When she died, Christine O'Gara left behind a fragile, fractured family—estranged, embittered and at odds over custody of her only child. But in time, they'll see that Christine's legacy is strong enough to finally give a young girl the father she deserves. Cora, Christine's mother—No stranger to loss, she's desperate to do right by her daughter and she'll fight with everything she's got. Lexie, Christine's daughter—Torn between grief and rage at the thought of living with the man who abandoned them, she's planning revenge. Alex, Christine's ex-husband—Never truly believed in his own worth…or understood what Christine saw in him. He'd tried to return to her, but he'd been turned away. Only now can he come back and prove Christine right. We can't choose our family. We can learn to deserve the love we crave from them.

Last Rights: An Anthology

Literature & Fiction

Hugo, Lynne

United States

HARLEQUIN)

Terrified of the water but needing to learn how to swim, Laurel convinces Marna, a former swimming champion who had given up her Olympic dreams for marriage, to give her lessons, a request that marks the beginning of an extraordinary friendship. Tour.

Swimming Lessons: A Novel

Villegas, Anna T.

William Morrow

Where the Trail Grows Faint: A Year in the Life of a Therapy Dog Team (River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize)

"This is Hannah," Lynne Hugo introduces her chocolate Labrador retriever to an aged woman in a wheelchair at the Golden View Nursing Home. "Would you like to pat her?" "I don't know," she responds warily. "Dogs are complicated." So, of course, is life, especially as the years accumulate and the body declines. In fact, the most painful complications are those that Hugo hopes to ease with Hannah, her exuberant therapy dog. What Hugo receives in return, unexpectedly, is an outpouring of stories as the residents respond to Hannah’s antics and affection. As Hugo’s involvement deepens, she begins to see her own life and her care for her elderly parents in a new perspective. Interweaving the elders’ tales—of old loves and ancient dreams, abandonment and loneliness, and the struggle for dignity—with her own family’s story, she creates a richly textured collective portrait of the often-hidden world of the aged. At the same time, she crafts an eloquent meditation on the fundamental human need to nurture and remain connected to other people, to animals, and to the natural world.

Parenting & Relationships

University Of Nebraska Press

“This is Hannah,” Lynne Hugo introduces her chocolate Labrador retriever to an aged woman in a wheelchair at the Golden View Nursing Home. “Would you like to pat her?” “I don’t know,” the woman responds warily. “Dogs are complicated.”So, of course, is life, especially as the years accumulate and the body declines. In fact, it is precisely the most painful complications that Hugo hopes to ease with Hannah, her exuberant therapy dog. Where the Trail Grows Faint is the story of Hugo’s experiences with Hannah and the elderly patients they visit. In return for their visits, Hugo unexpectedly receives an outpouring of stories as the residents respond to Hannah’s antics and affection. As Hugo’s involvement deepens, she begins to see her own life and her care for her elderly parents in a new perspective. Interweaving the elders’ tales—of old loves and ancient dreams, abandonment and loneliness, and the struggle for dignity—with her own family’s story, she creates a richly textured collective portrait of the often-hidden world of the aged. At the same time, she crafts an eloquent meditation on the fundamental human need to nurture and remain connected to other people, to animals, and to the natural world.

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Pets & Animal Care

Bison Books

Imagine a hawk’s view of the magnificent bluegrass pastures of Kentucky horse country. Circle around the remnants of a breeding farm, four beautiful horses grazing just beyond the paddock. Inside the ramshackle house, a family is falling apart. Hack, the patriarch breeder and trainer, is aged and blind, and his wife, Louetta, is confined by rheumatoid arthritis. Their daughter, Jewel, struggles to care for them and the horses while dealing with her own home and job—not to mention her lackluster second husband, Eddie, and Carley, her drug-addicted daughter. Many days, Jewel is only sure she loves the horses. But she holds it all together. Until her brother, Cal, shows up again. Jewel already has reason to hate Cal, and when he meets up with Carley, he throws the family into crisis—and gives Jewel reason to pick up a gun. Every family has heartbreaks, failures, a black sheep or two. And some families end in tatters. But some stumble on the secret of survival: if the leader breaks down, others step up and step in. In this lyrical novel, when the inept, the addict, and the ex-con join to weave the family story back together, either the barn will burn to the ground or something bigger than any of them will emerge, shining with hope. Remember My Beauties grows large and wide as it reveals what may save us. For more information, visit: http://www.lynnehugo.com/books/novels/remember-my-beauties/

Remember My Beauties (Switchgrass Books)

Literary

Northern Illinois University Press

What does unconditional love mean? Baby's Breath is a groundbreaking novel about a mother-daughter relationship shattered by a crime so horrific that even in our jaded culture few speak of it without an involuntary shudder. None of us thinks it could happen in our family. Leah Pacey, however, is not allowed the luxury of such denial. For her, the only notion more unthinkable than Alyssa's act is that of abandoning her daughter. 
Leah's search for understanding is as halting as our own. She persists only because she must. 
As we all must. 
Baby's Breath is an unprecedented story of human suffering and human redemption. Sometimes art takes us where we have not imagined, where we do not go of our own accord, and in doing so becomes an instrument of social change. In this meticulously researched work, Hugo and Villegas patiently open our hearts to see beyond the surface of one girl, beyond the surface of sensational headlines. Important literature is rarely easy and this novel is no exception.

