down power lines, a third crime scene is revealed: a professor, formerly a spy, has been shot dead in his home. A mysterious note is found that warned him...

"In Jonathan Dee's elegant and explosive new novel, Sugar Street, an unnamed male narrator has hit the road. Rid of any possible identifiers, his possessions amount to $168,548 in cash stashed in an envelope under his car seat. Vigilantly avoiding security cameras, he drives until he hits a city where his past is unlikely to track him down, and finds a room to rent from a less-than-stable landlady whose need for money outweighs her desire to ask questions....

"Spanning decades and perspectives, seamlessly shifting between the gothic and the tenderhearted, Welcome Me to the Kingdom announces the arrival of an immensely talented new voice in literary fiction. Organized around the devastating financial crisis of 1997, these stories introduce us to an unforgettable cast of characters--Nam, Pea, Lara, Benz, Ping, and more--who employ various schemes and strategies to conceal, betray, lie, and seduce their way...

"From the winner of the prestigious FIL Prize in Romance Languages comes this masterpiece saga, set in the twilight of the late twentieth century, of two clashing families in coastal Portugal. With the grand sweep of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels, this enduring tale transports us to a picturesque seaside town haunted by its colonial past. Considered one of Europe's most influential contemporary writers, Portuguese novelist Lídia Jorge has captivated...