Wide Blue Yonder

2003 From National Book Award-finalist Jean Thompson comes a compelling, highly charged novel about a family ruled by the weather, the drastic changes that hit their atmosphere, and a midwestern town where chaos doesn’t reign — it pours. Something big is headed for Springfield, Illinois, a place where weather of all kinds — climatic, emotional, […]

City Boy

2005 Newlyweds Jack and Chloe are building a life together in a modest Chicago apartment. The city is theirs to enjoy as Jack struggles to pursue a writing career and Chloe works downtown, applying herself to the world of high finance. While Jack aspires to be the perfect husband, his own self-doubts and Chloe’s office […]

The Year We Left Home

2012 A New York Times bestseller in hardcover, The Year We Left Home is National Book Award finalist Jean Thompson’s mesmerizing, decades-spanning saga of one ordinary American family that captures the turbulent history of the country at large. Named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a People magazine “Pick of the Week,” and an Indie Next and Midwest Connections selection. The Year We Left Home is the career-defining […]

The Humanity Project

2014 After surviving a horrific shooting at her high school, fifteen-year-old Linnea is packed off to live with her estranged father, Art, in California. Art, not much more than a child himself, doesn’t quite understand how or why he has suddenly become responsible for raising a sullen—and probably deeply damaged—adolescent girl. And although Linnea has […]

She Poured Out Her Heart

2016 Jean discusses how the music of Prince helped her write sex scenes in She Poured Out Her Heart for Largehearted Boy’s Book Notes blog. Tracing the complicated friendship of two very different women who meet in college, She Poured Out Her Heart is a novel of remarkable psychological suspense, crafted by National Book Award finalist Jean […]

A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl

From National Book Award finalist and the New York Times bestselling author comes a moving family saga about three generations of women who struggle to find freedom and happiness in their small Midwestern college town.

The Poet’s House

2022 An unforgettable, lighthearted story about a young woman who discovers the insular world of writers, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Year We Left Home. Carla is stuck. In her twenties and working for a landscaper, she’s been told by everyone that she’s on the wrong path, from her mom who […]