Christopher A. Bohjalian

In January 1945, in the waning months of World War II, a small group of people begin the longest journey of their lives: an attempt to cross the remnants of the Third Reich, from Warsaw to the Rhine if necessary, to reach the British and American lines. Among the group is eighteen-year-old Anna Emmerich, the daughter of Prussian aristocrats. There is her lover, Callum Finella, a twenty-year-old Scottish prisoner of war who was brought from the stalag to her family’s farm as forced labor. And there is a twenty-six-year-old Wehrmacht corporal, who the pair know as Manfred–who is, in reality, Uri Singer, a Jew from Germany who managed to escape a train bound for Auschwitz. As they work their way west, they encounter a countryside ravaged by war. Their flight will test both Anna’s and Callum’s love, as well as their friendship with Manfred–assuming any of them even survive. Perhaps not since The English Patient has a novel so deftly captured both the power and poignancy of romance and the terror and tragedy of war. Skillfully portraying the flesh and blood of history, Chris Bohjalian has crafted a rich tapestry that puts a face on one of the twentieth century’s greatest tragedies–while creating, perhaps, a masterpiece that will haunt readers for generations.

1943: Tucked away in the idyllic hills south of Florence, the Rosatis, an Italian family of noble lineage, believe that the walls of their ancient villa will keep them safe from the war raging across Europe. Eighteen-year-old Cristina spends her days swimming in the pool, playing with her young niece and nephew, and wandering aimlessly amid the estate's gardens and olive groves. But when two soldiers, a German and an Italian, arrive at the villa asking to see an ancient Etruscan burial site, the Rosatis' bucolic tranquility is shattered. A young German lieutenant begins to court Cristina, the Nazis descend upon the estate demanding hospitality, and what was once their sanctuary becomes their prison. 1955: Serafina Bettini, an investigator with the Florence police department, has her own demons. A beautiful woman, Serafina carefully hides her scars along with her haunting memories of the war. But when she is assigned to a gruesome new case -- a serial killer targeting the Rosatis, murdering the remnants of the family one-by-one in cold blood -- Serafina finds herself digging into a past that involves both the victims and her own tragic history.

With his trademark emotional heft and storytelling skill, bestselling author Chris Bohjalian presents this resonant novel about the formation of an unconventional family--the ties that bind it, and the strains that pull it apart. Two years after their twin daughters died in a flash flood, Terry and Laura Sheldon, a Vermont state trooper and his wife, take in a foster child. His name is Alfred; he is ten years old and African American. And he has passed through so many indifferent families that he can't believe that his new one will last. In the ensuing months Terry and Laura will struggle to emerge from their shell of grief only to face an unexpected threat to their marriage; Terry's involvement with another woman. Meanwhile, Alfred cautiously enters the family circle, and befriends an elderly neighbor who inspires him with the story of the buffalo soldiers, the black cavalrymen of the old West. Out of the entwining and unfolding of their lives, The Buffalo Soldier creates a suspenseful, moving portrait of a family, infused by Bohjalian's moral complexity and narrative assurance.

"Parallel stories of a woman who falls in love with an Armenian soldier during the Armenian Genocide and a modern-day New Yorker prompted to rediscover her Armenian past"--

Cassandra Bowden is no stranger to hungover mornings. She's a binge drinker, her job with the airline making it easy to find adventure, and the occasional blackouts seem to be inevitable. She lives with them, and the accompanying self-loathing. When she awakes in a Dubai hotel room, she tries to piece the previous night back together, counting the minutes until she has to catch her crew shuttle to the airport. She quietly slides out of bed, careful not to aggravate her already pounding head, and looks at the man she spent the night with. She sees his dark hair. His utter stillness. And blood, a slick, still wet pool on the crisp white sheets. Afraid to call the police -- she's a single woman alone in a hotel room far from home -- Cassie begins to lie. She lies as she joins the other flight attendants and pilots in the van. She lies on the way to Paris as she works the first class cabin. She lies to the FBI agents in New York who meet her at the gate. Soon it's too late to come clean, or face the truth about what really happened back in Dubai. Could she have killed him? If not, who did?

In the pastoral community of Reddington, Vermont, during the harsh winter of 1981, Sibyl Danforth makes a life-or-death decision based on fifteen years of experience as a respected midwife - a decision intended to save a child, a decision that will change her life forever. In the midst of a brutally cold night, cut off from the area hospital and even from the rescue squad by an ice storm that has downed phone lines and made roads impassable, Sibyl Danforth feels she has no alternative except to attempt to save the baby of a woman in her care who she fears has died of a stroke during a long and difficult labor. Later that day, however, the midwife's assistant tells the police that she believes the mother was still very much alive when the cesarean section was performed in the cold and isolated farmhouse. The story of this tragedy and its aftermath is narrated by Sibyl's daughter, Connie, now an obstetrician, who is remembering the events that occurred the year she turned fourteen, when her mother's freedom and her family's fate rested in the hands of twelve men and women. As the Danforth family and the entire community are drawn into a gripping trial that at first appears meritless, and later frighteningly simple for Sibyl to lose, it is Connie's mesmerizing voice that perfectly captures a time, a place, and a group of people that will live on in the reader's memory long after this lyric, deeply suspenseful novel has ended.

The story is told in the first person by Leland Fowler, an 35-year old attorney in the Vermont State prosecutor's office. Just two years before, his wife died in a tragic car accident, leaving him to raise his young daughter, now aged 4. He's grieved for his wife for a long time, and his life lacks much pleasure. When he develops a sore throat and cold that just doesn't go away he visits the local homeopath, Carissa Lake. There is an immediate attraction. His cold gets cured and a romance develops. However, when one of Carissa's clients falls into a coma, there are legal and moral issues that come into play. The situation becomes more and more complex as Leland makes some ethnical choices that force him into a trap of his own making. The title, "The Law of Similars" refers to a basic tenet of homeopathy whereby the patient is treated with an extremely diluted dose of something that has caused his problem, forcing the body to cure itself. For example, a person with poison ivy might take a weakened solution of an herb that is similar to poison ivy.

When college student Laurel Estabrook is attacked while cycling through the forest trails in Vermont, her life is changed forever. So begins Chris Bohjalian's stunning new novel which travels between Jay Gatsby's Long Island and rural New England, between the Roaring Twenties and the twenty-first century.

It’s called Sin City for a reason. Dark secrets emerge when a young bartender meets a stranger on a hot streak in this gritty short story from New York Times bestselling author Chris Bohjalian. Dove, a recovering alcoholic covered in Emily Dickinson tattoos, serves up drinks and small talk at a casino in Vegas. Russell is a man on a roll. He claims to be a chain-restaurant manager, yet his tells point to different skills. The two leave together at the end of the night, but when all pretense is stripped away, they find themselves in a fight for their lives. Slot Machine Fever Dreams is part of Obsession, a collection of compulsively readable short stories about people pushed to their extremes. So addictive you won’t be able to put them down—read or listen to each story in a single sitting.

Six months ago, a nuclear plant in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom experienced a cataclysmic meltdown, and both of Emily's parents were killed. Her father was in charge of the plant-- was he drunk when it happened? Instead of following the rest of the refugees after the meltdown, Emily takes off on her own for Burlington, where she survives by stealing, sleeping on the floor of a drug dealer's apartment, and inventing a new identity for herself. When Emily befriends Cameron, a homeless boy, she protects him with a ferocity she didn't know she had. But can she outrun her past, or escape her grief?

When a sleepwalker who has experienced episodes of near violence while unconscious goes missing, her eldest daughter, Lianna, finds herself drawn to a lead detective who seems to know more than he is revealing.