In this novel authorized by Little House Heritage Trust, Sarah Miller vividly recreates the beauty, hardship, and joys of the frontier in a dazzling work of historical fiction, a captivating story that illuminates one courageous, resilient, and loving pioneer woman as never before--Caroline Ingalls, "Ma" in Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved Little House books.In the frigid days of February, 1870, Caroline Ingalls and her family leave the familiar comforts of the Big Woods of Wisconsin and the warm bosom of her family, for a new life in Kansas Indian Territory. Packing what they can carry in their wagon, Caroline, her husband Charles, and their little girls, Mary and Laura, head west to settle in a beautiful, unpredictable land full of promise and peril.The pioneer life is a hard one, especially for a pregnant woman with no friends or kin to turn to for comfort or help. The burden of work must be shouldered alone, sickness tended without the aid of doctors, and babies birthed without the accustomed hands of mothers or sisters. But Caroline's new world is also full of tender joys. In adapting to this strange new place and transforming a rough log house built by Charles' hands into a home, Caroline must draw on untapped wells of strength she does not know she possesses.For more than eighty years, generations of readers have been enchanted by the adventures of the American frontier's most famous child, Laura Ingalls Wilder, in the Little House books. Now, that familiar story is retold in this captivating tale of family, fidelity, hardship, love, and survival that vividly reimagines our past.
Publisher: n/a
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9780062685346
|
Hardcover
The Miracles of the Namiya General Store
By Higashino, Keigo
"From exactly midnight until daybreak, the Namiya General Store advice box will be reopening for one night only." When three delinquents hole up in an abandoned general store after their most recent robbery, to their great surprise, a letter drops through the mail slot in the stores shutter. This seemingly simple request for advice sets the trio on a journey of discovery as, over the course of a single night, they step into the role of the kindhearted former shopkeeper who devoted his waning years to offering thoughtful counsel to his correspondents. Through the lens of time, they share insight with those seeking guidance, and by morning, none of their lives will ever be the same. By acclaimed author Keigo Higashino, The Miracles of the Namiya General Store is a work that has touched the hearts of readers around the world.
Publisher: n/a
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9781975382575
|
Paperback
The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter
By Goss, Theodora
Based on some of literature's horror and science fiction classics, this is the story of a remarkable group of women who come together to solve the mystery of a series of gruesome murders - and the bigger mystery of their own origins.Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless following her parents' death, is curious about the secrets of her father's mysterious past. One clue in particular hints that Edward Hyde, her father's former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, and there is a reward for information leading to his capture ... a reward that would solve all of her immediate financial woes. But her hunt leads her to Hyde's daughter, Diana, a feral child left to be raised by nuns. With the assistance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Mary continues her search for the elusive Hyde, and soon befriends more women, all of whom have been created through terrifying experimentation: Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherin Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein. When their investigations lead them to the discovery of a secret society of immoral and power-crazed scientists, the horrors of their past return. Now it is up to the monsters to finally triumph over the monstrous.
Publisher: n/a
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9781481466509
|
Hardcover
500 Miles from You
By Colgan, Jenny
New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan returns to the beloved Scottish Highland town of Kirrinfief, which readers first met in The Bookshop on the Shore, and adds a dash of London's bustling urban landscape. Lissa, is a nurse in a gritty, hectic London neighborhood. Always terribly competent and good at keeping it all together, she's been suffering quietly with PTSD after helping to save the victim of a shocking crime. Her supervisor quietly arranges for Lissa to spend a few months doing a much less demanding job in the little town of Kirrinfeif in the Scottish Highlands, hoping that the change of scenery will help her heal. Lissa will be swapping places with Cormack, an Army veteran who's Kirrinfeif's easygoing nurse/paramedic/all-purpose medical man.
