The Fourth Child

“A beautifully observed and thrillingly honest novel about the dark corners of family life and the long, complicated search for understanding and grace.” —Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation and Weather “The Fourth Child is keen and beautiful and heartbreaking—an exploration of private guilt and unexpected obligation, of the intimate losses of power embedded in female adolescence, and of the fraught moments of glancing divinity that come with shouldering the burden of love.” —Jia Tolentino, New York Times bestselling author of Trick Mirror “A remarkable family saga . . . The Fourth Child is a balm—a reminder that it is possible for art to provide a nuanced exploration of life itself.” —Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind and Rich and Pretty The author of Break in Case of Emergency follows up her “extraordinary debut” (The Guardian) with a moving novel about motherhood and marriage, adolescence and bodily autonomy, family and love, religion and sexuality, and the delicate balance between the purity of faith and the messy reality of life. Book-smart, devoutly Catholic, and painfully unsure of herself, Jane becomes pregnant in high school; by her early twenties, she is raising three children in the suburbs of western New York State. In the fall of 1991, as her children are growing older and more independent, Jane is overcome by a spiritual and intellectual restlessness that leads her to become involved with a local pro-life group. Following the tenets of her beliefs, she also adopts a little girl from Eastern Europe. But Mirela is a difficult child. Deprived of a loving caregiver in infancy, she remains unattached to her new parents, no matter how much love Jane shows her. As Jane becomes consumed with chasing therapies that might help Mirela, her relationships with her family, especially her older daughter, Lauren, begin to fray. Feeling estranged from her mother and unsettled in her new high school, Lauren begins to discover the power of her own burgeoning creativity and sexuality—a journey that both echoes and departs from her mother’s own adolescent experiences. But when Lauren is confronted with the limits of her youth and independence, Jane is thrown into an emotional crisis, forced to reconcile her principles and faith with her determination to keep her daughters safe. The Fourth Child is a piercing love story and a haunting portrayal of how love can shatter—or strengthen—our beliefs.

Megan Hall's first collection of poems, Fourth Child, has the texture of a carefully wrought, hand-stitched garment. It is something you want to bury your face in, like the familiar scented fabric of an item of clothing that belonged to a beloved who is gone. The Poems combine a dark humour and terrible grief with a lightness and restrained sensuality. Her language has the qualities of dance: uninhibited and polished, accomplished and vivid. Fourth Child shows a poet courageously facing deep feelings while being committed to accurate writing, making beautiful and living things out of the fabric of loss, grief, and emptiness.

The new bestseller from Jacqueline Wilson, creator of Tracy Beaker, Hetty Feather and The Illustrated Mum, is a funny, moving and heartwarming story of four children who discover a way to make wishes come true. Echoing the classic E Nesbit novel, Five Children and It, this new story from this mega-selling author, winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, is a brilliant read not just for those familiar with the original book but for any of Wilson's millions of fans.

“A funny and moving commentary on that point in a woman's life when everything seems to come into question." —Camille Perri, The New York Times "It's the superb insights and penetrating writing that make this book remarkable... An extraordinary debut." —The Guardian "Enthralling, sharply observed" —Marie Claire "Hilarious... The personal and workplace plots are woven together beautifully. Read, cringe, laugh, relate." —Lenny "In this cutting commentary on workplace toxicity and how its tendrils can strangle relationships, Winter uses humor to illuminate the state of modern work, family, and friendship." —Elle.com "Sassy, sarcastic and sleek, this is a wonderfully brash appraisal of how we live."—Colum McCann One of Elle Magazine's 19 Summer Books That Everyone Will Be Talking About One of Cosmo's Reads for July One of Refinery29's Two New Books to Read in July by Brilliant Debut Authors An irreverent and deeply moving comedy about friendship, fertility, and fighting for one’s sanity in a toxic workplace. Jen has reached her early thirties and has all but abandoned a once-promising painting career when, spurred by the 2008 economic crisis, she takes a poorly defined job at a feminist nonprofit. The foundation’s ostensible aim is to empower women, but staffers spend all their time devising acronyms for imaginary programs, ruthlessly undermining one another, and stroking the ego of their boss, the larger-than-life celebrity philanthropist Leora Infinitas. Jen’s complicity in this passive-aggressive hellscape only intensifies her feelings of inferiority compared to her two best friends—one a wealthy attorney with a picture-perfect family, the other a passionately committed artist—as does Jen’s apparent inability to have a baby, a source of existential panic that begins to affect her marriage and her already precarious status at the office. As Break in Case of Emergency unfolds, a fateful art exhibition, a surreal boondoggle adventure in Belize, and a devastating personal loss conspire to force Jen to reckon with some hard truths about herself and the people she loves most. Jessica Winter’s ferociously intelligent debut novel is a wry satire of celebrity do-goodism as well as an exploration of the difficulty of navigating friendships as they shift to accommodate marriage and family, and the unspoken tensions that can strain even the strongest bonds.

In a future where the Population Police enforce the law limiting a family to only two children, Luke, an illegal third child, has lived all his twelve years in isolation and fear on his family's farm in this start to the Shadow Children series from Margaret Peterson Haddix. Luke has never been to school. He's never had a birthday party, or gone to a friend's house for an overnight. In fact, Luke has never had a friend. Luke is one of the shadow children, a third child forbidden by the Population Police. He's lived his entire life in hiding, and now, with a new housing development replacing the woods next to his family's farm, he is no longer even allowed to go outside. Then, one day Luke sees a girl's face in the window of a house where he knows two other children already live. Finally, he's met a shadow child like himself. Jen is willing to risk everything to come out of the shadows—does Luke dare to become involved in her dangerous plan? Can he afford not to?

An exquisitely photographed exploration of what it is to find purpose, joy and connection in the simple things. 'In a time of infinite choice and possibility, Jodi has provided a grounded road map to becoming a grateful, settled soul.' Alexx Stuart, author of Low Tox Life 'I'm not here to nag you and tell you that you need to live with less stuff. Nor will I tell you that owning less is a sure and certain path to happiness. But let me tell you what it's like to carry all you own with you ... to reduce your consumption and increase your free time and to realise that everything you need in life can fit in a caravan along with those you love most ...' It is natural to fear uncertainty. But what if you embraced it, listened to your intuition and made the tiny or big decisions to slow life right down? What if you had more space in your life for connection to nature and those around you? What if you stepped off the treadmill and forged a new path? In Practising Simplicity, author and photographer Jodi Wilson shines a light on all the best things in life that don't cost money and how you can incorporate them into your lifestyle, whatever your circumstances. For her, the simplicity of living in a tiny home on wheels was at first terrifying but ultimately the essential answer to anxiety and overwhelm. A beautiful, unflinching encouragement to let go of the unnecessary, Practising Simplicity inspires us to celebrate the simple yet extraordinary joys that make life meaningful.

The Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus and baby Sunny, are exceedingly unlucky. Their parents have been killed, and they are forced to go and stay with their Uncle Olaf. It soon turns out that Olaf has evil plans for the children.