Book picks similar to
Oscar's Gift by Lisa Rivero


historical-fiction
middle-grade
first-reads
didn-t-win-wanted

The Crazy Life of a Kid from Brooklyn


Bill Morgenstein - 2014
    I was on the Stuyvesant baseball team, but because of my working hours, my playing time was limited. My first dream to become a corporate president by the time I was 35 years of age was fulfilled.Experience the ups and downs of a life well lived in Bill Morgenstein's compelling new memoir, The Crazy Life of a Kid from Brooklyn.While first reminiscing upon his childhood in Brooklyn during the depression, Morgenstein traces his life through times of war, peace, and everything in between.At times extremely funny and heartbreaking, The Crazy Life of a Kid in Brooklyn details Morgenstein's enlistment in the US Army, his days running a $55 million dollar company, his despair at losing it all to a scam, and much more.His chance encounters with such historical figures as Sergeant York, Cordell Hull, Sid Gordon, Jomo Kenyatta, and Vince Camuto provide amusing cultural touchstones that reveal a willingness to embrace everything life has to offer.Through all the successful, disappointing, dangerous, educational, and enlightening experiences that have shaped his life, Morgenstein remains philosophical as he explores the roles of ethics, honesty, and unfailing determination in shaping the human experience.

Vintage


Susan Gloss - 2014
    . . and so do the women who are drawn there.Yellow Samsonite suitcase with ivory, quilted lining, 1950s...Violet Turner had always dreamed of owning a shop like Hourglass Vintage. Though she knows the personal history behind each precious item she sells, Violet refuses to acknowledge her own past. When she is faced with the possibility of losing the store, she realizes that, as much as she wants to, she cannot save it alone.Taffeta tea length wedding gown with scooped neckline and cap sleeves, 1952...Eighteen-year-old April Morgan is nearly five months along in an unplanned pregnancy when her hasty engagement is broken. When she returns the perfect 1950s wedding dress, she discovers unexpected possibilities and friends who won't let her give up on her dreams.Orange sari made from silk dupioni with gold paisley design, 1968...Betrayed by her husband, Amithi Singh begins selling off her old clothes, remnants of her past life. After decades of housekeeping and parenting a daughter who rejects her traditional ways, she fears she has nothing more ahead for her.An engaging story that beautifully captures the essence of women's friendship and love, Vintage is a charming tale of possibility, of finding renewal and hope when we least expect it.

Deadly Pursuit


Michael Prescott - 1995
    This is a new digital edition of DEADLY PURSUIT by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Michael Prescott (writing as Brian Harper).

The American Heiress


Daisy Goodwin - 2010
    Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts', suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage. Witty, moving, and brilliantly entertaining, Cora's story marks the debut of a glorious storyteller who brings a fresh new spirit to the world of Edith Wharton and Henry James.

Dragonfly In Amber: by Diana Gabaldon (Outlander, Book 2) | Summary & Analysis


Book*Sense - 2014
    The sweeping saga begun in Outlander continues in Diana Gabaldon’s 1992 Dragonfly in Amber. In it, the Frasers return from France to Scotland, only to be separated, and revelations of the strange relationships within families come to light. Dragonfly in Amber, follows the continuing escapades of the time-shifting Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser and her Highlander husband, Jamie Fraser, straddling the centuries-old and near pasts to offer a compelling tale of intrigue, romance, war and the strains of complicated familial connections. Focusing largely on the 1745 Jacobite Rising in Scotland, it offers a down-to-earth view of a historical event that does not receive much attention in American classroom, simultaneously promoting interest in it and providing an authentic background in which the story of how the Frasers handle the series of circumstances that confront them can take place. You also get the following in this Summary & Analysis of Dragonfly in Amber: • Detailed Book Review from Experts • Story Setting Analysis of Dragonfly in Amber • Plot Analysis that will make you see the book from another angle. • Pick up bits you might have missed as we decipher the novel. • Details of Characters & Key Character Analysis • Summary of the text, with some analytical comments interspersed • Discussion & Analysis of Themes, Symbols… • And Much More! This Analysis of Dragonfly in Amber fills the gap, making you understand more while enhancing your reading experience.

