A Scattering Of Daisies


Susan Sallis - 1984
    Will Rising had dragged himself from humble beginnings to his own small tailoring business in Gloucester - and on the way he'd fallen violently in love with Florence, refined, delicate, and wanting something better for her children. March was the eldest girl, the least loved, the plain, unattractive one who, as the family grew, became more and more the household drudge. But March, a strange, intelligent, unhappy child, had inherited some of her mother's dreams. March Rising was determined to break out of the round of poverty and hard work, to find wealth, and love, and happiness.

The Anchoress of Chesterfield (Chesterfield 04)


Chris Nickson - 2020
    

A Place to Belong


Cathy Mansell - 2019
    

Bodies of Water


T. Greenwood - 2013
    Summers spent with the girls at their lakeside camp in Vermont are her one escape--from her husband's demands, from days consumed by household drudgery, and from the nagging suspicion that life was supposed to hold something different.Then a new family moves in across the street. Ted and Eva Wilson have three children and a fourth on the way, and their arrival reignites long-buried feelings in Billie. The affair that follows offers a solace Billie has never known, until her secret is revealed and both families are wrenched apart in the tragic aftermath.Fifty years later, Ted and Eva's son, Johnny, contacts an elderly but still spry Billie, entreating her to return east to meet with him. Once there, Billie finally learns the surprising truth about what was lost, and what still remains, of those joyful, momentous summers.In this deeply tender novel, T. Greenwood weaves deftly between the past and present to create a poignant and wonderfully moving story of friendship, the resonance of memories, and the love that keeps us afloat.

Twilight


Katherine Mosby - 2005
    Mosby, whose prose Time called "rich and accomplished," evokes in Twilight a complex moment in history seen through the prism of a poignant love story.By breaking off her engagement to an emotionally remote fiancé, Lavinia Gibbs avoids a stifling marriage -- but outrages her socially prominent family, who fear she has consigned herself to spinsterhood. Instead she sails for Europe to begin the process of rebuilding her life. Ever practical, Lavinia makes a new home in Paris, where she determines she needs more than beautiful architecture and entrée with the expats to make a full life. Lavinia wisely adds into the mix a pug and employment, but it is not until she meets the charming, enigmatic, and long-married Gaston Lesseur that she begins an extraordinary journey of self-discovery and sacrifice that will change her irrevocably.With luminous prose, Mosby examines the emotional landscape of adultery while creating a powerful yet poignant depiction of a woman's unlikely blossoming. Unlike Flaubert's Madame Bovary, for whom adultery provided escape from an unfulfilling marriage, Lavinia Gibbs longs for the domestic and the luxury of the quotidian in an increasingly precarious world. Mosby creates in Twilight a story that will resonate with readers long after they have finished this book.

Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish


David Rakoff - 2013
    Here the characters' lives are linked to each other by acts of generosity or cruelty. A critic once called Rakoff "magnificent," a word which perfectly describes this wonderful novel in verse.

A Plain Brown Rapper


Rita Mae Brown - 1976
    --Hanoi to Hoboken: a round trip ticket --Living with other women --Take a lesbian to lunch --The last straw --The shape of things to come --Roxanne Dunbar --Gossip --Leadership vs. stardom --The last picture show --A manifesto for the feminist artist --Love song for feminists from Flamingo Park --I am a woman --The good fairy --It's all Dixie cups to me --The lady's not for burning.

Fall on Your Knees


Ann-Marie MacDonald - 1996
    Chronicling five generations of this eccentric clan, Fall on Your Knees follows four remarkable sisters whose lives are filled with driving ambition, inescapable family bonds, and forbidden love. Their experiences will take them from their stormswept homeland, across the battlefields of World War I, to the freedom and independence of Jazz-era New York City.Compellingly written, running the literary gamut from menacingly dark to hilariously funny, this is an epic saga of one family’s trials and triumphs in a world of sin, guilt, and redemption.

Petra


Shaena Lambert - 2020
    Award-winning novelist Madeleine Thien calls Petra a masterpiece--a fierce, humane and powerful novel for our times. January, 1980. At the height of the Cold War, Petra Kelly inspires hundreds of thousands to take to the streets to protest the placement of nuclear missiles on West German soil--including a NATO general named Emil Gerhardt, who shocks the establishment by converting to the cause. Petra and her general not only vault to fame as the stars of the Green Party, but they also fall in love. Then Manfred Schwartz, an ex-lover, urges Petra to draw back the curtain on Emil's war record, and they enter a world both complicated and threatening.Told by Manfred Schwartz, from his place in a present world even more beset by existential threats, Petra is an exploration of love, jealousy, and the power of social change. A woman capable of founding a new and world-changing politics and taking on two superpowers, Petra still must grapple with her own complex nature and a singular and fatal love.

