Most Popular Books by Christina Schwarz

At once darkly comedic and moving, this witty exploration of female friendship, envy, and misguided ambition by the author of the number-one bestseller Drowning Ruth, deliciously satirizes the desire to shine in the world. In All is Vanity, Margaret and Letty, best friends since childhood and now living on opposite coasts, reach their mid-thirties and begin to chafe at their sense that they are not where they ought to be in life. Margaret, driven and overconfident, decides the best way to rectify this is to quit her job and whip out a literary tour de force. Frustrated almost immediately and humiliated at every turn, Margaret turns to Letty for support. But as Letty, a stay-at-home mother of four, begins to feel pressured to make a good showing in the upper-middle-class Los Angeles society into which her husband’s new job has thrust her, Margaret sees a plot unfolding that’s better than anything she could make up. Desperate to finish her book and against her better nature, she pushes Letty to take greater and greater risks, and secretly steals her friend’s stories as fast as she can live them. Hungry for the world’s regard, Margaret rashly sacrifices one of the things most precious to her, until the novel’s suspenseful conclusion shows her the terrible consequences of her betrayal. Widely celebrated for her debut novel, Drowning Ruth, Christina Schwarz once again proves herself to be a writer of remarkable depth and range. Like Drowning Ruth, All is Vanity probes into the mysteries of the human heart and uncovers the passions that drive ordinary people to break the rules in pursuit of their own desires.

Is it possible to be in love with two women at the same time? This is a question Jon has been asking himself frequently these days. He''s loved his wife Ginny since the days when a chance encounter in the halls of their high school would leave him unable to speak. But recently Jon has found himself bewitched by Freddi, his colleague at the ad agency, where late-night brainstorming sessions devolve into giggles and sexual attraction. As Jon''s guilt becomes all-consuming and Ginny inches closer discovery, a secret kept for thirty years threatens any hope of salvation. Weaving together past and present in a small Midwestern town, Schwarz beautifully conjures the emotional labyrinth of a marriage on the brink of collapse, and a history of love and revenge.

Deftly written and emotionally powerful, Drowning Ruth is a stunning portrait of the ties that bind sisters together and the forces that tear them apart, of the dangers of keeping secrets and the explosive repercussions when they are exposed. A mesmerizing and achingly beautiful debut. Winter, 1919. Amanda Starkey spends her days nursing soldiers wounded in the Great War. Finding herself suddenly overwhelmed, she flees Milwaukee and retreats to her family''s farm on Nagawaukee Lake, seeking comfort with her younger sister, Mathilda, and three-year-old niece, Ruth. But very soon, Amanda comes to see that her old home is no refuge--she has carried her troubles with her. On one terrible night almost a year later, Amanda loses nearly everything that is dearest to her when her sister mysteriously disappears and is later found drowned beneath the ice that covers the lake. When Mathilda''s husband comes home from the war, wounded and troubled himself, he finds that Amanda has taken charge of Ruth and the farm, assuming her responsibility with a frightening intensity. Wry and guarded, Amanda tells the story of her family in careful doses, as anxious to hide from herself as from us the secrets of her own past and of that night. Ruth, haunted by her own memory of that fateful night, grows up under the watchful eye of her prickly and possessive aunt and gradually becomes aware of the odd events of her childhood. As she tells her own story with increasing clarity, she reveals the mounting toll that her aunt''s secrets exact from her family and everyone around her, until the heartrending truth is uncovered. Guiding us through the lives of the Starkey women, Christina Schwarz''s first novel shows her compassion and a unique understanding of the American landscape and the people who live on it.

“Absorbing...poignant, often heartbreaking...Schwarz is a vivid storyteller.” –The New York Times Book Review The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Drowning Ruth vividly evokes the perennially fascinating true crime love affair of Bonnie and Clyde in this suspenseful, gorgeously detailed fictional portrait of Bonnie Parker, one of America’s most enigmatic women. Born in a small town in the desolate reaches of western Texas and shaped by her girlhood in an industrial wasteland on the outskirts of Dallas, Bonnie Parker was a natural performer and a star student. She dreamed of being a movie star or a singer or a poet. But her dramatic nature, contorted by her limited opportunities and her overwhelming love for Clyde Barrow, pushed her into a course from which there was no escape but death. Infusing the psychological acuity of literary fiction with the relentless pacing of a thriller, Bonnie follows Bonnie from her bright, promising youth to her final month of shoot-outs, kidnappings, and desperate car chases through America’s hinterland in the grip of the Great Depression, as the noose of the law tightened around her. Enriched by Christina Schwarz’s extensive research in the footsteps of Bonnie and Clyde and written with her powerful sense of place and time, Bonnie is a plaintive and page-turning account of a woman destroyed by a lethal combination of longing and love.

Trudy escapes her banal life to live and work at an isolated lighthouse in Point Lucia, California with mysterious and energetic Oskar. What they discover hiding among the rocks changes everything.

Find your group’s next great read with Atria Book Club Bites: a free sampling of ten books guaranteed to feed your discussion. Great books, dear friends, and fascinating conversation are the key ingredients in any book club. To help you decide what to read next, dip into Atria Book Club Bites: a free sampling of ten books guaranteed to feed your discussion. You’ll find excerpts from: The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult The Comfort of Lies by Randy Susan Meyers The Book of Lost Fragrances by M.J. Rose The Mapmaker’s War by Ronlyn Domingue The Best of Us by Sarah Pekkanen Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger Heart Like Mine by Amy Hatvany The Edge of the Earth by Christina Schwarz Bird of Paradise by Raquel Cepeda Out With It by Katherine Preston Whether your club enjoys contemporary women’s fiction, stories with moral and ethical dilemmas, or a fascinating memoir, we’ve got a great book guaranteed to get you talking.

