Best Selling Books by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers'' Prize for Best Book Following the curves of history in the first half of the twentieth century, Fall On Your Knees takes us from haunted Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, through the battle fields of World War One, to the emerging jazz scene of New York City and into the lives of four unforgettable sisters. The mythically charged Piper family—James, a father of intelligence and immense ambition, Materia, his Lebanese child-bride, and their daughters: Kathleen, a budding opera Diva; Frances, the incorrigible liar and hell-bent bad girl; Mercedes, obsessive Catholic and protector of the flock; and Lily, the adored invalid who takes us on a quest for truth and redemption—is supported by a richly textured cast of characters. Together they weave a tale of inescapable family bonds, of terrible secrets, of miracles, racial strife, attempted murder, birth and death, and forbidden love. Moving and finely written, Fall On Your Knees is by turns dark and hilariously funny, a story—and a world—that resonate long after the last page is turned.

“The sun came out after the war and our world went Technicolor. Everyone had the same idea. Let’s get married. Let’s have kids. Let’s be the ones who do it right.” The Way the Crow Flies, the second novel by bestselling, award-winning author Ann-Marie MacDonald, is set on the Royal Canadian Air Force station of Centralia during the early sixties. It is a time of optimism--infused with the excitement of the space race but overshadowed by the menace of the Cold War--filtered through the rich imagination and quick humour of eight-year-old Madeleine McCarthy and the idealism of her father, Jack, a career officer. Ann-Marie MacDonald said in a discussion with Oprah Winfrey about her first book, “a happy ending is when someone can walk out of the rubble and tell the story.” Madeleine achieves her childhood dream of becoming a comedian, yet twenty years later she realises she cannot rest until she has renewed the quest for the truth, and confirmed how and why the child was murdered.. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, called The Way the Crow Flies “absorbing, psychologically rich…a chronicle of innocence betrayed”. With compassion and intelligence, and an unerring eye for the absurd as well as the confusions of childhood, , MacDonald evokes the confusion of being human and the necessity of coming to terms with our imperfections.

From the internationally best-selling author of Fall on Your Knees comes a story about the joy and agony of motherhood, the dark undercurrents that break and hold families together, and the transformative power of forgiveness. Mary Rose MacKinnon is a successful author of YA fiction doing a tour of duty as stay-at-home mom while her partner, Hilary, takes a turn focusing on her career. She tries valiantly to balance the (mostly) solo parenting of two young children with the relentless needs of her aging parents. But amid the hilarities of full-on domesticity arises a sense of dread. Do other people notice the dents in the expensive refrigerator? How long will it take Mary Rose to realize that the car alarm that has been going off all morning is hers, and how on earth did the sharpest pair of scissors in the house wind up in her toddler’s hands? As frustrations mount, she experiences a flare-up of forgotten symptoms of a childhood illness that compel her to rethink her own upbringing, her own family history. Over the course of one outwardly ordinary week, Mary Rose’s world threatens to unravel, and the specter of violence raises its head with dangerous implications for her and her children. Adult Onset explores the pleasures and pressures of family bonds, powerful and yet so easily twisted and broken. Ann-Marie MacDonald has crafted a searing, terrifying, yet ultimately uplifting story.

When ghostwriter Constance Ledbelly''s mentor marries a rival, Constance embarks on a "what-if" writing spree that brings her face-to-face with literary characters Desdemona and Juliet. What follows is a riotous retelling of theatrical legend that brings Constance renewed self-confidence--and that won playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald awards and accolades.

THE INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year • A beloved writer returns with a tale of science, magic, love, and identity •“Engrossing, gorgeous, funny.” —The Globe and Mail • “Magnificent.” —Montreal Review of Books • “A reinvention for the bestselling author. . . . MacDonald’s fourth novel is a paean to the act of storytelling and a triumph that challenges the constructs of gender.” —Quill & Quire (starred review) In the late nineteenth century, Charlotte Bell is growing up at Fayne, a vast and lonely estate straddling the border between England and Scotland, where she has been kept from the world by her adoring father, Lord Henry Bell, owing to a mysterious condition. Charlotte, strong and insatiably curious, revels in the moorlands, and has learned the treacherous and healing ways of the bog from the old hired man, Byrn, whose own origins are shrouded in mystery. Her idyllic existence is shadowed by the magnificent portrait on the landing in Fayne House which depicts her mother, a beautiful Irish-American heiress, holding Charlotte’s brother, Charles Bell. Charlotte has grown up with the knowledge that her mother died in giving birth to her, and that her older brother, Charles, the long-awaited heir, died soon afterwards at the age of two. When Charlotte’s appetite for learning threatens to exceed the bounds of the estate, her father breaks with tradition and hires a tutor to teach his daughter “as you would my son, had I one.” But when Charlotte and her tutor’s explorations of the bog turn up an unexpected artefact, her father announces he has arranged for her to be cured of her condition, and her world is upended. Charlotte’s passion for knowledge and adventure will take her to the bottom of family secrets and to the heart of her own identity.

Premiered at the Shaw Festival one of the largest classical repertory theatres

L''AIR ADULTE est une œuvre puissante sur la maternité, les forces sombres qui déchirent et réunissent les familles, le pouvoir et les tensions de l’amour.