Publisher: n/a
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9780062911421
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Hardcover
The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters
By Jaswal, Balli Kaur
The author of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows follows her acclaimed America debut with this life-affirming, witty family drama - an Indian This Is Where I Leave You - about three Punjabi sisters embarking on a pilgrimage to their homeland to lay their mother to rest.The British-born Punjabi Shergill sisters - Rajni, Jezmeen, and Shirnia - were never close and barely got along growing up, and now as adults, have grown even further apart. Rajni, a school principal is a stickler for order. Jezmeen, a thirty-year-old struggling actress, fears her big break may never come. Shirina, the peacemaking "good" sister married into wealth and enjoys a picture-perfect life.On her deathbed, their mother voices one last wish: that her daughters will make a pilgrimage together to the Golden Temple in Amritsar to carry out her final rites. After a trip to India with her mother long ago, Rajni vowed never to return. But she's always been a dutiful daughter, and cannot, even now, refuse her mother's request. Jezmeen has just been publicly fired from her television job, so the trip to India is a welcome break to help her pick up the pieces of her broken career. Shirina's in-laws are pushing her to make a pivotal decision about her married life; time away will help her decide whether to meekly obey, or to bravely stand up for herself for the first time.Arriving in India, these sisters will make unexpected discoveries about themselves, their mother, and their lives - and learn the real story behind the trip Rajni took with their Mother long ago - a momentous journey that resulted in Mum never being able to return to India again. The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters is a female take on the Indian travel narrative. "I was curious about how different the trip would be if it were undertaken by women, who are vulnerable to different dangers in a male-dominated society," Balli Kaur Jaswal writes. "I also wanted to explore the tensions between tradition and modernity in immigrant communities, and particularly how those tensions play out among women like these sisters, who are the first generation to be raised outside of India."Powerful, emotionally evocative, and wonderfully atmospheric, The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters is a charming and thoughtful story that illuminates the bonds of family, sisterhood, and heritage that tether us despite our differences. Funny and heartbreaking, it is a reminder of the truly important things we must treasure in our lives.
Publisher: n/a
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9780062645142
|
Hardcover
Still Life with Bread Crumbs
By Quindlen, Anna
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA superb love story from Anna Quindlen, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Rise and Shine, Blessings, and A Short Guide to a Happy Life Still Life with Bread Crumbs begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere. There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates, that what she sees through a camera lens is not all there is to life. Brilliantly written, powerfully observed, Still Life with Bread Crumbs is a deeply moving and often very funny story of unexpected love, and a stunningly crafted journey into the life of a woman, her heart, her mind, her days, as she discovers that life is a story with many levels, a story that is longer and more exciting than she ever imagined.
Publisher: n/a
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1400065755
|
Hardcover
This Must Be the Place
By O'farrell, Maggie
An irresistible love story, an unforgettable family. Best-selling author Maggie O'Farrell captures an extraordinary marriage with insight and laugh-out-loud humor in what Richard Russo calls "her breakout book." Perfect for readers of Where'd You Go, Bernadette. Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life. A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California, a father he loathes in Brooklyn, and a wife, Claudette, who is a reclusive ex-film star given to pulling a gun on anyone who ventures up their driveway. Claudette was once the most glamorous and infamous woman in cinema before she staged her own disappearance and retreated to blissful seclusion in an Irish farmhouse. But the life Daniel and Claudette have so carefully constructed is about to be disrupted by an unexpected discovery about a woman Daniel lost touch with twenty years ago. This revelation will send him off-course, far away from wife, children, and home. Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back? "O'Farrell's prose manages to be both intimate and expansive and keenly perceptive in its insights about the complexities of marriage. Beautiful and bittersweet, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE will make O'Farrell's longtime fans swoon while prompting new readers to wonder why they've only just discovered her." --BookPage "I have been a huge fan of Maggie O'Farrell's novels for years. She writes with tremendous clarity and poise and in THIS MUST BE THE PLACE you are invested in what happens to Daniel and Claudette from the moment you meet them. A joy to read." --Jane Green "Inventive, moving, and hilarious. I loved it." - Rachel Joyce, best-selling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Publisher: n/a
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9780385349420
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Print book
Summer Hours at the Robbers Library
By Halpern, Sue
From journalist and author Sue Halpern comes a wry, observant look at contemporary life and its refugees. Halpern's novel is an unforgettable tale of family...the kind you come from and the kind you create.People are drawn to libraries for all kinds of reasons. Most come for the books themselves, of course; some come to borrow companionship. For head librarian Kit, the public library in Riverton, New Hampshire, offers what she craves most: peace. Here, no one expects Kit to talk about the calamitous events that catapulted her out of what she thought was a settled, suburban life. She can simply submerge herself in her beloved books and try to forget her problems. But that changes when fifteen-year-old, home-schooled Sunny gets arrested for shoplifting a dictionary. The judge throws the book at Sunny - literally - assigning her to do community service at the library for the summer. Bright, curious, and eager to connect with someone other than her off-the-grid hippie parents, Sunny coaxes Kit out of her self-imposed isolation. They're joined by Rusty, a Wall Street high-flyer suddenly crashed to earth. In this little library that has become the heart of this small town, Kit, Sunny, and Rusty are drawn to each other, and to a cast of other offbeat regulars. As they come to terms with how their lives have unraveled, they also discover how they might knit them together again and finally reclaim their stories.
