Book picks similar to
The Altarpiece by Lauren Fogle Boyd


e-books
sampled-and-declined
women
world-war-ii

Cartier's Hope


M.J. Rose - 2020
    New York, 1910: A city of magnificent skyscrapers and winding subways, where poor immigrants are crammed into tenements while millionaires thrive in Fifth Avenue mansions. Vera Garland is a thirty-two-year-old journalist, fighting alongside hundreds of women for a place in society, only to meet hurdles around every turn. Most female journalists are delegated to the fashion and lifestyle pages but like her hero, Nellie Bly, Vera is a fighter.When news of the Hope Diamond—a jewel whose infamous legends and curses have captured the world’s attention—arrives in the city, Vera is fast on its trail. She’s certain the fabulous jewel will help jumpstart her career but she’s determined to seek revenge against her current employer, a magazine owner whose greed and blackmailing schemes led to the death of her beloved father.Set against the backdrop of New York’s glitter and grit, this enchanting historical novel explores the very human desire for truth, equality, and retribution.

Tales From The Loon Town Cafe


Dennis Frahmann - 2013
    Just be assured a cup of coffee at this small town spot always comes with a story. It's the go-go 1980s when journalist Wally Pearson gets mugged in Times Square. It's a jolt that prompts him to throw away his career and open a cafe in his small hometown. Little does he know that in doing so he's about to get entrapped in the collision of fame, fortune, ambition and love in the northwoods of Wisconsin-all tempered with more than a little delusion. His Loon Town Cafe is the common meeting ground for many different forces. Chicago millionaire Henry Van Elkind plots from his lavish summer camp a transformation of the region. The Native American tribe, whose reservation edges the town, is about to flex its muscle on fishing and gambling rights. Wally's young wait staff is more interested in romance, and his oddball trio of regulars spend much of their time arguing over probing spacemen, giant musket and the availability of wild strawberry jam. "Tales from the Loon Town Cafe" captures the unique character and rhythms of small Midwestern towns. But it also recognizes the undercurrent of despair and sometime downright loopiness that emerges when most everyone thinks they know most everything that's going on. But of course they don't really know all, and that's why "Tales from the Loon Town Cafe" is ultimately a mystery of life.

I'm Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood


Lisa Manterfield - 2010
    Five years later she was a baby addict, hiding her addiction, plotting a maternity ward heist, and threatening anything that got in her way, including her beloved husband and his pesky practicality. In this gritty and honest memoir, Manterfield traces her spiraling route from rational 21st century woman to desperate mama-wannabe. She examines the siren song of motherhood, the insidious lure of the fertility industry, and the repercussions of being childless in a mom-centric society. But this isn’t just another infertility story with another miracle baby ending, nor is it a sad introspective of a childless woman; this is a story about love, desire, and choices—and ultimately about hope. It is the story of a woman who escapes her addiction, not with a baby, but with her sanity, her marriage, and her sense-of-self intact.

Best Kept Secret


Amy Hatvany - 2011
    It wasn’t always like this. Just a few years ago, Cadence seemed to have it all—a successful husband, an adorable son, and a promising career as a freelance journalist. But with the demise of her marriage, her carefully constructed life begins to spiral out of control. Suddenly she is all alone trying to juggle the demands of work and motherhood.Logically, Cadence knows that she is drinking too much, and every day begins with renewed promises to herself that she will stop. But within a few hours, driven by something she doesn’t understand, she is reaching for the bottle—even when it means not playing with her son because she is too tired, or dropping him off at preschool late, again. And even when one calamitous night it means leaving him alone to pick up more wine at the grocery store. It’s only when her ex-husband shows up at her door to take Charlie away that Cadence realizes her best kept secret has been discovered….Heartbreaking, haunting, and ultimately life-affirming, Best Kept Secret is more than just the story of Cadence—it’s a story of how the secrets we hold closest are the ones that can most tear us apart.

