Book picks similar to
Drum Beats, Heart Beats by Maria Nhambu
home-library
right-now
epic
faves
Mary Me: One Woman’s Incredible Adventure with God
Elizabeth Bristol - 2020
She found out she not only needed God but wanted Him. In what came as a total shock, she found peace, purpose, and incredible healing.She can't not share because in this crazy world, who couldn't use a little more of all that?There are stories in this book she wasn't going to tell. Why did she? She had to share her indiscretions in order for people to see the power of redemption.But the coolest thing about this book isn't the miraculous story God made out of Elizabeth's life; it's that He wants to do the same for everyone else.When you walk in your destiny, nothing can stop you from influencing your world.How do you do that? Let this book show you.
The Thorn Birds
Colleen McCullough - 1977
It begins in the early part of the 20th century, when Paddy Cleary moves his wife, Fiona, and their seven children to Drogheda, the vast Australian sheep station owned by his autocratic and childless older sister; and it ends more than half a century later, when the only survivor of the third generation, the brilliant actress Justine O'Neill, sets a course of life and love halfway around the world from her roots.The central figures in this enthralling story are the indomitable Meggie, the only Cleary daughter, and the one man she truly loves, the stunningly handsome and ambitious priest Ralph de Bricassart. Ralph's course moves him a long way indeed, from a remote Outback parish to the halls of the Vatican; and Meggie's except for a brief and miserable marriage elsewhere, is fixed to the Drogheda that is part of her bones - but distance does not dim their feelings though it shapes their lives.Wonderful characters people this book; strong and gentle, Paddy, hiding a private memory; dutiful Fiona, holding back love because it once betrayed her, violent, tormented Frank, and the other hardworking Cleary sons who give the boundless lands of Drogheda the energy and devotion most men save for women; Meggie; Ralph; and Meggie's children, Justine and Dane. And the land itself; stark, relentless in its demands, brilliant in its flowering, prey to gigantic cycles of drought and flood, rich when nature is bountiful, surreal like no other place on earth.Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 0380018179 (ISBN13: 9780380018178)
Shutter Island
Dennis Lehane - 2003
U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this remote and barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance. As a killer hurricane relentlessly bears down on them, a strange case takes on even darker, more sinister shades—with hints of radical experimentation, horrifying surgeries, and lethal countermoves made in the cause of a covert shadow war. No one is going to escape Shutter Island unscathed, because nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is what it seems. But then neither is Teddy Daniels.
Where the Crawdads Sing
Delia Owens - 2018
Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.
New Kiss Horizon: A Romance
Thylias Moss - 2016
Vashti has the best intimacy, best kisses, best sex of her life.
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini - 2007
It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives - the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness - are inextricable from the history playing out around them.Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heart-wrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love - a stunning accomplishment.--front flap
Daisy Jones & The Six
Taylor Jenkins ReidTaylor Jenkins Reid - 2019
in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go-Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.Another band getting noticed is The Six, led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.
To Dream the Blackbane
Richard J. O'Brien
Scientists referred to the event as The Anomaly. A byproduct of The Anomaly was the advent of hybrid beings—people who became mixed with whatever animal or object was closest to them the moment the event occurred. Humans, or pedigrees, soon relegated fairy refugees and hybrids into ghetto zones in large cities.Seventy years later, Wolfgang Rex, a second-generation hybrid—part human, part Rhodesian Ridgeback—is a retired police detective who runs a private investigation business in Chicago’s Southside. It’s a one-hybrid show; though Rex couldn’t survive without his assistant, the faerie Sally Sandweb.One night, two vampires visit Rex and offer him a substantial reward for the recovery of a stolen scroll. Later that same evening, Charlotte Sweeney-Jarhadill, a pedigree woman from Louisiana, visits Rex and hires him to exorcize the headless ghost of a Confederate soldier from her home.To complicate matters, the private detective ends up falling for Charlotte. Meanwhile, the vampires demand results in the search for the missing scroll. When Rex’s assistant Sally goes missing, he must stay alive long enough to find her. Charlotte and the vampires, however, have other plans for Rex.
I Know This Much Is True
Wally Lamb - 1998
. . .One of the most acclaimed novels of our time, Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True is a story of alienation and connection, devastation and renewal, at once joyous, heartbreaking, poignant, mystical, and powerfully, profoundly human.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Jonathan Safran Foer - 2005
When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre, Oskar sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him ever closer to some kind of peace.
Gone for Good
Harlan Coben - 2002
Then, on a warm suburban night in the Kleins' affluent New Jersey neighborhood, a young woman--a girl Will had once loved--was found brutally murdered in her family's basement. The prime suspect: Ken Klein. With the evidence against him overwhelming, Ken simply vanished. And when his shattered family never heard from Ken again, they were sure he was gone for good. Now eleven years have passed. Will has found proof that Ken is alive. And this is just the first in a series of stunning revelations as Will is forced to confront startling truths about his brother, and even himself. As a violent mystery unwinds around him, Will knows he must press his search all the way to the end. Because the most powerful surprises are yet to come.
Exit Rostov
Henry Virgin - 2019
Picking up the trail in Moscow, he ventures south to the post Soviet depths of Rostov-on-Don and further into the hinterlands of the fragmented Soviet Union, where he is led deeper into the tangled fate of his oldest friend. Uncovering hidden characteristics and unexpected motives, Frederick fears that his friend, presumed dead, has been caught up in a tragic sequence of events leading to his destruction. As a rite of passage, a journey of discovery, a travelogue and a psychological portrait of friendship, the novel draws the reader into the hidden world of being which beats beneath the semblance of reality.