Una novela intimista y profunda sobre la familia, la memoria, el amor, la necesidad del perdón y los nuevos modelos familiares. Hay semanas que resumen una vida entera y nos cuentan de nosotros más de lo que querríamos saber. Un mal secreto arranca un lunes cualquiera, mientras Mary Rose MacKinnon está sentada en la mesa del desayuno de su casa, y acabará en domingo, pero en estos siete días el caos del día a día y los recuerdos de infancia se irán trenzando para dar la imagen de un mundo donde caben la comedia y el drama. Bien mirado, Mary Rose algo de responsabilidad tiene en todo eso; es ella quien ha decidido dejar de lado su carrera para dedicarse a sus hijos, Maggie y Matthew, dos criaturas que tendrá que cuidar sola mientras su compañera Hilary está de viaje por trabajo. En general, todo parece dispuesto para lo mejor, pero hay detalles que duelen: ¿nadie se ha fijado en la abolladura de la nevera?, ¿cómo es posible que Maggie aparezca de repente con unas tijeras en la mano?, ¿dónde está el maldito mando del coche...? La voz cansada y lejana de Hilary que llama por la noche no basta para recobrar el equilibrio y la presencia de sus padres, que invaden la casa con tiernas extravagancias, devuelven a Mary Rose a un momento del pasado, a una oscura enfermedad y un mal secreto que la familia decidió borrar de su historia. Lunes, martes, miércoles... la vida transcurre y la espléndida prosa de Anne-Marie MacDonald cose los retales del presente y del pasado perdido con el talento de una maestra. « Mirar la vida como si estuviera cortada a cachos es muy difícil, pero tieneuna ventaja: no te hace falta saber cuánto pesa la mochila que llevas cargando en la espalda.» Ann-Marie Macdonald Críticas: «Grande, perturbadora y valiente novela.» New York Times Book Review «Cautivadora... La robusta narrative de MacDonald construye un fascinante análisis de la soledad y la impotencia a menudo absurda de ser padre en solitario.» Publishers Weekly

Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, rond 1900: de jonge pianostemmer James wordt met zijn kindbruidje Materia verbannen naar een eenzaam huis op een klif. Tot elkaar veroordeeld vechten zij en hun dochters zich door het leven. Laten wij aanbidden is een adembenemende geschiedenis die de lezer nog lang bijblijft. Een roman voor wie houdt van de Brontës, Annie Proulx en Carol Shields.

Het leek zo mooi: Mary Rose MacKinnon heeft met haar young adult-boeken genoeg verdiend om een poos thuis bij haar kinderen te blijven. Haar partner Hilary, theaterregisseur, heeft het stikdruk. Met Mary Rose thuis aan het roer blijft hun huishouden mooi beredderd en hun gezin in balans. Ze tuiniert, kookt en poetst dat het een aard heeft, maar van een idylle is geen sprake. De muren komen op haar af. Terwijl haar frustratie langzaam tot een kookpunt komt, laaien in het lichaam van Mary Rose lang vergeten symptomen op. Als kind is ze ziek geweest, maar ook weer genezen, en ze denkt niet meer aan die tijd. Of toch? Wat ligt er in haar lichaam besloten? Flarden van herinneringen zwermen hardnekkig door haar hoofd. En zo sluipt de schim van huiselijk geweld langzaam haar leven in, met desastreuze gevolgen voor het hele gezin. In haar lichaam besloten is een dreigend en aangrijpend verhaal over moederschap, over de duistere banden die een familie samenhouden, en de kracht en druk van liefde.

De vroege jaren zestig. De ruimtevaartwedloop zorgt voor veel opwinding en optimisme, maar de dreiging van de Koude Oorlog is permanent voelbaar. Het gezin McCarthy heeft zich net gevestigd op een rustige luchtmachtbasis in Ontario. De achtjarige Madeleine weet niet dat haar vader Jack algauw verstrikt raakt in een web van geheimen. Zijzelf durft niet te praten over wat er in het nablijfklasje gebeurt. Wanneer een schoolvriendinnetje van Madeleine dood in de bossen wordt gevonden, raakt het leven van de McCarthy''s voorgoed ontwricht en leert Madeleine de dubbelzinnigheid van de menselijke moraal kennen - een les die ze pas begint te begrijpen wanneer ze twintig jaar later haar zoektocht naar de waarheid, en de moordenaar voortzet. De kraaien zullen het zeggen is een aangrijpende pageturner over de gevolgen die geheimen hebben voor het eigen leven en dat van een ander.

Tragédia, comédia, farsa - um mergulho revelador e divertidíssimo na obra de Shakespeare e na alma humana. Tentando decifrar os códigos de um antigo manuscrito, a professora Constance Ledbelly é misteriosamente transportada para dois cenários de Shakespeare - Otelo e Romeu e Julieta. Nesta exuberante comédia , Constance Ledbelly, uma insípida e seca professora- assistente, decifra um manuscrito que acredita ser a fonte original das tragédias do famoso autor inglês e é transportada para as peças. Visita Julieta e Desdêmona, dá um jeito para salvá-las das mortes que o Bordo planejou para elas e descobre que essas mulheres não são como pensava. Sem querer, interfere no rumo dos acontecimentos, desperta paixões insuspeitadas, rancores, inveja. Ao final dessa estranha e muitas vezes hilariante viagem, o que acontece diante dos nossos olhos é pura alquimia - a transformação da obscuridade em luz, da tragédia em comédia, do caos em criação.

Vallende bladeren. - De noodlottige geschiedenis van een excentrieke familie op Nova Scotia (Canada) in het begin van de twintigste eeuw.