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Summer Shadows
Killarney Traynor - 2014
Medallion Honoree!Mystery. Romance. Danger. Murder. Not the typical family vacation. When Julia Lamontaigne arrives in Franklin, New Hampshire, she's looking for an escape from the tragedies that have taken over her life. Haunted by the legacy of her beloved sister, and entrusted with her sister's three orphaned children, Julia hopes for a summer of peaceful healing... And hopefully, bonding. At first, the small New Hampshire town seems to be the perfect location. They quickly settle in and make friends with their eccentric neighbors, then begin work on their summer house - while Julia is drawn into a relationship with Robert Wilde, the handsome cop next door. But Franklin is haunted, too - by the decades-old murder of a beautiful young artist, killed in the house at the end of Julia's street. Even though everyone says that the case is solved, Julia can't escape the feeling that there's more to the story than she's being told. She's right. Someone doesn't want the murder case re-opened. And they're willing to kill again to stop it. The house at the end of the street hasn't begun to give up its secrets.
The Color of Water in July
Nora Carroll - 2011
For all that time, she’s been haunted by loss—of her innocence and her ability to trust and, most of all, of a profound summer romance that might have been something more. So when her grandmother leaves the house to her, Jess summons her courage and returns to a place full of memories—and secrets.There, she stumbles upon old letters and photographs of a time not so much forgotten as buried. As she begins to unravel the hidden histories of her mother and her grandmother, she makes a startling discovery about a tragic death that prompted her family’s slow undoing. With every uneven and painful step into the past, Jess comes closer to a truth that could alter her own path—and open a door to a different future.
Revised edition: This edition of The Color of Water in July includes editorial revisions.
At the Water's Edge
Sara Gruen - 2015
To Maddie’s horror, Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father’s favor is to succeed in a venture his father attempted and very publicly failed at: he will hunt the famous Loch Ness monster and when he finds it he will restore his father’s name and return to his father’s good graces (and pocketbook). Joined by their friend Hank, a wealthy socialite, the three make their way to Scotland in the midst of war. Each day the two men go off to hunt the monster, while another monster, Hitler, is devastating Europe. And Maddie, now alone in a foreign country, must begin to figure out who she is and what she wants. The novel tells of Maddie’s social awakening: to the harsh realities of life, to the beauties of nature, to a connection with forces larger than herself, to female friendship, and finally, to love.
The Life She Was Given
Ellen Marie Wiseman - 2017
On a summer evening in 1931, Lilly Blackwood glimpses circus lights from the grimy window of her attic bedroom. Lilly isn't allowed to explore the meadows around Blackwood Manor. She's never even ventured beyond her narrow room. Momma insists it's for Lilly's own protection, that people would be afraid if they saw her. But on this unforgettable night, Lilly is taken outside for the first time--and sold to the circus sideshow. More than two decades later, nineteen-year-old Julia Blackwood has inherited her parents' estate and horse farm. For Julia, home was an unhappy place full of strict rules and forbidden rooms, and she hopes that returning might erase those painful memories. Instead, she becomes immersed in a mystery involving a hidden attic room and photos of circus scenes featuring a striking young girl. At first, The Barlow Brothers' Circus is just another prison for Lilly. But in this rag-tag, sometimes brutal world, Lilly discovers strength, friendship, and a rare affinity for animals. Soon, thanks to elephants Pepper and JoJo and their handler, Cole, Lilly is no longer a sideshow spectacle but the circus's biggest attraction. . .until tragedy and cruelty collide. It will fall to Julia to learn the truth about Lilly's fate and her family's shocking betrayal, and find a way to make Blackwood Manor into a place of healing at last. Moving between Julia and Lilly's stories, Ellen Marie Wiseman portrays two extraordinary, very different women in a novel that, while tender and heartbreaking, offers moments of joy and indomitable hope.
Kilbride House
Sheila Forsey - 2019
Victoria Goulding, a Protestant, falls in love with Canice Meagher, born on the Blasket Islands and a Roman Catholic. To be together they must elope. Before their escape, the hand of fate plays its cards and changes their lives irrevocably.Sixty-three years later, in the leafy suburbs of New York, Edith Goulding, Victoria’s sister, has died. Edith left Ireland in the winter of 1955 all those years ago, never to return. In her will she has insisted that her daughter Catherine and granddaughter Lainey visit Kilbride.Kilbride House, despite all its grandeur, holds shocking memories within its walls – memories that have slipped through the cracks of time. As the ghosts awaken the lies begin to unravel, and everything is altered. The past cannot remain untold.
The M&M Boys
Lara Reznik - 2015
Then, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle move next door as they battle to break Babe Ruth's home run record. Based on historical facts, The M&M Boys explores the parallel lives of an embittered Maris and a self-destructive Mantle who live together incognito in a remote Queens apartment. Maris, a misplaced Midwesterner, gets booed by the Yankee fans who prefer Mantle, and the press pursue him mercilessly. Mantle, on the other hand, basks in New York fans approval, but a series of injuries destroy his hope of winning the competition. Marshall's friendship unearths childhood memories for both men. What all three M&M Boys have in common is a good lesson in how to play the game of life, on and off the field.
The Illusion of Separateness
Simon Van Booy - 2013
The same world moves beneath each of them, and one by one, through seemingly random acts of selflessness, they discover the vital parts they have played in each other's lives, a realization that shatters the illusion of their separateness. Moving back and forth in time and across continents, The Illusion of Separateness displays the breathtaking skill of, "a truly special writer who does things with abstract language that is so evocative and original your breath literally catches in your chest" (Andre Dubus III).
