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The Last Eagle


Michael Wenberg - 2011
    The crew, however, isn’t content to sit out the war. With help from unexpected sources—a naval attaché with the British Embassy and a courageous American reporter and her photographer sidekick—they overcome their captors, regain control of the "Eagle," and escape. The German’s are convinced the "Eagle's" crew has no stomach for a fight and will seek refuge in Sweden. But the Poles have something else in mind—join up with the British Fleet and continue fighting against their homeland's Nazi conquerors. They face stiff odds. The "Eagle" has little food and water, few torpedoes, and no sea charts. And before she can rendezvous with the British somewhere in the North Sea, she must traverse the Baltic, which has become little more than a Nazi-controlled lake. This story is inspired by the exploits of the Polish submarine, "Orzel," during the early weeks of World War II. Winston Churchill called her escape from the Nazis “an epic.”

Lost & Found


Jacqueline Sheehan - 2007
    . . with the help of one not-so-little dogRocky's husband Bob was just forty-two when she discovered him lying cold and lifeless on the bathroom floor . . . and Rocky's world changed forever. Quitting her job, chopping off all her hair, she leaves Massachusetts—reinventing her past and taking a job as Animal Control Warden on Peak's Island, a tiny speck off the coast of Maine and a million miles away from everything she's lost. She leaves her career as a psychologist behind, only to find friendship with a woman whose brain misfires in the most wonderful way and a young girl who is trying to disappear. Rocky, a quirky and fallible character, discovers the healing process to be agonizingly slow.But then she meets Lloyd.A large black Labrador retriever, Lloyd enters Rocky's world with a primitive arrow sticking out of his shoulder. And so begins a remarkable friendship between a wounded woman and a wounded, lovable beast. As the unraveling mystery of Lloyd's accident and missing owner leads Rocky to an archery instructor who draws her in even as she finds every reason to mistrust him, she discovers the life-altering revelation that grief can be transformed . . . and joy does exist in unexpected places.

Refiner's Fire


Sylvia Bambola - 2000
    This book's "secret underground society" is not Nazi war criminals, however-it's the persecuted Christian church. Yuri and Alexander Deyneko, separated as teens in postwar times, are reunited thirty-five years later in 1980s Bucharest. Now on separate sides of Nicolae Ceausescu's Iron Curtain, the secret life of one brother, a top army official and clandestine Christian, and the ambition of the other- now the American Ambassador to Romania-puts them on a collision course with each other. Fates hang on an issue of conscience. Great writing propels readers through the plot toward a gripping climax.

Hadley & Grace


Suzanne Redfearn - 2021
    A woman who can’t even kill a spider, Hadley soon finds herself pushed to the limits as she fights to protect her family.Grace, new mother of baby Miles, desperately wants to put her rough past behind her for good, but she finds it impossible when her path crosses with Hadley’s, and her quest for a new start quickly spirals out of control and turns into a terrifying flight for survival.Stronger together than apart, the two find their fates inextricably entwined, and as the danger closes in, each must decide how much she is willing to risk for the other.A powerful story of self-discovery, Hadley and Grace is the heart-racing tale of two women facing insurmountable odds, racing to stay one step ahead of the trouble that is chasing them, and discovering new kinds of love and family along the way.

Secrecy


Belva Plain - 1997
    First came the sin.  Then the lies.He was handsome, charming, irresistable, and an eighteen-year-old lady-killer, her uncle Cliff's stepson, Ted.  But in one terrible night he would shatter the life of fourteen-year-old Charlotte Dawes and nearly destroy her family.  Years afterward, Charlotte would remember that night with fear and loathing, with pain that could be banished only by her work as a gifted architect, building a new world for others as she conceals her own.For Charlotte's family, prime employers in New England mill town, what happened to Charlotte was the beginning of the end.  Her father is left shattered by his daughter's pain.  Her troubled mother is unable to cope.  And her distinguished family has fallen from grace, plunged into debt.  The only rock that sustains them in their darkest hours is a woman whose own guilty secret has given her the power to ruin--or resurrect--the family to whom she owes her life.Belva Plain's searing novel cuts to the heart of a family ravaged by secrecy.  But it is ultimately a story of redemption, the kind that grows when one person dares to tell the truth.

The First Wives Club


Olivia Goldsmith - 1992
    Get everything. When their best friend commits suicide over her divorce, Elise, Brenda and Annie decide enough is enough. Each was crucial to her husband's career. But now that the men are successful, they've traded in their wives for newer, blonder models. Over lunch one day they form the First Wives Club. But this is no support group. This is the SAS in Chanel. Painstakingly, inexorably, they plan the downfall of the men who've wrecked their lives—and know that revenge has never tasted sweeter...

Taft


Ann Patchett - 1994
    But when his son is taken away from him, he's left with nothing but the Memphis bar he manages. Then he hires Fay, a young white waitress, who has a volatile brother named Carl in tow. Nickel finds himself consumed with the idea of Taft -- Fay and Carl's dead father -- and begins to reconstruct the life of a man he never met. But his sympathies for these lost souls soon take him down a twisting path into the lives of strangers...

