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Maman’s Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen by Donia Bijan (Algonquin Books) is $1.99 (Amazon US, Amazon CA)

Book Description:

For Donia Bijan’s family, food has been the language they use to tell their stories and to communicate their love. In 1978, when the Islamic revolution in Iran threatened their safety, they fled to California’s Bay Area, where the familiar flavors of Bijan’s mother’s cooking formed a bridge to the life they left behind. Now, through the prism of food, award-winning chef Donia Bijan unwinds her own story, finding that at the heart of it all is her mother, whose love and support enabled Bijan to realize her dreams.

From the Persian world of her youth to the American life she embraced as a teenager to her years at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris (studying under the infamous Madame Brassart) to apprenticeships in France’s three-star kitchens and finally back to San Francisco, where she opened her own celebrated bistro, Bijan evokes a vibrant kaleidoscope of cultures and cuisines. And she shares thirty inspired recipes from her childhood (Saffron Yogurt Rice with Chicken and Eggplant and Orange Cardamom Cookies), her French training (Ratatouille with Black Olives and Fried Bread and Purple Plum Skillet Tart), and her cooking career (Roast Duck Legs with Dates and Warm Lentil Salad and Rose Petal Ice Cream).

An exhilarating, heartfelt memoir, Maman’s Homesick Pie is also a reminder of the women who encourage us to shine.

Human Croquet: A Novel by Kate Atkinson (Picador) is $3.99 (Amazon US)

Book Description:

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year

Part fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novel, this novel tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates.

A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares.

Girl Unmoored by Jennifer Gooch Hummer (Fiction Studio Books) is $1.99 (Amazon US) and CDN$ 2.04 (Amazon CA)

Book Description:

San Francisco Book Festival Award 2012, Winner Teen Fiction

Apron Bramhall has come unmoored. Fortunately, she’s about to be saved by Jesus. Not that Jesus—the actor who plays him in Jesus Christ Superstar. Apron is desperate to avoid the look-alike Mike, who’s suddenly everywhere, until she’s stuck in church with him one day. Then something happens—Apron’s broken teenage heart blinks on for the first time since she’s been adrift.

Mike and his boyfriend, Chad, offer her a summer job in their flower store, and Apron’s world seems to calm. But when she uncovers Chad’s secret, stormy seas return. Apron starts to see things the adults around her fail to—like what love really means, and who is paying too much for it.

Apron has come unmoored, but now she’ll need to take the helm if she’s to get herself and those she loves to safe harbor.

Between You & Me by Marisa Calin (Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books) is $2.99 (Amazon US) and CDN$ 2.45 (Amazon CA)

Book Description:

Phyre knows there is something life-changing about her new drama teacher, Mia, from the moment they meet. As Phyre rehearses for the school play, she comes to realize that the unrequited feelings she has for Mia go deeper than she’s ever experienced. Especially with a teacher. Or a woman. All the while, Phyre’s best friend – addressed throughout the story in the second person, as “you” – stands by, ready to help Phyre make sense of her feelings. But just as Mia doesn’t understand what Phyre feels, Phyre can’t fathom the depth of her best friend’s feelings…until it’s almost too late for a happy ending.

Characters come to life through the innovative screenplay format of this dazzling debut, and unanswered questions – is “you” male or female? – will have readers talking.

The First Warm Evening of the Year: A Novel by Jamie M. Saul (William Morrow) is $2.99 (Amazon US)

Book Description:

Following his extraordinary debut novel, Light of Day (“An exhilarating emotional roller-coaster ride” —Washington Post), author Jamie Saul now explores the intricate relationships between friends and siblings, husbands and wives.

The First Warm Evening of the Year is a breathtakingly beautiful, wonderfully resonant, and gorgeously evocative story that demonstrates how true love can be discovered in the most unexpected places. Finely wrought, character-driven literary fiction that packs an emotional wallop, Saul’s The First Warm Evening of the Year is for anyone who has ever been powerfully affected by a novel by Chris Bohjalian, Joyce Maynard, or Scott Spencer… and for everyone who adores getting lost in a great story.

Shelter Me by Juliette Fay (HarperCollins) is $1.99 (Amazon US)

Book Description:

In the tradition of Marisa de los Santos and Anne Tyler comes a moving debut about a young mother’s year of heartbreak, loss, and forgiveness…and help that arrives from unexpected sources

Four months after her husband’s death, Janie LaMarche remains undone by grief and anger. Her mourning is disrupted, however, by the unexpected arrival of a builder with a contract to add a porch onto her house. Stunned, Janie realizes the porch was meant to be a surprise from her husband—now his last gift to her.

As she reluctantly allows construction to begin, Janie clings to the familiar outposts of her sorrow—mothering her two small children with fierce protectiveness, avoiding friends and family, and stewing in a rage she can’t release. Yet Janie’s self-imposed isolation is breached by a cast of unlikely interventionists: her chattering, ipecac-toting aunt; her bossy, over-manicured neighbor; her muffin-bearing cousin; and even Tug, the contractor with a private grief all his own.

As the porch takes shape, Janie discovers that the unknowable terrain of the future is best navigated with the help of others—even those we least expect to call on, much less learn to love.

Ungifted by Gordon Korman (Balzer + Bray) is $1.99 (Amazon US)

Book Description:

The word gifted has never been applied to a kid like Donovan Curtis. It’s usually more like Don’t try this at home. So when the troublemaker pulls a major prank at his middle school, he thinks he’s finally gone too far. But thanks to a mix-up by one of the administrators, instead of getting in trouble, Donovan is sent to the Academy of Scholastic Distinction (ASD), a special program for gifted and talented students.

It wasn’t exactly what Donovan had intended, but there couldn’t be a more perfect hideout for someone like him. That is, if he can manage to fool people whose IQs are above genius level. And that becomes harder and harder as the students and teachers of ASD grow to realize that Donovan may not be good at math or science (or just about anything). But after an ongoing experiment with a live human (sister), an unforgettably dramatic middle-school dance, and the most astonishing come-from-behind robot victory ever, Donovan shows that his gifts might be exactly what the ASD students never knew they needed.

Jake and Lily by Jerry Spinelli Crossan (Balzer + Bray) is $1.99 (Amazon US)

Book Description:

This is a story about me, Lily.
And me, Jake.
We’re twins and we’re exactly alike.
Not exactly!
Whatever. This is a book we wrote about the summer we turned eleven and Jake ditched me.
Please. I just started hanging out with some guys in the neighborhood.
Right. So anyway, this is a book about
goobers and supergoobers
bullies
clubhouses
true friends
things getting built and wrecked and rebuilt
and about figuring out who we are.
We wrote this together
(sort of)
so you’ll get to see both sides of our story.
But you’ll probably agree with my side.
You always have to have the last word, don’t you?
Yes!