Book picks similar to
A Precious Daughter by Diane Allen
canada
female-lead
uk
Dear Evelyn
Kathy Page - 2018
Full of energy and literary ambition, he visits Battersea Library in search of New Writing: instead, however, he discovers Evelyn, a magnetic and independent-minded woman from a narrow, terraced street not far from his own.This is a love story, albeit an unconventional one, about two people who shape each other as they, their marriage and their country change. From London before the sexual revolution to the lewd frescos of Pompeii, from the acrid devastation of Churchill’s North African campaign to the cloying bounty of new-built suburbs, Dear Evelyn is a novel of contrasts, whose portrait of a seventy-year marriage unfolds in tender, spare, and excruciating episodes.
Banished from Our Home: The Acadian Diary of Angélique Richard
Sharon Stewart - 2004
Will she ever see her home again?
The Prisoner and the Chaplain
Michelle Berry - 2017
As the hours drain away, the chaplain must decide if the prisoner’s story is an off-the-cuff confession or a last bid for salvation. As the chaplain listens he realizes a life has many stories, and he has his own story to tell – a last ditch plea for forgiveness told to someone who will never be able to repeat it. Each man is guilty in his own way, and their stories have led them to the same room, a room that only one of them will leave alive. If you had only twelve hours left to live, what would you have to say?
A Ribbon of Shining Steel: The Railway Diary of Kate Cameron
Julie Lawson - 2002
Everyone is excited about the 'Iron Horse' but building the railroad is a treacherous undertaking. Kate is always thinking about her father's safety, and the Accident Hospital next door is a constant reminder of the hazards the railroad brings. There is tremendous excitement surrounding the creation of the transcontinental railroad despite the danger as Kate, her town, and all of Canada eagerly await its completion.
A Trail of Broken Dreams: The Gold Rush Diary of Harriet Palmer
Barbara Haworth-Attard - 2004
Harriet decides that she must disguise herself as a boy and travel overland to the Cariboo gold fields to find her father and reunite what remains of her family. But will her disguise hold out?
A Fairly Good Time: with Green Water, Green Sky
Mavis Gallant - 2016
Full of wit and psychological poignancy, A Fairly Good Time, here with Green Water, Green Sky, encapsulates Gallant’s unparalleled skill as a storyteller. Shirley Perrigny (née Norrington, then briefly Higgins), the heroine of A Fairly Good Time, is an original. Derided by the Parisians she lives among and chided by her fellow Canadians, this young widow—recently remarried to a French journalist named Philippe—is fond of quoting Jane Austen and Kingsley Amis and of using her myopia as a defense against social aggression. As the fixed points in Shirley’s life begin to recede—Philippe having apparently though not definitively left—her freewheeling, makeshift, and self-abnegating ways come to seem an aspect of devotion to her fellow man. Could this unreliable protagonist be the unwitting heroine of her own story? Green Water, Green Sky, Gallant’s first novel, is a darker tale of the fractured family life of Bonnie McCarthy, an American divorcée, and her daughter, Flor. Uprooted and unmoored, mother and daughter live like itinerants—in Venice, Cannes, and Paris—glamorous and dependent. With little hope of escape, Flor attempts to flee this untidy life and the false notes of her mother.
Brothers Far from Home: The World War I Diary of Eliza Bates
Jean Little - 2003
Caught up in his enthusiasm, she couldn't understand her parents' less-than-enthusiastic reaction. Now that her other brother, Jack, has also enlisted, she yearns for the safe return of both brothers. If only she had a friend that she could talk to about her feelings. . .
Among the Hoods: My Years with a Teenage Gang
Harriet Sergeant - 2012
It was an unlikely friendship. She is a middle class, middle-aged white woman who writes for the right-wing press and a right of centre think tank. Gangs like Tuggy Tug's are responsible for the majority of crime in our inner cities. During the riots of August 2011, they were the young men setting our streets ablaze.Over the next three years she got more and more involved with the boys. All the issues she had read about - single mothers, absent fathers, lack of education and social mobility, the criminal justice system - suddenly took on new meaning as she encountered not just Tuggy Tug and his gang but their relatives and friends. She enters their world and sees institutions through their eyes. It is a revelation.She describes a dramatic three years. By the end of the book Tuggy Tug was found guilty of committing over a hundred street robberies. He and two other gang members are in prison, one is in mental hospital and one appears to be a successful criminal. In a remarkable, often funny and moving book, Harriet Sergeant describes how the friendship changed her and investigates the forces that turn potentially decent young men into misfits and criminals. As Britain faces the first anniversary of the riots, this book should be required reading for us all.
