​This is a novel about grief and ambition, innocence and blame--a tale that spools out of and around a Midwestern swimming pool one summer afternoon, 1969, and into the future of an America yet to be imagined.

 

In the town of Mission Hills, Michigan, an elementary school child drowns in the Olympic-sized pool at a summer swim club. By most, but not all, the lifeguard on duty that afternoon--a teenage girl who becomes the town's scapegoat, bearing the weight of their grief and fears--is seen as responsible for the tragedy.

 

Kasischke weaves together overlapping narratives and shifting perspectives, gradually peeling back the layers of what really happened that day. Through poetic, sensory-rich prose, she explores the liminal spaces between memory and reality, innocence and culpability, childhood and adulthood. The story probes the arbitrary, inexorable nature of fate--how a single moment can alter lives forever, and how the search for answers can reveal unsettling truths about ourselves and those around us.​​

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COMING SOON

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER

 

“In a Perfect World reveals astonishing and tender insight into human nature while exposing a terrifying, yet believable, world I’d never before imagined. This story will grasp onto your heart before swiftly carrying you away.” — Jessica Anya Blau, author of The Summer of Naked Swim Parties

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In a Perfect World is critically acclaimed writer Laura Kasischke’s novel of marriage, motherhood, and the choices we make when we have no choices left. Kasischke, the author of The Life Before Her Eyes, tells the story of Jiselle, a young flight attendant who’s just settled into a fairy tale life with her new husband and stepchildren. But as a mysterious new illness spreads rapidly throughout the country, she begins to realize that her marriage, her stepchildren, and their perfect world are all in terrible danger . . .

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“Leave-the-lights-on-tonight frightening, with a quiet edge of horror that is much more effective than gore.” — NPR

 

On a snowy Christmas morning, Holly Judge awakens with the fragments of a nightmare floating on the edge of her consciousness. Something followed them from Russia. Thirteen years ago, she and her husband Eric adopted baby Tatty, their pretty, black-haired Rapunzel, from the Pokrovka Orphanage #2. Now, at fifteen, Tatiana is more beautiful than ever—and disturbingly erratic.

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As a blizzard rages outside, Holly and Tatiana are alone. With each passing hour, Tatiana’s mood darkens, and her behavior becomes increasingly frightening . . . until Holly finds she no longer recognizes her daughter.

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“Kasischke’s writing does what good poetry does—it shows us an alternate world and lulls us into living in it . . . The language catapults us into another plane of existence, one of facade and reflection.”  —New York Times Book Review

“Haunting, unsettling, and unforgettable, The Raising limns love, longing, belonging and the things we only think we know about life—and yes, death.” —Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You

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From Laura Kasischke, the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of In a Perfect World and The Life Before Her Eyes, comes a hypnotic mystery about one girl’s  tragic death and the fallout that occurs on her closely-knit college campus. Part Stephen King, part Donna Tartt, and wholly  unforgettable , Kasischke’s The Raising sets a new standard for hair-raising literary suspense.

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“Bestowing her gift of lyricism upon a sordid subject, acclaimed poet Kasischke (Wild Brides, 1992 winner of the Bobst Award for Emerging Writers) limns a young married woman's plunge into prostitution in a first novel that, despite alchemical prose, leaves the reader feeling as breathless and entrapped as the protagonist. ”  —Publishers Weekly

 

This "extremely powerful debut" tells a story that is at once "profoundly disturbing but also resonant with hope and rebirth" -Los Angeles Times.
 

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Leila Murry is young, married, and working in a motel as a receptionist - and then as a prostitute. The seemingly random abuses and perils of her adult life parallel those Leila suffered as a child, and in reliving them she is uncertain whether she will survive them this time, or indeed, if she wishes to.

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“Ambitious writing in equal parts elegant and excessive, with a psychology that spins out of control and goes poof.”  —KIRKUS

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When Katrina Connors' mother walks out on her family, Kat is surprised but not shocked; the whole year she has been "becoming sixteen" - falling in love with the boy next door, shedding her babyfat, discovering sex - her mother has been slowly withdrawing. As Kat and her impassive father pick up the pieces of their daily lives, she finds herself curiously unaffected by her mother's absence. But in dreams that become too real to ignore, she's haunted by her mother's cries for help. Finally, she must act on her instinct that something violent and evil has occurred - a realization that brings Kat to a chilling discovery.

