I Capture the Castle – Dodi Smith

“I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Honing her writing skills, she fills her notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries chronicling life within the castle’s walls, and her first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has “captured the castle”–and the heart of the reader–in one of literature’s most enchanting entertainments.”

The Man of the House – Stephen McCauley

“Thirty-five-year-old Clyde Carmichael spends too much time at things that make him miserable: teaching at a posh but flaky adult learning center; devouring forgettable celebrity biographies; and obsessing about his ex-lover, Gordon. Clyde’s other chief pursuit is dodging his family — his maddeningly insecure sister and his irascible father, who may or may not be at death’s door. Clyde’s in danger of becoming as aimless as Marcus, his handsome (and unswervingly straight) roommate, who’s spent ten years on one dissertation and far too many fizzled relationships.

Enter Louise Morris. Clyde’s old friend and Marcus’s onetime lover is a restless writer and single mother, who shows up with Ben, her son and a neurotic dog in tow. The looming question of Ben’s paternity nudges Clyde back into the orbit of his own father — and propels our endearing hero into the kind of bittersweet emotional terrain that McCauley captures so well.”

[Summaries provided by the publisher]