A Liverpool Lullaby


Anne Baker - 1998
    Joseph Hobson is a bullying man and Evie isn't the only one who lives in fear of her father's violent temper. Then one day a bedraggled woman enters the shop and dies on the premises. Evie is shocked to discover she was in fact her mother, whom she had been told was dead. Why had her father lied to her? What secret was he trying to keep? One thing's for sure, Evie can't take much more from him and when she catches the eye of local lad Ned Collins they plan to run away to begin a new life together. But even when she has escaped and has started a family with Ned, Evie has a long way to go before her happiness is secured...

Three Daughters


Consuelo Saah Baehr - 1988
    Uprooted by war, Miriam enters a world where the old constraints slip away with thrilling and disastrous results. Miriam’s rebellious daughter, Nadia, is thrilled with the opportunity for a modern life that her elite education provides. But when she falls in love with an outsider, the clan reins her back with a shocking finality. Nijmeh, Nadia's daughter, is an only child and the path her father, the sheik, sets for her is fraught with difficulties, yet it prepares her for her ultimate journey to America, where she finds her future.Each woman, in her own time and in her own way, experiences a world in transition through war and social change...and each must stretch the bounds of her loyalty, her courage, and her heart.

Exceeding Expectations


Lisa April Smith - 2011
    Next, meet his daughter Charlotte (Charlie), an over-indulged 23 year-old struggling to cope with the traumatizing loss of her beloved father, her sister’s resulting mental breakdown and the discovery that she’s suddenly penniless. Fortunately Raul, an admiring young attorney, appears to offer assistance. As terrified as she is about daily survival, Charlie soon realizes that she has to learn what drove her father to kill himself. With Raul’s much needed ego-bolstering, the drive of necessity and unforeseen determination, Charlie finds a practical use for her annoyingly lean 5’ 11” frame. In time, this career finances her hard-wrought independence, her sister’s costly treatment and an emotional eye-opening journey to Paris.Jumping back in time to romantic pre-WWII Paris readers meet young Alan Fitzpatrick – aka Jack Morgan – lack-luster artist, expert lover, irresistible rascal, and the bewitching girl who will become the mother of his children. Not even Charlie’s relentless detective work will uncover all Jack’s secrets, but in a fireworks of surprise endings, she discovers all that she needs to know and more: disturbing truths about her father, hew own unique talent, crimes great and small and a diabolical villain.

Shanghai Girl


Vivian Yang - 2001
    Shan Hai Gaaru". This 2011 U.S. edition features an excerpt of the author’s WNYC Leonard Lopate Essay Contest-winning new novel "Memoirs of a Eurasian". In the post-Cultural Revolution Shanghai of 1984, university senior Sha-fei Hong longs to study in the U.S. for graduate school, ostensibly to pursue the American Dream, but partly to escape her sexually-harassing Communist cadre stepfather. She meets the visiting Chinese-American businessman Gordon Lou, who has political ambitions and ties to the Chinatown underworld in the U.S. He takes Sha-fei to the American Consulate in Shanghai to look into studying in America. There, Sha-fei meets the intern Edward Cook, a young, Caucasian American lawyer who has a strong preference for all things Asian. Within a year, these three people of entirely different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds cross paths in New York. Value systems and self-interests clash. The curtain falls on a dramatic stage of ambition, sex, intrigue, and murder.

Girl Unmoored


Jennifer Gooch Hummer - 2012
    Fortunately, she's about to be saved by Jesus. Not that Jesus-the actor who plays him in Jesus Christ Superstar. Apron is desperate to avoid the look-alike Mike, who's suddenly everywhere, until she's stuck in church with him one day. Then something happens-Apron's broken teenage heart blinks on for the first time since she's been adrift. Mike and his boyfriend, Chad, offer her a summer job in their flower store, and Apron's world seems to calm. But when she uncovers Chad's secret, stormy seas return. Apron starts to see things the adults around her fail to-like what love really means, and who is paying too much for it. Apron has come unmoored, but now she'll need to take the helm if she's to get herself and those she loves to safe harbor.

