One of our best American writers, Lauren Groff returns with a fierce new story collection, her first since the award-winning and bestselling Florida. Each story in Lauren Groff’s electric collection is an individual triumph, bold, agile, and packed with power. They hum in exhilarating resonance. Ranging from the 1950s to the present day and moving across age, class, and region -- from New England to Florida to California -- these nine stories reflect and expand upon a shared the ceaseless battle between humans’ dark and light angels. “In every human there is both an animal and a god wrestling unto death,“ one character tells us. Among those we see caught in this match are a young woman suddenly responsible for her disabled sibling, a hot-tempered high school swimmer in need of an adult, a mother blinded by the loss of her family, and a banking scion endowed with a different kind of inheritance. Motivated by love, impeded by the double edges of other peoples’ good intentions, they try to do the right thing for as long as they can. Precise, surprising, and provocative, anchored by profound insight into human nature, Brawler reveals the repeated, sometimes heartbreaking turning points between love and fear, compassion and violence, reason and instinct, altruism and what it takes to survive. It is a timeless, stunning achievement from one of the very best short story writers working today.

He’s about to meet his match. When teenagers from the same side of the tracks collide. The second born son in a broken marriage, Joey Lynch has spent a lifetime picking up the pieces of a family unraveling. When his older brother Darren skips town on his first day of secondary school, twelve year old Joey finds himself thrown into the role of protector to his younger siblings and mother. Plagued by self-loathing, and furious with the world, he grapples with teenage life, his unwavering sense of duty to his family, while balancing precariously close to a life of addiction that threatens to swallow him whole. The only light in his sea of darkness is his boss’s firecracker of a daughter who refuses to back down. A girl who just so happens to be his classmate. Aoife Molloy has never been backwards in coming forward. Her bubbly and self-assured nature has never led her astray. Until her first day of secondary school when she collides with a hotheaded boy who sparks a burning curiosity inside of her that only grows stronger by the day. Falling into a complicated friendship with her father’s apprentice, Aoife works to unravels the secrets around Joey Lynch’s life, while he desperately fights to keep her out. Friendship, devotion, and first love all come together in Saving 6, the first of two books for Aoife and Joey. Based in Ireland, the Boys of Tommen series is bound to captivate and lure you into the world of rugby, hurling, love, and teenage heartbreak. * Warning * Some scenes in this book may be extremely upsetting for some readers. Due to its bad language, mature themes, and potentially triggering scenes, Saving 6 is recommended for mature readers.