PEN/Hemingway Award For Debut Novel Finalist​ Shortlisted for the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize A “rich, ambitious debut novel” (The New York Times Book Review) that reveals the ways in which a Jamaican family forms and fractures over generations, in the tradition of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Stanford Solomon’s shocking, thirty-year-old secret is about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford has done something no one could ever imagine. He is a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley. And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead. These Ghosts Are Family revolves around the consequences of Abel’s decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present-day Harlem. There is Vera, whose widowhood forced her into the role of a single mother. There are two daughters and a granddaughter who have never known they are related. And there are others, like the houseboy who loved Vera, whose lives might have taken different courses if not for Abel Paisley’s actions. This “rich and layered story” (Kirkus Reviews) explores the ways each character wrestles with their ghosts and struggles to forge independent identities outside of the family and their trauma. The result is a “beguiling…vividly drawn, and compelling” (BookPage, starred review) portrait of a family and individuals caught in the sweep of history, slavery, migration, and the more personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret.

American-born artist Chris is forced to reconsider his conception of family during a visit to his mother’s Caribbean homeland. “Thoroughly satisfying . . . This bighearted narrative of love, loss, and family is handled with grace and beauty.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review “Alecia McKenzie’s tender new novel [is] an emotionally resonant ode to adopted families and community resilience.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice After a personal tragedy upends his world, American-born artist Chris travels to his mother’s homeland in the Caribbean hoping to find some peace and tranquility. He plans to spend his time painting in solitude and coming to terms with his recent loss and his fractured relationship with his father. Instead, he discovers a new extended and complicated “family.” The people he meets help him to heal, even as he supports them in unexpected ways. Told from different points of view, this is a compelling novel about unlikely love, friendship, and community, with surprises along the way.

Kentucky has a rich legacy of ghostly visitations. Lynwood Montell has harvested dozens of tales of haunted houses and family ghosts from all over the Bluegrass state. Many of the stories were collected from elders by young people and are recounted exactly as they were gathered. Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts of Kentucky includes chilling tales such as that of the Tan Man of Pike County, who trudges invisibly through a house accompanied by the smell of roses, and the famed Gray Lady of Liberty Hall in Frankfort, a houseguest who never left. Montell tells the story of a stormy night, shortly before Henry Clay's death, when the ghost of the statesman's old friend Daniel Boone calls upon him, and then recounts the more modern story of the ghouls that haunt the rehearsal house of the band The Kentucky Headhunters. Included are accounts of haunted libraries, mansions, bedrooms, log cabins, bathrooms, college campuses, apartments, furniture, hotels, and distilleries, as well as reports of eerie visitations from ghostly grandmothers, husbands, daughters, uncles, cousins, babies, slaves, Civil War soldiers, dogs, sheep, and even wildcats. Almost all of Kentucky's 120 counties are represented. Though the book emphasizes the stories themselves, Montell offers an introduction discussing how local history, local character, and local flavor are communicated across the generations in these colorful stories.

From Raina Telgemeier, the #1 New York Times bestselling, multiple Eisner Award-winning author of Smile, Drama, and Sisters! Catrina and her family are moving to the coast of Northern California because her little sister, Maya, is sick. Cat isn't happy about leaving her friends for Bahia de la Luna, but Maya has cystic fibrosis and will benefit from the cool, salty air that blows in from the sea. As the girls explore their new home, a neighbor lets them in on a secret: There are ghosts in Bahia de la Luna. Maya is determined to meet one, but Cat wants nothing to do with them. As the time of year when ghosts reunite with their loved ones approaches, Cat must figure out how to put aside her fears for her sister's sake - and her own.Raina Telgemeier has masterfully created a moving and insightful story about the power of family and friendship, and how it gives us the courage to do what we never thought possible.

Twelve-year-old Molly and her ten-year-old brother, Michael, have never liked their seven-year-old stepsister, Heather. Ever since their parents got married, she's made Molly and Michael's life miserable. Now their parents have moved them all to the country to live in a house that used to be a church, with a cemetery in the backyard. If that's not bad enough, Heather starts talking to a ghost named Helen and warning Molly and Michael that Helen is coming for them. Molly feels certain Heather is in some kind of danger, but every time she tries to help, Heather twists things around to get her into trouble. It seems as if things can't get any worse. But they do—when Helen comes.

In the lawless, drought-ridden lands of the Arizona Territory in 1893, two extraordinary lives collide. Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman, alone in a house abandoned by the men in her life. Lurie is a man haunted by ghosts--he sees lost souls who want something from him. The way in which Nora and Lurie's stories intertwine is the surprise and suspense of this brilliant novel.ovel.

In words and pictures, ghosts set the record straight about--ghosts.