"Rumors had been whispered for more than a year. Outrages that had been accumulating all along took shape as evidence. A mother was knocked down the stairs by her cold-eyed daughter. Four damaged infants were born in one family. Daughters refused to get out of bed. Brides disappeared on their honeymoons. Two brothers shot each other on New Year's Day. Trips to Demby for VD shots common. And what went on at the Oven these days was not to be believed...

A staggering portrait of a crumbling utopia, this "timeless and vast" novel filled with the "raw beauty" beautifully depicts an idyllic commune in New York State — and charts its eventual yet inevitable downfall (Janet Maslin, The New York Times).
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"Timeless and vast... The raw beauty of Ms. Groff's prose is one of the best things about Arcadia. But it is by no means...

"HALCYON is the answer for all Americans who want to escape, but paradise isn't what it seems. A beautiful island in the middle of Lake Ontario--a self-sustaining community made up of people who want to live without fear, crime, or greed. Halcyon is run by Valerie Kemp, aka Mother Moon, benevolent and altruistic on the outside, but hiding an unimaginable darkness inside. She has dedicated her life to the pursuit of Glam Moon, a place of eternal beauty...

"A captivating coming of age story told by Amy and Lan, two children whose journey from innocence to moving experience is shaped by their families' attempt at the pastoral dream on a farm, deep in the English countryside"--

Emmy, Niall, and Sita and Jonathan miss their train back to London from a Somerset wedding, escaping Britain's worst rail crash in sixty years. Upon reflection of their mortality, the friends reevaluate their lives, and come to a decision. They will all, along with Emmy's daughter Lila, Niall's girlfriend Kat, and Sita and Jonathan's children Jay and Asha, move into the ramshackle manor house Emmy recently inherited in Cornwall. In the idyllic setting,...

"Three residents of a secluded, seemingly peaceful commune investigate the disappearances of two outsiders. Travis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Hired by families as a last resort, he requires only a single object to find the person who has vanished. When he takes on the case of Maggie St. James-a well-known author of dark, macabre children's books-he's led to a place many believed to be only a legend. Called Pastoral, this...

When Isabelle Poole meets Dr. Preston Grind, she's fresh out of high school, pregnant with her art teacher's baby, and totally on her own. Izzy knows she can be a good mother but without any money or relatives to help, she's left searching. Dr. Grind, an awkwardly charming child psychologist, has spent his life studying family, even after tragedy struck his own. Now, with the help of an eccentric billionaire, he has the chance to create a "perfect...

"A spirited tour through 2,500 years of utopian thinking and experiments to tease out better ways of imagining our domestic lives - from childrearing and housing to gender roles and private property - and a look at the communities putting these seeminglyfanciful visions into practice today"--

"Ursa possesses a very special gift. She can travel through memory and revisit her past. After she flees her hometown for the counterculture glory of 1950s California, the intoxicating potential of her unique ability eventually draws a group of women intoher orbit and into a ramshackle Victorian mansion in the woods outside Santa Cruz. But Ursa's powers come with a cost"--