Amy & Isabelle
Isabelle Goodrow has been living in self-imposed exile with her daughter Amy for 15 years. Shamed by her past and her affair with Amy s father she has submerged herself in the routine of her dead-end job and her unrequited love for her boss. But when Amy, frustrated by her quiet and unemotional mother, embarks on an illicit affair with her maths teacher, the disgrace intensifies the shame Isabelle feels about her own past.

Throughout one long, sweltering summer as the events of the small town ebb and flow around them Amy and Isabelle exist in silent conflict until a final act leads ultimately to the understanding they both crave.

The Burgess Boys
Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown for New York as soon as they could. Jim, a successful corporate lawyer, has belittled his bighearted brother their whole lives, something that Bob, a legal aid attorney who idolises Jim, has always taken in his stride.

But when their sister desperately calls them back home to Shirley Falls to help her teenage son out of trouble, long-buried tensions begin to surface in unexpected ways that will change them forever.

Abide With Me
When five-year-old Katherine is struck dumb with grief at her mother s death, it is down to her father, minister Tyler Caskey. to bring his daughter out of her silence.

But Tyler is barely surviving himself. His cold, church-assigned home is colder still since his wife s death, and he struggles to find the right words for his sermons; struggles to be a leader to his congregation when he himself is lost.

As the small town rumour-mill goes into overdrive, Tyler s darkest hour approaches. Soon, a startling discovery will test his congregation s humanity — and his own will to endure the kinds of trials that sooner or later test us all…
With superlative skill, Strout challenges us to examine what makes a good story- and what makes a good life