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Finding Ruth


Cynthia Hamilton - 2016
    While her author daughter shifts through Ruth's possessions prior to her move into a skilled nursing facility, she discovers a previously unseen photo from 1949 and realizes how little she knows of her mother's life.As Alzheimer's continues to warp Ruth's once sharp mind, she can no longer shed any light on the past. Yearning to know who her mother was as a person in her own right, the author painstakingly reconstructs Ruth's life from photos, letters, public records and firsthand memories.What emerges is a portrait of a bright, beautiful woman who is propelled through decades of broken promises and heartache, bouncing from one ill-fated relationship to the next, but always staying strong, always surviving. Through a timeline going back sixty years, the author gleans a much better understanding of the woman she had known only as Mom.

Hidden in the Dark


Rashell Lashbrook - 2017
    More focused on avoiding punishment than the well-being of her three daughters, she ignored the terror inflicted on them by their father during their childhood. She kept his secrets. Now, in her sixties, Genny has had enough. She needs her daughters to help her escape. Can she count on them? Lilly has tried for decades since leaving that little Texas farmhouse to erase the unspeakable things that were done to her. After snagging a wealthy man, she reinvents herself into a polished member of San Antonio’s old-money society. Can she keep up this facade, or will the secrets she hides cause her to lose everything? Always Daddy’s favorite, thirty-five-year-old Randi tries to bury her shame in a mountain of sex and drugs. Estranged from her parents for nearly a decade, the news of Mother’s leaving forces her to face old wounds. Will she survive? Much younger than her sisters, Raine was left to deal with Daddy’s horrific abuse after the others left. Shanti, free of a conscience, was conjured to help protect little Raine by whatever means necessary. Raine’s mother and father are back in the picture, and Shanti is on a rampage. Every family has secrets. Some are worth dying for.

Keep Me Close


Jane Holland - 2021
    What would you do?When shy publisher Kate Kinley finds mysterious bruises on her mother’s arms she assumes the worst. Suffering with early onset dementia, her mother insists that nothing is wrong; it was just a clumsy accident. But was it an accident, or has her mother’s illness made her forget what really happened?In desperate need of someone she can trust, her isolation and paranoia grow as the closest people in her life become key suspects.With each heart-stopping revelation, Kate begins to realise that the perpetrator is no longer interested in inflicting bruises; they want blood.Keep Me Close is a compelling story of gross immorality, a cautionary tale of how easily wicked people can take advantage of the vulnerable elderly people in your life.If you love dark, psychological revenge-thrillers like The Sister-in-Law, The Babysitter and The Girl on the Train, you will love this twisty, sinister read. Perfect for readers of Gillian Flynn, Karin Slaughter, and Paula Hawkins.

The Calling


Ken Altabef - 2012
     A restless Wind spirit... A treacherous shaman... A golden walrus... And one courageous young girl. . In the frozen north, a land of deadly weather and unforgiving spirits, the shaman is all that stands in the way of disaster. When Alaana is called upon to become shaman for the Anatatook people she discovers a kaleidoscopic world where everything is alive, where the tent skins whisper at night and even the soapstone pot has tales to tell. She faces vengeful ghosts and hungry demons as she travels the dangerous path to becoming a shaman. And there's just one other problem. Girls aren't allowed to be shamans. This is Book One in an epic fantasy series with a unique arctic setting. All fans of fantasy will enjoy these five novels.

When Destiny Sings


Judith Cuffe - 2020
    . . revealing a terrible secret that changes it all.In 1960s Ireland, Maggie Treacy has never felt she belongs. Determined to change her life, the transformation doesn’t come without cost, but she isn’t going to let anything stand in her way. Never comfortable with losing control, most of her stories gather more legs than a spider. She cuts her family off in hope of a better life, not really thinking much beyond the wedding and the big house. An ideal vicar’s wife? You decide . . .Felicity, Maggie’s daughter, endures a lonely and neglected existence. She longs for the simple life that her mother left behind. A prisoner in her own life, she yearns to escape, to be part of the life that she looks out at. Will she find the love and sense of belonging that she’s always been denied?Felicity’s daughter, Ann, otherwise known as Bella, is lost. A spectator in her own life, she doesn’t know who she is any more. Married into a wealthy Dublin family, she has everything she ever wanted, except the love she once knew. When her husband turns out not to be the man she thought he was, battling her demons, she seeks to uncover the truth about the past, always lurking in the shadows.Their lives had seemed so perfect until they weren’t. Can Bella evolve beyond the secret that has torn them all apart? Will she ever look at things with fresh eyes and a new understanding?An entertaining read that transcends time with history repeating itself, proving it’s not our circumstances that define us but the power within to change.

Money Tree


Gordon Ferris - 2014
    At its heart is the story of Anila Jhabvala, a destitute woman in a dying village in central India, and her struggle against the daily embrace of usury. Into her fraught existence blunder two westerners: Ted Saddler, a has-been American reporter living off the faded glory of a Pulitzer Prize, and Erin Wishart, a hard-bitten Scottish banker with a late-developing conscience. As the tension mounts, their three storylines interweave and fuse in a thundering and moving climax. In pointing up the gulf between rich and poor, and the misguided efforts of western institutions to meddle in developing countries, Gordon pays homage to Professor Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Peace and founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.