Лучшие книги Лоры Мориарти

36-летняя Кора Карлайл, во младенчестве брошенная, в детстве удочеренная, в юности обманутая, едет из Канзаса в Нью-Йорк — искать свои потерянные корни и надзирать за юной девушкой. За подростками надзирать нелегко и в более щадящих условиях, однако Корина подопечная — не кто иная, как Луиза Брукс, будущая звезда немого кино и секс-символ 1920-х. Сейчас Луиза, сбежав из постылой Уичиты, только начинает учебу в прогрессивной танцевальной школе, и ее блистательная, хоть и краткая кинокарьера еще впереди. Впрочем, самоуверенности этой не по годам развитой, начитанной и проницательной девице уже не занимать. Коре Карлайл предстоят нелегкие…

Set in Kerrville, Kansas, The Center of Everything is told by Evelyn Bucknow, an endearing character with a wholly refreshing way of looking at the world. Living with her single mother in a small apartment, Evelyn Bucknow is a young girl wincing her way through adolescence. With a voice that is as charming as it is recognizable, Evelyn immerses the reader in the dramas of an entire community. The people of Kerrville stuck at once in the middle of nowhere but also at the center of everything, are the source from which Moriarty draws on universal dilemmas of love and belief to render a story that grows in emotional intensity until it lifts the reader to heights achieved only by the finest of fiction.

Leigh is the mother of high-achieving, popular high school senior Kara. Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy—the effects of which not only divide Leigh's family, but polarize the entire community. We see the story from Leigh's perspective, as she grapples with the hard reality of what her daughter has done and the devastating consequences her actions have on the family of another teenage girl in town, all while struggling to protect Kara in the face of rising public outcry.

Like the best works of Jane Hamilton, Jodi Picoult, and Alice Sebold, Laura Moriarty's The Rest of Her Life is a novel of complex moral dilemma, filled with nuanced characters and a page-turning plot that makes readers ask themselves, "What would I do?"