Pretty Girl

Lee Child says it’s “stunning… certain to be a book of the year.” Kathy Reichs calls it “extraordinary… a major achievement.” Gillian Flynn says of Karin Slaughter: “I’d follow her anywhere.” Sisters. Strangers. Survivors. More than twenty years ago, Claire and Lydia’s teenaged sister Julia vanished without a trace. The two women have not spoken since, and now their lives could not be more different. Claire is the glamorous trophy wife of an Atlanta millionaire. Lydia, a single mother, dates an ex-con and struggles to make ends meet. But neither has recovered from the horror and heartbreak of their shared loss—a devastating wound that's cruelly ripped open when Claire's husband is killed. The disappearance of a teenage girl and the murder of a middle-aged man, almost a quarter-century apart: what could connect them? Forming a wary truce, the surviving sisters look to the past to find the truth, unearthing the secrets that destroyed their family all those years ago . . . and uncovering the possibility of redemption, and revenge, where they least expect it. Powerful, poignant, and utterly gripping, packed with indelible characters and unforgettable twists, Pretty Girls is a masterful novel from one of the finest writers working today.

Meredith was promised nine years of safety, but they only gave her three. Her father, who was sent to prison for sexually abusing Meredith and other children in the small town, has been released early on good behaviour. He was supposed to be locked up until Meredith's eighteenth birthday, when she would be free of her abusive father and her delusional mother, who dwells on a fantasy that the three of them will be a happy family once more. But Meredith is only fifteen, and her father is out of prison…and her mother is bringing him home. And Meredith won't let him hurt her, or anyone else, ever again. No matter what the cost. Lyrical, suspenseful, and emotionally shattering, SUCH A PRETTY GIRL is the compelling story of one young woman's painful fight for survival - and her journey back to herself.

Pretty Girls is a visceral narrative of violence, personal tragedy and female resilience set against the backdrop of one of Australia’s most politically charged communities, Redfern, where sinister racial tensions underpin everything. Evie is a woman in her mid-thirties who returns to her hometown to meet with her dying father. In coming back to the place where she grew up she has to revisit her history of violence – the death of her mother, the suicide of her brother and the domestic violence that occurred in her home. Her father only has a short time to live – she expects to find him a changed man. But he’s not. He’s unrepentant and unapologetic for his actions. Evie has to reclaim her story – she’s not just a pretty girl, she won’t just sit down, be quiet, stay still – but getting there is more than tough, more than an ordeal – it’s a mammoth display of tenacity and strength. Pretty Girls is ultimately a story of triumph. Evie rises from the ashes of a hellish past and re-writes her story. There is a part of Evie in every woman and Pretty Girls seeks to start a movement. "I know there are other people out there, just like me. People who think they are alone in life and that their cards have been dealt... But now I know there's always time for change and there's always a better path. You just have to look for it." - Jimmy Barnes, Working Class Boy

A disturbing and powerful psychological thriller about a girl who must piece together the mystery of her kidnapping and abuse, Pretty Girl-13 is a haunting yet ultimately uplifting story about the healing power of courage, hope, and love. Angie Chapman was thirteen years old when she ventured into the woods on a Girl Scout camping trip. Now she's returned home...only to find that it's three years later and she's sixteen—or at least that's what everyone tells her. What happened to the last three years of her life? With a tremendous amount of courage, Angie embarks on a journey to discover the fragments of her lost time. She eventually discovers a terrifying secret and must decide: What do you do when you remember things you wish you could forget? Perfect for fans of books like Elizabeth Scott's Living Dead Girl and Kathleen Glasgow's Girl in Pieces.

Haunted by flashbacks, fifteen-year-old Meredith learns that three years in prison has not changed the abusive father who molested her.

One girl's dead. One's in hospital. And one has a secret. Paige, Sarah, Jess and Tallulah were best friends at school. Now they’ve begun university and are living together at college, but it’s not turning out like it’s meant to. Tallulah’s partying too hard, Jess is being secretive, Paige is embarrassing herself with an unrequited crush, and Sarah’s struggling to keep up with her wealthier friends. One night, Sarah saves Paige from drowning in the university swimming pool. Paige can’t remember why she was there, and Sarah’s too afraid to say what she thought she saw. Then Jess’s body is found outside the college laundry. It’s not until Sarah meets the gorgeous and charming Jonny that she can tell someone her suspicions. But what really did happen that night at the pool? And what connects Paige’s accident with Jess’s death? As Paige starts to piece together her memories, the most terrifying question becomes clear: could it be happening again?

From critically acclaimed author T. Greenwood comes an emotional new novel born of the complex relationships between mothers and daughters, the often flickering line between woman and girl, and the precarious nature of innocence. Living peacefully in Vermont, Ryan Flannigan is shocked when a text from her oldest friend alerts her to a devastating news item. A controversial photo of her as a pre-teen has been found in the possession of a wealthy investor recently revealed as a pedophile and a sex trafficker—with an inscription to him from Ryan’s mother on the back. Memories crowd in, providing their own distinctive pictures of her mother Fiona, an aspiring actress, and their move to the West Village in 1976. Amid the city’s gritty kaleidoscope of wealth and poverty, high art, and sleazy strip clubs, Ryan is discovered and thrust into the spotlight as a promising young actress with a woman’s face and a child’s body. Suddenly, the safety and comfort Ryan longs for is replaced by auditions, paparazzi, and the hungry eyes of men of all ages. Forced to reexamine her childhood, Ryan begins to untangle her young fears and her mother’s ambitions, and the role each played in the fraught blackout summer of 1977. Even with her movie career long behind her, Ryan and Fiona are suddenly the object of uncomfortable speculation—and Fiona demands Ryan’s support. To put the past to rest, Ryan will need to face the painful truth of their relationship, and the night when everything changed. “Rarely has a writer rendered such highly charged topics . . . to so wrenching, yet so beautifully understated, an effect . . .” —The Los Angeles Times “Rich with vivid details . . . [and] beautifully crafted characters . . . Stayed with me long after turning the last page.” —Jillian Cantor, USA Today bestselling author of In Another Time

...the sin of an old man is equal to about two sins of a young man. The fable-like story of an old man's sexual obsession with a young woman is a distillation of Italo Svevo's concerns--attraction of an older man to a younger woman, individual conscience versus social convention, and the cost of sexual desire. This novella is a marvel of psychological insight, following the man's vacillations and tortuous self-justifications to their tragic-comic end. It is presented here in a translation first commissioned and published by Virginia Woolf for her Hogarth Press. The Art of The Novella Series Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.