'It's the women who make this novel such a great read. They are glorious and mad, vulnerable, so human, and very, very funny' - Roddy Doyle
Thelma and Louise meets Goodfellas when an unlikely trio of women in New York find themselves banding together to escape the clutches of violent figures from their pasts.
After Brooklyn mob widow Rena Ruggiero hits her eighty-year-old neighbor Enzio in the head with an ashtray when he makes an unwanted move on her, she retreats to the Bronx home of her estranged daughter, Adrienne, and her granddaughter, Lucia, only to be turned away at the door. Their neighbor, Lacey 'Wolfie' Wolfstein, a one-time Golden Age porn star and retired Florida Suncoast grifter, takes Rena in and befriends her. When Lucia discovers that Adrienne is planning to hit the road with her ex-boyfriend, she figures Rena is her only way out of a life on the run with a mother she can't stand. The stage is set for an explosion that will propel Rena, Wolfie, and Lucia down a strange path, each woman running from their demons, no matter what the cost.
A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself is a novel about finding friendship and family where you least expect it, in which William Boyle again draws readers into the familiar - and sometimes frightening - world in the shadows at the edges of New York's neighborhoods.
'A thunderous locomotive of a novel, driven by remarkable characters and sparkling dialogue. A treat for fans of neo-noir, it's brimming with dark wit and piercing insight. Highly recommended' - Stuart Neville, author of The Twelve
'The three wondrous and resilient women at its center are so richly etched, so powerfully voiced, you'll find yourself wanting to pull up to the dinner table with them, grab a glass, and tuck in' - Megan Abbott, author of You Will Know Me and The Fever
'Wolfie Wolfstein is as comfortably intact a creature as any crime writer of recent vintage has put together' - Barry Gifford, author of Sailor &amp; Lula:The Complete Novels and The Cuban Club
'A brilliant and nasty piece of joyful ambiguity that I loved deeply. What a marvelous and unexpected bunch of female characters, in particular. With this one, William Boyle vaults into the big time, or he damn sure should' - Joe R. Lansdale

A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself

Literature & Fiction

William Boyle

Genre Fiction

No Exit Press

City of Margins

Oldcastle Books Ltd

An explosive crime drama, Shoot the Moonlight Out evokes a mystical Brooklyn where the sidewalks are cracked, where Virgin Mary statues tilt in fenced front yards, and where smudges of moonlight reflect in puddles even on the blackest nights.Southern Brooklyn, July 1996. Fire hydrants are open and spraying water on the sizzling blacktop. Punk kids have to make their own fun. Bobby Santovasco and his pal Zeke like to throw rocks at cars getting off the Belt Parkway. They think it's dumb and harmless until it's too late to think otherwise. Then there's Jack Cornacchia, a widower who lives with his high school age daughter Amelia and reads meters for Con Ed but also has a secret life as a vigilante, righting neighborhood wrongs through acts of violence. A simple mission to strong-arm a Bay Ridge con man, Max Berry, leads him to cross paths with a tragedy that hits close to home.Fast forward five years: June 2001. The summer before New York City and the world changed for good. Charlie French is a low-level gangster-wannabe trying to make a name for himself. When he stumbles onto a bowling alley locker stuffed with a bag full of cash, he brings it to his only pal, Max Berry, for safekeeping while he cleans up the mess surrounding it. Bobby Santovasco - with no real future mapped out and the big sin of his past shining brightly in his rearview mirror - has taken a job working as an errand boy for Max Berry. On a recruiting run for Max's Ponzi scheme, Bobby meets Francesca Clarke, born in the neighborhood but an outsider nonetheless. They hit it off. Bobby gets the idea to knock off Max's safe so he and Francesca can escape Brooklyn forever. Little does he know what Charlie French has stashed there.Meanwhile, Bobby's former stepsister, Lily Murphy, is back home in the neighborhood after college, teaching a writing class in the basement of St. Mary's church. She's also being stalked by her college boyfriend. One of her students is Jack Cornacchia. When she opens up to him about her stalker, Jack decides to take matters into his own hands.A riveting portrait of lives crashing together at the turn of the century, Shoot the Moonlight Out is tragic and tender and funny and strange. A sense of loss is palpable - what has been lost and what will be lost - and Boyle's characters face down old ghosts with grim determination, as ripples of consequence radiate in dangerous directions.

Shoot the Moonlight Out

How important are your relationships to you? Are you completely satisfied with the way they are now, or would you like to improve them? Would you like to relate with everyone the way Jesus did? Do you ever struggle with honesty, humility, anger, greed, judgmentalism, conflict, or forgiveness? In this book, we are going to examine what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, as it relates to those issues, as well as other difficult areas of life we all face on a daily basis. If your desire is to relate with people the Jesus way, our hope is that you will become more like the ultimate relational Leader, Jesus Christ.

Follow the Leader: Relating with People the Jesus Way

David Mains

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Mainstay Ministries

Ray Boy Calabrese is released from prison 16 years after his actions led to the death of a young man. The victim's brother, Conway D'Innocenzio, is a 29-year-old Brooklynite wasting away at a local Rite Aid, stuck in the past and still howling for Ray Boy's blood. When the chips are down and the gun is drawn, Conway finds that he doesn't have murder in him. Thus begins a spiral of self-loathing and soul-searching into which he is joined by Alessandra, a failed actress caring for her widowed father, and Eugene, Ray Boy's hellbound nephew. Ray Boy Calabrese is back in Gravesend: some people worship him, some want him dead . . . but none more so than the ex-con himself.

Gravesend

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Broken River Books

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Books by William Boyle