Publisher: n/a
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9780062834065
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Hardcover
When We Found Home
By Mallery, Susan
#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery masterfully explores the definition of a modern family - blended by surprise, not by choice - and how those complicated relationships can add unexpected richness to life."Heartwarming ... this book is sweet and will appeal to readers who enjoy the intricacies of family drama." - Publishers WeeklyLife is meant to be savored, but that's not easy with no family, limited prospects and a past you'd rather not talk about. Callie Smith doesn't know how to feel when she discovers she has a brother and a sister - Malcolm, who grew up with affection, wealth and privilege, and Keira, a streetwise twelve-year-old. Despite her trepidation, she moves into the grand family home with her siblings and grandfather on the shores of Lake Washington, hoping just maybe this will be the start of a whole new life.But starting over can be messy. Callie and Keira fit in with each other, but not with their posh new lifestyle, leaving Malcolm feeling like the odd man out in his own home. Becoming a family will take patience, humor, a little bit of wine and a whole lot of love. But love isn't Malcolm's strong suit ... until he learns that an open heart, like the family table, can always make room for more.
Publisher: n/a
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9780373802500
|
Hardcover
The Bookshop on the Shore
By Colgan, Jenny
A grand baronial house on Loch Ness, a quirky small-town bookseller, and a single mom looking for a fresh start all come together in this witty and warm-hearted novel by New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan.Desperate to escape from London, single mother Lottie wants to build a new life for herself and her son Raffie. She can barely afford the crammed studio apartment on a busy street where honking horns and shouting football fans keep them awake all night. If she doesn't find a way out soon, Lottie knows it's just a matter of time before she has a complete meltdown. On a whim, she answers an ad for a nanny job in the Scottish Highlands, which is about as far away from the urban crush of London as possible. It sounds heavenly! The job description asks for someone capable of caring for two ... well, the advertisement says "gifted children"; the reality is more like "feral wolverines." The children's widowed father is a wreck, and the kids run wild in a huge tumbledown castle on the heather-strewn banks of Loch Ness. Still, the peaceful, picturesque location is everything London is not - and Lottie rises to the challenges of the job.With the help of Nina, the friendly local bookseller, Lottie begins to put down roots in the community. Are books, fresh air, and kindness enough to heal this broken family - and her own ... ?
Publisher: n/a
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9780062913555
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Hardcover
First Frost
By Allen, Sarah Addison
Now a New York Times bestseller Two magical sisters. One cranky apple tree. It's October in Bascom, North Carolina, and autumn will not go quietly. As temperatures drop and leaves begin to turn, the Waverley women are made restless by the whims of their mischievous apple tree...and the magic that swirls around it. But this year, first frost has much more in store. Claire Waverley has started a successful new venture, Waverley's Candies. Though her handcrafted confections -- rose to recall lost love, lavender to promote happiness and lemon verbena to soothe throats and minds -- are singularly effective, the business of selling them is costing her the everyday joys of her family, and her belief in her own precious gifts. Sydney Waverley, too, is losing her balance.
