Emily Adrian

Ruth Devon starred for Georgetown Basketball back in college--until she injured her knee, married her coach, and found a new career calling games on the radio. Twenty years later, Ruth and her now-ex-husband, Lester, are two of the most famous faces in sports media. When Lester decides to retire from the announcers' booth, Ruth goes after his job. If she gets it, she will be the first woman to call NBA games on national television. For now, Ruth is reporting from the sideline of the NBA finals, immersed in the high-pressure spectacle of the post-season. But in a deserted locker room at halftime, Ruth makes a discovery that shatters her vision of her future. Instantly, she is torn between the two things she has always wanted most: the game and motherhood. With warmth and incisive observation, Adrian brings to life the obsessions, emotions, and drama of fandom. The Second Season asks why, how, and whom we watch, while offering a rich and complicated account of motherhood, marriage, and ambition. Adrian's character study of Ruth Devon illuminates a beautiful basketball mind--and the struggle of a woman who claims authority in a male-dominated world.

The Second Season

As one of The Essential Five theater students at her alternative high school, Rebecca Rivers is preparing to become an actress and enjoying junior year with the perfect boyfriend until life-changing rumors threaten everything.

Like it never happened

Amanda is a new mother, and she is breaking. After a fight with her partner, she puts the baby in the car and drives from Queens to her hometown in rural Ohio, where she shows up unannounced on the doorstep of her estranged childhood best friend. Amanda thought that she had left Carrie firmly in the past. After their friendship ended, their lives diverged radically: Carrie had a baby the summer after high school, became a successful tattoo artist, and never escaped Ohio's conservative grid of close-cut grass. But the trauma of childbirth and shock of motherhood compel Amanda to go back to the beginning and to trace the tangled roots of friendship and family in her own life. Compelling and engaging, Everything Here Is under Control is a raw, honest, occasionally hilarious portrait of the complexity, conflicting emotions, and physical trauma of both modern motherhood and the intense, intimate friendships that women forge in their youth.

Everything Here Is Under Control

Stereotypes, sexuality, and destructive rumors collide in this smart YA novel for fans of Sara Zarr’s Story of a Girl, Siobhan Vivian’s The List, and E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. When Rebecca Rivers lands the lead in her school’s production of The Crucible, she gets to change roles in real life, too. She casts off her old reputation, grows close with her four rowdy cast-mates, and kisses the extremely handsome Charlie Lamb onstage. Even Mr. McFadden, the play’s critical director, can find no fault with Rebecca. Though “The Essential Five” vow never to date each other, Rebecca can’t help her feelings for Charlie, leaving her both conflicted and lovestruck. But the on and off-stage drama of the cast is eclipsed by a life-altering accusation that threatens to destroy everything…even if some of it is just make believe.

Like It Never Happened

Audrey Nelson is planning for her future after graduation, but she has no idea her future contains a swoony summer romance, Internet fame, or a nursing home. Audrey's life has been planned out for her since she was born, and now she's supposed to attend Whedon College in the fall, where both of her parents work. But Audrey has a different plan in mind: She's not going to attend college at all. She's going to earn some money and move to Seattle, the city she's loved since she was a child. And the best way to earn that money is by working the night shift at the local nursing home. Seth O'Malley works there, too, and a romance quickly blossoms between them. But things get complicated when Audrey saves the life of Cameron Suzuki, Seth's ex. A video of her performing CPR at the beach goes viral, and suddenly, Audrey's wanted for TV interviews and newspaper articles. And just when Audrey starts to love life at the nursing home--and life with Seth--Seattle comes knocking. Does she follow the path she set out for herself, even when it means leaving behind Seth and the cast of quirky patients she's come to care for? Or does she embrace a future with Seth--at least for the foreseeable future--at the cost of abandoning her dreams?

The Foreseeable Future

Seduction Theory

Audrey's life has been planned out for her since she was born, and now she's supposed to attend Whedon College in the fall, where both of her parents work. But Audrey has a different plan in mind: She's not going to attend college at all. She's going to earn some money and move to Seattle, the city she's loved since she was a child. And the best way to earn that money is by working the night shift at the local nursing home.

The foreseeable future

For fans of Conversations with Friends and Vladimir comes a magnetic, fresh take on marriage and loyalty: when two married professors tiptoe toward infidelity, their transgressions are brought to light in a graduate student's searing thesis project. Simone is the star of Edwards University's creative writing department: renowned Woolf scholar, grief memoirist, and campus sex icon. Her less glamorous and ostensibly devoted husband, Ethan, is a forgotten novelist and lecturer in the same department. But when Ethan and the department administrative assistant Abigail have sex, Simone and Ethan's faith in their flawless marriage is rattled. Simone has secrets of her own. While Ethan's away for the summer, she becomes inordinately close with her advisee, graduate student Roberta "Robbie" Green. In Robbie, Simone finds a new running partner, confidante, and disciple--or so she believes. Behind Simone's back, Robbie fictionalizes her mentor's marriage in a breathtakingly invasive MFA thesis. Determined to tell her version of the story, Robbie paints a revealing portrait of Simone, Ethan, Abigail, and even herself, scratching at the very surface of what may--or may not--be the truth. Innovative, witty, and tender, Seduction Theory exposes the intoxicating nature of power and attraction, masterfully demonstrating how love and betrayal can coexist.

A Novel

'What they were doing was not an affair because Ethan had never laid a hand on Abigail. But it also was, because leaving a department potluck to buy cigarettes was better than sex.' The long summer holiday has begun on the campus of Edwards University in upstate New York. Simone is the star of the creative writing department, a renowned scholar, successful memoirist and campus sex icon. Ethan, her devoted husband, is a lecturer in the same department, though he hasn't published a novel since he was twenty-six. Their marriage is long, strong and happy. But, over the course of that aggressively hot summer break, both will stray. And, as others become involved, new sides to the story of this apparently flawless marriage will emerge.

Amanda is a new mother, and she is breaking. After a fight with her partner, she puts the baby in the car and drives from Queens to her hometown in rural Ohio, where she shows up unannounced on the doorstep of her estranged childhood best friend. Amanda thought that she had left Carrie firmly in the past. After their friendship ended, their lives diverged radically: Carrie had a baby the summer after high school, became a successful tattoo artist, and never escaped Ohio’s conservative grid of close-cut grass. But the trauma of childbirth and shock of motherhood compel Amanda to go back to the beginning and to trace the tangled roots of friendship and family in her own life. Compelling and engaging, Everything Here Is under Control is a raw, honest, occasionally hilarious portrait of the complexity, conflicting emotions, and physical trauma of both modern motherhood and the intense, intimate friendships that women forge in their youth.

Everything Here Is under Control

Ruth Devon starred for Georgetown Basketball back in college—until she injured her knee, married her coach, and found a new career calling games on the radio. Twenty years later, Ruth and her now-ex-husband, Lester, are two of the most famous faces in sports media. When Lester decides to retire from the announcers’ booth, Ruth goes after his job. If she gets it, she will be the first woman to call NBA games on national television. For now, Ruth is reporting from the sideline of the NBA finals, immersed in the high-pressure spectacle of the post-season. But in a deserted locker room at halftime, Ruth makes a discovery that shatters her vision of her future. Instantly, she is torn between the two things she has always wanted most: the game and motherhood. With warmth and incisive observation, Adrian brings to life the obsessions, emotions, and drama of fandom. The Second Season asks why, how, and whom we watch, while offering a rich and complicated account of motherhood, marriage, and ambition. Adrian’s character study of Ruth Devon illuminates a beautiful basketball mind—and the struggle of a woman who claims authority in a male-dominated world.

Emily Adrian

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