The Scent of Lilacs


Ann H. Gabhart - 2005
    Jocie's father, preacher David Brooke, has done his best to be both father and mother to his daughter. Even Jocie's spinster Great-aunt Love, who's slowly going senile, cares for Jocie in her own stern way. But in their small town of Hollyhill, Kentucky, painful secrets lie just beneath the surface, and inquisitive spirits discover surprising truths. There's a reason why Aunt Love hides behind black dresses and a stoic countenance. And David takes his morning walks not just for quiet solitude, but to wrestle with the past. Full of stories of lost loves and the trials of small-town living, this heartwarming novel explores the journey of faith and family.

The Angel of Time


Michael Stewart - 2014
    After George's encounter with Violet - a sweet old lady dying with cancer - and the sinister ghostly soldier who accompanied her, he suddenly finds himself back in war torn France in 1918, fighting for his life. Wounded, but finally managing to escape the horrors of Flanders, George faces an arduous and hair raising journey through France, England and Scotland before he finally arrives home. He discovers that he is in fact married to the younger Violet, whom he has never met, and falls madly in love with her. Happy at last, George then finds their whole existence is threatened again by a sinister figure intent on killing them both. Why was George transported from 1984 to war torn Flanders in March 1918?Who is the ghostly figure following George?Who wants him dead and why?A romantic, time travelling, historical drama with a real twist. Filled with accurate accounts of life in the trenches on the Western Front in 1918, you will be saddened, horrified and thrilled in equal measures as you share George's amazing adventures. If you like romance, if you like accurate historical drama, if you like time travel and if you are interested in the events of the First World War, this is a ‘must-read’ for you.

Simon the Fiddler


Paulette Jiles - 2020
    Till now, twenty-three-year-old Simon Boudlin has evaded military duty but following a barroom brawl in Victoria, Texas, Simon finds himself conscripted into the Confederate Army. Luckily his talent with a fiddle gets him a comparatively easy position in a regimental band.Weeks later, on the eve of the Confederate surrender, Simon and his bandmates are called to play for officers and their families from both sides of the conflict. There the fiddler can’t help but notice Doris Mary Dillon, an indentured girl from Ireland, who is governess to a Union colonel’s daughter.After the surrender, Simon and Doris go their separate ways. But Simon cannot forget the fair Irish maiden, and vows that someday he will find her again.

Giordano Bruno Series Books 1-3: Heresy, Prophecy, Sacrilege


S.J. Parris - 2013
    Sansom and The Name of the Rose, three Sunday Times bestselling historical thrillers featuring Giordano Bruno, heretic, philosopher and spy.HERESY: Oxford, 1583. A place of learning, and of murderous schemes. The Queen’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, recruits Giordano Bruno, a radical thinker fleeing the Inquisition, to expose a Catholic conspiracy at Oxford University. When a series of brutal murders ruptures close-knit college life, Bruno realizes that the Tudor throne itself is at stake…PROPHECY: London, 1583. As Mary Stuart’s supporters scheme to usurp the rightful monarch, a young maid of honour is murdered in Queen Elizabeth’s court, occult symbols carved into her flesh. When maverick agent Giordano Bruno is instructed to infiltrate the plotters, he must use all his cunning to secure evidence against them before his true identity is exposed…SACRILEGE: Canterbury, 1584. Heretic-turned-spy Giordano Bruno travels to Canterbury to clear the name of the woman he once loved. But when a series of mysterious crimes strike the city, a far bigger puzzle emerges. Bruno’s investigation leads him deep into the shadows of the Cathedral, and to the heart of a sinister and powerful conspiracy…

Pam of Babylon


Suzanne Jenkins - 2011
    Pam and his two lovers discover secrets and lies, and each other. The first book in the series. Book #10 available for preorder.