Publisher: n/a
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9781250019837
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Print book
The Opposite of Everyone
By Jackson, Joshilyn
"A must-read." - New York Times Book Review A fiercely independent divorce lawyer learns the power of family and connection when she receives a cryptic message from her estranged mother in this bittersweet, witty novel from the nationally bestselling author of Someone Else's Love Story and gods in Alabama - an emotionally resonant tale about the endurance of love and the power of stories to shape and transform our lives.Born in Alabama, Paula Vauss spent the first decade of her life on the road with her free-spirited young mother, Kai, an itinerant storyteller who blended Hindu mythology with southern oral tradition to re-invent their history as they roved. But everything, including Paula's birth name Kali Jai, changed when she told a story of her own - one that landed Kai in prison and Paula in foster care. Separated, each holding secrets of her own, the intense bond they once shared was fractured.These days, Paula has reincarnated herself as a tough-as-nails divorce attorney with a successful practice in Atlanta. While she hasn't seen Kai in fifteen years, she's still making payments on that Karmic debt - until the day her last check is returned in the mail, along with a mysterious note: "I am going on a journey, Kali. I am going back to my beginning; death is not the end. You will be the end. We will meet again, and there will be new stories. You know how Karma works."Then Kai's most treasured secret literally lands on Paula's doorstep, throwing her life into chaos and transforming her from only child to older sister. Desperate to find her mother before it's too late, Paula sets off on a journey of discovery that will take her back to the past and into the deepest recesses of her heart. With the help of her ex-lover Birdwine, an intrepid and emotionally volatile private eye who still carries a torch for her, this brilliant woman, an expert at wrecking families, now has to figure out how to put one back together - her own.The Opposite of Everyone is a story about story itself, how the tales we tell connect us, break us, and define us, and how the endings and beginnings we choose can destroy us . . . and make us whole. Laced with sharp humor and poignant insight, it is beloved New York Times bestselling author Joshilyn Jackson at her very best.
Publisher: n/a
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9780062105684
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Hardcover
Key Lime Pie Murder
By Fluke, Joanne
It promises to be a busy week for Hannah Swensen Not only is she whipping up treats for the chamber of commerce booth at the fair shes also judging the baking contest acting as a magicians assistant for her business partners husband trying to coax Moishe her previously rapacious feline to end his hunger strike and performing her own private carnival act by juggling the demands of her mother and sisters With so much on her plate its no wonder Hannah finds herself on the midway only moments before the fair closes for the night As the lights click off she realizes that shes not alone among the shuttered booths and looming carnival attractions After hearing a suspicious thump she goes snooping - only to discover Willa Sunquist a student teacher and fellow bake contest judge dead alongside an upended key lime pie But who would want to kill Willa and why Before long Hannah is sifting through motives and a list of suspects which include a high school student Willa flunked the hot-blooded brothers of a disqualified beauty contestant a rodeo cowboy a baking competitor who failed to win her yearly blue ribbon and the college professor Willa was dating As fair week draws to a close Hannah cranks up the heat hoping that the killer will get rattled and make a mistake If that happens she intends to be there even if it means getting on a carnival ride that could very well be her last.
Publisher: n/a
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9780758210180
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Hardcover
The Vanished Bride
By Ellis, Bella
Before they became legendary writers, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, and Anne Bronte were detectors in this charming historical mystery... Yorkshire, 1845. A young wife and mother has gone missing from her home, leaving behind two small children and a large pool of blood. Just a few miles away, a humble parson's daughters - the Bronte sisters - learn of the crime. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte are horrified and intrigued by the mysterious disappearance. These three creative, energetic, and resourceful women quickly realize that they have all the skills required to make for excellent "lady detectors." Not yet published novelists, they have well-honed imaginations and are expert readers. And, as Charlotte remarks, "detecting is reading between the lines - it's seeing what is not there." As they investigate, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne are confronted with a society that believes a woman's place is in the home, not scouring the countryside looking for clues. But nothing will stop the sisters from discovering what happened to the vanished bride, even as they find their own lives are in great peril...
