Browse Delaware Authors: Grote, Frances

General fiction - A unique and compelling coming of age story told with laugh-out-loud humor, Frank Lloyd Wrong looks at the challenging question, what makes a good family? With an unforgettable cast of characters, the Ricardo kids and their cross-country adventure will leave you with some joyous answers to that question.

With razor-sharp wit and an unflinching eye for the little insanities of people who believe they are in charge, Fire in the Henhouse takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride through life in Dooleysburg, PA. Chock full of local celebrities like the cross-dressing car dealer who doubles as the town's mascot, and the police chief who had to get his own juvenile record expunged, Dooleysburg prides itself on being a great place to raise a family. Widowed Maggie Rifkin returns here with her fourteen-year-old son and her New York attitude, naively imagining she can leave her past behind. But this town where friendships ignore racial boundaries and sexual eccentricities are a family business has been tempting the Fates. When sudden tragedy strikes, the thread of destruction might well unravel all the way back to Maggie's childhood secret.

From a New York City tenement in the early 1900s to vampire make-up sex in present-day Philadelphia, the stories in Death, Madness and a Mess of Dogs use sly humor and memorable characters to weave quirky explorations of love, loss and redemption. Written primarily in the year following her mother's death, Frances Grote's first short story collection is full of audacious humor and a keenly inventive vision. Families, frenemies and a unique assortment of lovers bring the reader universal truths about relationships in unexpected and fresh ways.