Western Song
Leigh Podgorski - 2017
The day after the accident, while going through Cod’s papers, lawyer Wynona Vasquez discovers that he had been secretly engaged to a Thai immigrant who is arriving by train that evening. Elected by unanimous decision to be the welcoming committee, Weston arrives at the train station prepared for anything but the lovely forlorn creature he finds waiting in the rain. Though appearing waif-like, Song Phan-Rang is anything but fragile. Her mettle quickly rises to the surface in her determination to remain in Y-oh-ming. Forced together by their circumstances, Weston and Song are explosive. Used to solitude, Weston is driven crazy by the obliging Song. But as Song shows her prowess not only as a housekeeper and cook, but as a rider and rancher as well, Weston discovers that against his best efforts (and damned if he'll ever admit it) -- he's falling in love. The morning after the Christmas Cotillion, where cowboys by the dozen lined up for a dance with the exotic Song, and Weston wrangled the last one, she discovers her visa has expired. Pledging her Uncle Thieu's farm in Thailand as a dowry, Song asks Weston to marry her. Swearing that this is not a good idea at all -- he does. Song blossoms in America. Weston's sister Olive, a schoolteacher, helps Song with her English, and introduces her to the ideas of the Founding Fathers, most notably Tom Paine. Firebrand and activist Wynona employs Song in her office. Her first assignment is working with Shoshone shaman MAD BULL and Bull's young assistant, Jack Deerstalker as they fight a referendum that would allow gambling on their reservation. As winter melts into spring, Song and Weston continue to profess their marriage is simply one of convenience, though it is obvious to everybody that the two are in love. Obvious to everyone that is, but Jack Deerstalker who has fallen for her himself. One night as Weston returns earlier than expected from a rodeo, he finds Jack in his living room, alone with Song. Enraged, Weston explodes, throwing Jack out of the house. That night a fierce winter storm blows. The creek rises and floods, endangering thirty head of cattle caught on the other side. Song springs into action, riding side by side with Weston. When a baby calf slips into the icy creek, Song plunges in after it. Together, Weston and Song pull the animal free. Weston is knocked speechless by her bravery. Later, as he warms her by a roaring fire, Song and Weston make love for the first time. A few days later, Wynona and Song are introduced to the case of illegal immigrant Thai workers, forced to toil as slaves in the garment industry in El Segundo, California. Song becomes deeply involved with the workers and their plight – the search for a desperate promise of freedom. With her work, she discovers the power true freedom holds. But her work and growing sense of the true power of freedom begins to tear at the budding love between Weston and Song. Meanwhile, the referendum Jack, Wynona, and Song fought so hard against has been defeated. There will be no gambling on the reservation. Jack organizes a rodeo to raise money for an investment deal for the reservation. Weston agrees to ride – on one condition. Jack gets the bull, Baby Face that killed Cody.The night before the rodeo, Weston finds a letter Song has written to the garment workers she is helping. “We are, every one of us, entitled to a life with dignity. To life with honor. There are those who would attempt to steal our dignity, to seize our honor. But it is only when we allow this deepest core of our being to be ripped from us that we become enslaved. Remember, you, too, have been touched by God.”The next morning, Weston leaves for the rodeo without her. At the rodeo, in an eerie replay of Cody’s accident, the bull throws Weston. Song nurses Weston back to health, but still torn between freedom's power and her growing love, Song knows she must ultimately choose. Several weeks later, with Weston well on his way to mending, Song and Olive host a dinner party at Snowy Moon to celebrate Weston’s recovery. Along with Zeb, Jack Deerstalker and Mad Bull are there to join in the festivities. But in the middle of the revelry, the phone rings: it’s Jenny Chang and it’s about the case of the immigrant workers.Song knows she must go.The next day, Weston drives her to the train station.Returning to the ranch, Weston, still suffering from his injuries, limps painfully to the corral, and saddles up his horse. He rides across the rolling plains to the waterfall where he and Song had spent so much time in happier times now long gone by. Watching the water tumble by like his lost hope, suddenly, Weston picks up a stone, and fires it into the tumultuous fall. He whistles for his horse, and throws himself into the saddle.Across the plains, the train continues to roll. Inside, an uproar arises among the passengers. Song forces her way to the window. Outside, riding like hell, is Weston.Song’s heart begins to pound.And suddenly, she knows….Finally, she knows.Song grabs her suitcase, and elbows her way through the crowd.Before the train fully stops, she is bounding from the platform…and rushing into Weston’s arms.
Prince William (at Olympics 2012)
Mike Scantlebury - 2012
Prince William is asked by The Queen to go to northern England and represent her at these events. The Security Services provide him with a local bodyguard, in the shapely form of Special Agent Amelia Hartliss, (or 'Heartless', as she is sometimes known). The two young people become very close, as the Prince is threatened by terrorists and local troublemakers. He is lonely. His wife has been forced by ill health to stay in London, and he becomes increasing reliant on the beautiful bodyguard, both for his well-being and his morale. They make a good team, fighting off the foes and celebrating the Games. Melia even manages to unmask a spy in the camp, as well as defeat one of her oldest adversaries, the evil Emil Gorange. He escapes, as does the Prince, back to London and his other responsibilities, taking her heart with him.
A Little Life
Hanya Yanagihara - 2015
There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.