The stories in Tom Barbash's wondrous and evocative collection explore the myriad ways we try to connect with one another and with the sometimes cruel world around us. The newly single mother in "The Break" interferes in her son's love life over his Christmas vacation from college. The anxious young man in "Balloon Night" persists in hosting his and his wife's annual watch-the-Macy's-Thanksgiving-Day-Parade-floats-be-inflated party while trying to keep the myth of his marriage equally afloat. "Somebody's Son" tells the story of a young man guiltily conning an elderly couple out of their home in the Adirondacks, and the narrator in "The Women" watches his widowed father become the toast of Manhattan's midlife dating scene, as he struggles to find his own footing in life. The characters in Stay Up with Me find new truths when the old ones have given out or shifted course. In the tradition of classic story writers like John Cheever and Tobias Wolff, Barbash laces his narratives with sharp humor, psychological acuity, and pathos, creating deeply resonant and engaging stories that pierce the heart and linger in the imagination.

**One of Vogue’s Best Books of the Year ** “Incisive, funny, and tinged with melancholy, the timely novel follows two lost but clever souls desperate for connection.” —Entertainment Weekly June Bloom is twenty-nine, broke, and an aspiring comedy writer. Hugo Best is a beloved late-night TV icon and notorious womanizer who invites her to his mansion for Memorial Day weekend. This is the story of their four days together, a “zippy…magnificent…devilishly fun ride” (Vogue). When June Bloom, an assistant on the late-night comedy show, Stay Up with Hugo Best, runs into Hugo himself at an open mic following his unexpected retirement, she finds herself fielding a surprising invitation: Hugo asks June to come to his mansion in Greenwich for the long Memorial Day weekend. “No funny business,” he insists. “Incisive, funny, and tinged with melancholy, this timely novel follows two lost but clever souls desperate for connection” (Entertainment Weekly). June, in need of a job and money, but harboring the remains of a childhood crush on the charming older comedian and former role model, is confident she can handle herself. She accepts. As the weekend unfolds and the enigmatic Hugo gradually reveals appealingly vulnerable facets to his personality, their dynamic proves to be much more complicated and less predictable than June imagined. “A witty and subtle commentary on sex, power, and social politics” (Refinery 29) and “an outstanding comedic debut” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Stay Up with Hugo Best announces a gloriously irreverent, bold, and winning new voice in fiction.

“Powerfully magnetic. . . . In the lineage of great works by Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. . . . A thoroughly contemporary—and deeply moving—portrait of a marriage.” —The New York Times Book Review Ilesa, Nigeria. Ever since they first met and fell in love at university, Yejide and Akin have agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage—after consulting fertility doctors and healers, and trying strange teas and unlikely cures—Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time—until her in-laws arrive on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin’s second wife. Furious, shocked, and livid with jealousy, Yejide knows the only way to save her marriage is to get pregnant. Which, finally, she does—but at a cost far greater than she could have dared to imagine. The unforgettable story of a marriage as seen through the eyes of both husband and wife, Stay With Me asks how much we can sacrifice for the sake of family. A New York Times Notable Book One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Chicago Tribune, BuzzFeed, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Post, Southern Living, The Skimm A 2017 BEA Buzz Panel Selection A Belletrist Book-of-the-Month A Sarah Jessica Parker Book Club Selection Shortlisted for the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize and the 9mobile Prize for Literature Longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize

Needing to brush his teeth, a bus driver asks the reader to make sure that the pigeon goes to bed on time--but the bird has many excuses about why it should stay awake.

A detective’s missing daughter may be linked with her secretive past in Stay With Me from USA Today bestselling and award–winning author Alison Gaylin. When the past intersects with the future . . . Brenna Spector is held prisoner by the past. She has perfect memory, which allows her to recall in vivid and remarkable detail every moment of every day of her adult life. If only she could remember more from her childhood . . . for she’s still trying to unravel the mystery of her sister Clea’s disappearance twenty-eight years ago when Clea was seventeen. But now her obsession with finding out what happened to Clea is taking a toll on her own teenage daughter, Maya, who’s been very secretive lately. And when Maya goes missing, Brenna fears her worst nightmare has come true. . . . the outcome can be dangerous As Brenna relies on her P.I. skills to find her daughter before it’s too late, evidence surfaces showing a possible link between Maya’s disappearance and Clea’s. But could a case from three decades ago really be connected to her daughter? Or is someone hoping that Brenna will play along in a twisted game—one that there’s no chance of winning . . . or surviving? The Brenna Spector Novels And She Was (#1) Into the Dark (#2) Stay With Me (#3)

A heartbreaking urban romance from award-winning author Paul Griffin Fifteen-year-olds Cece and Mack didn't expect to fall in love. She's a sensitive A student; he's a high school dropout. But soon they're spending every moment together, bonding over a rescued dog, telling their secrets, making plans for the future. Everything is perfect. Until Mack makes a horrible mistake, and suddenly the future they'd planned becomes impossible. In this stark new reality, both of them must find hope in the memories of what they had, to survive when the person they love can't stay.

From the author of Come Back to Me comes a heartwrenching novel about a forbidden romance, a wounded marine, and the girl who’s determined to save him. Didi Monroe has waited her whole life for happily ever after. So when charming Zac Ridgemont sweeps her off her feet, Didi believes she might finally have met the one. Until she begins an internship at a military hospital in California. There she meets wounded marine Noel Walker. Frustrated on the outside and broken on the inside, Walker’s an irritating patient who refuses any care, keeping his distance from everything and everyone—including Didi. Walker is strictly out of bounds. Didi knows this, respects this, but the more she tries to help Walker the closer the two grow. Soon neither one can ignore the sparks flying between them as their attraction simmers into dangerous territory. But Walker doesn’t believe in love or happily ever after—not after what he’s seen. Not after what he’s been through. He doesn’t want to hurt Didi, but he doesn’t want to push her away either. She makes him feel peaceful. Hopeful, even. Then tragedy hits, shattering both their worlds, and Didi realizes that love isn’t as simple as happily ever after. Love isn’t easy. It’s difficult. Messy. Complicated. Now all Didi has to do is decide if it’s worth fighting for.