Car Trouble

Duff Pringle has bought his first car. (Used.) He's got six days to drive 3,000 miles cross-country to California and start a new hi-tech job that will make him wealthy. (Sort of.) Nothing can stop him. (Or can it?) Uh-oh . . . CAR TROUBLE. Duff's Ford Escort barely makes it a hundred miles from home before breaking down. What's he supposed to do? He's promised his new boss he'll be there by Monday. But he's also promised himself that he'll make this journey by car, so he can really see the country. Using his laptop and some quick thinking, he pieces together a way to continue his trip. What he doesn't plan on are the people he meets along the road. There's Stu, a hitchhiker with a secret; Bonnie, an aspiring singer with a con artist for a mother; two thugs looking for a trunkful of cash; and Moony, the terrier prone to carsickness.

From a bright new talent, a witty, moving, and inspirational coming-of-age debut novel set in 1970s Brooklyn about a teenager and his abusive father whose obsession with broken down vintage cars careens wildly out of control. “Such a pleasure to read.... This is a coming of age story, but it is also so much more than that.”—Dominic Smith, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos Nicky Flynn is coming-of-age in 1970s Brooklyn, riding into his sophomore year at St. Michaels, the last hurrah of the Diocesan school system. A budding young actor, Nicky is at once sensitive, resilient, exasperated, and keenly observant—especially when it comes to his father, Patrick. Undeniably enigmatic, and coasting on vanity, charm, and desperation, “Himself” as Nicky calls his father, is given to picking up old car junkers, for cheap at NYPD auctions—each sputtering, tail-finned treasure subsidized by poker games. To Patrick, these chrome glamour tanks are his obsessions, repairable reminders of the past when he was young, and everything seemed new and gleaming and possible—before he had a family. For Nicky, each one is a milestone. Whether it’s a harrowing joy ride or a driving lesson, they’re unforgettable markers on his path toward an unpredictable future. But as Patrick’s compulsions slide into alcoholism and abuse, Nicky, his mother, and sisters brace themselves for an inevitable sharp turn in their addled lives. Narrated with humor and a rueful awareness, Car Trouble is an exhilarating novel about acceptance, regret, compassion, and finding your authentic adult self amid the rubble and rumble of growing up.

Softcover Edition

Mater and Lightning McQueen team-up to track down runaway tractors in this all-new Little Golden Book featuring all of your favorite characters from Disney/Pixar Cars. It's a must-have for children ages 3-7!

“Henry Smith’s father told him that if you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you.” But Trouble comes careening down the road one night in the form of a pickup truck that strikes Henry’s older brother, Franklin. In the truck is Chay Chouan, a young Cambodian from Franklin’s preparatory school, and the accident sparks racial tensions in the school—and in the well-established town where Henry’s family has lived for generations. Caught between anger and grief, Henry sets out to do the only thing he can think of: climb Mt. Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine, which he and Franklin were going to climb together. Along with Black Dog, whom Henry has rescued from drowning, and a friend, Henry leaves without his parents’ knowledge. The journey, both exhilarating and dangerous, turns into an odyssey of discovery about himself, his older sister, Louisa, his ancestry, and why one can never escape from Trouble.

Welcome to Mark Leyner's America, where you can order gallium arsenide sushi at a roadside diner, get loaded on a cocktail of growth hormones and anabolic steroids, and support your habit by appearing on TV game shows. Welcome to a wildly post-Einsteinian fictional universe where the locals include a speech pathologist with a waterbug fetish, a kamikaze airline pilot, and the lead singer for Brazil's most notoriously nihilistic samba band.

Rosie, to please her dying mother, agreed to marry Ken Latham, the handsome, rich boss she doesn't love, but who has been regularly proposing to her. She rationalizes that she'll have a good life with him and true love is only a fairy tale anyway. But that promise of a good life turns into a nightmare when Ken is mugged, has amnesia and breaks their engagement. Also, Rosie and Ken have to deal with their company's CEO, Lester, who sends Kirk, Ken's identical twin, to investigate possible embezzlement at their building supply store. And someone is trying to kill Ken and also harassing Rosie. Can they survive long enough to build their attraction into love?

When Sterling Seabright is found strangled in the woods outside the small farming community of Abundance, Wisconsin, even her closest friends are shocked to learn of her secret life. When a second body is found murdered in a cabin by the lake, it's up to Deputies Robely Danner and Frack Telusky to discover the link. Sterling's classmates hold various pieces of the puzzle, and although they may be talking among themselves, Robely and Frack are unable to break their code of silence.