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ADAPTED TO FILM

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Diana stands before the mirror preening with her best friend, Maureen. Suddenly, a classmate enters holding a gun, and Diana sees her life dance before her eyes. In a moment the future she was just imagining--a doting wife and mother at the age of forty--is sealed by a horrific decision she is forced to make. In prose infused with the dramatically feminine sensuality of spring, we experience seventeen-year-old Diana's uncertain steps into womanhood--her awkward, heated forays into sex; her fresh, fragile construction of an identity. Together with the sights and sounds of renewal, we experience the tasks of Diana's adulthood: protecting her beloved daughter and holding onto her successful husband.

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They were seventeen with perfect tans and perfect bodies. They planned on a joyride in a convertible on a hot summer day. They planned on skinny-dipping in a beautiful, secluded lake. They planned on making it back to camp before anyone noticed they were gone. What they didn't plan on was being followed by two guys in a beat-up station wagon Their day soon takes a drastic turn—all because Kristy Sweetland smiled at the wrong time, in the wrong place, at the wrong boys. Now the girls feel prying eyes on them all the time—during pep practice, on the path through the woods, outside the window of their cabin. The boys are stalking them, leaving threatening notes on their beds, and watching their every move. Boy Heaven is a provocative, page-turning mystery, and a must-read for anyone who loves an urban legend.

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​In 1903, a preacher named Benjamin Purnell and five followers founded a colony called the House of David in Benton Harbor, Michigan, where they prepared for eternal life by creating a heaven on earth. Housed in rambling mansions and surrounded by lush orchards and vineyards, the colony added a thousand followers to its fold within a few years, along with a zoo, extensive gardens, and an amusement park. The sprawling complex, called Eden Springs, was a major tourist attraction of the Midwest. The colonists, who were drawn from far and wide by the magnetic "King Ben," were told to keep their bodies pure by not cutting their hair, eating meat, or engaging in sexual relations. Yet accounts of life within the colony do not reflect such an austere atmosphere, as the handsome, charming founder is described as loving music, dancing, a good joke, and in particular, the company of his attractive female followers.

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In Eden Springs, award-winning Michigan author Laura Kasischke imagines life inside the House of David, in chapters framed by real newspaper clippings, legal documents, and accounts of former colonists. Told from the perspective of the young women who were closest to Benjamin Purnell, the novella follows a growing scandal within the colony's walls. A gravedigger has seen something suspicious in a recently buried casket, a loyal assistant to Benjamin is plotting a cover-up, talk is swirling about unmarried girls having babies, and a rebellious girl named Lena is ready to tell the truth. In flashbacks and first-person narrative mixed with historical artifacts, Kasischke leads readers through the unraveling mystery in a lyrical patchwork as enticing and satisfying as the story itself.

Eden Springs lets readers inside the enchanting and eerie House of David, with an intimate look at its hedonistic highs and eventual collapse. This novella will appeal to all readers of fiction, as well as those with an interest in Michigan history.

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"Kasischke takes on deep matters of life and death; conscience and consciousness; family, love and friendship." Los Angeles Times

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On Valentine’s Day, Sherry finds an anonymous note in her mailbox: be mine. As the notes continue, Sherry becomes more and more charged by the idea that she can inspire such feelings. Her twenty-year marriage is routine and she feels old, aimless, and empty now that her son is in college. When she discovers who her admirer is, she begins a wildly passionate affair with him. But her son’s childhood friend is witness to the affair, her best friend is strangely silent, and her husband is playing a disturbing game of titil­lation and encouragement. Soon events spiral out of Sherry’s control, threatening not only her marriage but also her son and her home. This deeply erotic thriller explores how little we know ourselves and those we live with and what we risk when we step away from our social personas and allow passion to control our lives.

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“Kasischke spreads her poetic wings, using lyrical language and lucid imagery to create a transcendent novel. Readers will be enchanted.” —KIRKUS

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Afterward, Terri will tell everyone that, from the beginning, she knew something terrible was going to happen on spring break. Something bad was going to happen. She knew.

It was supposed to be the perfect vacation: hot guys, impeccable tans, and no parents. But for two high school seniors, an innocent car ride will drive them into the heart of their worst nightmare.

Feathered is a provocative and eerie tale that flies readers from safe, predictable suburbia to the sun-kissed beaches of Cancún, Mexico, and into mysterious Mayan ruins, where ancient myths flirt dangerously with present realities.

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