Jamie Goldberg suspects his homosexuality at an early age. He manages to hide it from his homophobic Seventies Detroit community, his Jewish political activist parents, and even from himself until his rape, at the hands of a male prostitute, at the age of 16. Profoundly ashamed, he hides in two worlds. One world is an intellectual cocoon spun from music, art, theater, and literature. The other is a darker world where sadomasochistic desires attempt to obliterate his sexuality. His elaborat...

In the Goldberg Variations finale, Jamie Goldberg grapples with existential uncertainty and self-discovery. He starts by rejecting the gay sexual underworld he had fallen into. In turn he throws himself into his studies. Upon learning that he has been cast as Horatio in a university production of Hamlet, he experiences a surge of elation. However, this euphoria is short-lived as he realizes that he will be sharing the stage with his bully schoolmate, Ben, who will be in the lead role of Ha...

"I wonder if Judy Blume really knows how many girls' lives she affected. I wonder if she knows that at least one of her books made a grown woman finally feel like she'd been a normal girl all along..."—from Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy BlumeWhether laughing to tears reading Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great or clamoring for more unmistakable "me too!" moments in Are You T...

Sarah Silverman's father taught her to curse-at the age of three. She was a chronic bedwetter-until she was old enough to drive. She lost her virginity at age 19-but didn't really know it.These are just a few of the outrageous true tales that Silverman shares in her alternately hilarious and moving collection of autobiographical essays. With her signature taboo-breaking humour, Silverman writes on everything from her epic struggle with hairy arms (there wasn't enough wax in the wor...

She went looking for an annulment... and found the love of her life.Seven months ago, Isabella's wild night in Vegas ended with a wedding ring—and a husband she barely remembers. She thought she left it all behind... until she learns her mystery husband now holds the keys to half her family's pharmaceutical empire.Desperate to fix her mistake, Isabella tracks down Dr. Theo Breslin, expecting a quick annulment. Instead, Theo proposes something unexpected: spend time with him...

Available in ebook for the first time ever, this trio of classic crime short stories by Sunday Times number one bestseller, Val McDermid - Heartburn, Sneeze for Danger, The Consolation Blonde - shows the early twists and turns that Val now uses in her bestselling crime fiction.In Heartburn, a traditional bonfire night turns deadly when revenge is in the air.In Sneeze for Danger, a killer is unmasked by unfortunate means, and in The Con...

A strait-laced waitress serves up a shock for the great date she ran out on in this heartwarming surprise baby romance by a USA Today bestseller.Waitress Darcy Penn is the smart, sensible type—flirting with the extremely cute guy in the bar just isn't her usual style. As for ending up in his hotel room? Definitely not! Sneaking out while he's in the bathroom to avoid the post-sex awkwardness? Much more like it. . . .If Darcy had stuck around, Jeff No...

Read Julie Klausner's posts on the Penguin BlogIn the tradition of Cynthia Heimel and Chelsea Handler, and with the boisterous iconoclasm of Amy Sedaris, Julie Klausner's candid and funny debut I Don't Care About Your Band sheds light on the humiliations we endure to find love--and the lessons that can be culled from the wreckage.I Don't Care About Your Band posits that lately the worst guys to date are the ones who seem s...

Two everyday superheroes set out to save the world—starting with their school—in an exciting new middle-grade graphic series from two award-winning authors and a debut illustrator.When cousins Riley Halfmoon and Maya Dawn move to Urbanopolis to live with their activist grandma, they get off to a rocky start. Outgoing Riley misses her Muscogee cousins but is sure that she and Maya will be instant BFFs. Meanwhile, introvert Maya misses her parents, on active duty in ...

Having lived a long, eventful life, Charlie Weinheimer’s only regret is that he has no one to carry on after him. After a near-death experience, he resolves to find out whether a secret buried in his past is proof he has a legacy after all.“Margoshes gives us the life of Charlie Weinheimer: quadruple bypass patient, widower whose children all die tragically young, but not a whiner. In his hospital bed at age seventy-seven, he’s seen it all, right? Well, maybe not. Watch as Margoshe...

When Daphne Gottlieb first found herself the character in someone else’s story she was intrigued; over time, as she appeared in more and more stories, she started to wonder about the implications of what was real and what wasn’t. Did it matter that there were published stories of her having sex in bathrooms, vacant parking lots, on the balcony at a party in an old bordello? Did it matter whether or not they were true?This question sparked the idea for Fucking Daphne, a col...

**This BONUS SHORT STORY of approx. 10K words is available in the Romancing Wisconsin Volume I boxed set. It is also FREE to newsletter subscribers who sign up at Stacey Joy Netzel’s website.**When Benedict Riley first meets Susan Whitcomb at a college holiday dance, she’s engaged to be married to another man. In this story where mistletoe rules, you’ll learn how the Riley Family Mistletoe Rules all began one fateful Christmas, not too long ago…~~~...