Steadfast: My Story
Lizzie Armitstead - 2017
Born in Otley, West Yorkshire, in 1988, Lizzie won her first medal in the Junior World Track Championships in 2005 after being talent spotted at school, before going on to win silver at the 2012 Olympics Games in London. Three years later she was World Road Race Champion and began 2016 as one of the favorites for a medal at the Rio Olympic Games. From the rolling hills of Yorkshire through to the treacherous climbs of the Vista Circuit in Rio de Janeiro - through setbacks, life lessons and ups and downs of a professional life in cycling - Steadfast is an intense and inspiring story of sporting triumph.
The Tale of Two Nazanins
Nazanin Afshin-Jam - 2012
In 2006, she had just signed her first record deal and, after placing as first runner-up for Miss World, was a sought-after fashion model and icon within the Iranian dissident community. But one afternoon, she received an email that would change the course of her life. The subject of that email—a Kurdish girl named Nazanin Fatehi—was facing execution in Iran, as punishment for stabbing a man who had tried to rape her. Afshin-Jam quickly came to Fatehi's defence, striding into the world of international diplomacy and confronting the dark side of the country of her birth, with its honour killings, violence against women and state-sanctioned executions of children. While Fatehi languished in prison, experiencing conditions so deplorable she attempted to end her own life, Afshin-Jam worked desperately on the campaign to save her. The Tale of Two Nazanins weaves together the lives of two women—one leading a life of opportunity, the other living in abject poverty—and a fight for justice that, if only for a moment, brought the Iranian regime to its knees. An inspiring story about the bonds of sisterhood, this extraordinary book speaks to the power of every individual to foster positive change in the world.
Hoping for Home: Stories of Arrival
Lillian Boraks-Nemetz - 2011
In this wonderful new short story anthology, eleven of Canada's top children's authors contribute stories of immigration, displacement and change, exploring the frustration and uncertainty those changes can bring. Told in first-person narratives, this collection features a diverse cast of boys and girls, each one living at a different point in Canada's vast landscape and history. With unforgettable protagonists -- such as Miriam, a Warsaw-ghetto survivor, now reunited with her family in Montreal; Wong Joe-on, a young Chinese immigrant who faces racism in a small Saskatchewan town; and Insy, an Ojibwe girl who makes her first trip to a "white" town in Northern Ontario -- young readers will be moved by the opportunities and difficulties that these characters face, as each one ponders what it means to be Canadian, and struggles to fit in.
The Honey and the Sting
E.C. Fremantle - 2020
. .England, 1628.Forcibly seduced by the powerful George Villiers, doctor's daughter Hester is cast aside to raise her son alone and in secret. She hopes never to see Villiers again.Melis's visions cause disquiet and talk. She sees what other's can't - and what has yet to be. She'd be denounced as a witch if Hester wasn't so carefully protective.Young Hope's beauty marks her out, drawing unwelcome attention to the family. Yet she cannot always resist others' advances. And her sisters cannot always be on their guard.When Villiers decides to claim his son against Hester's wishes, the sisters find themselves almost friendless and at his mercy. But the women hold a grave secret. The question is, will what they know be their undoing or their salvation?Because in the right hands, a secret is the deadliest weapon of all...
When The Haboob Sings
Nejoud Al-Yagout - 2019
Faced with the dissolution of familial ties and the prospective collapse of her marriage, alongside a looming nervous breakdown, Dunya's consequent actions exemplify both the strength and frailty of the human spirit. When the Haboob Sings paints a poignant picture of a woman whose unshakeable resolve to preserve her authenticity costs her more than she ever imagined.Winner Indie Discovery Awards, 2020Gold Winner Reader's Favorite Award in Fiction: Religious Theme
Then He Was Gone
Stephen Edger - 2017
But while they are shopping in the hypermarket, three year-old Noah wanders off. A frantic search ensues. He can’t have gone far. The French police launch their emergency response to abductions, sharing Noah’s image on television, radio and social media. They’ve never failed to locate a missing child within 48 hours. But as the hours become days, the chances of finding Noah alive diminish. When a former soldier contacts Becky, and tells her Noah is being held by someone seeking revenge against Jess’s dead husband, she learns there is far more at stake than just the safe return of little Noah.
THEN HE WAS GONE
is a gripping psychological thriller tapping into every parent’s worst nightmare: what if you can’t protect your children against unseen threats?
Winter of Peril: The Newfoundland Diary of Sophie Loveridge
Jan Andrews - 2005
After their long voyage, they arrive to a “new world" indeed. Will they be able to survive the winter in this harsh country?