Caroline
By Miller, Sarah
In this novel authorized by Little House Heritage Trust, Sarah Miller vividly recreates the beauty, hardship, and joys of the frontier in a dazzling work of historical fiction, a captivating story that illuminates one courageous, resilient, and loving pioneer woman as never before--Caroline Ingalls, "Ma" in Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved Little House books.In the frigid days of February, 1870, Caroline Ingalls and her family leave the familiar comforts of the Big Woods of Wisconsin and the warm bosom of her family, for a new life in Kansas Indian Territory. Packing what they can carry in their wagon, Caroline, her husband Charles, and their little girls, Mary and Laura, head west to settle in a beautiful, unpredictable land full of promise and peril.The pioneer life is a hard one, especially for a pregnant woman with no friends or kin to turn to for comfort or help. The burden of work must be shouldered alone, sickness tended without the aid of doctors, and babies birthed without the accustomed hands of mothers or sisters. But Caroline's new world is also full of tender joys. In adapting to this strange new place and transforming a rough log house built by Charles' hands into a home, Caroline must draw on untapped wells of strength she does not know she possesses.For more than eighty years, generations of readers have been enchanted by the adventures of the American frontier's most famous child, Laura Ingalls Wilder, in the Little House books. Now, that familiar story is retold in this captivating tale of family, fidelity, hardship, love, and survival that vividly reimagines our past.
The Miracles of the Namiya General Store
By Higashino, Keigo
"From exactly midnight until daybreak, the Namiya General Store advice box will be reopening for one night only." When three delinquents hole up in an abandoned general store after their most recent robbery, to their great surprise, a letter drops through the mail slot in the stores shutter. This seemingly simple request for advice sets the trio on a journey of discovery as, over the course of a single night, they step into the role of the kindhearted former shopkeeper who devoted his waning years to offering thoughtful counsel to his correspondents. Through the lens of time, they share insight with those seeking guidance, and by morning, none of their lives will ever be the same. By acclaimed author Keigo Higashino, The Miracles of the Namiya General Store is a work that has touched the hearts of readers around the world.
The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter
By Goss, Theodora
Based on some of literature's horror and science fiction classics, this is the story of a remarkable group of women who come together to solve the mystery of a series of gruesome murders - and the bigger mystery of their own origins.Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless following her parents' death, is curious about the secrets of her father's mysterious past. One clue in particular hints that Edward Hyde, her father's former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, and there is a reward for information leading to his capture ... a reward that would solve all of her immediate financial woes. But her hunt leads her to Hyde's daughter, Diana, a feral child left to be raised by nuns. With the assistance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Mary continues her search for the elusive Hyde, and soon befriends more women, all of whom have been created through terrifying experimentation: Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherin Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein. When their investigations lead them to the discovery of a secret society of immoral and power-crazed scientists, the horrors of their past return. Now it is up to the monsters to finally triumph over the monstrous.
500 Miles from You
By Colgan, Jenny
New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan returns to the beloved Scottish Highland town of Kirrinfief, which readers first met in The Bookshop on the Shore, and adds a dash of London's bustling urban landscape. Lissa, is a nurse in a gritty, hectic London neighborhood. Always terribly competent and good at keeping it all together, she's been suffering quietly with PTSD after helping to save the victim of a shocking crime. Her supervisor quietly arranges for Lissa to spend a few months doing a much less demanding job in the little town of Kirrinfeif in the Scottish Highlands, hoping that the change of scenery will help her heal. Lissa will be swapping places with Cormack, an Army veteran who's Kirrinfeif's easygoing nurse/paramedic/all-purpose medical man.
