Tradebooks

Violet Covington pens Dear Sweetie, the most popular advice column in the state of North Carolina. She has an answer for how to politely handle any difficult situation...until she discovers her husband, Sam, has been cheating on her. Furious and out of sensible solutions, Violet leaves her filter at the door and turns to her column to air her own frustrations. The new, brutally honest Dear Sweetie goes viral, sending more shock waves through Violet's life. When she burns Sam's belongings in a front-yard, late-night bonfire, a smoking-hot firefighter named Dez shows up to douse the flames, and an unexpected fling quickly shows potential to become something longer lasting.

A lot of people want to see the old polished Violet return--including her boss, who finds her unpredictability hard to manage, and Sam, who's begging for another chance. But Dez appreciates Violet just the way she is--in fact, he can't get enough of her. The right answers don't come easily when Violet finds herself at her own personal crossroads. But maybe, by getting real, Violet can write her own happy ending.

High five! It's winter! For one spirited little puppy, winter means romping in the snow, birds to chase, fragrant evergreen trees, and joy, joy, joy! Then again, winter also means . . . oddly unfriendly deer? Millions of little lights? Contorting inflatable snowmen? Wait, what? If this is all winter too, then winter is kind of . . . weird! Helen Yoon's fresh and hilarious take on the winter season--part of a quirky new series of picture books--is a blend of bumbling affection and slack-jawed wonder.

When Marie and her brother Fritz receive a special Christmas nutcracker from their uncle, Marie immediately feels something magical. "He looks like a real boy," she mused. "A real boy with a secret, who came from far away."

This feeling is only the beginning of the epic adventure she goes on with the Nutcracker--into the cabinet, through the battle with the mice, and finally to the magical land of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Jan Brett makes this classic her own by setting it in snowy Russia and adding whimsical touches to the favorite elements of the traditional ballet. Enjoying this book will be an instant Christmas tradition for families who love the ballet and those new to the story.
As perfect a gift as Jan Brett's classics The Mitten and The Night Before Christmas.

Funny, heartbreaking, and real--these twelve stories showcase a dynamic range of voices belonging to characters who can't stop confessing. They are obsessive storytellers, disturbed professors, depressed auctioneers, gambling clergy. A fourteen-year-old boy gets baptized and speaks in tongues to win the love of a girl who ushers him into adulthood; a troubled insomniac searches the woods behind his mother's house for the "awful pretty" singing that begins each midnight; a school-system employee plans a year-end party at the site of a child's drowning; a burned-out health-care administrator retires from New England to coastal Georgia and stumbles upon a life-changing moment inside Walmart. These big-hearted people--tethered to the places that shape them--survive their daily sorrows and absurdities with well-timed laughter; they slouch toward forgiveness, and they point their ears toward the Holy Ghost's last words.