. . . and Baby Makes Two: A Novel


Judy Sheehan - 2005
    But that’s before she sees the perfect child. There he sits in his stroller, angelic and beautiful, magnetic and serene– and he makes Jane question everything she has and everything she thought she wanted. Suddenly all she can see are babies and pregnant woman everywhere. Were there always so many of them? And while there was once a man in her life–her one true love, Sam, gone from this world too soon–there is no man now. Jane must make a choice: possibly become a bitter and childless old lady, letting her biological clock tick on ’till menopause, or tend the ache in her heart now, by becoming a single mother. As Jane struggles to make the most important decision of her life, friends and family offer no shortage of opinions. There’s Ray, her “hubstitute” and gay best friend who would be jealous of any kid who got Jane as a mom; Sheila, her sister, who went from zero to sixty when she eloped with Raoul–who had two young twin sons– and has mixed feelings about being a new mommy; her strict, Catholic father who can’ t imagine what level of hell Jane would banish herself to if she becomes a single mother; and the women of Families with Children from China who are preparing to adopt orphan daughters–without a man in sight. Just as she thinks she’s made up her mind, Jane discovers one small wrench in her plans: handsome, charming, funny Peter, who just happens to be (unhappily) married. . . . And Baby Makes Two is a heartbreakingly honest, wonderfully addictive, and funny novel about love and loss, family and friendship. Judy Sheehan, co-creator of the smash hit Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding, has perfectly captured the delights and dilemmas of the scariest job in the world: motherhood.From the Hardcover edition.

Love Me Tender


Anne Bennett - 1999
    Perfect for fans of Katie Flynn and Annie Groves.For Kathy O’Malley, life has not been easy with her husband, Barry, out of work and with two children to feed. Then when war breaks out in 1939, many of the local men enlist, including Barry, leaving the women to cope as best they can.The years that follow are full of hardship: rationing, nightly air raids and endless shifts working at the local munitions factory all take their toll on Kathy who longs to feel the strong arms of her husband around her once more.When she meets Doug, a handsome American GI, she is drawn immediately drawn to him but determined to honour her marriage vows. But after she receives a telegram informing that her husband is missing, presumed dead, she makes a decision that will have consequences, not just for herself, but for the lives of all those she loves too…

Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife


Francine Prose - 2009
    Approved by both the Anne Frank House Foundation in Amsterdam and the Anne Frank-Fonds in Basel, run by the Frank family, this work of literary criticism unravels the complex, fascinating story of the diary and effectively makes the case for it being a work of art from a precociously gifted writer.

Aftermath


George Weinstein - 2018
    Luring you in with atmospheric elements--a small town hiding dark secrets and a woman determined to uncover her questionable legacy-- Aftermath 's final, disturbing twist will jolt you and good. A gripping, suspenseful read." - Emily Carpenter, author of  Burying the Honeysuckle Girls Can Janet Wright complete the deadly puzzle connecting her father, his murder, and a hostile small town? After her father is murdered, New Yorker Janet Wright returns to her folksy childhood home of Graylee, Georgia to tie up loose ends and mend her broken heart. When Janet is met with hostility upon arriving to her hometown, she begins a relentless search for answers about her father’s death. The unwavering heroine soon discovers that there’s more than meets the eye within the enigmatic small town, including secrets, scandals, and lies. This suspenseful Southern thriller will have Wright facing pieces of her broken childhood and fighting for her life. Mystery, murder, and romance converge to keep you turning page after page.“Aftermath has everything I crave in a novel: the perfect blend of mystery and romance, flawlessly crafted dialog, and an unsinkable heroine with equal parts grit and heart.” - Erika Marks, author of The Last TreasureOUR SOUTHERN FRIED GUARANTEEIf you wouldn’t enthusiastically recommend one of our books with a 4- or 5-star rating to a friend, then the next story is on us. We believe that much in the stories we’re telling. Simply email us at pr@sfkmultimedia.com.

Mama's Madness


Billy Ray Chitwood - 2018
    Some of the details in this fictional penning are true. Some of the details are exaggerated and are simply the work of the author's imagination. What is clearly evidenced in this novel is the coldness of a mother's heart and the madness of her cruelty. The mind cannot comprehend lives the children depicted here were forced to endure: from black punishment closets of hell, kitchen tables used for crudely performed operations, to a high sierra execution by fire. The terror is real. The pain is vicariously felt. Unbelievable? Yes, it is unbelievable that such depravity, such MAMA'S MADNESS exists in our world. Accept the embellishments with the truth.Let this novel be a 'silent siren' to be ever alert in your environment - children and adults alike!

