Saudi-born author Keija Parssinen’s stunning debut offers the intricate, emotionally resonant story of an American expatriate who discovers that her husband, a Saudi billionaire, has taken a second bride—an emotionally turbulent revelation that blinds them both to their teenaged son’s ominous first steps down the road of radicalization. Readers of The Septembers of Shiraz will be captivated by Parssinen’s story of love and betrayal, fundamentalism, family and country in the Middle East. Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead, hails Parssinen’s characters as “richly conceived, and her evocative petrol universe of wealth, privilege, and intrigue is unforgettable,” characterizing The Ruins of Us as having “powerful storytelling that is refreshing and entertaining.”

RUINS US

Literature & Fiction

Parssinen, Keija

Dramas & Plays

Perennial

Winner of a 2016 Alex Award 
Named a Best Book of 2015 by the Kansas City Star
In this intricate novel of psychological suspense, a fatal discovery near the high school ignites a witch-hunt in a Southeast Texas refinery town, unearthing communal and family secrets that threaten the lives of the town’s girls.
In Port Sabine, the air is thick with oil, superstition reigns, and dreams hang on making a winning play. All eyes are on Mercy Louis, the star of the championship girls’ basketball team. Mercy seems destined for greatness, but the road out of town is riddled with obstacles. There is her grandmother, Evelia, a strict evangelical who has visions of an imminent Rapture and sees herself as the keeper of Mercy’s virtue. There are the cryptic letters from Charmaine, the mother who abandoned Mercy at birth. And then there’s Travis, the boy who shakes the foundation of her faith.
At the periphery of Mercy’s world floats team manager Illa Stark, a lonely wallflower whose days are spent caring for a depressed mother crippled in a refinery accident. Like the rest of the town, Illa is spellbound by Mercy’s beauty and talent, but a note discovered in Mercy’s gym locker reveals that her life may not be as perfect as it appears.
The last day of school brings the disturbing discovery, and as summer unfolds and the police investigate, every girl becomes a suspect. When Mercy collapses on the opening night of the season, Evelia prophesies that she is only the first to fall, and soon, other girls are afflicted by the mysterious condition, sending the town into a tailspin, and bringing Illa and Mercy together in an unexpected way.
Evocative and unsettling, The Unraveling of Mercy Louis charts the downfall of one town’s golden girl while exploring the brutality and anxieties of girlhood in America.

The Unraveling of Mercy Louis: A Novel

United States

Harper

Winner of the 2016 Alex Award
Best Book of 2015 —Kansas City Star
In this intricate novel of psychological suspense, a fatal discovery near the high school ignites a witch-hunt in a Southeast Texas refinery town, unearthing communal and family secrets that threaten the lives of the town’s girls.
In Port Sabine, the air is thick with oil, superstition reigns, and dreams hang on making a winning play. All eyes are on Mercy Louis, the star of the championship girls’ basketball team. Mercy seems destined for greatness, but the road out of town is riddled with obstacles. There is her grandmother, Evelia, a strict evangelical who has visions of an imminent Rapture and sees herself as the keeper of Mercy’s virtue. There are the cryptic letters from Charmaine, the mother who abandoned Mercy at birth. And then there’s Travis, the boy who shakes the foundation of her faith.
At the periphery of Mercy’s world floats team manager Illa Stark, a lonely wallflower whose days are spent caring for a depressed mother crippled in a refinery accident. Like the rest of the town, Illa is spellbound by Mercy’s beauty and talent, but a note discovered in Mercy’s gym locker reveals that her life may not be as perfect as it appears.
The last day of school brings the disturbing discovery, and as summer unfolds and the police investigate, every girl becomes a suspect. When Mercy collapses on the opening night of the season, Evelia prophesies that she is only the first to fall, and soon, other girls are afflicted by the mysterious condition, sending the town into a tailspin, and bringing Illa and Mercy together in an unexpected way.
Evocative and unsettling, The Unraveling of Mercy Louis charts the downfall of one town’s golden girl while exploring the brutality and anxieties of girlhood in America.

Harper-perennial

More than two decades after moving to Saudi Arabia and marrying Abdullah Baylani, Rosalie learns that her husband has taken a second wife, beautiful Palestinian Isra. The discovery plunges the powerful family into chaos as Rosalie grapples with leaving Saudi Arabia, her life, and her family behind. Driven by anger and heartache, she plots her departure, soliciting fellow American and Abdullah's best friend, lonely divorce Dan Coleman, to help her. Meanwhile, Abdullah and Rosalie's consuming personal entanglements blind them to the crisis approaching their sixteen-year-old son Faisal, whose deepening resentment towards their lifestyle has led to his growing involvement with a controversial Sheikh. When Faisal makes an ill-fated choice that could destroy everything his embattled family holds dear, all must confront difficult truths as they fight to preserve what remains of their love.

