The intoxicating debut novel of "one motherless daughter's discover of ... the strange and wondrous places we find love" ("The Washington Post"). Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing work is set in South Carolina in 1964.

"For more than a decade, Jenna Metcalf has never stopped thinking about her mother, Alice, who mysteriously disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident. Refusing to believe that she would be abandoned as a young child, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice's old journals. A scientist who studied grief among elephants, Alice wrote mostly of her research among the animals she loved, yet Jenna hopes the entries...

"June Chu is the 'just good enough' girl. Good enough to line the shelves with a slew of third-place trophies and steal secret kisses from her AP Bio partner, Rhys. But not good enough to meet literally any of her Taiwanese mother's unrelenting expectations or to get Rhys to commit to anything beyond a well-timed joke. While June's mother insists she follow in her (perfect) sister's footsteps and get a (full-ride) violin scholarship to Northwestern...

"Alice Lange's neighbors are proud to know her-a high-achieving student, cheerleader, and all-around good citizen, she's the perfect emblem of their sunny neighborhood. But the night before she's expected to be crowned Homecoming Queen, Alice commits a shocking act of vandalism, then disappears. She hasn't been kidnapped. She's run away with a magnetic stranger named Wesley, who has promised her freedom and enlightenment in his nearby bungalow. But...

Mahalia Harris wants. She wants a big Sweet Sixteen like her best friend, Naomi. She wants the super-cute new girl Siobhan to like her back. She wants a break from worrying—about money, snide remarks from white classmates, pitying looks from church ladies . . . all of it. Then inspiration strikes: It’s too late for a Sweet Sixteen, but what if she had a coming-out party? A singing, dancing, rainbow-cake-eating celebration of queerness on her own...

"Beverly Tapinski has run away from home plenty of times, but that was when she was just a kid. By now, she figures, it's not running away. It's leaving. Determined to make it on her own, Beverly finds a job and a place to live and tries to forget about her dog, Buddy, now buried underneath the orange trees back home; her friend Raymie, whom she left without a word; and her mom, Rhonda, who has never cared about anyone but herself. Beverly doesn't...