"In the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a social circle of lovers and friends navigate tangled webs of connection as they try to figure out what they want, and who they are."--

In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, a kind of last testament to his remarkable forebears.

“Superb and subtle psychological suspense.”—Lee Child

A haunting novel from the author of The Weight of Blood about a young woman’s return to her childhood home—and her encounter with the memories and family secrets it holds
ITW THRILLER AWARD FINALIST
Arrowood is the most ornate and grand of the historical houses that line the Mississippi River in southern Iowa. But the...

"Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds that Amy's funeral has just ended. Luckily, the townspeople are happy to look after their bewildered tourist--even if they don't understand her peculiar need for books. Marooned in a farm town that's almost beyond repair, Sara starts a bookstore in honor of her friend's memory. All she wants...

The Amazing Arden is the most famous female illusionist of her day, renowned for her notorious trick of sawing a man in half on stage. One night in Waterloo, Iowa, with young policeman Virgil Holt watching from the audience, she swaps her trademark saw for a fire ax. Is it a new version of the illusion, or an all-too-real murder? When Arden's husband is found lifeless beneath the stage later that night, the answer seems clear. But when Virgil happens...

A testament to the deep bonds of women as they experience life's joys and challenges-- and the power of friendship to triumph over heartbreak and unexpected tragedy.

"An epic novel that spans thirty years in the lives of a farm family in Iowa, telling a parallel story of the changes taking place in America from 1920 through the early 1950s"--Provided by publisher. On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different children. Each chapter covers a single year, beginning in 1920, as American soldiers like Walter return home from...

Family patriarch Walter Langdon has died, and his children have fanned out across the country. The narrative moves year by year from 1953 to 1986, encompassing Cold War blinkeredness, Sixties rebellion, and escalating wealth into the Eighties.

Lily is moving into her grandmother's farm in Iowa, and she is sad about all the changes necessary in her life--but on the long drive her grandmother challenges her to find ten beautiful things that they can share together.

Hailed as "incandescent," "magnificent," and "a literary miracle" (Entertainment Weekly), hundreds of thousands of readers were enthralled by Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. Now Robinson returns with a brilliantly imagined retelling of the prodigal son parable, set at the same moment and in the same Iowa town as Gilead. The Reverend Boughton's hell-raising son, Jack, has come home after twenty years away. Artful and devious in his youth, now an alcoholic...