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Magic Time
Doug Marlette - 2005
But when his life in New York falls apart and he heads back home to recover, the still-live conflicts of his youth in the civil rights era rise up all around him again. A twenty-five-year-old murder case has just been reopened, a church bombing that killed Carter's first love. Carter's father was the judge in the case, and now there's evidence that the trial was flawed, even fixed, and the case's reopening threatens the foundation of Carter's identity, as well as his relationship to his family.Moving between New York City and the New South of the early 1990s, with flashbacks to Mississippi's Freedom Summer of 1964, Magic Time is at once a powerful love story, a courtroom drama, and a complex portrait of the civil rights revolution.
Burning Marguerite
Elizabeth Inness-Brown - 2002
With this arresting scene, Elizabeth Inness-Brown ushers readers into her mysterious and lyrical narrative, the story of two closely braided lives that forces a reconsideration of our notions of maternity, loyalty, love, and perhaps death itself. As James Jack sets out to fulfill Marguerite’s unusual last wishes, the narrative unveils the secrets of their pasts. It arcs from Depression-era New Orleans to a barren New England island at the turn of the century, from an illicit passion and an unforgivable crime to the relationship between a small boy and a tough, reclusive woman who turns out to possess an unsuspected capacity for love.
Good Kings Bad Kings
Susan Nussbaum - 2013
Nussbaum crafts a multifaceted portrait of a way of life hidden from most of us. In this isolated place on Chicago's South Side, friendships are forged, trust is built, and love affairs begin. It's in these alliances that the residents of this neglected community ultimately find the strength to bond together, resist their mistreatment, and finally fight back. And in the process, each is transformed.
Kicks
Janet Fitch - 1995
Laurie's mother keeps her on a short leash, demanding that she keep the house clean, cook for her sick father, and stay out of trouble. Still, at Carla's instigation, they manage to keep things on the street exciting. Sometimes it's shoplifting, sometimes it's hitching a ride, sometimes it's smoking and flirting on the beach with older guys. If Laurie could only be as brave and daring as Carla, she knows her life would be a lot more interesting.But Laurie also knows that Carla sometimes takes crazy chances. And one night when Carla is in trouble only Laurie can help her--only Laurie and one other person, someone who loves Laurie more than she realizes, someone who would do anything to be with her. . . ."Capture[s] the dark underside of growing up . . . Teens will empathize with Laurie's desire to be free from familial rules and responsibilities, and the realism of some scenes will horrify yet fascinate them".--School Library Journal
Judgment Day
James F. David - 2005
. . especially when Ira Breitling is handed a divine gift---an interstellar engine that can lift humanity into the heavens. Crow---awash in riches, commanding nations, supremely powerful---swears eternal vengeance on Breitling and his Fellowship of the Faithful . . . and on all humankind.The reign of Lucifer---prophesized as a thousand years of darkness---is about to begin. With the world falling fast under Crow's violent sway, Breitling's Fellowship---having only one choice---seizes their divine gift, their faster-than-light flight, and flees the earth. Their journey takes them beyond the distant stars to a perfect planet uncorrupted by Crow and his Kingdom of Darkness.But even as Manuel Crow razes and racks the Earth, Revelations' scourge is not yet sated. Crows eyes the heavens, fixed on the Faithful.Ira Breitling and the Fellowship must defend not only themselves but the soul of all humanity: A Kingdom of Light against the Forces of Darkness. Will the Fellowship prevail . . . or fall under Revelations' reign?Let the battle begin.
Robbers
Christopher Cook - 2000
Now, with a pack of cigarettes, a stolen Caddy, and no plan, the two must think fast-and move faster, in this novel with "a lyric voice that sings itself raw."(New York Times Book Review) "My kind of book." (James Ellroy) "Cook's plot tumbles from scene to scene with jarring brilliance, the pathos of his characters lending his otherwise brutal world a certain beauty." (Publishers Weekly) "Elmore Leonard's laconic flair with the dumb and dangerous [and] James Lee Burke's lyric feel for the dark hearts in a New South-Robbers ranges wild and wide, deep through the heart of Texas." (Michael Malone, author of Time's Witness) "Cook clearly has the suspense-building gene...The nerve-jangling plot tick-tick-ticks toward its explosive end." (Texas Monthly) "High-octane...Cook takes the noir chase novel on some remarkable detours." (Booklist, starred review) "This is a terrific book. I haven't enjoyed a novel this much in years." (James Crumley, author of The Last Good Kiss)
The Fall of Butterflies
Andrea Portes - 2016
Did she choose this life? No, because that would be too easy—and nothing in Willa’s life is easy. It’s her famous genius mother’s idea to send her to ultra-expensive, ultra-exclusive Pembroke Prep, and Willa has no intention of fitting in. But when she meets peculiar, glittering Remy Taft, the richest, most mysterious girl on campus, she starts to see a foothold in this foreign world—a place where she could maybe, possibly, sort of fit in. When Willa looks at Remy, she sees a girl who has everything. But for Remy, having everything comes at a price. And as she spirals out of control, Willa can feel Remy spinning right out of her grasp.
