Arcadia Public Library

"In 1969, in the wake of Malaysia's deadliest race riots, a woman named Du Li An secures her place in society by marrying a gangster; in a parallel narrative, a critic known as the Fourth Person explores the work of a writer also named Du Li An; in a third storyline, "you" are reading a novel titled The Age of Goodbyes in the wake of your mother's death. Li Zi Shu's debut novel THE AGE OF GOODBYES explores what happens to memory when official accounts...

There was rarely a time when Phoenix Yuan-Whyller's mother, Rain, didn't live with her. Even when Phoenix got married, Rain, who followed her from China to Toronto, came to share Phoenix's life. Now at the age of eighty-three, Rain's unexpected death ushers in a heartrending separation. Struggling with the loss, Phoenix comes across her mother's suitcase, a memory box Rain had brought from home. Inside, Phoenix finds two old photographs and a decorative...

In the tourist town of Ciudad de Tres Hermanas, in the aftermath of their mother's passing, two siblings spend a final weekend together in their childhood home. Seeing her brother, Rafa, careening toward a place of no return, Rufina devises a bet: if they can make enough money performing for privileged tourists in the plaza over the course of the weekend to afford a plane ticket out, Rafa must commit to living. If not, Rufina will make her peace with...

"Fourteen-year-old Orla's mum is dead. She lives in England with her unemployed father and baby sister Lily, but she's planning to run away to live in Northern Ireland, where her mother is buried. Preoccupied with trouble at home and at school, she accidentally crashes her bike into a man who calls himself Jesus and says he is the Son of God. He has never seen a smartphone. He can raise animals from the dead by blowing into their mouths, including...

Twelve-year-old Elvis Babbitt has a head for the facts: she knows science proves yellow is the happiest color, she knows a healthy male giraffe weighs about 3,000 pounds, and she knows that the naked mole rat is the longest living rodent. She knows she should plan to grieve her mother, who has recently drowned while sleepwalking, for exactly eighteen months. But there are things Elvis doesn't yet know--like how to keep her sister Lizzie from poisoning...

Augusta (Gus) Monet is living an aimless existence when she learns that her great grandmother-- her last living relative-- has died. Ditching her grifter boyfriend, Gus returns to the home she left as a young girl. Her inheritance turns out to be a dilapidated house and an old dog named Levi. Combing through her great grandmother's possessions, Gus stumbles across an old trunk filled with long-lost childhood belongings-- and cold case files that belonged...

"Having been abandoned on the steps of an orphanage as an infant, lovable car thief and Dublin charmer Mahony assumed all his life that his mother had simply given him up. But when he receives an anonymous note suggesting that foul play may have led to his mother's disappearance, he sees only one option: to return to the rural Irish village where he was born and find out what really happened twenty-six years ago. From the moment he sets foot in Mulderrig,...

From the bestselling author of Mrs. Rochester's Ghost comes the chilling story of a young woman who returns to her haunted childhood home to unravel the deadly mysteries of her family's past. Ava grew up in a haunted mansion, envied by all her friends. But when her mother died mysteriously there, the thrills of Blackworth Mansion became nightmares. Ava never accepted that her mother perished from natural causes, but no one would believe her. Seventeen...

"In Caracas, Venezuela, Adelaida Falcón stands over an open grave. Alone, she buries her mother--the only family she has ever known--and worries that when night falls thieves will rob the grave. Even the dead cannot find peace here. Adelaida had a stable childhood in a prosperous Venezuela that accepted immigrants in search of a better life, where she lived with her single-mother in a humble apartment. But now? Every day she lines up for bread that...

Zoe Bascombe has never said no to her family. When she blew her Juilliard audition, she caved to their wishes and went to business school. But when her mother dies and leaves instructions for Zoe to spread her ashes at a place called Wind Chime Beach, she defies her brothers and starts out for a New England town none of them has ever heard of and discovers a side of her garden club mother that her wildest dreams hadn't imagined. Zoe has another family....