"Award-winning author Sonali Dev launches a new series about the Rajes, an immigrant Indian family descended from royalty, who have built their lives in San Francisco."--Provided by publisher.

When the renowned poet Fiona Skinner is asked about the inspiration behind her iconic work, The Love Poem, she tells her audience a story about her family and a betrayal that reverberates through time. It begins in a big yellow house with a funeral, an iron poker, and a brief variation forever known as the Pause: a free and feral summer in a middle-class Connecticut town. Caught between the predictable life they once led and an uncertain future that...

"If she's being honest, Sammie Lucas is scared of her son. Working from home in the close quarters of their Florida house, she lives with one wary eye peeled on Samson, a sullen, unknowable boy who resists her every attempt to bond with him. Uncertain in her own feelings about motherhood, she tries her best--driving, cleaning, cooking, prodding him to finish projects for school--while growing increasingly resentful of Monika, her confident but absent...

"Fiona, Marlin, Natasha, and Charlie McCready have been adopted by their unlikely guardian, Al, and finally settled into their new home on Pine Island in British Columbia. Then they receive a letter from Mrs. Witherspoon who took care of them after their parents died telling them that she is coming to visit for three months—an inordinate amount of time for a houseguest. Accommodating a fifth person in the tiny house is hard enough, but to their...