The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls


Anton DiSclafani - 2013
    It is 1930, the midst of the Great Depression. After her mysterious role in a family tragedy, passionate, strong-willed Thea Atwell, age fifteen, has been cast out of her Florida home, exiled to an equestrienne boarding school for Southern debutantes. High in the Blue Ridge Mountains, with its complex social strata ordered by money, beauty, and girls’ friendships, the Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is a far remove from the free-roaming, dreamlike childhood Thea shared with her twin brother on their family’s citrus farm—a world now partially shattered. As Thea grapples with her responsibility for the events of the past year that led her here, she finds herself enmeshed in a new order, one that will change her sense of what is possible for herself, her family, her country.Weaving provocatively between home and school, the narrative powerfully unfurls the true story behind Thea’s expulsion from her family, but it isn’t long before the mystery of her past is rivaled by the question of how it will shape her future. Part scandalous love story, part heartbreaking family drama, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is an immersive, transporting page-turner—a vivid, propulsive novel about sex, love, family, money, class, home, and horses, all set against the ominous threat of the Depression—and the major debut of an important new writer.

Two Cities: A Love Story


John Edgar Wideman - 1997
    It is a story of bridges -- bridges spanning the rivers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, bridges arching over the rifts that have divided our communities, our country, our hearts. Narrated in the bluesy voices of its three main characters, Two Cities is a simple love story, but it is also about the survival of an endangered black urban community and the ways that people discover for redeeming themselves in a society that is failing them. With its indelible images of confrontation and outrage, matched in equal measure by lasting impressions of hope, Two Cities is a compassionate, lacerating, and nourishing novel.

Man Stuff: Thoughts on Faith, Family, and Fatherhood


Josh Turner - 2014
    And despite his recording schedule, award shows, and national tour dates, a few of his biggest priorities in life are to instill good values into his three young sons, be a devoted husband, and be a strong testimony for God.In this compilation, Josh shares fun and meaningful thoughts and personal stories—ranging from his childhood years to today—and weaves in spiritual insight for men who want to be better dads, husbands, and men of God. He covers a variety of topics such as living and working with integrity, facing your fears, surrounding yourself with good company, trusting God’s plans, standing up for the least of these—topics every man can relate to and draw from to grow in his spiritual and personal journeys.  This is a great gift for any Josh Turner or country music fan with conservative family values. Features & Benefits:Josh’s country fan base includes almost 1.4 million Facebook fans and over 135,000 Twitter followersForeword by Jase Robertson of Duck DynastyProvides much needed practical advice and spiritual encouragement for men and dads and the unique challenges they faceFeatures personal insights and true stories from a trusted role model in both Christian and secular marketsPerfect Father’s Day gift for men, husbands, and dads of all ages

Watch Your Mouth: Understanding the Power of the Tongue


Tony Evans - 2016
    From bestselling author Dr. Tony Evans comes a compelling resource to help you learn to tame your tongue. With life-changing insights shared through engaging lessons and anecdotes, you'll learn what the Bible teaches about talking: Discover the power of the spoken word to bolster your faith when you're doubting. Discern what should or shouldn't be said so that you honor God with your speech. Develop the ability to praise God and voice wisdom even in tough circumstances. Get inspired by Tony's teaching on the tongue and model with your mouth the character of God. Don't let your words bring cursing or destruction to yourself and those you love. Instead, let your words minister to and speak life into the world around you.

The Platypus and Her Wolves


Laura Greenwood - 2019
    But April has dreams, and won’t be so easy to convince, even if they are her fated mates.Will she deny fate, or will she give in to the pull between them?-The Platypus and Her Wolves is a standalone steamy paranormal reverse harem set in the same universe as the Valentine Pride series.

Immortal


Gillian Shields - 2009
    When Evie Johnson is torn away from her home by the sea to become the newest scholarship student, she is more isolated than she could have dreamed. Strict teachers, snobbish students, and the oppressive atmosphere of Wyldcliffe leave Evie drowning in loneliness.Evie’s only lifeline is Sebastian, a rebellious, mocking, dangerously attractive young man she meets by chance. As Evie’s feelings for Sebastian grow with each secret meeting, she starts to fear that he is hiding something about his past. And she is haunted by glimpses of a strange, ghostly girl—a girl who is so eerily like Evie, she could be a sister. Evie is slowly drawn into a tangled web of past and present that she cannot control. And as the extraordinary, elemental forces of Wyldcliffe rise up like the mighty sea, Evie is faced with an astounding truth about Sebastian, and her own incredible fate.Gillian Shields’s electrifying tale will dazzle readers with suspense, mysticism, and romance.

Pride Over Pity


Kailyn Lowry - 2014
    Through the breakup with the father of her child and the ensuing custody battles, her struggle to come to terms with her troubled childhood, her diagnosis with bipolar disorder, and relentless online bullying, Kailyn has faced it all with her head held high and her spirit intact.But there is more to her story than what has been seen on television... In a moving effort to finally put the past behind her, Kailyn shares her troubled, often painful story and, for the first time, reveals the dark secrets she has so closely guarded.