Baby's Breath

Villegas, Anna Tuttle

Genre Fiction

Synergistic Pr

Caroline Marcum thought she'd escaped the great mistake of her life by leaving Wellfleet harbor, but is forced to face it when she returns, reluctantly, to care for her dying mother. Ridley Neal put his past-and his prison term-behind him to return home to take over his father's oyster and clam beds. Casual acquaintances long ago, when a nor'easter hits the coast, Rid and Caroline's lives intersect once again. When Rid and two other sea farmers are sued by the wealthy owners of vacation homes who want to shut them down, and Caroline accidentally meets the person she most wronged, they each must learn to trust-and love. Inspired by a 1996 lawsuit, A Matter of Mercy is a riveting novel about treasuring the traditional way of life in the shallows of beautiful Cape Cod bay by discovering where forgiveness ends and where it begins.

A Matter of Mercy

Blank Slate Press

From award-winning author Lynne Hugo comes a witty, insightful, refreshingly unsentimental novel about one woman's unconventional path from heartbreak to hope . . .  After losing her husband, Harold, and her beloved grandson, Cody, within the past year, Louisa has two choices. She can fade away on her Indiana family farm, where her companionship comes courtesy of her aging chickens and an argumentative cat. Or, she can concoct A Plan. Louisa, a retired schoolteacher who's as smart, sassy, and irreverent as ever, isn't the fading away type.  The drunk driver who killed Cody got off scot-free by lying about a deer on the road. Harold had tried to take matters into his own hands, but was thwarted by Gus, the local sheriff. Now Louisa decides to take up Harold's cause, though it will mean outsmarting Gus, who's developed an unwelcome crush on her, and staying ahead of her adult son who's found solace in a money-draining cult and terrible art.  Louisa's love of life is rekindled as the spring sun warms her cornfields and she goes into action. But even the most Perfect Plans can go awry. A wounded buck, and a teenage boy on the land she treasures help Louisa see that the enduring beauty of the natural world and the mystery of human connection are larger than revenge . . . and so is justice.  "I adored this fun yet poignant book." --Diane Chamberlain, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Marriage

The Testament of Harold's Wife (Thorndike Press Large Print Women's Fiction)

Thorndike Press Large Print

From award-winning author Lynne Hugo comes a witty, insightful, refreshingly unsentimental novel about one woman’s unconventional path from heartbreak to hope . . . After losing her husband, Harold, and her beloved grandson, Cody, within the past year, Louisa has two choices. She can fade away on her Indiana family farm, where her companionship comes courtesy of her aging chickens and an argumentative cat. Or, she can concoct A Plan. Louisa, a retired schoolteacher who’s as smart, sassy, and irreverent as ever, isn’t the fading away type. The drunk driver who killed Cody got off scot-free by lying about a deer on the road. Harold had tried to take matters into his own hands, but was thwarted by Gus, the local sheriff. Now Louisa decides to take up Harold’s cause, though it will mean outsmarting Gus, who’s developed an unwelcome crush on her, and staying ahead of her adult son who’s found solace in a money-draining cult and terrible art. Louisa's love of life is rekindled as the spring sun warms her cornfields and she goes into action. But even the most Perfect Plans can go awry. A wounded buck, and a teenage boy on the land she treasures help Louisa see that the enduring beauty of the natural world and the mystery of human connection are larger than revenge . . . and so is justice. “I adored this fun yet poignant book.” —Diane Chamberlain, New York Times bestselling author of The Stolen Marriage

The Testament of Harold's Wife

Kensington

Award-winning author Lynne Hugo returns with a life-affirming, poignant novel in the spirit of A Man Called Ove-a story brimming with both wit and warmth about how a family gets on...and goes on. CarolSue and her sister, Louisa, are best friends, but haven't had much in common since CarolSue married Charlie, moved to Atlanta, and swapped shoes covered with Indiana farm dust and chicken poop for fresh pedicures and afternoon bridge. Louisa, meanwhile, loves her farm and animals as deeply as she'd loved Harold, her late husband of forty years, Charlie's sudden death leaves CarolSue so adrift that she surrenders to Louisa's plan for her to move back home. But canning vegetables and feeding chickens are alien to CarolSue, and after stumbling onto a secret Louisa's been keeping from her, CarolSue resolves to return to Atlanta-until Louisa's son, Reverend Gary, arrives with an abandoned infant and a dubious story. He begs the women to look after the baby while he locates the mother-a young immigrant who fears deportation. Keeping his own secrets, Gary enlists the aid of the sheriff, Gus, in the search. But CarolSue's bond with the baby is undeniable, and she forms an unconventional secret plan of her own. Only Gary knows about the outsider with the power to explode their lives. How many mistakes can be redeemed? Praise for the novels of Lynne Hugo "Sparkling prose, wry humor, and timely, relevant themes abound." -Donna Everhart, USA Today bestselling author of The Moonshiner's Daughter "A tender hymn of hope and rebirth that stays with you long after the last page." -Kim Michele Richardson, author of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek "Moving and transcendent." -Patry Francis, bestselling author of The Orphans of Race Point

The Book of CarolSue

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hugo, Lynne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hugo, Lynne

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hugo, Lynne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Last Rights: An Anthology

Swimming Lessons: A Novel

Where the Trail Grows Faint: A Year in the Life of a Therapy Dog Team (River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize)

Where the Trail Grows Faint: A Year in the Life of a Therapy Dog Team (River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize)

Remember My Beauties (Switchgrass Books)

Baby's Breath

A Matter of Mercy

The Testament of Harold's Wife (Thorndike Press Large Print Women's Fiction)

The Testament of Harold's Wife

The Book of CarolSue