The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters
By Jaswal, Balli Kaur
The author of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows follows her acclaimed America debut with this life-affirming, witty family drama - an Indian This Is Where I Leave You - about three Punjabi sisters embarking on a pilgrimage to their homeland to lay their mother to rest.The British-born Punjabi Shergill sisters - Rajni, Jezmeen, and Shirnia - were never close and barely got along growing up, and now as adults, have grown even further apart. Rajni, a school principal is a stickler for order. Jezmeen, a thirty-year-old struggling actress, fears her big break may never come. Shirina, the peacemaking "good" sister married into wealth and enjoys a picture-perfect life.On her deathbed, their mother voices one last wish: that her daughters will make a pilgrimage together to the Golden Temple in Amritsar to carry out her final rites. After a trip to India with her mother long ago, Rajni vowed never to return. But she's always been a dutiful daughter, and cannot, even now, refuse her mother's request. Jezmeen has just been publicly fired from her television job, so the trip to India is a welcome break to help her pick up the pieces of her broken career. Shirina's in-laws are pushing her to make a pivotal decision about her married life; time away will help her decide whether to meekly obey, or to bravely stand up for herself for the first time.Arriving in India, these sisters will make unexpected discoveries about themselves, their mother, and their lives - and learn the real story behind the trip Rajni took with their Mother long ago - a momentous journey that resulted in Mum never being able to return to India again. The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters is a female take on the Indian travel narrative. "I was curious about how different the trip would be if it were undertaken by women, who are vulnerable to different dangers in a male-dominated society," Balli Kaur Jaswal writes. "I also wanted to explore the tensions between tradition and modernity in immigrant communities, and particularly how those tensions play out among women like these sisters, who are the first generation to be raised outside of India."Powerful, emotionally evocative, and wonderfully atmospheric, The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters is a charming and thoughtful story that illuminates the bonds of family, sisterhood, and heritage that tether us despite our differences. Funny and heartbreaking, it is a reminder of the truly important things we must treasure in our lives.
Still Life with Bread Crumbs
By Quindlen, Anna
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA superb love story from Anna Quindlen, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Rise and Shine, Blessings, and A Short Guide to a Happy Life Still Life with Bread Crumbs begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere. There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates, that what she sees through a camera lens is not all there is to life. Brilliantly written, powerfully observed, Still Life with Bread Crumbs is a deeply moving and often very funny story of unexpected love, and a stunningly crafted journey into the life of a woman, her heart, her mind, her days, as she discovers that life is a story with many levels, a story that is longer and more exciting than she ever imagined.
This Must Be the Place
By O'farrell, Maggie
An irresistible love story, an unforgettable family. Best-selling author Maggie O'Farrell captures an extraordinary marriage with insight and laugh-out-loud humor in what Richard Russo calls "her breakout book." Perfect for readers of Where'd You Go, Bernadette. Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life. A New Yorker living in the wilds of Ireland, he has children he never sees in California, a father he loathes in Brooklyn, and a wife, Claudette, who is a reclusive ex-film star given to pulling a gun on anyone who ventures up their driveway. Claudette was once the most glamorous and infamous woman in cinema before she staged her own disappearance and retreated to blissful seclusion in an Irish farmhouse. But the life Daniel and Claudette have so carefully constructed is about to be disrupted by an unexpected discovery about a woman Daniel lost touch with twenty years ago. This revelation will send him off-course, far away from wife, children, and home. Will his love for Claudette be enough to bring him back? "O'Farrell's prose manages to be both intimate and expansive and keenly perceptive in its insights about the complexities of marriage. Beautiful and bittersweet, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE will make O'Farrell's longtime fans swoon while prompting new readers to wonder why they've only just discovered her." --BookPage "I have been a huge fan of Maggie O'Farrell's novels for years. She writes with tremendous clarity and poise and in THIS MUST BE THE PLACE you are invested in what happens to Daniel and Claudette from the moment you meet them. A joy to read." --Jane Green "Inventive, moving, and hilarious. I loved it." - Rachel Joyce, best-selling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Summer Hours at the Robbers Library
