Illness Fiction

It’s morning at Meadow Brook Nursing Home. During the last 10 months, this has been my mother’s abode. Most days, I feel it is mine, too. Life, as I have known it, is a blur. Alzheimer’s has taken mother from herself, her family, and her friends. It has demanded a grit and grace in our everyday lives beyond human comprehension. I know that I must tell her story - which ultimately is my story, too - with hope that it may bring a degree of peace to the hearts of those who have walked, or will walk, the same road.

A medical crisis brings one man close to death – and to love, art, and beauty – in a profound and luminous novel by award-winning author Garth Greenwell. A poet’s life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain. The pain brings him to his knees, and eventually to the ICU. Confined to bed, plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system, he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone who has lived for many years in his mind.

Seventeen year-old Jonas Norton is trying to come to terms with what his blood disorder has robbed from him, including his two most favorite things: basketball, and competing in Hatchet Racket, Wanless' annual hatchet-throwing contest. The facts that his father works constantly to pay for his blood tests and Jonas can actually see the disappointment in his eyes for being such a failure only make matters worse.

When a child’s suffering shakes a pastor’s faith, can God’s grace still be found in the silence? Case Parker is just an ordinary pastor—until he’s invited to speak at the prestigious Heaven on Earth conference. Full of hope and a touch of pride, he begins journaling the journey, eager to share how God is working through him. But when a young girl in his flock falls gravely ill and a mysterious visitor appears with unsettling questions, Case is drawn into a deeper, more personal journey of faith. In this heartfelt and gently humorous sequel to The Retreat, bestselling author Kees ...

Under the rule of the Isle’s Voice, the people of Aeris suffer from a jarring divide between the wealthy and impoverished. The Isle’s Voice controls the distribution of immersia, a magic that keeps bloodthirsty monsters known as the vayle away from Aeris’s people. Laborers slave to do the jobs allotted to them, while privileged families remain in control. When young Aselle Attete, a laborer in the great city of Aurora, hears a mysterious song in the desert that surrounds her city, a series of events unfolds that proves there is hope of salvaging Aeris.

Kiss Tomorrow Hello brings together the experiences and reflections of women as they embark on a new stage of life. The 25 stellar writers gathered here explore a wide range of concerns, including keeping love and sex alive, discovering family secrets, negotiating the demands of illness and infertility, letting children go, making peace with parents, and contemplating plastic surgery. The tales are true, the confessions candid, and the humor infectious.

Hearing impaired and way too smart for her West Bronx high school, Tamika Mik Sykes copes by reading lips and selling homework answers. She's a tough girl who never gets close to anyone, until she meets Fatima, a teenage refugee who sells newspapers on Mik's block.

Sometimes the further you distance yourself, the closer you are to the truth. What starts out as a simple trip around India soon becomes a psychological journey into the darkness of Sam's past. One he knows there's no running from. When Sam decides to give up his mundane life and travel to India he has no idea what he'll do when he gets there and it isn't long before his lack of preparation takes its toll. Vulnerable and alone, Sam is haunted by memories of his childhood and as he struggles to make sense of the pain he has suffered he follows a dangerous path that has devastating ...

This heart-wrenching story traces the lives of a dementia victim and his caring family as they descend through the devastating journey and ultimate end that is caused by Alzheimer's disease. Using personal experience and that of others, the author explores in graphic detail the pain and confusion of Pat, the victim, and the selfless love of his wife Carol and daughter Mandy. The book is intended to help prepare listeners, who may well become carers, know what to expect and to raise general awareness of a condition that receives little attention compared to its impact on the lives of men and women throughout the world.

In this companion piece to Is This Seat Taken?, Mandy's life hasn't turned out the way she planned. Her father died, her mother is bipolar, and she's overwhelmed with responsibility and indecision. That's why she's so grateful for her boyfriend, Luke. But just how long does he plan on sticking around? This Heart of Mine is a sweet, new adult romance short story about loving each other just right (3,500 words).