The More I Owe You


Michael Sledge - 2010
    Sledge artfully draws from Bishop's lifelong correspondences and biography to imagine the poet's intensely private world, revealing the literary genius who lived in conflict with herself both as a writer and as a woman.A seemingly idyllic existence in Soares's glass house in the jungle gives way to the truth of Bishop's lifelong battle with alcoholism, as well as her eventual status as one of modernism's most prominent writers. Though connected to many of the most famous cultural and political figures of the era, Soares too is haunted by her own demons. As their secrets unfold, the sensuous landscape of Rio de Janeiro, the rhythms of the samba and the bossa nova, and the political turmoil of 1950s Brazil envelop Bishop in a world she never expected to inhabit. The More I Owe You is a vivid portrait of two brilliant women whose love for one another pushes them to accomplish enduring works of art.

They Called Him Cav: Reloaded


William Coury - 2014
    He has long since passed away, but his book remains, gathering dust on my shelf when it should have been entertaining good folks like you. So here it is at last: a western with heart written on an old manual typewriter. The story takes place in the badlands of West Texas (where he lived), and is chock-full of all the sprawling drama, heartache, triumph, tragedy, and gun-slinging grit one could desire. The cover of the book is adapted from an oil painting brushed by our father back in 77—one of many. I remember it hanging on the wall when I was a kid. I believe it was his favorite, so thought it only fitting that it be the cover. Now, finally, after all these years, our dad will get the recognition he deserves for both his writing and his painting. I sure hope he can see what's going on down here, 'cause I know it would make him smile. So take a deep breath, and let the troubles of the modern world slip away as you journey back to a simpler time (two simpler times, actually), the old west, and the 1940's....

Harpoon


Matthew Willis - 2019
     Clydesdale is on the brink of becoming an ace. The only trouble is that he shouldn't be. Blind luck, mistakes and politics have seen him awarded with four of the five kills he needs. As the convoy Operation 'Harpoon' heads into the Western Mediterranean with only a handful of worn-out fighters to protect it, the eyes of the Navy and the press are on him. And soon, the eyes - and guns - of the enemy will be too. Six ships carry vital supplies, without which Malta cannot survive the Axis onslaught. The ageing carrier HMS Eagle, with its complement of battered Hawker Sea Hurricanes and their overworked pilots, must face legions of German and Italian bombers, all desperate to send the transports to the bottom of the Mediterranean. 'Harpoon' is the first book in a series chronicling the struggle of the Royal Navy's 'few' to protect the island fortress of Malta in the dark days of 1942. "Harpoon gets into the cockpit and inside the skin of a WW2 pilot. Willis has written a tale of triumph - and redemption. The author has used his intimate knowledge of the period to serve as a backdrop to a human - and thrilling - war story." Richard Foreman, author of Warsaw. Matthew Willis grew up near the historic port of Harwich and seaplane station at Felixstowe, developing a lifelong obsession with flying and the sea. He worked as a motorsport journalist and media relations officer before becoming a full time writer in 2011. His books include the epic novels of the Norman Conquest 'An Argument of Blood' and 'A Black Matter for the King' co-written with JA Ironside, and the novelette 'The Battle of Alma'.

A Place Called Winter


Patrick Gale - 2015
    They settle by the sea and have a daughter and conventional marriage does not seem such a tumultuous change after all. When a chance encounter awakens scandalous desires never acknowledged until now, however, Harry is forced to forsake the land and people he loves for a harsh new life as a homesteader on the newly colonized Canadian prairies. There, in a place called Winter, he will come to find a deep love within an alternative family, a love imperiled by war, madness and an evil man of undeniable magnetism.If you've never read a Patrick Gale, stop now and pick up this book. From the author of the bestselling NOTES FROM AN EXHIBITION comes an irresistible, searching and poignant historical novel of love, relationships, secrets and escape.

Swimming to Ithaca


Simon Mawer - 2007
    Shortly before Dee dies, she tells her son, Thomas, that she thinks her death is a punishment. Thomas, whose own emotional life is complicated, tries to piece together his parents' lives in order to make sense of his mother's words.

Jam on the Vine


LaShonda Katrice Barnett - 2015
    Living in the poor, segregated quarter of Little Tunis, Ivoe immerses herself in printed matter as an escape from her dour surroundings. She earns a scholarship to the prestigious Willetson College in Austin, only to return over-qualified to the menial labor offered by her hometown’s racially-biased employers.Ivoe eventually flees the Jim Crow South with her family and settles in Kansas City, where she and her former teacher and lover, Ona, found the first female-run African American newspaper, Jam! On the Vine. In the throes of the Red Summer—the 1919 outbreak of lynchings and race riots across the Midwest—Ivoe risks her freedom, and her life, to call attention to the atrocities of segregation in the American prison system.Skillfully interweaving Ivoe’s story with those of her family members, LaShonda Katrice Barnett’s Jam! On the Vine is both an epic vision of the hardships and injustices that defined an era and a moving and compelling story of a complicated history we only thought we knew.