By Halpern, Sue
From journalist and author Sue Halpern comes a wry, observant look at contemporary life and its refugees. Halpern's novel is an unforgettable tale of family...the kind you come from and the kind you create.People are drawn to libraries for all kinds of reasons. Most come for the books themselves, of course; some come to borrow companionship. For head librarian Kit, the public library in Riverton, New Hampshire, offers what she craves most: peace. Here, no one expects Kit to talk about the calamitous events that catapulted her out of what she thought was a settled, suburban life. She can simply submerge herself in her beloved books and try to forget her problems. But that changes when fifteen-year-old, home-schooled Sunny gets arrested for shoplifting a dictionary. The judge throws the book at Sunny - literally - assigning her to do community service at the library for the summer. Bright, curious, and eager to connect with someone other than her off-the-grid hippie parents, Sunny coaxes Kit out of her self-imposed isolation. They're joined by Rusty, a Wall Street high-flyer suddenly crashed to earth. In this little library that has become the heart of this small town, Kit, Sunny, and Rusty are drawn to each other, and to a cast of other offbeat regulars. As they come to terms with how their lives have unraveled, they also discover how they might knit them together again and finally reclaim their stories.
When We Found Home
By Mallery, Susan
#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery masterfully explores the definition of a modern family - blended by surprise, not by choice - and how those complicated relationships can add unexpected richness to life."Heartwarming ... this book is sweet and will appeal to readers who enjoy the intricacies of family drama." - Publishers WeeklyLife is meant to be savored, but that's not easy with no family, limited prospects and a past you'd rather not talk about. Callie Smith doesn't know how to feel when she discovers she has a brother and a sister - Malcolm, who grew up with affection, wealth and privilege, and Keira, a streetwise twelve-year-old. Despite her trepidation, she moves into the grand family home with her siblings and grandfather on the shores of Lake Washington, hoping just maybe this will be the start of a whole new life.But starting over can be messy. Callie and Keira fit in with each other, but not with their posh new lifestyle, leaving Malcolm feeling like the odd man out in his own home. Becoming a family will take patience, humor, a little bit of wine and a whole lot of love. But love isn't Malcolm's strong suit ... until he learns that an open heart, like the family table, can always make room for more.
The Bookshop on the Shore
By Colgan, Jenny
A grand baronial house on Loch Ness, a quirky small-town bookseller, and a single mom looking for a fresh start all come together in this witty and warm-hearted novel by New York Times bestselling author Jenny Colgan.Desperate to escape from London, single mother Lottie wants to build a new life for herself and her son Raffie. She can barely afford the crammed studio apartment on a busy street where honking horns and shouting football fans keep them awake all night. If she doesn't find a way out soon, Lottie knows it's just a matter of time before she has a complete meltdown. On a whim, she answers an ad for a nanny job in the Scottish Highlands, which is about as far away from the urban crush of London as possible. It sounds heavenly! The job description asks for someone capable of caring for two ... well, the advertisement says "gifted children"; the reality is more like "feral wolverines." The children's widowed father is a wreck, and the kids run wild in a huge tumbledown castle on the heather-strewn banks of Loch Ness. Still, the peaceful, picturesque location is everything London is not - and Lottie rises to the challenges of the job.With the help of Nina, the friendly local bookseller, Lottie begins to put down roots in the community. Are books, fresh air, and kindness enough to heal this broken family - and her own ... ?
First Frost
By Allen, Sarah Addison
Now a New York Times bestseller Two magical sisters. One cranky apple tree. It's October in Bascom, North Carolina, and autumn will not go quietly. As temperatures drop and leaves begin to turn, the Waverley women are made restless by the whims of their mischievous apple tree...and the magic that swirls around it. But this year, first frost has much more in store. Claire Waverley has started a successful new venture, Waverley's Candies. Though her handcrafted confections -- rose to recall lost love, lavender to promote happiness and lemon verbena to soothe throats and minds -- are singularly effective, the business of selling them is costing her the everyday joys of her family, and her belief in her own precious gifts. Sydney Waverley, too, is losing her balance.