It’s been a year since the shark attack that took Jane’s arm, and with it, everything she used to take for granted. Her dream of becoming an artist is in jeopardy, and part of her wonders if she’s duty bound to "give back" by becoming a nurse. Meanwhile, her former crush, Max, reappears in her life, this time as a science tutor, and Jane’s old feelings come bubbling to the surface. But Max couldn’t possibly be interested in her, could he? And would Jane be better off with the cute boy from her science class, who makes it clear that he’d like to see more of Jane?

Ash boards a Greyhound bus heading to the place where Bly was last seen: Snowflake, Arizona. Six thousand feet up in the wide red desert, Ash meets Mona, her dog, her goat, and her neighbors, and finds stepbrother Bly, too. In their ramshackle homes, the walls lined with tinfoil, almost all the residents of Snowflake are sick. But this isn’t any ordinary sickness: the chemicals and technologies of modern life are poisoning them.

Margaret "Cuckoo" Clarke recently had a brief stay in a mental institution following an emotional breakdown, but she's turning over a new leaf with her "Operation Happiness". She's determined to beat down the bad vibes of the Haters, the Terror Teachers, and all of the trials and tribulations of high school by writing and drawing in her diary. And when life gets really tough, she works through her own moments of uncertainty through imaginary conversations with her favorite literary characters.

After receiving the news that in vitro would be her only hope for biological children, award-winning poet Emily Adams had to learn to live in a new world of needles, embarrassing tests, long waiting periods, and expensive doctor appointments.

Hard-charging and irrepressible 18-year-old Amelia Linehan could see a roller-derby opponent a mile away - and that’s while crouched down, bent over skates, and zooming around a track at the speed of light. What she couldn’t see coming, however, was the flare-up of the rare liver disorder with which she was born. But now, it’s the only thing she - and everyone around her - can think about.

Sixteen-year-old Leo has a way with words, but he doesn’t know it yet. He spends his time texting, polishing soccer maneuvers, and killing time with Niko and Silvia. Until a new teacher arrives and challenges him to give voice to his dreams. And so Leo is inspired to win over the red-haired beauty, Beatrice. She doesn’t know Leo exists, but he’s convinced that his dream to win her over will come true. When Leo lands in the hospital and learns that Beatrice has been admitted too, his mission to be there for her will send him on a thrilling but heartbreaking journey.

Dani was born with her heart on the wrong side of her body. In her 15 years of life, she’s had more doctor’s appointments, X-rays, and tests, and eaten more green hospital Jell-O than she cares to think about. Fourteen-year-old Amanda is a competitive gymnast, her body a small package of sleek muscles, in perfect health. The two girls don’t know each other, don’t go to the same school, don’t have any friends in common. But their lives are about to collide. Acclaimed author Jill Wolfson tackles this fascinating story with her trademark honesty and wit.

When she meets Connor, their attraction is magnetic and their steamy role-plays sizzle. She’s certain he feels their undeniable chemistry. They share a passion for movies, but he never takes her to see one. She can't figure out why he doesn’t message for days or why he won’t commit. Behind her party-girl persona, she can’t stop overanalyzing what must be wrong with her-or stop picking her skin. Her reckless lifestyle and an unexpected friendship with a drug dealer quickly transform her life from upbeat rom-com to twisted docudrama.

It is 1871. At the farm of Samuel Hood and his daughter, Caroline, a mysterious flock of red birds has descended. Samuel, whose fame as a philosopher is waning, takes the birds’ appearance as an omen that the time is ripe for his newest venture. He will start a school for young women, guiding their intellectual development as he has so carefully guided his daughter’s. Despite Caroline’s misgivings, Samuel’s vision - revolutionary, as always; noble, as always; full of holes, as always - takes shape.

Sam's daily challenges is far from having good grades and being a good boy. He dreads waking up to an intolerant stepfather and escaping to school into the traps of his bullies. His struggles to keep up with his grades is proving futile as his ordeal grows by the day. He loses the only girl who made him feel loved and accepted to cancer, and then turns into the monster his tormentors created. Once and for all standing up for himself and taking the others down with him.