Lily White


Susan Isaacs - 1996
    Into her life drifts Norman Torkelson, a career con man charged with strangling to death his latest mark. At first, as Lee explains to us, the case seems routine, the evidence overwhelming. Norman--manly, magnetic and morally reprehensible--is a man who crisscrosses America looking for patsies for his cruel marriage scam: Love 'em, liquidate their assets, leave 'em. Clearly, he murdered Bobette Frisch, the dumpy, sour 50-something bar owner who had fallen madly in love with him. But just as Lee is resigning herself to the inevitable Guilty! verdict, she begins to have doubts. What, after all, was Norman's motive? Why not do what he had done for the last 20 years: run and leave behind a broke and brokenhearted victim? Lee starts to wonder if her client is not only not guilty but also covering for the real killer and, in doing so, performing the first selfless act of his life. As the Torkelson case unfolds, a second narrator chimes in to tell us the story behind the story: the tale of Lee's life. Born Lily White, Lee is a smart, pretty and privileged child coming of age on Long Island. Her parents have little time for her or her younger sister, devoted as they are to the pursuit of shallowness. Her mother, Sylvia, who looks like Lauren Bacall's twin sister with a mild eating disorder, is busy with the exhausting work of keeping up her wardrobe. Her father, Leonard Weissberg--Weiss--and finally White, is consumed by his chi-chi Manhattan fur salon, his model-bookkeeper mistress, and his obsession with the family next door, the old-money, oh-so-social Taylors. When Lee marries Jazz Taylor, the scion of these blue-bloods, her life seems blessed. Suddenly she has her mother's approval, her father's love--and a sublime husband. No matter that she has to give up her dream job in the Manhattan DA's Office to move back to Long Island with him; that's what marriage is, a series of compromises made in the name of love. Isn't it? Lily White masterfully interweaves the depths of deception surrounding the twisted Torkelson case with the stunning betrayals that devastate Lee's own life. With the characteristic intelligence and delicious, razor-sharp wit displayed in her previous bestsellers, such as After All These Years and Compromising Positions, Susan Isaacs has crafted an extraordinary novel about social mobility -- about what is phony and what is real. Lily White is the seamlessly executed story of the crimes committed in the name of the good life and the victims of these violations: Those like Bobette, who do not survive, those whose spirits are crushed, and the few, like Lee, who fight back--and find something better

Testimony


Anita Shreve - 2008
    Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices--those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal--that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment. Writing with a pace and intensity surpassing even her own greatest work, Anita Shreve delivers in Testimony a gripping emotional drama with the impact of a thriller. No one more compellingly explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, the needs and fears that drive ordinary men and women into intolerable dilemmas, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.

The Vault of Dreamers


Caragh M. O'Brien - 2014
    For twelve hours a day, every class, conversation, and gesture is broadcast to millions of viewers. And for twelve hours each night, the students undergo an induced sleep, proven to maximize creativity.Rosie Sinclair has staked all her dreams of becoming a filmmaker on succeeding at Forge. But when she skips her sleeping pill one night, she discovers an insidious world behind the cameras. As she navigates the Forge landscape of art and manipulation by day, Rosie finds it increasingly difficult to trust either her instincts or her mind. The only thing she knows for certain is that she must unearth the ghastly secret that the Forge School is hiding.From the author of the Birthmarked Trilogy comes a fast-paced, psychologically thrilling novel about what happens when the dreams you follow are no longer your own.

The Iron Trial


Holly Black - 2014
    To succeed at the Iron Trial and be admitted into the vaunted Magisterium school would bring bad things. But he fails at failing. Only hard work, loyal friends, danger, and a puppy await.

Prep


Curtis Sittenfeld - 2005
    She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school’s glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel. As Lee soon learns, Ault is a cloistered world of jaded, attractive teenagers who spend summers on Nantucket and speak in their own clever shorthand. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, Lee becomes a shrewd observer of–and, ultimately, a participant in–their rituals and mores. As a scholarship student, she constantly feels like an outsider and is both drawn to and repelled by other loners. By the time she’s a senior, Lee has created a hard-won place for herself at Ault. But when her behavior takes a self-destructive and highly public turn, her carefully crafted identity within the community is shattered.Ultimately, Lee’s experiences–complicated relationships with teachers; intense friendships with other girls; an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush; conflicts with her parents, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant, coalesce into a singular portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all.From the Hardcover edition.

The Passions of Chelsea Kane


Barbara Delinsky - 1992
    Taking a break from her successful architecture career, she arrives in the New Hampshire town where she was born, determined to learn the truth, her only clue a tarnished silver key.One of her first discoveries, however, is something quite unexpected: the irresistibly attractive Judd Street. Buoyed by love and resolution, the determined Chelsea slowly begins to uncover the dark mystery of her past. But as she inches closer to the truth, she realizes that someone is trying to stop her, first by scaring her, then by trying to harm her. The danger escalates until one terrifying night when all secrets are laid bare.With memorable characters and writing that will stir the hearts and minds of all readers, The Passions of Chelsea Kane is the kind of compelling narrative that has earned Barbara Delinsky an ever-widening readership.

Never Too Late


Amber Portwood - 2014
    But soon after Amber stepped into the public eye, her life spiraled into chaos. From her struggles with anxiety, depression and addiction to her brutal onscreen fights with her boyfriend, Amber seemed a troubled young woman destined to destroy herself. And that was all before she shocked everyone by sending herself to prison for seventeen months!But behind Amber Portwood’s shocking behavior is a story the cameras never captured. It’s a story of hardship and hope, of relationships torn apart by tragedy and addiction and put back together with strength, love and determination. After years of losing herself in a daze of sex, drugs and depression, Amber made the decision to stand up and do whatever it took to save her life, her family, and herself. With her trademark honesty and dry sense of humor, Amber tells the real story of how she learned to deal with the demons that nearly destroyed her. Never Too Late sends a powerful message that no matter how far down a person might fall, it’s never too late to get back up and change the future.

The New Girls


Beth Gutcheon - 1979
    Into their reality of first-class trips to Europe, resort vacations, and deb parties enter the Vietnam War, the women's movement, and the sexual revolution. As the old traditions collide with the new society, the girls lose their innocence, develop a social conscience, and discover their sexuality -- blossoming into women shaped by their turbulent times.