The Youngest Hero


Jerry B. Jenkins - 2002
    Guided by his mother's firm and steadfast wisdom and his extraordinary talent, both mother and son make it to the major leagues. In the end, "The Youngest Hero" reveals that when it comes to finding your way in life, a God-fearing mother is more important than God-given talent.

The Happy Prisoner


Monica Dickens - 1946
    North, a well-to-do widow with a country cottage, is very busy. War circumstances brought both of her daughters home: loud but good-hearted tomboy, Violet, and highly-strung and over sensitive Heather with her two small children. Mrs. North is also taking care of her young niece, Evelyn, a lively child who loves to play on the local farm and has a great passion for animals. But at the center of all this is Oliver, Mrs. North's only son who lost his leg during the war service abroad.Recovering from his injuries, bed-ridden Oliver has nothing better to do but observe the busy lives of the people around him. Treated as a hero and a confidant by all the women in his family, Oliver begins to enjoy his new role as a self-proclaimed counselor. Due to his advice, Violet, an independent spinster, unexpectedly accepts the marriage proposal from a local farmer. Her wedding is a success and Violet finds a new happiness in her marriage, but soon Oliver's meddling in his family affairs goes too far. Will his risky instructions save or ruin Heather's marriage, which is at the brink of crisis, when her husband comes back from Australia after a few years of separation? Will Oliver learn to accept his new circumstances? Will he finally face to the reality and start to rebuild his own life?In this compendium plot, Monica Dickens, with her typical attention to detail, humor and talent for creating vivid characters, explores complicated life stories of the close-knit family and their friends at the end of the war. The Happy Prisoner was first published in 1946.

Jane's House


Robert Kimmel Smith - 1982
    The sort of novel that comes along rarely to touch something personal in us. It's the story of a man and woman falling in love, and of the children and the memories of a perfect first wife that could keep them apart. "Excellent!" —Philadelphia Inquirer

The Jennifer Weiner Collection (Good in Bed/In Her Shoes)


Jennifer Weiner - 2005
    The smart, sharp, plus-sized reporter was perfectly happy writing about other people's lives for her local newspaper. She loves her job, her friends, her dog and her life. She has made a tenuous peace with her body and she even felt okay about ending her relationship with Bruce. But now this...'Loving a larger woman is an act of courage in our world,' Bruce has written in a national woman's magazine. And Cannie is plunged into misery, and the most amazing year of her life. IN HER SHOES: Rose Feller is thirty years old, a high-powered attorney, with a secret passion for romance novels, and dreams of a man who will tell her that she's beautiful. Meet Rose's sister Maggie. Twenty-eight years old, drop-dead gorgeous and only occasionally employed, Maggie dreams of fame and fortune - and of getting her dowdy big sister to stick to a skin-care regime. These two women are about to learn that their family is more different than they ever imagined, and that they're more alike than they'd ever believe.

The Guestbook


Andrea Hurst - 2012
    The lush and majestic setting of the Pacific Northwest calls to her and offers a place of refuge and perhaps renewal. Her grandmother has passed away, leaving the Madrona Island Bed & Breakfast Inn to Lily. Left with only an old guestbook as her guide–a curious book full of letters, recipes, and glimpses into her family history–Lily is determined to embrace her newfound independence and recreate herself, one page at a time. With the help of the quirky island residents she has befriended, she slowly finds the strength to seek out happiness on her own terms. But as soon as she has sworn off men and is standing on her own two feet, Lily meets Ian, the alluring artist who lives next door, and her new life is suddenly thrown off course. The last thing she wants to do right now is to open her heart to another man. Ultimately, Lily must decide if it’s worth giving up her soul for security or risking everything to follow her heart.

Cameo Lake


Susan Wilson - 2001
    In this evocative work, she tells a tender, truthful, and reaffirming story of the fragile nature of love. A loving wife and doting mother, Cleo Grayson McCarthy has always put others first. Now, desperate to finish her novel, she convinces her husband that she needs to spend the summer at a borrowed cottage on Cameo Lake -- alone. But as she immerses herself in writing, Cleo can't help but be aware of the composer who lives across the lake. At night she hears music drifting from his house and senses he's a kindred spirit. A loner, Ben Turner is regarded suspiciously by the tight-knit lake community. But he and Cleo become fast friends, and when a painful betrayal leaves Cleo adrift, she finds unexpected comfort in Ben. Before she can determine if she should fight for her crumbling marriage, Cleo must look into her heart. And Ben, whose past still lies in shadows, must look into his.

Dead Languages


David Shields - 1986
    Through family rituals with his word-obsessed parents and sister, failed first love, an ill-fated run for class president, as the only Jewish boy on an otherwise all-black basketball team, all of the passages of Jeremy's life are marked in some way by his stutter and his wildly off-the-mark attempts at a cure. It is only when he enters college and learns his strong-willed mother is dying that he realizes all languages, when used as hiding places for the heart, are dead ones.

The Final Detail / Just One Look


Harlan Coben