The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust


Edith Hahn Beer - 1999
    Knowing she would become a hunted woman, Edith tore the yellow star from her clothing and went underground, scavenging for food and searching each night for a safe place to sleep. Her boyfriend, Pepi, proved too terrified to help her, but a Christian friend was not: With the woman's identity papers in hand, Edith fled to Munich. There she met Werner Vetter, a Nazi party member who fell in love with her. And despite her protests and even her eventual confession that she was Jewish, he married her and kept her identity secret.In vivid, wrenching detail, Edith recalls a life of constant, almost paralyzing fear. She tells of German officials who casually questioned the lineage of her parents; of how, when giving birth to her daughter, she refused all painkillers, afraid that in an altered state of mind she might reveal her past; and of how, after her husband was captured by the Russians and sent to Siberia, Edith was bombed out of her house and had to hide in a closet with her daughter while drunken Russians soldiers raped women on the street.Yet despite the risk it posed to her life, Edith Hahn created a remarkable collective record of survival: She saved every set of real and falsified papers, letters she received from her lost love, Pepi, and photographs she managed to take inside labor camps. On exhibit at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., these hundreds of documents form the fabric of an epic story - complex, troubling, and ultimately triumphant.

The Cruel Romance: A Novel of Love and War


Marina Osipova - 2016
    With only moments left together, she places a cross around her beloveds neck and reluctantly releases him into a cruel world where nothing is certain, especially whether she will ever see him again.Days later, Germans invade her village and take over her tiny house. Serafima and her mother must comply with orders, endure abuse, and stay put, or their village will be annihilated.As World War II intertwines Serafimas and Vityas life with that of a young German violinist and a Russian intellectual, their destinies are irrevocably altered. Can they rise to the challenge of agonizing moral choices and learn to forgive and love again?

After Long Silence


Helen Fremont - 1999
    It wasn't until she was an adult, practicing law in Boston, that she discovered her parents were Jewish--Holocaust survivors living invented lives. Not even their names were their own. In this powerful memoir, Helen Fremont delves into the secrets that held her family in a bond of silence for more than four decades, recounting with heartbreaking clarity a remarkable tale of survival, as vivid as fiction but with the resonance of truth.Driven to uncover their roots, Fremont and her sister pieced together an astonishing story: of Siberian Gulags and Italian royalty, of concentration camps and buried lives. After Long Silence is about the devastating price of hiding the truth; about families; about the steps we take, foolish or wise, to protect ourselves and our loved ones. No one who reads this book can be unmoved, or fail to understand the seductive, damaging power of secrets.What Fremont and her sister discover is an astonishing story: one of Siberian gulags and Italian royalty, of concentration camps and buried lives. AFTER LONG SILENCE is about the devastating price of hiding the truth; about families; about the steps we take, foolish or wise, to protect ourselves and our loved ones. No one who reads this book can be unmoved, or fail to understand the seductive, damaging power of secrets. -->

Paris Never Leaves You


Ellen Feldman - 2020
    But can she survive the next chapter of her life?Alternating between wartime Paris and 1950s New York publishing, Paris Never Leaves You is an extraordinary story of resilience, love, and impossible choices, exploring how survival never comes without a cost. The war is over, but the past is never past.

Secrets We Told The City: Poems


J.R. Rogue - 2017
    Rogue & Kat Savage.

The Ragged Edge of Night


Olivia Hawker - 2018
    Franciscan friar Anton Starzmann is stripped of his place in the world when his school is seized by the Nazis. He relocates to a small German hamlet to wed Elisabeth Herter, a widow who seeks a marriage—in name only—to a man who can help raise her three children. Anton seeks something too—atonement for failing to protect his young students from the wrath of the Nazis. But neither he nor Elisabeth expects their lives to be shaken once again by the inescapable rumble of war. As Anton struggles to adapt to the roles of husband and father, he learns of the Red Orchestra, an underground network of resisters plotting to assassinate Hitler. Despite Elisabeth’s reservations, Anton joins this army of shadows. But when the SS discovers his schemes, Anton will embark on a final act of defiance that may cost him his life—even if it means saying goodbye to the family he has come to love more than he ever believed possible.