The Atria Summer 2013 Beach-Read Bag: A free collection of thirteen excerpts from novels by some of our favorite writers. There’s nothing that goes better with beach season than a delicious novel. With that in mind, we present Atria’s Summer 2013 Beach-Read Bag: a free collection of 13 excerpts from novels by some of our favorite writers. Selections include: The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally The Edge of the Earth by Christina Schwartz Five Days by Douglas Kennedy Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahar Delijani The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin The Lavender Garden by Lucinda Riley With All My Love by Patricia Scanlon The Mouse-Proof Kitchen by Saira Shah The Longings of Wayward Girls by Karen Brown Waiting for Jules by Tamara N. Houston No matter whether you’re on a plane traveling to your getaway destination or on your couch planted firmly in front of the air conditioner, we’ve got a great story guaranteed to whisk you away on a reading vacation.

In una giornata d''estate come tante altre, Jon, pubblicitario quarantenne in una cittadina del Midwest, si trova di fronte a una scelta tra le più difficili della sua vita: rimanere con Ginny, sua moglie da vent''anni, o lasciarsi travolgere dall''attrazione che lo spinge verso una collega, Freddi?

Der vorliegende Leitfaden ist ein übersichtlicher und praxisorientierter Wegweiser zur Hochbegabtenberatung. Er wurde insbesondere für ehrenamtlich in der Beratung tätige Per- sonen entwickelt, aber auch Lehrkräfte, Erzieher, Ärzte sowie Psychologen finden darin eine effektive Unterstützung für ihre Tätigkeit bei der Beratung von Eltern und anderen Bezugspersonen hochbegabter bzw. vermutungsweise hochbegabter Kinder. Das Buch ist in zwei Teile gegliedert, denen in der Neuauflage noch einige grundlegende Erkenntnisse zur Hochbegabtenforschung vorangestellt wurden. Der erste Teil schildert Schritt für Schritt diejenigen Aufgaben, die der Beratungsprozess an die Beraterin bzw. den Berater stellt. Neben einer verständlichen Einführung in grund- legende Gesprächsführungstechniken werden Möglichkeiten auf-gezeigt, wie Schwierigkeiten der Beratungstätigkeit, z. B. starke zeitliche und emotionale Belastungen, bewältigt werden können. Der zweite Teil vermittelt Kenntnisse zu Fragen und Problemen, die in Hochbegabtenberatungen thematisiert werden, und zeigt Möglichkeiten zur Hilfe auf. Hier geht es z. B. um Underachievement, mangelnde Lern- und Arbeitstechniken, aggressives Verhalten, Eltern-Kind-Konflikte und psychosomatische Beschwerden. Da viele der behandelten Themen auch in Beratungskontexten, in denen es um normal begabte Kinder und Jugendliche geht, von Relevanz sind, kann der Beratungsleitfaden auch generell genutzt werden, um fundierte Unterstützung bei diesen Problemen anzubieten.

Worn out from nursing soldiers at a Milwaukee hospital and struggling to recover from a traumatic love affair, Amanda Starkey returns to her family''s rural Wisconsin farm to stay with her beloved sister, Mattie, and young niece, Ruth.

No. 1 New York Times bestseller: ''Powerful... Suspenseful... chilling'' New York Times Christina Schwarz''s bestselling novel DROWNING RUTH is a powerful and shocking psychological drama, for everyone who loved THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS or THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES. At the close of World War One, Amanda Starkey leaves the city and travels to her family''s farm to recover from a broken heart. Instead, she is caught up in a tragedy that will take her sister''s life and leave Amanda to raise her niece Ruth. What happened that terrible night when Mattie died? Why does Ruth say she can remember drowning? When the truth is revealed, it is shocking, dramatic, and unforgettable. ''[A] gripping psychological thriller'' Francine Prose, US Weekly ''A mesmerizing first novel about horrifying family secrets'' Anita Shreve ''Riveting... A very suspenseful tale, one that will keep readers up shivering in [the] night'' USA Today

This is a haunting novel about the ties that bind families together and the insidious secrets that can rend them apart. Love, loss, guilt and lies are the narrative strands that run throughout this deftly woven tale of three women and a shocking turn of events that changes their lives forever.

K J''ai rêvé que j étais debout au bord du lac, l''été. L cou avait des reflets éblouissants et, de l''autre côté, je voyais Mathilda, assise sur les rochers qui bordaient /Île: elle chantait comme une sirène. Ainsi, elle était saine et sauve! Bien sûr quelle était saine et sauve !" La mère de Ruth est morte, noyée dans le lac Nagawaukee. C''est Amanda, sa sœur, qui s''occupe de l''orpheline. Mais pourquoi le faire si jalousement ? Pourquoi refuser qu''elle avance vers l''eau ? Pourquoi dissuader quiconque de s''approcher de la maison qu''elle habitait avec Mathilda, sur l''île, au milieu du lac? Amanda protège un secret comme elle protège sa vie. Ruth se rappelle vaguement qu''elle aussi, lors de cette nuit tragique, a failli se noyer, sous la glace. Mais, contrairement à sa mère, elle s''en est sortie. À mesure qu''elle grandit, inévitablement, Ruth se penche sur ces questions sans réponses...

Analyse: Roman familial. Roman psychologique (intime).