Chris Cander Books in Order

Building superintendent Roscoe Jones knows the private struggles of the residents he serves, but keeps his own musical past hidden. After decades of playing trumpet alone on a Chicago rooftop, a public performance opens unexpected connections between his life and theirs.

A boy eager to learn to read finds little help from his busy parents. He starts stealing words from other people’s books, hoping to unlock their meaning. This illustrated story explores the possibilities that literacy and language offer.

In a West Virginia mining town, Myrthen Bergmann carries guilt over her twin’s death while her neighbor Alta longs for an artistic life. Years later, a boy’s unsettling knowledge brings buried secrets and Myrthen’s religious obsessions into dangerous contact.

A piano links a Soviet woman who dreams of musical success with Clara, a California mechanic who inherited it from her father. When Clara decides to sell the instrument, its history and a prospective buyer draw her into an unexpected journey.

Lonely Houston wife and mother Martha Hale becomes fascinated when her glamorous former schoolmate Minnie Foster moves next door. Their renewed friendship offers escape from Martha’s routine, but conflicting memories and concealed marital troubles complicate her growing attachment.

After her husband’s death, Mayree faces the estrangement of her daughter Paula, whose account of a violent assault she initially doubted. Renewed threats and buried family secrets force both women to confront grief, mistrust, and the possibility of reconciliation.