"From the author compared to Norah Ephron and Nancy Mitford, not to mention Jane Austen, comes a new novel celebrating the beauty, mischief, and occasional treachery of language. The Grammarians are Laurel and Daphne Wolfe, identical, inseparable redheaded twins who share an obsession with words. They speak a secret "twin" tongue of their own as toddlers; as adults making their way in 1980s Manhattan, their verbal infatuation continues, but this love,...

Spanning 40 years, this is the story of turbulent Tom Wingo, his gifted and troubled twin sister Savannah, and the dark and violent past of the extraordinary family into which they were born.

Victoria Trumbull, the astute, 92-year-old Vineyard native and deputy police officer, takes on her most bizarre case yet. An empty grave, a misplaced coffin and a missing hearse driver are the harbingers of a series of grotesque murders, whose victims turn out to share an odd South American connection involving smuggling and an exotic bird. The author lends ballast to an outlandish plot by lovingly depicting ordinary island people (awkward teens,...

Ninety-two-year-old poet Victoria Trumbull becomes embroiled in controversy at the community theater on Martha's Vineyard. The new artistic director has announced plans to replace local amateur talent with off-Island professionals, and the cast and crew react murderously." The group is producing Ms. Trumbull's adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The production is endangered when someone begins committing crimes apparently based on the scenes...

Ruthie Swain, the bedridden daughter of a dead poet, tries to find her father through stories -- and through generations of family history in County Clare.

All through her childhood in Tehran, Forugh Farrokhzad is told that Persian daughters should be quiet and modest. She is taught only to obey, but she always finds ways to rebel-gossiping with her sister among the fragrant roses of her mother's walled garden, venturing to the forbidden rooftop to roughhouse with her three brothers, writing poems to impress her strict, disapproving father, and sneaking out to flirt with a teenage paramour over café...

"Marian Ffarmer is a world-renowned poet and a legend in the making—but only now, at 75 years old, is she beginning to believe in the security of her successes. Unfortunately, a poet’s accomplishments don’t necessarily translate to capital, and as her adult son struggles to buy his first home, her confidence in her choices begins to fray. Marian’s pristine life of mind—for which she’s sacrificed nearly all personal relationships, from...

"June 1937. Elizabeth Bishop, still only a young woman and not yet one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century, arrives in France with her college roommates. They are in search of an escape, and inspiration, far from the protective world of Vassar College where they were expected to find an impressive husband, a quiet life, and act accordingly. But the world is changing, and as they explore the City of Light, the larger threats of fascism...

When several elderly citizens begin to die unexpectedly, it is apparent to police chief Casey O'Neill that there's a serial killer abroad. Casey has lots of experience with homicide, but it takes 92-year-old Victoria Trumbull to realize that food gifts are the murder weapons.