The Antiquity: An L.A. Crime Novel
Darren Hackett - 2015
The object, secretly referred to as THE ANTIQUITY, is rumored to possess supernatural powers. LAPD homicide detective Jack Sheridan is skeptical... until his hunt for the killer leads him deep into a world of dark forces, shadowy characters and unexplainable incidents. For Sheridan, the most startling coincidence is personal: this case is inextricably linked to a painful secret from his past. Forced to confront his demons, he soon uncovers an insidious conspiracy that threatens the future of humanity itself.
Demiurge: Blood of the Innocent
Michael R. Hagan - 2014
Now, edifices of this symbol are reappearing, not engraved in aged rock, but painted in blood above the victims of a serial killer, and the fanatical cult he serves. Detective Hassom is charged with the task of making sense of this slaughter and capturing the perpetrators.Corruption, collusion and the discovery that Lucas, a strangely gifted eight year old orphan, is the primary target of the murderous cult force Hassom and McKenzie to work together to solve the murders. In their efforts to protect Lucas and reveal the ultimate goal of the cult leader and how this relates to the final, revelatory prophecy discovered in Iran, they unearth a truth, more terrible than anything they could have feared.
Telling the Bees
Peggy Hesketh - 2013
Into his tightly repressed existence bursts a brash young neighbour, whose vivacity and boldness begin to transform his life. Yet years pass by, feelings are repressed, opportunities missed. Until one day - led by a trail of bees - Albert discovers her body and is plunged back into his memories, where he must finally confront the lies and secrets that led to their estrangement. In doing so he unearths the truth of Claire’s murder – a question not so much of who but why.
The Light Between Oceans
M.L. Stedman - 2012
After four harrowing years fighting on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns home to take a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day's journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby's cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom's judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them. M. L. Stedman's mesmerizing, beautifully written debut novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel's decision to keep this "gift from God." And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another's tragic loss.
Sarah of the Moon
Randy Mixter - 2011
Alex Conley, a part-time writer for a Baltimore newspaper, is dispatched to chronicle the events occurring there. It is June of 1967, and the summer of love is in full swing. Alone, in this strange and magical place, he meets a girl named Sarah, a free spirit who is as mysterious as she is beautiful. What are the secrets of her past? Why does she dance each night under the light of the moon? These are just a few of the puzzles Alex needs to solve in the short time he has in that city. Then there's another complication. He is beginning to fall deeply in love with her.
The Winter Ghosts
Kate Mosse - 2009
In the winter of 1928, still seeking some kind of resolution to the horrors of World War I, Freddie is traveling through the beautiful but forbidding French Pyrenees. During a snowstorm, his car spins off the mountain road. Dazed, he stumbles through the woods, emerging in a tiny village, where he finds an inn to wait out the blizzard. There he meets Fabrissa, a lovely young woman also mourning a lost generation. Over the course of one night, Fabrissa and Freddie share their stories. By the time dawn breaks, Freddie will have unearthed a tragic, centuries-old mystery, and discovered his own role in the life of this remote town.
War Brides
Helen Bryan - 2007
Nightly air raids become grimly mundane. The tightening vice of rationing curtails every comfort. Men leave to fight and die. And five women forge an unlikely bond of friendship that will change their lives forever.Alice Osbourne, the stolid daughter of the late vicar, is reeling from the news that Richard Fairfax broke their engagement to marry Evangeline Fontaine, an American girl from the Deep South. Evangeline’s arrival causes a stir in the village—but not the chaos that would ensue if they knew her motives for being there. Scrappy Elsie Pigeon is among the poor of London who see the evacuations as a chance to escape a life of destitution. Another new arrival is Tanni Zayman, a young Jewish girl who fled the horrors of Europe and now waits with her newborn son, certain that the rest of her family is safe and bound to show up any day. And then there’s Frances Falconleigh, a madcap, fearless debutante whose father is determined to keep her in the countryside and out of the papers.As the war and its relentless hardships intensify around them, the same struggles that threaten to rip apart their lives also bring the five closer together. They draw strength from one another to defeat formidable enemies—hunger, falling bombs, the looming threat of a Nazi invasion, and a traitor in their midst—and find remarkable strength within themselves to help their friends. Theirs is a war-forged loyalty that will outlast the fiercest battle and endure years and distance.When four of the women return to Crowmarsh Priors for a VE Day celebration fifty years later, television cameras focus on the heartwarming story of these old women as war brides of a bygone age, but miss the more newsworthy angle. The women’s mission is not to commemorate or remember—they’ve returned to settle a score and avenge one of their own.
The Confusion of Languages
Siobhan Fallon - 2017
expat community of the Middle East during the rise of the Arab Spring.Both Cassie Hugo and Margaret Brickshaw dutifully followed their soldier husbands to the U.S. embassy in Jordan, but that's about all the women have in common. After two years, Cassie's become an expert on the rules, but newly arrived Margaret sees only her chance to explore. So when a fender-bender sends Margaret to the local police station, Cassie reluctantly agrees to watch Margaret's toddler son. But as the hours pass, Cassie's boredom and frustration turn to fear: Why isn't Margaret answering her phone, and why is it taking so long to sort out a routine accident? Snooping around Margaret's apartment, Cassie begins to question not only her friend's whereabouts but also her own role in Margaret's disappearance. With achingly honest prose and riveting characters, The Confusion of Languages plunges readers into a shattering collision between two women and two worlds, affirming Siobhan Fallon as a powerful voice in American fiction and a storyteller not to be missed.