Undiscovered Gyrl
Allison Burnett - 2009
Ambitious in her own way, Katie intends to do more than just smoke weed with her boyfriend, Rory, and work at the bookstore. She plans to seduce Dan, a thirty-two-year-old film professor. Katie chronicles her adventures in an anonymous blog, telling strangers her innermost desires, shames, and thrills. But when Dan stops taking her calls, when her alcoholic father suffers a terrible fall, and when she finds herself drawn into a dangerous new relationship, Katie's fearless narrative begins to crack, and dark pieces of her past emerge.Sexually frank, often heartbreaking, and bursting with devilish humor, Undiscovered Gyrl is an extraordinarily accomplished novel of identity, voyeurism, and deceit.
The Churchill Secret KBO
Jonathan Smith - 2015
With Anthony Eden vying for power, the elderly Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, must maintain the confidence of his government, the press and the public. However, after a diplomatic dinner in which he is on typically sparkling form, Churchill's Italian dining companions are rushed out of the building and his doctor called. The Prime Minister has had a stroke. Churchill is bedbound throughout the summer, and while secrecy agreements have been struck with leading newspaper barons, the potential impact of his health on public life is never far from the minds of his inner circle. With the help of a devoted young nurse and his indomitable wife, Clementine, Churchill gradually recoups his health. But will he be fit enough to represent Britain on the world stage? 'The Churchill Secret KBO' is to be made into a major ITV drama to be broadcast in the UK in autumn 2015.
Mother Mother
Jessica O'Dwyer - 2020
Her pathologist husband, Mark, is distracted by his gorgeous, young intern, while her hotshot new museum director boss doubts Julie's curatorial chops. And Julie's six-year-old son, Jack (born Juan), may never recover from trauma inflicted by early life spent in a Guatemalan orphanage.Then Jack suffers a major health crisis, and everything pales next to saving his life. As much as Julie clings to being Jack's "only" mother, she needs to find his Guatemalan mother to unlock his medical history. Julie hires a professional searcher, and what she learns turns her world upside down. At the same time, Jack's birth mother, an indigenous Ixil Maya, navigates her own tumultuous path, beginning with surviving a horrific massacre.In this gripping tale told from alternating perspectives, both mothers must draw on fierce inner strength to reckon with their life choices.
Death of a Rainmaker: A Dust Bowl Mystery
Laurie Loewenstein - 2018
The killing only magnifies Temple’s ongoing troubles: a formidable opponent in the upcoming election, the repugnant burden of enforcing farm foreclosures, and his wife’s lingering grief over the loss of their eight-year-old son.As the sheriff and his young deputy investigate the murder, their suspicions focus on a teenager, Carmine, serving with the Civilian Conservation Corps. The deputy, himself a former CCCer, struggles with remaining loyal to the corps while pursuing his own aspirations as a lawman.When the investigation closes in on Carmine, Temple’s wife, Etha, quickly becomes convinced of his innocence and sets out to prove it. But Etha’s own probe soon reveals a darker web of secrets, which imperil Temple’s chances of reelection and cause the husband and wife to confront their long-standing differences about the nature of grief.
Jane's House
Robert Kimmel Smith - 1982
The sort of novel that comes along rarely to touch something personal in us. It's the story of a man and woman falling in love, and of the children and the memories of a perfect first wife that could keep them apart. "Excellent!" —Philadelphia Inquirer
The Time It Takes to Fall
Margaret Lazarus Dean - 2007
Growing up in the shadow of Cape Canaveral, young Dolores Gray has it particularly bad: she dreams of becoming an astronaut.At school, Dolores finds herself caught between her desire for popularity and her secret friendship with the smartest and most unpopular boy in her class, whose father is NASA's Director of Launch Safety. At home, discord begins to grow between her parents when her father's job as a NASA technician is threatened.Looking for escape, Dolores loses herself in her scrapbook, where she files away newspaper articles about the astronauts and the shuttles, weather reports on launch scrubs, and stories about her idol, Judith Resnik.Then, on the morning of January 28, 1986, seventy-three seconds after liftoff, the space shuttle "Challenger" explodes, killing all seven astronauts on board -- including Judith Resnik. It is a moment that shakes America to its core, and nowhere is it more deeply felt than in central Florida. Dolores becomes determined to reconstruct what went wrong, both in her parent's marriage and at NASA, in the hope that she can save her father's job and keep her family together."The Time It Takes to Fall" is a coming-of-age novel that deftly weaves the story of one family's drama into the larger picture of a touchstone event in American history. It is at once an intimate look at a young girl's loss of innocence and a portrait of America's loss of innocence -- the end of an era that romanticized manned space flight and would never be the same again.
The Warm Glow of Happy Homes
Andersen Prunty - 2012
The theme: Mexico Frat Funland. There are going to be khaki cargo shorts, red cups, even a pinata. Maybe sombreros. Team Klaus will be there to DJ the event. But it won't be without its challenges. People are canceling left and right. No one seems to be acting the way they should and space birds are ripping the sky apart. What is intended to be the social event of the summer totters on the brink of becoming a violent nightmare.