Mirella and Howard appear to have it all: two careers, two kids, a beautiful house in the Boston suburbs. And like most couples living the American dream, their lives are hectic, the house is a mess. Worse, both children seem troubled. Enter Randi, the ideal nanny, who cooks, cleans, does craft projects, and takes the children to heart. Harmony and grace are established, such as most working parents can only wish for. But as Mirella and Howard settle gingerly into this perfect arrangement, disturbing cracks appear in their home life. Are the children becoming too attached to Randi? What don't Mirella and Howard know about her? And what don't they know about each other?

A Perfect Arrangement

Literature & Fiction

Berne, Suzanne

Contemporary

Plume/ Penguin Group

The Ghost at the Table

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Gardening & Landscape Design

Penguin

The Dogs of Littlefield

Fig Tree

From the Orange Prize–winning author of A Crime in the Neighborhood, Suzanne Berne’s The Dogs of Littlefield is “sublime” (The Chicago Tribune), a suspenseful and hilarious “suburban comedy of manners par excellence” (Kirkus Reviews) that explores the unease behind the manicured lawns of suburban America.Littlefield, Massachusetts, named one of the Twenty Best Places to Live in America, is full of psychologists and college professors, proud of its fine schools, its girls’ soccer teams, its leafy streets, and quaint village center.Yet when sociologist Dr. Clarice Watkins arrived in Littlefield to study the elements of “good quality of life” someone begins poisoning the town’s dogs. Are the poisonings in protest to an off-leash proposal for Baldwin Park—the subject of much town debate—or the sign of a far deeper disorder?“Nothing sucks a reader in like psychological menace, and Suzanne Berne is a master of the craft…. Her scenes are elegantly composed, and even throwaway characters jump off the page” (The New York Times). A wry exploration of the discontent concealed behind the manicured lawns and picket fences of darkest suburbia, The Dogs of Littlefield explodes with “comic exuberance and restrained beauty” (The Boston Globe).

Literary

Mirella and Howard Cook-Goldman's new nanny, Randi Gill, seems perfect, but when their seamless life begins to unravel, the young woman assumes an inappropriate place in the family structure.

Genre Fiction

Plume

A Crime in the Neighborhood

VIKING

An auspicious debut novel by a young writer who will remind readers of Anne Lamott and Anne Tyler Crime in the Neighborhood centers on a headline event-- the molestation and murder of a twelve-year-old boy in a Washington, D.C., suburb. At the time of the murder, 1973, Marsha was nine years old and as an adult she still remembers that summer as a time when murder and her own family's upheaval were intertwined. Everyone, it seemed to Marsha at the time, was committing crimes. Her father deserted his family to take up with her mother's younger sister. Her teenage brother and sister were smoking and shoplifting, and her mother was "flirting" with Mr. Green, the new next-door neighbor. Even the president of the United States seemed to be a crook. But it is Marsha's own suspicions about who committed this crime that has the town up in arms and reveals what happens when fear runs wild.

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Henry_Holt

A “brilliantly done” (Sunday Times, London) comedy of manners that explores the unease behind the manicured lawns of suburban America from the Orange Prize–winning author of A Crime in the Neighborhood. Littlefield, Massachusetts, named one of the Ten Best Places to Live in America, full of psychologists and college professors, is proud of its fine schools, its girls’ soccer teams, its leafy streets, and charming village center. Yet no sooner has sociologist Dr. Clarice Watkins arrived to study the elements of “good quality of life” than someone begins poisoning the town’s dogs. Are the poisonings in protest to an off-leash proposal for Baldwin Park—the subject of much town debate—or the sign of a far deeper disorder? Certainly these types of things don’t happen in Littlefield. With an element of suspense, satirical social commentary, and in-depth character portraits, Suzanne Berne’s nuanced novel reveals the discontent concealed behind the manicured lawns and picket fences of darkest suburbia. The Dogs of Littlefield is “a compelling, poignant yet unsentimental novel that examines life, love, and loss” (Sunday Mirror, UK).

United States

Simon&Schuster

The Blue Window: A Novel

S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books

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Books by Berne, Suzanne