The Opposite of Everyone
By Jackson, Joshilyn
"A must-read." - New York Times Book Review A fiercely independent divorce lawyer learns the power of family and connection when she receives a cryptic message from her estranged mother in this bittersweet, witty novel from the nationally bestselling author of Someone Else's Love Story and gods in Alabama - an emotionally resonant tale about the endurance of love and the power of stories to shape and transform our lives.Born in Alabama, Paula Vauss spent the first decade of her life on the road with her free-spirited young mother, Kai, an itinerant storyteller who blended Hindu mythology with southern oral tradition to re-invent their history as they roved. But everything, including Paula's birth name Kali Jai, changed when she told a story of her own - one that landed Kai in prison and Paula in foster care. Separated, each holding secrets of her own, the intense bond they once shared was fractured.These days, Paula has reincarnated herself as a tough-as-nails divorce attorney with a successful practice in Atlanta. While she hasn't seen Kai in fifteen years, she's still making payments on that Karmic debt - until the day her last check is returned in the mail, along with a mysterious note: "I am going on a journey, Kali. I am going back to my beginning; death is not the end. You will be the end. We will meet again, and there will be new stories. You know how Karma works."Then Kai's most treasured secret literally lands on Paula's doorstep, throwing her life into chaos and transforming her from only child to older sister. Desperate to find her mother before it's too late, Paula sets off on a journey of discovery that will take her back to the past and into the deepest recesses of her heart. With the help of her ex-lover Birdwine, an intrepid and emotionally volatile private eye who still carries a torch for her, this brilliant woman, an expert at wrecking families, now has to figure out how to put one back together - her own.The Opposite of Everyone is a story about story itself, how the tales we tell connect us, break us, and define us, and how the endings and beginnings we choose can destroy us . . . and make us whole. Laced with sharp humor and poignant insight, it is beloved New York Times bestselling author Joshilyn Jackson at her very best.
Key Lime Pie Murder
By Fluke, Joanne
It promises to be a busy week for Hannah Swensen Not only is she whipping up treats for the chamber of commerce booth at the fair shes also judging the baking contest acting as a magicians assistant for her business partners husband trying to coax Moishe her previously rapacious feline to end his hunger strike and performing her own private carnival act by juggling the demands of her mother and sisters With so much on her plate its no wonder Hannah finds herself on the midway only moments before the fair closes for the night As the lights click off she realizes that shes not alone among the shuttered booths and looming carnival attractions After hearing a suspicious thump she goes snooping - only to discover Willa Sunquist a student teacher and fellow bake contest judge dead alongside an upended key lime pie But who would want to kill Willa and why Before long Hannah is sifting through motives and a list of suspects which include a high school student Willa flunked the hot-blooded brothers of a disqualified beauty contestant a rodeo cowboy a baking competitor who failed to win her yearly blue ribbon and the college professor Willa was dating As fair week draws to a close Hannah cranks up the heat hoping that the killer will get rattled and make a mistake If that happens she intends to be there even if it means getting on a carnival ride that could very well be her last.
The Vanished Bride
By Ellis, Bella
Before they became legendary writers, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, and Anne Bronte were detectors in this charming historical mystery... Yorkshire, 1845. A young wife and mother has gone missing from her home, leaving behind two small children and a large pool of blood. Just a few miles away, a humble parson's daughters - the Bronte sisters - learn of the crime. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte are horrified and intrigued by the mysterious disappearance. These three creative, energetic, and resourceful women quickly realize that they have all the skills required to make for excellent "lady detectors." Not yet published novelists, they have well-honed imaginations and are expert readers. And, as Charlotte remarks, "detecting is reading between the lines - it's seeing what is not there." As they investigate, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne are confronted with a society that believes a woman's place is in the home, not scouring the countryside looking for clues. But nothing will stop the sisters from discovering what happened to the vanished bride, even as they find their own lives are in great peril...