Ruins of Us

Contemporary

FABER & FABER OME

From Lonely Planet, the world's leading travel guide publisher,Better Than Fiction 2, the follow-up to 2012's Better Than Fiction, is a second serving of true travel stories told by some of the world's best fiction writers including Dave Eggers, Jane Smiley and Karen Joy Fowler. 
Varied in place, plot and voice, these are stirring and evocative pieces that all share one common characteristic-they manifest a passion for the precious gift of travel, from its unexpected but inevitably enriching lessons about other peoples and places, to the truths, sometimes uncomfortable but always enlarging, it reveals about ourselves. 
By turns comic, dramatic, and moving - from Francine Prose's confrontation of the mysteries of India to DBC Pierre's search for Hemingway's muse in Italy - these 30 short tales reveal the joys, perils, and surprises of travel, and that truth can often be stranger (and better) than fiction. 
Whether on a plane en route to your own travel adventure, or at home settling in for a vicarious experience of world adventures, embark on this literary journey around the world and explore your passion for travel now! 
Authors: Lonely Planet, Don George, Dave Eggers, Jane Smiley, Karen Joy Fowler, Stefan Merrill Block, Francine Prose, DBC Pierre, Fiona Kidman, Alexander McCall Smith, Keija Parssinen, MJ Hyland, Catherine Lacey, Rebecca Dinerstein, Lloyd Jones, Porochista Khakpour, Jack Livings, Marina Lewycka, Lydia Millet, Suzanne Joinson, Sophie Cunningham, Christina Nichol, Mandy Sayer, Steven Amsterdam, Marie-Helene Bortino, Shirley Streshinsky, Steven Hall, David Shafer, Avi Duckor-Jones, Lily King, Aliya Whitely, and Natalie Baszile 
About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in. 
Lonely Planet's award-winning list travel literature anthologies include An Innocent Abroad (Independent Publishers Award, Silver for Essays, 2015) and A Fork in the Road (Lowell Thomas Award, Bronze for Travel Book, 2014; James Bear Award, Nominated for Travel Fiction, 2014). 
'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' -- Fairfax Media 
'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times 
Lonely Planet guides have won the TripAdvisor Traveler's Choice Award in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.

Better than Fiction 2: True adventures from 30 great fiction writers

Fowler, Karen Joy

Prose, Francine

Millet, Lydia

Block, Stefan Merrill

GEORGE, Don

Jones, Lloyd

Khakpour, Porochista

Bertino, Marie-Helene

Lacey, Catherine

King, Lily

Joinson, Suzanne

Hall, Steven

Shafer, David

Livings, Jack

PIERRE, DBC

Baszile, Natalie

Nichol, Christina

Amsterdam, Steven

EGGERS, Dave.

Streshinsky, Shirley

Cunningham, Sophie

Sayer, Mandy

Hyland, M.J.

Kidman, Fiona

Dinerstein, Rebecca

Duckor-Jones, Avi

Smiley, Jane.

LONELY, PLANET

Lewycka, Marina

McCall-Smith, Alexander

Essays & Correspondence

Lonely Planet

"...a brilliant collection of travel stories...threaded with great warmth, as readers are invited to travel in the company of these famous authors and experience their passions and revelations." BOOKSELLER + PUBLISHER 
We asked some of the world's most acclaimed fiction authors, including Isabel Allende, Peter Matthiessen, Alexander McCall Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, Tea Obreht and DBC Pierre, to describe their greatest non-fictional journeys. The 32 stories collected in Lonely Planet's Better than Fiction touch on everything from disorientation and revelation to disillusion and redemption. 
However, these real-life tales all share one common characteristic: a passion for the precious gift that travel confers, from its unexpected but inevitably enriching lessons about other peoples and places, to the truths it reveals about ourselves. By turns funny, poignant and thought-provoking, you'll be transported from Azerbaijan to Vietnam, via Iceland, India, Samoa, Scotland, Antarctica, Alaska, Argentina, Nicaragua, Rome, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and beyond. 
Edited by travel writer Don George. 
Also available: Lonely Planet Better than Fiction 2 
About Lonely Planet: Lonely Planet is a leading travel media company and the world's number one travel guidebook brand, providing both inspiring and trustworthy information for every kind of traveller since 1973. Over the past four decades, we've printed over 145 million guidebooks and grown a dedicated, passionate global community of travellers. You'll also find our content online, on mobile, video and in 14 languages, 12 international magazines, armchair and lifestyle books, ebooks, and more.
TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category 
'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times 
'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves, it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia)

Lonely Planet Better than Fiction 1: True Travel Tales from Great Fiction Writers (Lonely Planet Travel Literature)

MORRIS, JAN

ANDERSEN, KURT

COURTENAY, BRYCE

MAYES, Frances

Carson, Tom

Obreht, Téa

Finch, Charles

Yogerst, Joe

Kelman, Stephen

HULME, Keri

IYER, PICO

Gemmell, Nikki

Pavone, Chris

Birch, Carol

Davies, Peter Ho

ALLENDE,ISABEL

Zable, Arnold

Dapin, Mark

Whitely, Aliya

MATTHIESSEN, PETER

OATES,JOYCE CAROL

Short Stories & Anthologies

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