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Patiently Alice

It’s the summer after Alice’s freshman year, she’s survived her breakup with Patrick, and she and her friends are looking forward to their jobs as assistant camp counselors. Alice feels as if she’s finally gotten a handle on life.

But Alice soon learns that the only thing she can count on is change. Pamela’s mother is contemplating coming home, Lester is contemplating leaving home, and even Alice’s father’s romance with Miss Summers hits an unexpected snag. But most surprising of all are the shocking revelations about some of Alice’s closet friends. Can Alice keep up with all the changes around her?

Including Alice

The moment Alice has been yearning for has arrived….Alice’s dad is finally marrying Sylvia Summers! Alice knew they were perfect for each other when she set them up back in seventh grade, but now The Big Day is here.

She’s so excited, so vindicated, so grown-up, and so…well, so left out. Now no one has time for Alice anymore, and the situation just gets worse when Sylvia moves into their house. Nothing is the way Alice thought it would be. Her dad and Sylvia have their new life together; Lester has his new apartment; and Alice feels like she’s on her own for the first time in her life.

She’s also starting to notice that even though Dad and Sylvia are perfectly happy together, not everyone gets along so well. Elizabeth and Ross never see each other; Leslie and Lori are breaking up; Pamela and her mother can’t seem to find a way to even talk to each other; and Alice herself has started to hear some surprising rumors about Patrick….

When Alice sees her dad and Sylvia navigate their new marriage, she starts to understand all the hard work that goes into relationships, and how even when people seem to be meant for each other, it’s not always easy to be together.

After

“A revealing, amusing book.”
— San Jose Mercury News

“Naylor’s easy writing style keeps the story fresh. . . . A story of a likable man and his family, all of whom dearly miss the person who held them together.”
— USA Today

“Popular fiction for intelligent readers, something always in short supply and always welcome.”
—Washington Post Book World

Widower Harry is suddenly a single parent again, albeit of grown children. And women are pursuing him again. He is unprepared for any of this, and what results is amusing. Harry’s coping with parenthood and dating makes for an irreverent frolic.

Crazy Love

Crazy Love: An Autobiographical Account of Marriage and Madness — The author’s heart-breaking, harrowing account of her brilliant husband’s descent into paranoid schizophrenia, and her attempts to hold together their young marriage. A unique human document, with a reverence for the fragile quality of life, and the kind of suffering that is worthwhile because of love.

Unexpected Pleasures

Written with an ear for idiom, an eye for comedy and a heart that delights in the graces and foibles of its two protagonists, this unlikely love story unites April Ruth Bates, 16-year-old sister of the town’s two classiest prostitutes, with Foster Williams, a Chesapeake Bay bridge-builder twice her age.

April Ruth, as detached from her sisters’ carryings-on as a farm girl is from the barnyard, preserves an untouchedness so endearing that when Foster takes her to the sea for the first time her rapture becomes the reader’s. The two fall tenderly and believably in love, the mature man no less overcome by the wonder of it than the teenager. Apart from the fact that Foster earns their living, cooks their meals, cleans their house — in short, turns April into a privileged child — bliss abounds until the day their lame dog Vinnie is killed. Then, with Foster thunderous and accusatory, April runs away, gets a job and accepts the favors of another man. That the fated lovers come together again is the reader’s hope, and eventually, delight.

Revelations

A young church secretary in a small Maryland town finds a dramatic change to her life when her invalid mother dies, and she suddenly finds herself the guardian of her adolescent nephew from California. When she succumbs to a traveling evangelist, the boy helps pull her through.

The Craft of Writing the Novel

Phyllis Naylor provides an exceptional guide for people who dream of writing a book, with fine examples from her own work. This will help you smooth the novel-writing path and can spare the land mines of trouble as you try to get from idea to published book. Directed to both the first-time novelist and the writing professional.

In Small Doses

Humorous reflections for parents on the ups, downs, delights and frustrations of family life.

Emily’s Fortune

Emily Wiggins is poor and timid, without a drop of self-confidence. When unexpectedly orphaned, she is left all alone except for her turtle, Rufus. What in blinkin’ bloomers should Emily do? Emily’s neighbors, Mrs. Ready, Mrs. Aim, and Mrs. Fire, have the answer. Emily must travel by stagecoach to honorable Aunt Hilda. What a hootin’, tootin’ grand idea! But Miss Catchum of the Catchum Child-Catching Services will get a big bonus for making Emily live with her next of kin, vicious Uncle Victor. How in ding dong dickens will Emily escape Miss Catchum? It will take all the gumption and cunning of fellow orphan and traveler, Jackson, to help Emily find her confidence, conniving spirit, and the truth behind why Uncle Victor wants to claim her. But how in flippin’ flapjacks will Emily outsmart Uncle Victor?

Emily and Jackson Hiding Out

Due to demand for a companion story to the popular Emily’s Fortune, Newbery Award winner Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has written another rootin’ tootin’ Wild West escapade that once again includes plucky orphans Emily and Jackson, dastardly villains, and comical cliffhangers.

Emily Wiggins is thrilled that she and her orphan friend Jackson have escaped the clutches of the Child-Catching Services and Emily’s villainous uncle Victor. Emily and Jackson are now living happily with her loving aunt Hilda. But just a mighty mouth minute! Someone’s snooping around for an orphan child on the run! He knows Jackson is hiding nearby and aims to get a reward for snatching him and sending him to work at a mill. What in leapin’ livers should Jackson do? And Emily can’t rest easy either, since some sort of creature is coming to their gate when Jackson and Emily are home alone. What in simmering succotash is that moving pile of dirt? Is it a heap of black rags, is it a dusty tumbleweed, no it’s . . .